Wow, what an election night. Hope makes a comeback… but not entirely in California.

As exciting as the nationwide races were, my favorite race was local: Mayor Kevin Johnson’s Strong Mayor initiative, Measure L, went down in defeat, 57-43 percent. Slam Dunk.

Despite the Sacramento media running months of constant free advertising for the measure, Measure L, which would have concentrated power in the Mayor, Chicago-style, and dramatically reduce the other council members’ powers, Sacramento voters voted “no.”

By midnight when I finally gave up and went to bed, the measure appeared to be defeated 57.31 percent to 42.69 percent. Unless more ballots magically appear, the fourth Strong Mayor initiative should be cooked… until Mayor Johnson resurrects it again for a fifth time.

GOP Takes US Senate

But… Read More

Are you better off today than you were two, four or six years ago when progressive Democrats took over and expanded more of government? Of course not: As government grows, liberty decreases.

It was Thomas Jefferson who warned, “The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.”

But elections are changing. Voters are changing. America is changing. California has been leading much of that change, and not in a good way. This election is a potential… Read More

The contest for Secretary of State between Republican Pete Peterson and Democrat Alex Padilla appears to be a classic race between a citizen politician and a career bureaucrat. Padilla, 41, is a termed out State Legislator, and a former Los Angeles city councilman. Peterson, 47, leads the Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership at Pepperdine University, is a business owner, and was the first Executive Director of Common Sense California, a bipartisan, nonprofit “think-and-do tank” devoted to improving civic participation in California.

Their “top two” primary race in June was very close though only 25 percent of registered… Read More

In some California parallel universe, the new Senate President Kevin de Leόn, announced last week during his flagrant swearing-in ceremony, “Reliance is the ‘American Way.’”

“Isn’t it time we shatter the great American myth about pulling oneself up by the bootstraps?” De Leonasked the crowd.The audience broke into rousing applause. De Leon continued, “It’s a fantasy. It’s simply not true.”

De Leon’s “extravagant bash” was held at the Disney Concert Hall… Read More

Sacramento Bee News Columnist Marcos Breton wrote a love letterSunday Oct. 11, to outgoing Democratic Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg: “An argument could be made that Darrell Steinberg is the most accomplished politician Sacramento has produced in nearly a century,” Breton said.

With a legacy of special interest legislation, a delayed statewide water bond full of pork and wasteful spending, support of the $100 billion High-Speed Rail bungle, his dubious law firm connections, his mental health millionaire’s tax, the special interest bill he helped pass for… Read More

Immediately following Gov. Jerry Brown signing the bill by Sen. Alex Padilla to ban the use of plastic bags at grocery stores and tax paper bags, now the progressive left is whining about the plastic bag industry initiating a referendum process for a vote of the people for the November 2016 election.

The Sacramento Bee editorial board compared the plastic bag industry to a chicken with its head curt off: “It would explain why it hasn’t figured out that the ubiquitous single-use plastic grocery bag has just suffered a killing blow. Its days are numbered.”

And the Bee editors are still calling these plastic bags, “single use bags.” Perhaps all of the people who insist these bags are “single use” are the people who throw them out after just one use, rather than use them a second or third use at the grocery store. Do they instead purchase… Read More

The United Farm Workers labor union held a protest rally Monday in Fresno, outsidethe administrative hearing whereGerawan Farming is facing unfair labor charges. Theyare alleging that Gerawan Farming workers are intimidating witnesses testifying at the hearing.

The headline of the story says, “Union workers protest alleged Gerawan intimidation.” The photo caption says, “Workers protest alleged intimidation by Gerawan Farms.”

The intimation by the Bee is that Gerawan Farming is doing the intimidation.

There was nothing in… Read More

The back room deal between the California Grocers Association andUnited Food and Commercial Workers labor union paid off; Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill to ban and tax plastic and paper grocery bags… despite that all types of plastic shopping bags can be recycled into new bags.

SB 270by Senators Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles Alex Padilla, D- Pacoima, and Ricardo Lara, D-Los Angeles, “prohibits stores from distributing lightweight, single-use plastic bags.” Padilla is running for Secretary of State.

Immediately after the bill signing, the American Progressive Bag Alliance announced it was preparing to gather signatures for a November 2016 ballot initiative to repeal SB 270.

Governor Jerry Brown has repeatedly said, “There will be no new taxes for the foreseeable future.” But the plastic bag ban is also a tax increase on reusable bags, and paper bags — minimum 10 cents per bag — which grocers will pocket.

I remember when plastic bags were… Read More