Dana Rohrabacher

Signs of Hope in California?

November 9, 2018 By Joel Kotkin 10 Comments

Ronald Reagan is not coming back, but California may be avoiding a trip to the insane asylum. Yes, the GOP’s lackluster gubernatorial candidate, John Cox, lost by almost 20 points, and the only issue in the legislature is whether the Democrats regain their supermajority in both houses. But it could have been much worse.

The GOP lost only two or three congressional districts in southern California and appeared to be holding its own in the interior. In my own district, to my surprise, Mimi Walters, who was out-campaigned and outspent, managed to win. Others, like the more contentious Dana Rohrabacher, did not.

Without a change in approach, Republican growth potential is limited by changing demographics and an increasingly bifurcated state economy. At best, the GOP, running on its traditional anti-tax platform, can get up near 45 percent—as shown in the failed repeal of the gas tax, Proposition 6—but no further. This strategy still works marginally in places like Orange County and the interior but fails overall.

In a sense, California elections are now about how far left the state is willing to go. Proposition 10, a measure to expand rent control, was soundly defeated by a massive ad campaign targeting homeowners fearful of seeing curbs on the prices that they could charge to rent their homes. The outcome suggests that if the business community appeals to the middle-class without the Trumpian baggage, voters will support more moderate positions. Perhaps even more important was the victory of Marshall Tuck, a Democrat running with Republican support for Superintendent of Education against the candidate of the teachers’ union. But the limits of moderation are always evident. Steve Poizner, a registered Republican running for State Insurance Commissioner, appears to be falling behind Ricardo Lara, a far-left Democrat best known for leading the fight for single-payer health care.

Despite improved earnings by lower-wage workers, Republicans remain in serious trouble in Latino and African-American communities. Simply put, a competitive California needs a racial realignment that adds to the shrinking base of white GOP voters. The best target for that goal is the Asian community, the state’s fastest-growing and arguably most successful ethnic group. Asians may be repelled by Trump’s immigration rhetoric, but they tend to be middle-class homeowners who care about schools and safety, and they won’t be happy if the Democrats move further left in terms of seizing zoning policy from communities or feeding the public sector with ever more middle-class taxes.

Southern California Republicans have worked hard to appeal to Asian voters; there are three Asian-American assembly members, two state senators, and three supervisors (out of five total), all Republicans. A highlight yesterday was the election of Young Kim in a northern Orange County congressional district. Asians now make up about 20 percent of Orange County residents, and Asian Republicans are common. They seem to be able to win in districts where Trump is unpopular. It’s hard to run on a racism charge against someone born in Incheon.

The question is where this potential white-Asian alliance is going. Michelle Steele, the politically aggressive supervisor in Orange County, where the board is majority-Asian, is considering a run for statewide office. If Republicans can pull Asians away from the Democrats, at least at the local level, they could restore a semblance of political competition in the state.

In the years ahead, the most important struggle in California will be within the Democratic Party. Two distinct factions increasingly predominate. One, close to the tech community, adopts the gender, environmental, and race agenda of the Left, but rejects income redistribution and is congenitally hostile to unions. Voters in this group tended to back Tuck for education superintendent, and many supported Poizner for insurance commissioner, but they remained cool to Cox’s gubernatorial bid.

The other, now-ascendant faction, comes from the hard Left, and is backed by public-employee unions, nurses, and other service providers. Their constant campaigning—particularly in the face of gross inequality in the Bay Area—has begun to reach the tech hoi polloi. As recent protests at Google suggest, the hard Left may not be ready to embrace the edicts of “the Brahmin Left,” which is fundamentally devoted to looking progressive while preserving, to use the Left’s terminology, their distinct, mostly white and male, privilege. Silicon Valley oligarchs, who have often funded “woke” activists in their native Bay Area, now face being awakened themselves by rising demands for “social justice.”

California’s Left today is not like that of the past. It is not interested in building usable infrastructure, meeting the aspirations of working- or middle-class families, or creating middle-skill jobs. These are exceedingly difficult tasks if you also want to adopt the state’s draconian green agenda. The new Left’s solutions to state problems, like housing, tend toward ideas like turning single-family neighborhoods into “vibrant” (read: crowded) apartment blocks, boosting housing subsidies, and imposing rent control.

Donald Trump’s presence in the White House and the GOP’s control of the Senate creates real problems for California. Under Barack Obama, greens could hope that the rest of the country would follow the California lead. But for the next two years, at least, other states will be busily picking off companies and individual talent eager to escape California’s high prices and regulatory restraints. As a result, the feudalization of the state will proceed, necessitating ever-more expansive subsidies for everything from housing and energy to education. The demographics certainly are in place for a potential lurch leftward. Proposition 10, for example, may have lost the votes of home-owning Democrats, but it was widely backed by their children, who have little choice, if they stay in the state, but to remain renters for life.

Ultimately, California’s battles over rent control — as well as single-payer health care, restrictions on driving, and expanding racial and gender quotas — will only intensify. These policies can be implemented only with huge tax increases, in a state that already imposes one of the highest taxation rates in the country. (Single-payer alone could double the state budget.) Silicon Valley may hold the purse strings and, increasingly, the means of communication, but the California that it has helped shape may soon choose other priorities besides virtue-signaling while the super-rich get still richer.

Joel Kotkin, a City Journal contributing editor, serves as Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and executive director of the Center for Opportunity Urbanism.

This article was originally published by City Journal Online

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Dana Rohrabacher, John Cox, Mimi Walters

Dana Rohrabacher – The Last Reaganite Battles the “Resistance,” George Soros and Never Trump

May 22, 2018 By Bill Saracino 7 Comments

One early morning in the Spring of 1966, Ronald Reagan walked out the front door of his home at 1669 San Onofre Drive in Pacific Palisades. Wearing pajamas, bathrobe and shaving cream on his half-shaved face his purpose was to find the morning paper. He also found a young fan who became a lifelong friend, supporter and co-worker – Dana Rohrabacher.

Dana had spent most of the night camped out on Reagan’s front lawn, determined to save the newly formed “Youth for Reagan.” The gray beards in the gubernatorial campaign had determined that having an official youth arm would be too much trouble and ordered it disbanded. Rohrabacher, then chairman of Los Angeles Harbor College Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), was determined to save it.

Happily, Reagan was chairman of the California YAF Advisory Board, knew of the effective campus activism of its members and agreed with Dana that an energized youth arm would be an asset to his campaign. A few days later the campaign’s elders mysteriously changed their mind and reinstated the youth operation – staffed mainly by YAF members and serving as a huge recruiting tool for YAF throughout the campaign.

This was just the first of many times through the years that the Reagan-Rohrabacher collaboration worked together to accomplish good things. From Dana’s work in the ’76 and ’80 presidential campaigns to his seven years as a Special Assistant and speech writer in the Reagan White House to his clandestine trip to Afghanistan to help the anti-communist Mujahedeen to his career as one of the most reliably conservative, Reaganesque members of Congress it has always been clear that Dana and the Gipper had the equivalent of the Vulcan mind meld.

This has not gone un-noticed by friend or foe. Dana’s political profile – among other things lifetime ratings of 95% from the American Conservative Union, 97% from the National Tax Limitation Committee and A+ from the NRA – has long put him at the top of the Left’s enemies list. This year, energized by the “resistance” movement and funded by admitted former Nazi George Soros, the far left sees its chance to get revenge. Soros is spending millions of dollars in California to elect candidates who will implement his far-left ideas.

Concentrating on congressional and district attorney races, Soros is replacing the Left’s pink “pussy hats” with his green financial resources. Laundering money through various front groups and PACs he has helped target congressional seats in Orange County currently held by conservatives. Taking down Dana is at the top of the Left’s wish list.

Sadly it is also at the top of the wish lists of some Never Trump die-hards and a political huckster named Scott Baugh. As I wrote previously, Baugh is a former legislator, former lobbyist and full time self-promoter. He doesn’t talk much about his legislative career, and with good reason. The two “achievements” that stand out are his vote in favor of giving illegal aliens “in state” tuition to the U.C. System and twisting arms in the Assembly so other Republicans would join him in supporting the disastrous 1999 “pension spiking” legislation. That bill today is bankrupting cities and has left the state with hundreds of billions of dollars in unfunded pension liabilities. Thanks, Scott.

Neither does he talk about his public promises of two years not to run against Dana and to refund contributor’s already-given contributions. He has done neither, so on top of everything else, Baugh is also a liar. We have enough of his kind of creature in the D.C. swamp already.

Unable to talk about his own record, his campaign against Rohrabacher has been scurrilous, duplicitous and truth challenged. Given Baugh’s refusal to be photographed with President Trump during a recent presidential Orange County visit, it is not surprising that his campaign is receiving support from local “Never Trump” bitter-enders. These folks thought the country would be better off with Hillary Clinton as president. They now think the country would be better off with Scott Baugh in Congress. As John Wayne said, “Life is hard. It’s even harder when you’re stupid.”

Baugh’s main critique of Dana is that he hasn’t passed enough bills during his time in Congress. Baugh may not know that when Obama left office there were 95,894 pages in the Federal Registrar. Because of President Trump’s regulation cutting and Dana Rohrabacher’s refusal to add new laws solely for the purpose of “doing something,” the number of pages has been reduced to a mere 61,950. Baugh thinks it’s the duty of congressmen to endlessly add more pages. Donald Trump add Dana Rohrabacher think 61,950 is still too many, but at least headed in the right direction.

Unlike Baugh, President Trump and Rohrabacher agree with Barry Goldwater, who in “Conscience of a Conservative” wrote: “I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ‘needed’ before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents’ ‘interests,’ I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.” Someone needs to send Baugh a copy of “Conscience” and explain that passing more laws is in neither the conscience nor definition of a conservative.

A common question about Baugh’s campaign is “why now?” It is widely believed that this will be Dana’s final re-election. His service to the conservative movement, the Republican Party and the country have more than earned him the right to retire on his own timetable. Millions of dollars will be spent in this race that could have been saved for the November battles against the Democrats. Why? GOP activists have been divided. Why? Why can’t Baugh do the decent, honorable thing and wait until 2020?

Because of a diminutive, conservative tiger named Michelle Park Steel. A member of the Orange County Board of Supervisors and Korean by birth, Steel is wildly popular with both the GOP rank and file and the county’s Asian community – which just happens to be the fastest growing demographic group.

She has become a major leader in the statewide pushback against the insane “sanctuary” state and city laws. There are now 40 cities and 10 counties officially resisting the state’s “all criminal illegals welcome” sanctuary policy. She was at the White House last week meeting with President Trump and Attorney General Sessions to brief them on the burgeoning anti-sanctuary movement she is helping to empower.

Steel would obliterate Baugh in a 2020 primary election, and that is why he cannot do what even he and his most fervid supporters must know in their heart of hearts is the right thing – wait for two years. Personal ambition apparently trumps all in Baugh-world.

Dana’s and my mutual friend Ed Meese is likely the proper owner of the “last Reaganite” title, but Dana can easily claim it for members of Congress. From the half-shaven candidate meeting the teen-aged acolyte on the front lawn grew a lifelong association that spanned decades – on the campaign trail, in the White House, on Air Force One, at State of the Union speeches and so much more.

I know these are memories Dana cherishes, as the last Reaganite fights on. He is in a two-front war against the Soros-funded “resistance” and the blind ambition of a conservative poseur with a campaign fueled by Republicans who still hate President Trump. Orange county was pivotal in launching Ronald Reagan’s political career. County voters who want to win one more for the Gipper have an opportunity to do so – by re-electing Dana Rohrabacher.

Bill Saracino is a member of the Editorial Board of CA Political Review.

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Bill Saracino, Dana Rohrabacher, Ronald Reagan

Dana Rohrabacher – Fighting for Freedom

May 3, 2018 By Bill Saracino 9 Comments

There is a sign over the Capitol Hill office door of Congressman Dana Rohrabacher that reads “Fighting for freedom and having fun.” He’s been doing both for over 50 years since I first met him in 1966 when we were both members of Youth For Reagan and Young Americans for Freedom.

The 1960s were a challenging time to be a conservative on campus. But whether on his own school of Cal State University Long Beach or on dozens of other campuses in his position as Vice Chairman of California YAF, Dana was always on the front lines fighting the SDS and their pro-Communist allies – but also having fun doing so.

Other than the obvious political ones, the main distinguishing difference between us and our left-wing opponents was that we had senses of humor, approaching our battles with an iron fist but also with a smile. This particularly un-nerved the left, which didn’t then and doesn’t now have any tolerance for humor.

As befits a California conservative who cut his political teeth in the mid 1960s, Dana has always been a Reaganite. Like most of us he worked in the ’66 and ’70 gubernatorial campaigns as well as the ’76 presidential campaign. He was hired by the 1980 presidential campaign as a speech writer, giving Dana a dream job, spending many hours with Reagan not only working on speeches but also getting to know each other.

Reagan brought Dana into the White House as a speech writer, giving him the opportunity to be part of shaping some great words. While he did not write the famous “Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall” line, he was among those on staff who strenuously objected when the jello-spines in the State Department made several attempts to remove the line for fear of “offending” the Soviets. Happily, Reagan had the last word and insisted the line be kept in. The rest, as they say, is history.

YAF instilled in all of its members a clear-eyed understanding of the evils and barbarity of Communism. Working in the Reagan White House gave Dana a unique perch from which to put those beliefs into words for the “Great Communicator,” but his efforts against Communism were far from over when he left the White House.

An open congressional district in Orange County in 1988 launched Dana into his next career. Winning a crowded GOP primary – with a huge assist from Colonel Ollie North – Dana easily won in November and headed back to Washington with a slight detour – Afghanistan.

In the interim between his election and swearing-in, Dana put his beliefs into direct action. He snuck into Afghanistan with a group of anti-Communists to help the pro-Western “Mujahedeen” – the Northern Alliance – fight the Soviet invaders occupying their country. The advice, guidance and other assistance this group provided helped make the Northern Alliance a lethally effective foe of the Communist occupiers.

His career in Congress has been a logical continuation of his earlier life – fighting for freedom, leading battles for the conservative philosophy, standing up to the Left and having fun doing all of these things. These traits have long put him near the top of media and liberal “enemies” lists, and this year the goons on the left, aided by a small cabal of conservative useful idiots, think their time to extract vengeance has finally arrived.

The George Soros-funded “resistance” has targeted Dana for defeat – a fact he takes as a great compliment. The swamp’s opposition to Dana comes as no surprise. What is sad – and scandalous – is the fact that a few Republicans, putting personal ambition above what’s good for the country and the conservative movement, have joined the left-wing mob in trying to defeat Dana.

The leader of the useful idiot brigade of Republicans helping George Soros achieve his goal is a former legislator, former lobbyist and full-time self-promoter named Scott Baugh. His legislative career was thoroughly undistinguished, not surprising for someone who thinks the only thing worth fighting for is personal aggrandizement. While in Sacramento he did however find time to support taxpayer benefits for illegal aliens, voting to give them in-state college tuition.

He then decided to cash in as a special interest lobbyist, joining a firm dominated by liberal Democrats, including two former Assembly Speakers. Not surprisingly, Baugh fit right in. Also un-surprising is that his mud-slinging campaign against Rohrabacher is funded by “Never Trump” bitter-enders still opposing the president. Taking his marching orders from the Left, Baugh even refused to be photographed with President Trump on his recent trip to California.

His lack of a political compass is accompanied by a lack of veracity. After toying with a run against Rohrabacher two years ago he withdrew, promising that he would not run against Dana in the future. He agreed to refund donors’ contributions – apparently another broken promise.

It is widely assumed that this is Dana’s last campaign, so why can’t Baugh wait another two years? Because of a lady named Michelle Park Steel.

Michelle is an Orange County Supervisor, leader of the growing push back against the “sanctuary” state and city nonsense and hugely popular in the county. Korean by birth she is highly thought of in the rapidly growing Asian communities in the county. Before being a Supervisor she was on the California Board of Equalization. On both boards she compiled a spotless conservative voting record.

This attractive, articulate, conservative lady would vaporize Baugh in a head-to-head primary contest in 2018. That is why Baugh joined the left-wing mob attacking Dana and reneged on his promise not to run against him this year. With Baugh it is clear that when principle conflicts with personal ambition, principle always loses. We have enough of those types in the swamp already.

The American Conservative Union gives Dana a lifetime voting score of 95%. He has a lifetime “A” from the NRA. He has always walked the walk as well as talked the talk – fighting for freedom and having fun. He has earned the right to retire on his own timetable.

Dana Rohrabacher’s career has been spent promoting “duty, honor, country.” Scott Baugh’s has been spent promoting “me, me, me.” Orange County Republicans have a clear choice – a truth-challenged opportunist making common cause with the George Soros “resistance” or a lifelong fighter for their beliefs. The choice is a simple one.

Bill Saracino is a member of the Editorial Board of CA Political Review.

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Bill Saracino, Dana Rohrabacher

More California Cities Join Revolt Against ‘Sanctuary State’

April 6, 2018 By Joel B. Pollak 3 Comments

Two more California cities joined the growing revolt this week against “sanctuary state” laws enacted by Gov. Jerry Brown.

The city council of Fountain Valley in Orange County voted on Tuesday to join the U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit against the state that was filed last month in Sacramento — thanks, in part, to intervention by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), who faces a tough re-election fight in November.

The Los Angeles Times reports: “A majority of the Fountain Valley City Council overcame a reluctance to spend public funds on joining the growing Orange County movement against California’s so-called sanctuary immigration laws after U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher offered Tuesday to foot the bill for the city to file a court brief supporting a federal lawsuit targeting the laws.”

And on Wednesday, the city council of Escondido in San Diego County also voted to join the fight by filing a brief in support of the Trump administration’s case by Friday.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports:

Following a contentious, three-hour meeting filled with name-calling and impassioned pleas, the Escondido City Council voted 4-1 Wednesday to file a legal brief in support of the U.S. government’s lawsuit challenging the state’s sanctuary laws.

…

More than 70 people spoke during a public meeting in a packed City Council chambers, with most addressing the larger issue of immigration and often echoing the national divide between President Trump’s supporters and detractors.

Escondido Mayor Sam Abed, himself an immigrant, defended the council’s 4-1 vote against “sanctuary” laws, underscoring the need to work with federal law enforcement authorities to keep the community safe.

The lawsuit targets three statutes: the Immigrant Worker Protection Act (HB 450), the Inspection and Review of Facilities Housing Federal Detainees law (AB 103); and the California Values Act (SB 54).

Thus far, several Orange County cities, and the county itself, have joined the revolt.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named to Forward’s 50 “most influential” Jews in 2017. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

This article was originally published by Breitbart.com/California

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Dana Rohrabacher, Fountain Valley, Immigration, Sanctuary State

Resistance to the Resistance and the 2018 Elections

March 31, 2018 By Joel Fox 4 Comments

Opposition in Orange County from government bodies to the state’s sanctuary law could serve as a sign of the electorate’s mood and just might influence the hotly contested Orange County congressional races. This resistance to the resistance – the state resisting the federal government, the locals resisting the state – comes against the background of Democratic efforts to take back the House of Representatives. Intense efforts are being made to flip congressional seats in Orange County in which Hillary Clinton outpolled Donald Trump.

The state legislature passed and the governor signed SB 54, the sanctuary state law, which blocks local law officials from working with federal immigration enforcement officers in certain situations. The Trump Administration has challenged the sanctuary state and sanctuary city laws in court. This week, a number of states with Republican governors filed briefs in support of the Administration’s position.

After the city council of Los Alamitos in Orange County voted to oppose the sanctuary state law, other Orange County communities and the county supervisors considered actions to oppose the state law, with the county voting to join a federal lawsuit against the sanctuary laws.

Supervisor Michelle Steel who introduced the resolution against SB 54 argued that safety of citizens is at issue, insisting the county should increase “our cooperation with federal immigration enforcement and stop our county from becoming a sanctuary for criminal illegal immigrants.”

Hints on how this issue might play in the coming congressional elections could be gleaned from polling done by the Public Policy Institute of California.

The Orange County districts targeted by the Democrats are Congressional District (CD) 39 currently held by Ed Royce (who is retiring), CD 45 held by Mimi Walters and CD 48, Dana Rohrabacher – Republicans all.

CD 39, which sits about 60% in Orange County with the remainder in Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties, has a plurality of Republican registered voters, but barely, 1.5% more than Democrats.

CD 45 and CD 48, both completely within the boundaries of Orange County, have 8% and 11% Republican registration leads over Democrats, respectively.

Last May, PPIC asked likely voters if they supported or opposed the then-proposed sanctuary state law. 43% favored the law; 48% opposed the idea. While Democrats were in favor of the proposal by a 2 to 1 margin, Republicans were opposed by nearly 4 to 1.

In the PPIC survey last month, likely voters were asked if they thought if the federal crackdown on undocumented immigrants is a good thing or a bad thing. In the Republican leaning districts, 61% said it was a good thing, 34% thought it was a bad thing.

With local elected officials standing up on the side that the polling seems to indicate likely voters in the district support, this could be a positive sign for those hoping the contested districts will remain in Republican hands.

However, the California Target Book publisher, Darry Sragow, thinks the Republicans will have a hard time turning this issue into a winning formula. “If the Republicans in the three threatened Orange County Congressional seats seize on this issue, the poll numbers confirm that they will be preaching to the choir. Whether it will produce a boost in GOP turn out is one question. A second question is whether it will be counterproductive, driving Democrats, particularly Latinos, to the polls.”

Sragow continued, “Beyond 2018, the data tells an interesting story. Back in 1980, Latinos were a little less than 15 percent of the population in Orange County. In 2010 that number was almost 34 percent. In 1994, the year Proposition 187 was on the ballot, Republican registration in Orange County was more than 52 percent. Today, it’s less than 38 percent. Which raises the question of whether the California Republican Party is destined to repeat history, once again trading short term incumbent protection for long term alienation of many Latinos, who now outnumber every other ethnic group in the state.”

How California goes in the coming mid-term elections in the challenged races very well could determine who controls Congress in January.

Joel Fox is editor and co-publisher of Fox and Hounds Daily.

This article was originally published by Fox and Hounds Daily

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Dana Rohrabacher, Mimi Walters, Orange County, Sanctuary State

Two California Republican Congressmen Vote Against GOP Tax Reform

December 20, 2017 By Joel B. Pollak 4 Comments

Two California Republicans, Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), voted against the tax reform bill on Tuesday.

They were the only Republican members of California’s congressional delegation to do so. Every one of California’s Democrats did so, and Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Kamala Harris (D-CA) are also expected to vote against the bill.

Ten other Republicans also voted against the tax reform bill, most from other high-tax states, notably New York and New Jersey.

Both Issa and Rohrabacher are considered vulnerable in the 2018 midterm elections, after Hillary Clinton won their districts in 2016. Both are among seven Republicans in the Golden State who are being targeted by Democrats.

Issa was barely re-elected in 2018, and faces four Democratic challengers next year; Rohrabacher already faces seven Democratic challengers (plus two Republicans, one Libertarian, and an Independent) in next year’s primary. Notably, five of those Republicans still voted for the tax reform bill.

Rohrabacher has stated publicly that he opposes the tax reform bill because he is concerned that the partial repeal of the state and local tax (SALT) deduction, and the cap on mortgage interest deductions, could see taxes raised on some of the residents of his district despite the lowering of income tax and corporate tax rates.

Issa opposes the bill for the same reason, but also publicly blamed Governor Jerry Brown and California Democrats for the dilemma facing California taxpayers.

One Republican who switched from “no” to “yes” was conservative Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA), who voted against the original House version of the bill but supported the compromise bill drafted with the Senate because of revisions that addressed his concerns.

In a speech on the House floor, he said, in part:

The new version leaves the casualty loss, medical expense and student interest deductions intact. No family needs to fear being ruined by taxes after a major declared disaster or illness, and graduates can continue to plan their lives knowing interest on their student loans will not be taxed. The new bill eases the proposed limit on mortgage interest deductions and allows up to $10,000 of state and local taxes to be deducted – all important improvements for Californians.

Most importantly, the lower tax rates in this bill now more than compensate in almost every case for the remaining limits on state and local tax and mortgage interest deductions. Even taxpayers who lose tens of thousands of dollars of deductions will still pay lower taxes than they do today.

The House will have to vote again on the bill, after two minor provisions in the legislation ran afoul of Senate parliamentary rules for reconciliation (which allows votes pertaining to budget issues to pass on a simple majority rather than a 60-vote supermajority). Rohrabacher and Issa are expected to repeat their “no” votes.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

This article was originally published by Breitbart.com/California

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Dana Rohrabacher, Darrell Issa, Dianne Feinstein, Kamala Harris

California University’s “Sanctuary” Policy a Threat to Federal Funding

December 22, 2016 By Matt Fleming 9 Comments

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher last week warned UC President Janet Napolitano that the system’s sanctuary campus polices could jeopardize federal funding for research.

The Costa Mesa Republican denounced a recent announcement from UC that campus police would not be cooperating with federal officials in deportation efforts of undocumented immigrants.

“Your commitment to spending scarce resources to finance people illegally present in the United States is unacceptable and a flagrant misuse of taxpayer money,” Rohrabacher wrote. “This is an insult to Americans and legal immigrants who pay your salary.”

While sanctuary policies align with the state’s liberal lean, one of the main policy reasons supporters turn to is that by creating a space where deportation is off the table, undocumented immigrants are more likely to cooperate with police in other investigations.

“It is in the best interest of all members of the UC community to encourage cooperation with the investigation of criminal activity,” according to the UC statement. “To encourage such cooperation, all individuals, regardless of their immigration status, must feel secure that contacting or being addressed by UC police officers will not automatically lead to an immigration inquiry and/or a risk of removal.”

The UC system gets more than half of its research funding from the federal government, which Rohrabacher claimed is jeopardized by resistance to the upcoming administration.

“I assure you that, in the next session of Congress, those who receive and spend federal dollars in a manner that includes people illegally present in our country will find it difficult to obtain those funds,” Rohrabacher wrote.

The issue of sanctuary campuses is a small part of a bigger showdown between California and President-elect Donald Trump. While Trump campaigned heavily on a tough stance on immigration — which included mass deportation and the construction of a wall along the country’s southern border — California Democrats have since announced their intention to fight those efforts at every turn.

Though Rohrabacher initially supported a different candidate in the Republican primary, he eventually came around to Trump with a full-throated endorsement, even going so far as to call other Republicans “gutless” who backed away from Trump at times of turmoil. His name was even floated as a potential candidate for secretary of state, although he was not chosen.

This piece was originally published by CalWatchdog.com

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Dana Rohrabacher, Immigration Reform, Janet Napolitano, University of California

CA Congressmen Urge Federal Reform of Marijuana Laws

August 10, 2015 By James Poulos 1 Comment

The federal government’s understanding of its own marijuana regulations are willfully “tortuous” and “an obvious stretch,” warned a bipartisan duo of California Congressmen in a sternly-worded letter to the Department of Justice.

An abuse of power

In the letter, obtained by the Huffington Post, Reps. Sam Farr, D-Calif., and Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., requested that DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz open an internal investigation into the department’s continued prosecutions of marijuana dispensaries, against what they said was the clear letter and intent of the law.

In its Appropriations Act for 2015, Congress had passed a provision introduced by Rohrabacher and Farr designed and intended to ward off federal interference with marijuana-related businesses operating legally under state law.

“We, the authors of the language, and our many colleagues — including those who opposed the amendment — laid on the record repeatedly that the intent and the language of the provision was to stop DOJ from interacting with anyone legitimately doing business in medical marijuana in accordance with state law,” wrote the Congressmen.

Signed into law by president Obama, the amendment received a second vote of approval from Representatives this summer. “As the marijuana provision is part of an annual funding bill that will expire,” noted the Huffington Post, “the lawmakers introduced an identical version again in June, which was reauthorized by the House of Representatives.”

In April, Farr and Rohrabacher had also demanded that Attorney General Eric Holder “stop prosecution of state-authorized medical marijuana dispensaries” in observance of the same provision, as the Orange County Register reported.

Federal legalese

But the Department of Justice chose to interpret the law in the most hostile manner possible, the lawmakers suggested, citing an April statement by DOJ spokesman Patrick Rodenbush. As the Los Angeles Times reported, Rodenbush said Rohrabacher-Farr, as the appropriations amendment was known, didn’t apply to prosecutions directed at persons or groups:

Rather, he said, it stops the department from “impeding the ability of states to carry out their medical marijuana laws,” contrary to some claims from people being prosecuted that the amendment blocks such prosecutions.

As the Times then observed, this “narrow interpretation of the law” had particularly strong implications in the San Francisco Bay Area, “where the Justice Department has initiated forfeiture proceedings against three medical marijuana dispensaries it considers to be in violation of federal law.”

Outgoing U.S. Attorney for Northern California Melinda Haag had become notorious among pro-pot advocates and businesspeople, joining “the three other regional U.S. attorneys in California in cracking down on medical marijuana dispensaries perceived to be large-scale commercial enterprises,” as Pleasanton Weekly recounted. One dispensary facing the brunt of Haag’s crusade, Harborside Health Center, met the news of her departure with what executive director Steve DeAngelo called “great relief and great satisfaction.”

“In Ms. Haag’s parting statement she said she felt her office had ‘accomplished most of our goals’ during her tenure,” DeAngelo said in a statement. “The one goal she most assuredly has not accomplished is closing down Harborside Health Center. We hope her successor will have a more finely tuned understanding of compassion and justice than Ms. Haag has displayed, and allow Harborside to focus on serving our patients instead of battling a court case that should never have been started.”

Conflicting actions

Although the Department of Justice could opt to ignore the mismatch between its conduct and the law, the law itself would hold them to account for doing so. At stake is the applicability of the Anti-Deficiency Act, as Farr and Rohrabacher argued; as Reason indicated, that law “makes it a crime to use federal money for purposes that are not approved by Congress.”

Originally published by CalWatchdog.com

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Dana Rohrabacher, DOJ, Marijuana, Pot, regulations, Sam Farr