A strong rumor jumped out from the open house party for the Republican Party of San Diego in Rancho Bernardo last night, namely, that conservative Republican State Senator Mark Wyland had filed an FPPC Form 410 "Candidate Intention Statement" to run for the Board of Equalization to fill the southern California seat currently held by Michelle Steel, which will be open in 2014.

The Board of Equalization is an important department of California government that hears tax appeals and administers many tax related programs in the state.

I double-checked the Secretary of State’s website today and can confirm State Senator Mark Wyland is indeed a candidate for BOE District 3. Since the election is over three years away, one can understand the quiet launch of the effort, but such early starts are critical to ultimate success in these large-district BOE races. Claude Parrish, who held this seat for two terms before he was term-limited, and has run for BOE several times, told me that the other most important factor in these races are securing all the best slate… Read More

San Diego Rostra, a great politics blog, reported yesterday that Sherry Hodges, "[t]he only declared candidate for the Republican nomination in the 74th Assembly District" to succeed termed-limited Martin Garrick, has not only been making calls rounding up support, but also has a new state government job, and will start today as a neighboring Assemblymember’s chief of staff. Hodges will need to be very careful in her new role working for taxpayers in a different Assembly district, because her campaigning for the 74th while on the state payroll is subject to a myriad of ethics and conflict-of-interest rules, and fouling up on them is a civil offense and can be a crime, and can expose not only her to liability, but also her new boss, Assemblymember Diane Harkey. For this reason, Hodges work on the state payroll will not only be regulated by ethics officials, it will also be subject to microscopic inspection by potential opponents in the Assembly race.

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As I reported on Friday, the left was bloviating hot air well in advance of the Koch brother’s conference in the Desert where successful and civic-minded Americans convened this weekend to discuss such dubious topics as job creation and reigning in government spending. Well the weekend has come and gone and with it a protest brought to us by Common Cause, the Courage Campaign, Code Pink, Ruckus, and of course labor unions.

The protest resulted in 25 arrests and attacked libertarians and conservatives with a lot of the typical rhetoric we see from the left. But as we learned this morning from Jen Rubin over at the Washington Post’s Right Turn Blog the hypocrisy on display yesterday was even worse that I originally predicted in this post last week.

Rubin reports:

Showing no concern for the new civility push that followed the Arizona massacre, a… Read More

Last week three Assemblymen spoke at a rally against proposed cuts in the state’s In Home Supportive Services program. This wouldn’t be unusual, as members of the legislature often speak at such rallies, except that in this case, the three legislators were Republicans Brian Nestande, Paul Cook and Jim Silva. It is not a frequent occurrence that GOPers speak at such events, and of course it is especially notable when the state is in the middle of fiscal crisis, with a projected gap between tax income and state government spending upwards of $20 billion in the next 18 months.

Governor Brown’s proposed budget includes plugging a big part of that mega-difference with a five-year extension of massive tax increases that took place in 2009, and were billed as "temporary" at the time. In 2009, the legislature (or to be more specific, every Democrat and six Republicans) voted as part of a budget deal with former Governor Schwarzenegger to pass increases in the state sales, income and car taxes. Because of a campaign promise made by Brown to take any proposed tax increases to the public for a vote, which takes a 2/3… Read More

If you plan on watching Governor Jerry Brown’s first (well, I guess really his ninth) State of The State Address tomorrow, only wimps watch it on the CalChannel website. Real politicos will catch it as it is live streamed on KCET television’s website at www.kcet.org. Of course if you are in the LA media market, you can just watch it live on your television!

KCET’s outstanding SoCal Connected Program will start their coverage at 5pm with a great panel of commentators (including yours truly) — they will then break away for Brown’s speech when it begins, and for the GOP response — and then back to the studio for more analysis.

From the KCET website:

FULL TEXT I came to Sacramento with the hope of solving problems and making California prosperous again.

I am encouraged that Governor Brown seems genuinely committed to solving the significant challenges our state faces.

California has the second highest unemployment rate in the nation – now at 12.5 percent – and we continue to deal with a budget crisis that this year alone stands at $28 billion.

I applaud the governor for his no-nonsense approach to California’s challenges. For example, although mostly symbolic, he’s right to take… Read More

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