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
Former Republican State Senator Bill Campbell once joked that if you laid all the economists in the country end to end, it would be a
There has been a dubious bit of “conventional wisdom” that has been floating around for the past couple of years. “No President has been re-elected
It is amusing to watch the anti-tax lobby and self-styled reformers crying foul because Governor Jerry and legislative Democrats maneuvered to place the Administration’s tax
The race for the newly drawn 30th Congressional District in California has drawn national attention. Two long-time Democratic incumbents–Howard Berman and Brad Sherman–are pitted against
“Good Government{” types call for a fair and objective system of drawing legislative boundaries. Republicans want to take the drafting tools out of the hands
In today’s political environment–at least on the GOP side–“moderate” has become a pejorative. With the same venom that Nixon used to denounce Communists–real or imagined–Newt
The dumbing down of politics moves full speed ahead as legitimate science is thrown off the bus in favor of junk studies and reports designed
It is hardly surprising that Gov. Jerry Brown is finding
rough going in herding all the cats required to make a real budget deal
happen-one that faces up to the realities and includes a bit of pain for
everyone. Yes, he has done an admirable
PR job with the symbols-canceling the cell phones, taking back the state cars
and putting a lid on travel. The cuts
achieved in health, welfare and other services have also gone through with
relatively little resistance. But
finding something that will attract enough Republican votes for a tax measure without
throwing Democrats and their constituencies overboard has proven to be a lot
more elusive than he may have thought.
There is a notion being promulgated by some pundit types
that Jerry Brown’s problem is that he never should have promised not to raise
taxes without a vote of the people.
Those critics need to think about the reality of the campaign, the
reality of the legislative process and the reality of where we are as a
California state of mind.
The Walter Mondale strategy of promising to raise taxes
didn’t work in 1984, and it wouldn’t have worked in 2010. Rather than evade the tax question or ask for
approval in a vacuum, Brown promised to give voters the chance to say YES or
NO-not a profile in courage, but a sensible, responsible way to address the
issue in a toxic campaign environment.