When the tale is told of this year’s legislative session, clearly one of the major themes we will see is the inability of Senate President Darrell Steinberg to actually achieve major accomplishments — unless you count the inability to do so as some sort of achievement.

Darrell "Deal Killer" Steinberg is so tied and beholdin’ to the most ideologically extreme elements of his caucus that we are about to watch opportunities to resolve issues like the water infrastructure shortage, the prison funding crisis, and our state energy challenge Perhaps I should alter my perspective a bit. As a conservative ideologue, perhaps I should relish the fact that Steinberg’s "leadership" is stopping progress in all of these areas. Invariably I probably would be less than satisfied with compromise solutions on any of these topics.

Nevertheless, I presume that Senate Democrats actually want to achieve nothing of note… Read More

Anyone who believes that voter fraud is a thing of the past or not a serious problem in the United States should read these headlines that were published in papers around the country in recent days:

* Two more charged with voting fraud in Lexington election * Update: Atlantic City councilman’s job status still undecided

* 11 accused of faking voter registration cards in Miami-Dade

Our right to vote is one of our most cherished freedoms. Therefore, we must never tolerate voter fraud.

To learn more what we are doing to prevent voter fraud in California, visit www.votesafenow.org… Read More

I come from the Adam Probolsky school on the issue of self-promotion but regardless this little saga deserves some mention here.

In 2007, Newport Beach’s Bill Ficker, an architect and winner ofThe America’s Cup, the most prestigious regatta and match in the sport of sailing, teamed with local philanthropist Jack Croul and former State Senator Marion Bergeson, and their friend Ron Hendrickson, to advance a plan to place the new Newport Beach City Hall building in a very logical location: an empty lotnear Fashion Island right next to the Main City Library.

But the majority of the City Council didn’t like the idea. They seemed to want the City Hall at a nearby bus station. So Ficker and Company decided to go directly to the people with an initiative campaign. They hired Scott Taylor to do the campaign for them (whose office is nearby Ficker’s in Newport Beach) and Scott recommended me to do the lawyering.

So I wrote a prettystraightforward proposed charter amendment. It had a number of clauses to it, and it was carefully drafted, but its purpose was very clear: any new City… Read More

I spent an early hour this morning reviewing the full text of President Obama’s health care policy appeal delivered last night to a joint session of Congress. I had originally intended to outline his rhetorical arguments and point out his continuing and repeated use of the straw man construct, something noted previously by Karl Rove in the Wall Street Journal, here.

But I keep getting hung up on the logic of the remedy he proposed especially after reading my recent copy of The Atlantic.

What’s holding me up in this case was a compelling, and lengthy, essay penned by media executive (and Democratic contributor) David Goldhill in the September issue of The Atlantic. Barrons also wrote on it here. Goldhill’s piece is powerful for two reasons: it illustrates the structural problems facing proponents of the President’s health care plan; and it should be especially powerful for conservatives who might see some members of our party (the… Read More

I’m working on something more in-depth on last night’s heralded (and heckled!) health care speech, but in the meantime, George Will’s Washington Post column profiles gubernatorial candidate and current insurance commissioner Steve Poizner.

Some highlights of Will’s reporting on California:

"The education code, by which state legislators micromanage California’s thousands of schools at the behest of teachers unions, is, Poizner says, 2,000 pages ‘and growing rapidly.’ He is disgusted that more than half of the 600,000 employees in primary and secondary education are not in classrooms."

"California depends on 200,000 wealthy taxpayers for 25 percent of its revenue." [Author’s note: that is .00571 of the population, based on 35 million]

"California has the lowest debt rating of any state, the fourth-highest unemployment rate (11.9 percent) and its job growth rate since 2000 is almost 20 percent below the national average. Some county and state public safety employees… Read More

Like many conservatives in California, I regret ever getting on the Arnold bandwagon. Although he has been very good for the past two months, he squandered his political capital on nothing, then aided the State’s freefall into the abyss by not being even remotely fiscally conservative. I have the same misgivings about Meg Whitman. That sinking feeling that she is not authentic, too quick to praise leftist radicals, and not resolute enough to stand up to the leftists in this State largely responsible for our debt and deficits.

Conservatives throughout California got a glimpse of a very naive Meg Whitman this week in her video praising former Obama Green Czar Van Jones.

Whitman, who didn’t even register as a Republican until 2007, said that… Read More

The other news today besides the unexpected and Claude Rains-like shocking information about an Assemblyman having sex with lobbyists in Sacramento, comes from the halls of the United States Supreme Court, where a special second oral argument was held in the Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission case that I have written about here before. Without going into too much detail on the legal mumbo jumbo, from the questions asked of the lawyers, it looks like there is a pretty firm 5-4 majority (at least to this observer) in favor of overturning the longstanding ban on corporate contributions in Federal political campaigns. For election lawyers, reading such a decision would be a little like being an Israelite observing Moses parting the Red Sea. But it is a question squarely before the count, and Justices Kennedy, Scalia and Thomas are absolutely on board with this notion, and by their questions, it appears that Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts are on the verge of deciding that the First Amendment belongs to everybody, including people who work for corporations (and likely unions to follow). Judge Sotomayor’s… Read More

If you feel like someone has hit the fast forward button on the DVR, you aren’t alone. I just got a call from Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby saying that we here at the FlashReport were the first to get the news — he is "all in" in the pending special election to fill out the unexpired term of Assemblyman Mike Duvall in the 72nd Assembly District, encompassing most of North Orange County.

Norby is in his 7th year on the Board of Supervisors and faces term limits next year. Norby rather famously won his Supervisor seat by taking out a sitting incumbent (Cynthia Coad) who was seeking reelection. Before that, Norby served for years on the Fullerton Cityu Council, and was a high school teacher.

And for those interested in such things, Norby’s campaign will be handled by the Lewis Consulting Group.

Will Norby clear the field for this run? It’s hit or miss in the OC where some primaries are non-events, and others are spectacularly rancorous. We’ll see how this develops…… Read More