Senator Dianne Feinstein has reported $5.7 million cash-on-hand as of the end of last year. In the last reporting period, she raised the better part of a million bucks. Of course, this says nothing for her vast personal wealth.

On the GOP side, conservative former State Senator Dick Mountjoy had not entered the race before the 12/31/05 cut-off. Mountjoy, popular among the GOP right, has a strong grassroots network, but is not known for his fundraising prowess.

If there is a political handicapper anywhere in the country who doesn’t have at least 100-1 odds on a reelect for DiFi, I would be surprised.

It’s too bad, given that Feinstein (despite her lack of ‘stridency’ compared to her colleague, Barbara Boxer) is easily to the left of most California voters.… Read More

Steve Maviglio, spokesperson for Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, sent this item over to me in response to the Spitzer piece and my commentary today:

There’s a reason the Attorney General, California Police Chiefs Association, and the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault supported AB 50 – and strongly opposed the unanimous decision by Assembly Republicans to remove $23 million for GPS surveillance of high-risk sex offenders and SAFE teams to monitor sex offenders.

• The Runner legislation says an offender cannot live within 2000 ft. of a school. It does nothing to stop offenders from trespassing… Read More

Assembly Republican Caucus Chairman Russ Bogh (R-Yucaipa) has endorsed Anthony Adams (pictured left) in the 59th Assembly District Republican primary. And by way of further update on the contest for this equally divided L.A. County/San Bernardino County seat, I want to provide some additional thoughts on the heels of Mike Spence’s excellent post yesterday. Read it here. (Mike doesn’t have a dog in this fight. I do — It’s Adams.)

The two candidates with six figures cash-on-hand are Chris Lancaster ($150,000), from LaVerne in L.A. County (pictured right),and Adams ($108,000), from the high desert in San… Read More

The 67th Assembly District campaign has been pretty sleepy with OC Supervisor Jim Silva as the presumed winner. Diane Harman (wife of sitting Assemblyman Tom Harman) is also in the race as is Cypress city councilman Mike McGill.

The OC Blog reports that McGill was the strongest fund raiser this period. This is a big surprise since Silva is a sitting county supervisor with the ability to raise BIG money, but apparently hasn’t.

Silva does have more than double the cash on hand of either one of his opponents.

Silva has excellent name ID having served on the city council in Huntington Beach (the largest city in the District) and now on the Board of Supervisors for more than 10 years. Diane Harman has never stood for office and I have never seen her at anything GOP in Orange County, she is trading largely on her husbands name. McGill has been on the Cypress council since 1998. He gained some notoriety for voting with the majority to, well I will let Steve Greenhut of the OC Register explain:

(from back in June 2002) On Tuesday night, in a… Read More

Yesterday morning, in the State Capitol, Speaker Fabian Nunez (pictured) approached Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, furiously waving a printout of the Assemblyman column which was featured yesterday in the FlashReport…he uttered profanities at Spitzer, telling him he had gone to far. The issue brought to the fore in Spitzer’s column was that the Democratic majority on the Assembly Public Safety Committee, hand picked by Speaker Nunez, is "pro-criminal" – regularly voting down common-sense tough-on-crime measures on a party-line vote. Of course, the Speaker has stacked this committee with some of the most left-wing members of his caucus! This confrontation was a precurser to the Assembly floor session later where the lower house of the legislature was debating the passage of a crime bill package (Assembly Bill 50) that represented a significant watering down of the tough-on-crime elements introduced as… Read More

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION BATTLE GOES LOCAL Just about anyone you talk to agrees that the federal government is not dealing adequately with the huge illegal immigration problem facing our country. The proportions of the problem and its impact are profound. Probably one of the most challenging aspects of the immigration problem with which to deal is the fact that millions upon millions of undocumented aliens are living within America now, and it is dealing with that part of the illegal immigration dilemma that is the most controversial of all issues surrounding this debate. Second to that would be border control issues. I was intrigued to read that a local city councilman from Santa Clarita (home of Magic Mountain, in northern Los Angeles County) has proposed that local governments get more proactive in discouraging illegal immigration by making it harder for undocumented aliens to get work. Some of his proposals include… Read More

Disclosures are rolling out for Assembly races. This is a fast over-view of San Diego hot spots, more to come…

In the 77th (LaSuer) Nurse/Businesswoman Beecham (Coronado Communications Client) brought in 134k in the last period and has 133k on hand. Much of Beecham’s fundraising was in the form of a loan, but she has the capability of partially self-funding. Businessman/activist Anderson (Nygren) brought in 44k and has 116k on hand. Anderson’s disclosures were notable for the sheer number of medium and small doners, many activist types. City Councilman Dale (Wainio) brught in 57k and has 91k on hand. Dale spent quite a bit this last go round on overhead. Beyer’s (Justin) on line file has not updated yet… I’ll update when they are in.

In the 74th (Wyland) Businessman Garrick (Coronado Communications Client) raised 213k this period and ended with 348 cash on hand. City Councilwoman Waldron (Gilliard) raised 47k this period and ended with 188k on hand, less on hand than on the less disclosure because of somewhat heavy overhead spending. More than half of the Garrick money is his own, both in the form of a loan and outright… Read More

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION BATTLE GOES LOCAL Just about anyone you talk to agrees that the federal government is not dealing adequately with the huge illegal immigration problem facing our country. The proportions of the problem and its impact are profound. Probably one of the most challenging aspects of the immigration problem with which to deal is the fact that millions upon millions of undocumented aliens are living within America now, and it is dealing with that part of the illegal immigration dilemma that is the most controversial of all issues surrounding this debate. Second to that would be border control issues. I was intrigued to read that a local city councilman from Santa Clarita (home of Magic Mountain, in northern Los Angeles County) has proposed that local governments get more proactive in discouraging illegal immigration by making it harder for undocumented aliens to get work. Some of his proposals include… Read More