FLASHREPORT

Why do people keep coming back with this dumb idea that if a budget is not passed on time, legislators should not be paid?

This kind of proposal presupposes that a bad budget is better than a late budget.

I obviously look at ideas like this through the prism of a conservative -- but if I have like-minded legislators in Sacramento who are holding out against a bad budget (a myriad of things, like tax increases, could be what makes a budget "bad"), why would I want them to get pressured into voting for it by preventing them from paying their mortgage or rent?

These kinds of "sounds good" proposals aren't going to solve our problem in Sacramento.

The reality is that the biggest problem that we have in the State Capitol is not structural, it is ideological.  For decades now, liberal Democrats have been in charge of the State Legislature and they have over-spent us into oblivion.

The "reform" we need is pretty obvious - Republican majorities!

For links to all the posts on this race, start here.

Yesterday the Meg Whitman for Governor campaign announced their new Students for Meg organization.  The head of this new group is Chason Bullock, who is a senior at California State University, San Marcos.   What follows is a column by Chason, and below that a web video created by the Whitman campaign highlighting many student leaders supporting her candidacy...

Why Students Support Meg
Chason Bullock

Students are rallying to elect Meg Whitman to be the next Governor of California. They share Meg's focus on three important priorities: creating jobs, cutting spending and fixing education. California has seen better days: we have a 12.5% unemployment rate, a $20 billion deficit and a broken K-12 education system. Let's not forget the issues involving our state's higher education systems as well. Ask any student who is about to graduate what their primary concern is and they will likely tell you it's employment opportunities.

The most important element of Meg's platform is job creation. She was the first gubernatorial candidate to come out with a strong message for creating jobs and she's set an ambitious, but attainable goal: two million new private sector jobs by 2015. Job creation is the issue of our generation, and Meg understands we must create a climate where companies want to come and stay in California.

Meg Whitman also understands our generation and how much we rely on technology. At eBay, Meg built a business model that allowed inspired individuals working with technology to build their own businesses. Nearly every college student in the nation has used eBay at least once in their lifetime, so they appreciate what Meg can do.

Meg Whitman continues to rely on the effective employment of technology in her campaign - building a powerful online presence that reaches of young voters across the state. She's connecting with voters by tweeting, facebooking, texting, filming videos and encouraging Californians to share their ideas for our state. Meg believes in the Power of Many and our collective ability to tackle the enormous challenges facing California. Using technology, young voters will continue to be on the frontlines of this effort.

Meg's determination to build A New California is something that resonates with every college student. California's over-regulated and highly taxed business environment has effectively destroyed the entrepreneurial dream that so many before us were able to achieve. We need a Governor who isn't afraid to address our biggest problems and stands up to the status quo in Sacramento.

Meg Whitman offers an approach that Sacramento has never seen. She is focusing on three things at 100% - creating jobs, cutting spending, and fixing education. If we can get these things right, California can once again become the Golden State.

Our commitment to getting Meg elected is reflected in Students for Meg, our ever growing grassroots organization. With 40 chapters and more than 1,000 members throughout the state, more and more students are joining the fight to help elect Meg. It's going to take all of us to rebuild California, and I encourage you to join us.

This week, we took the first steps to put in place policies that will better protect our children and put an end to the failings in our criminal justice system that allow violent sexual predators to slip through the cracks.  

During an announcement at my office, a representative from the Chelsea King Family read a statement from Kelly and Brent King asking me to join them and lead the legislative effort to enact real changes to better protect our children and our communities from violent sex offenders. I am humbled and honored to work with them to create Chelsea's Law.

This joint effort between my office and the King family will seek changes in the law to protect California's children from violent sexual predators. Our goal is simple - to make sure that no family has to go through what the King and Dubois families are experiencing right now.

There is not a person in our community who hasn't been touched by this tragedy.  As a father and husband, I can't imagine the pain felt by Kelly and Brent King and Carrie McGonigle and Moe Dubois. I know every parent out there is worried about the dangers our children face.  We all want action and we want it now.  We don't understand how a high-risk violent sexual offender like John Gardner could be out on our streets.

I share these concerns and am working with the King family and others to find real changes that will honor Chelsea's memory and help protect every child.  In spending time with Kelly and Brent, I understand their commitment to being a part of making changes to the system - changes that will better protect our children.  But please know this, change will not come as quickly as any of us want.  But we owe it to the memory of Chelsea to do it right.

This heartbreaking case leaves a lot of unanswered questions about how our criminal justice system fails to deal with violent sexual predators.  It is unacceptable and it has given every one of us a renewed determination to bring about change.

We have begun assembling a broad coalition that includes the San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore, legislators from across the state and from both political parties, crime victims groups, criminal justice experts and concerned citizens.

This group will evaluate all the laws on the books - including Megan's Law, Jessica's Law and others.  The sole focus will be finding any possible area of the law that can be strengthened.  Our actions over the coming months will likely include hearings, public meetings, and input from a wide variety of sources.

Everything is on the table - longer sentences, a strengthened one-strike provision, changes to our parole system, extensive online reporting requirements and increased GPS monitoring systems. We will look at everything.

This effort will culminate in legislative proposals - Chelsea's Law - to reform the criminal justice system in California to better protect our children.

The first step in this process is gathering all of the facts for this particular case.  Right out of the gate, we found one major problem within the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.  My office requested, through emails, phone calls and letters, that Corrections release John Gardner's full "Field File," from his time on parole, and "Central File," from his time in prison. A thorough review of these records is necessary to help us determine where the system broke down and where changes are needed.  But after several delays, Corrections shocked us by sending an email notifying us that John Gardner's Field File parole records had been destroyed, in accordance with Corrections' own internal policy.

It is unacceptable that a state agency charged with ensuring public safety would destroy the parole records of a convicted sex offender they knew was likely to re-offend.

What is even more shocking is what a Corrections spokesperson told the Union Tribune: "We are pretty confident that the system does work."  This statement is reflective of a department that is clearly out of touch.  While Corrections was busy defending its failed policies, we have two grieving families, two heinous crimes, and a traumatized community that knows the system doesn't work.

Yesterday, we contacted the state Inspector General demanding a full investigation of the Department of Corrections' choice to destroy John Gardner's records and a review of their policy to destroy documents in general.

Specifically, we want answers to the following questions:

1. Was the field file for John Gardner destroyed in its entirety?  If so, when and where was it done?  And who authorized the destruction?  

2. What records from Gardner's time on parole were added to his maintained Central File?

3. Why are Central Files maintained and Field Files destroyed?

4. Why does Corrections believe their policy of destroying crucial public safety records after such a short time is in the best interest of our state?

Additionally, I have requested that the Chairman of the Assembly Committee on Accountability and Administrative Review - of which I am a member - conduct a hearing on the Department of Corrections' actions in this matter and broader policy relating to inmate files.

Many people are committed to improving our criminal justice system, but our efforts are hindered when records are destroyed. With all the reports on criminal recidivism and the real danger of repeat offenders, it seems painfully obvious that this information is critical to our ongoing commitment to public safety.

We demanded answers to our questions and a change in Corrections' irresponsible policy.

I'm pleased to report that late yesterday afternoon, Governor Schwarzenegger ordered Corrections to immediately begin retaining all inmate parole records and to work to make them available to the public.

The Union Tribune summed up the reason for this change as follows:

The policy change came after several days of pressure from Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher...

Fletcher is exploring legislation to reform how the state deals with sexual predators and had been incensed when told that much of Gardner's record was destroyed.

Yesterday, Fletcher said, "We can't identify whether the system broke down if they destroyed the record."

He continued in the interview: "It doesn't make sense that if you have a commitment to criminal justice and protecting people that you would destroy the record of anyone on parole that has the possibility of repeating, much less a sexually violent predator who a court psychologist told you is callous and bold and is likely to offend again."

But this one Corrections reform is just a small part in our broader effort, the first step in what's sure to be a long process.  We applaud the Governor for moving quickly to fix this obvious wrong, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions from the Corrections Department and we will continue to demand answers.

As we move toward our goal of ensuring that no other child is hurt and no other family has to go through what the King and Dubois families are facing, I'd like to ask for your help. If you have ideas or suggestions for reform, or if you would like to join our effort , please contact our office at (858) 689-6290 or email me at Assemblymember.fletcher@assembly.ca.gov.

Please feel free to forward this email to anyone who might like to help bring about change.

We know that out of these tragedies, something good can come.  It won't be easy, or quick, but we are fully committed to the families who are hurting and to making real, substantial changes.

In the wake of Senator Ashburn's arrest last week, I found myself actually hoping for communication from the CRP. Those are the moments when leadership is needed, and the party needs a positive and unified message. But unfortunately, the CRP was deafeningly silent when the Senator was arrested. 

So I called my friend, Charles Moran, who ran media for the California delegation at the RNC convention in 2008, to find out what the Log Cabin Republicans think about Senator Ashburn's predicament. And as you will see below, there is a good reason why Charles is the national spokesperson for the Log Cabin Republicans...he is excellent at communicating on subjects that can be very difficult. I appreciate what he had to say.

JIll:  Generally speaking, what was your reaction to the news regarding Senator Ashburn's arrest for DUI, and the mention that he was driving from a gay bar?

 

Charles:  The first reaction was one of concern of the safety of the pubic - drinking and driving is a grossly irresponsible and dangerous practice that claims too many innocent lives each year. The morning following his arrest, I received a note from a colleague in Sacramento alerting me that he was spotted coming from a gay bar, I soon knew that the issue of his sexual orientation would far eclipse any story about his DUI charge.

 

I'm not going to sugar-coat it: when an elected official who has a stated public policy position that contradicts the way he/she personally conducts his/her private life, it becomes an issue of concern to the public. And when you're talking about sexual orientation, the tabloid sensationalism rises exponentially.

 

Senator Ashburn's sexual orientation has absolutely nothing to do with the circumstances concerning his arrest - which is wholly different than the circumstances and allegations surrounding former NJ Governor Jim McGreevy, Senator Larry Craig or Congressman Mark Foley. Both Republicans and Democrats, the "sword cuts both ways."

Jill:  If Senator Ashburn were single and there were no issue of adultery, would the information about his sexual orientation be a big deal?

 

Charles:   The real issue here is authenticity. We certainly saw it in 2008 with the election of Barack Obama - possibly the most under-qualified presidential candidate we've seen in decades - where the public is not making voting decisions based on party, platform/issues or the like. It's about the image...the "sense of the man." Any closeted politician - and trust me there are plenty more in Sacramento and Washington, DC - runs the risk of being inauthentic to his constituents and supporters if he's not being his or her true self. Politics is still a pretty conservative environment, and even with all the advancements the LGBT (Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender) community has fought for over the years, homosexuality is still perceived by some as liability. Politicians and party leaders are so concerned about their "public perception" that anything they can identify as being a detracting force will be quietly swept away, and thus causes the issue of inauthenticity in politics today.

 

Sexual Orientation is a very private matter and none of the leading LGBT advocacy organizations - Log Cabin Republicans included - support "outing", or the forced revelation of sexual orientation. Senator Ashburn's sexual orientation was revealed without his consent on a timeline that was not of his choosing - which is the most unfortunate way for information like this to be revealed. But Senator Ashburn showed great courage in taking responsibility for his actions and revealing his true sexual orientation to his family, colleagues in the Legislature and to his constituents. I would hope that this revelation would go far in re-establishing the level of trust between his constituents and himself, which is the ultimate measure for being a good public official.

Part II of this interview coming tomorrow....

Numerically, so far the candidate campaign that has sent the most correspondence to California Republican Party Conventioneers in advance of this weekend's confab is easily Attorney General candidate Steve Cooley (the latest being a letter from four past CRP Chairmen - Dr. Tirso Del Junco, Mike Motgomery, Frank Visco, and my former employer L.A. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich).  Right behind him is the campaign of Gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman (her latest letter is a piece from former Governor Pete Wilson).  But all of those have been rather subdued mailers in terms of presentation -- a simple letter in an envelope.

The only mail piece I have received from a campaign that is impressive in its presentation has come from U.S. Senate hopeful Carly Fiorina.  This glossy mailer is personalized and includes not only a strong letter from some conservative U.S. Senators, but it really lays out the fiscal follies of candidate Tom Campbell.  Of course, for strategic reasons, Fiorina doesn't even mention the candidacy of Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, whom she cannot "out-conservative" but she can out-spend -- but the mail piece is effective.

Check it out for yourself (I emailed the campaign for a .pdf version)...  Click on the graphic below to enlarge...

Steve Poizner's campaign has launched a new website, RealMegWhitman.com -- a site intended pound away at the GOP primary frontrunner on a number of issues.  The first feature video on this site is, simply put, a doosey.  I have "lifted it" and placed it below...

Here's the piece.  I'm sure it deserves some analysis.  But who has time for that?  I guess I will leave it to readers to decide whether a Constitutional Officer who has CHP protection should be reimbursing taxpayers for that protection when it is provided at campaign events....

Having gotten to know many of the members of the press corps that cover California politics, I have found them to for the most part be pretty fair and balanced.  There is always an occasional example of some liberal reporter going too far -- but generally, for our part here in the Golden State, we've got a good crew of reporters (almost all of whom invariably voted for President Obama - but then again, so did most Americans).

There is no good reason for Meg Whitman and her campaign to go through Herculean efforts to avoid meaningful dialogue with the California press corps.  All it does is feed speculation that she has good reason to do so, when I don't think that is the case.  I have heard Whitman in intimate campaign settings, and have myself sat down with her on more than one occasion writing for this website.  I'm confident that she would do just fine in media interviews.

As a Republican Party officer, who is neutral in this primary and is waiting on the proverbial "50 yard line" to help our nominee win the office in November, I really do believe that practice makes perfect where it comes to media interviews.  Before Meg and the GOP get into a general election situation (if Whitman were to defeat Steve Poizner for the GOP nod - a significant if) I would like to see her having already gotten used to fluent and thorough conversations with media reporters.  I often find that these reporters think of and ask questions that are interesting, but frankly a lot of questions are things I never would have thought to ask, but am interested in hearing the responses.  All voters benefit from this kind of in-depth reporting about candidates who will appear before them on the ballot.

Of course if a reporter is unreasonably hostile, and writes a biased, non-objective negative story, that would be an immediate incentive to cease contact with that reporter, especially if corrective action isn't taken by an editor.

I have not been in a hurry to pen a commentary on this topic as it seems like how an individual campaign handles the media is really its own business. 

Except as of yesterday, we are now shifting to "embarrassing" as the adjective of choice to describe the situation of Whitman and reporters -- where we are now seeing prime time television news reports about the avoiding of reporters!  This is not good for Whitman, in my humble opinion, and I know it is not good for the GOP -- the latter being my reason for weighing in.

Yesterday Whitman had an "open media" event with Union Pacific at a bay area stockyard.  Needless to say there was heavy attendance from reporters, anxious to talk to the gubernatorial aspirant.  Apparently when they got there, the media was not invited on the stockyard tour, and then was invited to set up to cover a round table between the candidate and railroad representatives.  But when that event was over, the media were shut down in their efforts to ask the candidate even a single question.

I would direct readers to this blog post by ace SF Chronicle reporter Carla Marinucci on the Chron's Politics Blog, with some video worth watching.   A smaller article on the topic appears in the print edition of the Chronicle.  Josh Richman, a very capable reporter from the Oakland Tribune, also writes about it.   But the most startling media coverage of this issue of Whitman avoiding the media comes in the form of two television stories that aired last night (of course, brought to my attention by Whitman's primary opponent's campaign).  These reporters actually got phone calls from Whitman apologizing for the incident.  I am including these two stories below.

Here's a suggestion for candidate Whitman.  All of the California political press corps will be on hand for this weekend's GOP convention.  Reserve a room, invite them in, and have a lengthy, on-the-record sit down with the whole lot of them -- followed with any requested one-on-one's.  Then this issue will be behind us.

The Republican Party in California has enough challenges without this whole, bizarre, media-avoidance strategy from one of our most prominent candidates.

In closing, I sure hope this column is treated as constructive input to the Whitman campaign, because that is certainly how it is intended to come across.

Here are the two television news stories (again, the video is courtesy of Poizner's campaign - which I have used because then I don't have to upload the reports myself.  I also similarly use videos uploaded by the Whitman campaign.  So those descriptions of the videos in big font white lettering are the Poizner campaign putting their title on these clips.).


 

My good friend Eric Hogue may have indulged in a little bit of over-analysis this morning as he penned a lengthy blog post over at Hogue News on the fact that the campaign of ersatz Board of Equalization member Alan Nakanishi made an 'amateur hour' faux pax at the California Republican Assembly convention last weekend in Orange County

The committed sin?  Nakanishi's campaign flyers, distributed all around the convention, were printed on official government paper with a watermark.  How might that have happened?  Well, Eric goes on about that at length.   But if you haven't see it yet, our cool graphic artist buddy Dave took the flyer I brought home and "enhanced" it so you can see the watermark.  Check out his work below.

I will ask this question -- why in the heck does the state place watermarks on its paper ?  And how much does it cost taxpayer to do that.  While apparently there is some utility in knowing when "government" paper is used, I would think those would be few and far between.  Oh well, state government does a lot of things that make normal people go, "Huh?"

My client Assemblyman Bill Emmerson will stay on the ballot for the April 13th special election for the vacant Republican-dominated 37 th State Senate special election, according to a bench ruling by Superior Court Judge Kenneth Andreen, issued about an hour ago in Riverside. The judge announced his ruling after a full blown Perry Mason-style trial that included testimony from a Private Eye that Emmerson opponent and Corona Councilman Steve Nolan, the unsuccessful petitioner, had hired to snoop on where Emmerson sleeps at night. I must admit, I thought the case was getting a little out of hand, but the judge delivered a resounding ruling in Emmerson's favor and I'm pleased to chalk this one up as yet another Lacy legal masterpiece.

" Jihad is our path. Victory to Islam. Death to Israel. Revolution. Revolution until victory. Rolling to Jerusalem. " Sami Al-Arian, Sept 26, 2001, FOX TV. 



Normally, not the kind of rhetoric one finds in a US Senate race. 

Tom Campbell seems to have  forgot a couple of items. Campbell denied Al-Arian was a donor in his 2000 senate campaign. Tom also forgot he wrote a letter defending 'professor"  Al-Arian after 9-11. The letter, dated January 21, 2002, has Tom writing  " I have formed the fear because of the paucity of evidence supporting ...for this discipline against him. I have read a transcript of the  "O'Reilly Factor" interview and i did not see anything whereby Professor Al-Arian attempted ..." 


That was then...this is now.

At least Sami Al-Arian did not call for another Holocaust. Or did he?  He plead guilty in 2006, pursuant to a plea agreement, to conspiracy to help a "specially designated terrorist" organization, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. 

Earlier in Al-Arian's "career" , before he won the professorship at University of South Florida, he was an ambitious jihadists. 

On September 29, 1991, he said in a speech at a Chicago conference that Allah had made Jews "monkeys and swine", and damned them in this world and the after world. He used his position at the USF, to hire members of his Palestinian Islamic Jihad as university employees and used university facilities to send monies to suicide bombers. Definitely not a nice guy or dinner companion.

So, what is it about Tom Campbell that attracts such support?  

Both Chuck Devore and Carly Fiorina have called into question Campbell's judgment. 

After Campbell's ill fated support for the atrocious Prop 1-A, last year, mercifully defeated by over 60% of the voters, helping initiate the Tea Party Movement, Campbell lost all justification  for seeking higher office. Like some Republicans, Campbell thought  just a few more taxes will help "solve" the budget crisis. Campbell failed to understand the first rule for solvent government. It's the Spending Stupid. 

No one is more more charming that Tom Campbell. He probably could out debate French President Nicolas Sarkozy in French. Tom is enormously bright and multi talented.  He is only weak with economics and foreign policy. 

Add on Campbell's foreign policy chops, and its time to duck. There probably has not been anyone so little deserving the republican senate nomination, since......well its hard to find a parallel. Tom Kuchel? William M. Gwin? 



Big Government  Republican Kuchel



pro slavery Democrat Gwin

One of the things I love most about my friend Barbara Alby is her "I know something that you don't know look" -- which hasn't changed in the nearly twenty years that I have known her.  When I sat down briefly with Barbara last weekend at the California Republican Assembly's 75th Anniversary Convention in Buena Park, and asked her about her campaign for Board of Equalization, she gave me "the look" when I asked her about her ballot designation.  She told me that it was "a surprise" but that her choice for ballot designation would be very important to her campaign (along with her published statement in the ballot pamphlet). 

As always, Barbara has a gift for understatement. 

During the CRA Convention, it was obvious that State Senator George Runner was out-hustling her for what concluded in his endorsement by the CRA for his candidacy.  Runner had a full campaign operation working the event.  In contrast, with a peace of mind about her that was enviable Barbara was in what I would call a "happy place" quietly chatting with the many convention delegates).

**There is more - click the link**

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