Reposted from my Sunday feature at Daily Kos. Since it’s mainly California content, I think it deserves a place here too.

California right-wing radio shock jocks John and Ken. Diversity!

Immediately after the November election, I wrote about the overwhelming victory Democrats enjoyed in California, where Governor Brown’s tax measure was passed, the union-busting Proposition 32 was soundly defeated, and Democrats claimed a supermajority in both chambers that will allow them, if they so choose, to pass budgets and submit initiatives for voter approval without a single Republican vote.

Since the time of that writing, things have gotten even worse for Republicans in the legislature, as Democrats picked up two additional seats in vote canvassing in races which their candidates were trailing on election day: Assemblymember Cathleen Galgiani came back to beat her colleague Tom Berryhill for a hotly contested State Senate race to pad Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg’s margin. And lastly, in perhaps the shocker of elections in California, Democratic candidate Steve Fox completed a comeback on the very last day of canvassing when the Los Angeles County Registrar counted the last 1,601 votes in Assembly District 36. Fox gained 463 votes from that final update, giving him a 145-vote win in a traditionally Republican area and padding Speaker John Perez’ majority to a 55-25 count in the 80-seat chamber.

Republicans have held minority status in Sacramento ever since the turn of the millennium, but it’s only now that panic is really starting to set in. Because of Proposition 13 in 1978, which began California’s so-called “tax revolt,” it takes a two-thirds vote of the legislature to pass tax increases or put referendums on the ballot; while still a minority, Republicans had always held at least one-third of one of the two chambers, which allowed them to effectively control the terms of the debate for budgetary issues and continue to extract major cuts and concessions every single election cycle. But as the extremist Republican agenda of decimating the public sector and social services continued to cripple the state, cracks started to show. During the red wave of 2010, California Democrats not only held all their seats; they actually expanded their legislative majorities. Meanwhile, team blue also swept every single statewide office that year, despite the millions of dollars that failed CEO’s Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina spent trying to buy a governorship and Senate seat, respectively.

In 2012, the dam burst. A variety of factors combined to create a Democratic wave in California: nonpartisan redistricting created a series of competitive districts; the creation of online voter registration led to a surge of turnout by young and minority voters; and voters who had had enough of budget cuts began to believe in a different vision for the state. It all adds up to one reality: when the rounds of special elections are over and all the vacancies are filled, Democrats will be able to do what they want in Sacramento without a single Republican vote, provided that they can keep their caucus unified.

The shocking results are leading California Republicans to engage in the same refrain being used by their Washington counterparts. It’s not the policies, they claim, but rather the message:

California Republicans in the Assembly looking to revive their party have a new team on their side.

Assembly Republican leader Connie Conway on Thursday announced a new “Diversity Outreach Team” made up of government staff members. A news release says the group will focus on “helping strengthen Republican ties with women, ethnic communities and young people.”

“We know that most Californians share our common-sense ideas, but we need to do a better job communicating that message,” Conway said in a statement. “To become the majority party again, we must not only talk to diverse communities but also listen and that’s what our Diversity Outreach Team is all about.”

It takes a special brand of chutzpah to claim that most of a state’s voters agree with you when you hold no statewide offices and less than a third of the seats in both houses of that state’s legislature. But it also takes a special brand of either arrogance or blindness to believe that having your party be rendered entirely irrelevant in the most populous state in the nation is simply a messaging problem that can be fixed by token figures to head up a “diversity outreach” program aimed at all the various groups of voters who simply cannot stand what you represent.

It was the unified opposition of the Republican Party, after all, that thwarted Speaker Perez’ best efforts to eliminate a corporate tax break for multi-state businesses and use the money to cut the cost of higher education. Republican legislators and governors have consistently opposed efforts to make life easier for immigrants and their children. Republicans are the ones who have consistently worked to hold California’s budget hostage to painful budget cuts to social services and health care programs for the poor. And no amount of “outreach” to women will help undo the damage done at the national level by Rush Limbaugh and the constant efforts to strip away reproductive rights.

It’s not that California Republicans haven’t done a good enough job explaining their values. Quite the opposite: They’ve done too good a job. As a matter of fact, they even have their own equivalent of Rush Limbaugh in the form of John and Ken, archconservative radio shock jocks who enforce discipline against any Republican even contemplating lenience on tax issues or undocumented immigrants and who make a habit of crude insults against the very groups Republicans are now appointing a diversity team to reach.

If Republicans want to know what future they have to look forward to, all they have to do is see what has happened to them in California. The only thing saving Republicans nationwide is simply that the country as a whole doesn’t quite resemble the demographics of California. Yet.

While Brown’s speech struck a hopeful, but realistic, note, Assembly Republican leader liked the former, but entirely ditched the latter.  Over the flip, you can find the full text of that speech, but there’s really not a lot of there there.

Her basic point: We’ll cut, but don’t cut stuff we like.  Cut, Cut, Cut, and forget about revenue.

Let’s make life more simple by focusing on what’s most important. Let’s maintain our parks, roads, schools and public safety. Let’s create jobs by helping business owners instead of hurting them

We believe the best solution to help close our deficit is not by raising taxes, but by creating private sector jobs. That is done by lifting regulations and by reducing frivolous lawsuits.(SF Gate)

At this point, figuring out what she means is a lot of guessing. She and all of the Republicans haven’t been so kind as to give us any signals of what kind of cuts they would like.  But let me tell you this, with Prop 98’s funding requirements, there is no real plan where you support the schools at similar funding levels and cut $25 Billion.  It just can’t happen.

As for “lifting regulations and reducing frivolous lawsuits.” Non sequitur much?  While I understand a growing economy would eventually bring in additional revenue, that does not even begin to answer the questions that we are facing.  Some of the regulations Conway wants to eliminate? Start with AB32 global warming pollution regulations, which stand to net the state buckets full of green jobs.

Furthermore, our state already has dramatically curtailed so-called “frivolous lawsuits.”  What Republicans mean when they say that is really “we want to be able to screw you, and get away with it.”  That’s the case with MICRA and the near elimination of medical malpractice law, and that’s the case with our ever diminishing consumer protection litigation.  So, in the future, a simple find/replace might be helpful on that front.

So, in net, what do we have here from Conway? How about this:

I like puppies, but don’t make me pay for them!

As Californians, we are blessed to live in a state that in many ways is the best in the world. Yet we also face challenges that threaten both our way of life, and the future of our beloved state.

We are struggling with the nation’s 2nd highest unemployment rate and a budget deficit that is out of control.

That’s discouraging, but also challenging. The pioneers who settled our state never were deterred by the obstacles they faced. We simply have to forge ahead, as they did.

Tonight, Governor Brown put forward his ideas to solve California’s most urgent problems. Assembly Republicans stand ready to work with the governor and the majority party to achieve our common goal – getting California back on track.

We share the governor’s goal of passing an honest and on-time budget. It is our hope that Governor Brown focuses on cutting spending and on long-term reform.

We need to break away from the failed status quo. That means rejecting higher taxes, attacking wasteful spending, and doing away with the policies and programs that got us into this mess in the first place.

Will that be easy? No. We have a $25 billion deficit. But living within our means is the right thing to do. It’s what families and businesses already do.

At churches and grocery stores, I meet people who are coping with our economy in a sensible manner. They are hardworking, industrious and innovative Californians who don’t care about political games.

They don’t have a sense of panic nor a sense of dread. They simply want big government to become responsible, reasonable government. We must provide essential services but we must do so with efficiency and frugality. We must cut spending. And we must do it now.

The people have made it clear: they don’t want to pay higher taxes. Voters have rejected every tax increase on the last two statewide ballots. It’s time for Sacramento to finally to listen to the people.

Republicans stand united as the only line of defense for California taxpayers. We believe the best solution to help close our deficit is not by raising taxes, but by creating private sector jobs. That is done by lifting regulations and by reducing frivolous lawsuits.

For far too long, the Legislature has strangled our economy by imposing mandates, regulations and taxes. It’s no wonder that companies have been leaving California for other states.

For the past six years, CEO magazine has ranked our state as the worst place to do business in the entire nation. We cannot allow that to continue.

Let’s make life more simple by focusing on what’s most important. Let’s maintain our parks, roads, schools and public safety. Let’s create jobs by helping business owners instead of hurting them.

And let’s balance the budget. Remember, with more people earning a living and paying their fair share of modest taxes, we can make our state great again.

We must also rein in soaring public pension costs and make government programs run more cost-effectively.

As simple as that sounds, it won’t be easy, because years and years of poor decisions precede us. But we can learn from those mistakes. To do so, Democrats and Republicans must work together to restore the people’s faith in their government.

Assembly Republicans offer our hand of cooperation. We look forward to working across party lines to cut the deficit, encourage new hiring and end the “tax-and-spend” mentality with true common sense.

I hope you will be part of this movement against our broken system. Call or email your legislators to express your views. Together, we can do this. Thank you.