(LAT Photo here)
Was yesterday’s report of lesbian cheerleader sex just a protest against long lines at women’s bathrooms?
A group called “Breasts Not Bombs” (!) protested Governor Schwarzenegger’s initiatives in Sacramento yesterday by taking off their tops:
… two Mendocino women were arrested in front of the Capitol for baring their breasts as part of a [...]

“Let’s stand up for our nurses and our teachers and our police and our firefighters,” says Actor Warren Beatty in a new ad paid for by the nurses union.
Why isn’t he saying let’s stand up for our DMV clerks who won’t look me in the eye or say hello, our prison guards who [...]

Opinion
The writers at Independent Sources take great effort to avoid extensive editorializing and instead of ranting we simply present carefully selected facts (or omit non-conforming ones as the case may be) to support our personal positions–if this method is good enough for the LA Times it’s certainly good enough for us. More importantly, we never, [...]

A sworn declaration by the controller of the California Teachers Association says the CTA has already spent all of the three year, $60 / member surcharge it just started collecting to oppose the November 2005 initiatives:
4. CTA has already spent on the initiative campaign the equivalent of what the temporary dues increase would bring in [...]

In our earlier post on the proposed “free” universal preschool initiative here in California, we had to go dumpster-diving through the Secretary of State’s (no, not Condoleezza Rice) list of proposals that are in the signature gathering stage. Here’s a few that seem certain to reinforce California’s carefully managed image as home of the wacky [...]

I was at Manhattan Beach’s Hometown Fair over the weekend with the Junior Administration Officials, and saw petitions being collected for an initiative that, according to the sign in the photo, would mean “Free preschool for all kids in California.” I took a photo of the booth because it’s so rare to come across something [...]

Unions Working a New Tactic Against Governor – Los Angeles Times
In a non-surprising move labor unions have added intimidation to the litany of tools they are employing to fight the Paycheck Protection (Prop 75) and other initiatives. Labor has spent six months running anti-Schwarzenegger ads to protect their ability to take money from union members [...]

We were trying to learn more about this fall’s Proposition 79, “Prescription Drug Discounts. State-Negotiated Rebates,” when we came across a section in the legislative analyst’s summary that should guarantee a “no” vote from any sensible Californian:
Profiteering From Drug Sales. Existing state law does not limit the prices or profits that can be earned on [...]

This San Francisco Chronicle article suggests there’s another reason to spend your money at Target: they’re being boycotted for supporting the Governor on Proposition 76 –
A California consumer group is telling seniors not to shop at Target stores because of the more than $300,000 the retailer has given to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
California Consumers United has [...]

The California Supreme Court handed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a major victory Friday, putting back on the Nov. 8 ballot his initiative to change how legislative district lines are drawn (August 12th LAT.com). The brief order, issued by a 4-2 vote, ended a month-long legal battle between supporters of the Proposition 77 initiative and Attorney General Bill [...]

A nasty little war brewing in the South Bay (SoCal) town of Redondo Beach illustrates the lengths to which public employee unions will go to serve their interests.
Redondo Beach hired school superintendent Carol Leighty about eighteen months ago after a nine month, headhunter-assisted search. Leighty received a positive review when her contract was renewed in [...]

Dan Walters says in the Sacramento Bee that a deal might be struck in which redistricting reform could be tied to changes in state legislator’s term limits:
The change under consideration – allowing lawmakers to serve their limited tenures, 12 or 14 years, in one house – could make term limits work at last a bit [...]

Tom McClintock gave the LA Times’ George Skelton some interesting thoughts about the state’s requirement that budgets be passed by a 2/3 vote:
“A perverse result of the supermajority requirement is that it does not constrain state spending,” McClintock says. “What it does is bid up the cost of the budget with each additional vote. Every [...]

Teachers already pay yearly union dues of $570 and now California Teachers Association (CTA) is tacking on another $50 to fight Gov. Arnold’s propositions in the upcoming special election. Since one of the issues they are fighting is such a minor adjustment to their outsized job protections (moving the time to get tenure from 2 years to [...]