For some people in Orange County politics and government, a call from Shirley Grindle would give them the chills. She is a so-called watch-dog.

Rumored to have 3×5 index cards tracking every donor and candidate running for county office and mayor/city council in several major cities, Grindle makes it a practice of calling candidates and their treasurers on minor violations and omissions on campaign filings.

To the rest of us, she mostly is just a nuisance having authored the ordinance that restricts contributions to county office seekers to $1600 per family (which should be thrown out by a court) and limiting transfers of funds into OC candidates’ political accounts from other committees, among other things.

But if she were to get her way on her latest proposal–to create a NEW county ethics commission, it would cost upward of $200,000 and such a bureaucracy would certainly grow in purview and cost.

Her original proposal would have had the new commission looking into just about everything. After being rebuffed she is now proposing just to oversee campaign finance. She says she wants to… Read More

New Blog: I know my loyal readers here on the Flash Report will be interested to know that I have a new blog on townhall.com known as the Green Eyeshade Blog. In my new role as chair of the Budget and Spending Taskforce for the RSC I will be posting a lot of information about fiscal matters before Congress on that blog. I’ll still be posting here on the FlashReport about many other issues and things related to California politics.

American Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights: In 34 of the last 38 years, the federal government has spent more money than it received in taxes. That’s through congresses controlled by both parties and presidents of both parties and every combination thereof. When the budget of 2008 is written, it will be 35 out of 39 years. Spending has run amok on every front – entitlements, earmarks, everything. In spite of the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, revenue to the federal government constitutes about the same percentage of the economy as it has since 1960. I’ve told you before that the majority… Read More

Barbara Alby has been the elected Republican National Committeewoman from California since 1996, and she penned this important perspective piece. It shares her take on this notion that non-Republicans should be included in the upcoming Republican Presidential primary in California… CAVEAT EMPTOR WHEN DECIDING TO CHANGE THE RULES TO ALLOW DTS VOTERS TO SELECT CRP DELEGATES TO THE NATIONAL CONVENTION! Here we go again: another scheme to save us. Should we risk changing our CRP Rules to allow the Decline to State (DTS) voter to help rule us? This is one of those times when I can’t help but jump in on the debate. … Read More

Democrat OC Assemblyman Jose Solorio has introduced legislation that would give OC cities more of their fair share of Proposition 42 transportation funds.

The twist is that the money would come from the county’s share, not from other parts of the state.

It is well known that Orange County is major ‘donor county’. But not many people know that Orange County’s cities are not getting back their fair share of monies for street and roadway improvements from the county.

Solorio’s AB 823 simply urges the County of Orange to allocate more funds to the cities for roadway improvements. Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Anaheim collectively have $700 million in backlogs for arterial and residential street improvements. At the same time, the County of Orange has over $100 million in road fund reserves.

The county ought to be commended for banking these funds for a rainy day. But they also need to share the love. Here’s why: State formulas assume that the county maintains 25% of roadways while cities maintained the other 75% in the county.

FACT: The County of Orange actually only maintains 7.4% of county… Read More

Barbara Alby has been the elected Republican National Committeewoman from California since 1996, and she penned this important perspective piece. It shares her take on this notion that non-Republicans should be included in the upcoming Republican Presidential primary in California…

CAVEAT EMPTOR WHEN DECIDING TO CHANGE THE RULES TO ALLOW DTS VOTERS TO SELECT CRP DELEGATES TO THE NATIONAL CONVENTION!

Here we go again: another scheme to save us. Should we risk changing our CRP Rules to allow the Decline to State (DTS) voter to help rule us? This is one of those times when I can’t help but jump in on the debate.

Some are suggesting that there may still be time to change the CRP Rules to allow DTS voters to “help us” select our California delegates to the next Republican National Convention. To comply safely with the RNC Rules, we would need to make that… Read More

Last evening, United States Senator John McCain raised over a half a million dollars at a fundraising event at the Irvine Hyatt Hotel in Orange County. I was invited by the McCain campaign to attend not only the reception, but also an exclusive round-table discussion that took place beforehand. As a Vice Chairman of the California Republican Party, I am officially neutral in the Presidential primary, but was very pleased to accept the generous invitation of the McCain Campaign. Even better, I got an ‘okay’ to bring along the new digital camcorder that I just purchased!

The event, which probably had about 200 or so people at it, was organized by some of Orange Counties heaviest hitters — former U.S. Ambassador to Spain George Argyros, Irvine Company owner Don Bren (who, according to Forbes, is the 80th richest person in the world), renowned developer General William Lyon, and former Secretary of State Bill Jones. Introducing Senator McCain was the Irvine Company’s Dan Young, who filled in for Don Bren, who attended but was sidelined with a bad case of laryngitis. After McCain’s speech, he was followed by fundraising guru Gary Hunt.… Read More

I have a few testimonials on the "FlashCam" from the McCain event, that I’ll get up as time permits. Here is the first one, from a familiar face in California politics. … Read More

Last evening, United States Senator John McCain raised over a half a million dollars at a fundraising event at the Irvine Hyatt Hotel in Orange County. I was invited by the McCain campaign to attend not only the reception, but also an exclusive round-table discussion that took place beforehand. As a Vice Chairman of the California Republican Party, I am officially neutral in the Presidential primary, but was very pleased to accept the generous invitation of the McCain Campaign. Even better, I got an ‘okay’ to bring along the new digital camcorder that I just purchased!

The event, which probably had about 200 or so people at it, was organized by some of Orange Counties heaviest hitters — former U.S. Ambassador to Spain George Argyros, Irvine Company owner Don Bren (who, according to Forbes, is the 80th richest person in the world), renowned developer General William Lyon, and former Secretary of State Bill Jones. Introducing Senator McCain was the Irvine Company’s Dan Young, who filled in for Don Bren, who attended but was sidelined with a bad case of laryngitis. After McCain’s speech, he was followed by fundraising guru Gary Hunt.… Read More