As predicted, the fight over Proposition 8 and same-sex marriage drags on. This morning media reported former Solicitor General Ted Olson has filed a federal lawsuit challenging Proposition 8. ABC’s White House Correspondent Jake Tapper blogs about the lawsuit here. It’s interesting that two former legal adversaries have found unity on such a divisive issue: Olson is joined by David Boies, his opponent in the historic Bush v. Gore case.

The two lawyers contend that the Supreme Court’s upholding of Proposition 8 violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection and due process clauses. Read the complaint here. The suit requests an immediate injunction so that Proposition 8 cannot be enforced. My latest Townhall.com article examines the Proposition 8 case and how this issue will be making headlines for years to come.… Read More

The Legislature is often accused – and rightfully so – of misplacing priorities. One example of this is Assembly Bill 1366, authored by Assemblyman Mike Feuer, of West Hollywood, which involves banning water softeners.

Specifically, the measure authorizes local water boards to seize water softeners from private residential homes to supposedly solve the problem of water salinity in rivers and streams. This bill is being pushed through the Legislature – despite the fact that a recent water softener ban in Santa Clarita did not do enough to solve the water salinity of the Santa Clara River. The policy did not work at the local level; one can only guess why Mr. Feuer believes it would work on a statewide level.

But here’s the kicker: while the Legislature wants to ban the use of water softeners by law-abiding civilians, the state is currently purchasing large quantities of softeners for the criminally insane! The state has recently purchased large quantities of water softeners for prisons, even as the water board pushed to ban civilians from using these softeners. The State of California is placing the water needs of murderers and rapists over everyday… Read More

SB 676 (Wolk) is scheduled to be heard on the Senate Floor in the next few days. It is a minor bill that is sponsored by the County of Yolo and one that should earn support of people concerned with transfers of wealth and those that value local control.

Yolo County studied how much it cost to provide some of these services where the fee we could charge was controlled by state law. Some of these fees had not been adjusted for more than 20 years despite the increased cost of providing the service. This bill that was introduced by Senator Wolk addresses some of the issues that were discovered in that study.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say that Publisher Jon decides to play in a local soccer league run by the City of Irvine. Good for Jon, bad for his teammates, and maybe good for Irvine. Does anyone think that the general fund and all the taxpayers in Irvine should subsidize Jon’s soccer? I certainly don’t. I want Jon to pay exactly his share of costs for Irvine to run the soccer league. No more. No less.

So why… Read More

This in from longtime FR friend Andrew Pugno, who serves as the Chief Legal Counsel for the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign…

Yesterday – less than three months after Kenneth W. Starr and I appeared in the California Supreme Court on behalf of our ProtectMarriage.com Campaign to defend Prop 8 – the Court finally issued its decision… all 185 pages of it!

By a 6 to 1 vote, a nearly-unanimous majority of the Supreme Court upheld the vote of the people by which Prop 8 was passed into law to protect traditional marriage in our State Constitution. You can read the decision here… Read More

This in from longtime FR friend Andrew Pugno, who serves as the Chief Legal Counsel for the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign…

Yesterday – less than three months after Kenneth W. Starr and I appeared in the California Supreme Court on behalf of our ProtectMarriage.com Campaign to defend Prop 8 – the Court finally issued its decision… all 185 pages of it! By a 6 to 1 vote, a nearly-unanimous majority of the Supreme Court upheld the vote of the people by which Prop 8 was passed into law to protect traditional marriage in our State Constitution. You can read the decision … Read More

And the next person arrested in San Bernardino County politics is… Click here.… Read More

Sacramento Democrats, desperate to avoid the kind of reduction in the size and scope of state government in California that are needed to balance the state’s books, are unbelievably still pursuing tax increases as a "solution" to chronic overspending, and a tax code that is predictably volatile as it disproportionately taxes the income of California’s wealthiest citizens.

In yesterday’s Los Angeles Times there is a story about how Democrats are supportive of a $1.50 per pack increase in cigarettes which, according to their analysis, would result in a $1.2 billion increase in tobacco tax revenues to the state’s general fund.

This is a stupid idea. As we have pointed out many times, Californians are among the most overtaxed people in the entire country, and the last thing we need is higher taxes, frankly, on anything. Never mind the fact that this takes us back down the path of the "sin tax" where all-knowing politicians in Sacramento hoist taxes on activities that they decide are "bad" for our collective community. Ironically, of course, taxes like these… Read More

The California Supreme Court has ruled 6-1 that Proposition 8 was a valid amendment, rather than revision, to the state constitution. However, in a concession to Proposition 8 opponents, the 18,000 same-sex marriages that occurred last summer will remain "legal.” The web site for the opinion has been so overwhelmed that even thirty minutes after its release, many are still unable to read the opinion. This is certainly a victory for the democratic process here in California. More analysis from FR will follow… … Read More