HANG IN THERE
As the weather heats up, undoubtedly so will pressure on legislative Republicans to provide needed votes to approve the massive record-setting state budget.  It is fair, and reasonable for legislators to throw out a simple line in the sand on budget spending — we will not vote for a budget that spends more money than last year.  True, revenues may be up because we cannot get a tax cut through the Democrat-controlled legislature.  Well, let’s use any increase in funds to go ahead and end the deficit spending.  After that, we can use additional revenues to pay off state borrowing.  While I know our state is burdened with Proposition 98 which arbitrarily requires that a portion of revenue increases must go to education, we should work hard to figure out how to move money around in a way that allows us to achieve the goal of spending the increase in state revenues to pay our bills.  If Republicans can keep this ‘line in the sand’ then we can make sure that it is very clear that we are opposed to largesse and out-of-control spending. 
 
THEY’RE BACK
When moderate Abel Maldonado lost the Republican nomination for Controller to conservative Tony Strickland, the "Firestone Alumni" moderate GOP confab held annually at the Firestone winery outside of Santa Barbara was abruptly cancelled.  Some sort of ‘protest’ over the results of that primary match-up, or so I was told.  Those storied in CRP history will recall that former Assemblyman Firestone, now a Santa Barbara County Supervisor, waged a brief and unsuccessful effort to run for State GOP Chairman.  These "Firestone Alumni" annual weekends came about in an effort to bring together those folks to supported the high-profile liberal Republican.  Well, the weekend event is back again, after the hiatus, still taking place in the Santa Ynez valley.  Bad idea: moving the GOP to the mushy middle.  Good idea:  Republicans gathering where there is a lot of great wine, especially Pinot Noir in that neck of the woods.
 
YRFC – PRINCIPLED CONSERVATIVES
I am often queried by folks about why we have two statewide Young Republican organizations in California.  I usually just tell people that that there used to be one group, the California Young Republicans, but that the leadership of that group, controlled by then Congressman Bill Thomas’ political organization, cheated to keep the Chairmanship.  As a result, the real activists left to for the Young Republican Federation of California.  Nothing has changed much.  The former group is still small, and seems focused on titles, where the latter group is thriving and is focused on principled conservatism.  Proving my point, later this month the YRFC is having its state convention in Orange County, and the keynote speaker for their dinner on July 21st is none other than radio talk show host Dennis Prager.  For those who have not ever heard Prager speak in person, you will not want to miss this.  I have attached a registration form below.  At this convention, the baton of leadership will pass from Matt Harper to Ben Lopez — congrats to you both.  Bonus:  Rhonda Rohrabacher, the Congressman’s wife, is spinning records as the DJ for the post-dinner party!

This entry was posted on Friday, July 6th, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.