Last night I tried to imagine what an urgent communiqué to the Speaker from the lead consultants of Fabian Nunez’ pending measure to extend his term limits, in light of the failure to pass a state budget. So this morning, I took a few minutes to craft one for them. This is a fictional account, and is not a real memo. But it isn’t hard to imagine one similar to this being sent… URGENT MEMORANDUM To: Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez From: Gale Kaufman and Matthew Dowd RE: Consequences of failure to pass budget on Term Limits Extension Measure … Read More

We admit that most of the time that we draw attention to an L.A. Times story, it is to point out something we didn’t like about what a reporter or columnist wrote… But I have to give an FR "shout out" to Times reporter Evan Halper, whose state budget update story "GOP members maintain their opposition but agree to offer a plan of their own" which ran yesterday contained a generous amount of "ink" on the FlashReport!

It’s at the end of the story, and excerpted below. You can read Halper’s full Sunday story here.

From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary…

Cindy by the Bay

I recently predicted that the independent challenge against San Francisco Rep. Nancy Pelosi by peace activist Cindy Sheehan would cause the House Speaker no end of heartburn between now and the 2008 election. Democrats would themselves regret ever legitimizing the bombastic mother of a U.S. soldier who died in Iraq, once given a ready platform by Democrats as a way to embarrass President Bush.

It looks as if Ms. Sheehan is fulfilling that prediction. In a widely read op-ed published in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle, she took a two-by-four not only to Ms. Pelosi for her failure to cut off funding for the Iraq War. Ms. Sheehan used her cudgel to whack the… Read More

California’s own Congressman Dana Rohrabacher will investigate claims of abusive prosecutorial misconduct by Johnny Sutton, the US Attorney for the Western District of Texas.Specifically, he wants to know to what extent the Mexican government pressured Sutton to prosecute the two border patrol officers, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Campean.

Rohrabacher (pictured), who chaired the Oversight Committee, when Republicans were in charge, will serve as ranking member. Unfortunately, Sutton has refused to testify at the July 31 hearing of the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Sutton has a lot of explaining to do.

Conservatives have long feared the Federal Government propensity for prosecutorial misconduct. There is hardly anything more frightening than the unlimited resources of a belligerent US Attorney.

Sutton, a friend of President Bush, and ambitious US Attorney, is charged… Read More

Assemblyman Rick Keene was one of nine Republicans in the lower house to cast a vote for the budget that passed out last Thursday night (or was that Friday morning)? He has submitted the following commentary to add to the discussion on the state budget:

[UPDATED 3:45 PM — Attached below this post is the official statement of the California Term Limits Defense Fund – worth a read…]

I note with interest that, despite the absence of a budget, Fabian Nunez has green-lighted the turning in of signatures for the ballot measure to extend his time in office by six years (and those of many of his termed-out colleagues as well). I know from personal experience that the pitch being made by paid signature gatherers at my local store was, "Sir, will you sign a petition to cut the time career politicians can spend in office?" So with that in mind, there is simply no way for proponents of the "Career Politician Term Extension Act" to argue that in turning over a million signatures, there is some level of ‘popular support’ for their measure. Not when the gatherers are misleading the signers. We all know, of course, that a huge percentage of California legislators (including the Senate President and Assembly Speaker face the term-limits axe next November, and gauging every possible… Read More

In a couple ofposts I wrote about the Republicans for AB 1634 web site. See them here and here.I labeled it “fake” because it misused the GOP logo and was headed up by someone who didn’t show up as a Republican. The name used was S. L. Reeves. The only S.L. Reeves registered in California was a Dem. Of course initials make it hard to track them someone down. Well, they tracked me down. As itturns out S.L. Reeves is a form of the person’s maiden name. I looked up here real name and she is a registered Republican. She says she is a conservative and hates “nanny” government, but views AB 1634 as necessary. You may wonder, like I did about the high degree of secrecy around this. She claims to have received several threats over the … Read More

Undoubtedly the ‘heat is on’ for all of those interest groups and customers of state government spending — put pressure on those darned Senate Republicans to pass a budget. Fortunately, our GOP Senators are a well grounded group of folks who have core principled beliefs, and who actually value their role as a representative of California taxpayers, who deserve, among other things, a balanced budget.

That said, FR readers should keep calling or e-mailing Senate Republicans and give them a friendly, "Hang in there! We’re with you!"

Lobbyists and special interest groups — take a number.… Read More