A few moments ago the Senate Rules Committee voted 4-0 to approve Senator Abel Maldonado’s nomination to fill the Lieutenant Governor position vacated by John Garamendi. All of the Democrats on the committee and one Republican voted for the confirmation: Steinberg, Oropeza, Cedillo and Dutton. Senator Sam Aanestad announced at the beginning of the hearing that he would recuse himself because of his run for Lieutenant Governor.

The almost three-hour hearing began with Maldonado tearing up during his opening statement as he thanked his immigrant parents for their support. Maldonado also took the opportunity of his opening statement to restate his opposition to offshore oil drilling in California. The nominee announced that his first priority as LG would be jobs, even stating that he wants to be the “Chief Job Creator of California”—a title most business owners would find quite humorous considering any politician’s ability to create real jobs. In fact, Maldonado would better serve California in this capacity by returning to the private sector.

Maldonado went on to state that he also wants to be the “Expediter in Chief,” helping people cut through… Read More

This morning columnist Tim Rutten has an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times entitled, "GOP Hard-liners take aim at Cooley" — the substance of the piece being that Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, who has announced a bid for the GOP nomination for Attorney General, is not a fan of California’s 3-Strikes-Law and has raised the ire of one of its authors, Mike Reynolds. Rutten quotes from Reynolds’ piece that ran here on the FlashReport (Rutten, of course, doesn’t reference this site as the source of the piece).

Former California Republican Party Chairman read the piece, and was motivated to e-mail over his own response to Rutten’s piece, for your reading pleasure…

I should probably add quickly that I have been in dialogue with Cooley’s campaign about having him pen a column for FR readers about his candidacy, but have had no luck in getting them to agree to do so.… Read More

Unfortunately, when I said releasing prisoners early from state prison was a dangerous idea, I was right.

This afternoon, the Sacramento Bee reported:

"One of the inmates the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department released early as part of an effort to reduce the state’s prison population was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of attempted rape, less than 24 hours after getting out of jail."

The idea of releasing prisoners early is a bad idea. We might save some money from the early release idea, but innocent people are going to pay the price in another way — their safety and security, and heaven forbid, with their lives.

I’m not sure how the people who voted for this bill can sleep at night.

Read more here.… Read More

Seems to me that while I have plenty of reasons for why conservatives should for sure not vote for Maldonado’s confirmation, I am struggling to figure out why Democrats would want the guy?

From a Constitutional perspective, if Democrats don’t confirm Maldonado, then it is another Democrat (Steinberg) who is in line to succeed the Governor should calamity occur.

But from a point of principle, and an important one — Democrats are equally victim of Maldonado’s blackmail scheme last February to force his so-called "open primary" onto the ballot. So it seems particularly humiliating to have someone rob you at gun point, and then to vote to give them a promotion.

Never mind the idea that every Democrat who votes for Maldanado is going to create headaches in their own future primaries, taking flak for supporting a Republican (well sort of) for the job.… Read More

This just in from longtime FR friend (and fellow Vin Scully devotee) Rob Stutzman, Main thing you should know about Rob before reading the following is that his name does appear on the list of "well compensated" consultants to Meg Whitman’s campaign for Governor.

Who ever said politics wasn’t a contact sport?

Rob Stutzman: Poizner Can’t Win The War I can just imagine last Monday morning’s staff meeting at Poizner for Governor HQ. … Read More

According to latest returns for the election held yesterday, Mission Viejo councilman and the currently appointed Mayor, Lance MacLean has been recalled by 6,858 to 6,740, a total of 118 votes. A total of 1,140 votes remain to be counted, and knowledgeable observers state the margin of recall will narrow a little, but that the recall should stand, and MacLean will be forced out of office when the election is formally certified.

Successful recalls don’t happen that often – just ask Assemblyman Anthony Adams that question. The success of the Mission Viejo recall is something significant. It is also significant in who the biggest loser was as a result, which was not MacLean, the target of the recall, or Dale Tyler, a replacement candidate that lost. More on that later….

The "Notice of Recall" Mission Viejo citizens voted on that gave the reasons to recall MacLean, included a charge that he had voted for "lifetime medical benefits" at taxpayer expense for himself and other councilmembers, had voted for a tax increase, and that MacLean had been detained on a charge of assault and battery on a… Read More

Check out this new video… It is a "must watch…"

As FR readers know, we do not typically regurgitate campaign press releases. That said, the one below is from the Fiorina campaign and I am reprinting it for three reasons. The first — it’s an awesome release worthy of praise. The second is that the video above is SO GREAT that it seems appropriate to "reward" good work. And finally, as always, it’s easier to post their work then have to pen my own (although with the formatting it was a close call)…

I will give a shout out to FR friend and actor Robert Davi who does the voice over on the video above. You may recognize his familiar and distinctive voice. Way to go Robert! … Read More

I was kind of surprised by the number released in the 36th Senate District GOP Primary to succeed Dennis Hollingsworth.

I know this will be another shocker. I am biased towards the three candidates.

Assemblyman Joel Anderson is sure to be in the race. From October 2007 to December 2008 I was his Chief of Staff and I’ve known him for almost 20 years. I also know school board member Ken Dickson. Good man and a conservative. I have meet Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone and his sister once at the most recent CRP Convention.

But what stunned me was the Cash on Hand numbers for a primary just a few short months away. Anderson had $242,687.60, while Stone had only $84,944.13 and Ken Dickson was only 900 dollars behind that at $84,013.15.

This is significant because of geography in this race. In the 2002 GOP primary about 17% of voters were from the Riverside part of the district. The rest of the district is in Eastern San Diego County. In 2006 the Riverside portion climbed to a little over 19%.

Hollingsworth overcame the geography deficit by being the conservative candidate and he was only candidate from the Riverside portion of the… Read More