"If you want to take the con out of Congress, vote for Sgt. Jeff Newsome."

That was Newsome’s comment (and apparent campaign slogan) yesterday as he became the eighth Republican and 10th candidatein the special to replace Duke Cunningham. (Read it here.) Obviously, he has a top notch consultant writing his stuff. Not.

In case you lost track, it’s now Bilbray,Earnest, Kaloogian, King, Morrow, Newsome, Turner, and Uke. That’s before the Dems. Sounds like a downtown law firm.

Many think that anyone like Newsome getting in the thing at this point will be grist, chewed up and spit out. My first prediction of the year: Sgt. Newsome, obviously well-meaning but having nary a clue thatone can’t winjust because of a cop title,is strikingly close to his 15 minutes.

That was the easy guess. The next: County Supervisor Pam Slater-Price will jump in within a matter of weeks and give all the guys in the race a run for their money, even on a… Read More

With the beginning of 2006, today marks exactly three months to-the-day that FlashReport.org went online! I would like to thank our thousands of readers for making our website kickoff a great one! It’s hard to believe that in just three months we have:

Linked to thousands of articles and columns on California politics Assembled weblog with 15 outstanding contributors from all around California who created almost 450 original posts! Have published over two dozen exclusive, original columns. Published nearly 90 separate original daily commentaries.

Your readership, referrals, tips, suggestions, and ideas have really helped this site to grow even in its first few months! In the next week, we will be unveiling the newest feature to the FlashReport website, which will be the ability for you, as a FR reader, to opt-in to site registration, which will allow you to then post your comments to my daily… Read More

I just received a press release from Jim Nygren the veteran consultant who is guiding the efforts of Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher’s candidacy for State Senate in the 34th District, in Central Orange County. Incumbent Democrat Joe Dunn is term-limited out, and focused GOP registration efforts have made this into a competitive district.

The release says that:

"Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher¹s campaign for a Senate seat in Orange County today received a big boost as former Senate Republican Leaders Ross Johnson (R-Irvine) and Jim Brulte (R-Cucamonga) joined current Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman (R- Tustin) in endorsing her bid for the 34th Senate district." … Read More

"We are very proud that the Governor has selected a member of our central committee for such an important post," exclaimed an excited Michael DeNunzio, Chairman of the Republican Party of San Francisco, when I spoke with him on the phone.

Today Governor Schwarzenegger announced that he is appointing San Francisco attorney Timothy Simon to head up the appointments unit of his administration — this is a key position as the Appointments Secretary plays a critical role in the vetting of all the the hundreds of appointees made by a Governor, and clearly his or her input would be considered heavilty by the Governor.

You can read the Governor’s announcement here, which has… Read More

Schnur is right. The Governor is testing conservatives and seeking to do what has never been successful in the recorded history of mankind for a GOP candidate – moving left to get Democrat votes. So, this conservative stands in front of the fork in the road. I am told the minimum wage deal is to keep a far worse initiative off of the November 2006 ballot, so let’s give him a pass on this one. The bonds, now that is just ridiculous. We don’t have the borrowing capacity and because general obligation bonds take precedent over other State spending we will have to have a tax increase to make the payments on these while maintaining current spending levels. If he facilitates the placement of these bonds on the ballot I will simply leave my ballot blank in November under Governor. Now, what other public policy issues would cause me to leave my ballot blank? Any income tax increase. Driver licenses for illegal immigrants. Gay marriage. Any substantive tinkering with Workers’ comp reform. I would vote for the Governor if he stays the course on these issues and continues to veto bad Democrat legislation.

Now what of the Democrats? They have… Read More

Sacramento Bee’s veteran political columnist, Dan Walters, pens a piece today where he laments that that despite extremely low public-approval ratings for the legislature, the partisan redistricting plan ensures that virtually every legislative seat will be retained by the political party that holds it now.

He does note two areas where seats held by Democrats are in trouble — the upper San Joaquin Valley (Stockton area) and central Orange County:

There will be, as noted earlier, a few vacant districts in which there could be at least a ghost of partisan competition in November, the gerrymander notwithstanding. The suburban San Joaquin Valley seat held by termed-out Democrat Barbara Matthews of Tracy, for example, could turn over because the Democrats have lost four percentage points of their voter registration margin in the last four years.

… Read More

Although the mayor’s race will grab headlines this year in Oakland, another big story is the potential walkout by Oakland teachers. The teachers are working without a contract after rejecting an offer by the district last spring which did not give them the pay increase and protected benefit package that they wanted.

For the teachers unions, it always comes down to money. That’s why the Oakland Teachers Association is talking more and more about striking, likely in the early part of 2006. They want district officials to restore a four percent cut in pay they agreed to 2003 and don’t want to pay any additional money for their health care coverage. Unfortunately, … Read More

This June may feature the dirtiest campaign in the history of Los Angeles. How dirty? Just over 270,000 tons of sludge. That’s right, sludge created by the sanitation departments in LA and OC when they treat and "clean" the sewagedonated by some of the finest citizens in LA and Orange counties. Perhaps even some from yours truly. This sludge is then used as fertilizer on some farms in Kern County.

Some in Kern County don’t like getting dumped on from those down under. They have qulaified an initiative that will ban the import of sludge from outside Kern County. It appears tha Kern County’ssludge doesn’t stink and is far superior to others and will not be banned. G

The Kern County Board of Supervisors will vote shortly on whether to adopt the initiative or place it on the ballot. I hope they do the election. Imagine all the great direct mail!!!!! See the article here.… Read More