It is not often enough in politics that the two major political parties provide voters with a clear contrast. This year, the California Republican Party and Democrats will do just that. Democrat Jerry Brown is set to make his case that Californians should pay more taxes while refusing to cut back on the bureaucracy. California Republicans know that the tax-and-spend policies that caused our current problems will not solve them – and it is time for us to speak out about it.

California Democrats have dominated the California legislature for the better part of two decades. Even with a Republican governor, that one-party dominance has led to a more than doubling of our state government. Most fair-minded observers agree that California would benefit from a more balanced legislature.

The first step in achieving that balance within the Capitol will be for Republicans to provide more balance to the statewide discussions outside the Capitol. For far too long, Democrats have dominated the California airways. The new California Republican Party, in partnership with our Republican leaders and legislators, is set to reverse that dominance and go toe-to-toe with Democrats all over the state.

Following the end of the budget talks, numerous commentators argued that the Republicans have become irrelevant to the governmental process because they could not cut a budget deal with Governor Jerry Brown and the majority Democrats. However, there may be another way to read the long-term results of the collapse of the talks – that the legislature, itself, is becoming irrelevant.

Senate president pro tem Darrell Steinberg said, Republicans "appear to want to be irrelevant and seem intent on achieving that objective."

A Los Angeles Times news analysis by Evan Halper and Michael J. Mishak titled, “Budget Talks Fold and California GOP’s Influence Fades Further” ran as the lead story on the front page of the print edition. A news analysis, mind you, not a news story, as the top headline of the day signifying that the Times’ editors believe this to be true.

Thank goodness for the redistricting commission. In rough times like these, we sure do need some mindless drama and cheap comedy. And the commission keeps delivering.

Now let’s stipulate: anyone with a map of California and a calculator knows that the work the redistricting commission is doing (or at least contracting out, since the commissioners don’t seem to want to do their own drawing and math) will matter not at all to the politics of the state. California is so geographically segregated by party affiliation that, in a state with a big population and a tiny legislature, it’s virtually impossible to create more competitive seats.

And since the commission is barred from looking at party data, they won’t have the information at hand to create such seats anyway. Heck, the best thing the commission could do for political competition is to break its own rules and create the most partisan districts possible (so that the top two primary might have a chance of producing a few more moderates)

So the commission’s primary role is to be apolitical and non-partisan. This is impossible in a political, partisan world.

Cross-posted at NewGeography.

On March 25th, the Bureau of Labor statistics released a report that showed that California jobs had increased by 96,000 in February.  The state’s cheerleaders jumped into action. Never mind that the state still has a 12.2 percent unemployment rate, and part of the decline from 12.4 percent is because just under 32,000 discouraged workers left California’s labor force in February. 

Unfortunately, the cheerleaders are likely to once again be disappointed.  It is unwise to build a case on one data point.  Data are volatile and subject to all sorts of technical issues.  For example, the estimate of California’s job growth is seasonally adjusted data and subject to revision.

Federal defense spending budget cuts could not only put our country’s defense at risk but also cost California jobs. Budget realities mean we have to cut spending – everywhere. And that includes Defense. That means some very tough budget battles ahead. My concern is we may be considering cutting capability, not just cost. That could be a critical mistake.

I spent 28 years in the military, both active and reserves, and during that time we built a military second to none with a technological edge that has kept us safe and deterred would be bad guys from wanting to test us.

I’ve teamed up with Lockheed Martin to keep the production the F35 Joint Strike Fighter in the budget. I’ve written a couple pieces for the Washington Examiner expressing my concerns about the looming the national security picture and the future. You can read the pieces dealing with the importance of maintaining our fighter defense capabilities here and here.

There are always two sides of a coin. Southern California has been gripped by powerful and fierce storms this year that have wrecked havoc and caused extensive damage in some communities. Images of uprooted trees, flooded streets and homes, overflowing storm drains, and terrifying mudslides have dominated television and newspaper coverage. Drought warnings, mandatory water conservation and rationing may be distant memories to many who reside in the coastal plains from Ventura County to San Diego, but we should not rest easy. While we’ve experienced record-breaking levels of rainfall and snowpack in 2011, much of that water can’t be physically captured. And that situation brings me to the other side of the coin. That surplus water, angrily raging through concrete river channels and dumping out into the Pacific Ocean, presents a significant and unique opportunity for Southern California to improve its water supplies and rise to new standards of environmental stewardship. The challenge: Capture that stormwater now, bank it and save it for a future dry day.

Californians have demonstrated a strong commitment to the environmental mantra, “reduce, reuse, recycle.” That same principle needs to be applied aggressively to making more efficient use of our finite water supplies. In this arid state, every drop counts.

Confronting the role of the state’s broken governing system in the wake of the collapse of budget talks, Gov. Jerry Brown, leaders of both California political parties, and a variety of reformers plan to announce Friday that they will jointly support a wholesale rewrite of the state constitution, sources said.

The announcement reflected a shared frustration and a wholesale reversal for the governor, party leaders and leading reformers, who had been content to pursue short-term budget-balancing strategies and incremental reforms that would not resolve the state’s constant budget and governing crisis.

Yesterday Governor Brown released a list of flagrant pension system abuses he proposes to fix as part of a pension reform package. This handful of first step reforms is great as far as it goes, but voters must not be fooled into believing that these baby steps will solve the pension crisis the Little Hoover Commission recently summarized as "Pension costs will crush government."

Much like the Governor’s thrifty plan to eliminate 50,000 state cell phones to help solve a $26 billion budget deficit, these token reforms are more symbolic gestures than substantive solutions to more than $200 billion in pension debts. Painless antibiotics will not cure cancer; you need radiation and chemotherapy.

With a ballooning state budget deficit, Governor Brown’s decision to end budget negotiations is delaying California’s economic recovery.

With governors across the nation rightsizing their state governments by reducing spending and taxes, California continues to keep its foot on the accelerator.

By failing to control excessive spending, implement structural reform including 2-year budget, spending caps, pension reform, and civil service reform, along with eliminating and consolidating agencies, departments and the state’s 339 boards and commissions, the Governor continues our state’s multi-billion dollar deficit denying job creation and vital resources for every school district, city and county.