The race for the 36th Assembly Race is getting active. Because of the Runners dominance in races for this seat, many believe that this is an Antelope Valley Seat. Not true as it reached over to take in Victorville and other parts of San Bernardino County. Palmdale City Councilman Steve Knight as announce that he has a majority of the Victorville City Council on board. His campaign announced that Victorville Mayor Terry Caldwell, and Council Members Bob Hunter and Mike Rothschild endorsed the campaign. Smart move reaching over to the SB County folks. See press release below. Right now the only announced candidate running against Knight is Steve Fox. But everybody expects Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford to get into this race. He has some problem of his own. Controversy continues to swirl around his connections to the IBEW and their contributions to his failed assembly bid and his attepts to pay them off in Palmdale. You can read … Read More

In place of our regular daily commentary, we feature the following special guest commentary from Republican Assemblyman Guy Houston. Houston, who serves as Vice-Chairman of the Assembly’s Local Government Committee, is an important voice in the debate over the future of ACA 8, the "Trojan Horse" faux-Eminent Domain "reform" measure put forth by the League of Cities as a blocking-maneuver to prevent a real reform measure that would have protections for all property owners against abusive government takings. In Houston’s commentary, just see how many kinds of property are NOT protected from "Kelo" type government action? Without any further introduction, here is Houston’s piece:

Republican Opposition Can Stop Misleading Eminent Domain “Reform”… Read More

The Los Angeles Times reported on the 7th that Orange County prosecutors plan to file a civil case against former Capistrano Unified School District Superintendent James Fleming, and other officials alleging that trustees, including Crystal Kochendorfer and Marlene Draper, illegally conducted public business in secret, including approving millions of dollars in construction cost overruns for the new district headquarters. The report was based on recently unsealed grand jury transcripts.

I suspect the grand jury may not yet have completed all its work on this sad tale of political corruption at CUSD, and more witnesses may be called before a case is actually filed. Having served as counsel to the prior CUSD recall campaign, I can tell you there really is a lot of evidence of misdoing to collect. The Times reported the OC District Attorney’s "looming complaint " will allege that district officials, among other matters, violated the state open-meeting law, Brown Act.

I successfully brought a private-attorney general Brown Act case against the CUSD last year on similar charges for my client Ron… Read More

UPDATE: Two more departures – political director Rob Jesmer and deputy campaign manager Reed Galen.

This morning, the top two figures in the McCain for President campaign, Campaign Manager Terry Nelson (pictured) and John Weaver, abruptly and unexpectedly — quit.

Senator McCain’s longtime advisor Rick Davis is stepping up to fill the role, begging the question of whether McCain’s campaign is (rather quickly) transitioning from a major nationwide effort that had him topping the polls for some time, to one of those pained campaigns where the esteemed U.S. Senator runs around America running for President, when everyone knows he is not a factor.

Momentum is important for a campaign — more positive things beget more positive things. The reverse is also true — bad news can quickly… Read More

asdfaf … Read More

What is it with those in power, that have them totally unwilling to pass the baton so that others may have their opportunity to participate in the process? We’ve already written a lot (and I am sure will we see much more on this website) about the sham term limits "reform" measure being promoted by ‘termed out’ politicians Don Perata and Fabian Nunez (funny how this "reform" has the effect of allowing dozens of legislators currently forced to retire next your to instead serve in office for years longer).

Well, I just read over at Capitol Weekly (h/t to John Howard) that now the same Demcrats that are trying to short circuit meaningful term limits for State Capitol politicians are trying to nuke term limits for the Chairmanships of three important California regulatory agencies — the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District and the Mojave District Air Quality Management District.

Term limits are a good thing, and especially in the case of those obscure agencies where board members… Read More

This just in from Tony Krvaric….

I’m at city council chambers:

Donna Frye announced she will NOT vote for the override. Vote will come down 4-4, essentially NOT overriding the Mayor’s Veto. Newsflash! Will e-mail you as soon as the final vote is done.

Tony

12:42 am Update:

Final vote will come at 2 PM. They recessed for lunch, but Donna Frye already went on record (TV) that she’s changing her vote to NO, i.e. NOT voting for the override of the veto.

Tony… Read More

The Wal-Mart ban fails…see my prior post below:

Frye shifts vote, backs Walmart Supercenter by Matthew T. Hall UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER 3:14 p.m. July 10, 2007

Wal-Mart Supercenters may be in store for San Diego, after all.

The San Diego City Council essentially balked at its own ban of large retail developments with full-service groceries Tuesday afternoon after Councilwoman Donna Frye surprisingly announced she would switch her vote.

Link to the entire UT Story.… Read More