MY DAD AND KAREN BASS Yesterday was one of the Jewish High Holidays – Yom Kippur. My mom and dad, who are members of Temple Akiba in Culver City, attended the Temple’s Yom Kippur services at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium. Who should be there but the local member of the California State Assembly, Speaker Karen Bass. My dad took the opportunity to introduce himself to Speaker Bass, identifying himself as a Republican. When the Speaker asked for dad’s name, which he gave her, she asked if he was any relation to me! She proceeded to tell my father that the FlashReport is a "must read" for her every day! Maybe it is, or maybe it isn’t — but it was very cool of her to say that to dad! And polite to leave it at that ;-)

CONSIDERING THE TAX COMMISSION REPORT AS A PACKAGE … Read More

MY DAD AND KAREN BASS Yesterday was one of the Jewish High Holidays – Yom Kippur. My mom and dad, who are members of Temple Akiba in Culver City, attended the Temple’s Yom Kippur services at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium. Who should be there but the local member of the California State Assembly, Speaker Karen Bass. My dad took the opportunity to introduce himself to Speaker Bass, identifying himself as a Republican. When the Speaker asked for dad’s name, which he gave her, she asked if he was any relation to me! She proceeded to tell my father that the FlashReport is a "must read" for her every day! Maybe it is, or maybe it isn’t — but it was very cool of her to say that to dad! And polite to leave it at that ;-) CONSIDERING… Read More

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I have spent the last several years trying to make a living, to become a profit center for the state of California, instead of a cost of doing business. I have learned that once you no longer have a vote in the Legislature, people forget your name, and your opinions count for little. I voice those opinions, nevertheless, from time to time, in the hopes that someone might listen to them.

So, I want to voice my opinion on Governor. Now that the convention is over, and everyone has heard the candidates. The newspapers have analyzed the speeches, and the blogs have clashed their cymbals. I come to this point with the knowledge that I have not always been right about my choices. Bill Simon had to defeat Richard Riordan for the primary nomination, to avoid a complete meltdown of the Republican Party in 2002, but he was a terrible candidate for Governor. Afraid to take a position, constantly alienating people at all turns because of his weakness, and severe personal issues that arose just before the election doomed his chances. I endorsed Simon despite these weaknesses, and we lost that Governor’s race to the incompetent Gray Davis.

I endorsed… Read More

Because there has been a little stir created over the "Straw Poll" taken at the State GOP Convention over the weekend, I thought I would take a moment to write about it for the benefit of FR readers.

First and foremost, there was no official California Republican Party straw poll taken of delegates or attendees to the convention. As an elected party officer, I feel comfortable assuring everyone of that. I even called my colleague, CRP Treasurer Keith Carlson, and asked him. "Nope," he said, demonstrating a strategic use of brevity (not often exhibited by attorneys).

Yet a media release went out this morning from the DeVore for U.S. Senate Campaign proclaiming his overwhelming victory in the CRP Convention Straw Poll.

So what gives?

The answer is pretty simple. The DeVore for U.S. Senate campaign conducted their own straw poll. Their campaign printed the ballots. Their campaign volunteers handed out the ballots to at least those coming out of the convention’s Saturday evening dinner… Read More

This was the famous reminder posted in all of then Governor Bill Clinton’s campaign offices as he ran for President against then incumbent George H.W. Bush. It was there to keep the campaign from being distracted by other issues and to focus on the fact that the economy was bad and people were hurting. It worked.

But the economy is much worse now. And as President Obama fiddles away in the White House with a government take-over of health care, the economy is far from being out of the woods.

Yes, the economy will almost certainly be declared to be technically out of recession in this quarter. Things have stopped getting worse. Monthly job losses have declined. But we should not be sanguine. There are 4 major risks on the horizon which could lead us into a "double dip" or "W-shaped" recession next year. Many economists, including some of President Obama’s advisors, have told me they think that the risk of slipping back into recession next year is at least 50%.

What would cause that to happen? See the following:

1.) First of all, this "recovery" is weak and jobless. There… Read More

A very interesting civics lesson took place last Thursday at the California Supreme Court Building in San Francisco. The Commission on Judicial Appointments (made up of Supreme Court Chief Justice Ron George, Attorney General Jerry Brown and 5th District Court of Appeals Presiding Justice James Ardiaz) held a hearing on Gov. Schwarzenegger’s appointment of Senator Chuck Poochigian to the 5th District Court of Appeals.

Poochigian asked Anthony Capozzi, a Fresno lawyer and former president of the State Bar, former state assembly member Kerry Mazzoni and three appellate judges (Justices Vance Raye, Brad Hill and Stephen Kane) to speak on his behalf. Only one group spoke against his nomination, an activist group that criticized his voting records on LGBT issues but admitted to AG Brown that they had absolutely no evidence of any bias towards that population by Sen. Poochigian.As Justice Hill told the panel:

“As you have seen from the letters of support submitted for Senator Poochigian, he is a man whose hallmark is having an open mind and listening to all sides before making a reasoned and thoughtful decision.… Read More

There will be more to come about the California Republican Party convention in coming days — as longtime FR readers know, as a blogger who is also an elected officer of the party, it is difficult for me to devote a lot of time the weekend of the convention to writing about it in real time.

That said, while this convention has been a lot of fun, I have to say as a politico that so far the best "entertainment value" of the weekend was enjoyed by the small group of people who occupied the press conference room yesterday afternoon to hear the media availabilities of Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman — both of which were quite stimulating.

Poizner opened his availability with some thoughts on his policy agenda — he was not scheduled to speak until the dinner last night and so he hit some details for the reporters presents. A portion of Poizner’s plan to revitalize California’s economy is a 10% reduction in tax rates to stimulate economic growth. Poizner’s assertion that lowering the rates would actually increase state tax revenues was met with a number of questions from reporters about this assertion — wanting more… Read More