Those incredibly long lines at California DMVs look more like the release of the iPhone X or ticket sales for Beyonce and JayZ. But they are not. People are stuck in long DMV lines just to renew and update their drivers licenses.

Yet the notorious California Department of Motor Vehicles is about to be rewarded for its ineptitude and failures by the California Legislature with an unlimited budget.

News outlets throughout the state have written about 4, 6, and even 8+ hour waits since the January implementation of the DMV’s Real ID program

Republican Gubernatorial candidate John Cox has been traveling around the state visiting DMVs handing out bottled water and… Read More

California State lawmakers and bureaucrats are appearing more and more like members of the Stalinist-era political elite in Eastern Europe, which enjoyed a gratuitous level of luxury, power and privilege. Our lawmakers certainly are, as they snub requests for any government accountability.

Despite complaints across the state about outrageous wait times at California’s Department of Motor Vehicles offices, state lawmakers “sided with the Brown administration Wednesday and refused to order an official audit into its management,” the VC Star… Read More

If you recently purchased a car from a private party, you may have paid too much tax to the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

I’ve been hearing complaints from constituents that DMV charged them a higher city tax rate when they don’t actually live within city boundaries.

These constituents were forced to jump through hoops to prove they didn’t owe the higher tax. As their elected representative, I was happy to assist them in obtaining refunds, but DMV should have never overcharged them in the first place.

What’s worse is that these overcharges are not isolated incidents, but rather a systemic problem resulting from DMV’s bizarre reliance on zip codes to determine tax rates.

Sales and use tax rates vary widely across California and change over time. In addition to the statewide sales and use tax rate of 7.5 percent, many cities and counties add voter-approved local taxes. The result is some cities have sales tax rates as high as 10%.

Unlike typical retail transactions, the tax rate for a vehicle sale is based on the address provided to the DMV by the registered owner, not where the sale took place. If you buy your car at a… Read More

SACRAMENTO — Driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants is back on the table and making its way through the Capitol once again. But this latest bill asserts a licensed driver is a safer driver, based on a new California Department of Motor Vehicles study.

The study, “Fatal Crash Rates for Suspended/Revoked and Unlicensed Drivers,” found that, compared to licensed drivers, suspended or revoked and unlicensed drivers are nearly three times more likely to cause a fatal crash.

Supporters of issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants have jumped… Read More

In response to Jon Fleischman’s August 23rd column entitled “AB 1215 – Mandating That a Fee Cannot Be Called a Fee – Seriously”, I would like to offer a different opinion. Although I’m a four-term Congressman, in a prior life I owned and operated a number of new car dealerships in California and am very familiar with California’s “price control” on the amount a dealer can charge to perform a host of work required by the state.

AB 1215, a bill currently before the California Legislature, would for the first time in 5 years raise the statutory cap the Legislature imposes on private dealer businesses to perform state-mandated title and registration paperwork, in addition to a plethora of other state-mandated requirements (for example, providing consumers “free” credit scores, other credit disclosures, tire chain notices, license bracket notices, etc.). Even with the increase, California would still have the second lowest cap in the country – most states have no cap at all. California imposes no such… Read More