I’m blogging live from the San Jose Technology Museum. I am sitting next to former California Republican Party Chairman Mike Schroeder and his wife, Susan, in the third row – where we have a great view for the proceedings. Nearby is Jim Richarsdson, Poizner’s new Chief of Staff, Larry Greenfield who is Director of the California Republican Jewish Coalition.

The crowd looks to be several hunded here for Poizner’s big day. At work are Tim Clark who heads up Poizner’s transition team (he and Wayne Johnson were lead consultants for the campaign), and Robert Molner, Mike Richman and Jennifer Kerns, other key aides to Pozner. Helping out at the event is also Catherine Brinkman, President of the California Young Republicans. They are all smiling – broadly – as they should be on this big day for Team Poizner.

Being here in Santa Clara County, on hand is the leadership of the local GOP, including Chairman Keen Butcher and Treasurer Steve Moore. Also on hand is Linda Boyd, Chairman of the Los Angeles County GOP Linda Boyd with her husband, former CRP Treasurer Doug Boyd. Intersestingly, Butcher and Boyd are locked in a… Read More

I want to commend Governor Schwarzenegger for his “tough-love” welfare reform proposal to help hundreds of thousands of state welfare recipients find work.The Governor’s proposal will restore accountability to the CalWORKs program, while helping welfare recipients achieve their goal of finding and retaining work.

Now it’s time for the Legislature to do its job.This is an opportunity for us to move beyond the bi-partisan rhetoric and show Californians their Legislature is committed to working together to restore accountability to government and move California forward.Democrats cannot continue to be the party of “No” when it comes to reforms that reduce waste and fraud in government. Republicans shouldn’t tolerate it and Californians simply cannot afford it.… Read More

Among the achievements of which California Republicans can be proud, certainly in addition to the re-election of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the victory of every legislative GOP incumbent, is the strong win posted by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Poiziner in his campaign for the crucial office of Insurance Commissioner. Today, Mr. Poizner will be inaugurated as the state’s third directly-elected insurance commissioner, and his swearing-in is good news, not just for Golden State Republicans – but every ratepayer, taxpayer and California citizen determined to have ethics, integrity and honesty in a public office that essentially is the watchdog overseeing how the insurance industry operates in California.

Rather than a stoic event in Sacramento, Steve Poizner will accept the oath of office before 500 technology leaders in the Silicon Valley, which has been his home for 30 years. Accompanying Poizner as he accepts the challenge of serving as California’s new Insurance Commissioner will be his wife Carol and their 15-year old daughter Rebecca.

Also – demonstrating the appeal Steve Poizner has beyond California Republicans – former San Jose… Read More

Among the achievements of which California Republicans can be proud, certainly in addition to the re-election of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the victory of every legislative GOP incumbent, is the strong win posted by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Poiziner in his campaign for the crucial office of Insurance Commissioner. Today, Mr. Poizner will be inaugurated as the state’s third directly-elected insurance commissioner, and his swearing-in is good news, not just for Golden State Republicans – but every ratepayer, taxpayer and California citizen determined to have ethics, integrity and honesty in a public office that essentially is the watchdog overseeing how the insurance industry operates in California.

Rather than a stoic event in Sacramento, Steve Poizner will accept the oath of office before 500 technology leaders in the Silicon Valley, which has been his home for 30 years. Accompanying Poizner as he accepts the challenge of serving as California’s new Insurance Commissioner will be his wife Carol and their 15-year old daughter… Read More

In the Sunday FR was an article featured also on Sunday from the San Diego UT, concerning water storage. Democrat leadership pronouncing DOAany funding for new water storage in California had me more than a little dismayed. The Governor hasn’t even delivered yethis State of the State speech where he may well outline a proposal for one or two new water storage projects as part of the much needed infrastructure overhaul and augmentation this state desperately needs. Yet already, this prepronounced negativity. This on the heels of all the talk on the Assembly floor of working in a "bi-partisan way" [evidently meaning Republican principles being excluded in all or part in negotiations] and the enthusiastic embrace of "post-partisanship" from the Governor’s Inaugural day. I wouldcall the statement that "Democrats don’t support water storage" a wet blanket on the "new spirit" down in Sacramento, but you need water to dampen the #@&% blanket.

But that statement isn’t completely true. Governor Schwarzenegger in last years state of the state speech listed new water… Read More

Today Governor Schwarzenegger will introduce what has been described as a major proposal to deal with the challenge of millions of Californians not having health insurance.

That said, Governor Schwarzenegger made it clear that he does not think the solution to this challenge is to require that businesses pay more. Specifically, the Governor said, "I want everyone to have healthcare, but we have to make sure that the businesses in California stay competitive compared to Arizona, Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico. As you know, the Governors come into our state and are hustling business into their states because it’s cheaper to do business. We want to make sure it’s cheap and keep it under control and stimulate the economy and get everyone to work."

This is a direct quote from an interview that the Governor had with former Presidential Chief-of-Staff Leon Panetta in an interview for Panetta’s lecture series on October 18th of 2004. At the time, Californians were being asked to vote on Proposition 72, a… Read More

The group of GOP volunteers that are suing the state to have Jerry Brown’s election overturned because he was officially on "inactive status" as a lawyer for a short time while Mayor of Oakland has had a few developments. According to the Plaintiffs, on January 4 the case was assigned to Sacramento Superior Court Judge Gail Ohanesian in Dept. 11, and apparently the Court has asked the parties to agree to a hearing date on the merits by January 12.

Readers of FlashReport will know I am a critic of this lawsuit and see it as a sure loser and even anembarrassment for the Republican Party. Brown has been a lawyer in California for 40 years, has served as Secretary of State and Governor, and is surely qualified to be the state’s Attorney General. Simply because he changed his statusas a lawyer for a few years while serving as Oakland’s Mayor, to take advantage of the lower cost dues structure for inactive attorneys,shouldnot be a basis to overturn a vote of the people wherebyBrown waselected with an overwhelming majority and received an 18 point lead over his opponent in the race. By the way, I voted for his opponent.

On… Read More

Most of the glowing mainstream media news about California’s Nancy Pelosi, the new Speaker of the House, and her Congressional Democrats, is centered on their "100 hour" agenda and reforms they intend to implement, including raising the minimum wage, "ethics" reforms to restrict receipt of gifts of travel, and a new "earmarking" reform that would require indentification of the Member of Congress pushing a last minute earmark to fund that highway to nowhere.

But one item the MSM has missed, is research published by the Capital Research Center, that demonstrates that 70 far-left Democrats in the Congress, members of the "Congressional Progressive Caucus," ("CPC") seven of whom will chair powerful committees in the new Congress, will be using a charitable fundraising arm named the "American Progressive Caucus Policy Foundation" to raise funds from lobbyists to help them advance anti-war and far left-oriented public policies in the new Congress. Leaders of this effort include California Congressmembers Lynn Woolsey (Marin and Sonoma Counties) and Barbara Lee (Berkeley and Oakland), who are co-chairs of this… Read More