Following the Assembly vote in July on the Governor’s bill extending the California Cap and Trade program, Assembly Republican Leader Chad Mayes participated in a “bipartisan” press conference with Governor Brown and Democrats. During his time at the podium, he announced his pleasure at being there since Republicans don’t get many chances to stand with the Governor in his press room.

In response to questions about why he and his fellow Republicans “jumped ship” to give the Governor his needed 2/3rds vote, thereby protecting Cap and Trade from further legal challenges, Leader Mayes reportedly said, “California Republicans are different than national Republicans.”

While Mr. Mayes may have had a point at that moment in time, it wasn’t long until Republicans in Washington proved that turning into useful idiots of the Democrats was far from just a “California thing.” A couple of weeks after Mayes serenaded a third of his caucus over the regulatory/taxation cliff in support of an unelected bureaucracy, Republicans in the U.S. Senate voting on Obamacare repeal also proved to be as feckless as the Mayes posse in California.

These events,… Read More