My least favorite legislator—Senator Jackie Speier, a Democrat from the Bay Area—wants to change the lieutenant governor’s office from a “do-nothing” office into an activist office which has its hands in higher education and consumer issues. In fact, she thinks the lieutenant governor should be the "guardian of higher education in California.”

Everyone who runs for the lieutenant governor job wants to make it more important than it is. Frankly, to make it a more valuable job, we should run the governor and lieutenant governor on the same ticket…but that’s another topic. Mostly, what the state doesn’t need is Jackie Speier in… Read More

The early frontrunner for our “Geena Davis Is On Line One and She’s Steamed” award is Jackie Speier, the Bay Area state senator who’s running for Lieutenant Governor.

Interviewed by the Oakland Tribune, here’s how La Jackie spins why she’s not running for the job but, instead, the chump change that is lieutenant governor: “I don’t think the electorate in California is quite read for a woman governor.”

I’m sure Dianne Feinstein would agree. Or the junior senator from New York, who’s coming soon to the Bay Area to promote her presidential prospects.

Speier says she wants the duties of “loot-guv” to include being the “‘guardian of education’, the overseer of the State Senate, and an advocate for consumer protection.”

Someone should tell her it’s a short walk from “guardian” to “gourdian” — in this case, the gourdian knot that is Sacramento’s over-meddling in education.

At present, the Governor, the Legislature, the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the State Board of… Read More

Last week, Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger reached outside of his own political party, tapping former California Democrat Party Executive Director Susan Kennedy to be his new Chief of Staff. Kennedy has been serving the last couple of years as an appointee of recalled Governor Gray Davis to the Public Utilities Commission, taking that post after having served as Davis’ Deputy Chief of Staff. Kennedy’s bizarre connections made for unique post to the FR blog.

I’ve written about this appointment a few times, as well as a recap of a conversation I had with Governor Schwarzenegger here.

I can tell you that I continue to get a steady string of e-mails from folks were are quite upset over the appointment – now well over a thousand of them. It was… Read More

Former State Assemblyman Mike Briggs (R) is contemplating yet another political run, this time for his old City Council seat in Fresno, District 1. A brief background: Briggs served one term on the City Council before running for State Assembly in 1998, winning a contentious four way primary and then breezing through that fall’s general election. Briggs, in his first two years in the State Assembly, made a name for himself in working across the aisle in attempting to craft legislation to help his Central Valley District. Alas, in 2000, Briggs went a little too far. It was his disastrous vote on the 2000 State Budget that set the wheels in motion for California’s fiscal meltdown and massive deficits. Without his vote on that budget bill, California’s fiscal problems wouldn’t be nearly as severe as that are today. I estimate that his vote cost Californians somewhere north of $40 billion in principal and interest.

"Coincidently", a new Congressional District was created by the Democrats right over the top of his Assembly District, again, "coincidently" right after his collaboration with the Democrats on the budget. So, in… Read More

The last several days of discussion hiring have made it clear how tenuous the relationship between the Governor and the Republican grassroots was even before Susan Kennedy was hired. As I noted on my Wednesday posting, these ideological differences have existed from the very beginning of the recall campaign. Many conservatives chose to overlook their differences with Schwarzenegger because of their desire to get rid of Gray Davis, others decided that his positions on the car tax and drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants were enough to overshadow other areas of disagreement, and some were drawn in by the celebrity star power that Arnold radiated on the campaign trail. But whether it’s Kennedy, a tremendous bond measure proposal, or other issues, it’s clear that Republican conservative activists are angrier than they’ve been in over a decade.

So my question is: now what?

The business/lobbying community is supporting Kennedy’s hiring: they’ve been in the newspapers talking about her pro-business credentials all week. It would be one thing if the GOP ideological base and donor base were both furious with… Read More

My thoughts on the Gov’s Chief of Staff…

I’ve been too in shock to comment up ‘til now.

No question that Governor Tom McClintock would never had made such an appointment … but, I guess the question remains whether McClintock would have been in the position to choose.

This is the “age old” debate in the GOP, is it not? How far are moderates and many conservatives (me among them) willing to go, how much are we willing to give up, to have a Republican in the statehouse at any cost, or in any number of offices, when the “general consensus” is that a true-blue candidate can’t win?

I am reminded of Winston Churchill’s comments after Neville Chamberlain returned from… Read More

SPECIAL ELECTION THIS TUESDAY While only a small portion of FR readers are from Orange County relatively, and even less in live in the 48th Congressional District, I want to remind folks that this Tuesday is the special election to fill the unexpired term of Congressman Christopher Cox, who resigned from Congress after being tapped by the President to head the Federal Exchange Commission. This race is being viewed nationally because minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist is on the ballot as an American Independent. Every political observer has said that Gilchrist has no shot, but that how well he does will signal, nationally, whether the GOP has a problem on the immigration issue. … Read More

Members of the legislature will receive a pay raise of 12% this month. With the raise, they will make $110,880. Of course, this is augmented by a ‘per dium’ payment that they receive to cover the additional costs of travel and residency near the capitol This amount to $153 a day when they are in session. Too much money? Too little money? That debate can rage on – though if you have full-time legislative, you need to give them full–time pay. I’ll let you readers decide what is fair pay. The legislators do not decide their own pay, however. Their compensation is set by an obscure commission, not selected by the voters. More newsworthy than the raise is "the list" – who took the raise and who turned it away. Note, legislators took the raise, but have said they will donate the raise to charity (presumably keeping the tax deduction). Those folks did not make the list.… Read More