Boring is what most legislative sessions are, but California's last hours were anything but. Shouting, attempts to cut off debate by turning off opposition microphones, and a literal waving of the rulebook marked the close of the Legislative season in Sacramento this week. Many bills were on life support, seeking to crawl their way to the Governor's desk, but died in the chambers as its supporters failed to get the votes to pass them.

Among the firearms-related bills that didn't make it out: Read more »

The California state Legislature ended its session on August 31st. Constitutionally, they had to pass any bills that were outstanding by midnight this past Monday, or it would die and they would have to re-introduce them after the November elections.

Constitutionally, they were also supposed to pass a budget by June 30th [Calif. Const. Art. IV, Sec 12(c)(3)]. This is one provision that California legislators regularly ignore. Some 64 days after that deadline, this state limps along while the financial market starts thinking of how many more interest points it can charge due to fiscal volatility and the rest of the nation laughs for the clowns that the politicians are.

The following is an open letter to Governor Schwarzenegger, who can call a special session of the legislature, to do so and get the budget passed. Read more »

The Supreme Court handed down the long-awaited McDonald v. City of Chicago case. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment is incorporated against the states. It has reversed the decision of the 7th Circuit and ordered it to re-hear the case with both McDonald and Heller in mind. Given that the Chicago handgun ban is substantially similar to D.C.'s ban that was struck down by Heller, Chicago's ban is effectively dead in the water. Read more »

For all of thsoe who haven't been paying attention, there was an
attempted bombing in Times Square over the weekend (info here). Plenty of people in the media and the blogosphere have written about the event. I'd like to focus on what happens now rather than rehash the same old details. Read more »

(My apologies that this is a day late, but better late than never, right?)

As our American readers will know, today, April 15, is Tax Day in the United States. It's the day every year by which the American Taxpayer has to settle his yearly tax bill with the IRS. Naturally, all week, the media and various blogs have been talking about this day. Political Bingo will be no exception! Specifically, we're going to discuss the concept of fair share and fairness. This is a controversial topic, certainly, and it's worth discussing. Read more »

Boxer gets a big boost with a personal Obama appearance for her California Senate seat.

Other successful Obama stump stops in the past few months:

• Martha Coakley, candidate for former Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy's seat, 2009
• Jon Corzine, Governor re-election in New Jersey, 2009
• Creigh Deeds, Governor-candidate for Virginia, 2009

(Hint: All 3 seats went to the Republican challenger.) Read more »

As a sign of the fiscal squeeze pressuring state budgets all over the country, Gov. Paterson has frozen tax refunds for New Yorkers to the tune of a half-billion dollars.

Several hundred thousand New York taxpayers will be affected with most getting an average refund of $1,000. People who filed in late February and early March might have to wait as long as six weeks till the checks are in the mail.

The last few days have seen the emergence of something called the Slaughter Rule as a method of passing the Senate's Health Insurance Reform bill. The technique, more formally known as a "self-executing rule", took on this unfortunate monicker because it was given the parliamentary nod for use in passing the Senate bill by House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter. It's worth noting that the self-executing rule is not a new feature created for this present Congress. It's been in place for quite some time, and has been used over the years for a variety of purposes. Read more »

The last decade or so has seen an almost unprecedented visibility into the sausage-making that is our legislative process. The American People have become much more comfortable with terms like "filibuster" in recent years, particularly since the use of that tactic has become increasingly aggressive over the last decade. Read more »

As part of the weekend round-up, I'll be briefly going over a few stories that caught my attention as the week was winding down:

Bill Reconciliation is the latest parliamentary maneuver that Obama and Congressional Democrats are using to force their Healthcare agenda through Congress and onto the President's desk. Read more »