This morning Senate and Assembly Republicans held a news conference at the State Capitol to announce a formal proposal to institute state government spending limits.

An overview of the elements of their proposal: Establishes A Spending Limit Enacts a strict spending limit that restricts spending growth each year to the combined percentage change in the state’s population growth and inflation, currently averaging about 5 percent.

Establishes a prudent Reserve Fund

Creates a Special Reserve Account that may only be spent when revenue falls below the spending limits for a given year, subject to a two-thirds vote. The maximum amount that can be accumulated in the new Special Reserve Account may not … Read More

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, taking a much needed rest from running California into a $15 billion dollar deficit, weighed in on the oil/gas price crisis by emphatically stating his opposition to offshore oil drilling. The Governor, steadfastly refusing to believe that increased supplies of a commodity results in lower prices for that commodity, proclaimed his knowledge superior to that of 5,000 years recorded history, in which, in every instance, increased supply of a commodity has resulted in lower prices!

No wonder California is in such great shape!

Update: 11:05 pm – I just saw Arnold on TV explaining his position on drilling. I want to report that he is even more incoherent on his position on this issue than on the State budget.… Read More

Bonnie Lowenthal, the 54th AD Democratic nominee and Long Beach City Council Member has plan for health care. It is pretty simple. Make the taxpayers pay. This time it was the taxpayers in Long Beach that appeared to have paid.

Poor Bonnie Lowenthal went to a John Kerry event at the airport in 2004. Like Gerald Ford, She slipped and fell. She apparently hurt herself and instead of being made fun of by Chevy Chase she filed a claim against the City of Long Beach.

See in Long Beach appearing at a campaign event is somehow considered related to her work as a council member. Again, partisan political events were part of her “work”. As a result, she got lifetime medical for the injury and 10K. Not too shabby.

Obviously, Lowenthal was hurt. But why not file a claim against the Kerry Campaign? Or the plane manufacturer for building an aircraft with slippery steps? Or someone other than the taxpayers of Long Beach? Did she have medical insurance at the time? Questions will need to be answered before November.

Also posted on Red County… Read More

It’s easy for political pundits and campaign operatives to Wednesday morning quarterback a campaign’s effort. More often than not, this evaluation process means unfair praise for the winners and excessive blame for the losers. That’s why I wanted to take a moment- to recognize the stand-out campaign manager of the cycle. The best campaign manager doesn’t mean the best campaign. It doesn’t even mean that you won the race. The best campaign manager means the person who best executed the X’s and O’s of a ground campaign. The 2008 Primary’s Campaign Manager of the Cycle is Barrett Tetlow. Barrett is an experienced campaign operative, who arguably managed the primary’s best ground effort. The Larry Dick campaign was always walking precincts and calling voters. They walked every house several times over in an “unwalkable” district and chased them with a phone call. … Read More

From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail… OUCH.

No Message, But Please Accept this Toy

My sources at the Republican National Committee say they are stunned by the dropoff in contributions this election cycle, but a big part of the problem is an absence of an agenda. It’s getting harder and harder to finish this sentence: "Vote for Republicans in November because…" The Republican campaign committees are getting more angry mail than checks as a result of failing to stop earmarked spending and the GOP’s recent failure to support President Bush’s veto of the inexcusable $300 billion farm bill.

So instead of a message this fall, the GOP is trying to promote donations with a new stuffed… Read More

[Meredith’s post below this one reminded me that I had intended to write on this earlier. I guess it’s "pile on Jack Scott" day…] About a month ago, State Senator Jack Scott was "hired" to be the new Chancellor of the California Community College System, said employment to begin at the end of the year. Shortly after his appointment to this post was announced, Scott tendered his resignation as Chairman of the Budget Subcommittee on Education (The Bee’s Capitol Alert carried it here – registration req’d).

At the time, Scott’s spokesperson said that the Senator, "didn’t want any possible appearance of a conflict of interest."

I guess its time to ask the obvious question — if Scott resigned from a budget subcommittee because a conflict of interest (I can’t think of a bigger one than having accepted a job at the end of your term from a public agency that is heavily… Read More

Just when you think nanny government can’t get any more intrusive, Senator Jack Scott introduces an asinine bill like SB 1499. This ridiculous bill will make it a crime to sell metallic balloons in California. A staple of parties and celebrations, the balloons are apparently the cause of periodic power outages when they get loose and become entangled in electrical wires. So to prevent such inconveniences, Senator Scott wants to ban the balloons in California.

Los Angeles radio talk show hosts John and Ken are some of the most vocal opponents against nanny government bills and, as you can imagine, they are vehemently opposed to SB 1499. To express their disgust for SB 1499, they decided to use an effective tactic that Rush Limbaugh calls “showing absurdity by being absurd.” Instead of utilizing the old political protest tactic of “burning in effigy,” the radio hosts sponsored a Jack Scott “stomping in effigy” last week.

… Read More

I came home for the weekend to find the price of premium gas approaching $5 per gallon. It is about 40 cents higher than in the DC area. Not only is the price of gas unlikely to stop there, but other energy prices are rising too. The price of natural gas has risen dramatically in the last few months. Natural gas provides almost all of our home heating in California as well as about 50% of our electricity generation. Remember the spikes in electricity prices back during the energy crisis of 2001? Well, there won’t be that big a jump this time, but there will be a jump in your electric bill and your heating bill soon. So it’s not just the price of gasoline which will be impacting your wallet.

So what is happening in Washington to try to deal with this new energy crisis? Nothing. House Democratic leadership has blocked a number of Republican sponsored bills from consideration on the floor, and the only bill they are pushing is a "windfall profits" tax increase on domestic oil production which they know is going nowhere in the Senate or with the president (and which would increase the price of gas rather than decrease it anyway). So there is literally… Read More