GOP State Board of Equalization Member and "Friend of the FlashReport" Bill Leonard has submitted a mini-column in response to a recent column by FR Blog-Team member Dan Schnur that ran in the Los Angeles Times.

You can read Schnur’s column here. Leonard’s thoughts on the column are below:

CRA TAKES BOLD STEP The California Republican Assembly is the State’s oldest Republican volunteer organization. Earlier this week, that groups Executive Committee voted 27-0 to support a resolution demanding the the Governor ‘terminate’ Democrat Susan Kennedy as his Chief of Staff, else they would support withdrawal of the Governors GOP pre-primary endorsement at the State GOP convention this February in the Bay Area. You can read more about this on the main page. Yours truly served as State President of the CRA from 1995-97, and I am still tired from the work (unpaid). But I fondly recall that as an organization, we registered well over 100,000 new Republicans (more than any other GOP group that cycle, including the Womens Fed), our pack donated hundreds of thousands to great candidates, our volunteers walked countless thousands of precicts, and we crowned off the term presenting the coveted Ronald Reagan Freedomfighter award to… Read More

Ed Laning is the California Republican Party’s Vice -Chairman Inland Region. Last year he ran for Congress against Joe Baca in a horrible district.

This is the text of an email he sent the CRP Board of Directors on 12/4/05

As of midnight tonight, it looks like the CRP’s Board meeting with the Governor on the 15th will be short one. It looks like no clemency for Laning.

[Publisher’s note — I just got off of the phone with a very concerned and demoralized Ed Laning. He did confirm for me that if Susan Kennedy is still the Governor’s Chief of Staff today at 5 p.m., he plans on resigning his elected post as Vice Chairman of the California Republican Party for the Inland Empire. This is the most high profile and startling turn of events in this saga… Read More

I have really come to enjoy the writing style of columnist William Bradley. I don’t always ‘agree’ with him, but that is a separate issue. He has penned a story for the LA Weekly that includes some observations of yesterday’s ceremony honoring recalled Governor Gray Davis as his official portrait was unveiled. It is a ‘must read’ for those following state politics…

While, I’m a Flashreport writer, I’m also President of the California Republican Assembly. The recent vote of our board has raised many questions. For further information on our unanimousvote to try pull the CRP’s pre-primary endorsement of the Governor click here.… Read More

In a move that pretty-much guarantees the escalation of this issue over Governor hiring Susan Kennedy as his Chief of Staff, I just received a press release from the California Republican Assembly calling for the State GOP, at its upcoming February convention, to pull the Governor’s pre-primary endorsement. The angst comes from the fact that Kennedy has spent the last two years as a Gray Davis appointee on the Public Utilities Commission, and before that she was the now-recalled Governor’s Deputy Chief of Staff, she served as Communications Director and senior policy advisor to United States Senator Dianne Feinstein, and she served as Executive Director of both the California Democrat Party and the California Abortion Rights Action League.

This resolution of the CRA Board of Directors (passed unanimously by their 27 member Executive Committee) is significant because a large percentage of the State GOP Central Committee (which has roughly 1400 members) is made up of proud CRA conservatives. The CRA is the… Read More

A couple weeks ago theradical Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a rulling declaring that the Voting Rights Act requirement that election materials be in various languages applies to recall petitions. The case was the succesful2003 recall of Nativo Lopez from the Santa Ana Unified School District Board. See a quick recap here.

A bitter campaign by unions against Wal-Mart in Rosemead has been derailed by that decision. After the city council apporoved 5-0 a development plan for a Wal-Mart, the unions and other Wal-Mart haters went to work. First they defeated 2 or the three incumbents that supported Wal-Mart.

That still left them one vote shy of a majority. So Wal-Mart opponents started a recall against the two incumbent members that weren’t up for election. They collected enough signatures and the election was on until the Ninth Circuit made their decision.

Now, the majority put off the election citing the lack of multi-language recall petitions. See the story here.

For now the liberals… Read More

As a follow up to my post the other day on the Grossmont Union High School District charter proposals, lots of media since then:

U-T: Support for charter plan urged

U-T EDITORIAL: Spectacle and substance at Steele Canyon High

NEHRING OP-ED: A plan for more charter schools in East County

On a side note, it seems the Grossmont donnybrook that took place the other night during the meeting on the Steele Canyon charter proposal, included some contentiousness over the election of board officers.President Jim Kelly retained his seat on a 3-2 vote, but only after an “attempted” nomination of board member Priscilla Schreiber.Attempted, in that – apparently – her nomination was somehow out of order, and a parliamentary challenge… Read More