Two of the things I am convinced of are:

Jackie Speier was denied the opportunity to be the Lt. Governor of California by Liz Figueroa in the Democrat primary. Had it not been for Figueroa appearing on the ballot with an anemic campaign, the votes she "earned" would have gone to Speier. Further, she was the only one that could have prevented Jerry Brown from returning to the corner office of the State Capitol in 2010. Most of the California Congressional Delegation has lost touch with the politics of California. Out of the 53 of them I would guess less than a dozen are truly active politically any more.

Speier is a formidable political force because of her media presence, compelling story, and shameless pursuit of headlines in a way that makes her appear to be the best friend of the voter/consumer/whatever. Love her or hate her the woman is a really good politician.

The reason for this post is that she is thinking about taking on Congressman Tom Lantos in the primary next year. Here is a story from Matier and Ross,… Read More

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez is already trying to use the massive financial shortfall of revenues against budgeted expenditures to make the case for why we have to look at tax increases. His Deputy Chief of Staff, Steve Maviglio, reposted on his blog an article that talks about how taxes need to be increased, and targets the 1978 passage of Proposition 13, lamenting the protection it afforded to homeowners.

One of the more credible voices in Sacramento on state finance is Assemblyman Roger Niello. As the lead Republican on budget issues, he lays out the case for why we do, indeed, have an over-spending problem in California State Government…

Revenues Are Not The Problem… Read More

FEBRUARY WATER BOND EVAPORATING… I spoke with Senate Repubican Leader subsequent to yesterday’s "Big 5" meeting — and he reported that there was no resolution on moving forward with a water bond package for the February ballot. Of course we are right on the timing cusp where soon there would be no ability to place something on the February ballot at all…

FABIAN NUNEZ – MR. CONGENIALITY – NOT! When Fabian "Louis Vuitton" Nunez pushed back this week’s planned Assembly Floor Session (to presumably put up Democrat votes for a terrible government-health care plan) — he moved it to next week. Apparently session is now scheduled to overlap with the joint Senate/Assembly GOP Retreat in San Diego. According to Shane Goldmacher at the Sacramento Bee, Nunez isn’t planning to move the session. Then again,… Read More

I got a call this morning from a radio reporter asking me what I thought about the UCLA study saying illegals don’t use the emergency room that much, because they are afraid of identifying themselves. I read the story.

The last part was interesting. They used a randomized phone survey to get this info. There you have it. Illegals won’t get medical care because they are afraid of identifying themselves, but to strangers calling to ask questions over the phone they always, I mean always tell them they are here illegally breaking the law. That seems like USC thinking to me.… Read More

Candidates always struggle over the holidays to make progress in their campaigns. The California Resource Family Impact has launched a referendum against SB 777, the homosexual and other gender bending preferences in our schools bill.

… Read More

In some of the more – uh – interesting political analysis seen in a long time, Fabian Nunez’s communications guru Steve Maviglio is promoting the embattled Assembly Speaker for Governor of California. In a blog post that Steve wrote for the The California Majority Report, he lists Nunez, his boss, as #8 on the list of Top Ten Democratic potential candidates for Governor in 2010. Incredibly, Nunez’s gubernatorial prospects have improved since the blog’s previous assessment of would-be Governors when the Speaker was ranked Number 10. Now that’s what we call spin. Talk about failing upward.

Since Maviglio’s last handicapping of Nunez’ odds at being the next Governor of California, a few things have taken place…

Nunez is under investigation by the FPPC for personal use of campaign funds, failure to adequately disclose campaign expenditures and the use … Read More

In some of the more – uh – interesting political analysis seen in a long time, Fabian Nunez’s communications guru Steve Maviglio is promoting the embattled Assembly Speaker for Governor of California. In a blog post that Steve wrote for the The California Majority Report, he lists Nunez, his boss, as #8 on the list of Top Ten Democratic potential candidates for Governor in 2010. Incredibly, Nunez’s gubernatorial prospects have improved since the blog’s previous assessment of would-be Governors when the Speaker was ranked Number 10. Now that’s what we call spin. Talk about failing upward.

Since Maviglio’s last handicapping of Nunez’ odds at being the next Governor of California, a few things have taken place…

Nunez is under investigation by the FPPC for personal use of campaign funds, failure to adequately disclose campaign expenditures and the use … Read More

Last Wednesday, Governor Schwarzenegger called for a meeting of the "Big 5" (Perata/Ackerman/Nunez/Villines/himself) to take place this afternoon… The topic — water bonds. Specifically, the Governor wants to see if he can work out differences between Democrats and Republicans that have thus-far kept an agreement from being reached.

The dynamics to put together a water deal are interesting. On the Republican side, to get a deal, you have to be able to get enough votes in an environment where the state’s fiscal crisis makes a vote to place another big bond deal on the ballot a tough vote (it’s hard enough to get GOP votes for bonds when the fiscal situation is rosy). That said, everyone acknowledges we have a water storage problem that needs attention. On the Democrat side, where normally everyone lines up (like a cattle call) whenever there are bonds discussed (Democrats are genetically wired to embrace spending increases), there is significant push-back from the eco-nuts who… Read More