If you were a member of the Filipino Baptist Fellowship Church in Long Beach, you would be confronted with the fact that the California Redevelopment Agency wants to condemn your Church… If you are in Yolo County, your county is using police powers to try and seize the 16,300 Conaway Ranch, intending to own and manage the ranch itself… If you are the owner of 16 acres of residential land in Grand Terrace, California, city officials are trying to force a shopping center and a ‘big box’ store on your land…

These are just a small sampling of abuses that are currently taking place because California property owners are lacking basic protections to preserve their private property rights against over 6,000 governmental jurisdictions in California that have the power to seize your property!

In the next couple of days, over ONE MILLION letters will arrive into the mailboxes of California voters. Inside of them, an urgent appeal from popular State Senator (and GOP Lieutenant… Read More

Late last week I got a phone call from Eric Roach. Roach, who recently was the top conservative vote-getter in the recent CD 50 Special Election where conservative candidates split up the vote and moderate lobbyist and former Congressman Brian Bilberry narrowly came in second place, and a spot in the runoff.

Roach is now looking at a potential active run in the GOP ballot for the full two-year term in the “Cunningham” seat.

Roach asked me my thoughts on whether he should run or not. We spoke at length and we certainly agreed that Bilbray’s election would do nothing to contribute to a conservative majority in the House, and that the 50th district was conservative enough to send someone to DC that would confront the “pink elephant” in the room – massive growth in federal spending under the GOP watch.

Roach asked me if I would take couple days off of work and join him on a trip to Washington, D.C, to meet with some interested conservative groups.

In talking with Roach extensively on the flight out, I was filled with excitement at the drive, energy and optimism that he has – even after the narrow loss in the special.… Read More

Howard Kaloogian, one of the candidates in the 50th who is along on this trip, made this interesting point: “There may be more candidates from the race on this ‘conservative unity’ trip to DC than attended a recent unity event for Bilbray.”

Oh, everyone here acknowledges that Bilbray is a “lesser evil” than Democrat Francine Busby, but that it would be extremely “underwhelming” to see Bilbray in the House. There is ZERO expectation that Bilbray would seriously confront the spending problem here. Especially when he campaigned on bringing San Diego “its fair share” (a big part of our problem is that most Members of Congress are “bringing home the bacon” – hence the fact that spending is going up, up, up.… Read More

In today’s FR, publisher Jon Fleischman penned a column on the Protect Our Homes effort chaired by Mimi Walters and endorsed by Tom McClintock. See it here.In their fundraising pitch it mentions a Filipino Church in Long Beach targeted for eminent domain. See churches are "bad" for cities beacuse they only help people to live moral lives and provide no tax revenue like a mini-malls with liquor stores,a Costco or condoswould do.

In Long beach it looks like the church won’t be condemned. You can see the story here. Of course it could still happen later or to someone else. What we need is an initiative! Wait a minute we have one. Sign it and send it in. Protect Our Homes.… Read More

When the unions are quiet the Governor’s approval ratings start inching up, so its no surprise the California Teachers Association is up on radio blaming Arnold for a supposed lack of "college opportunity" tied directly to his borrowing of education money a last year to shore up the budget.

The latest ads were heard on Newstalk 580, KMJ, a Fresno based station with huge reach in Central California.

Although this new ad is not up on the CTA Website yet, the rest of last year’s ads against the Governor are – and there is no reason to believe the summer of 2006 will be any different or any less effective.

Arnold’s fortunes in November are tied to one strategicaspect of his campaign – how does he deal with teachers, nurses, firefighters, cops and prison guards? If his campaign does not aggressively define these groups before they define him again, he won’t win re-election.… Read More

Those watching the Oakland mayor’s race should check out Chip Johnson‘s column in the San Francisco Chronicle today. Johnson rightly points out that former Congressman Ron Dellums is long on rhetoric but short on details in his campaign for mayor. Johnson says that Dellums offered soft-on-crime views during a recent meeting with the Chronicle’s editorial board. For example, Dellums said he doesn’t support the Oakland Unified School District‘s zero tolerance for violence or drugs because he thinks it disproportionately affects African American and Latino youth.

With the election just six weeks away, maybe Dellums will… Read More

Assembly Republican Leader George Plescia announced the following as the members of his Leadership Team.

I’ve made an inquiry to find out exactly the responsibilities of some of these positons. Caucus Chairman and being the Vice Chairman of a key policy committee are more or less self-explanitory in terms of added responsibility (and presumably staff positions). But it is unclear to me what you "get" if you are one of five Assistant Leaders or Six Whips. Do these folks all meet as a leaderhip team? Is there staffing augmentation? Do tell! In the meantime, you can figure each of these folks played a key role in the election of Plescia, either in helping him to get votes, or helping him by getting out of the way…

➢ Republican Caucus Chair: Assemblyman Greg Aghazarian, R-Stockton

… Read More

This morning I had an opportunity to listen to President George W. Bush speak for the better part of an hour at what I would characterize as an ‘intimate’ townhall-style ‘talk’ to several hundred Orange Countians who were arranged bleacher-style in a 360 degree layout around the President. It was a respectful audience, and clearly everyone in the room was proud to be an American, and was relishing in the opportunity to hear in such a direct, familial fashion from the President of the United States. Of course, to get into the Hyatt Hotel (about four blocks from my home in Irvine) you had to pass the two distinct groups of protestors — the ones who disagree with the President’s ‘guest worker’ solution for the illegal immigration problem, and those who just disagree with the President on everything. The event was hosted by the Orange County Business Council and I want to give a shout-out to FR friend Todd Priest (and to RD with Team43) for the hook-up, and… Read More