In Sacramento, liberal politicians have a history of dismissing logic
as something that merely gets in the way of the truth. As Vice Chair of
the Senate Environmental Quality Committee I see have seen my fair
share of these bills. It’s clear this year is no different as
legislation based on skewed facts and faulty science work their way
through the Legislature.

The latest piece of "fact-based" legislation to clear the Environmental
Quality Committee is Senate Bill 1212 by Senator Mark Leno. The bill
would require cell phone manufacturers to place warning labels about
the "specific absorption rate" (SAR), otherwise known as radio
frequency radiation, on all cell phone devices sold in California.
These labels would appear on the outside of cell phone packaging and
inside the instruction manual.

Supporters of SB 1212 believe that a customer has a right to know the
level of radio frequency in their cell phone so they can make an
informed purchasing decision. Supposedly, this information is important
because of the small possibility that cell phones could have a negative
impact public health. However, there are no facts to back that idea up.

Former
Speaker of the California Assembly Jesse Unruh once said, "Money is the
mother’s milk of politics."  Without money, given California’s large
geographic size, diverse population and multiple media outlets, a
candidate cannot communicate his or her message effectively and,
ultimately, cannot win.

In March of this year, I wrote a Fox and Hounds column where I highlighted Tom Campbell’s Achilles’ heel – his proven
inability to raise money.  I’ve also blogged on the subject numerous
times.  It’s hampered his two earlier U.S. Senate campaigns and it’s
why he dropped out of this year’s gubernatorial race.  

Yesterday afternoon, I set out to pen another column about California’s
GOP Senate primary, armed with fresh information that Campbell was,
indeed, losing ground to Carly Fiorina.  Or, flipping the message on
its head, that Fiorina’s message had taken hold.  My point in penning
the column was the same – that Tom Campbell cannot raise the money he
needs to win and that he has a credibility gap on fiscal issues. 

In the garden of OC what we need is some serious cabbage, but instead
we discovered last week some roses, radishes, and a few squirrels. Jobs
creation is job one. OC’s near 10% unemployment and the state’s near
13% unemployment, we see signs of economic recovery, but no jobs
creation. How do you create jobs? Reduce fees and taxes, cut
regulations and eliminate opportunities for frivolous lawsuits.

Anything else is a SQUIRREL, or a distraction, to the main event.

So what does our garden grow?

Cross posted at PublicCEO.com

For
generations, gubernatorial candidates have been eager to gain
endorsements from local elected officials and tap their experience at
the retail level of politics.

The same is true in this year’s
election cycle, motoring into high gear with the statewide primary June
8. On their Web sites, Republican front-runners Meg Whitman and Steve
Poizner proudly cite hefty lists of local endorsements.

One
prominent county supervisor had the Poizner and Whitman campaigns
"aggressively" soliciting his endorsement, with initial interest
followed by personal calls from both candidates. From both campaigns,
Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe was impressed by the
responsiveness and attention to detail compared to the past.

This past weekend’s 
Los Angeles Times/USC poll shows me beating Senator Boxer 45%-38%. It
also shows Carly Fiorina losing to Senator Boxer by six points – 38% to
44%.  Those differences are huge, and far outside the margin of error.

Getting Senator Barbara Boxer out of the Senate should be the paramount
objective for voters in the Republican primary, since we can’t take
back the U.S. Senate unless Boxer goes. Carly Fiorina can’t defeat her;
I can.

It’s true I have a more libertarian view on some social issues.  But
the contrast between myself and Senator Barbara Boxer is stark. Carly
Fiorina’s dubious and self-serving claim that I differ little from
Senator Boxer is easily refuted, as the Los Angeles Daily News, one of
the eleven newspapers that have endorsed me in this race, noted on
Friday.  "Fiorina has called Campbell a liberal. That’s a view we don’t share. Campbell is absolutely a fiscal conservative."

One question that jumped to mind in reading the latest two major independent polls was why the attention on the November marijuana initiative?

The initiative to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana was tested in both the Public Policy Institute poll and the USC/LA Times poll. PPIC found the marijuana measure near dead even at 49% Yes; 48% No. The USC/LA Times poll had the Yes side slightly ahead, 49% to 41%.

But this is a ballot measure that will be decided months from now. With a June primary staring voters in the face the pollsters found an interest in a measure an election away. The marijuana measure will not be the only initiative on the November ballot. There likely will be a cornucopia of issues for the voters to decide.

The
state budget, taxes and massive new debt have emerged at the top of the
Legislature’s agenda this month. Some wonder how the Legislature could
have been working on any issues other than jobs, the economy and the
budget, given the gravity of those problems. But making up for lost
time, legislative leaders have laid on the table billions in new taxes
and mixed in a stunning proposal for new deficit spending.

After two weeks of proposals and counterproposals, the Assembly
Democratic leadership this week doubled down on the deficit, proposing
to borrow more than $9 billion to paper over part of the current
deficit, avoiding the tough decisions needed to balance the budget.

Their proposal finances existing, unfunded programs by borrowing money
and increasing taxes to pay off the new debt over the next 12 to 20
years. This one-year "solution" leaves $9 billion worth of programs in
place without any future source of revenues.

Campaigns, by their nature, give incomplete and distorted pictures of candidates. That’s true of the very, very long contest for the GOP nomination for governor (a race that’s already more than a year old and will end, mercifully, next week).

That said, there are a few key bits of information that the campaign has revealed about the likely winner (if the polls may be believed), Meg Whitman. Here are the five things I’ve learned:

1. She does not think there is such a thing as overkill.

If you think California unemployment is bad now, imagine how bad things might have been without all the hiring Whitman did. The campaign is over-staffed, as Whitman gobbled up some people just to keep them away from Poizner. Her spending broke every existing record, propping up TV stations all over California. Whether the dollars could be justified by any metric seemed beyond the point. She had it, so she spent it.

Like
the proverbial wolf that continues to lick the knife blade because  it
enjoys the taste of its own blood, the Democrats are back with  another
huge tax increase.

At a time when the state’s economy and taxpayers are still staggering
under the burden of last year’s $12.6 billion tax increase, Democrats
are pushing a plan to raise taxes by yet another $5 billion and to
borrow an additional $8.7 billion.

Among the proposals are extensions of the increases in the sales,
income  and car tax that were approved last year by the usual suspects,
but  were due to expire after two years.  This goes to prove the adage
that  there is nothing so permanent as the temporary.  In a recent
column,  Joel Fox, the president of the Small Business Action
Committee, provided  a number of excellent examples of "temporary"
taxes that seem never to  disappear.  Among those is the federal
telephone tax established to pay  for the Spanish American War, which
remained in place for 108 years  after the war ended.