Posted on 04/13/2017 10:32:24 AM PDT by re_tail20
The California Republican Party has been vanquished at the state level with Democrats having control of every constitutional office (governor, treasurer, secretary of state, etc.) and supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature. But Democratic officials aren’t content with such a rout, as they use their legislative power to manipulate the election system to destroy what’s left of the Republican power base in counties and suburban cities.
GOP leaders ought to be prodding Donald Trump’s Justice Department to look into the seemingly unconstitutional disenfranchisement of 1 million or more voters. But the Assembly GOP leadership is too busy making anti-poverty efforts and happy-face public relations their centerpiece. And Senate GOP leaders couldn’t keep their tiny caucus from giving Democrats the one vote they needed to massively raise gas taxes last week.
But hope springs eternal.
The issue involves the Legislature’s passage last year of a redistricting cram down on Los Angeles County. It was so heavy-handed that the Democratic-controlled county decided to challenge it in court. Bottom line: The Legislature approved a redistricting plan that will virtually lock out Republicans in the nation’s most-populous county, and they are taking a similar model to other counties where Republicans still win elections.
California voters in 2008 approved Proposition 11, which took redistricting out of the partisan hands of the Legislature and vested the map-drawing power in the hands of a supposedly nonpartisan citizens’ commission. You can’t really take politics out of the political system, and savvy Democratic activists have managed to outmaneuver Republicans on creating new districts after the 2010 Census, but the commission idea was a sound one.
But last year Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law Senate Bill 958, authored by one of the Senate’s most partisan members, Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, that appears superficially to be modeled on...
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
For the millionth time, I need to expedite my own CalExit to friendlier confines. I hate giving up and the state itself is so beautiful; however, the politics here is a cesspool.
It’s probably hard for an outsider to imagine the nature of CA government. Maybe Massachusetts or pre-Walker Wisconsin are similar.
There is in effect zero Republican party in CA. It just doesn’t exist. We have a seemingly endless series of laws being proffered covering bathroom diversity, the necessity of schools teaching about gays, and Muslims, though not in the same class. BLAMMO drop a $5 billion tax hike in your lap like you and I getting a cup of coffee. New laws that prohibit kidnappings of children if their car seats are not legally strapped in. It’s already illegal to have the car seat strapped in wrong, it’s already illegal to kidnap children, but no, we have to have a new law prohibiting one while doing the other. Meanwhile every legislator works to carve out public money to provide welfare and other benefits to help themselves get re-elected and there are programs, programs, programs. The whole operation of government in CA is a trough feeding exercise similar to Tammany Hall or early 20th century Chicago except with lobbyists instead of machine guns.
You have your own problems in Massachusetts, bud!
Central and northern California is conservative.
Become?? When we left San Diego in 1992, they were already there.
are conservative...not is
The GOP in California perfected stealth before Lockheed did.
I’d compare it to the Aurora program. You think it’s there, but you have no evidence of it.
Unlike the Aurora program, you never see telltale vapor trails or an occasional per chance photo.
You think to yourself, if it is ever replaced, at that point in time I might be lucky enough to hear something about it.
When the issue of open primaries came up a few years back, there was no visible objection by the California Republican party. None. Within two years, the next opportunity to replace one of our state Senators (Babwa Boxer), saw Loretta Sanchez on the ballot running against Kamila Harris. That’s right, two of the worst Democrats in our state’s history. Here’s the extent of the full statement of California’s Republican party leader, “.........” Nope! Not a peep.
Folks blame Californians for what is taking place in California.
I look to the GOPe, and recognize all I need to know.
Californians didn’t loose the war between Conservatism and Leftist ideology in California.
Our leadership surrendered decades ago.
A quick way to figure who you talk to is to ask them what they think of California. If they say it is a great state, stay away from that guy. I am not kidding. Piece of sht guarrantee.
Central and northern California is conservative.
Unfortunately, the Mexican demographic wave is unstoppable in CA and eventually the conservative areas will be swamped too.
Thanks to the Governor, my cigarettes have gone from $6.50 a pack to at least $9.50 a pack in one month. I hear we will also have our gas prices going up to about 12 cents.
We have enjoyed average gas prices of $2.85 here for years.
I guess Brown wants even more tax money to finance an even longer ‘Smart train’ route. You know, that route from San Francisco going way up north to ‘hotspots’ like Sebastopool?
Yah,we do.But our Marxists tend to be home grown...here legally.
Central and northern California is conservative.
Is there a single county within 75 miles of the Pacific that ILLary didn't carry 70-30?
More like another nail in California’s coffin.
This is much like the toothless Republican party on the national level in the dark days of 1934, which had completely surrendered to their own Progressive side, and fell into a totally subservient role to the Democrats of the time, and the push for the New Deal and all its Soviet-like programs.
Principled conservatives were a rare breed, and like John Galt in “Atlas Shrugged”, they were set up to retreat to their redoubts and caverns, awaiting the certain and cataclysmic failure of the great socialist paradise that had been created.
California has almost run out of Other People’s Money.
I was in Greenwich,Connecticut (suburban NYC) last Tuesday and saw cigarettes at $11.80 a pack.And although I haven't been in the city itself for a few months last time I was there I saw them for $12 and change.
The California Republicans are a bunch of eunuchs. And I’m trying really hard to be politie here.
Illinois is in some ways not nearly as bad off as California, but it got to where it is for a lot of the same reasons. The state GOP turned against conservatives such as Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, the last decent senator Illinois has sent to Washington. I place the blame for the start of Illinois’ fiscal disaster with GOP Gov. George Ryan. I voted for the Democrat the year Ryan was elected, because he was in many ways more conservative.
Republicans in California are gutless, toothless, spineless ant pretty much useless. The stealth comment is right on the mark: they are unseen and unheard and no rich donor wants to help them. Have I used enough negatives to express my disgust with the California GOP? Probably not.
If I thought the main cigarette makers would listen to me, a private lower-middle class citizen, I would mail them a suggestion.
I would suggest that someone design a much, much shorter cigarette for retail sales. By ‘shorter’ I mean a smoke with a filter, and the tobacco holding shaft of the cigarette to be no more than one and one-eighths of an inch in length.
I know that flies against the popular style if making everything bigger and longer, but my shorter cigarette is more in synch with realities of today.
I don’t smoke in my apartment anymore, I will step outside on the terrace. When I do that, I usually don’t wish to spend too long out there. Just long enough to enjoy the taste, aroma and a few plumes of smoke. I end up stubbing my smoke out and ‘saving’ the other half for my next smoke session. I would prefer just having a smaller cigarette in the first place, so I would’nt have all these left-over portions of cigarettes.
I have tried E-cigs, but they can be expensive,, plus they have that annoying reputation of suddenly bursting into flames while being used or while being quietly stored in one’s front pocket. Battery problems. So the technology is still new. I’ll try again in 10 years if still interested.
Many of us smokers have modified our customs to fit into a more smoking restricted society.
Alas, I don’t think industries such as Phillip Morris would ever listen to me on that topic, so I don’t even bother.
My email would most likely never be read by a human being.
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