It’s been a busy summer (work and fun) so I’m a little late in updating Flashreport readers on the happenings as it relates to the legislative races in the Sacramento area.

The July reports are a chance for candidates to show momentum (or lack thereof). It even brings about some late entries that will need to play catch up in the next reporting period.

That being said, there have been several interesting developments in Assembly primaries around Sacramento.

AD 2 The lack of a clear front-runner in this safe Republican seat has left the door wide open for a strong candidate such as former State Senator Jim Nielsen to enter the race. Since announcing in July, Nielsen has gained the endorsement of incumbent Assemblyman Doug LaMalfa and retains the respect of many of his current and former colleagues. Although he announced his candidacy after the June reporting deadline, many expect him to have a strong report in October. Nielsen represented a good portion of this area in the Senate and the Assembly, but he will have to move into the District to become an eligible candidate.

Nielsen’s opponent is Dentist… Read More

Prominent conservative blogger and columnist Michelle Malkin posted yesterday about the Oakland-based criminal family behind "Your Black Muslim Bakery" and the local left-wing politicians who have supported them. The "bakery" (or criminal base camp, depending on how you view it) is back on the front pages of the Bay Area newspapers after one of its young employees (?) murdered Oakland Post editor and reporter Chauncey Bailey after they had gotten word that Bailey was working on a potentially damning story. The confessed murderer said he thought he was being "a good soldier" for carrying out the brazen act.

Here’s a good snippet from Malkin’s blog post: The… Read More

There is no doubt that in the eight years since they arrived on the California political scene, the New Majority has made a significant impact. But what is the New Majority? Who are they? And what are their goals?

Just the other day, I was invited to participate in a "media roundtable" with the leadership of the California New Majority and the Orange County New Majority Chapter. It was an informative session, and so I thought that I would share some observations with FlashReport readers.

The meeting was conducted by four leaders in the New Majority — Tom McKernan, the CEO of the Auto Club of Southern California, who is the new Chairman of New Majority, Orange County — Paul Folino (pictured left), Executive Chairman of Emulex Corporation, the Immediate Past Chairman of NM Orange County, Dwight Decker, the… Read More

We’re going to be making a series of enhancements to the FlashReport website over the coming weeks, some of which will be "behind the scenes" so will not be immediately obvious to site visitors, others will be readily apparent. The first enhancement with significant impact on you is the addition of a new feature courtesy of Snap.Com — this is a feature that activates when you move your curser over any link (to another website) on the FlashReport’s main news page or this blog page. When the curser is over the link, a small window will pop up that actually shows you a mini-image of the site to which the link is connected. You can see what I mean in the graphic image to the right. To click through to the link, you just click on it as usual. But now you get a "snapshot" of what’s "ahead" to help you decide if you really want to go there. Remember, this feature is set up only for links that are not to other areas of the FlashReport website. … Read More

When the dust settled on the current budget bill that was hastily passed out of the State Assembly, it turns out that there are some significant policy issues that have arisen… Senator Dave Cogdill has taken a moment to articulate what some of those issues happen to be in this submission… In the Legislature, when considering public safety matters, we used to debate whether or not to increase or reduce sentences, whether or not to increase or decrease penalties. It’s a constant back and forth between those of us who want to be tough on crime and criminals and those who would like to see mandates on criminals eased up. I proudly belong to the former group. There is no logic behind fighting crime by relaxing laws. However, it is part of the liberal toolbox – right up there with lowering classroom standards in order to make sure everybody passes.… Read More

Just across the transom is the news that Governor Schwarzenegger has tapped FR friend John Cruz to be his new Appointments Secretary. This is outstanding news as I am pleased to report that John is a proud Reagan Republican with a strong track record of assisting GOP candidates and causes. The appointment of Cruz to this critical post in the adminstration is a GOP "pick up" as his predecessor, though short-lived, was from the party of Hillary Clinton.

You can read the official release here with all of John’s accomplishments and affiliations, and some praise from the Governor for John’s ability.

We know that a lot of conversations take place behind the scenes about whom to recommend to the Governor for appointment to thousands of important administration positions — and I feel very comfortable knowing that John will be weighing in on all of those decision, as someone who things of Republicans in the… Read More

Senate Pro Tem Don Perata just annnounced that he would discontinue "work on all bills until the Senate Republicans vote for the budget."

Just like Brer Rabbit said; "Don’t throw me in that briar patch."

Obviously Don was not thinking. The one thing Republicans in the Senate and Assembly think about 24 hours a day, seven days a week is how to stop bill in the Legislature. With the Democrat majority, no good Republican ideas pass, so the only bills that get out are bad Democrat ideas, or worthless Republican ideas. Threatening to kill all the bills in the Legislature unless the Republicans vote for the budget guarantees that Republicans won’t vote for the budget. It is the best of both worlds for Republicans, it stops an unbalanced budget from being enacted, and stops the latest idea for big government by the Democrats from ever becoming law.

He must be joking, foolish, or very cunning, trying to embarass Republicans with this threat. The only people he will hurt are… Read More

This just in from Bill Leonard: I had an excellent discussion with Finance Director Mike Genest yesterday. Among things I learned is there is a difference between the way the Department of Finance and the LAO report their Budget numbers, although they arrive at the same conclusions. On July 24, Legislative Analyst Liz Hill summarized the situation this way: “Revenues and Expenditures. The budget assumes the state will start 2007-08 with a fund balance of $4.8 billion. It projects $102.3 billion in budget-year revenues, an increase of 6.5 percent from 2006-07. The budget authorizes expenditures of $103 billion, an increase of 1.3 percent from 2006-07. The… Read More