California Conservative

1. The San Francisco Chronicle has finally found a tax increase they oppose! Congratulations to the Chronicle Editorial Board for opposing Prop. 82. If they used the same reasoning on other tax increases and bonds, they would oppose all of them on the ballot — but this is a good start.

2. The Governor and Abel Maldonado really want to raise the minimum wage — their way. They could not get the legislature to go along with it, so the Guv sent his, and Abel’s proposal to the IWC, Industrial Welfare Commission — which is politically appointed, by the Governor, alone!

As you may know, not a single GOP member of the legislature supports the Maldonado approach to raising the cost of doing business, or want to create more of an economic incentive to hire illegal aliens.

But, at the last minute it was determined that four of the five “members” of the Commission were no longer legally members. So, with less than 12 hours before the meeting, the Governor appointed four new members. Everyone of the four are registered Democrats, not a single Republican was appointed by the Governor. Obviously, the GOP is opposed to the raising of the minimum wage.

3. The just released Field Poll, in re: the proposition and underticket races had a 6.3% margin of error for the GOP side? This is one step short of using a dart board. They also did the poll over a nine day period–double the normal period of polling.

4. Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee noted the dirty little secret of the School Bond–one billion dollars is not being used to alleviate over crowded schools, just a PAY OFF to the unions. Here is what Walters noted:

“One of the more obvious examples is a $1 billion piece of the school bond issue that’s earmarked to relieve “hyperdense” crowding in schools. Everyone in the Capitol knows the pot is a gift to Los Angeles Unified by how it defined uses of the money, and to the construction unions, because it must be used to replace portable classrooms with permanent facilities. In fact, by mandating that the portables be replaced, the money will do little to actually relieve overcrowding.”

This was why Senator Jim Battin, on the floor of the Senate, in the middle of the night, railed against this phony bond measure — he voted against it!

5. Fresno County is already over $1 billion in debt due to the pension crisis — and it is getting worse every year. This is from the Fresno Bee, June 3, 2006:

“The grand jury said that the decisions being made regarding the county’s $2.3 billion retirement fund will “have very large and long-term financial consequences for the citizens of Fresno County.”

Public agencies across California are in financial trouble because they’ve offered generous retirement benefits that they can’t afford. The city of San Diego, for example, is in the midst of a financial crisis because of a $1.4 billion employee pension fund deficit.

Fresno County supervisors have already borrowed money on three occasions to cover the cost of the retirement plan — leaving the county with more than $1.1 billion in debt from the principal and interest owed on pension obligation bonds that need to be paid through 2034.”

Yet, not a single candidate for statewide office, other than Assemblyman Keith Richman, has made this an issue. I know of no candidate, GOP or Democrat, for the legislature, that has made this an issue.

In Orange County, the Treasurer, a candidate for Supervisor, John Moorlach, has made this the number one issue in his campaign. If the stock market takes a 10-15% tumble, the State of California and local government agencies will be worse off than we were under Gray Davis and his massive deficits!

6. On Friday, Roger Hedgecock, the famed radio talk show host in San Diego endorsed Tony Strickland for State Controller. That is a major statement!

7. My good friend Mark Isler is now a regular on KABC radio Los Angeles 790 on the am dial), on Saturday night’s from 10:00pm to 1:00am! That is great news. Mark is a solid conservative and very articulate. Glad to see him succeed!

8. Who says the Kennedy’s have stopped drinking? Here is a Kennedy that is very, very sick. He suffers from the new disease, “Goreitis”–belief that if you lose an election, the winners are corrupt.* He has been traveling around the nation disguised as “Chicken Little” claiming that “very soon” global warming will kill all of us–as he flies, drivers, and boats his way from one radical group to another.
. . .

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. writes in Rolling Stone: “After carefully examining the evidence, I’ve become convinced that the president’s party mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004. Across the country, Republican election officials and party stalwarts employed a wide range of illegal and unethical tactics to fix the election.” [Publisher's Note: Ian Schwartz has video]

9. Francine Busby is a Democrat in the Chicago tradition. Just because you are dead doesn’t mean you can’t vote. And, just because you are an illegal alien doesn’t mean you can’t help a Democrat win for Congress by passing out literature and voting. Thanks to her honesty–and she was honest here–a race that was too close to call now becomes a ten point blow out for Brian Bilbray.

10. Jean Fuller, the Thomas Machine candidate for Assembly to replace Kevin McCarthy is just not that swift. She was telling groups how proud she was to be a leading supporter of Prop. 73, Parental Notification, in the Special Election. Problem was, no one in the pro-life movement had ever heard or seen her in support of pro-life and absolutely no one in the Prop. 73 effort in Kern County knew her as a supporter. On Saturday Senator Roy Ashburn, a supporter of Stan Ellis, the leading conservative candidate in the race, held a press conference to discuss the misleading of the public by Fuller and her backers. This is a race to watch on Tuesday night, it could be the end of an era in Kern County. (Disclosure, I have not endorsed or supported any candidate in this race)

—

Steve Frank is the publisher of California Political News and Views and a Senior Contributor to CaliforniaConservative.org. He is also a consultant currently working on gambling issues and advising other consultants on policy and coalition building.

Read more of his work here or at his blog.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 5th, 2006 at 11:08 am and is filed under Announcements, Author: Steve Frank, California, Elections, Sacramento. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.