One aspect of the Democrats’ most recent budget proposal that hasn’t gotten much attention is that they seem to be on the exact same page as Governor Schwarzenegger and Republicans when it comes to pension reform. Look at what Kevin Yamamura wrote yesterday on the Sacramento Bee’s website:

“ … in order to make their new budget balance, Democrats are counting on $822 million in savings that depend upon 15 bargaining units negotiating the same type of tentative agreements that six other units have reached with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration. The savings is located on page 9 of Assembly Speaker John A. Perez’s budget outline. “If that were to occur, the remaining 15 bargaining units would agree to increase employee contributions to pensions and take one unpaid leave day each… Read More

Both houses have passed the bills to delay Prop 18 til 2012. After a fairly easy Senate vote for the delay bill, the Assembly fought it for a while and passed it out this evening, eventually gaining the 2/3 votes needed. Interestingly, the arguments for and against delaying ranged from "don’t delay it so we can kill an unpopular,bad bond sooner than maybe squeak it through later" to "we must save this important measure from a certain loss now in 2010 under these dire economic timesby delaying it for the voters to decide in 2012" At any rate, it’s now a 2012 question once the Guv signs the bill.… Read More

The Prop 18 Water Bond, seen as not ready for November prime time, looks like it will receive hearings and votes today on the subject of removing it from the 2010 ballot and delayed to 2012. The Senate Resources and WaterCommittee is the first stop for the 2 bills today. Assembly is in recess waiting on the Senate actions, whilst the Senate caucuses.… Read More

New Primary Dates The RNC Summer meeting adopted proposed new significant rules that will change the way we select delegates in the 2012 RNC presidential convention.

The Republican primary season was effectively over when John McCain defeated Mitt Romney in Florida on January 29, 2008. Rudy Giuliani then endorsed McCain effectively ending the primary cycle.

Members of the RNC are concerned as more states force earlier primaries we are facing a National Primary. A National Primary would concentrate the nomination process to major urban areas, campaigning would be only via national TV and end the vetting candidates through state by state retail politics would end.

The rules change is a modest proposal. Three components are:

Last week I penned a column where I was extremely critical of a decision by a jury up in tiny Humboldt County to hammer Skilled Healthcare, which owns and operates nursing homes, with the largest monetary verdict in America this year – the better part of a billion dollars. I’m back writing about this case again because, based on information that has been shared with me, it looks like Skilled Healthcare, and the integrity of our judicial system, may have been the victims of jury tampering and a dishonest juror. If the judge in the case agrees, it will lead to him setting aside this stunningly large and egregious verdict, and requiring an entirely new trial.

Let me first ‘set the table’ a bit… The reason why this particular court case involving Skilled Healthcare, which is a large nursing home owner and administrator here in California, caught my eye in the first place was that the company was hit with a staggering $671 jury verdict – what I call an ‘extinction event’ for Skilled since they… Read More

A myriad of opinions on the City of San Diego sales tax increase… In economic hard times, the measure will appear on the November ballot, because the city is alsohaving a hard time and needs those in pain to share some more:

U-T editorial: City Hall rolls the dice — Reform-and-tax plan headed for ballot is high-stakes gamble Voice of San Diego: What Caused San Diego’s Ballooning Pension Payment? by Vlad Kogan

SD Rostra: Our Own Microcosm of Freedom vs. Tyranny: The City Hall Machine vs. The Rest of Us SD Rostra: Top 10 Flaws in the San Diego Sales Tax Hike by Carl DeMaio

Read all of SD Rostra’s entries on the tax machinations… Read More

A just released California Fair Political Practices Commission report is now speculating on the need of that agency to regulate content of speech all across the internet, including Facebook accounts, Twitter, YouTube, and other networking sites. The logic behind this move is that the founding fathers of political regulation in California could not "have anticipated that these types of communicating a campaign message would ever exist." Big deal. I’m sure Ben Franklin never contemplated gay marriage as a fundamental constitutional right, either, and that didn’t take changing the constitution.

The regulatory posture of the FPPC is sadly going in a different direction than Federal court cases and one wonders where the dreamers-up of this type of stuff will go next. I, for one, think outlawing tweets that contain express advocacy for or against a candidate for public office has no rational basis or legitimate state interest. But don’t tell Judge Vaughn Walker that.… Read More

As I mentioned in an earlier post, lawyer Ted Olson, who mapped the legal strategy, got exactly what he aimed to get out of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Yesterday Judge Vaughn Walker issued an opinion declaring gay marriage to be a fundamental right under the U.S. Constitution. Many gay activists were skeptical of even filing such a lawsuit, fearful of the legal repercussions if the case was lost.

Analysis of Judge Walker’s decision is ongoing today, and I’ve offered mine. However, I want to offer a slightly different analysis here, because I think the probabilities are that the Proposition 8 decision had as much to do with "inside baseball" and relationships between people as it did with the facts and law.

Let’s examine what Ted Olson, the architect of the legal victory, and Judge Walker have in common: 1) the both were born in Illinois in the early 1940s; 2) they both went to law school in the San Francisco Bay Area (Walker, Stanford; Olson, Berkeley); 3) after law school they both went to work for major California law firms (Walker: Pillsbury,… Read More