Free Republic

The California Supreme Court's historic declaration that same-sex couples can marry will be tested in November when voters face a measure that would enact a constitutional ban on such marriages – and two new polls indicate that it will be a close one. The court set aside a 2000 ballot measure that barred recognition of same-sex marriages but, the new polls indicate, voters have been moving the other way. A Los Angeles Times poll of registered voters, taken on May 20-21, a few days after the Supreme Court decision, found that 51 percent disapproved of the Supreme Court's decree, while...

State Republican lawmakers have a long history of resisting taxes, and this year is no different. Even before Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger calls a planned special session to deal with the state's "fiscal emergency," GOP legislators say they have ruled out revenue increases as a potential remedy. They're not joking: All but one GOP member in the Capitol has signed a no-tax pledge. It's said "an elephant never forgets," and the Republicans whose party is symbolized by that pachyderm remember tax increases as hurting the economy – and their own political fortunes. "It's such a strong plank of the Republican platform...

f legislation approved by the state Assembly Monday becomes law, it would be the largest overhaul of a health care system ever undertaken by a state. The legislation also would require insurance companies to offer coverage to Californians with pre-existing medical conditions. The landmark measure that would provide coverage to most uninsured Californians cleared its first major hurdle when it was approved along party lines in the Democratic-controlled lower house. If the Senate approves the bill and voters agree to pay for it, it would extend coverage to nearly 70 percent of the state's permanently uninsured and require most Californians...

Philosopher George Santayana said it best: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." A bit of political history was repeated Monday when the state Assembly voted 46-31 along party lines for an immense new health care scheme without knowing whether it would work, or even how it would work – very much like the Legislature enacted a far-reaching energy "deregulation" scheme in 1996 that turned out to be a humongous disaster. The Assembly Appropriations Committee conducted a pro forma hearing and gave party-line approval, even though, as one critic, Donna Gerber of the California Nurses Association,...

Hey, do you remember Bobby Caina Calvan, the arrogant newspaper reporter who blogged about his snit fit in Iraq when a soldier asked him for identification–earning himself a Jerk of the Year nomination? Well, Calvan’s MSM friends and editors have again come to his defense. They’re as clueless and snotty as he is. Armando Acuna, public editor of the Sacramento Bee, chose Veterans’ Day to mount his blog-bashing campaign and apologia for Calvan: A day after his Oct. 23 blog posting, Calvan woke up at 5 a.m. in his Baghdad hotel room and signed onto his computer. “My e-mail started...

When The Bee's Bobby Caina Calvan volunteered for a six-week reporting stint in Iraq, he didn't have the faintest notion he would be nominated for an award. Just a few days into his assignment, conservative blogger Michelle Malkin did the honors, nominating Calvan for "Jerk of the Year." That was just the beginning of the accolades. In a matter of days, bloggers and their flock of sheep across the country were calling Calvan an "immature human," "a pompous ass," "disrespectful," an "embarrassment," and an "anti-American military" ideologue. There were more, but you can't print them in the newspaper. What was...

Remember Bobby Caina Calvan, the Sacramento Bee reporter who bragged on his internet blog about antagonizing an American Green Zone border guard? Meet Armando Acuna, the Public Editor for Calvan’s employer. Here’s how Acuna describes Calvan’s run-in with the American soldier: “What we’re talking about here is an escalating, ahem, urination competition between two men in a stressful situation. Just two guys making each other mad – doesn’t matter if you’re right-wing, left-wing, up or down.” As they say, there’s much more at the link (free registration may be required). Acuna surely must realize he’s stirred a hornet’s nest with...

What do you do if you can't carry state? Try to hijack 20 Electoral College votes -- A dangerous ballot measure that could hijack the presidential election is back in play.Once again signatures are being gathered to qualify a Republican-backed initiative that would rig the way California's electoral votes are counted and, as a result, possibly decide who is elected president of the United States in 2008.No candidate has claimed responsibility for the initiative, but there are some obvious fingerprints on the initiative drive. Paul Singer, a Wall Street hedge fund manager with close ties to GOP presidential candidate Rudy...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Democratic legislators and the media roasted Republican senators for holding up passage of the state budget on issues that had nothing to do with the budget, such as their demands to restrict lawsuits over greenhouse gas emissions. "A whole lot of stuff was brought up at the end that was never brought up before," Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata complained at one point. It's a valid point, even though Republicans countered that they had to use the budget on other issues because the Democrats otherwise ignored them. But Republicans weren't the only ones leveraging the budget...

The most important thing about the stalemate was that it failed to accomplish the one thing it should have done, which was to force the governor and legislators of both parties to own up to the state's precarious finances and take some concrete steps to improve them. Although Schwarzenegger has pledged to veto about $700 million in spending to bring the budget into operational balance, it's a fiscal house of cards. The budget itself is based on unrealistic assumptions, especially on the revenue side of the ledger, and much of his supposed spending reduction is just bookkeeping sleight of hand...

It will take at least $2.9 billion of reductions to truly balance the budget and provide a prudent reserve. If that sounds like a lot, it would still leave the state spending $8.5 billion more than the year before last, and nearly $22 billion more than at the outset of this administration. Most Senate Republicans are asking for much less than that: just the $700 million of spending reductions that would balance the budget, if only on paper. So far, the governor's pledge to use his line-item veto to make those reductions doesn't ring true. For example, about $160 million...

The chances of another maverick joining Maldonado appear to be fading. Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Atwater, has been specifically targeted because of his being somewhat less conservative than other senators, but he's reacted to the pressure -- including a Democratic Party threat of a recall campaign -- by becoming more adamant. If, as the Field Poll indicates, public pressure is unlikely to crack the GOP solidarity in the Senate, the question now is whether Democrats will feel enough pressure from their constituent groups that are dependent on state financing to give ground on the Jerry Brown demand. This week's rhetorical maneuvers...

In a move that would diminish the clout of his fellow Republicans in the Legislature, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested Monday that he could support eliminating the two-thirds voting requirement for passing future state budgets. "Everyone now has come to the conclusion -- all the leaders -- that we must work, as soon as the budget is over, work on a system that allows us to have a budget on time," the governor said. "If that means we should go and shoot for, as some suggested, a simple majority to pass the budget rather than a two-thirds vote, maybe that's the...

aine and Nebraska allocate their electoral votes by congressional district, and that's what the proposed California ballot measure would do. Each candidate would receive one electoral vote for every congressional district he or she captured. The statewide winner would be awarded the two electoral votes representing the state's two Senate seats. The initiative was filed by Republican lawyer Thomas Hiltachk, who hopes to qualify it for the June 2008 ballot if he and his associates -- GOP figures all -- can raise enough money. If they make it and the measure were to be approved by voters, it would be...

Ackerman, meanwhile, has maintained remarkable unity, despite the defection of one senator -- the proof being the growing frustration among Democrats and in the Governor's Office. Although Ackerman had been under fire for being too cozy with Schwarzenegger and Democrats and retained his leadership position by a single vote, his mild-mannered stubbornness has made him a force. Núñez and Perata may say they won't negotiate further, but they have almost no capacity to force Republicans to budge, given their safe districts and their lack of personal stakes in the budget's details. Perata's declaration that he won't take up other legislation...

Senate Democrats enlisted environmentalists Wednesday to chastise Republicans for holding up the state budget, arguing that the GOP is seeking a rollback of a Ronald Reagan-approved environmental law at the behest of business interests. Despite a pledge by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to veto spending in the Assembly-approved plan, Republicans also are demanding a provision to prevent cities and counties, as well as developers and businesses, from being sued on climate change for the next three years. Republicans cite concerns about Attorney General Jerry Brown's use of the California Environmental Quality Act to stall local development projects. They worry that Brown...

The other night, as the Senate's Republicans were blocking the state budget, GOP Sen. Tom McClintock alluded to the driver's license pledge, sending an implicit but unmistakable message that a big impediment to a deal was mistrust of the governor's promises to cut enough spending to bring the budget into rough balance. Rightly or wrongly, Republicans believe that he'll sell them down the river in his eagerness to deal with Democrats. That mistrust, when coupled with Schwarzenegger's cavalier treatment of GOP politicians last year, made all but one of the senators impervious to his pleas.

Democrats are growing anxious about a state initiative filed last month by a prominent Republican attorney to change the way California assigns its presidential electors, even though the proposal has no discernible financial backers yet. Rather than assign all of California's 55 electoral votes to one candidate under the current winner-take-all system, the initiative would split the nation's largest electoral bounty between two or more candidates. Filed by GOP lawyer Thomas Hiltachk, it would give a presidential candidate one electoral vote for each congressional district he or she wins in California, plus two additional votes to whomever wins a plurality...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger described the state budget impasse Thursday as "very damaging" and added: "California deserves much better than that." He's right, but probably not as he intended. The fact that the budget is more than a month overdue is not the most shameful aspect. It is that he and most legislators are willing to enact another deficit budget at a moment when revenues are flattening and the gap is destined to widen. Schwarzenegger and others who want the current version of the budget enacted -- which it would be if one more Republican senator would vote for it --...

But Republican senators are taking them seriously as they hold up passage of the budget, listing the sanctions as their largest single spending cut to bring the budget into balance. Picking up Schwarzenegger's earlier rationales, Republican legislators contend that the sanctions are needed to bring California into line with federal welfare reform rules on work. "The only people thrown off welfare ... will be felons, illegal aliens and persons who don't comply with such draconian rules as trying to find a job," Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Atwater, wrote in an op-ed piece circulated to California newspapers. Whacking welfare rolls would be...