One of the greatest—if not the greatest—hindrances to real government reform in California is the unions. Flush with cash from mandatory dues, these self-serving organizations exert so much power over the majority party that they brazenly issue public threats against legislators. The Heritage Foundation posted a blog this morning reporting just how big a threat organized labor is to the rest of the nation.

Heritage scholar James Sherk explains that unions are no longer organizations that protect the interests of workers in the private sector. Instead, the majority of union members are in government, sapping taxpayer dollars for benefits and pensions that private sector employees will never see—especially since the private, productive sector must finance these government workers’ benefits.

Sherk cites California as an example of unions pushing for taxes on private entities to finance their entrenched government bureaucracy: “In… Read More

Capitol Weekly recently surveyed legislators and their cheif’s of staff on who they think are the top lobbyists. This is a great measure of relationships and real ability. And rememnber, lobbyists cannot make political contributions to state elected officials, so thats not a factor here.

MOST CONNECTED LOBBYISTS Bev Hansenof Lang Hansen O’Malley Miller whichrepresents California Trucking Association, CIty of Chino Hills, City of San Clemente, Union Pacific Railroad and Wal-Mart Stores.

Darius Andersonof Platinum Advisors which counts 24 Hour Fitness, Boeing, Lennar, County of Orange and UPS among its clients.

Also with Platinum Advisors,… Read More

I read with interest about a recent speech our state’s Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Ron George, gave about how the initiative system in our state is responsible for “dysfunction” in Sacramento. In my opinion, Democrat dominance in the legislature is more the cause of dysfunction, not the initiative process. To say that the initiative system is the cause of all our state’s problems is very wrong – because it blames the People of our state. In my opinion, the People, any subdivision of them; the first 120 names in the Fresno phone book, for example, would be far less dysfunctional leading our state than Speaker Bass and Company. The People want lower property taxes, the death penalty, and chickens to be treated humanely. What’s wrong with that? What does the legislature want? Not good stuff, that is for sure!… Read More

In response to the self-serving and dismissive way in which Attorney General Jerry Brown summary announced that his own investigation of his own office for potential criminal wrongdoing concluded that nothing criminal had occurred — strains credulity.

The California Republican Party has just unveiled a hard hitting web-presentation on the subject, worth a minute of your time, and one quick phone call…

… Read More

Today in Capitol Weekly, Democrat Party operative (and former Deputy Chief of Staff to both Speaker Fabian Nunez and Karen Bass) Steve Maviglio pens a column on why he thinks selling the water bonds to voters will be a tough sell.

In his piece, Maviglio takes an uncalled for at the integrity of Jon Coupal, President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.Normally I wouldn’t reprint this garbage, but Coupal has penned a response to Maviglio that is best understood in context:

Maviglio’s Cheap ShotNote to water bond proponents: before you even buy office furniture, the first campaign check should be written to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Foundation. Jon Coupal, the Foundation’s director, has hemmed and hawed on this thoughts on the bond. Translation: he’s open for business on support.

Jon Coupal RespondsIf all you have is a hammer, all problems start to look like… Read More

The Sacramento Bee today (and Jon’s post here on FR earlier this morning) brought back the wonderful memory of how I spent my Valentine’s Day this year. Instead of taking Sharon to a nice dinner, I was locked in on the Senate floor with 39 of my closest friends fighting to keep get California’s spending in line with revenues. This is not how I would recommend anyone spending their Valentine’s Day and it highlights an ever growing problem in the Legislature – all night sessions that yield poor public policy.

The ink on the page isn’t even dry before we are called by the Pro Tem to vote on legislation that has dramatic implications for the entire state. These policies are negotiated in backroom deals that have no public input and are never debated through the proper legislative process. Members aren’t afforded time to read the bills let alone given enough time for our policy experts to scrutinize the legislation and draft complete and accurate analyses. This unfortunately leads… Read More

In today’s Sacramento Bee, Steve Wiegand has an important article that every FlashReport reader should take in, entitled Long Hours In Capitol Mean Lousy Lawmaking, Critics Say. There’s a great photo of a worn-out Senator George Runner accompanying the piece.

Weigands piece takes note of the fact that four times this year alone, the State Legislature has engaged in the practice of having long, late-night marathon sessions where our elected representatives are forced to fight exhaustion and sleep deprivation as "deals" are put together.

We saw this happen first with the February budget debacle that brought us the largest tax increase in the history of any state. In July, another long time dealing with budget gets and an early morning gauging of taxpayers by adjusting withholding timelines, then there was the end of session with adjourned at 6am — and finally last week the embarrassing water-torture exercize that went to the wee hours.

It’s no wonder the legislature has such a low approval rating — this is no way to run state government!… Read More

In today’s Sacramento Bee, Steve Wiegand has an important article that every FlashReport reader should take in, entitled Long Hours In Capitol Mean Lousy Lawmaking, Critics Say. There’s a great photo of a worn-out Senator George Runner accompanying the piece.

Weigands piece takes note of the fact that four times this year alone, the State Legislature has engaged in the practice of having long, late-night marathon sessions where our elected representatives are forced to fight exhaustion and sleep deprivation as "deals" are put together.

We saw this happen first with the February budget debacle that brought us the largest tax increase in the history of any state. In July, another long time dealing with budget gets and an early morning gauging of taxpayers by adjusting withholding timelines, then there was the end of session with adjourned at 6am — and finally last week the embarrassing water-torture exercize that went to the wee hours.

**There is more – click the… Read More