Like so many others involved in California politics, I was stunned to learn of the passing of David Howard, the political director for the California Association of Realtors. Apparently just a few weeks before his passing, David learned that he had Lung Cancer. He was 64 years old.

David was a great person, and someone who was totally passionate about politics. I first met David many, many years ago at a California Chamber of Commerce retreat, and we got to talking about the political landscape for that particular year’s upcoming elections. In no time at all, we found ourselves “in the weeds” as it were, really getting into the nitty… Read More

As the author of the legislation establishing California’s AMBER Alert program, I joined CHP Assistant Chief Mark Brunet and others today at an event marking its ten year anniversary.

As I noted at the event, the AMBER Alert is government at its best. It protects Californians, which is the first priority of government, and it does so efficiently and effectively.

According to the CHP, this life-saving program has led to the safe recovery of 234 children since it was first implemented statewide in July 2002. In addition to the hundreds of children safely recovered, the AMBER Alert program has also led to the capture of abductors before they could commit further crimes.

I was able to personally see the benefits of the system almost as soon as it came online; the very first AMBER Alert issued happened to be in the area near my home in the Antelope Valley area. In that instance, two young ladies were successfully rescued after a Cal-Trans worker recognized the vehicle described in the alert.

The State of California needed a mechanism in place to assist in recovering our children safe and sound. I’m pleased to have been instrumental in the success… Read More

The Ultimate Takedown of Obama’s ‘You Didn’t Build That’ Speech Below is an odd post that quite impressed me — a comprehensive takedown of Obama’s “you didn’t build that” speech. All of my allies know that Obama is oh SO wrong, but dissecting his populist argument for others to understand doesn’t come easy.

What is odd about this solid refutation is that it’s an anonymous piece. But the lack of authorship ID should not diminish the value of the message. This piece deserves dissemination.

Business owners throughout the nation (and many others) have to be angry about Obama’s disdain for entrepreneurship. But the Obama speech was not some flippant, off-the-cuff rant. It is a carefully crafted commentary, intended to draw the Occupy sympathizers and shallow thinkers (overlapping groups whose “members” are FAR more numerous than just the Occupy movement itself) to his banner while somehow shaming business owners.

Surely the crafters of such policy have done the “focus group” analysis and found that, on average, it’s a winning strategy. After all,… Read More

Since the FlashReport is a website devoted to California politics, it is not as frequent that I write about political races in other states. But there is a Republican Congressional primary taking place in Central Florida that is so important that is worth my time to write about it, and for you to take a few minutes to read about it. But before I delve into that race, let me start with a brief introduction.

It is important to remember that conservatives in America are in the middle of two great battles, both of which must be won if we are to achieve our goals of a truly limited role for the federal government, and restoring greater freedom and liberty back to the people of this great nation. The first battle, the more obvious one, is against liberal Democrats. This manifests itself in the candidacy of Mitt Romney against Barack Obama, and also in a cluster of U.S. Senate seats that are competitive in November, in which Republicans must win enough seats to take a majority in the upper chamber. Of course we need to maintain a Republican majority in the House.

We are reminded, however, that simply running a Republican “trifecta” of the Presidency, and… Read More

Sometimes the 140 character limit of a tweet on Twitter forces one to be remarkably concise. Such was the case last evening around 8 p.m. when longtime Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters had this to say…

Cap politicians give Cal tax hike foes two talking pts in one day–bullet train and pay raises for Assembly staffers. Must be a death wish.

— Daniel R. Walters (@WaltersBee) July 19, 2012

Because I am not limited to seven score of digits in this blog post, I can elaborate a bit on what Walters meant by this tweet. When he mentions the bullet train, he is referring specifically to the fact that yesterday Governor Brown traveled to both Los Angeles and to San Francisco to hold press conferences where he signed the legislation to authorize the spending of multiple billions of dollars on the first leg of what might someday be high speed rail, in the Central Valley.… Read More

Earlier this year, Governor Jerry Brown introduced the Timber Hard Plan Reform package as part a budget trailer bill. Gov. Brown’s Democratic Administration says that these reforms will support the struggling California timber industry, in part by creating a lumber retail sales tax. This tax would shift the financial burden of funding state regulatory agencies from timber companies to the consumer. Consumers would be forced to pay this tax whenever lumber is purchased at a local hardware store.

No matter how they try and spin it, this proposal is to increase taxes on hard-working Californians who are struggling to emerge from the recession. Taxing consumers because the state over regulates the lumber industry just doesn’t make sense to me.

Democrats can describe this Lumber Retail Sales Tax as something aimed at supporting our local timber industry, but it is still a tax – and this would be a new tax. It would be wiser to examine the extreme amount of regulations placed on the California timber industry, which is far more regulated than other states in the region. Improving the efficiency of the Department of Fish and Game, Department of… Read More

*NOTE: SPECIAL SURVEY EDITION. This week’s edition includes an interactive survey. After you finish reading, please make sure to assess my plan and tell me what you think!

Taxes: Taxes are always a big issue in politics and public policy. However, right now there is a crescendo of agreement building in Washington that it’s time to make some fundamental change to our tax system.

The debate in Washington of late has been confined to the so-called Bush tax cuts, all of which are scheduled to expire at the end of this year. Essentially, should we extend all of them, none of them, or some of them? The erudite readers of these missives (that’s you) have heard all of this before and know the arguments for and against the extension and all about taxing the “rich” and such. So, I won’t repeat them here. Economists are unified in their predictions of recession if we are allowed to go over the “fiscal cliff” on December 31 and allow all of the tax cuts to expire and the sequestered spending cuts… Read More

Reed Royalty, who founded the Orange County Taxpayers Association (OCTax) in 1986 and has served as its only president since, announced his retirement at the organization’s second annual “Roses, Radishes and the Royalty Awards” dinner last week at The Island Hotel in Newport Beach.

In his remarks, Reed cited some of OCTax’s milestones. He said, OCTax’s “first defining success” was the original Measure M campaign for transportation in 1990, which he chaired. He said “Measure M literally enabled Orange County’s future. Can you imagine living here without Measure M’s improvements to our freeways and streets?”

Reed said Measure M was the birthday of OCTax’s “perfect” Mission Statement: “taxes should be fair, understandable, cost-effective and good for the economy.” He said, “If a tax meets those criteria, it’s a good tax; if it doesn’t, it’s not.” He told his audience, “You don’t leave this room tonight until you can recite those four principles.”

There are too many instances to recount where Reed has weighed in for taxpayers over the years, some with a high profile, other times when the spotlight was somewhere… Read More