It’s sweet because it has been rare for a major CA newspaper to point out anything wrong with CCS.  To its credit, the Times piece deals at length with the chaos which CA’s public schools are about to experience, caused by a hasty CCS implementation with an almost total lack of planning.  To summarize the problem: Next school year there will be no set curriculum, noapproved textbooks, no approved testing procedures or indeed tests for fall standardized testing- an unprecedented situation and highly disruptive of the educational process.  Parents, teachers, administrators and students will be up in arms.

The Times piece is bitter because it makes no mention of CA’s current standards, considered world-class by professionals not in the pay of textbook companies, or the cost of CCS to the state ($1.6 billion with zero co-pay from the feds), the lion’s share of which will go to publishers and testing companies.  Nor does the Times editorial follow this money trail to the obvious conclusion that the haste in implementation is reflective of a haste in getting the checks secured for special interests.  The Times editorial is too late to stop the process.

Nevertheless there is a silver lining to the Times editorial.  As far as it goes, it is correct: public school districts in CA will be dysfunctional regarding curriculum and testing for up to two years, which means that CCS will be a viable campaign issue for the mid-term elections.   This will be an important change from the last several years, during which time Gov. Schwarzenegger embraced CCS, followed by the State Board of Education’s embrace, and most recently Gov. Brown’s pledge to use Prop. 30 to pay for CCS (so that we have taxed ourselves to cover a windfall profit for special interests).  None of this aroused the public or the party (or the media) but that will change when the damage to our schools becomes clear, and noisy, in the fall.

There is an interesting line towards the end of the LAT piece:

“Resistance among conservatives seems to be more about picking a winnable battle against President Obama than providing the best possible education for students.”

This, or course, has been the problem with many GOP positions, both state and national: People think the GOP will just attack anything from the Dems, for no other reason than that it’s from the Dems.  The GOP is suffering from such perception now as it criticizes Obama’s seeming acceptance of a surveillance state.  Voters are able to perceive that if the Snowden documents were leaked under Bush, he would have downplayed them, and the criticism would be coming from Dems- most likely Obama himself.

But by focusing on the greed on display with CCS adoption,and the fallout affecting our children, the party should be able to enhance its image as a party that knows what’s going on and that moves against bad policy when it sees it.

Doug Lasken is a retired 25 year teacher for LA Unified, debate coach and educational consultant. Reach him at doug.lasken@gmail.com

ACA 8 would repeal Prop. 13’s requirement that local “special taxes” (taxes intended for a specific purpose or purposes) be approved by a two-thirds vote. Instead, special taxes imposed for the repayment of local bonded indebtedness would be reduced to 55%.  The ostensible justification for ACA 8 is to make it easier to finance local “infrastructure.”

There are several reasons why ACA 8 will inevitably inflict severe harm on California homeowners.  First, while state bonds are repaid out of the state’s general fund – into which most Californians contribute through income or sales taxes – the same is not true for local bonds.  Local bonds, usually referred to as “general obligation” bonds, are repaid exclusively by property owners.  That means that voters who do not own property can vote to raise taxes on those who do.

Second, making it easier to pass local bonds will only add to California’s debt crisis.  A recent study from the California Public Policy Center calculated total government debt in California as being $1.1 trillion.  This figure dwarfs the $27.8 billion “wall of debt” Governor Brown himself has acknowledged as part of budgetary borrowing.  Making it easier to incur local debt for “infrastructure financing” raises the obvious question:  Does any sane person believe that California needs even more debt?

Third, while building local roads and libraries may be a worthy cause, the interests backing ACA 8 are hardly motivated by the goodness of their hearts.  The usual cabal of unions, construction interests and the Wall Street bond industry all are chasing more tax dollars.  The amount of money at stake – your money – is staggering.  They care not a whit for the broader interests of California’s fiscal health or the interests of citizen taxpayers.

Is there any good news here?  Yes.  First, the passage of ACA 8 occurred in just one house of the Legislature.  It must also pass in the Senate.  There are a lot of reasons to believe that passage in the Senate is anything but automatic.  The details of the politics here are too complex to go into at this time.  But suffice it to say that liberal members of the California Senate might not be so quick to drink the anti-Prop. 13 KoolAid as did their colleagues in the Assembly.

Second, we are heartened by the fact that all Republican members of the California Assembly voted against repealing one of Prop. 13 most important protections. We say this as non-partisans as more than a third of HJTA’s members are registered Democrats.  However, it has usually been the Republicans who have stood up to defend Prop. 13.

Just three weeks ago, my weekly column was entitled “Will Republican Legislators Betray Taxpayers?”  While Republican support for homeowners can’t be taken for granted, on Saturday, the Republicans in the Assembly forcefully defended Prop. 13 on the floor of that chamber.  We couldn’t be more pleased for their courage for standing up to the special interests.

Finally, because Prop 13. defenders – in this case, Republicans – spoke as one voice, this forced Democrats who portray themselves as “moderates” to either stand up to their ultra-liberal leadership and vote “no” on ACA 8 or cave to the pressure of Speaker Perez and the special interests and vote “yes.”  This time, the so-called “moderate” Democrats failed – miserably.  ACA 8 passed with zero votes to spare.

While passage of ACA 8 is a horrible insult and injury to homeowners, at least now we know who our friends are.  Come election time, when some “moderate” Assembly Democrat tells you how much he or she represents citizen taxpayers and homeowners, you will now be armed with the truth.  After all, elections have consequences.

Carl DeMaio

Last year wealthy former San Diego City Councilman Scott Peters, a Democrat, defeated incumbent Congressman Brian Bilbray in this seat, by a very narrow margin.  Recently former San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio, apparently rested up after his marathon campaign for Mayor, announced his candidacy for this seat.  As of now he is the only announced GOP candidate.

The survey really only asked a few key questions, and directly tested the issues both of DeMaio being gay, and his support for same-sex marriage.  I thought the responses were telling…

Q1. If the election for your next Member of Congress was held today, who would you vote for of the following three candidates?
229 (37.8%) Scott Peters, Democrat incumbent
209 (34.5%) Carl DeMaio, Republican, former San Diego Council member
32 (5.3%) Howard Kaloogian, Republican, former California State Assemblyman
136 (22.4%) Undecided / Don’t Know

Q2. Now I am going to read you some information about Carl DeMaio. According to an article that appeared in the New York Times on October 29, 2012, DeMaio is “openly gay” and has “stated his support for gay marriage.”

Having offered you this information, now I am going to ask you again who you would vote for as your next Member of Congress if the election was held today:
218 (36.0%) Scott Peters, Democrat incumbent
213 (35.1%) Carl DeMaio, Republican, former San Diego Council member
42 (6.9%) Howard Kaloogian, Republican, former California State Assemblyman
133 (21.9%) Undecided / Don’t Know

U.S. Rep. Scott Peters

Let me first throw out here that I have never heard of former Assemblyman Kaloogian being interested in running for this seat.  I believe he was placed into this survey to have an ability to test whether Republicans would move their support from DeMaio to another Republican when told about Demaio’s sexual preference and his support for same-sex marriage.

This short survey is good news for DeMaio.  It would appear that these issues do not appreciate move GOP numbers.  In fact after voters hear about his positions on these controversial items his support actually increased a tad!

To quote from a NSON executive summary of their survey, Being “openly gay” and having “stated his support for gay marriage” appears to have statistically a very negligible effect with district voters views overall, possibly alluding to prior knowledge of or indifference to DeMaio’s sexuality and support of marriage equality.

While these numbers are slightly lower for DeMaio than those found in a Tarrance Group poll done in April, Peters is still in big trouble.

If you are interested in this survey’s crosstabs, frequencies and data, just drop me an email.

I’m pleased to report, at least from the readers perspective, things are AOK now.  We still have some work to do on the backside of the site, but that shouldn’t impact your experience.  We will re-run today’s original content again tomorrow, in addition to some new stuff.

My apologies for any inconvenience.

Assemblywoman Diane Harkey

I have known Mark Wyland since meeting him in 1998, and I met Diane Harkey when she ran for Dana Point City Council in 2004.  Both are ideological conservatives — both are friends.  As such, I have not endorsed either candidate — either would make a solid BOE Member.a

That having been said, those watching the race may have seen the stories about a lawsuit filed against Point Center Financial Inc., Dan Harkey, and Diane Harkey.  The suit involves investors to Point Center Financial, Dan Harkey’s real estate investment company.  Like so many during the real estate bust of the past decade, Dan and his investors lost money on several projects.

A small group of those investors filed a $43 million lawsuit against Point Center, Dan Harkey and Diane Harkey, claiming breach of fiduciary duty, negligence, misrepresentation, and a host of other charges.  Of the 116 causes of action, Diane Harkey was listed as a defendant in 4.

Well, this week, the plaintiffs filed to dismiss “with prejudice” all of these claims against Diane Harkey, save for one which questions an inter-trust transfer of the Harkey home.  I’m told dismissal on that won’t be far behind either.

While Harkey has been very aggressive on the campaign trail, there is no doubt that having been included in this lawsuit has been someone of an anchor on her candidacy.  As we all know, in a court of law you are presumed innocent until proved guilty.  However in the world of politics, it is too often the opposite — unless you can “disprove the negative” you often have problems on your hands.

This action represents a huge victory for Diane Harkey, who had argued her inclusion as a defendant was politically motivated.  This certainly takes the proverbial monkey off of Harkey’s back, and provides a boost to her campaign going into the final weeks before campaign reports are due.

I reached out to FlashReport contributor and well-respected Orange County attorney Mike Schroeder (a former State Chairman of the California GOP) to get his take on what this dismissal meant.  He told me, “Dismissal with prejudice is pretty strong.  It typically means the plaintiffs are admitting they were wrong, and they are agreeing that they will never bring this up again.  For Diane, it’s a hallmark development that should silence her critics on this issue.”

This race has a long way to go — with nearly a year until the June 2014 election.  And it was and still is a very competitive race.  But there is no doubt that this piece of news plays very well for the candidacy of Diane Harkey.

Because the FBI isn’t talking about their ongoing investigation, much of the reporting has been speculation — attempts to the connect the dots. Some of this has been well-informed, some has not. But, the worst speculation has been those stories that paint all the Calderons with the same brush.

In April, when I was in Sacramento to cover the California Democrat Party’s state convention, every reference to the Calderon family described them as two groups, 1) Ian and Charles and 2) Ron and Tom. And the latter group, Ron and Tom, were always described in less favorable terms. This was long before anyone knew about the pending investigation.

Over at CalWatchdog.com, I posted the first part in a series looking at the differences among the Calderon family. The people who know the Calderons best, old friends, current and former staffers, community leaders, and Sacramento lobbyists, say that each of the Calderons has brought a unique style and approach to the family business. Far from speaking with a uniform voice, the Calderons often have had heated political disagreements within the family and been on opposite sides of controversial legislative fights.

You haven’t read about these differences because it’s a challenge to report. People who know the Calderons aren’t interested in being named on the record, especially amid an ongoing criminal investigation. Most news outlets have policies against heavily quoting unnamed sources. And so no one is telling the other side of the story, which is best summed up by one unnamed Capitol source.

“It’s always a pleasure to meet with Chuck or Ian,” one Sacramento source told me this week. “After I spend time with Ron or Tom, I feel like I need to take a shower.”

That’s reinforced by several other sources, who describe the stark contrasts among the Calderons. The first code of journailsm is “to seek truth and report it.” Sometimes, anonymous or unnamed sources are the only way to tell the whole story. Don’t take my word for it. Check out New York Magazine’s Kurt Andersen on “Why Journalism Needs Anonymous Sources.”

Why do journalists use anonymous sources?

Because people who are willing to tell reporters interesting things—that is, confidential or disturbing information or opinions—are usually disinclined to appear to be the candid plain talkers or snitches or whistle-blowers or gossips or backstabbers they are.

This piece was originally posted at JohnHrabe.com. 

However, the success of this budget hinges on the decisions of a very small number of overtaxed Californians, their continued presence in California and their success in the stock market.

According to the Franchise Tax Board, the highest one percent of income earners will pay more than $2 billion less in 2013 than 2012. That’s not surprising. A recent survey found 75 percent of affluent Californians are planning actions to reduce their tax liabilities—and a quarter are considering moving out-of-state.

It’s troubling that the volatile personal income tax accounts for 63 percent of budget revenue. Just one percent of California taxpayers now provide nearly half of all income tax payments the state receives.

You can’t tax your way to prosperity. To create true budget stability, California must attract jobs and investment to our state rather than drive them away.

     And out of touch BART GM Grace Crunican is not setting the stage very well for these critical union negotiations, where give backs should be on the agenda rather than pay increases at the financially crippled agency, whose salaries are already grossly bloated and whose underfunded pension liabilities are enormous.  When questioned about a payout of $330,000 last year for “vacation pay”, paid to her predecessor AFTER she retired, Crunican’s response was more Marie Antoinette than Donald Trump.  Paying out the three hundred thousand to such senior public employees “might be a nice reward” for their hard work, she said.  Might be?!!!!  These are taxpayer dollars, not Monopoly money!!!

     Other “front-line” worker salaries at BART are just ridiculous.  One of BART’s top-paid station agents, whose job is to simply sit in a fair booth watching fair gates for “jumpers” and answering patrons’ questions, was paid $167,784 last year in total salary, overtime and benefits. The top train operator received $193,407, and an employee responsible for controlling traffic in the train storage and maintenance yards received an eye-popping $271,458 (yet another employee paid more than the Supreme Justice of the United States by BART). Yet BART has the same fiscal problems as most other troubled agencies in the state, including unfunded liabilities for pension and health benefits. Rationality calls for managers to make better sense of employee pay by using comparable pay data, reducing overtime, and reforming pension and health care benefits in the next contract round, and not taking the reflexive liberal position of simply giving the unions everything they want and then just raising the tax burden yet again on the public.  That strategy will eventually bankrupt not only the taxpayers – but also the district, but it may be beyond the comprehension of the disconnected leadership at BART.