This week, I am pleased that we will be welcoming two great to correspondents to our acclaimed 
FlashReport Weblog on California politics. As you know, the blog is where over fifteen different contributors each from different parts of the state (or with different ‘beats’ such as "State Capitol" or "Political Law") all post their thoughts, observations and analysis of current political events in California.
Today we welcome to the blog longtime FR friend Doug LaMalfa. Doug will be our new northern California correspondent, which really means Sacramento to the Oregon border. He actually asks that we call him the ‘North California’ correspondent, probably because it sounds like its own separate state! Doug is a fine conservative who is a rice-farmer from Butte County. He and his wife, Jill, are the proud parents of four kids. Doug will be bringing us some great news and insights from "North California" – and we’re excited to have him onboard.
Oh yes, as an added bonus, Doug was elected in 2002 to the California State Assembly, and as such, becomes the first member of the State Legislature to be a regular contributor to the FlashReport. So I am sure that we will also be hearing plenty of his insights on how things work (or don’t work) in the State Capitol!
I have found Doug to be both insightful, and pretty darned funny. So I am sure we will all enjoy his participation on the site. I’m very excited to welcome Doug to the team, and I hope that you will welcome him aboard!
Tomorrow we will be announcing the second new addition to our FlashReport team — and I know that you will be excited when we share their identity!
PEROCHIALISM NEEDS TO GO
Californian’s are blessed to have a group of our own Republican Congressman as Chairmen of 
key committees of Congress – or are we? Duncan Hunter heads up Armed Services, Bill Thomas heads up Ways & Means, David Dreier heads up Rules, Richard Pombo heads up Resources, Buck McKeon heads up Education. Finally, we have Congressman Jerry Lewis, of the Inland Empire, who heads up the House Appropriations Committee.
It is Jerry Lewis that has raised a lot of eyebrows lately. It would appear that Lewis, as Chairman of the House’s chief spending committee, doesn’t want spending cuts to be negotiated except through his own committee. I’ve reached out to Lewis’ staff on this, but they haven’t responded except to refer me to others who, in turn, haven’t responded. No offense intended, but given the alarming rate of growth in federal spending since the GOP took the reigns, we definately need to do something new — and negotiations between House conservatives and the GOP leadership to cut spending are a great and welcome development.
The good news for Lewis is that if he and his fellow ‘appropriators’ (Washington-speak for ‘spenders’) want to recapture ‘control’ of the spending-cut debate, they certainly can. How about if Lewis leads appropriators on a federal diet program, and the committee passes out some significant across-the-board cuts in federal spending? How about if Lewis throws down the gauntlet, and challenges the rest of Congress to pass meaningful cuts? If House Appropriators get serious about spending cuts, then you can be sure that tax cuts will be sure to follow.
If the GOP doesn’t get its act together and pass some meaningful spending cuts and tax relief this fall, the November elections may not be pretty…
A picture is worth a thousands words.
So I thought I would share this one taken by a co-worker of my at my office. There were several thousand protesters chanting in Spanish, meandering around downtown Santa Ana.
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