I could not be more proud of the fifteen members of the Senate Republican Caucus. Despite an immense amount of pressure, and an immature Democrat Senate President who "locked in" the entire 40 member Senate in their chamber overnight, they remained unified as a caucus, as Republicans. Going into this period of budget negotiations, Senate Republicans took a pact, made a pledge, took a vote — until a majority of our caucus is satisfied with the negotiated budget agreement, we will all refrain from voting from a budget bill. In doing this, Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman and Senate Budget Committee Vice Chairman Dennis Hollingsworth are significantly more empowered to negotiate on behalf of Senate Republicans. The reality, as spelled out by so many Republicans, is that the budget bill that was passed out of the Assembly is a bad one for Californians. Yes, Assembly GOP Leader Mike Villines made a tactical call that in his opinion, it was as good as it was going to get given the GOP’s minority status (not to mention all GOPers being hamstrung when the Governor proposed a spending package so large that even the Democrats… Read More

Today in Anaheim, the YRFC held their annual State Convention.

Chairman Matt Harper handed off the gavel to longtime conservative leader and activist, Ben Lopez.

YRFC also went on record endorsing the CRP’s recently re-affirmed position that only Republican voters should be able to pick the Republican presidential nominee. The organization also endorsed the CRP campaigns of California Republican Lawyers Association President Steve Baric, and former CRP Chairman Shawn Steel.

We just got done listening to Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, who was just presented with YRFC’s Legislator of the Year Award.

And right now, our FlashReport leader Jon Fleischman was given the YRFC Founder’s Award.

Later tonight, talk show host and author Dennis Prager will be addressing the group.

All in all, a great event put on by the Orange County Young Republicans.

(posted from my Treo)… Read More

Well, 120 California legislators can enjoy their weekends, as I just got off of the phone with Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman who told me that there will not be any budget nogiations taking place over the weekend, at least not on the Senate side of the building.

Ackerman did say that he expects more activity on the budget next week.

In the meantime, the taxpayers can be assured that the legislature will not be convening over the weekend. UPDATE: Genuinely nice guy and devout socialist Frank Russo has a post up at the left-of-Berkeley California Progress Report website that (if you can get past Frank’s rhetoric) contains a nifty transcript of the from-the-roster dialogue between Perata and Ackerman at the end of the lock-down this morning.… Read More

I am a little worked-up that our intrepid publisher tag-lined my last post on the Fabrizio national Republican poll to somehow undercut the import of this unbiased survey showing broad support for Giuliani as a secondary note of the poll, by qualifying my post, in red no less, that I am also a Giuliani supporter! In response, and rather than bury my thoughts in a comment, I am issuing this blog challenge, and not to Fleischman! Hey Jon, I’m just reporting what I heard a respected pollster say, who is not a Giuliani consultant. I hope when I go see the Red Sox play the Angels in a couple of weeks here in Anaheim, that you won’t tag-line my further posts thinking I’ve joined the Romney road show with Mike Schroeder (former CRP Chairman), Scott Baugh (current OC GOP Chairman), and Adam Probolsky (respected OC-based pollster), all of whom have endorsed Romney, and call Orange County "Romney country." Well, I’ll be rooting for the Angels during that series. I hereby challenge Schroeder, Baugh and Probolsky to show up at the upcoming Angels/Red Sox series wearing those same questionable Red Sox hats they quite visably sported in the media when… Read More

Missed in the morning craziness of checking 50+ websites every morning for relevant news on California politics was a column today in the LA Times by Dana Parsons, profiling Republican political guru (and FR friend) Ken Khachigian. Ken is ‘answering the call’ to help out Fred Thompson in his bid for the White House.

The column begins below, and then there is a link over the the Times’ site for the rest.

A veteran advisor answers yet another bell Ken Khachigian, a lawyer in San Clemente, has advised Reagan, Nixon and others. This cycle, he’s aiding Fred Thompson. By Dana Parsons, The Los Angeles Times — July 21, 2007 … Read More

MEMO TO GOP SENATORS

TO: Sam Aanastad, Dick Ackerman, Roy Ashburn, Jim Battin, Dave Cogdill, Dave Cox, Jeff Denham, Bob Dutton, Tom Harmon, Dennis Hollingsworth, Abel Maldonado, Bob Margett, Tom McClintock, George Runner, Mark Wyland

FROM: Jon Fleischman and the FR Team

RE: The Immaturity of Don Perata

You fifteen are now officially martyrs for all California taxpayers. Don Perata (pictured) clearly is acting about four years old with this tactic of ‘locking you in’ the Senate chambers throughout the night.

It’s actually quite unbelievable.

It is a demonstration of how far out of touch liberal Democrats truly are with the reason WHY you folks have not signed off on a budget. They just don’t understand that the state government of California is too big and spends too much. The idea of not spending more than you make is a foreign concept. But then these are the people that see an increase of less than what they want as a spending cut.

Well, I cannot imagine being in your… Read More

Freshman GOP Assemblyman Cameron Smyth just dropped us some comments on the budget, which we present below:

I have really enjoyed keeping up with the Senate debate on the budget this weekend, but I wanted to offer the perspective of a Republican Assemblymember who did oppose this year’s spending plan. As the FlashReport readers are now well aware, early Friday morning (4:15AM) the Assembly concluded several weeks of discussion and passed out our version of the state budget, which is now held up in the Senate until Wednesday. Although nine of my Assembly Republican colleagues voted in favor of the plan, I simply could not. I believe our leadership negotiated a solid deal, considering our minority status, and included many supportable provisions.

However after consulting with more senior members of the caucus and theState Senators with whom I share areas of representation, too many uncertainties… Read More

It’s 6:55am and I’m sitting on the Senate floor. We’ve been here all night long. All night. We’ve been locked in and there are sergeants at every exit making sure we can’t leave. I slept in a chair for about an hour (and btw – Dennis Hollingsworth snores :/ )

Ah – democracy at work. Normally, I’d make some clever remark about the Assembly here, but we passed all the foolishness I’ve ever seen the Assembly engage in in my 13 years in the legislature. It’s all rather quite embarrassing

To update you —- we’ve done nothing.

Yesterday, the Senate took up the irresponsible budget the Assembly passed the night before and defeated it (actually, it’s still "on call", but short of passage). No Republican supported it.

The budget before us is out of balance, based on gimmicks, ignores existing debts and future obligations. We’ve been real clear all along we couldn’t support it and that we needed to cut spending now to save the state a catastrophic problem next year.

So, after the budget bill went down the Senate Pro Tem Don… Read More