The Next Chapter For The California GOP

Two major recent events have changed the political landscape for the California Republican Party recently — the exit of Mike Villines and subsequent election of Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee to lead the Assembly Republicans as well as the recent failure of the Democrat ballot proposals in the May 19 election — which seems to have brought Arnold Schwarzenegger back to the side of fiscal reality. Optimism should be high in the California Republican Party as they prepare to take back seats in the 2010 election.

The Election of Sam Blakeslee as Assembly Republican Leader

Assemblyman Mike Villines — along with Senator Dave Cogdill — represented the Republicans in the closed-door negotiations to close the $42 billion budget gap that occurred last November. His negotiations led to the approval of sales tax increases, income tax increases, vehicle license fee increases and the end to the dependent child tax credit — ultimately amounting to $16 billion in additional taxes for California taxpayers. For a man who signed the No-Tax Pledge as a candidate for office, he didn’t just break his promise to the taxpayers, he obliterated it.

Dave Cogdill was immediately removed as the Senate Republican Leader, but while it appears some discussion of removing Villines occurred at the time (Chuck DeVore called for his removal, but instead resigned his post as Whip after the caucus failed to remove Villines) it took 3 months to finally get him to leave.

Republican Leader-Elect Blakeslee Announces Caucus Operations Team

Assembly Republican Leader-Elect Sam Blakeslee, of San Luis Obispo, today announced the members of his Caucus Operations team. This division of Blakeslee’s leadership team will be charged with improving coordination between Members and caucus resources to optimize the effectiveness of each member in their district.

“The success of our caucus will be measured by the extent to which we equip and empower our members,” said Blakeslee. “We’ve therefore expanded caucus operations to include four specially tasked members who will work together to ensure the effectiveness of our operation as a team.”

The Caucus Operations team includes:

Education Waste Is Easy To Find

By Senator George Runner

While there are many groups clamoring for a piece of the state’s budget pie, one of the most persistent is the education bloc. Indeed, districts, unions, and faculty associations are constantly decrying cuts to education. For all their crowing, the budget cuts to education pale in comparison to the massive increases in education spending over the past decade—increases that took place despite a large decrease in student enrollment. In fact, education funding has increased by $15 billion over the last decade even though there were 74,000 fewer students over that same period.

What is most astonishing is that test scores remain abysmally low, dropout rates—especially among low-income minority groups—are unacceptably high, and schools suffer from disrepair. Surely this is not due to a lack of resources, not given the fact that roughly half of the state’s budget is allocated to education. Policymakers (and taxpayers) should not be asking how much more to spend, but rather how our money is being spent.

One area open for potential savings involves giving administrators more flexibility in firing teachers. The current process for firing incompetent and ineffective teachers is so burdensome and biased in favor of teachers that administrators keep them on staff to avoid the high cost of firing them. At a time when districts are laying off teachers, cutting back on programs, and increasing class sizes, administrators cannot even fire those teachers who deserve to be.

The Post Election Reaction

By Jon Coupal, The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association

Last week, this column set forth the various messages that were sent to our political leaders via the stunning defeat of the budget “reform” package of Propositions 1A-1E. Despite stacking the deck and outspending opponents by at least 10 to 1, nearly two-thirds of voters rejected the proposals and the $16 billion in tax increases they would bring.

Among the messages sent by the voters is that the status quo is over. ‘No’ is going to be a new word in the lexicon of many of our elected leaders. They are going to have to shut off the spigot of taxpayer revenue for their powerful political constituencies that have controlled Sacramento for so long.

Also, voters were crystal clear in statement about their tax burden. Voters are not happy about carrying the highest tax burden in the nation so our public employees can continue to be the highest paid in all 50 states and so that special interest contributors get tax breaks. The post hoc rationalizations by various left of center pundits about how this was not a vote about taxes range from weak to silly.

Another message — one that has been sent by voters before — is that deception in politics can be fatal, as well as immoral. The worst thing our elected officials can do is try to fool the voters. Here, the notion that Prop 1A had nothing to do with tax increases (the Governor’s early position) didn’t even pass the laugh test. The effort by the legislature to present a deceptive ballot title, ballot label, ballot summary — as well as cherry-picking the arguments “against” — was despicable. And it backfired.

Ashburn Introduces Legislation To Make The UC Accountable

Senator Roy Ashburn

Senator Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield) released a statement yesterday on Senate Constitutional Amendment 21, an amendment he joint-authored with Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo) to rein in the continuing abuse of power displayed by the University of California’s governing body. The following is his statement:

The people of California are sick and tired of how Sacramento spends their tax dollars. There can be no better evidence of this than the results of the recent special elections. The voters want us to do our job by stopping wasteful expenditures as blatantly demonstrated by the UC Board of Regents. SCA 21 will force the UC Regents to open up their books and justify how they spend every tax dollar by removing their autonomy and making them subject to the rule of law.

California Supreme Court Proposition 8 Opinion

Today the California Supreme Court issued an opinion on the constitutionality of Proposition 8 — which prevents same sex couples from marrying in the state.  In a 6-1 decision they chose to uphold Proposition 8 and in a 7-0 decision chose to protect the same sex marriages performed while it was legal in the state.

Read the California Supreme Court’s Opinion Here

Source: The California Supreme Court Website

Prop 8: California Supreme Court Says Constitution is… Constitutional

By Ron Nehring, Chairman of the California Republican Party

In a sign that there is some sanity left in this world, the California Supreme Court ruled 6-1 today that the state Constitution is constitutional. Meaning, the constitutional amendment called Proposition 8, defining marriage in California as the union of a man and a woman, was properly adopted.

The legal challenge Prop 8 was a stretch to begin with, as proven by the fact that the same court that previously struck down the legislative version of Prop 8 (called Prop 22) upheld the constitutional amendment version.

The legal challenge did serve, however, to smoke out where Jerry Brown stands on the issue, as he failed in his duty as Attorney General to defend the will of the people in this matter. That’s fine — Prop 8 is upheld and Brown has been exposed for the out of touch liberal he is, thumbing his nose again at the will of Californians to maintain marriage as the union of one man and one woman. That’s a win-win.

Read the California Supreme Court Proposition 8 Opinion Here (pdf)

Gay Marriage Law Should Embrace A Live And Let Live Mentality

The California State Supreme Court will release it’s opinion this Tuesday on the constitutionality of Proposition 8 — the ballot initiative approved by voters last November that defined marriage as between a man and a woman. While the California Supreme Court’s ruling is only concerning procedural questions — whether or not Proposition 8 is a “revision” or an “amendment” — many view it as the modern day civil rights debate.

Live and Let Live

Opponents of Proposition 8 should be careful to call the law’s failure a step forward in the civil rights movement.  The objective of awarding civil rights is to guarantee rights for all, not just for the protected group.  If a law, branded as a civil rights law, chooses to support one way of thinking without allowing equal opportunity for another way of thinking to exist, it is just as intolerant as the status quo.  Ideally, laws regarding social policy should allow the greatest amount of liberty — specifically, they should allow anyone to do what they want so long as it does not interfere with another persons ability to do their own thing.

Proponents of Proposition 8 believe that failure of the law would have allowed gay activists to force their traditional religious organizations to perform gay marriages despite their beliefs on same sex unions.  Forcing religious institutions to support a belief system not in line with their teachings is just as intolerant as churches having a say in California’s social policy, which Proposition 8 indirectly does.

Republicans United And On Offense

By Ron Nehring, California Republican Party Chairman

I just returned from the Republican National Committee’s State Chairmen’s meeting in Washington, D.C.

Remarkably, this week marked the official transition from focusing on the past to focusing on the future for our party nationally, and in California.

Nationally, RNC Chairman Michael Steele set exactly the right tone in a powerful speech he delivered to the RNC on Tuesday.  The speech was heavily covered by the media and I ask that you take a moment to watch the speech online.   It signifies our party’s national shift from looking backward to a new focus on providing a positive, alternative vision to the Democrats and going on offense.

Here in California, our victory in Tuesday’s special election provides the same turning point for our party, as we now build Republican unity and go on offense against our liberal opponents and focus on our mission to win the 2010 election in California.

Proposition 13 Is the Bogeyman, Again

By Jon Coupal, The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association

Even before this week’s historic special election, the same people and interests which drove California off the financial cliff are, once again, placing blame on Proposition 13. Several anti-Prop. 13 bills have already been introduced in the California Legislature to chip away at the measure’s critical protections. At the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association there is a saying that — with apologies to William Shakespeare — “when politicians are short on cash, it must follow, as the night the day, Proposition 13 will be blamed.”

And the issue has not been raised by just the bloated political establishment and the usual left-of-center California policy “think tanks,” but also by Vanity Fair contributing editor, Bruce Feirstein. Feirstein, who is perhaps best known for his book, “Real Men Don’t Each Quiche,” has been a major contributor to a number of
publications that appeal to those on the Right Coast who think it was a mistake for the pioneers to travel west of the Adirondacks.

Writing in the latest issue of Vanity Fair, Feirstein not only raised the issue of Proposition 13, but expressed his view that there is no cure for our state’s budget woes until “California takes a hard look at normalizing real-estate tax assessments.”

As evidence that California — now competing with New Jersey as the state with the highest tax burden — is too soft on property owners, Feirstein reminds us of the comments several years ago by the world’s second richest man, Warren Buffet, that the taxes on his California beach house are too low.

Senate Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth Introduces the Roadmap to California’s Future

The people of California have spoken. They don’t trust or believe Sacramento.

We understand.

Senate Republicans heard the message. Yesterday’s vote was not about the budget. It was about a more serious condition — the loss of faith in the institutions of state government.

And while the talk today in the Capitol is about what deals will be cut to get a new budget agreement in place, solving the latest budget crisis does nothing to cure the underlying disease.

The Next Great Tax Revolt

by Assemblyman Chuck DeVore

California lawmakers are struggling to spin the results of the May 19 special election, fearful of the possibility that the voters may have just fired the first shot of the next great tax revolt.

I was on NPR with Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) the day after the election as he labored to claim that the Tuesday vote was all about frustrated voters, worried about their jobs who simply want the legislature to do its job and not pass the buck to them. He rejected my contention that the vote was an anti-tax vote.

But election-eve polls tell a different story, with California voters seeing themselves as over-taxed and very desirous of cuts in state spending. Polls are nice, but actual votes are better. While Prop. 1A lost by almost 32 points, it lost in fiscally conservative Orange County by almost 53 points while, in the early returns, it was passing in only one of California’s 58 counties: San Francisco. In the end, the most liberal California county, San Francisco, was the kindest to Prop. 1A, turning it down by barely more than six points. A 50-point spread in votes between Orange County and San Francisco County cannot be explained away by Sen. Steinberg’s attempt at damage control.

California Democrats Should Cut The Cost of Services, Not The Quantity

With the failure of Propositions 1A thru 1E in the May 2009 Special Election, the Democratic leadership of the California government will be back at the drawing board attempting to close the $21 billion deficit. There are several strategies they might pursue — some wiser than others.  Expect the Democrats to propose another tax even though the voters spoke loud and clear on election day telling the Legislature not to increase taxes.

The Majority Vote Budget

This proposal is a personal favorite of Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg.  By proposing bills that simultaneously decrease taxes and increase fees — making the bills “revenue neutral” — Steinberg believes he does not violate the intent or the letter of Proposition 13.

In December of last year when this budget proposal was originally made, the idea was to decrease the gasoline tax and simultaneously increase personal income tax.  The result was revenue neutral.  The Democrats also proposed a “gasoline fee” at the same rate as the previous gas tax.  The net result was a proposal to increase income taxes.

California Special Election Results

Here are the results from the May 19, 2009 Special Election.  Propositions 1A thru 1E failed and Proposition 1F passed.

View The Policy Report May 2009 Special Election Page

Propositions

1. 1A “Rainy Day” Budget Stabilization Fund

Yes – 1,334,724 (34.1%)
No – 2,569,677 (65.9%)

2. 1B Education Funding. Payment Plan

Yes – 1,460,630 (37.4%)
No – 2,435,276 (62.6%)

3. 1C Lottery Modernization Act

Yes – 1,376,145 (35.4%)
No – 2,507,236 (64.6%)

4. 1D Children’s Services Funding

Yes – 1,331,624 (34.3%)
No – 2,550,562 (65.7%)

5. 1E Mental Health Funding

Yes – 1,299,638 (33.6%)
No – 2,563,412 (66.4%)

6. 1F Elected Officials Salaries

Yes – 2,874,524 (73.9%)
No – 1,016,557 (26.1%)

Arnold’s May Revise Relies On Too Much Borrowing

This week Arnold Schwarzenegger released the Governor’s May Revision to the 2009-2010 Budget Proposal.  This year is interesting because California already has a budget on the books, but the recession and numerous tax increases caused a shortfall in the actual collected tax revenue statewide leading to a $21 billion dollar deficit.  Now the Governor, on the eve of watching his 6-proposition budget proposal fail at the polls, has proposed a budget that includes $6 billion dollars in borrowing (including $2 billion from local governments) and tax increases.

Read the Governor’s 2009-2010 Budget Proposal here.

The Governor proposed his budget assuming that Propositions 1A thru 1E would pass, providing an additional $5.8 billion in taxes, funds transfers and borrowing to help close the budget gap.  Unfortunately, it is unlikely that many of the budget proposals will pass.  Propositions 1A and 1B are polling with a majority opposing them and the financial backers of the Yes on 1C, 1D and 1E have pulled their support, dooming them to fail.  Proposition 1F is budget neutral.

The Tax Increases and Accelerations

So Arnold believes that if the voters won’t approve a tax increase (like the one in Proposition 1A), that he should propose a tax increase to the legislature and attempt to turn the same 6 Republicans that broke ranks to pass the February budget failure.  In his proposal for the May Revision, Arnold included tax increases and tax accelerations (forcing tax payments to be made earlier in the year).

Republican Party of Los Angeles County Elects New Leadership

At the scheduled May Los Angeles County Republican Central Committee Meeting on Thursday, May 14, 2009, the Committee elected new officers who will serve through the end of 2010. New Chair Jane Barnett, Burbank, assumed the position after winning the majority vote of her elected peers in a contested election, along with Gary Aminoff, Studio City, as First Vice Chair; John Cozza, San Pedro, as Second Vice Chair; Len Lanzi. Calabasas, as Treasurer; Alex Burrola, Hawaiian Gardens, as Secretary; Assistant Treasurer Gwen Patrick, Compton; and Assistant Secretary Davina Keiser, Long Beach. Ashley Ingram agreed to serve as volunteer Executive Director.

After accepting the position, Chairman Barnett spoke to the Committee saying “We must resurrect the Reagan revolution – stay the course with our core values, and get the message out to all voters. The Republican Party mirrors most people’s beliefs, and we will take our message of limited government, individual liberty, and fiscal responsibility to each and every Angeleno.

The Governor’s 2009-2010 Budget May Revision

Here is a copy of the overview and specific detail of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2009-2010 May Revision.

View or Download the May Revision Here (pdf)

To Get His Way The Governor Issues Threats

By Jon Coupal, The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association

Polls show that the revenue shifts and tax increases contained in the six measures placed on the May 19th Special Election ballot by the Legislature and governor are not going over well with voters. Californians are angry. They are already paying the highest taxes in the nation and are in no mood to increase taxes at a time when they risk losing their own savings, jobs and homes.

In his desperation to get his hands on more taxpayer cash in a declining economy, Gov. Schwarzenegger has gone to the old tax raiser standby — threats to public safety. Unfortunately, this bullying approach, when backed with a fat campaign purse, has proven effective in the past.

The trick is to convince enough voters that if there is an emergency and they call 911, the phone will keep ringing and no one will respond. Need a firefighter, police officer or paramedic? Sorry, because you were such a stingy piker and rejected a tax increase, you will not get the services you value most.

Republican Caucus Members Issue Joint Statement on Revenue and Tax Reform Bills

Senate Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth (R-Murrieta), with Senators Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield), Bob Dutton (R-Rancho Cucamonga), Tony Strickland (R-Thousand Oaks) and Mimi Walters (R-Laguna Hills) released a statement concerning a number of job creation bills up for a vote in the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee today.

“Senate Republicans had measures today that would have provided much needed relief to consumers and businesses that would allow them to expand jobs and grow. Continuing our failed tax system does not add up to more revenue, it means fewer jobs and therefore less revenue,” Senator Hollingsworth stated.

Senator Roy Ashburn presented three economic growth bills, a research and development tax credit (SB 444), a manufacturers investment tax credit (SB 445), and a small business health care tax credit (SB 594). SB 444 and SB 445 would provide tax credits for California companies engaged in research and development and in the purchase of new manufacturing equipment.

May Special Election Proposition Endorsements

Many people have visited the site looking for endorsements for the May 2009 Special Election propositions. Below are the 6 propositions, the positions of the statewide Democratic and Republican Parties, and The Policy Report’s endorsement. Hopefully this will help you make you decision this Tuesday.

Visit The Policy Report May 2009 Special Election Page

Propositions

Proposition 1A – Spending Cap / Tax Increases

• Democrats:  No Position
• Republicans:  Oppose
• The Policy Report:  Oppose
• Read The Policy Report Endorsement

Proposition 1B – Education Spending

• Democrats:  Support
• Republicans:  Oppose
• The Policy Report:  Oppose
• Read The Policy Report Endorsement

Proposition 1C – Borrow Against The Lottery

• Democrats:  Support
• Republicans:  Oppose
• The Policy Report:  Oppose
• Read The Policy Report Endorsement

Proposition 1D – Transfer From The First 5 Program

• Democrats:  No Position
• Republicans:  Oppose
• The Policy Report:  Support
• Read The Policy Report Endorsement

Proposition 1E – Transfer From Mental Health Funds

• Democrats:  No Position
• Republicans:  Oppose
• The Policy Report:  Support
• Read The Policy Report Endorsement

Proposition 1F – Freeze Legislative Pay

• Democrats:  Support
• Republicans:  Oppose
• The Policy Report:  Oppose
• Read The Policy Report Endorsement