California’s Republican National Committeeman is Tim Morgan of Santa Cruz. Tim was elected to this post by the California Republican Party Membership back in 1996, and re-elected subsequently in both 2000 and 2004. Tim has penned a column, which is below, in which he calls for the upcoming races for California Republican Party office to be "spirited, vision packed and respectful" – I present his views for your reading pleasure. I suppose this also a good time to express my appreciation to Tim, as when I announced my candidacy for Vice-Chairman, South of the CRP, Tim was one of the very first to endorse me. Thanks, Tim!

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California’s Republican National Committeeman is Tim Morgan of Santa Cruz. Tim was elected to this post by the California Republican Party Membership back in 1996, and re-elected subsequently in both 2000 and 2004. Tim has penned a column, which is below, in which he calls for the upcoming races for California Republican Party office to be "spirited, vision packed and respectful" – I present his views for your reading pleasure. I suppose this also a good time to express my appreciation to Tim, as when I announced my candidacy for Vice-Chairman, South of the CRP, Tim was one of the very first to endorse me. Thanks, Tim!

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A federal court today significantly weakened the so-called "soft money" rules of the McCain-Feingold bill by declaring that the late campaign restriction against mentioning Federal candidates names in issue-oriented mass media advertising of so-callled "527 committees" is unconstitutional. ("527" refers to the section of the Internal Revenue Code that provide these entities tax exemption). The effect of the ruling will be to allow unlimited corporate, union, and special interest funding of issue ads supporting or attacking Federal candidates by name, but which do not specifically urge their election or defeat, during an election campaign.

The 2-1 decisionby a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Courtfor the District of Columbia will now likely be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Your author’s opinion is that the ruling is a victory for the First Amendment. But who knows how the Supreme Court will respond?!

In a second significant ruling in California, the Supreme Court here in a split decision ruled today that Indian tribes are bound by FPPC disclosure rules. More than 100 tribes are major donors in… Read More

Word is that the Governor will propose financing billions in prison constructions through the use of lease revenue bonds. I can understand how you would use this kind of bond for, say, a public parking structure with an income from parking. But a prison? I am not clear where the revenue comes from for a prison except from taxpayers? Shouldn’t that require a vote of the people? There are some changes taking place in the California operations of Mitt Romney’s fledgling campaign for President. FR is still tracking down the details, but we’ve heard from very reliable sources that California uber-fundraising Anne Dunsmore and her California Capital Campaigns (see the ad to the right), who have been doing fundraising for Romney’s Commonwealth PAC, are not doing the general, federally limited Presidential campaign fundraising for the retiring Massachusetts Governor. We’ll see how this shakes out. Yesterday Democrat Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally gave a rather underwhelming apology for calling his colleague, Hector De La Torre, a racist. He said "I have been around long enough to know … Read More

Word is that the Governor will propose financing billions in prison constructions through the use of lease revenue bonds. I can understand how you would use this kind of bond for, say, a public parking structure with an income from parking. But a prison? I am not clear where the revenue comes from for a prison except from taxpayers? Shouldn’t that require a vote of the people? There are some changes taking place in the California operations of Mitt Romney’s fledgling campaign for President. FR is still tracking down the details, but we’ve heard from very reliable sources that California uber-fundraising Anne Dunsmore and her California Capital Campaigns (see the ad to the right), who have been doing fundraising for Romney’s Commonwealth PAC, are not doing the general, federally limited Presidential campaign fundraising for the retiring Massachusetts Governor. We’ll see how this shakes out. Yesterday Democrat Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally gave a rather underwhelming apology for calling his colleague, Hector De La Torre, a racist. He said "I have been around long enough to know … Read More

Steve Schmidt, Campaign Manager to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for his re-election campaign, has taken on a consulting role with the candidacy of John McCain for President of the United States.

H/T to Chris Cillizza over at the Washington Post for the scoop on this news.

FR caught up with Schmidt, who told us: "I am very excited to part a part of Senator McCain’s team."

Now – as to whether this gives McCain a leg up on a coveted endorsement in the primary from Governor Schwarzegger — that is unclear. But you can be sure that Schmidt will be sure to keep his former boss very close to the goings-on in the McCain operations.

This news doesn’t really come as a surprise to most political insiders. I had heard it a while back. But it is, perhaps, a testament to Schmidt’s relationships with those of us who report on such things. Out of deference to him, I didn’t report on it first.… Read More

Today Governor Schwarzenegger conducted a healthcare ’round table’ discussion with an assortment of various people who would have different perspectives on the healhcare issue. In connection with that, the Governor had a press availability. You can see the streaming video of his chat with the media on the issue of healthcare, and Q&A on the Governor’s website here.

Here is an excerpt of the Governor’s remarks relative to increasing taxes as a potential means towards dealing with the ‘broken healthcare system’: I think it is very important that as you go and put the final touches on, and introduce our proposals, that everyone understands that taxes is not on the table, because there is no reason to increase taxes, because that would mean that I want to punish the people twice. They are already punished. The people are already punished with the hidden tax. You see, that is the thing that we don’t want to do. Everyone here that has healthcare is… Read More

Until the "reforms" of 2001, the LA Area was represented on the CRP Board by the Vice-Chair South. I was privileged as a "young punk kid" to have been elected to that position in 1993 and re-elected 1995. The new plan gave Los Angeles a separate slot. The elections for these positions can help determine the direction of the CRP Board. In Los Angeles only one candidate has announced. Doug Boyd.Boyd is familiar in LA and for the matter state politics. After leaving the military he hooked up with the LA County Party and became their Executive Director. He was an AA for Dick Mountjoy, COS for a BOE Member (like the use of acronyms there?) and a congressional staffer. Boyd was also the political director for Getty Oil. That’s a company I read … Read More