a running commentary by our trusted california contributors...

[For National Issues Blogging at theOneRepublic's Blog tOR Blog]

[2/28/05 Monday]

[Nick Winter-Found in the ebag] 12:11 am [link]
Fixing Marriage in CA: Found in the ebag from Brian O'Neel - My boss, Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, has introduced AB 1236. If passed, this measure would allow people - strictly of their own volition - to enter into a marital contract that enables them to reject their right to a "no fault" divorce except in certain enumerated circumstances (spousal abuse, drug abuse, etc.). To have access to this choice, the couple must undergo premarital counseling and education or must already be married for five or more years. Also, before entering into a separation agreement, the couple would have to undergo marital counseling.

During the waiting period, the couples' marital counseling must treat how minor children fare in divorce and what parents can do to ease the effects of divorce on minor children. Parents who agree to divorce will submit detailed parenting plans covering issues such as visitation, discipline, and education.

[2/25/05 Friday]

[Eric Hogue - radio talk show host KTKZ - Sacramento] 12:09 am [link]
Naive Republicans: I had a California Republican Congressman (nameless here) tell me that we should 'force' ALL of the prisoners in California to do the work that illegal immigrants do for the agricultural business of the Golden State.

This was in reference to the 'Guest Worker Program', something this congressman was not a fan of, and our situation of economical dependence upon illegal immigrant worker.

I ask; How can we create and pass legislation forcing our prisoners to do the work that the illegal immigrant do, when we hear about rulings like this from the US Supreme Court today?

The Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that a California prison policy that temporarily segregates new or newly transferred inmates by race is constitutionally suspect and should be evaluated by the same searching judicial scrutiny that applies to other government policies that classify by race.

The 5-to-3 decision overturned an appeals court ruling that upheld the policy, defended by California officials as necessary to curb violence by gangs. In that ruling, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit examined the segregation under the relaxed standard of review the Supreme Court generally applies to prison policies.

Sometimes we Republicans are so naive! [Hogue Blog - email: onair@ktkz.com]

[2/24/05 Thursday]

[Nick Winter-Found in the ebag] 12:11 am [link]
AB 503 CalWORKs Bill of Rights? This turned up in the ebag from a source that would rather remain anonymous... I just read about Assembly member Sally Lieber's AB 503. In it she has mandated that a "CalWORKs Bill of Rights" be given to every person who applies for CalWORKs in California. She seems unaware that everything she includes in her "Bill of Rights" is already written, official policy of the CalWORKs program. I guess State policy is just not enough for her. Now she wants us to include this little wonder (in each person's "native language", of course). This is a classic example of yet another stupid, pointless mandate from the State to duplicate a service we already provide. Is there no end?

[2/23/05 Wednesday]

[Ken Masugi - Local Liberty Blog - Claremont Institute] 12:01am [link]
Immigrant Progress and Education Notes on Education News The story of immigrant progress is set forth by Rona Marech in the SFC: "The children of immigrants to this country are wealthier, better educated and more likely to have professional jobs, own homes and live in the suburbs than their parents, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau."

Dan Walters notes the effects of immigration on schools, even as some "built-out" areas need to close schools: "[T]he Department of Finance is projecting only a quarter-million-student gain over the next decade, one-fourth of what occurred in the 1990s."

Heartening progress on learning English is noted by David Hunn in the Bakersfield Californian. The discipline and initiative shown there will be needed in Sacramento schools, which are faced with a dilemma.

Don't praise the State Superintendent of Education, Jack O'Connell, for any rise in English proficiency, warns Jill Stewart. "O'Connell has refused to credit English immersion for soaring English literacy rates."

Virulently anti-Prop. 227 Berkeley Unified is almost frozen in place. In 2001, of the 1,000 Berkeley kids who weren't native English speakers, 42 percent scored "advanced or early advanced" on English tests. Today, 45 percent do. L.A. - far more urban and poverty-riddled - has blown past leafy Berkeley.

O'Connell's silence emboldens these people. In Sacramento, legislators will soon hold education hearings aimed at dumbing-down Latino kids with a separate curriculum. The key guest speaker is an outrageous Pied Piper from the "bilingual" fiasco days, dead-wrong Canadian theorist Jim Cummins.

In Sacramento conflicting directives (and a limited budget) have forced a school district to choose which textbooks, if any, are to be purchased (Laurel Rosenhall, Sacbee). Purchase textbooks now, which must be discarded in a year, or delay their purchase (and violate a court order demanding equal educational materials)? No guessing on who helped create this dilemma-- the ACLU. "This is the problem when you trust lawyers to form education policy," said Bruce Fuller, an education professor at UC Berkeley, and co-director of Policy Analysis for California Education.

Can an immigrant also count as a black American (Jason Johnson, SFC)? Ward Connerly and Lani Guinier appear agreed on some concerns here.

Thanks to Rough & Tumble for making this summary possible. [visit Local Liberty Blog]

[2/22/05 Tuesday]

[Ken Masugi - Local Liberty Blog - Claremont Institute] 12:13 am [link]
Athene's Wisdom: Redistrict by Increasing Legislature's Size A thoughtful criticism of current redistricting proposals is offered by AtheneinCalifornia, in the Sacbee. Her take is in many ways ours:

With 150 Assembly members [instead of 80] and 50 Senators [instead of 40], the modern Legislature would reflect the founders' conception of a smaller, deliberative upper house and a larger lower house where the passions and will of the people are expressed. Assembly members would be more accountable to districts with about 230,000 constituents each, and the Legislature would benefit from new voices that are unable to compete in today's giant, high-cost districts.

She evidently favors “nesting” three assembly districts into each senatorial one. What if we doubled the size of the current legislature: 160 and 80? Then there would be more senatorial districts than congressional ones. Compact lines would still need to be drawn. Both of us still face the problem of persuading a public down on Sacramento to pay for more legislative salaries. But what if they worked part time….? As Athene (Heather Barbour) quotes the Governor: “bring me big ideas.”

UPDATE: The LA Times editorial page is beginning a series on redistricting. "We urge [the Governor] to stay his course." They begin with the 38th district, which sprawls from Pomona west to East L.A. and down below Norwalk. It lies mostly between the I-10 and the I-5. [visit Local Liberty Blog]

[2/21/05 Monday]

[Eric Hogue - radio talk show host KTKZ - Sacramento] 2:42 pm [link]
Still voting NO on stem cell Prop 71: Ted Costa, and the People's Advocate, have announced a lawsuit directed toward the 'unacccountable passing' of Prop 71 (stem cell research). Ted just made the announcement on my morning show, he will be delivering the papers tomorrow to the California State Supreme Court.

The lawsuit (under the Brown Act) asks for elected official oversight and deep accountability. It also asks for any revenues from patents surrounding future research to be paid to the state and not to venture capitalists.

On the Hogue Show, we discussed the moral and financial concerns surrounding this Hollywood driven initiative during the months leading up to the election.

There was little warning before this 'thing' passed, but that was drowned out by those who wanted to pass this 'thing' to show up President Bush. Nobody seems happy about its outcome now, even Democrat Debra Ortiz.

Stay tuned for more...[Hogue Blog - email: onair@ktkz.com]

[Ken Masugi - Local Liberty Blog - Claremont Institute] 12:23 am [link]
Assemblyman Bermudez: Epitome, Synecdoche, or Metaphor? Dan Walters focuses on one glaring example to draw a general conclusion about the state legislature's disfunctional arrangements:

Assemblyman Rudy Bermúdez is rightfully taking heat from political and media critics for using his position as chairman of a budget subcommittee to flog the Department of Corrections on behalf of the union that represents the department's employees.

Bermúdez is a state parole officer on unpaid leave while he serves his stint in the Legislature, as well as a member of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association - the union that, by common consent, is one of the two or three most powerful political interests in the Capitol

Walters concludes:

As the Bermúdez situation underscores, the syndrome results in a Legislature that's not only more ideologically polarized, but also increasingly composed of members who see fidelity to their sponsoring factions - the folks who secured those all-important party nominations - as their first, and sometimes only, priority. And that means we have a Legislature whose members are only tangentially interested in the state's broader issues.

Is Bermudez an epitome, a synecdoche, or a metaphor? He is a reminder. The controversy over him isn't about petty corruption, it's about the corruption of constitutonal government. The presence of a tool like Bermudez in the legislature is, incidentally, the very corruption that the original Progressive reformers fought. Indeed, the weapons of direct democracy that the Progressives devised are being revived to continue that fight, now fraught with considerably greater stakes. [visit Local Liberty Blog]

[2/18/05 Friday]

[Ken Masugi - Local Liberty Blog - Claremont Institute] 12:02 am [link]
Victor Davis Hanson on California The eminent classicist, farmer, and historian of war in the SJM:

California's perfect storm is more complex than stereotyped Democratic wastefulness or Republican stinginess. Sales and income taxes are among the nation's highest, even as the state recovers from near bankruptcy. There are purported worker shortages throughout a government that has nevertheless grown top-heavy with well-paid state executives. The Legislature is paralyzed by regional and tribal factionalism; in the vacuum, needed laws are now made instead by ballot proposition -- sometimes ignored by the bureaucracy or often overturned by the state courts.

What is the problem? California's soft utopian dreams outdistanced hard reality. In a metaphoric sense, we were homeowners who haggled over the sheen on our beautiful wood floors but had no inkling of the rotting foundation out of sight beneath the house.

The Claremont Institute has enjoyed Victor's presence on our panels and in our publications. See The California Republic for his essay on California farming as an example of the western tradition in agriculture. My review of his essential Mexifornia is here, in our newsletter Local Liberty. Victor's great virtue is his ability to see the complexity of a problem, whether it be illegal immigration or invasion and occupation of foreign country, and cut the Gordian knot of perplexity to point toward decisive action. [visit Local Liberty Blog]

[2/17/05 Thursday]

[Nick Winter-Found in the ebag] 5:12 am [link]
Found in the ebag - a poem from a reader...
Down Mexico Way by Russ Vaughn - Rube, hick, Unsophisticated Person Laborer, Worker, Citizen

Try crossing our southern border; try going the other way,
To enter Mexico illegally for an extended, unlawful stay.
Ignore immigration quotas, all their visas and their fees,
And quietly slip their border, anytime you damn well please.
Just sneak in past the policía, ignoring Mexican laws;
You’ve a desperate need to improve your lot; you have a righteous cause.
With Evil Bush in power now, destroying your liberal order,
You’ve a right to seek asylum, to trespass their northern border.

Once there, speak English only and demand it in their schools;
Forget assimilation, make Mexicanos change their rules.
What right do these Latinos have to make you learn their lingo?
Tell those churlish campesinos’ you’ve the right to remain a gringo.
Move right on in, live your own way, ignore their cultural norms,
And demand the use of English on all their official forms.
Free healthcare is, of course, your right; let poor “peones” pay,
For bilingual health providers throughout your border-bending stay.

Be sure to have a baby just as quickly as you can;
A citizen in the family helps legitimize your clan.
Then have another three or four, or maybe six or eight;
Don’t worry how you’ll feed them, just demand help from the state.
“ Paisanos” paying taxes may resent your reckless breeding,
And protest loudly to their states about your gringo kids they‚re feeding;
“ But it‚s just our way,” is your excuse, “Brought from our Yanquí land.”
How dare they question gringo ways they’ll never understand?

So defend your Anglo ethos; yield not your Yanquí essence;
And demand a driver‚s license to legitimize your presence.
Just so you know what you’vedone wrong in case of policía stops,
Insist the Federales must teach English to all cops.
Make Mexicans accept your ways, make them your pliant fools;
Demand a Yanquí culture course be taught in all their schools.
So what you paid no taxes; when you‚re an old gringo who will care?
File for your Seguridad Social, after all, you‚re due your share.

If all this sounds preposterous, an irrational expectation,
Dems are demanding it for Illegals now in our multicultural nation.

[2/15/05 Tuesday]

[Eric Hogue - radio talk show host KTKZ - Sacramento] 12:09am [link]
Placerville's Hate Speech SurfacesThe 1st Amendment is everywhere these days. From the Land Park "House on Marty Way", to Placerville and the Mayor of the city asking for a city resolution to create a 'hate free zone'.

Here is the story from News 10 Monday night...

Following a mayoral proclamation declaring Placerville a "hate-free" zone, a crowd of several hundred marchers took to city streets Sunday in a show of support. The demonstration further fueled the brewing El Dorado County controversy over homosexuality and freedom of speech rights.

More than 300 community members took part in the march. Organizers from the El Dorado County Human Rights Round Table billed the march as the largest human rights rally in the city's history.

The procession was the latest in a string of incidents triggered by the vocal emergence of a Garden Valley anti-gay group, which calls itself GayMarriageNO.

The organization, which describes itself as Christian-based, says it is "dedicated to the public advocacy of the natural family and...Opposed to homosexual marriage...and the homosexual lifestyle." It elicited controversy when a truck carrying signs touting anti-gay messages began appearing along US-50 and near county schools last October.

Marchers on Sunday said they wanted to add their voices to those opposed to the spreading of hate messages through their community.

I don't agree with a majority of this groups methods of communication, but they do have a right to free speech, right?

Compare this to the Land Park and the Pearcy's House...should we support anything close to a "Hate Speech Crime"?

Placerville has created a 'city resolution' for a 'hate speech free zone'. Who determines what is and is not, hate speech content?

Is a poster proclaiming the homosexual lifestyle as immoral hate speech?

Is a poster protesting 'same-sex marriage' and calling it a threat to the family and the future of American culture 'hate speech'?

In both the Land Park, Pearcy House effigy and this Placerville City Resolution...we are watching America grow more and more thinned skinned and the risk is our first amendment right of free speech.

Careful folks, be very careful America! [Hogue Blog - email: onair@ktkz.com]

[2/14/05 Monday]

[Ken Masugi - Local Liberty Blog - Claremont Institute] 12:13 am [link]
The Epidemiology of Immigration The diseases illegal immigrants bring with them are sketched in this Washington Times report by Joyce Howard Price.

In addition to a list of imported diseases that includes tuberculosis, sickle cell anemia, hepatitis B, measles and the potentially deadly parasitic disease Chagas, officials fear what could happen if the avian flu, which is flourishing among poultry in Southeast Asia, mutates so that it is capable of human-to-human transmission through casual contact.

Concludes Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies, "State and local governments probably spent another $1.6 billion on top of [$4.7 billion in health expenses] providing health insurance for illegal aliens." [visit Local Liberty Blog]

[Ken Masugi - Local Liberty Blog - Claremont Institute] 12:03 am [link]
Dr. Will on Schwarzenegger, M.D. George Will likes Dr. Schwarzenegger's proposed surgery for California. His conclusion: "It is quite a spectacle: An immigrant from Europe, familiar with the social sclerosis induced by that continent's statism, is toiling to inoculate this state against those ailments. Only in America." [visit Local Liberty Blog]

[Ken Masugi - Local Liberty Blog - Claremont Institute] 12:02 am [link]
Another Big-City Loser We all know California is such a cutting edge state, especially San Francisco. But yesterday Baghdad by the Bay slunk into place at the back of a long line of failed municipal lawsuits against gun manufacturers. A San Francisco state appeals court upheld a lower court ruling throwing out the city's outrageous claims that the gun companies were responsible for gun crime. Other losers in the case were San Francisco's fellow municipal plaintiffs Berkely, Sacramento, and San Mateo and Alameda counties.

Most of the losing cities have been either traditional liberal strongholds or nests of corruption--Chicago, New Orleans, Boston, Atlanta. Neil Gorsuch at NRO elaborates on how liberals' reliance on litigation to drive their agenda harms not only the courts but their own viability.

But as with other forms of abusive litigation, the perpetrators won't stop trying until the law changes. And that may just finally be happening. [visit Local Liberty Blog]

[2/11/05 Friday]

[Ken Masugi - Local Liberty Blog - Claremont Institute] 12:13 am [link]
Ramrodded Immigration Package? The House is about to pass an immigration bill that bars driver’s licenses for illegals, restricts asylum claims, and would complete a border fence. Arguments on these issues can be found by reviewing our immigration posts.

Of particular interest in this LAT story, by Mary Curtius, is this observation:

But Democrats assailed the law and the way the GOP majority bypassed committee scrutiny of the bill and brought it directly to the floor. They said that move was an indication that Republicans, flush with victories in the November election that saw them increase their majorities in the House and Senate, were not interested in compromise.

"The chairman did not hold a single hearing or a markup," said Rep. James P. McGovern (D-Mass.) "Major bills are being rushed to the floor without even a passing glance by the committee of jurisdiction."

While deliberation is essential to the passage of rational laws, the committee system is not constitutionally mandated. In fact, reliance on committees has transformed the constitutional nature of the Congress. The committee system has become identified with the whole House or Senate, and this delegation is a drastic misunderstanding of the authority behind the legislative power (for the principle involved see the case of INS v. Chadha). It is ironic, to say the least, that the liberals who created the semi-secret government of committees in order to pass their legislation should suddenly complain about a bypassing of that arrangement. [visit Local Liberty Blog]

[2/10/05 Thursday]

[Ken Masugi - Local Liberty Blog - Claremont Institute] 12:09 am