Republican Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee came oh-so-close to winning the special election in State Senate District 15 outright tonight — capturing 49.7% of the vote. However, because Blakeslee did not win an outright majority, he will be in an August run-off that will feature himself, Democrat John Laird, and two third party candidates — a Libertarian and an independent. Blakeslee is well poised for an August victory, but it will be an expensive endeavor, to be sure. But given how close the Democrats are in the State Senate to the 2/3rds vote to raise taxes, it will be a very expensive loss for all California taxpayers should Laird somehow prevail.

You can read a lot more detail on the results in this Capitol Weekly story. (I guess one should add the caveat that there are invariably some absentee and provisional ballots outstanding, so it’s not impossible for Blakeslee to close in… Read More

This afternoon I was listening to Neil Cavuto interview New Jersey Governor Chris Christie while in my car (love XM radio). Christie, as the new Governor of the Garden State, has been taking a lot of slings and arrows from public employee unions because of his strong position that given the sorry state of New Jersey’s state finances, that the unions need to step up and participate in solving the problems (salary reductions, reductions in retirement benefits, and so on). To date, Christie continues to hammer the unions, especially the state’s teachers association, because has has, "yet to see them come to the table with any ideas that put aside their own bests interests in pursuit of the common interest."

Powerful words from New Jersey’s new Republican Governor. Christie pointed out that while the downturn in the economy has hit private sector taxpayers hard, public employee union members have been largely shielded.

Move 3,000 miles West and we have a state budget situation that makes the 9 billion dollar New Jersey problem look like chump change. But similarly, we do not see the state’s major public employee unions… Read More

If I had a dollar for every time some liberal newspaper or pundit said conservatives lost an election, I could well run for Governor of California. Of course most of the time they are wrong and the June 2010 election is one example. In the June primary conservatives won.

“What,” you may say? Meg Whitman is our GOP nominee. So is Carly Fiorina. How did conservatives win?

If I had a dollar for every time some liberal newspaper or pundit said conservatives lost an election, I could well run for Governor of California. Of course most of the time they are wrong and the June 2010 election is one example.

In the June primary conservatives won.

“What,” you may say? Meg Whitman is our GOP nominee. So is Carly Fiorina. How did conservatives win?

Simply look at messaging. Someone show me the ad that Meg Whitman ran saying “I am a moderate vote for me”. I saw a lot of ads beating up Steve Poizner for being a liberal and implying that she was more conservative. Show me otherwise and I will buy you lunch.

Carly Fiorina ran ads beating up Tom Campbell on taxes and featuring Sarah Palin. She got pro-life endorsements as well. Again show… Read More

In my campaign for the State Assembly, we made a promise to the Director of San Diego’s Partnerships With Industry that if elected, our office would employ an individual with a developmental disability. We kept that promise and are proud to take part in First Lady Maria Shriver’s WE Include Program, which focuses on opening doors to employment for individuals with developmental disabilities In April of 2009, Jay Bariuan joined our team. He came via a referral from Partnerships With Industry—an organization that pairs developmentally disabled adults with good jobs in the San Diego area.… Read More

From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail…… Read More

State Senate President Darrell Steinberg has a great idea, if you are into higher taxes. He wants to shift the responsibility for a lot of the state’s social welfare program spending to local government. With that little gem, he also wants to lower the threshold for local tax increases from a two-thirds vote to a majority vote. You can read a lot more about it in this story just filed by Katy Grimes over at the Pacific Research Institute Cal Watchdog site.

In my book, that is a shell game designed to avoid "right sizing" government spending in California to be in line with the current tax system.

While it is not an easy task to dismantle significant component parts of California’s modern welfare state, it’s really the only viable option. Increasing taxes, whether at the state or local level, would be a travesty. There are two reasons why we are where we are… Because liberal… Read More

Rather than taking responsibility for their own out-of-control Tax-and-Spend habits, Senate Democrats today once again blamed Proposition 13 for California’s woes as they proposed massive tax increases on Californians, under the guise of shifting the money to provide local services. The proposed plan would increase either oil severance tax or sales taxes via a majority vote. Removing tax breaks for struggling businesses and making permanent last year’s .5% increase in the Car Tax round out the increases.

The Senate plan represents more of the same from the majority party. Democrats have yet to learn that attacking Proposition 13 using a majority vote is a non-starter both with California taxpayers and in the courts. Rather than continuing to use this landmark proposition as a scapegoat for their fiscal ineptitude, the leaders should figure out how to use $88 billion in General Fund revenue to serve the most people without raising taxes during these tough economic times.

Taxes should be off the table during this time of economic recession. What message does an oil severance or car tax send to our drivers who don’t want to see gas prices… Read More

Another one for the "you just can’t make this stuff up" files… Democrat legislator Curran Price has introduced legislation that would explore requiring California automobiles replace their existing unobtrusive license plates with electronic signs — mini billboards. The state would then sell advertising on them. In the proposal, the ads would only pop up if the car was stationary at least four seconds.

Are you kidding?

My car is my car. I don’t want a billboard on my car. Period. Never mind the fact that I might not like a particular product (or political candidate?) advertising on my car’s mini-billboard, the bigger issue is that I don’t want an advertisement on my car at all.

Look, I "get it" that the right-sizing of state government to what can be afforded through the existing state tax code — it’s not easy for all of those people in the private sector to have to make cuts in their spending, either.

I also don’t want to discourage creative and "out of the… Read More