Battle-hardened from his post as Communications Director for Congressman John Doolittle, Gordon Hinkle has a new position – courtesy of a Gubernatorial appointment announced today (see the details below). Perhaps the Congressman will be recruiting a replacement for Hinkle from a crisis-communications firm? Hinkle will be hard to replace – a consummate professional with the work ethic of the Energizer Bunny…

From the Gov’s release: “Gordon Hinkle, 34, of Roseville, has been appointed deputy press secretary for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He has served as communications director and senior field representative for Congressmember John Doolittle since February 2007. From 2006 to 2007, Hinkle was senior consultant to the California Assembly Republican Caucus. Previously, he served as communications director for State Senator Jim Battin from 2001 to 2006. Prior to that, Hinkle worked for Hewlett Packard as a logistics process analyst from 2000 to 2001. He is a member of the Roseville Planning Commission. This position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $87,132. Hinkle is a… Read More

Today we are formally calling on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to declare a state of Fiscal Emergency for California state government. The long and short of it is that the anticipated revenues for California for THIS FISCAL YEAR are falling billions short of projections. While it is laudable that the Governor has instructed his agency and department heads to start to look towards cuts for the FY 07-08 budget, which will be very helpful in terms of helping to provide a starting point for massive shortfall that is projected for next year’s budget, what we have is a TODAY problem. Hence the need for a call for Fiscal Emergency.

With the passage of Proposition 58, the Governor has the power to make this declaration, lay out a plan to immediately trim government spending, and call the legislature into session to act on the parts of his plan that cannot be done unilaterally. This would show leadership, and would acutely focus the attention of all of our policy makers on dealing with a very real problem — we don’t have enough income to support all of our spending!

Now I know that the Governor would prefer to keep the focus on his health-care… Read More

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez is already trying to use the massive financial shortfall of revenues against budgeted expenditures to make the case for why we have to look at tax increases. His Deputy Chief of Staff, Steve Maviglio, reposted on his blog an article that talks about how taxes need to be increased, and targets the 1978 passage of Proposition 13, lamenting the protection it afforded to homeowners.

One of the more credible voices in Sacramento on state finance is Assemblyman Roger Niello. As the lead Republican on budget issues, he lays out the case for why we do, indeed, have an over-spending problem in California State Government…

Revenues Are Not The Problem… Read More

FEBRUARY WATER BOND EVAPORATING… I spoke with Senate Repubican Leader subsequent to yesterday’s "Big 5" meeting — and he reported that there was no resolution on moving forward with a water bond package for the February ballot. Of course we are right on the timing cusp where soon there would be no ability to place something on the February ballot at all…

FABIAN NUNEZ – MR. CONGENIALITY – NOT! When Fabian "Louis Vuitton" Nunez pushed back this week’s planned Assembly Floor Session (to presumably put up Democrat votes for a terrible government-health care plan) — he moved it to next week. Apparently session is now scheduled to overlap with the joint Senate/Assembly GOP Retreat in San Diego. According to Shane Goldmacher at the Sacramento Bee, Nunez isn’t planning to move the session. Then again,… Read More

I got a call this morning from a radio reporter asking me what I thought about the UCLA study saying illegals don’t use the emergency room that much, because they are afraid of identifying themselves. I read the story.

The last part was interesting. They used a randomized phone survey to get this info. There you have it. Illegals won’t get medical care because they are afraid of identifying themselves, but to strangers calling to ask questions over the phone they always, I mean always tell them they are here illegally breaking the law. That seems like USC thinking to me.… Read More

Candidates always struggle over the holidays to make progress in their campaigns. The California Resource Family Impact has launched a referendum against SB 777, the homosexual and other gender bending preferences in our schools bill.

… Read More

In some of the more – uh – interesting political analysis seen in a long time, Fabian Nunez’s communications guru Steve Maviglio is promoting the embattled Assembly Speaker for Governor of California. In a blog post that Steve wrote for the The California Majority Report, he lists Nunez, his boss, as #8 on the list of Top Ten Democratic potential candidates for Governor in 2010. Incredibly, Nunez’s gubernatorial prospects have improved since the blog’s previous assessment of would-be Governors when the Speaker was ranked Number 10. Now that’s what we call spin. Talk about failing upward.

Since Maviglio’s last handicapping of Nunez’ odds at being the next Governor of California, a few things have taken place…

In some of the more – uh – interesting political analysis seen in a long time, Fabian Nunez’s communications guru Steve Maviglio is promoting the embattled Assembly Speaker for Governor of California. In a blog post that Steve wrote for the The California Majority Report, he lists Nunez, his boss, as #8 on the list of Top Ten Democratic potential candidates for Governor in 2010. Incredibly, Nunez’s gubernatorial prospects have improved since the blog’s previous assessment of would-be Governors when the Speaker was ranked Number 10. Now that’s what we call spin. Talk about failing upward.

Since Maviglio’s last handicapping of Nunez’ odds at being the next Governor of California, a few things have taken place…