The Senate was less of a question, given that Democrats have a full supermajority in the upper house. As it turned out, the Senate passed the measure – and a companion bill that strengthens air-pollution reporting requirements – with all Democrats in support, as well as one Republican, Tom Berryhill of Modesto, who gained a concession (reduction of a firefighting fee for rural areas) he had sought.

But the Assembly vote wasn’t even close, as seven Republicans – including Republican Leader Chad Mayes of Yucca Valley – voted in favor of the extension. The other six Republicans were Catharine Baker of Walnut Creek, Rocky Chávez of Oceanside, Jordan Cunningham of San Luis Obispo, Heath Flora of Modesto, Devin Mathis of Visalia and Marc Steinorth of Rancho Cucamonga.

Mayes defended his vote, first by expressing how tired he is of partisanship, then noting that he supports cap and trade because “we believe markets are better than Soviet-style regulations.” He also posted on Twitter a large photo of Ronald Reagan with a recent quotation from former Reagan Secretary of State George Schultz: “Passing this bill on a bipartisan basis … is something Ronald Reagan … would be proud.” But despite his appeal to conservative icons, conservative activists and commentators were furious at the vote.

In a column Tuesday, Jon Fleischman, publisher of the Republican website Flashreport, ridiculed Mayes’ contention that the cap-and-trade system is a free-market approach to climate change: “Apparently Mayes believes that when the government creates Soviet-style limits on resources but leaves people with the freedom to exist in a world of artificial scarcity on their own terms, that is not command and control.”

Conservative former Assemblyman Tim Donnelly noted in an email blast that eight GOP legislators “voted for a (63 cents) per gallon gas tax, handing Gov. Jerry Brown another victory and a massive slush fund to spend on things like high-speed rail.” That number comes from the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, which concluded that the cap-and-trade system could add 63 cents to a gallon of gasoline by 2021 if carbon credits sell for a high price.

Under cap and trade, established in 2012 by the California Air Resources Board and authorized by the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, the state caps allowable greenhouse-gas emissions by manufacturers. That cap then is reduced by 3 percent a year. Manufacturers who cannot reduce their carbon emissions immediately bid for “credits” in an auction system. The goal is to force companies to invest in low-carbon technologies, but the costs of the credits and those investments are expected to drive up costs in the meantime.

Some business groups backed the program, viewing it as a less-onerous means to achieve climate-change goals than the heavy-handed regulatory alternative. Some environmental and social-justice groups opposed the plan, which they view as going too easy on corporations. But few doubt that its passage will increase gas, food and electricity prices.

The issue is a hot button now, given that Republicans are targeting Democratic Sen. Josh Newman, D-Fullerton, because of his vote in favor of Senate Bill 1, a recently passed law that increases gasoline taxes by 12 cents or more a gallon and which also increased vehicle-license fees to pay for transportation projects. Most Republican legislators objected to a cap-and-trade driven gas-price hike so soon after this tax increase.

Because of the relatively large number of Republican votes for the cap-and-trade extension, the Democratic Assembly speaker “was able to let three of his targeted members, who are occupying seats the GOP would like to pick back up, either not vote at all or vote no,” added Fleischman. He called it a “a big strategic blunder” for the Assembly GOP.

It’s unclear whether the GOP legislators will suffer a political price for their vote. Berryhill is termed out of his Senate seat. “Because of the manner in which the party is currently run and funded, those legislators who voted for the bill will not be punished in any way by the party,” said Tom Del Beccaro, former California Republican Party chairman. “However, as (former Assemblyman) Eric Linder proved with his liberal voting record and loss due to low Republican turnout, Republican voters will be less likely to turn out for Republicans next fall.”

The Republicans who voted for the bill seem undeterred. Some of them joined Gov. Jerry Brown at a celebratory press conference after the bill’s passage. “We didn’t come here to Sacramento to just be Republicans and to hate on Democrats,” said Mayes. “We came here to Sacramento to make people’s lives better.”

Chávez noted that “we’re a very small component of the world on this but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be leaders on something that’s threatening the world.”

It remains to be seen whether the GOP, which was making political hay out of the recent gas-tax vote, can keep up its political momentum now that so many of its members voted for bill that may raise gas prices by far more than 12 cents a gallon.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

“It’s time to step away for a while, and spend more time with my family and stay a little closer to home helping my community, as an active private citizen,” he said, according to his prepared remarks. “I know it’s cliché to say I am not running so I can spend more time with my family. Everybody says that. But the truth is, that is a major factor in my decision today.”

The son of an immigrant fieldworker turned mayor of Santa Maria, Maldonado has long been considered the Republicans’ best chance to reach out to the state’s growing Latino population, which is projected to become the state’s largest “race or ethnic group” in March. In 2000, although just a freshman state assemblyman, Maldonado was given a prominent speaking role at the Republican National Convention.

2009 tax vote damaged Maldonado’s rising star

Maldonado’s promising career stalled later in the decade with his 2009 vote for “the largest tax increase in California history.”

“It’s not surprising that Maldonado never caught fire with the voters on this campaign because of his deplorable record of raising taxes,” said Jon Fleischman, the publisher of the conservative website FlashReport.org.

In addition to struggling with the party’s conservative base, Maldonado’s candidacy failed to gain traction with the state’s top Republican donors. His last major campaign contribution reported to the Secretary of State’s Office occurred 60 days ago. According to campaign finance reports for the first half of 2013, the former state senator had raised $314,222, of which 60 percent had been spent on campaign consultants.

In September, Maldonado’s campaign went through a major staff shakeup as he ditched his expensive Washington D.C.-based campaign consultants in favor of a more grassroots operation that included Jimmy Camp, considered “one of the most highly respected Republican organizers in California.”

Tim Donnelly only GOP candidate now — but not for long

The announcement temporarily leaves Asm. Tim Donnelly, a favorite of the state’s Tea Party activists, as the only Republican challenger to Governor Jerry Brown. Donnelly, who thanked Maldonado for his years of service to the state, said that Maldonado’s decision provides voters with a stark contrast to Brown.

“With nearly 2 million Californians still out of work and California’s economy suffering, we remain focused on our message that’s resonating with voters – a real choice at the top of the ticket this fall,” Donnelly said. “Our goal in this primary has always been to clear the field, so that we can focus on our primary opponent, Jerry Brown. With the field narrowing, we intend to continue doing just that.”

However, Donnelly isn’t expected to remain the only Republican candidate for very long. Maldonado’s departure from the race could bolster the chances of moderate Republican Neel Kashkari, a former Bush administration Treasury Department official who managed the TARP financial bailout.

“I admire @abelmaldonado’s career of public service and know he has a lot more to contribute to California in the future,” Kashkari tweeted shortly after the announcement.

Kashkari, who is expected to formally announce his campaign soon, has made the state’s growing economic inequality a central theme of his tour throughout the state.

“Kashkari is packaging Republican issues in a way that’s designed to appeal to people who wouldn’t normally vote for Republicans,” observes UT San Diego columnist Steven Greenhut, who was impressed by Kashkari’s passion in a recent interview.

Jerry Brown well-positioned against all challengers

No matter which Republican candidate makes the November run-off, he is unlikely to defeat the Democratic incumbent. According to a Field Poll in December, Brown enjoys a 58 percent approval rating. By comparison, Brown’s predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger left office with an approval rating of just 22 percent.

Brown’s numbers are so strong that some have jokingly speculated that Brown could win a Republican Party primary. In the early 20th century, California gubernatorial candidates could run in both primaries.

“Ask yourself, if Jerry Brown, the powerful incumbent governor, were in a Republican primary today might he fare well against the Republican field?” posits Joel Fox, the editor of Fox & Hounds and president of the Small Business Action Committee. “The gubernatorial candidate many Republicans might think is the safest bet in the November election just may be Jerry Brown.”

Other candidates for governor include the Green Party’s Luis J. Rodriguez, who released a new campaign video Wednesday.

In the first debate involving the three leading candidates in the San Diego mayoral special election to replace Hall of Fame perv Bob Filner, Fletcher struck a novel pose on the subject of his political shape-shifting: If you bring it up, you’re a bad person who wants to hurt San Diego’s image. I’m not making this up.

This is from the U-T San Diego story on the debate:

“Former Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher challenged his rivals in the San Diego mayor’s race on Friday to run clean campaigns free of attack ads and focused on civic issues in the first major debate that included all three of the top contenders.

“The challenge came in the middle of a discussion on how to improve the city’s emergency-response times at the ‘Spirit of the Barrio’ debate which focused heavily on neighborhood issues. City Council members David Alvarez and Kevin Faulconer didn’t respond directly to Fletcher’s pledge although Alvarez, who spoke next, quipped that he would use his time to actually answer the debate question.

“Fletcher’s political evolution from Republican to independent to Democrat since March of last year has drawn heavy criticism and skepticism from the left and the right. He’ll likely face an onslaught of negative advertising ahead of the Nov. 19 special election for that along with changing his position on key issues.”

Why no attack ads? Speciousness doesn’t get more extreme

But here’s where things take a hilarious turn. Fletcher contends his proposal isn’t to protect him from attack ads. Instead, it is prompted by his noble motives. I’m not making this up.

“Now a Qualcomm executive, Fletcher said he was making the clean-campaign pledge because of the negativity caused by former Mayor Bob Filner’s sexual harassment scandal and speculation that the race to replace Filner would likely get ugly.”

I got to know Fletcher a bit more than some elected officials in recent years because of the Chelsea King tragedy and his subsequent effort to win a law that reformed some California laws in mostly smart ways. Unlike Jon Fleischman, I’m not a Republican who feels personally betrayed by Fletcher’s “growth” and his lurch across the political spectrum. I still think he’s an able guy who may get a lot done in his lifetime. But the problem is that over the past year and a half, he’s been drinking the Kool-Aid about his personal greatness.

For Fletcher to seriously argue at the first debate that attack ads are bad form — but not because he’s most vulnerable to such ads but because he’s nobler than the rest of us — well, wow. That is a legitimate Oh-My-God-You-Cannot-Be-Saying-That-With-A-Straight-Face moment.

I know it doesn’t embarrass Fletcher. The Kool-Aid has him believing that any decision he makes is correct, because he’s Nathan Fletcher, and he’s just not wrong.

But if I were a Fletcher supporter, and I heard him make an argument that insanely specious and self-serving, I would wince.

Unless, of course, I too had partaken of the Kool-Aid.

By Katy Grimes

SACRAMENTO – The Assembly and Senate Republicans should have registered their ‘no’ votes on the budget, and packed up and gone home to their districts on Friday, instead of allowing the process to be dragged out for another 24 hours.

The Democratic supermajority not only has enough votes to pass whatever budget they choose, it was entirely crafted without input from Republicans.

The only adult in the majority

California is indeed a strange place when Gov. Jerry Brown is the only adult in the room at budget time.  The Democrats and Gov. Brown reached a budget compromise earlier in the week, and it was Brown who reined in the Democratic Supermajority spending wish list… slightly.

And the budget is still far from perfect.

While Brown allocated $1.7 billion in the budget to pay down some debt, the budget fails to pay down any significant amount of the state’s growing debt.

Budget Relevance

On Friday, the Assembly passed the budget bill, AB 110, on a 54-25 party line vote. The floor debate was clearly defined by party as well.

But, according to Assemblyman Jeff Gorell, R-Camarillo, there are four very clear problems with this budget:

1. the budget plan programs massive spending obligations next year.

2. Fails to address in any meaningful way the state’s massive wall of debt of nearly $700 billion.

3. This budget diverts Proposition 30 revenues to programs that are not education, as promised by Gov. Jerry Brown.

4. Borrows $500 million from the state’s cap-and-trade fund to go right into the general fund.

Gorell said the Democratic budget sets California on a course for new spending that will be unsustainable.

And earlier in the week, Gorell compared the budget to a mullet haircut –“It’s conservative up front, but it’s liberal in the back.”

“My caucus believes our responsibility is to represent the taxpaying citizens of California, that’s why we were sent here,” Assembly Republican Leader Connie Conway, of Tulare. “And yet we feel that in this process perhaps we did not have the equal opportunity to do that. To not be included was a choice of others, not ours.”

“We stand ready to work when the opportunity is afforded us and in a process that we think should be democratic, not simply done by Democrats,” Conway said during the budget debate.

Prop. 30 borrowing

One of the biggest problems with the budget is it relies on new tax revenues from Prop. 30, passed in November. But Prop. 30 is set to sunset in five/seven years. By then, the state will be used to spending the money it brings in, and either drastic cuts will need to be made, or Democrats will push for an extension.

The other problem with Prop. 30 spending is the money was promised by the governor to go to education. Gorell said the budget has Prop. 30 money, allotted for numerous non-educational programs, “in contravention of voters’ intentions and desires when they narrowly supported Prop. 30 last fall.”

Cap-and-trade borrowing

“This budget proves that cap-and-trade is an illegal tax,” Assemblywoman Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, said. “AB 32 was supposed to save the planet from global warming.”

AB 32 is California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, and  allowed the California Air Resources Board to devise a cap-and-trade system whereby it holds a quarterly auction program “requiring many California employers to bid significant amounts of money for the privilege of continuing to emit carbon dioxide — or be faced with closing their doors in California, laying off their employees, and moving their businesses to other states,” the Pacific Legal Foundation recently said.

“And, Prop. 30 was sold to put money in schools,” Grove added. “It’s going to welfare instead of paying off the school debt.”

“The budget proposal contains a $500 million loan from the controversial “Cap and Trade” program, which was supposed to fund environmental improvement projects, Conway added. “Instead, the loan will be used for the general fund. It will cost taxpayers $26 million in interest and there is no plan on how to fund this new spending next year.  Also, the proposal hides spending increases by implementing them at the end of the year and locking in future increases.”

Grove and Conway are right. But Democrats in the state see the cap-and-trade and Prop. 30 tax revenues as pots of money in which they can borrow. The only problem is the state never repays what it borrows.

Education spending

“The budget proposal reduces the debt repayment to schools by $676 million,” Conway said. “The state will still owe this money to education, but the obligation will be pushed back another year to fuel more spending.”

“Republicans proposed a freeze on tuition, which was rejected by the majority party,” Conway said. “The new college scholarship entitlement program created by this budget will not be funded for another year.  Meanwhile, the Democrat budget contains no guarantee against future tuition hikes. “

Debt? What debt?

According to the governor’s budget proposal, California’s “wall of debt” includes:

* Deferred payments to schools and community colleges;

* Economic Recovery Bonds;

* Loans from Special Funds;

* Unpaid costs to local governments, schools and community colleges for state mandates;

* Underfunding of Proposition 98;

* Borrowing from local government (Proposition 1A);

* Deferred Medi-Cal Costs;

* Deferral of state payroll costs from June to July;

* Deferred payments to CalPERS;

* Borrowing from transportation funds (Proposition 42).

Brown has had little explanation or discussion of the state’s massive debt problem in this budget since first proposing it in January, in the May Budget Revise, and through today’s budget vote. But before understanding state spending and any talk of a surplus, the state’s debt cannot be ignored.

According to the Small Business Action Committee, because the Legislature has refused to make any sincere pension reforms moves, nearly $2.5 billion in pension debt has been run up just in the last two years.

Brown occasionally speaks of California’s “wall of debt.”  However, he is usually careful in his definition of debt, and only attributes a very small segment of what the actual debt obligation is.

The written May Budget Revision said the budget plan would reduce the wall of debt to less than $5 billion by the fiscal year end of 2017, from $27 billion today.

Democrats have been touting a surplus with this budget But it must be difficult to reconcile a supposed state “surplus,” with actual, total bond debt of $79.6 billion, California State Teachers’ Retirement System debt of $70.9 billion, California Public Employee Retirement System debt of $128.3 billion, and other post-employment benefit debt of $63.8 billion, according to SBAC.

Conway noted the State Auditor recently totaled up all of the state’s unrestricted assets and income, and then compared them against the state’s liabilities to determine California had a negative net worth of $127.2 billion.

“What would a Republican budget look like?” Gorell asked. “More Prop. 30 monies wold go to public education, particularly payig down Prop. 98 deferrals and other debt. No borrowing against special funds like cap-and-trade. Refrain from adopting long term programatic spending against a short term, temporary revenue stream. And likely we’d abandon financial sipport to the calamity that was once high speed rail, which has no morphed into a monument to government tone deaf largesse and inefficiency.”

By John Seiler

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, in socialist California to bring jobs back to free-market Texas, sat down for a short interview with FlashReport.org’s Jon Fleischman. Perry gives some good advice for California: cut taxes, cut waste, cut regulations — restore freedom.

The Web site Perry mentions is: http://www.texaswideopenforbusiness.com/

By John Hrabe

California’s chief political watchdog sent the blogosphere into a collective tizzy earlier this year. In April, Ann Ravel, chairwoman of the Fair Political Practices Commission, floated the idea that California become the first government body in the country to regulate political blogs and websites.

Bloggers all over the country reacted with outrage, leading Ravel to quickly revise the idea.

“As opposed to asking the bloggers to do it on their sites, which is the most effective option for the consumer, it may be more reasonable and less problematic to require that we get an isolated accounting from the committees,” said Ravel, who interrupted her South American vacation in April to speak with CalWatchDog.com about the regulations.

Five months later, the FPPC will hold a public hearing today to discuss the first draft regulations based on Ravel’s revised idea. To her credit, Ravel listened to bloggers’ concerns and has followed through on her promise to “get an isolated accounting from the committees.” The draft regulations would apply exclusively to campaign committees, which are already heavily regulated by the state. Bloggers would also be excluded from the reporting requirements.

“It was thanks to many of the bloggers who talked to me and emailed me to inform me of those concerns that I was able to fully understand the problems,” Ravel told CalWatchDog.com last week. “While I do not concur that it is unconstitutional to ask bloggers to identify who is paying them for political activity, I understand that to do so might have consequential problems that would be difficult to deal with in a reasonable way that balances free speech and the openness of the Internet with the need for disclosure.”

Ravel said that she continues to believe her initial idea would have withstood any constitutional challenges. Many free speech experts say such regulations of paid political bloggers would fall well within established First Amendment precedents.

“When a blogger is paid to write for a campaign, that’s basically a campaign buying a political advertisement,” UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, who publishes the legal blog, The Volokh Conspiracy, explained earlier this year. “The Supreme Court has held (in McConnell and Citizens United) that the government may require political advertisers to identify the source of the advertisement. Requiring the blogger to identify his speech as an advertisement paid for by a campaign would be much the same as the identification requirements that had been upheld — it would inform the public about who is actually paying for the speech, and do so at the moment the speech is received.”

FPPC Draft Regulations Apply Exclusively to Committees

Political bloggers won’t have to test their luck in the courts, at least for now.

The blog regulations, as currently proposed by the commission, are strictly limited to campaign committees. “A committee, pursuant to Section 82013(a), must include amounts paid to any person who engages in activities such as the following, on the committee’s behalf,” the draft regulations state. That would put the onus for reporting political blogging entirely on the campaign committees that already file extensive campaign documents with the state commission.

Campaign committees that pay bloggers to provide content for a post, blog, video or social media mention would need to disclose “the amount of the payment, the payee, the name of the person providing services, and the name of the Internet publication, blog or website and the URL on which the communications are published.”

Mixed Reaction from Political Bloggers

Such regulations are likely to sit well with many political bloggers.

“If everyone plays by the same rules, and the FPPC can develop a site where disclosure is a few clicks and keystrokes, then I am fine with it,” Gregory Cole, who publishes at flapsblog.net, told CalWatchDog back in April when the blog regulations were first suggested.

The prolific blogging duo at CalBuzz.com shared a similar view, after reviewing the FPPC’s proposed regulations.

“California’s Fair Political Practices Commission is moving in the right direction in their new draft proposal governing expenditures for paid online communications,” wrote CalBuzz’s Jerry Roberts and Phil Trounstine. “We’re convinced Ravel and the FPPC are not out to squash free speech or prevent people working in campaigns from using Twitter and Facebook.”

However, CalBuzz would still like to see greater clarification of the types of activities that would trigger the disclosure requirement.

“The regulations should make clear that purchasing advertising from a web site at the standard market rate does not constitute employment of the personnel of that web site, whether the site is published by a stand-alone internet operation or is the online presence of a newspaper, magazine or radio or TV station,” they wrote.

Fleischman and Maviglio: FPPC Shouldn’t Become the Internet Police

But not all bloggers are happy with the draft regulations.

“The FPPC doesn’t have the resources — nor the need — to become the Internet police,” Jon Fleischman, publisher of the Flash Report, and Steve Maviglio, a Democratic political consultant and blogger, wrote in a joint Sacramento Bee opinion piece. “But now the FPPC wants to go where no other state has gone before: requiring anyone who receives payment from a campaign that is posting any content on the Internet to be reported — from a field worker who spends one day of a campaign knocking on doors and tweets about it from her iPhone, to the campaign manager who spreads the word on a blog, to a part-time student paid to coordinate campus volunteers and posts a humorous YouTube video about the ballot campaign he’s working on.”

“It should stick to its knitting and work on enforcing the voluminous campaign reporting rules already on the books, instead of attempting to slow the revolution of online communication that is revolutionizing American politics,” the political odd couple wrote.

When CalWatchDog.com spoke with Ravel last week, she confirmed that her top priority was achieving those objectives.

“I want to achieve the purposes of the Political Reform Act — to increase public trust in government with the purpose of engaging people in public life,” she said. “I think that the best way to ensure trust is open information, provided by the government, that is easily accessible.”

Looking past the blog regulations, Ravel also laid out an ambitious set of goals for improving the commission’s website and public disclosure tools.

“I am working very hard to get an online filing and access system, utilizing open source codes, so that everyone — bloggers, news reporters, and the public, can find information and make connections to help them make decisions about their elected officials,” she said.

Note: John Hrabe serves as a senior editor for the Flash Report, which is published by Jon Fleischman.

Previous CalWatchDog.com articles on this controversy:

FPPC chair backs away from mandatory disclosure of blogger payments

Calif. blog regulations could hit Drudge, citizen journalists

By John Seiler

Governments today wield immense power over every aspect of our lives. That’s why threats by politicians should be taken seriously.

Gov. Jerry Brown recently said he saw “fear in the eyes of Republicans when the tax word is uttered in their presence.” The Sacramento Bee reported:

“To make his point, the Democratic governor recounted a tale from the final week of session (watch the video here) when he lobbied Sen. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, for a 1 percent lumber tax during a chance encounter in the Capitol basement garage.”

Brown, the most powerful person in California, then mocked LaMalfa:

“He kind of got into a little fetal position and started shaking, he literally was shaking. And this big man, he looks like a — wears boots, he’s kind of an outdoorsman, a mountain man kind of. And I saw him kind of start shriveling in fear of, I guess, it was the FlashReport or [Grover] Norquist or whoever the hell it was.”

Jon Fleischman of FlashReport and Grover Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform, are two longtime Brown bugaboos. He blames them for threatening Republican legislators who might vote for jobs-killing tax increases.

But neither Fleischman nor Norquist has anything but the power of words. They only can point out when a Republican legislator violates his “no new taxes” pledge.

Powerful Brown

It’s Brown who heads a vast state police and regulatory force that can crush even the biggest business like a mosquito. Look at how he went after even giant Amazon.com.

And with AB 32’s new Soviet-style Cap and Trade regulations now going into effect, businesses are cowering in fear before the governor — or leaving the state for freedom. LaMalfa is a rice farmer directly affected by this and other legislation implemented by Brown and such Brown factotums as CARB boss Mary Nichols.

And now Brown, in his his extreme egoism, is comparing himself to God — literally. He said:

“At the end of the day, vox populi, vox dei. The voice of the people, as they say, the voice of God. It’s either take the money from those who have even more than we can imagine and give it to our schools or not. And whatever it is, I’ll manage it and we’ll make it work. One way would be better, but whatever way the people decide is the way we’ll go and that’s the way it should be.'”

Vox populi

Brown likes to pepper his conversation with Latin tags from his Jesuit miseducation. “Vox populi, vox dei,” means, “Voice of the people, the voice of God.”

In Brown’s parlance, it means, “The people elected me, and the people is God, so do what I say — or else.”

Actually, one of the earliest uses of the phrase was from Alcuin, whose promotion of learning began lifting Europe from the Dark Ages (I mean the one from about A.D. 500-1000, not the current Dark Ages). In a letter to Charlemagne, Alcuin wrote:

“And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.”

Of course, 1,200 years ago was not a democratic age. But even today, it is not true that Vox populi, vox dei. Sometimes the people do insane things. I recently wrote of the incarceration of loyal Japanese-Americans during World War II. The 1932 elections in Germany couldn’t have turned out worse.

The point is that, as with everything else, the voice of the people must be checked by common sense and common decency.

Brown also was deceiving the populi — the people — when he said, “It’s either take the money from those who have even more than we can imagine and give it to our schools or not.” For one thing, in mega-expensive California, $250,000 — the point where his Proposition 30 tax increase would dig in — is not having “more than we can imagine.” You’re certainly well off, but not rich. After all, at that point you’re going to want to pull you kids from the failing government schools and put them in private schools at a cost of $15,000 or so a pop. If you have three kids, that’s $45,000 right there — after taxes.

And many small businesses file as S Corporations, which pay taxes at the individual level. So raising taxes on an S Corporation with $250,000 or more in profits means less money for business expansion and jobs creation. It could mean less business — or a dead business — and job losses.

And the real problem with our “schools” is not a lack of tax revenue, but: 1) they’re badly managed, commonly scoring 46th or worst among the 50 states on test scores; and 2) California’s massive government pension liabilities of at least $500 billion, only slightly improved by the anemic reform the Legislature just passed with Brown’s backing, is sapping school and state budgets.

Keep in mind that image of big Doug LaMalfa cringing before Jerry Brown. That’s how Brown and the rest of the ultra-powerful government functionaries that lord it over us, want us — prostrate in fear.