A couple of weeks ago, I had a lengthy conversation with my friend Debra Saunders, a columnist over at the San Francisco Chronicle. We were talking about the fact that all of the Republicans in the State Legislature (save one) had just signed the Americans for Tax Reform no new taxes pledge.

Debra was making the case to me that she thought that it didn’t make a lot of sense to sign a pledge against ever raising taxes, using the argument that if you spend the money, you have to be able to pay for it — and that spending more than you have (deficit spending) was a worse alternative.

Debra made a point that the focus is always on not raising taxes, rather than on not increasing spending.

As Debra and I spoke, somehow we ended up talking about the fact that what is really needed in California is a "no new spending" pledge. This is so true.

Tomorrow there will be a lot of news coverage of a "deal" struck on prison reform, to deal with the massive prison overcrowding issue, and the looming specter of a federal judge doing who-knows-what if we don’t solve the problem.

Given that the starting-off point… Read More

As readers who saw Jon’s commentary yesterday know, Disney is circulating a ballot-box zoning initiative designed to prevent SunCal Companies from developing a condominium project within the Anaheim Resort District [full disclosure: I’m a member of the consulting team for SunCal’s project].

Disney has hired petition circulators to gather the 20,000 signatures necessary to place their initiative on the February 2008 ballot. During the last two weeks they’ve been posted at several shopping centers in Anaheim. On several occasion I drove around Anaheim visiting these shopping centers and getting pitched by these signature gatherers.

Interestingly, I never say Disney circulators at any of the several supermarkets, like Gigante, Northgate Markets or Jax Markets, that cater to Anaheim’s working-class Latinos. That can be explained, in part, by the sales pitch invariably used by the circulators to entice Anaheim residents to sign the petitions:… Read More

Yesterday the Democrats passed a bill out of the Assembly Human Services committee that would allow felons convicted of selling illegal drugs to get food stamps (AB 508, authored by Assemblyman Sandre Swanson).

A little background: Currently, federal law imposes a lifetime ban on food stamps and other welfare-related benefits for people with felony drug convictions. However, federal law allows states to opt out of this provision. In 1997, California declined to opt out when we passed our welfare reform package. According to the legislative analysis of AB 508, a 2005 report of the Sentencing Project reports that 11 states, plus the District of Columbia, have entirely opted out of the ban. An additional 14 states have partially opted out of the ban, either by limiting the ban to certain offenses (such as sale or trafficking) or establishing qualifying conditions which relate to participation in or completion of drug treatment programs. Governor Gray Davis vetoed several attempts to overturn the lifetime ban during his tenure. Three attempts were made to run bills that would have softened, but not have completely lifted, the ban. He vetoed… Read More

(A tongue-in-cheek post, with a serious thought at the end…) My State Senator, Repubican State Senator Tom Harman, recently held a little contest in his district where he asked for suggestions from local students on potential legislation. For the winner of the contest for the best bill idea, who happened to be a local high school student, Harman agreed to introduce their suggestion as legislation. I would like to encourage the Senator to have another contest. This one would be to ask bloggers in his district for our ideas for legislation. In anticipate of the Senator seeing the wisdom of this idea, I am going to get ahead of the game by laying out my proposed legislation right now! In the Sacramento area, there is a home being used for business purposes in a residential neighborhood. What’s happenning is that this that every room in this home has been rented a transient occupant — specifically, state legislators! For our… Read More

Last night, the Newport Beach City Council definately decided to place politics over principle in a decision to declare a 45 moratorium on the permitting if transient housing in the city. Aime

The Council voted unanimously (with Don Webb absent) to impose this rediculous restriction on property owners in their own city.

Courtesy of the City of Newport Beach website, you can contact these folks below.

Every once in a long while a tide shift occurs in government that shifts power. In the form of a vote on firefighter’s raises, such a tide shift happened in the City of San Diego Tuesday afternoon.

At stake was actually much more than a raise firefighter union leaders wanted. At stake was who is in charge: the public employee union leaderswho, with the labor funded city council of now-disgraced Mayor Dick Murphy, drove San Diego to the verge of bankruptcy OR Republican Mayor Sanders and the reformers.

The vote on labor’s desiredraises was 4 to 4, a deadlock which ment no action (who besides the City of San Diego would have an even number of councilmembers?). Then the Mayor’s proposal to instead simply fix the firefighter’s ailing healthcare plan passed 6 to 2.

For more insight into this glorious revolution see today’s www.redcountysandiego.com.… Read More

Next year, conservative icon Tom McClintock will reach the limit of his allowable service in the State Senate under the term limits approved by California voters in 1990. McClintock’s 19th State Senate District, which is centered in Ventura County, stretches from Santa Barbara down to Los Angeles County (and even includes the Channel Islands), is favorable to a Republican candidate. As just about every FR reader knows, former Assemblyman Tony Strickland (pictured to the left), fresh off of the statewide campaign trail in 2006 where he failed in his bid to become California’s next Controller, is now running an aggressive campaign to succeed McClintock. The Assembly District that Tony represented for six years is fully within the Senate seat, and is currently (and conveniently) occupied by his wife, Audra, who is in the middle of her second two-year term… Read More

Next year, conservative icon Tom McClintock will reach the limit of his allowable service in the State Senate under the term limits approved by California voters in 1990. McClintock’s 19th State Senate District, which is centered in Ventura County, stretches from Santa Barbara down to Los Angeles County (and even includes the Channel Islands), is favorable to a Republican candidate. As just about every FR reader knows, former Assemblyman Tony Strickland (pictured to the left), fresh off of the statewide campaign trail in 2006 where he failed in his bid to become California’s next Controller, is now running an aggressive campaign to succeed McClintock. The Assembly District that Tony represented for six years is fully within the Senate seat, and is currently (and conveniently) occupied by his wife, Audra, who is in the middle of her second two-year term… Read More