I’m a fan of Steve Harmon, who is a political reporter for the Bay Area News Group (Oakland Tribune, Contra Costa Times, San Jose Mercury News, etc.) — generally I find him to be a solid reporter, and I enjoy reading his stories.

That said, Steve and I have a running disagreement that centers around whether the 2009 budget deal that saw six Republican legislators vote to enact the largest tax increase in the history of any state (sales, income and car taxes, as well as an axing of a chunk of the child tax credit) caused those six GOPers to pay a steep political price. These same six Republicans also voted to create a trigger whereby if voters passed Proposition 1A in an ensuing special election, these same taxes which had been enacted for two years would have their sunset date extended two years further out. California voters rejected 1A by nearly a two-to-one margin thus those taxes were not extended.

In a piece that Harman had published over the weekend (for which, alas, I was not called for a quote), he… Read More

When the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed one of the primary tools to prevent discrimination was Section 5. This section was meant to “cover” certain parts of the country so that they did not come up with new ways of disenfranchising black voters.

Under this law the covered areas needed to seek preclearance from the US Department of Justice prior to making any change in voting procedures. This means that after an ordinance or administrative procedure and background material must be submitted to the Justice Department as soon as possible after it is passed.

When the VRA was updated in 1970 the test of what states or other political jurisdictions were covered was based on two criteria

The state or jurisdiction had a barrier in place in 1968 as a prerequisite to voting Less than 50% of the voting age population was registered to vote in 1968 or less than 50% of the voting age population voted for President in November 1968

Some entire states (mostly southern) as well as some counties and cities were covered by this test. You can see the… Read More

I suggest you go here.

The author of this piece is a joke. He compares the gutless Wisconsin Democrats to the GOP here in California. News for the “author”: Republicans lost in November here. They are under no obligation to lead or propose solutions. California voters don’t want them to, and in fact, rejected GOP ideas. Neither are GOP members of the legislature obligated to put a tax extension on the ballot for June. The public employee unions have plenty of money to obtain the necessary signatures to do this, they just don’t want to spend it. Well, the GOP needs to make them spend it. This article is a farce, and intellectually dishonest. … Read More

You must be doing something right, especially if the Courage Campaign is attacking you… San Diego GOP Chairman Tony Krvaric pens a detailed letter to the Union-Trib, in defense of Congressman Darrell Issa. Some excerpts:

“The (Courage Campaign) missive attacked Issa for having the audacity to reach out to job creators about impediments to job creation. Mind you, this is the exact same thing the Obama administration is doing. If you go to oversight.house.gov, you will see that all of the responses are available in a downloadable and searchable PDF. Of course, when the administration solicited the opinions of the Business Roundtable, held a CEO summit, hired a new chief of staff to build better relationships with private industry and ordered a governmentwide review of regulatory barriers to job creation, the Courage Campaign was noticeably mute…… Read More

I have to admit, I was a little mystified by Governor Brown’s comments this last week. He appeared in front of the budget committees (a little outside the norm, to be sure) to say that, if those tax increases were not on the ballot, and if they did not pass, he would only sign a budget with $25 billion in cuts, or at least that is what the paper reported he said.

The whole event was reported as a threat to Republicans, vote for my tax increase initiative or I’ll cut the budget by $25 billion.

Huh?

And the problem with that is……what? Let’s see, I’m a Republican legislator, and the Governor has given me the choice of a vote that angers all of my supporters, friends, and most Republican constituency groups or a vote that angers most government unions, left wing activists, and the Democrats in the Legislature. Is there a problem with this choice? What is it? Why would the Governor pose such a challenge to Republicans? There really is no reason now to vote to put the taxes on the ballot. Don’t throw me in that briar patch Governor. I really don’t know what to do… Read More

Well, it didn’t take long for the politics of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s patriotic showdown against the public employee unions in that state to become injected into the politics of a local Assembly campaign here in California. I just got the following release from the Beth Gaines for Assembly campaign (if I get a response to it from the John Allard campaign, we’ll let you know). Oh yes, this just goes towards rule #23 of campaigns for partisan office — being a local elected official can do nothing but hurt you in your quest for higher office.

The release from the Gaines Campaign…

John Allard is Roseville’s anti-Scott Walker in AD 4 ROSEVILLE, CA — While Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and other Republican Governors around the country are courageously taking on public employee unions in his state in order to balance the state budget, State Assembly candidate John Allard is reaping the rewards of years of… Read More

Looks like GOP fundraiser John Bovee has branched out into the wide world of fiction with the publication of "Jesus of Bakersfield". Anyone who knows John’s wry sense of humor will want to pick up a copy. I got mine on Amazon.… Read More

It is being reported over at the Los Angeles Times website that the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce is going to endorse Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed budget, including his call for the largest tax increase in the history of this (or any state) — hammering voters for the next five years with higher income, sales and car taxes, and a reduction in the child tax credit.

The response from the greater political community to this "stunning" (I say sarcastically) move by the LA Chamber should be a collective yawn — it’s just not significant.

In 2009 when these very same "temporary taxes" on income, sales and cars were included as part of that year’s terrible budget deal, this very same Chamber of Commerce (and the State Chamber of Commerce as well) weighed in — supporting these… Read More