Today it was announced that a coalition of ‘interested parties’ is being formed to place a measure on the next statewide ballot (presumably the February ’08 Presidential Primary) to change our current term-limits restrictions from six two-year terms in the Assembly and two four-year terms in the State Senate, to a new limit that is 12 years aggregate in either chamber of the legislature. It is not clear yet what the passage of this measure would mean for all of the current incumbent legislators, though it is suspected that they would all get to serve a lot more time than they currently have left – especially important to those politicians like Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez who would face life in the private sector at the end of next year. Perhaps this is why Nunez is pledging to dip heavily into the $7+ million that he has stockpiled away in campaign funds.

Democrat strategist Gale Kaufman and Republican strategist Matthew Dowd are onboard with this measure, providing political leadership.

I reached out to Paul Jacobs, the President of United States Term Limits, the nation’s leading advocate for term limit measures around the… Read More

For the past week, I had been hearing about the pending confirmation vote to take place for Linda Shelton, a Democrat who was appointed as a Commissioner on the Board of Parole Hearings by Governor Schwarzenegger about a year ago. The more I kept hearing, the more I was convinced that while the Governor may have made this appointment in good faith, believing that Shelton would be as tough on criminals as he was, clearly she demonstrated over her first year that she was not. Frankly, the Governor probably should have withdrawn her name from consideration before it came up for a vote, which happened earlier this week.

Frankly, were in not for the hectic schedule that I had due to last weekend’s California Republican Party convention, I would have been writing ahead of the nomination, urging the Governor to pull her name, and short of that, urging Senators concerned about her history of voting to put convicted violent felons out on the streets before their full sentence was served.

Given that liberals control the State Senate (you know the type, the ones who believe that if someone is a criminal, it is because ‘society’ let them down, not… Read More

For the past week, I had been hearing about the pending confirmation vote to take place for Linda Shelton, a Democrat who was appointed as a Commissioner on the Board of Parole Hearings by Governor Schwarzenegger about a year ago. The more I kept hearing, the more I was convinced that while the Governor may have made this appointment in good faith, believing that Shelton would be as tough on criminals as he was, clearly she demonstrated over her first year that she was not. Frankly, the Governor probably should have withdrawn her name from consideration before it came up for a vote, which happened earlier this week.

Frankly, were in not for the hectic schedule that I had due to last weekend’s California Republican Party convention, I would have been writing ahead of the nomination, urging the Governor to pull her name, and short of that, urging Senators concerned about her history of voting to put convicted violent felons out on the streets before their full sentence was served.

Given that liberals control the State Senate (you know the type, the ones who believe that if someone is a criminal, it is because ‘society’ let them down, not… Read More

I don’t know about you, but to me, it seems like sometime in the last couple of weeks, it seems like someone flipped a switch and the 2008 Presidential primary has begun! Here in California, Democratic Presidential contender Barack Obama and GOP Presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani are both making multi-day swings. Of course the other front-runners – Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John McCain and Mitt Romney – have all been out campaigning in the Golden State, and all have plans to return here again soon. Of course, with the high likelihood of Californian’s Presidential primary moving up to next February (the bill has already passed the State Senate on the fast-track and is now awaiting action in the Assembly), these visits will increase even more as all of theses candidates will need to visit not only to raise money from our donor-rich state, but suddenly our delegates become more meaningful in the quest for each Party’s respective nomination. Looking at the GOP… Read More

I’m a little behind at my tally of Gubernatorial appointees, in terms of how many Democrats, how many Republicans, etcetera. I’ll blame my tardiness on my campaign for Party office. That said, I’ve dutifully saved the releases, and will play catch-up soon.

In the meantime, today the Governor announced some appointments worthy of noting right away:

GOVERNOR APPOINTS HEAD OF POLITICAL EFFORT TO PASS BONDS TO COMMISSION THAT WILL DOLE OUT BOND FUNDS The Gov has appointed James Earp to the State Transportation Commission: When I saw this appointment, my eyes popped out of my head. I cannot even imagine the logic behind ‘rewarding’ the political efforts of the Chairman of the Campaign to pass last year’s bond measures with an appointment to the extremely powerful State Commission that will be doling out much of the funds. Yet, in a shades-of-Gray-Davis move, that is what the Governor has done. Understand that James Earp, a Democrat who has served as chairman of the Yes on 1A-1E Campaign (and… Read More

I was very pleased to read the announcement that today Governor Schwarzenegger appointed retired State Senator Ross Johnson as the new Chairman of the State’s Fair Political Practices Commission. This is an outstanding appointment. Ross Johnson is someone I have known since I first got involved in politics in the late ’80’s. By then, he had already cut his teeth as a conservative leader in the State Assembly, where he had been serving since 1978. I can remember like it was yesterday the hard-fought special election that Ross won in 1995 to become elected to the State Senate. It was a hard campaign, but a fun one. Ross was an outstanding candidate, and served as a great State Senator until term-limits forced him out of the legislature in 2004. It’s not always that I know a high-level appointee well enough to gush-on about them like this, but since I know that Ross, a humble man, will hate every minute of it, I will take the opportunity share that he is perfect for… Read More

I have had 100% confirmation that long-time California Republican Party Chief Operating Officer Mike Vallante is going to be soon departing from his post to take on new responsibilities with a presidential campaign. Back once upon a time, when I served as Executive DIrector of the CRP (since then, the title has been changed to COO), Mike Vallante worked for the CRP as its Finance Director. He’s a great guy. Which campaign, you ask? A picture is worth a thousand words.… Read More

The CRA Scorecard is here. And it has some interesting items. You can see the press release here.

Unfortunately, there were only 5 Assemblymembers that received %100 (La Malfa, Huff, Mountjoy, Walters And DeVore). No one in the State Senate received a perfect score. 60 lawmakers, all democrats earned a ZERO.

Lowest GOP Score: Shirley Horton 35%. Other interesting tidbits is looking at lawmakers that may run against each other for higher office. FR’s Doug La Malfa (100%) and Rick Keene (71%). Or things that make go huh? like Keith Richman (65%) earning a higher score than Bill Emmerson (47%).

Tom Harmon almost beat Abel Maldanado in the Senate even though he missed 8 votes in the Senate, because he wasn’t elected there yet! CRA has a policy (before my time) of scoring absences against the lawmaker. The philosophy has been that they "get paid to vote". Sometimes scores get hurt that way. For example Todd Spitzer missed the votes on the bonds, becasue his wife was giving birth, so they were… Read More