Wright Is Victim of a Stupid Law
Those who are on their high horse about Senator Roderick Wright after his conviction on charges relating to his voting residency should dismount. Wright’s transgression, if there was one, was being a professional politician trying to navigate a useless and unfathomable law. The whole idea that you have to be a resident of a district […]
Obamacare By Any Other Name
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is President Barack Obama’s landmark legislative achievement. The White House decision to embrace the term Obamacare may be one of his worst political stumbles. To be fair, it was the President’s opposition that coined “Obamacare” and started using it as a pejorative. Somewhere during the campaign season, the Obama folks […]
Mayor Bloomberg Had A Bad Election Day
As tough a week as it was for President Obama–playing international and Congressional bumper car– last week’s elections can’t have been too heartening for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Not only has Bloomberg’s staunchest critic–Bill De Blasio–emerged atop the Democratic pack of mayoral candidates, two Bloomberg supported state senators in Colorado were ousted in recall […]
Let’s Put Leon Panetta to Work
Governor Jerry Brown has demonstrated that experience and pragmatism can go a long way towards easing California back from the fiscal cliff. Now, there is an opportunity for the Governor to enlist another “old pro” in finishing the job of getting California’s fiscal house in order. Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is back in California […]
Speaker Berman at Long Last?
Before being elected to Congress in 1982, Rep. Howard Berman had a memorable ten year stint in the California Assembly culminating in a bruising speakership fight that he lost when Assembly Republicans threw their support to Willie Brown in 1980. With Assembly Speaker John Perez being termed out in 2014, that coveted job is about […]
Silver Lining for GOP Legislators?
Irrelevancy may not be so bad. California Republicans are still smarting from their ignominious meltdown at the polls on November 6, but for many Republican legislators, this may be a liberating turning point. For at least a decade, Republican Caucus unity was used to deny the Democratic majority the ability to increase taxes or make […]
Congressman Waxman’s Challenge
California’s new election ground rules have turned Congressman Henry Waxman’s campaign for a 20th term in the House into an interesting bit of political theater that may be a coming attraction for future races. The top two Primary system and new district lines have forced Rep. Waxman to wage a vigorous re-election campaign against a […]
In the Wake of Proposition 30
Critics of the initiative process, like me, are always pointing to the unintended consequences of well-intentioned measures. Proposition 13 centralized fiscal decision-making in Sacramento. Term limits have dumbed down the legislative process. The three strikes laws has stuffed our prison capacity. Proposition 98 has made rational budgeting impossible. The list goes on and on. This […]
GOP Voters Hold Key to Berman-Sherman Race
Nothing gets nastier than intra-party politics. Exhibit A is the runoff between Congressmen Howard Berman and Brad Sherman in the newly drawn 30th Congressional District. In a debate last week, Sherman blew a gasket and grabbed Berman roughly and seemed to be challenging him to duke it out in the playground. A deputy sheriff intervened […]
31st Congressional District Is Petri Dish for Reforms
Two “reforms” –the top-two primary and redistricting by commission–have created a whole new ballgame for legislative and Congressional district elections in California. Proponents of these electoral changes were aiming to make races more competitive and to provide more opportunity for centrist candidates. It will probably take another four or five election cycles to begin to […]