The collapse of the California Republican Party

California voters gather around to see
a rare site - the nearly extinct Republican elephant.

The GOP is in a free fall
Republican voter registration in California has collapsed down to 29%

• Once solidly Republican Orange County is moving to the Democrats.
• The formerly GOP counties of Ventura, San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino all voted for Comrade Obama.
• In 2012 Republicans lost Congressional seats in solid middle class districts in San Diego, Ventura County, Palm Springs, the San Gabriel Valley and Sacramento.
• Democrats hold two-thirds plus majorities in the state legislature.

Orange County was once an instant synonym for Republican power, and the GOP's dominance looked impregnable. Now, battered by the recent election results and dismayed by the slow, steady decline in party registration, Republicans here are struggling to craft a new strategy.

The percentage of registered Republicans has eroded — it now stands at 41% — and the party has long since lost control of the political districts that envelop the county seat of Santa Ana, a Latino-dominated city of 330,000, and surrounding communities in the county's core.

The 2012 election brought more blows. For the second time, the once-red city of Irvine voted for Barack Obama over the Republican candidate. And a northwestern chunk of the county fell to the Democrats when GOP Assemblyman Chris Norby, an outspoken conservative, lost to Latina schoolteacher Sharon Quirk-Silva reports The Los Angeles Times.

Asked to explain the loss, Scott Baugh, chairman of the county's Republican Party, attributed it to "not fully appreciating the demographic shift and not seeing it in time."

Baugh and other Republicans say Latinos belong naturally in the GOP, citing a cultural emphasis on faith, family, education and the value of hard work.

If Congress deals with the immigration issue, "It's game on again in terms of a competition of ideas and values," Baugh said. "You could wipe out a decade of declining registration by demonstrating to the Latino community that the values they have are the values we have."

Right now, with the immigration issue near the top of Latinos' concerns, many Republicans say their core message of liberty, family values and a free market falls on deaf ears.

In only a few years there has been a serious drop in Orange County Republican voter registration in solid middle class neighborhoods. If the GOP cannot attract the middle class then the party is finished.

"The Republican Party has done such a poor job of, one, messaging; and two, letting themselves be demonized and not fighting back," said Teresa Hernandez, who runs the immigration reform committee for the Lincoln Club of Orange County, a conservative group. "If I knock on the door and say, 'I'm a Republican,' they don't want to hear what I say on the economy or education because they have it in their mind that I'm a bigot."

To appreciate the scale of the countywide political shift, consider that in mid-1996, when registered Republicans eclipsed Democrats 52% to 32%, no Orange County Democrat held a single partisan elected office on the county, state or federal level.

This is the county that yielded conservative firebrands Robert K. Dornan and Wally George, and has long been associated publicly with right-of-center social causes, as in the late 1970s, when a state senator from Fullerton launched a ballot measure to bar gay teachers from California schools.

By a recent count, about 34% of the county's roughly 3 million people are Latino — a powerful voting bloc with strong Democratic leanings. In the presidential election, President Obama won 71% of the Latino vote nationwide to Mitt Romney's 27%.

When President George W. Bush came to Irvine in 2006 to pitch his immigration reform plan — which involved a guest-worker program — some local notables in his own party refused to attend, criticizing his plan as amnesty for illegal immigrants. Dana Rohrabacher, the longtime Republican congressman from Huntington Beach, noted that a photo op with the president would be politically imprudent in such a setting.

Former Orange County GOP Assemblyman Van Tran
The anti-Communist Vietnamese community in California has given the Republicans a much larger share of the vote than most other immigrant groups. To win Republicans need to recruit candidates who can speak the language of immigrant groups and relate to their issues.

Irvine offers a window into the GOP's struggles.

• Irvive is now 40% Asian-American.

Joseph Cruz, an Irvine tax attorney and second-generation Filipino American, went to the polls feeling no hesitancy about which party to vote for. A path to citizenship for America's undocumented population was a top priority, which he said aligned him with Democrats.

"People assume it's a Latino thing," Cruz said of immigration reform, but as an Asian American, he feels estranged from Republicans who "haven't said anything that's really solution-based."

Cruz, 36, reflects the changing face of Irvine, Orange County's third-largest city and its emblematically master-planned centerpiece, where the Asian population has shot from 8% in 1980 to nearly 40% now.

A decade ago, nearly half of Irvine voters registered Republican. It now stands at 33%, barely outnumbering Democrats. It's possible Irvine may soon join the county's two largest cities — Santa Ana and Anaheim — where Democrats already outnumber Republicans.

Countywide, Romney beat Obama 52% to 45%, but in Irvine, the percentage was nearly inverted: voters chose the president over Romney 52% to 44%.

Cruz said his Philippines-born father, who found a path to U.S. citizenship by joining the U.S. Navy in the 1960s, votes Republican out of a belief in low taxes and a strong military. But "it's hard for me, a working professional, a child of immigrants who's not white, to associate myself" with the Republican Party, Cruz said.

The GOP's decline in Orange County doesn't translate automatically into Democratic votes. Independent voters constitute large percentages in Orange County's three biggest cities. In Irvine, by the latest count, those who registered "other" stood at about 35%, a larger percentage than the two big parties.

With the election wounds fresh, the GOP is debating with added urgency how to recast its message and strategy.

Aggressively recruiting Latino candidates for the GOP is crucial, said Hernandez, of the Lincoln Club. "If they're Hispanic and Republican and want to run, we need to bend over backward to help them run," Hernandez said.

Jobs - Goodbye California, Hello Arizona

From San Francisco to Arizona
The on-line customer review firm "Yelp" was founded in San Francisco, but magically when it came time to expand they went to lower cost and lower tax Scottsdale, Arizona.

Thank a Socialist Democrat!
A business group in Arizona is flying CEOs to the state to take jobs away from California


ABC News reports that Phoenix, Arizona is jumping into the fray, trying to bring California businesses to their city.
On election night, Governor Jerry Brown celebrated the passage of Proposition 30. 54 percent of voters decided to raise income taxes on the state's top earners and agreed also to a hike in sales taxes.

"We think the recent tax package that was passed that really targets what we call high performers or producers from an economic perspective will really start to dislodge the serial CEO and Management talent from the Silicon Valley," said Barry Broome, chairman and CEO of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council (GPEC).

In a bid to turn that into an opportunity, the GPEC launched a new program this week aimed at luring California companies away.

"We think this is gonna happen," Broome said. "We know Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, South Carolina are gonna be in the market talking to California businesses so we want to make sure we get present an opportunity for Greater Phoenix."

Under the California 50 Program, the Phoenix group hopes to fly in 50 CEO's. They're interested in luring leaders of companies with 200 employees or more to introduce them to Arizona's lower tax structure.

Some California companies like Yelp have recently expanded into places like Scottsdale, a suburb of Phoenix.

(ABC News)

Yelp employees at the foosball table in their new Scottsdale office.
The new Scottsdale office of an Internet business review company is hiring up to 170 more people this year.
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Yelp’s sales development positions start at $30,000 and gradually increase to $57,000, with training opportunities, while account managers start at $40,000.
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About 80 employees moved into their office at the Scottsdale Galleria.  With a foosball and ping pong table, Wii system, free breakfast and lunch, and outings to baseball games and tubing trips on the Salt River, Yelp appeals to younger workers.
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(az4advancedbusiness.com)

The One-Party Marxist People's Republic of Californa
In addition to voting to "soak the rich" with new taxes, California voters ushered in a new era in state politics not seen in nearly eight decades: Now, for the first time since 1933, the ruling party would have two-thirds majorities in both chambers and free rein in a startling transformation that neuters Republicans.

 

California's Cap and Tax will drive out Businesses

The Massive Socialist Cap and Tax drains millions out of business to fund unions and welfare

• Leftist use greenhouse gasses as the excuse for the Marxist re-distribution of the wealth.
• If these gasses were the issue they could simply be banned, but it is all about money, not gas.
• No new business in their right mind would deliberately locate inside California. 

Socialist "environmental" leaders this week hailed California's first cap-and-trade auction a success . . . . with millions of dollars re-distributed from the job creators Marxist style to those with wants and needs.

Comrade Governor Jerry Brown and Leftist state lawmakers assumed three auctions this fiscal year would generate $1 billion total for the state, half of which they want to plug the state budget deficit. But most of the $289 million raised this month is dedicated for utilities that were also major campaign donors. That will leave about $55.8 million for state programs.

A low auction price for 2013 credits and low demand for future credits suggest that California will fall well short of its $1 billion projection this year. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office estimates that if trends hold in the February and May auctions, the state may only raise about $140 million in the first year.

Even if the state took all of that for the budget it would still miss its budget projection by $360 million. The LAO previously questioned whether the state could legally use $500 million in cap-and-trade auction money for the budget.

"The likelihood of there being a hole in the budget has increased," said Tiffany Roberts, an LAO analyst who focuses on climate change issues. "Not only do we question the viability of using the $500 million, but if these assumptions hold, it's unlikely there's even going to be $500 million."

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2012/11/first-cap-and-trade-auction-a-bust-for-california-budget.html#more#storylink=cpy

(Sacramento Bee)

Jerry Brown's Prop 30 is unconstitutional

Unconstitutional 
Brown's Prop 30 raises taxes retroactively


By John Seiler
Cal Watchdog

One little known aspect of Proposition 30 is that it increases income taxes retroactively for 2012. Approved by 54 percent of California on Nov. 6, the initiative grabs $6 billion a year, mainly by raising income taxes on “millionaires” who make $250,000 or more a year.

But $5 billion from “rich” people is going to be due quickly for the 2012 tax year.

The U.S. Constitution explicitly bans “ex post facto” laws, which are laws that affect actions from before the law was enacted. For example, if tomorrow the U.S. government brings back alcohol prohibition, it can’t jail you for the beer you chugged yesterday. According to Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution: “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.”

And for good measure, Article I, Section 10 reiterates: “No State shall…pass any…ex post facto Law….”

Unfortunately, as in so many areas, federal courts have not enforced this part of the Constitution. The last time this came up was almost two decades ago, when President Clinton imposed higher taxes retroactive to Jan. 1 of that year.

Explained an Aug. 4, 1993 editorial in the Orange County Register, where I was an editorial writer:

“The retroactive scheme is a twist on what is called an ex-post-facto law, the unjust practice of making something illegal after the fact, so you imprison somebody for having done something in the past that was perfectly acceptable then but was declared illegal sometime later.

 

“That kind of ‘justice’ is common in tyrannical states, but it is outlawed under the United States Constitution.

 

“Not everyone will be hit with the new retroactive tax. In his speech last night plumping for the scheme, the president lamented, ‘I don’t like taxes any more than you do.’ No kidding. Perhaps that’s why the president’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, cashed in the family investments last Dec. 31 [1992], just hours before the new fiscal year began.

 

“Last December, most Americans still believed the Clinton promises of a middle-class tax cut. Hillary presciently put less trust in her husband.

 

“Last night Mr. Clinton announced, ‘It has been 30 years since a president asked Americans to take personal responsibility’ for American prosperity. That was when President John Kennedy cut taxes, producing a decade of prosperity. Mr. Clinton is doing the opposite.

 

“As ‘Tonight Show’ host Jay Leno quipped, if Mr. Clinton makes the tax increase retroactive to January, voters should be given a new election retroactive to last November.”

 

Following that analogy from Leno, next June or so California should hold a special election to decide the fate of both Prop. 30 and its sponsor, Gov. Jerry Brown.

 

Welcome to high tax and regulation California.

California's poverty rate highest in U.S.

California Socialism  =  a huge 24% poverty rate


Nearly nine million Californians - almost a quarter of the state's residents - live in poverty under a newly devised federal standard, making the state's rate by far the highest in the nation.

The stunning number will fuel California's perpetual political debate over the state's "safety net" of health and welfare services, which have been reduced sharply due to budget deficits. With voter approval of new taxes, advocates for the poor are demanding that some of the benefit cuts be rescinded.

California's 23.5 percent poverty rate under the "supplemental poverty measure" (SPM) developed by the Census Bureau is approached only by the 23.2 percent rate in the District of Columbia. The highest SPM rate in any other state is Florida's 19.5 percent reports The Sacramento Bee.

The state-by-state comparison is found in a Census Bureau report on the SPM, which is being tested as a replacement for the current way of measuring poverty, which is a half-century old.

The new, and still experimental, system includes broader data of income and outgo that have emerged since the system was created in the early 1960s, such as payroll taxes that reduce disposable income and government benefits that increase income.The new system also takes into account cost-of-living variations from state to state.

The steep climb in California's poverty rate under SPM, adding nearly 3 million to the poverty rolls, is apparently driven largely by the state's high cost of living.

Under the old - and still official - system, California's poverty rate is 16.3 percent, which translates into slightly over 6 million of the state's 38 million residents. That rate is somewhat higher than the national rate of 15 percent, but by no means the highest in the nation.

The national SPM rate is 15.8 percent, a fractional increase from the official rate, and California's SPM rate of 23.5 percent represents not only the highest in the nation, but the largest of any state's jump from the official rate to the SPM rate. In some states, the SPM rate actually is lower than the official rate.

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2012/11/californias-poverty-rate-highest-in-us-by-new-federal-measure.html#storylink=cpy

Democrats make you pay to drive your car

Screwed by the Democrat Party

• First you are taxed to build the roads.
• Then you are taxed to maintain the roads.
• Now you are going to be taxed to even take your car on the road.
• And the mouth-breathing Sheeple voters keep supporting Leftist Democrats who take more and more money out of their wallets.

For the first time the People's Republic of  Los Angeles County will try "congestion pricing," charging individual drivers who want to pick up their pace and use carpool lanes.
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The one-year pilot program will start with a stretch of the 110 Freeway spanning 11 miles southward from downtown LA. The express lanes could cut up to three minutes per mile off the trip, but the trip could cost more than $15 reports San Jose Mercury News.



Toll roads and lanes have existed for years in neighboring Orange County and are standard on the East Coast but a novelty in Los Angeles County, and one that advocates say is long overdue and should reduce congestion for drivers in other lanes, too.
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"It's about time," said Leftist nut-case Donald Shoup, a UCLA urban "planning" professor who has long lobbied for toll lanes to re-distribute the wealth to Big Government.
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Some drivers were less happy. Using the lanes will require a transponder in the car even for carpoolers, though they can still drive in them for free.

"Look at all the tax fees we're paying already," said 45-year-old Lisa Lavine as she stood outside the office where the transponders are sold, "then they're coming out with this."

"We shouldn't have to pay to use the everyday freeway," Lavine said.
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A 14-mile toll lane along Interstate 10 is planned for next year, and similar lanes could end up spanning the region, with scores of existing carpool lanes converted for tolls from individual drivers.

And the Sheeple pay and pay and pay.

The Sheeple of California keep re-electing the very insane Socialists
who increase their taxes again and again.

Pot stores hit with $50,000 fines

The insane "Drug Wars" heat up

• Conservative Republican Kern County voted to fine pot dispensaries and property owners with penalties of $50,000 each plus fines of $1,000 per day.
• Republican Kern County marches in lock-step with the Democrats in growing the Police State in a "war" on drugs.
• Legal and peaceful trade between free people is made a "crime".

The California Kern County Board of Supervisors came down hard on medical marijuana dispensaries and their landlords in the first set of enforcement actions under Measure G, the restrictive zoning ordinance approved by Kern voters in June.

Supervisors voted unanimously in a majority of the 12 cases before them to hit dispensaries and property owners with penalties of $50,000 each plus fines of $1,000 per day, starting Wednesday, until the establishments close or move to a permitted location.

Rejecting sometimes bitter accusations that Measure G is a de facto ban on otherwise lawful businesses, the board found that the dispensaries constituted public nuisances in violation of new zoning rules that forbid dispensaries from operating within prescribed distances of schools, parks and other establishments reports The Bakersfield Californian.


Pot Wars in California

Not all the businesses ended up with fines. Proceedings against one dispensary and its landlord were dropped entirely without explanation, while another was given until Jan. 1 to come into compliance with the zoning ordinance. Another dispensary, Rosamond's Top Flight Organics, and its landlord escaped without fines after evidence was presented that the business had recently ceased operations.

Some dispensary representatives pleaded with the board not to fine them, saying they could not afford the penalty and that there was nowhere else they could set up their business.

"The individuals have no rights anymore," property owner, Joe Ypez, said.

The Democrat shafting of California

Welcome to the People's Republic of California.

Socialism 101 - Politicians simply tax those who do not support them and give the money to those who do.

• What person in his right mind would start a brand new business in California? 
• But Democrats are too fucking stupid to figure out that more business means more tax revenue to spend. 
• For Socialist Democrats it is all about punishing the rich and class warfare.

By Gary;

The election madness is over.  Now we return to the "normal" madness that is the People's Republic.

By a 54% - 46% margin, the oppressed Serfs obeyed Comrade Governor Jerry Brown and his labor union Masters and raised income taxes on the "evil" rich . . . you remember the rich.  Those bastards that create jobs and wealth.  Now billions of dollars will be sucked from the wallets of the Capitalist scum and re-distributed to cover the gaping black holes of government employee union pensions. 

Forget the Socialist lies, the school children will see nothing.  Higher taxes is all about labor union salaries and benefits.  When fully fed the unions then recycle that money to the Democrat Party in the form of corrupt campaign contributions.

If you are a public employee union member you are jumping for joy.  But if you are simply a member of the general public then bend over because you are getting fucked with new sales taxes, fewer jobs and more debt.

California has taken the road to Socialist Greek spending, debt, and poverty.

Meanwhile even the "Communists" in China and Vietnam have figured out that being pro-business makes them a shitload of money to spend.  But American Democrats are too stupid to understand.

All Hail Karl Marx and equal poverty for all. . . . . unless you are in the unions.

Members of the California Democratic Party Central Committee.

Yes on Proposition 32

Yes on Proposition 32

End the rape of California by public employee labor unions.

Yes on Prop 32.



John and Ken interview Governor Pete Wilson on Prop 32

Prop 32 ends the corrupt flood of government labor union money buying
politicians and raiding the treasury.

California GOP voter registration falls again

California GOP at a pitiful 29.4% of the state's voters

• It is the lowest GOP showing since the state started tracking in 1922.
• In 1999 the California GOP stood at 35.2%.

Voter registration has hit record highs in California while Republicans' share of voters has dropped to a historic low statewide and countywide, according to final numbers posted by the secretary of state Friday.

California Republicans have a serious concern. Republicans dropped below 30 percent of all voters for the first time since the state began tracking party affiliation in 1922. Republicans are now at 29.4 percent of all voters, down from 31.4 in 2008 reports the Orange County Register.

Democrats have also lost voter share in the state but unlike Republicans, increased their raw numbers. Democrats now account for 43.7 percent of voters, down from 44.4 percent in 2008. Unaffiliated voters have increased from 19.9 percent to 20.9 percent.

Statewide, 18.2 million people are registered to vote – 77 percent of all of those eligible to register, according to Secretary of State Debra Bowen. That's 942,000 more than in 2008. The surge of voter registration in the last 45 days is less than in the last presidential election, with 986,000 signing up this year while 1.2 million registered during that period four years ago.

(Orange County Register)

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For the California GOP to grow it would help that they actually stand for something.  It was just this August that State Assembly Republican Caucus Chairman Brian Nestande voted with the Democrats to increase sales taxes.
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See our article:  GOP Leader Nestande votes for more taxes then resigns.

Betrayed Again
Anti-tax voters have been betrayed by California GOP leaders over and over and over again. Republicans leaders from Governor Schwarzenegger to Lt. Governor Able Maldonado to GOP leaders in the legislature have all supported tax increases.