This morning the Democrats implemented their budget drill — and I am happy to report that all of the Republicans in the State Capitol, whether in the Senate or the Assembly, voted against it (well, with what we call the "Maldonado Exception" — which means he doesn’t play well in the sandbox with fellow Republicans so he was on the Senate Floor, but abstained. The held the bill "open" so I suppose he can drop in a vote later. Unfortunately we don’t have an FR psychiatrist to help us understand the inner-workings of that guy).

Senate President Darrell Steinberg has challenged Republicans, saying that we don’t have a plan. To this, I would say, as I have said before, let’s put Governor Schwarzenegger’s proposed fixes up for a vote. Of course there are some items in there that I don’t like — but on balance, it is vastly better than what the Democrats put forward today. Put up Arnold’s proposal, and let’s have a vote!… Read More

You just can’t make this stuff up. Another one bites the dust. … Read More

I am looking to create a FlashReport/Twitter users list, specifically because we’re in the process of doing some exciting new programming integrating Twitter into the FlashReport, and I want to get input and advice from Twittering Politicos. If you are interested in helping out (not much time involved – mainly contributing ideas and such) — just drop me an email here. We’ll probably cut off the group fairly quickly since I don’t need thousands of helpers, maybe a dozen or two.… Read More

It has been some time since we here at the FlashReport have bestowed the infamous “Golden Trashcan” award. As long time readers know, it takes a particularly onerous piece of legislation, or in this case a regulation, to “get the can” – but the dubious honor goes to the California Energy Commission’s (CEC) proposal to ban big screen televisions.

If you are like me, you may have heard a rumor about this, and dismissed it as being nonsensical. That’s what I did after I read a brief item written about this by Orange County Register editorial writer Steven Greenhut back in March. In his posting, Greenhut cited a statistic that under the proposal, as many as 25% of big screen televisions today would no longer… Read More

The session has ended. The vote on the Democratic budget failed to get a 2/3rds vote. The vote was 48-29. Of course today was political theater. The Governor had promised to veto the bills. For those interested, Democrat turned Independent Juan Arambuladid not vote.… Read More

Today legislative Democrats will apparently bring forward their budget amendment plans in a series of votes today. Republican legislators should prepare to vote no – no, no, no, no…

Here are a few key reasons why this plan, being put forward by Democrats, should be rejected in its entirety.

No Transparency Or Notice: No one is really sure what is actually being voted on today. In principle, GOPers (and frankly, Democrats, too) should reject any legislative proposals being put up for a vote that have not been in print for 72 hours and all of the legislators have had time to read the actual language, and get input from whatever sources they deem helpful. See the note from Assemblyman Kevin Jeffries below, on this particular topic. Billions In New Taxes: Despite numerous and repeated statements from Senate President Darrell Steinberg and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass that the rejection of 1A would lead to an “all cuts” process of squaring the state’s finances, that is not what we have … Read More

At a time that common-sense legislators and a philosophy of full accountability are calling for opening up the budget process to the eyes of the public, the powers that be still can’t even find a way to open it up to those being asked to vote.

If you haven’t read Assemblyman Kevin Jeffries’ press release about the lack of openness, it pretty much provides a dose of reality on the subject (see Jon’s commentary this morning, four posts below, for the Jeffries release).

An update from Jeffries’ office this morning:

"Assembly just got the information on the 2009-10 State Budget at 10:25 am; almost an hour and a half after floor session started."

It would be comical, if it weren’t so typically status-quo.… Read More

It has been some time since we here at the FlashReport have bestowed the infamous “Golden Trashcan” award. As long time readers know, it takes a particularly onerous piece of legislation, or in this case a regulation, to “get the can” – but the dubious honor goes to the California Energy Commission’s (CEC) proposal to ban big screen televisions.

If you are like me, you may have heard a rumor about this, and dismissed it as being nonsensical. That’s what I did after I read a brief item written about this by Orange County Register editorial writer Steven Greenhut back in March. In his posting, Greenhut cited a statistic that under the proposal, as many as 25% of big screen televisions today would no longer… Read More