Cerritos Republican Club News
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2019
Christmas Dinner Meeting
December 10, 2019
Our annual Christmas dinner meeting was held in the Skyline Room of the Cerritos Library. Tables were decorated with a wreath around a poinsettia plant. Programs with Andes chocolate candy were at each setting. In subsequent pictures you will see the decorations. This is the group of people who set up the tables.
The buffet dinner was catered by Huff's Restaurant and the food was served in a beautiful holiday setting.
Meanwhile Jim looked at the dinner offerings.
The party was a success. We had 1st CEB Marines and their families for guests, a tasty dinner with excellent selections, fun entertainment by the Darden Sisters, lots of toys for the 1st CEB Christmas party, happy winners of the 1st CEB medallions, and a new 2020 Board!
General Meeting
October 8, 2019
The guest speaker for the September general meeting was Mark Meuser who had run for Secretary of State in 2018.
Mark started the meeting with a history lesson on politics in San Francisco in the mid 19th century. Unfortunately I didn't take notes and cannot recall the details of his lesson. The bottom line it was about voter fraud.
Mark talked about how ballots are validated and counted in an election. He used Los Angeles County as an example. Most Vote-by-Mail ballots are mailed to the Los Angeles County Registrar's Office in Norwalk on a daily basis beginning about a month prior to an election, they are the first ones to be validated and will be the first to be tallied on Election Day. Each Vote-by-Mail ballot is checked to see if the voter is voting in the correct precinct and that the signature matches the Registrar Office's records.
The next ballots to be counted are those that are cast at the polls. If the voter is on the voting roster at the polling place, then the voter's ballot will be accepted as valid. If the voter's name is not on the roster, then the ballot will be received as a provisional ballot which will be discussed in the next paragraph. Provisional ballots are placed in special envelopes. Voter's Vote-by-Mail ballots are also received at the polling place, but they too are accepted as provisional ballots. After the polls close on Election Day, the validated ballots and provisional ballots are kept separate in locked containers and sent off to the Registrar's Office in Norwalk. When they arrive at the Election center, the validated ballots will be counted. Some precincts are close in proximity and their ballots will arrive in Norwalk sooner and be counted on a first-come first-serve basis. Faraway precincts such as in the Antelope Valley will be received later and consequently counted later. Most of these are tabulated within several hours after the polls close.
When the provisional ballots arrive in Norwalk, each one is validated for correct precinct and signature. Each is also checked to see if the voter has already voted. If the precinct and signature are correct, then it will be counted. However, there will be some voters who vote at a precinct other than their own. In this case, the ballot will be checked to see if the votes appear to match the ballot of their own precinct. If they do, then their ballot will be added to those of the correct precinct. If not, then the ballot is not counted. State law requires that a person who cast a provisional ballot can call a toll-free number or access a website to find out whether their ballot was counted. Most of the provisional ballots are tabulated within a week after Election Day.
We thank Mark for this lesson on the vote counting process.
General Meeting
September 10, 2019
The guest speaker for the September general meeting was Shawn Steel, a member of the RNC California National Committee. He spoke about Californians leaving the state. A big factor is the downsizing of the aerospace industry.
The RNC is still a $2 billion entity.
Shawn pointed out that in North Carolina there were two wins for the Republicans in the House. He attributes the change to blacks not coming out to vote.
Shawn mentioned billionaire Tom Steyer who has an operation headed by five people at UCI.
Shawn suggested going to Clark County Nevada and volunteering to help make Nevada a Red state again.
After his speech, Dean Grose and Mark Rizk presented him with a CRC mug.
Barbecue Meeting
July 9, 2019
The annual CRC barbecue was held at Cerritos Park East. In attendance were numerous members. Thanks to Candy Yee for the pictures.
Luis Alvarado is a co-founder of GROW Elect Political Action Committee which helps Latino Republicans get elected to municipal offices. He spoke about the 2020 ballot measure "California Schools and Local Communities Funding Act of 2018." It is also known as the Split-Roll Measure which will allow commercial and industrial properties and vacant land to be taxed on their current assessed market values.
General Meeting
February 12, 2019
The February General meeting was held at Cerritos Park East with Rebecca Friedrichs as the guest speaker. She is known as the lead plaintiff in Friedrichs vs California Teachers Association.
In 1987 Rebecca began her career as a student teacher in a Buena Park elementary school in the Savanna School District. Like all new teachers, she was very enthusiatic about teaching young children. In her first year, she observed that the teacher next door had become abusive to her little first graders. Rebecca witnessed every day the teacher would grab them by the arms, yank them over and yell in their faces. Rebecca thought, "What can be done about this?" Talking with her master teacher, she discovered that the abusive teacher was tenured and protected by the local union. Layoffs were seniority-based. Last in, first out. So ineffective teachers with seniority could not be laid off, and the younger teachers were the first to be laid off. This prompted Rebecca to not become a member of the union.
Full annual union dues in her district were over $1000. In California, a teacher could opt to pay "fair share" dues. When Rebecca opted out of membership, she was able to save only $50, AND she lost her right to vote on any union matters. Rebecca found that most of the union dues went to the 3 million members National Education Association (NEA) and 1.7 million members American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Of the annual dues, NEA gets about $650, AFT gets almost $200, and the local union gets only about $160. Both the NEA and AFT are dominated by leftists. Rebecca did not like their political and social choices on same sex marriage, school vouchers, sex education, and other issues.
In 1999 Ms. Friedrichs joined the union as a full member with the hope of fixing its problems from within. She became a union representative. Even though many union reps agreed with her concerns, they were afraid to speak up and often were bullied and silenced if they dared to question the union bosses' views.
In 2012 Ms. Friedrichs realized that she couldn't change CTA, so she became an agency fee payer again. In 2013 Rebecca and nine other teachers filed Friedrichs vs California Teachers Association, a case against the CTA, which is an affiliate of NEA, that collective bargaining is inherently political. Many of the positions unions take during negotiations with school administrators reflect their political choices. The local school officials supported by the union and the unions are on the same side of the table when deciding how to use our tax dollars for the schools. This is corrupt.
Friedrichs vs CTA went all the way to the Supreme Court and would have won, except that Justice Scalia died and the Court rendered a 4-4 decision in 2016. So the plaintiffs did not win.
On June 27, 2018 (which happens to be Rebecca's birthday), in Janus vs American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Council 31, the Supreme Court decided to strike down the practice of government sector unions charging non-members fees for the services they provide. This decision provides the same result that Rebecca and her nine other teacher plaintiffs had wanted.
Ms. Friedrichs cited examples of how far left the NEA has gone. Last year the NEA honored Colin Kaepernick with the Presidents Award, the NEA's highest honor, at its Human and Civil Rights Awards ceremony. You would have thought that a teacher would have been given this award.
In 2010 the FPPC reported that the largest contributions to a political party were made by CTA to the California Democratic Party---totaling $6.5 million. The NEA was the top combined state and federal contributor to the 2008 races, donating $45 million with more than 90% going to Democratic campaigns.
If you see demonstrations/strikes, you will see NEA members participating from other states. The Unions will use children who don't really know why they are there. As usual, you will see anti-Trump signs. All union motivated.
Rebecca is currently taking some time off to support educational policies friendly to children and to help teachers, children, and parents to make their voices heard. She has written Standing Up to Goliath, with many testimonies of teachers, parents, and kids about the forces dividing and corrupting our schools and culture.
Rebecca has founded For Kids & Country at forkidsandcountry.org/ whose purpose is to protect our kids and regain authority in our schools and culture.
Ms. Friedrichs stressed that she is not anti-union. She just believes that the NEA/CTA and AFT are using too much of the dues for political purposes and not enough for helping the children. She supports the local union and would gladly dissociate the local union from NEA/CTA and AFT.