Rahm Emanuel’s troubles in trying to get on the ballot to run for Mayor of Chicago may not seem like a California issue, but it is a political law issue nonetheless, and one that lawyers and politicians in California scrap over every election cycle, and will surely be fighting over next year: residency requirements to qualify to run for office.

I won a full-blown trial early last year representing now State Senator Bill Emmerson in a case filed by supporters of opponent Russ Bogh, who wanted to kick Dr. Emmerson off the ballot in a special election for that State Senate seat, on grounds that he "didn’t live" in the district. Such claims were highly technical. Emmerson had spent practically all his life in and around the Inland Empire district he wanted to run in. He simply happened to represent an adjoining Assembly District at the same time. When the Judge worked through the evidence, he agreed with Emmerson, not Bogh’s supporters, and Dr. Emmerson went before the voters and was elected to fill the seat. Thus, the PEOPLE decided, not the… Read More

Liberal California campaign finance attorney Rick Hasen laments in today’s Slate blog that "for the past several years the three Republican FEC commissioners have blocked enforcement of what remains of federal campaign finance law." My response is to say "Yeah!!!." The First Amendment is the First Amendment, and perhaps there is more appropriate lamentation in order for the three Democrat FEC commissioners who do not support the constitution consistently enough.… Read More

In what can only be good news for American taxpayers, it would appear that the Republican Congress has funding for High Speed Rail projects in their crosshairs. Two other states have rejected HSR funding from the Feds, and California should be doing the same. In fact the legislature should put a undoing of the HSR bonds on the next California ballot. The filing has closed in the special election to fill the 4th Assembly District seat vacated by new State Senator Ted Gaines. There are eight candidates, seven Republicans and one Democrat. This special election is the first one in a Republican seat where we will see if the new Proposition 14 "Top Two" election rules in place — if no candidate wins 50%+1 of the vote in the first election, which is likely, then the two candidates with the most votes will advance to the runoff. As of a few months ago, registered Republicans outnumbered Democrat 131,899 to 91,395 with DTS at … Read More

The budget proposed by Governor Jerry Brown does nothing to improve California’s dismal jobs climate. Instead it would make California even less competitive in the battle for jobs.

I’m particularly concerned about the governor’s proposal to eliminate enterprise zones. It makes no sense to eliminate these vital economic development zones – we should instead be expanding them. Better yet, we should make all of California an enterprise zone. After all, the entire state is now economically distressed.

Please take a moment to read my recent op-ed on this subject in the Sacramento Bee and let me know your thoughts.… Read More

The San Francisco Chronicle did us all a great service with their story over the weekend "GOP brand pronounced dead in deep blue California".

The problem is, several of their analysts for the GOP provided zero in the way of fresh thinking about the issue, and in fact, if their opinions are actually implemented, it will make the problem worse.

"Republicans need to learn how to talk to non-traditional Republican voters," said Bettina Inclan, who worked on the communications team for losing California GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner. Not just Latinos, she said, but African Americans and young people, too.

What? What exactlydoes that mean? We’ve "talked" to voters until we’re blue in the face. We’ve been moderate, we’ve been conservative, sent mail in multiple languages, even pandered. Nothing is working. Why? Because 2nd and 3rd generation Latinos in this State are liberals, and our ideas for how government should work are not… Read More

Many of my good friends use the terms “redistricting” and “reapportionment” interchangeably. This is not correct.

Reapportionment is over.

It happened on December 21st when the population of each state was announced. In a matter of minutes a computer at the Census Bureau cranks out how the 435 seats in Congress are APPORTIONED among the states. This is reapportionment.

We do not have reapportionment in the State Assembly, State Senate, or Board of Equalization because we are not changing the number of seats allocated to California. The US Senate does not have reapportionment because each state gets two Senators and that is the whole equation.

So unless you hear someone talking about apportioning Congressional seats among the states on December 2010 they must be talking about a process that will happen again after the 2020 census. Redistricting is drawing the district lines for Congress, Assembly, State Senate and Board of Equalization. This discussion goes on for the entire decade.

When I recently looked back at my study guides for law school I notice that they use the words… Read More

This past weekend it was reported that former Congressman, Ambassador and Assemblyman Wayne Grisham passed away at age 88. Grisham represent various southeast cities in his elected capacities over his long career. My first paid political job was for Wayne Grisham. Back in ancient history as a soon to be graduating UCLA student, I went to the schools job bank and saw a list for “community representative’ at Grisham’s Assembly Office. This was after towards the end of his career. He had been defeated for Congress in a primary with David Dreier and return from Kenya to win to a place in the assembly. I put together a resume an applied. I spent hours on the resume and turns out I had the perfect qualifications for the job. I had legs. The job entailed going door to door on… Read More

Today’s Antelope Valley Press has a story that is sure to further undermine Darren Parker’s longshot challenge to Sharon Runner.

(You can visit the AV Press here.)