George H.W. Bush in South Central

I was fortunate enough to be chairman of the California Republican Party 30 years ago when Vice President George Bush was elected president with the help of California’s trove of electoral votes.   (Yes, a different era, the last time a Republican carried the state.) My encounters with him as Vice President and as a candidate […]

In Defense of Republicans Who Supported the Cap and Trade Compromise

Long, long ago and very close by, I was Assembly Republican Leader charged by my caucus to get the best deal I could in budget negotiations and on major appropriations bills requiring a 2/3 vote. Sometimes, I was the target of the same kind of criticism that David Kersten (“Has the California GOP Become Too […]

Everyone Was For The Free Speech Movement—For Awhile

It was autumn 1964 in Berkeley, in a small apartment just a few blocks from Sproul Hall, when I found myself interviewing Mario Savio, the embattled leader of the Free Speech Movement.   I was editor in chief of the Stanford Daily and sent staff reporters to Berkeley almost every day for months.  This was […]

A Vote For Prop 1A Is A Vote For Fiscal Responsibility

There has been a lot of discussion about Proposition 1A within Republican circles over the past couple of weeks. But in my view this debate has centered on the wrong issue: anger over tax increases. Proposition 1A isn’t about that.

This measure is about putting real handcuffs on the ability of the Legislature to lock our taxpayer dollars into way too much spending in the good years only to have to turn around and make major cuts or increase taxes in the tough times.

Rather than getting sucked into an emotional argument about taxes, as thoughtful people who share a common world view, Republicans should hold ourselves to a higher standard and have a substantive discussion of the merits of Proposition 1A.