Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.

Adam Smith

August is such a wonderful time of the legislative calendar! It’s that magical month when bills about “legislative intent” become the vehicles of California’s often craziest headlines in national news! Liberal Democrats are using the closing weeks of this legislative session to push through several of their virtuous ideas.

With the process of “gut & amend,” liberals escape the drudgery of policy committee hearings and avoid public opposition to their vastly superior principles intended to make life better and often government coffers richer, in their fantasy world.

An example of virtue signaling type of “caring” is the odyssey of Senate Bill 845 (SB 845). Introduced in January as a “budget” vehicle, in June it was amended to become the 2018 “Human Services Omnibus” budget bill in the Assembly. On the same day, the Senate amended AB 1811 to become the 2018 “Human Services Omnibus” budget bill as well.

With AB 1811 becoming part of the… Read More

In conversations with local voters over the last few weeks, I’ve discussed several abusive practices the Democrats used recently to ram bad policy ideas through the legislature. These practices draw virtually uniform condemnation, regardless of whether the voters are registered as Republicans or Democrats. That’s no surprise. They threaten representative democracy, something every citizen of any party has an interest in, and are so manifestly unfair that they cannot be defended even along party lines.

What is a surprise, however, is that these abuses are so bad that even the usual Democratic cheerleaders in the mainstream press are beginning to complain.

One of these abuses practices – cooking the books to hide the amount of public money spent by the Legislature – exploded in the press when Democratic Assemblyman Anthony Portantino complained that his own party’s leadership cut his office budget in retaliation for his vote against the state budget. The mainstream press, represented by the Los Angeles Times and a few other papers, actually filed suit against the Democrat controlled Legislature to get timely, honest accountings.

The Republicans have… Read More