In a move that will be wildly popular on the heels of the Prop 1F passage, the California Citizens CompensationCommittee will reduce salaries by 18%, reducing the legislators grosssalary from $116,208 to $95,291. Under Prop112 passed by voters in 1990, the Committee sets salaries of legislators and higher offices. [Prop 140 later eliminated retirement benefits for legislators as well as installing term limits] Under the rules the cuts cannot take effect until Dec 2010. Prop 6, passed in 1972, prohibits reduction of pay during a legislators currentterm. Incoming and re-elected Senators and Assembly representatives will see that cut then.

The new lower salary will actually be less than the salary was back in 2004, when it was $99,000. The Committee then saw fit to hike it 3 times in 2 years as I recall to about $111,000, then $113,000 and finally the current $116,208 figure [leadership gets a higher salary] Taxpayers Ihappened to talk to aboutthis today laughed when I told ’em of this news. "Pay for performance" one told me. As a whole, yep!… Read More

Over the next two days, we will be presenting to FlashReport readers our “Winners & Losers of the May 19 Special Election” feature… Today we will be presenting the winners – those people or groups who, from our perspective, increased their stature, standing and reputation as a result of the outcome of yesterday’s vote. Let me say that you will not find on the list below any of the labor groups (and there were some) who opposed Proposition 1A. Our position is that, given the ineffectiveness of the alleged “spending cap” in 1A, these groups have actually done themselves harm – though we are okay with that. So, without further commentary, and in no particular order, our Winners… FR’S… Read More

Yesterday, the voters sent a strong message to the California Governor and Legislature – enough is enough! Taxpayers have done their part and will continue to pay their fairshare of taxes to the California treasury.After all, California taxpayers pay some of the highest taxesin the nation. Now it’s the time for politicians to give taxpayers something in return: Like topnotch, efficient services and the best value for their tax dollars. We must stop wasteful spending, end programs that don’t work and adjust spending to the revenue stream – that’s what hard working Californians do in their household and business budgets and that’s how their state government should operate.

Taxpayers are willing to pay for education, but they don’t want to pay for increased spending in public school, whichhas ballooned more than $11 billion in the last six years despitea declined enrollment of75,000 students. Especiallywhen test scores and drop-out rates have remained stagnant and these problems continue to go unaddressed.

Californians want improved infrastructure, but they are sick and tired of paying for the construction of… Read More

What happened yesterday was a good thing. For too long, Sacramento has acted with contempt for the will of the voters, forgetting that the one-fortieth or one-eightieth of the state the Democrat legislator represents, after having been elected by less that 30% of the voters in that district (usually in the party primary) is not a mandate to expand government. Voters hit the limit, and said so in resounding tones.

But this is no time for those of us who believe in small government to gloat. We have not yet made our case that more government spending does not make for better government. We do not have the money that the government unions have. They are going to spend that money over the next six weeks to beat back any proposed cuts that are sure to come, and we dont have the resources to counter their propaganda. The war is not over for them. It never is. We have won nothing yet.

I have been through election wins that were squandered when we fell asleep. This is the time to wake up. We have awoken the electorate. They are ready to hear our message. We need to double down now. We need to step up our actions and activities. We need to get… Read More

I wrote this column for The Fox Forum on why Props. 1A through 1E went down to ignominious defeat:

California voters have overwhelmingly rejected the 5 “budget reform” propositions cobbled together by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Democratic legislature, rejecting them by 30-point margins. Even in leftist bastion of San Francisco, these tax-and-borrow initiatives are going down.

The focus of voter ire was Proposition 1A, a soft-spending cap that also extended a massive, two-year tax hike for an additional two years. The tax extension was a partly successful bid to buy public employee union support.

The “Yes” and 1A-1E campaign possessed all the conventional advantages of winning a statewide initiative campaign: favorable ballot descriptions written by the legislature rather than, as is customary, by the Secretary of State; the support of nearly the entire ruling class from the governor… Read More

Over the next two days, we will be presenting to FlashReport readers our “Winners & Losers of the May 19 Special Election” feature… Today we will be presenting the winners – those people or groups who, from our perspective, increased their stature, standing and reputation as a result of the outcome of yesterday’s vote. Let me say that you will not find on the list below any of the labor groups (and there were some) who opposed Proposition 1A. Our position is that, given the ineffectiveness of the alleged “spending cap” in 1A, these groups have actually done themselves harm – though we are okay with that.

So, without further commentary, and in no particular order, our Winners…

FR’S WINNERS OF THE MAY 19 SPECIAL ELECTION

**There… Read More

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

Voters to California Pols: Drop Dead

… Read More

Get a "sneak peak" — in full color — by opening the attachment below!… Read More