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

The potential for massive floods resulting from the torrential rains Northern California experienced over the past couple of days and Jack Abramoff’s plea bargain given today made me think of deceased blues legend Stevie Ray Vaughan and his band Double Trouble (yep…I’m that weird) Moreover, I was reminded of standing not less than 20 feet from Stevie as he wailed on Couldn’t Stand the Weather during Bush 1’s inaugural. Those were better times for sure because it’s ugly out there.

No one knows for… Read More

I just received this from Riverside County Chariman Kevin Jeffries who is leaving his Party Post to run for the 66th Assembly Seat. More on the race to replace him later.

January 3, 2006

To my fellow Riverside County Republican Party members,

Roughly seven years ago today I had the honor of being elected to serve as your Chairman of the Republican Party of Riverside County. It has been a terrific seven years!

I believe that it is the core duty of the Chairman to do his/her best to pull the County Party members together and work as a united Republican Team to strengthen our party and to advance our goals and values. I would like to think that for the past seven years – we have done a pretty good job in moving our county party forward.

Like a small business that started in a garage – seven years ago we were at least $5000 in debt and humbly working out of a storage unit between elections. Our County Party phone number could only be found in the Riverside phone book and our calls were forwarded to a member’s home. Soon Republican registration was on the rise and we would… Read More

"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

Well the holidays are over and it is an election year, thus let the games begin. My new year started off in the delivery room with the birth of our first child, Miller Philip Paule, born at 5:45 PM on Jan 1st, 2006. As fellow FlashReport BLOGer Mike Spence pointed out to me, 18 hours too late for the 2005 tax deduction.

Now to bring this news back to FlashReport status and not just a cheap plug for the cutest baby ever born, I was a little shocked this morning to have a nurse walk in and take some of his blood for some State of California mandated tests. I would like to thank the State of California for attempting to care more about the health of my child then his mother and I do (yes this Libertarian minded scribe is using a heavy helping of sarcasm here).

Now back to my regular job as the Riverside County FlashReport man on the street. Dan Branstine is an attorney and candidate for the 66th Assembly District. The 66th stretches from Lake Elsinore, through Temecula and down to Fallbrook in San Diego County. It is… 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

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