As I write this, California conservative icon Tom McClintock is announcing his candidacy for Congress in the 4th Congressional District, where incumbent John Doolittle is retiring.

FR’s Meredith Turney is at the event, and will bring us some post-press conference coverage. So stay tuned!… Read More

With Tom McClintock’s decision this morning to focus his aim on Capitol Hill, it leaves a very big vacuum in the race for who will succeed Board of Equalization Member Bill Leonard, who is in his second and final term on the BOE (his current term ends in 2010). With McClintock in the race, he had pretty much cleared the field. BOE districts are vast, each of them encompassing one quarter of the state’s voters. Thus they are very difficult in which to campaign. The amount of money and resources required to communicate your message, as a candidate, to Republican voters is staggering. McClintock’s high state-wide name I.D. made him a shoo-in, and now… There is no longer a presumptive front-runner to replace Leonard. Or is there?

I am sure that a significant number of current and former legislators, among others, will now be seriously looking at a run for this safe, Republican BOE seat. One person whom you can figure is very likely to announce her candidacy sooner than later is… Read More

A couple of weeks ago, the delegates to the California Republican Party Convention adopted a strong, bold platform to serve as the ideological and policy document for the State GOP for the next four years.

Along with many others, I was proud to serve as a member of the Platform Committee that adopted this platform. It represents a lot of work by a lot of people, and I encourage all FlashReport readers to take a few minutes to peruse it. It is broken down into sections and is quite easy to digest. A lot of CRP members took a leadership role in the drafting of this document, certainly worthy of specific mention would be Mike Schroeder, Mike Spence, Mark Pruner, and Laura Gadke, with whom I worked closely in the process. But the overall effort included dozens of great Republicans, and the final version that you have here before you represents an additional five hours of work by the Platform Committee at the convention, with many different additions and revisions. CRP Chairman Ron Nehring and Committee… Read More

With Tom McClintock’s announcement this morning that he is running for the GOP nomination in the 4th Congressional District, already two of the three other candidates that had been in the race have dropped out and endorsed the popular conservative State Senator. Veteran Eric Egland and former State Senator Rico Oller both are now solidly in the McClintock camp.

So now all eyes will be on former Congressman, moderate Doug Ose. Ose, a super-wealthy businessman, has to now huddle with his advisors and make a big decision — whether any amount of money can boost him past a very popular and formidable McClintock. Especially since McClintock will be able to raise quite a bit of money himself, and stands to benefit from big efforts from groups such as the Club for Growth.

From talking to folks, Ose’s genetic makeup is never to "back down" from a fight. Then again, you are successful in business by understanding where you take advantage of opportunities, and when to commit, or in some cases, not commit resources.

Anyways, below is text of a letter that Rico Oller just sent out to his supporters. Rico’s a great guy who… Read More

A couple of weeks ago, the delegates to the California Republican Party Convention adopted a strong, bold platform to serve as the ideological and policy document for the State GOP for the next four years.

Along with many others, I was proud to serve as a member of the Platform Committee that adopted this platform. It represents a lot of work by a lot of people, and I encourage all FlashReport readers to take a few minutes to peruse it. It is broken down into sections and is quite easy to digest. A lot of CRP members took a leadership role in the drafting of this document, certainly worthy of specific mention would be Mike Schroeder, Mike Spence, Mark Pruner, and Laura Gadke, with whom I worked closely in the process. But the overall effort included dozens of great Republicans, and the final version that you have here before you represents an additional five hours of work by the Platform Committee at the convention, with many different additions and revisions. CRP Chairman Ron Nehring and Committee… Read More

Just when you think that the legislature doesn’t know how to trim the fat they come up with this kind of bill. AB 2352 (Fuentes) would expand Child Abuse laws to allow courts to take away kids from their parents if they are too fat.

No. I’m not making this up! Your Fatty Patty eats too many Ding Dongs and presto they are with a foster family. The bill doesn’t increase the reimbursement rate foster families need for thethe caloric intakethat these jumbo juveniles crave.

As a result this bill will lead to more abuse. Kids used to eating Cheetos and playing video games could be locked in rooms with treadmills and celery. It isn’t funny. It could get that bad.

One has to wonder how this bill will be enforced. Will teachers be mandatory reporters of poor Obese Clarisse as she waddles down her high school hall?

What happens if Burley Hurley gets rounded up and sent to a prison for the plump, but still keeps the weight on? Will the counselors and other be arrested for the “abuse” inflicted on him?

Hopefully, the Assembly will realize that real child abuse… Read More

As we start out a new week, the 120 members of the California legislature are back at work, as is Governor Schwarzenegger. I think that it is important to start off this Monday morning, frankly, right where we left off before the weekend. This year’s budget debate started out on such a positive note. Well, as positive as a budget could be if you consider that without any changes, it would be over $15 BILLION in the red.

When I say starting out on a positive note, I mean that the Governor charged hard out of the gate with a very important, and very accurate message: we have an over-spending problem. The Governor was unequivocal — that he would not raise taxes and make California taxpayers shoulder the burden for over-spending in the Capitol. He then proposed a budget that would have shaved off 10% from what might otherwise have been introduced. From our perspective, given the spending increases, this is actually a modest proposal. Yet, the yells and screams from lefties in the Capitol could be heard by dairy cows in Yolo County. Here at the FlashReport, we devoted some serious editorial space to praising our Republican Governor… Read More

After reading Jon’s post about the Legislative Analyst I was compelled to disagree in writing on several points.

You aren’t going to hear anything from me that encourages tax increases. It would be my preference to eliminate large sections of the state government. Despite this preferred course of action the comments Jon made about the role of the LAO and their budget proposal should not go unchallenged.

The budget proposal from the Governor that Jon praises is the easy way out. It makes 10% cuts to most all state programs. This assumes that all state programs are of equal value to the people of California. That is clearly not the case. It also makes it easy to grow all of those programs back to full-size when revenues increase.

Some people may be looking at revenue shortages as a problem. They should be looked at as opportunities to restructure… Read More