Update: After much debate, the assembly passes AB 8 out on a party line vote of 47-32.

One of my favorite arguments against was by Assemblywoman Audra Strickland. When speaking of a government run plan [the same government that has prison health care in receivership and Medi-cal in a shambles] promising higher quality, speedier access and lower costs she referred to a workplace poster that said. "Low Cost, Quality, Speed…Pick Any Two." Also, she compared to a Las Vegas buffet where you can pick from mediocre food, thechoices made by someone else for you, while the good stuff is elsewhere in short supply [rationing]

The effort by government to further takeover your health care choices rolls on. The Senate earlier passed the Don Perata bill, SB 48, 23-16, while we are currently debating the Assembly counterpart, AB 8 by The Speaker. Republicans are articulating our market, free choice proposals through floor amendments and reminders of our 18 bill package that were stopped in Committee on party line votes.… Read More

The California Federation of Republican Women, The California Young Republicans Inc. and the Young Republican Federation of California (YRFC) are opposing AB 16. Capitol Resource Institute, Concerned Women of American and Eagle Forum join them in asking legislators to vote no. AB 16 is a bill that requires all school children to be immunized based on the action of the unelected head of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Five years after they say so, California children must be immunized based on what they say. This bill started as simple lets force middle age schoolgirls to get vaccinated with a drug that has been on the market for only a year, but pushed by a big pharmaceutical company (Merck) kind of bill. The original sponsor pulled off after it was revealed how much Merck stock the family owned. (There is competing drug coming out, but Merck wants to force as many as they can before there is choice) Amendments … Read More

The California Term Limits Defense Fund, the committee formed by term limit advocates to oppose any possible ballot measures to weaken California’s existing term limits law, announced earlier in the week that they had hired veteran political organizer Bob Adney (pictured) as its Executive Director. Upon hearing the news, I reached out to Adney to welcome him to his new post, and see if we could have a little "on the record" chat about him and his new post. Here is a write up of our Q & A… FR: So Bob, welcome to California! Why don’t you take a moment and ‘introduce yourself’ to FlashReport readers, perhaps with some of your past political involvement, and maybe a little bit about you personally?

Adney: I started my involvement in politics while in High School. A teacher… Read More

The California Term Limits Defense Fund, the committee formed by term limit advocates to oppose any possible ballot measures to weaken California’s existing term limits law, announced earlier in the week that they had hired veteran political organizer Bob Adney (pictured) as its Executive Director. Upon hearing the news, I reached out to Adney to welcome him to his new post, and see if we could have a little "on the record" chat about him and his new post. Here is a write up of our Q & A… FR: So Bob, welcome to California! Why don’t you take a moment and ‘introduce yourself’ to FlashReport readers, perhaps with some of your past political involvement, and maybe a little bit about you personally? … Read More

Update: Evidently a handful of Members had their arms [or something] twisted to let this bill out late in the evening by a bare 41-38 majority.

AB 1634 by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, to make all dog and cat owners [with some exceptions] spay or neuter their own animal, is short of votes right now at 37 "aye", 34 "no", needing of course, 41 to get out. It will come back up for vote later but may well fail tonight. Maybe the 2 foot high stack of "oppose" letters in my office and, others presumably, had an effect on this Assembly membership. Don’t mess with people’s critters!… Read More

Tuesday night the Democrat Congresswoman Rep. Diana DeGette introduced HR 2560 and had a vote on it today. The bill’s language wasn’t even on the congressional web site until AFTER the vote on it. The big secret was that this bill would have pretended to ban human cloning, while allowing large scale human cloning in laboratories as long as the human male and female clones were kept alive for experimentation and then killed.

In 2001 and 2003, Comprehensive Bans on human cloning like those in 23 other countries like Canada, France and Germany were passed but not acted on by the Senate. Despite the secret vote the measure failed 204-213. 31 Democrats voted with Republicans against the fake ban. Only 14 Republicans voted Yes. Count Californians Bilbray, Bono and Lewis with Pelosi and the human cloners. See vote count here.… Read More

I just received this from State Senator Mark Wyland, with a request to post it ASAP. FR readers take heart in what he said, and act on it! ‘m posting from my PDA, so pardon the formatting…

“The United States Senate is considering legislation that would weaken our federal immigration system. California has borne the brunt of illegal immigration, along with its enormous costs. There are estimates as high as $10 billion annually for education, health care, and corrections costs for illegal residents of our state.

The bill would have such profound and disturbing effects on California and the nation that all efforts must be made to stop it. It cannot be “fixed” with any conceivable amendment. I suggest that the FlashReport and other like-minded websites – along with talk radio shows –post the major problems/provisions each day on their websites along with the contact information for U.S. Senators. Strategies to stop this bill and gain real border enforcement should be discussed each day. Most readers of the FlashReport know the problems with this bill and illegal immigration, but a short refresher is listed below.… Read More

Circa during the Reagan Administration, there was an understanding amongtrue conservative leaders and themovement in generalto support privatization of public services whenever possible. The idea was to let the private sector compete with public employee unions, who had a total lock on the labor market for public services.

But as a result of the "Reagan Revolution," thinking started to change. For example, companies such as Corrections Corporation of America sprung up to provide "brick and mortar" correctional services across America, for prison services. These private companies could contract with local government to accomplish the goals of local governmentwithout the taxpayers having to encumber themselves with pension liabilities or union issues by hiring "contract" personnel. And these "contract" providers could save the taxpayers a whole lot of money!

In fact, some localities, including the City of Laguna Niguel, which incorporated in the wake of the Reagan Administration, were leaders in the privatization movement, and gleefully availed themselves of "contract" city staff, to avoid large… Read More