• Animals,  California,  California Election 2012

    New Finance Web Site Highlights California Political Campaigns

    Dollar Dollar Bill website

    Dollar, Dollar, Bill

    This is a fun website which is the brainchild of Democrat Speaker Perez’s staffer Ryan Hughes.

    A new campaign finance web site is circulating the Capitol Twitterverse. Dollar, Dollar, Bill allows users to see in graphic format how contributions are stacking up in California political races. The site scans the Secretary of State’s database every 20 minutes and displays contributions to campaigns and IEs associated with legislative races and ballot measures.

    The tool is the brainchild of Ryan Hughes, a staffer in the office of Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez. Hughes says Dollar, Dollar, Bill is nonpartisan. “This project is completely objective and without commentary,” he said in a statement announcing the site. “It’s designed to give everyone an intuitive look at how much money is being raised and spent in our elections.”

    Go ahead and play with it.

    There sure is a good deal of campaign cash being sloshed around California’s elections, no?

    The Twitter feed is even more revealing – give it a try, too.

    If that is not enough for the California political junkie, I have also been using Election Track which also has a Twitter feed @electiontrack for large, and last minute contributions.

    Enjoy!

  • Al Ramirez,  CA-Sen,  California Republican Assembly,  California Republican Party,  Dan Hughes,  Dianne Feinstein,  Elizabeth Emken

    CA-Sen: Conservative California Republican Assembly Endorses Al Ramirez for U.S. Senate

    While the California Republican Party has endorsed Elizabeth Emken for California United State Senate, the more conservative California Republican Assembly has just announced their endorsement for businessman, Al Ramirez.

    Republican U.S. Senate candidate Al Ramirez, an accomplished businessman, received the endorsement of the California Republican Assembly (CRA) at the group’s endorsing convention on Sunday.

    “I’m incredibly pleased and honored to have the support of the State’s oldest and largest Republican volunteer organization,” said Ramirez.  “The endorsement of the CRA demonstrates that our message is resonating with Republicans across the State.  We simply cannot afford more of the same socialistic policies of Feinstein and Obama.  It’s time to restore the American Dream in California.”

    The CRA endorsement is one of the most coveted in all of Republican politics.  Ronald Reagan even referred to the CRA as “The conscience of the Republican Party.”

    Candidates seeking the CRA endorsement went through a rigorous vetting process which included giving speeches to the entire delegation and facing a session of tough questioning in front of a “Fact Finding Committee.”  In order to receive an endorsement, a candidate must be supported by two-thirds of the voting delegates.

    Ramirez was endorsed overwhelmingly by a vote of the entire CRA delegation late Sunday morning.

    This endorsement has to deliver a decided edge to Ramirez, especially with so many candidates in the race vying to run against the front-runner and incumbent Senator Dianne Feinstein.

    Millions of dollars were embezzled from her campaign. Twenty-two challengers are trying to knock her off in the June primary. And the stakes in the November election are nothing less than control of Capitol Hill.

    But U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein isn’t a bit worried. Her campaign is on cruise control, her re-election all but certain — yet again.

    After holding elected office for all but five of the last 42 years, Feinstein is the doyenne of California Democrats. She’s so politically bulletproof that no A-list candidates are wasting their time and money trying to dethrone her.

    At 78, Feinstein has become the rare lawmaker who plays to her own political base while not overly riling her opponents. “She should have her easiest re-election ever,” said Gary Jacobson, a UC San Diego political science professor.

    Feinstein, who won her last two elections in landslides, attributes her success to her work ethic and her ability to get along with fellow Washington politicians during venomous times. “I am known for working hard, and I can tell you if I wasn’t, I would have some major opposition,” Feinstein said in an interview last week.

    Just how little she has to worry about was shown in a recent Survey USA poll. It found 51 percent of California’s likely voters intend to vote for Feinstein, while Republicans Elizabeth Emken of Danville and Dan Hughes of Oceanside were backed by 2 percent each. All other candidates clocked in at either 1 percent or zero.

    But, will this endorsement be enough for Ramirez to come in second place above Elizbeth Emken and Dan Hughes?

  • Arnold Schwarzenegger,  California,  California Budget

    Michael Lewis: California and Bust

    Photograph Courtesy of Art Streiber

    Read all of Michael Lewis’ excellent piece on California government and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

    A ompelling book called Cal­ifornia Crackup describes this problem more generally. It was written by a pair of journalists and nonpartisan think-tank scholars, Joe Mathews and Mark Paul, and they explain, among other things, why Arnold Schwarze­neg­ger’s experience as governor was going to be unlike any other experience in his career: he was never going to win. California had organized itself, not accidentally, into highly partisan legislative districts. It elected highly partisan people to office and then required these people to reach a two-thirds majority to enact any new tax or meddle with big spending decisions. On the off chance that they found some common ground, it could be pulled out from under them by voters through the initiative process. Throw in term limits—no elected official now serves in California government long enough to fully understand it—and you have a recipe for generating maximum contempt for elected officials. Politicians are elected to get things done and are prevented by the system from doing it, leading the people to grow even more disgusted with them. “The vicious cycle of contempt,” as Mark Paul calls it. California state government was designed mainly to maximize the likelihood that voters will continue to despise the people they elect.

    But when you look below the surface, he adds, the system is actually very good at giving Californians what they want. “What all the polls show,” says Paul, “is that people want services and not to pay for them. And that’s exactly what they have now got.” As much as they claimed to despise their government, the citizens of California shared its defining trait: a need for debt. The average Californian, in 2011, had debts of $78,000 against an income of $43,000. The behavior was unsustainable, but, in its way, for the people, it works brilliantly. For their leaders, even in the short term, it works less well. They ride into office on great false hopes and quickly discover they can do nothing to justify those hopes.

  • Barack Obama,  Taxes,  Warren Buffett

    Shocker: Obama and Buffett Are Wrong on Tax Rates Paid By Millionaires



    The Wall Street Journal makes short work of Warren Buffett (“Buffett Rule”) and President Obama’s arguments that millionaires are not paying their “fair share”

    So here we are back at the same old political stand, though even Mr. Obama concedes that today those he routinely calls “millionaires and billionaires” pay at least some tax. The President’s complaint, echoing billionaire Warren Buffett, is that too many billionaires pay a lower rate than regular salary earners. So even as he endorsed tax reform in general yesterday, Mr. Obama insisted that one of his reform “principles” is that people who make more than $1 million must pay a higher tax rate than middle-class earners.

    There’s one small problem: The entire Buffett Rule premise is false, as the nearby table shows. In 2008, the last year for which such data are available, the IRS reports that those who made more than $1 million in adjusted gross income paid an average income tax rate of 23.3%.

    That’s slightly lower than the 24.1% rate paid by those making between $500,000 and $1 million, probably because the richest are like Mr. Buffett and earn more from capital gains and dividends. The rate for a relative handful of the rich—400 people—fell to 18%, the modern equivalent of Barr’s Gang of 21. But nearly all millionaires still paid a rate that is more than twice the 8.9% average rate paid by those earning between $50,000 and $100,000, and more than three times the 7.2% average rate paid by those earning less than $50,000. The larger point is that the claim that CEOs are routinely paying lower tax rates than their secretaries is Omaha hokum.

    If Mr. Obama really wants all of these people to pay even more in taxes, there are only two ways to do so. One is to raise tax rates on capital gains, dividends and other investment income that is taxed at 15% and represents a great deal of income for the wealthy. This is probably Mr. Buffett’s tax secret, though to our knowledge he hasn’t released his returns to the public.

    Read all of the piece.

    Most pundits acknowledge that President Obama’s speech yesterday was more for his re-election than plausible policy that can actually be signed into law.

    Obama sold his “Hope and Change” in 2008, but he and Warren Buffett will have a harder time selling their class warfare.

  • California Citizens Redistricting Commission,  California Republican Party

    California Congressional Districts NOT All Bad for Republican Party

    Flap’s old Congressional District CA-24 and the new one CA-26

    I have to agree with Republican political operative and consultant Rob Stutzman.

    What will it take to win these competitive seats? We will have to do the hard work of becoming a more competitive party. We have to expand our message to Latinos and field candidates who can compete in marginal districts. These new maps will finally force to the surface Republican candidates in California who can compete and win in swing districts.

    Since 1992, Republican voter registration has fallen by 8 percent. Recently released Field Poll data make the point even clearer. At the same time, our party message is not resonating with younger voters as the GOP is a graying electorate. More than half of current California Republican voters are over the age of 50, up from 40 percent in 1992.

    Republican registration in the Latino community has nearly stagnated since 1992, growing only one percent at a time when the state’s Hispanic voters doubled during that time from 10 percent to 22 percent.

    In a state that has dipped to only 31 percent GOP registration, providing more opportunities to be competitive is a positive development. We have been slowly withering to a darker shade of blue here, but shedding the gerrymander of the past decade gives us the chance to adapt and learn to win again.

    The California Congressional redistricting is probably as fair as you are going to achieve vis a vis population and federal voting rights demographics.

    I understand that, although a referendum has been approved for signature circulation to overturn the California Citizen Redistricting Commission’s Congressional District plan that no actual signatures are being solicited.

    Yes, there will be few long time GOP Congressmen who will be forced either into retirement or to run in districts where there will actually be a contested race.

    Isn’t that why we have elections?

    California Republicans will be far better to accept the California Citizen Redistricting Commission’s and use any money raised for the referendum in party building activities.

  • Electoral College,  Electoral Reform California Initiative,  President 2012

    President 2012: Pennsylvania Considering Change of Electoral College Vote Process

    This change or proposed change in how Electoral College votes are determined is not new and was attempted via an initiative in California in 2008. The California initiative failed to make the ballot.

    A new proposal is pushing the often-forgotten Electoral College into the spotlight as Pennsylvania officials ponder the state’s role in next year’s presidential race.

    Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi is trying to gather support to change the state’s “winner-takes-all” approach for awarding electoral votes. Instead, he’s suggesting that Pennsylvania dole them out based on which candidate wins each of the 18 congressional districts, with the final two going to the contender with the most votes statewide.

    So far, the idea has received support from colleagues of the Delaware County Republican in the state House and from Republican Gov. Tom Corbett. But Democrats, who have carried the state in presidential contests since 1992, said the shift would erode Pennsylvania’s clout.

    Only two states — Nebraska and Maine — divide their electoral votes instead of giving the whole bloc to the candidate that wins the state’s popular vote. Even for those two states, the piecemeal approach has been a rarity, with Nebraska historically dividing its five votes in the 2008 election, when one went to President Barack Obama.

    Most states cling to the winner take all nature of determining where their Electoral College votes go. Maybe changing the system apportioning by Congressional District is MORE fair, but it definitely removes the clout afforded Democrats in urban areas where they rack up large majority votes (particularly in Philadelphia where there is a large African-American population who vote overwhelmingly Democratic).

    It changes the game and that is what politics is all about. And, it is within the discretion of the laws of Pennsylvania.

    Dave Weigel seems to think this is screwing the Democrats.

    Of course, it is.

    Elections have consequences, remember?

  • Amazon Tax,  California Citizens Redistricting Commission,  California Republican Party,  California State Senate,  Internet Sales Taxes

    Update: Americans for Tax Reform Call AB 155 a Pledge Violation; California Republican State Senators to Support Internet Sales Taxes?

    I have a new post up over at Flap’s California Blog on the Flap.

    Go here and read which California State Senators might FLIP.

    Kind of interesting that the California Republican Party is asking Republican donors to support a referendum to overturn the California Citizen’s Redistricting Commission’s State Senate Redistricting Maps and these Senators FLIP to support a Democratic position anyway.

    I mean, why bother, when all of the Republicans become RINOS (Republican in Name Only)?

    By the way, the legislation which will likely be heard in the California State Senate tomorrow, requires three (3) Republican Senators to FLIP (NB: none voted for the Amazon Tax when it first came through the California Legislature).

  • Amazon Tax,  California Citizens Redistricting Commission,  California Republican Party,  California State Senate,  Internet Sales Taxes

    California Republican State Senators to Support Internet Sales Taxes?

    I have a new post up over at Flap’s California Blog on the Flap.

    Go here and read which California State Senators might FLIP.

    Kind of interesting that the California Republican Party is asking Republican donors to support a referendum to overturn the California Citizen’s Redistricting Commission’s State Senate Redistricting Maps and these Senators FLIP to support a Democratic position anyway.

    I mean, why bother, when all of the Republicans become RINOS (Republican in Name Only)?

    By the way, the legislation which will likely be heard in the California State Senate tomorrow, requires three (3) Republican Senators to FLIP (NB: none voted for the Amazon Tax when it first came through the California Legislature).

  • California Republican Party,  Michele Bachmann,  Mitt Romney,  President 2012

    President 2012: Mitt Romney Expanding His Presence in California – Quadrupling Size of La Jolla Home

    View from the beach of the 3,009-square-foot Romney home in La Jolla , which the GOP contender plans to demolish and replace with an 11,062-square-foot home. — Meg Roussos

    Yet, Mitt will NOT be attending the September Los Angeles California Republican Party Convention in a few weeks.

    GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney, scheduled to attend a series of fundraisers this weekend in San Diego, is also working on plans to nearly quadruple the size of his $12 million oceanfront manse in La Jolla.

    Romney has filed an application with the city to bulldoze his 3,009-square-foot, single-story home at 311 Dunemere Dr. and replace it with a two-story, 11,062-square-foot structure. No date has been set to consider the proposed coastal development and site development permits, which must be approved by the city.

    The former governor of Massachusetts purchased the home three years ago. According to a description from the listing agent, the Spanish-style residence at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac is sophisticated and understated in its décor, “offering complete privacy and unsurpassed elegance.”

    Tentative plans call for new retaining walls and a relocated driveway, but would retain the existing lap pool and spa.

    “This offering represents a truly unique opportunity for a buyer who appreciates the scarcity of this caliber of real estate,” the listing said.

    Constructed in 1936, the three-bedroom, 4.5-bathroom home was among the first built in the Barber tract neighborhood, according to the La Jolla Historical Society, and has a stretch of lawn sloping to the white sand beach.

    “I wanted to be where I could hear the waves,” Romney told a gaggle of media last year at a book signing in University City. “As a boy we spent summers on Lake Huron and I could hear the crashing waves at night. It was one of my favorite things in the world; being near the water and the waves was something I very badly wanted to experience again.”

    Probably not the best timing in the world and not the best for his political image. Remember when Senator John McCain could not remember how many homes he owned?

    But, Mitt, you have to show up to the California GOP confab.

    Michele Bachmann will be speaking Friday night and Ron Paul has already said he would attend.

  • Antonio Villaraigosa,  California,  Proposition 13,  Rick Perry

    Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa Proposes Driving the Rest of California Business to Texas

    Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, left, and Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky hold souvenir concrete chips as they celebrate the demolition of two lanes of the Mulholland Drive bridge over Interstate 405 ahead of schedule in Los Angeles Sunday, July 17, 2011. The event that many feared would be the “Carmageddon” of epic traffic jams cruised calmly toward a finish Sunday as bridge work on the Los Angeles roadway was completed 16 hours ahead of schedule and officials reopened a 10-mile stretch of one of the nation’s busiest freeways

    Oh, I mean Mayor Villar has proposed to modify California’s Proposition 13 for business property taxes.

    In what could be an initial foray into statewide politics, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called Tuesday for a renewal of progressive politics in California in the nation, including an overhaul of the state’s iconic limit on property taxes, Proposition 13.

    “Progressives have to start thinking – and acting – big again,” Villaraigosa declared in prepared remarks for the Sacramento Press Club, to counteract anti-tax and anti-government drives by the Tea Party and other conservative blocs.

    “If the Tea Party in Washington and their counterparts here in Sacramento are intent on pitching jobs overboard in the mindless pursuit of ideology over country, we have to be willing to stand and defend our people,” Villaraigosa said, adding, “And yes, that means making a case for new revenue to sustain long-term investment.”

    Villaraigosa was particularly critical of the spending cuts that Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature’s Democrats made to balance the state budget after their efforts to extend some state taxes were rejected by Republicans. Those cuts, he said, will damage California’s ability to educate its children and remain economically competitive.

    “Governor Brown, I say we need to have the courage to test the voltage in some of these so-called ‘third-rail’ issues, beginning with Proposition 13,” Villaraigosa told the press club. “We need to strengthen Proposition 13 and get it back to the original idea of protecting homeowners, Proposition 13 was never intended to be a corporate tax giveaway but that is what is has become.”

    Some Democrats have backed changes in Proposition 13 that would remove, or at least modify, its protections for business property, but Brown has not signed onto that drive. He was governor when Proposition 13 passed in 1978 and although he opposed it prior to the election, after its passage he declared himself to be a “born-again tax cutter” and became a champion of state tax cuts and spending limits.

    Does Villaraigosa who is termed out for another term as the Los Angeles Mayor, really think he has a shot at the California Governorship? And, by going to the LEFT of Jerry Brown, Lt. Governor and former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and/or Attorney General Kamala Harris?

    I guess so.

    But, Texas Governor Rick Perry must be licking his chops for all of the California businesses planning to move out of state, once this massive property tax increase hits the ballot.