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Well, almost final.

The commission just voted out the new state lines on a 12-2 vote (with two Republicans voting no) and placed them on the Agenda for an official August 15th final vote.  Until then feel free to whine, complain, cuss and gripe to commissioners about their failures.  They can hear you, but they’re probably done listening.

On August 15th the only option is an up-or-down vote on the maps.  You cannot have your city reunited, get your Assembly Member back.  The plans are final and the only option now would be for the commission to vote the plans down and send them directly to the courts.

The game now transitions from the 14 members of the commission to the 67 members of Congress and the Legislature that have been drawn out of their seats, nested with other incumbents, or generally screwed over by the citizen process.  A preliminary look at the data on the Redistricting Partners site will show some fun potential pairings and political drama.  The site is now updated with maps (showing partisanship and incumbents), summary data for all districts in just a few pages, and extremely detailed datasheets from PDI for the  Assembly, State Senate and Congressional districts.

Looking at the Congressional map, it is certain that my GOP Representative Elton Gallegy will either have to move (his home and electoral base in Simi Valley is out of the District), retire, or just run (there is no requirement that you must live in the Congressional District you represent), or run against GOP Rep. Buck McKeon who will represent Simi Valley. Gallegy has options.

However, the new CA-26 which is what presumably this Congressional District is called is less Republican and more Hispanic in nature.

Here are the details:

It is just starting.

But for the thousands of affiliates in the state now set adrift by Amazon and Overstock, another major out-of-state player, the law is an unfair and misguided attempt to raise revenues on the backs of struggling mom-and-pop businesses.

Rather than bring in tax dollars, they say, it will instead drive away scores of entrepreneurs California needs to innovate its way out of its economic malaise.

“None of us are against a level playing field,” said Robert Smahl with privately held Ebates, an online shopping site in San Francisco with 50 employees. “But this is not the way to do it. You’ve just penalized a small segment of people who don’t have the money to fight the legislation. I don’t think the lawmakers understand that this won’t change anything and it won’t hurt Amazon at all.”

Many affiliates getting hurt are pint-size, like Silicon Valley mom-blogger Tina Case’s Moms Who Click, a camera-buff site that brings in a few hundred dollars monthly.

Her husband works, so she’ll simply lose “the icing on the cake.” Still, she’s angry.

“The law is ridiculous. If the purpose is to generate tax revenues, then by putting affiliates out of business the state’s losing the income taxes we were paying. This will hurt the economy more than help it.”

More than 70 affiliates have already left California, say fellow site-owners, in some cases after being wooed by states such as Texas and Arizona that are anxious to reel in business-tax revenue to shore up their own battered budgets. Other affiliates are brainstorming new business models that would allow them to keep their sites up and running. And still others are waiting to see if an Amazon-backed initiative to roll back the law makes it onto the ballot early next year.

Keith Posehn, a San Diego marketer who’s considering leaving the state after losing 30 percent of his revenue, says the new law complicates an already cutthroat business.

The largest of online marketers will leave California and set up across the border in Nevada or Arizona. Others will just absorbed reduced earning capacity and spend less and hope the law changes.

In the meantime, the “little guy” gets hurt while the Big Box Brick and Mortar stores duke it out with Amazon in the political arena.

But, don’t say I didn’t tell you so months ago.

By the way, this issue of internet sales taxation will not be settled until there is some federal legislation or a decision by a federal appellate court on the nexus issue.

According to the latest Gallup Poll.

Americans continue to express near record-low confidence in U.S. public schools — holding in the range seen throughout the past few years of tumult for the U.S. economy and state budgets. The 34% who say they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in public schools is unchanged from last year and statistically similar to what Gallup has found since 2005.

The findings are from Gallup’s annual update on confidence in institutions, conducted June 9-12. Nearly all institutions — including public schools — have seen historically low confidence in recent years. This year brought little improvement beyond a slight uptick in confidence in newspapers and television news. Public schools currently rank in the middle of the pack of institutions tested — 8th out of 16 — in the general range of the presidency, U.S. Supreme Court, and medical system. The current rating is down significantly when compared with confidence levels seen throughout the 1970s and at points in the late 1980s, when about half or more Americans expressed confidence in U.S. public schools.

Not really a surprise.

My children were educated primarily in private and religious schools throughout their pre-college days. California public schools, which were excellent when I was a student in the 50′s and 60′s gradually succumbed to the political correctness of the day and their quality of instruction eroded.

Speaker Boehner has done his best but it is not good enough. New Members of Congress were elected to CUT spending and the Boehner Plan like the Reid Debit Limit Plan kick the can down the road.

Let the President and the majority Congressional Democrats propose their own debt limit plan that could pass both Houses of Congress or prepare for living in a world where the USA does not borrow any more money.

Here is a graph to frame the debate:

But, stay tuned as the House GOP Caucus is meeting presently. 216 positive votes are needed for passage of the Boehner Plan.

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