Libertarian Norm Westwell has signs ready to go for his H.B. City Council campaign

(Picture Courtesy of the O.C. Register)

There are four seats opening up on the Huntington Beach City Council next year.  Insiders believe that as many as 20 or more candidates will run for these seats.

Some of the names that are already out there include blogger and City Commissioner Joe Shaw and past Congressional candidate Dan Kalmick.  Both are Democrats.  I don’t know what Republicans might be running but there is a Libertarian candidate who I think has a great chance at winning.  That would be Ocean View School Board President Norm Westwell.

Westwell, a local business owner, has been in the news a lot over the past few years.  Earlier this month Westwell led the charge against red light cameras in Huntington Beach - and he won!  The H.B. Chief of Police opted out of that program.

Westwell was quoted in various newspapers, including the L.A. Times, ““I call them scam-ras” said Ocean View School Board President Norm Westwell. The cameras, he said, only “photograph the ending results of [an] accident.” Read more…

Last year’s Libertarian Vice Presidential candidate, Wayne Allyn Root, kicks off his new syndicated radio show this Saturday, June 6, at 8am on KABC AM 790.

Root’s first guest will be Dr Ron Paul!  Please call in and email to let KABC know you want this type of Liberty based show on the air.  Stay up to date by going to Root’s website. You can also catch up on past episodes by clicking here.

KABC has far too many whacked out Republican hosts so it is nice to see them add a Libertarian, especially since they booted their last Libertarian, Larry Elder, a while ago.  I wonder why they don’t have many liberals on the air?

Judy Chu trounced Gil Cedillo, in yesterday’s special election in the 32nd Congressional District, by over four thousand votes.  Click here to see the final results.

Chu ended up with just over 15,000 votes while Cedillo got just over 11,000 votes.  Cedillo was definitely hurt by Emanuel Pleitez, a young Latino candidate who many feel was recruited into this race by Judy Chu’s handlers.  Cedillo attacked Pleitez during the campaign, but that may have backfired.  Cedillo now crawls back to the State Senate to finish out his term.

Chu got 31.9% of the vote so now she will have to face off with the top Republican candidate, Betty Chu, who got just over 5,000 votes.

The Libertarian candidate, Chris Agrella, got almost 600 votes and beat out four Democrats.

Did Judy Chu and Emanuel Pleitez (pictured above on the left) conspire to bring down Gil Cedillo (pictured above on the right)?

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The contest between Judy Chu and Gil Cedillo, for the 32nd congressional district seat, in East Los Angeles, has taken a turn for the nasty.  According to Calitics, a liberal blog, Cedillo has launched an attack against another Latino candidate, Emanuel Pleitez, “using Facebook photos to build a narrative of Pleitez as a scary drunken gang-lover who parties with white women.”

To make matters worse, Cedillo has accused Pleitez of throwing gang signs at an event - but it turns out that Pleitez was at a “Voto Latino” event and the sign he threw, along with actress Rosario Dawson, was the “Voto Latino” hand signal.  So Cedillo accused Pleitez of acting like a gang banger, even though Pleitez was at an event trying to register young Latinos to vote. Read more…

I’ve started a scorecard on recommendations for the 5/19 Propositions, and note that Larry Gilbert’s No on Everything camp has now become a tent so big as to include conservative talk radio icons John & Ken, the California Republican Party, and the Green Party.  Other OJ bloggers besides me and Larry seem hesitant to post recommendations, although it is hard to imagine something more relevant than something where we actually do get a vote.

I believe I also figured out where I went wrong on trying to read 1D.  The unrestriction on the not-to-replace funding concept applies to carry-over funds, as well as reduction in the ad budget in favor of unrestricted.  Thus the hand-wringing over first-5 programs losing a statutory entitlement to priority on tobacco tax funds.

Here’s how the recommendations break down so far:

                               1A     1B      1C      1D      1E       1F

Ron St. John            No     No     No      Yes     Yes     Yes

Larry Gilbert            No     No     No      No      No      No

Dem Party               NP     Yes    Yes     NP      NP      Yes

Rep Party                No     No     No      No      No      No

Lib Party                 No     No     No      No      No     Yes

Green Party             No     No     No      No      No      No

Sac Bee                  Yes    No      Yes     Yes     Yes     Yes

LA Times                Yes    Yes     Yes     Yes     Yes     Yes

SEIU                       No     Yes     Yes     No      No      No

Cal Teachers          Yes    Yes      Yes     Yes     Yes     Yes

Click on the banner NOW!

As Larry reports below, the California Democratic Party recently took no position on 1A, because it would require a 60% vote and only 58% of those in attendance and voting supported Prop 1A.

The failure of the Democratic partycrats to get all of 60% of their ilk to support 1A should not be confused with good news for opponents of tax increases.  The 42% dissenting pols have no love for Howard Jarvis et al, they just figured that soon enough California will be so much of a one-party state that the last $16 billion in tax increases (hell, maybe more) can be put through without the compromise rainy-day-fund spending cap.

With opposite camps voting no for different reasons, it means there will be spin and ambiguity when voters say no to 1A on May 19.  Takes a lot of the fun out of the process.

Anybody else old enough to really remember Proposition 13?  I was a senior at USC, and in between arranging for a campus visit/rally for the Libertarian Ed Clark-for-Governor campaign, I used my little typewriter to type up my ballot recommendations, and paid for the xeroxing to pass out leaflets to my friends urging, among other things, a yes vote on 13.  (Al Gore had not yet invented the internet.)  At the time, all of the Establishment was against 13.  Republicans were against it, Democrats were against it, banks were against it, insurance companies were against it, the L.A. Times was against it, unions were against it, even the Dodgers donated to the No on 13 fund.  People were literally saying with a straight face that it would ‘destroy the social fabric.’

When Proposition 13 got 65% of the vote and passed in almost every California county, it was a major wake-up call for politicians and a significant case of the People finally having a say over something important.  Just for the record, my whole slate of 13 recommendations did much better than the L.A. Times that year, so I got my  money’s worth out of that xerox bill.  I also persuaded 5.5% of the California electorate to vote for Ed Clark that year, but here on the internet my influence seems to have waned.

It would be nice if we could use 1A as a similar expression of popular opinion, but its not shaping up quite that way.

I came across this item in Freedom Politics today:

While there’s all sorts of goodness happening on FreedomPolitics.com, we’d like to encourage those of you in the LA area to come grab a beer with us on Tuesday night. The authors of The Motorhome Diaries, a trio of liberty lovers on an RV, are rolling into town, and we’ll be meeting up with them.

Here are the details: Read more…

The Libertarian Party of California announced finally  on April 7 that they were opposing “Propositions 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D and 1E on the May 19 special election ballot,” but they are supporting the passage of Prop. 1F.

Now the California Republican Party leaders have finally followed suit by voting on “Saturday to oppose all six measures on the May 19 ballot, including a spending limit and temporary tax hike proposal championed by GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines.”

Why is Villines still in charge of the GOP Assembly delegation and why did the CA GOP previously give over $600,000 to Schwarzenegger?

“The CRP’s opposition comes after the party gave $650,000 to Schwarzenegger’s ballot-issues committee in January and February. The governor has used much of that money to promote Proposition 1A and other measures,” according to the Sacramento Bee. Read more…

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Apparently the legislators are again BEHIND the times and the opinions of the day, too scared to actually act on the failed war on drugs despite shifting popular sentiment, according to an article in the O.C. Register.

I have long been an advocate for the decriminalization of most, if not all drugs.  Actually, its what brought me to the Libertarian Party in 1993.  Of course, I realize this is not a popular sentiment.  I do think that people are finally coming to understand that at least with marijuana it makes no sense to: Read more…

South Bay Libertarians
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Speaker: Ret. Judge Jim Gray
will speak to us about
How We Are Losing the Drug War

Bluewater Grill Restaurant,
665 North Harbor Drive,
Redondo Beach, 310-318-3474
6:30 pm: Social Hour & Dinner
8:00 pm: Meeting, Speaker, Discussions

7,000 Mexicans murdered near the southern border in the last 12 months, kidnappings in Phoenix 2nd highest of any city in the world: The prohibition on drugs and the failed drug policy of the U.S. is costing billions in futile enforcement, inhibited trade due to lack of security, and loss of potential drug industry tax revenue. Judge Jim Gray has seen the failure up close in his career. Representing LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition), he is calling for an end to this immensely costly prohibition… and he will be detailing his case on Thursday, April 23

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My friend and fellow Libertarian, retired Judge Jim Gray, appeared on page two of the L.A. Times front section today, in an interview with Times columnist Steve Lopez, regarding our nation’s failed drug war.  Gray summed up his feelings thusly:

“Please quote me,” says Jim Gray, insisting the war on drugs is hopeless. “What we are doing has failed.”

Here are a few more excerpts from Lopez’ column:

As far as I can tell, Gray is not off his rocker. He’s not promoting drug use, he says for clarification. Anything but. If he had his way, half the revenue we would generate from taxing and regulating drugs would be plowed back into drug prevention education, and there’d be rehab on demand. Read more…