Cross Posted at Red County SD….. Keith Barnett, executive director of Adam Smith of California, shot the following over to me regarding Jerry Sanders’ visit to the organization’s breakfast meeting this morning in Mission Valley. About 40 turned out to hear Sanders….

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders received a standing ovation this morning as he accepted the Adam Smith Award for Fiscal Responsibility. Judging by the importance of City Council candidates Phil Thalheimer (District 1) and Carl DeMaio (District 5) attending today’s Adam Smith of CA meeting, it is safe to say they are committed to stand beside the Mayor in reforming City Hall.

This next budget year San Diego will be eliminating over 600 positions in city government (I refer to them as positions, not employees, because most jobs are presently vacant). Sanders spoke to the fact that SD has added 2,000 employees in the last ten years, yet has failed to see an increase in service. Most San Diegans would argue that service has in fact declined. The Mayor… Read More

For anyone following the current debate in Washington with the President, Teddy Kennedy and others trying to push through a terrible amnesty bill, this video below is a "must see" — Ronald Reagan’s former Attorney General and close friend Ed Meese contemplates on what the Gipper would think of this current proposal… ALERT: AP is reporting that the amnesty bill wen’t down – 14 votes short of what it needed. YEAH!… Read More

CRP hired the wrong guy to be COO. Plain and simple. As many of you know the CRP has hired Bill Christiansen as the new temporary COO. First, we hear Billis an American, although I haven’t seen proof. Second, Bill is an accomplished political operative, former ED in Orange County and Arizona,a graduate of UCLA and of course his last gig was as the statewide coordinater for Victory ’06. For those of you new to the Victory ’06 saga, it was the statewide arm of the CAGOP that spent massively on behalf of the Governor (I would argue and the evidence indicates at the expense of everyone else on the ticket.) See here, its just not me. … Read More

Former State Senator Republican Leader Jim Nielson, who retired from the Senate back in 1990, has decided that he is ready, once again, to serve the residents of the "North State" (as FR blogger Assemblyman Doug LaMalfa likes to refer to his sprawling 2nd District). This morning Nielson (pictured to the right, with Tom McClintock in the background), the youngest Senate GOP Leader in California history, is currently serving as a Deputy Commissioner of the California Board of Prison Terms. The Second Assembly District is ‘safe’ GOP territory, and LaMalfa is currently in his third and final term (though gearing up for a State Senate run himself in 2010).

As someone who served many years in the State Senate, we’ll be looking more at Nielson’s record as a Republican. That said, I do remember that Nielson co-authored (with Paul Gann) the Victims Bill of Rights. And in recent years, we’ve… Read More

maintaing his position as King of the Nanny State, The Governor signed AB 951. AB 951 bans allalochol on rafts on certain holidays on the American River. See press release here.There is no word on whether you can set up a tent in the middle of the river and declare yourself free from such laws.

You can see my take on the ill-advised law here.You can see a defense of the law by the Sheriff of Sacramento here. You will notice that out of 10,000 people average compalints involving 1% of the people. Now they will spend more sources targeting the others AND force some people to drink on other nights while there is no law enforcement around. Arrest law breakers don’t make more people break the law!… Read More

Who Runs California?

Special elections for the House in one-party districts are often very low-turnout affairs, with victory going to whichever special interest group cranks up the most supporters on behalf of its preferred candidate. That was certainly the case in Long Beach, Calif. this week when voters selected a replacement for Democratic Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald who died in April of cancer.

The two major competing special interests, I mean candidates, were State Assemblywoman Laura Richardson, who like Ms. Millender-McDonald is from a long-powerful African-American machine, and State Senator Jenny Oropeza, with her own base in the district’s strong Hispanic population. Ms. Richardson wound up winning the first round by 38% to 31% over Ms. Oropeza, positioning herself for a certain victory over a hapless Republican in the August runoff.

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I think that when the voters put term limits in place, one reason that many did so was because being an elected legislator should not be a career. Rather, it should be an opportunity for those who have had very real life experiences to spend a six or eight years in Sacramento, and then they would return back to the private sector, allowing other noble citizens to step forward and give of their time.

Long gone are the days of ‘career-politicians’ who serve twenty, thirty or in some cases over forty years in the legislature. Long gone are the kind of parochial politicians who use their offices to milk millions out of political supporters to enhance their lifestyles, and to live supremus alius – above others. Willie Brown is and his kind are long gone, right? WRONG.

I was absolutely floored today when I received a copy of a complaint filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) against State Senate President Don Perata… Read More

WINNERS: The GOP Senators who stepped up and told the President: "Amnesty, proposed by a Republican, is still amnesty." LOSERS: The "dirty dozen" Republican Senators that cast the pro-amnesty vote: Bennett, Craig, Graham, Gregg, Hagel, Kyl, Lott, Lugar, Martinez, McCain, Snow, Specter. WINNERS: Grassroots activists all around America who got active, and made a difference with their lobbying of Washington politicians. THE BIG LOSER: President George W. Bush. My faith in the judgement of the George W. Bush has been profoundly, negatively impacted by this totally outrageous and misguided effort. WINNERS: All legal immigrants to the United States, whose journey to come here would have been immeasurably cheapened with an amnesty for the lawbreaking… Read More