Will Secretary of State Debra Bowen weigh in on the Trung Nguyen appeal?

On May 2, 2007, the Court of Appeals in Orange County will decide whether to take up the writ filed by ersatz Orange County Supervisor Trung Nguyen. The issue at hand — do the paper ballots created by electronic voting machines have to be recounted as part of an overall recount?

In the 2006 election, then State Senator Debra Bowen ran on the issue of electronic voting. She sponsored a bill, Senate Bill 370, which among other things, mandated that paper ballots created by electronic voting machines “shall” be counted “for any full recount”.

A recent Orange County election for Supervisor was decided by seven votes on election day. The candidate who lost, then-Garden Grove Councilwoman Janet Nguyen, requested a recount, as I certainly would have done. As part of her recount strategy, Janet Nguyen had the paper ballots recounted manually looking for errors. Then, mid-recount, seeing that she had picked up enough votes to probably be in the lead, her campaign made a tactical decision to switch counting methods and requested that the remaining ballots — the… Read More

From today’s WSJ Political Diary E-mail:

Corruption and the House GOP

During last year’s GOP House leadership elections, North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx pointedly asked a question of every candidate: Would a Member be allowed to hold a position of trust if he or she was under criminal investigation? John Boehner, the Ohio Republican who eventually became Minority Leader, answered that it would be unwise to prejudge such cases. His message, according to one source who was present: "We have to be careful… Read More

Susan Davis over at Roll Call is reporting that Congressman John Doolittle is going to be resigning from the powerful House Appriations Committee. Here is an excerpt:

We asked the Senator for an account of what took place:

During this morning’s Senate Floor session, Senator Leland Yee (D—San Francisco/San Mateo) paid tribute to a delegation from Communist Vietnam, a delegation that included a member of the Communist government. I was appalled that such an honor would be bestowed upon representatives of a regime that has enslaved and murdered thousands; a regime which still denies, in a vicious and systematic manner, so many of the basic freedoms which every American is privileged to possess. I couldn’t sit by silently. I felt it was my responsibility to speak out on… Read More

It’s time for some prayer power, folks. I just read over on Bob Salladay’s Political Mucle Blog at the LA Times website that Roll Call is reporting that California Congresswoman Juanita Millender-McDonald of Los Angeles, Chairman of the House Adminstration Committee, has taken a leave of absence to deal with an undisclosed form of cancer.

This is terrible news, and hopefully all FR readers will keep her in their thoughts and prayers.

Most FR readers probably wouldn’t know this, but back in the late 90’s, I was diagnosed with Testicular Cancer, and it resulted in my having to have two surgeries and some not-so-fun chemotherapy treatments. I’m doing AOK now, nearly nine years later.

But I can tell you that it was well wishes from so many in the political scene (yes, even Democrats prayed for… Read More

It’s been reported just about everywhere that apparently last Friday the FBI searched the home of GOP Congressman John Doolittle. Doolittle, who’s 4th Congressional District represents much of North Eastern California, and perhaps more so, his wife Julie have been frequently mentioned in articles surrounding convicted criminal Jack Abramoff, a former lobbyist whose turn to the dark side has become a political problem for many Republicans, as Ambramoff was very much imbedded within GOP circles. Julie Doolittle, for a time, did some fundraising work for an entity associated with Abramoff. Let me slip this into my post right now. Unlike many stories that we cover here, where I don’t know the parties involved, in this case, I have known John and Julie Doolittle for nearly twenty years. I know them to be honest and good people, and would be the first to try to encourage FR readers not to be sucked in to what will be a liberal-media driven vortex of ‘guilt by association’ — don’t do it. I spent many years working for a law enforcement agency, and I know full well that it is often the case that investigators will serve… Read More

Today we all are treated to the next chapter of "Tales of Incredible Hubris, Starring Fabian Nunez" — as the Speaker introduces his version of redistricting "reform" in the form of Assembly Constitutional Amendment One. You’ll never guess who would have 100% authority to draw the boundaries for State and Federal legislative, as well as Board of Equalization districts? Care to take a guess? POLITICAL INSIDERS. That’s right — in a blatent rejection of the idea that a fair drawing of districts requires constituting a group of folks who are not beholdin’ to the Sacramento and Washington, D.C., power structures — Nunez has said that the members of the California "Little Hoover" Commission (LHC) should draw the lines, minus it’s legislative members. Is this wasn’t such a serious matter, I would really be laughing at this proposal. Just a consideration of the way that the LHC is constituted should be a clear billboard reading CONFLICT. Nunez calls for the nine… Read More

I just got off of the phone with State Senate Republican Leader, who had this to say about Speaker Fabian Nunez’ proposal to have the Little Hoover Commission public members in charge of drawing new legislative boundaries:

"This plan is a non-starter with my Caucus. We need an independent commission in charge of redistricting, not a group of political appointees."… Read More