On a party line vote, again, the Assembly Appropriations Committee pushed the early presidential primary to our floor, wherethe Assemblywill probably take it up Thursday and send it off to the Governor’s desk. Appropriations Vice-Chair Mimi Walters offered amendments to ensure this bill had language to guarantee reimbursement tocounties up to $88 million that this extra election will cost…the amendment was denied on a party line vote as well. Counties will have to rely on "trust us" intent language in the bill. I’m sure our county sheriff’s, libraries, and mental health departmentswill be happy to reduce their budgets to pay forwhat is really aterm limit extension election. More to come….… Read More

In a Friday morning column from the Republican Governor of South Carolina, you will read some familiar concepts that were posted on the FR a couple of weeks ago.

The item begins:

A Conservative Conservationist? Why the Right Needs to Get Invested in the Search for Climate Change Solutions By Mark Sanford Friday, February 23, 2007

When George W. Bush, The Post and the insurance giant Lloyd’s of London agree on something, it’s obvious a new wind is blowing. The climate change debate is here to stay, and as America warms to the idea of environmental conservation on a grander scale, it’s vital that conservatives change the debate before government regulation expands yet again and personal freedom is pushed closer toward extinction.

The fact is, I’m a conservative and a conservationist — and that’s okay.

For the past 20 years, I have seen the ever-so-gradual effects of rising sea levels at our… Read More

Los Angeles County has numerous elections on March 6. One interesting race is the Redondo Beach race for City Treasurer. It features long time GOP incumbent Ernie O’Dell and a comeback for former Redondo Beach Mayor and GOP Assembly candidate Greg Hill. See previous FR Post on Hill’s candidacy. Need less to say this race has split friends of both and Republicans. Take a look at the story here.

Note to O’Dell: Endorsements by other city Treasurers probably doesn’t help you in RB. You are already considered qualified because you have been there 12 years… Read More

Well, sort of. It looks like the Long Beach City Council’s attempt to dictate to hotels what kind of union deals they must sign will be put to a vote of the people. The plan denies workers the right to vote. Today, the hotels will submit the signatures needed for a referendum. See here.Previous FR Post can be seen here.… Read More

There has been a lot of discussion in recent weeks about the effects of term-limits, as efforts are underway to create an additional election next February for an earlier California Presidential primary that some cynics believe is only taking place so that current legislative leaders can have one more crack at trying to relax term-limits before they themselves are forced to retire from office. Well, one impact of our current limits of three two-year terms in the State’s lower house is that, on the GOP side, well over a third of the seats held by the GOP will be "open seats" next year. Over the next few weeks, I will be attempting to take a closer look, well over a year out, at how the races are shaping up in these open GOP seats. Of course, the challenge of looking at the action in the seats this early is that one never knows who might get into the races later, and… Read More

There has been a lot of discussion in recent weeks about the effects of term-limits, as efforts are underway to create an additional election next February for an earlier California Presidential primary that some cynics believe is only taking place so that current legislative leaders can have one more crack at trying to relax term-limits before they themselves are forced to retire from office. Well, one impact of our current limits of three two-year terms in the State’s lower house is that, on the GOP side, well over a third of the seats held by the GOP will be "open seats" next year. Over the next few weeks, I will be attempting to take a closer look, well over a year out, at how the races are shaping up in these open GOP seats. Of course, the challenge of looking at the action in the seats this early is that one never knows who might get into the races later, and… Read More

The razor sharp close count in the recount in the results of the special election to fill the Orange County First Supervisorial seat vacated by Lou Correa when he was sworn into the Senate continues to slowly move along. This is the race where the top two vote gettings, Janet and Trung Ngyuen (no relation), ended up with just a seven vote margin between them, tilted in Trung’s direction. For most of last week and continuing into today, there has been a relatively agonizing recount taking place. The best place to read all of the latest on this is over at Matt Cunningham’s OC Blog/Red County website.

That said, below is a video courtesy of our friends at the OC Register’s Total Buzz Blog, where reporter Peggy Lowe has been down at the Registrar. It would appear that their video camera caught Trung Nguyen’s top legal beagle, Attorney Michael Schroder, telling NBC4 reporter Vikki Vargas the latest details on why, despite an apparent shift in the lead from Trung to Janet, all of the ballots must be counted… … Read More

Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the Minuteman Project, will be in Orange County Superior Court today, Department C-19, at 4:00 pm, seeking an ex parte order to try to win back control of the organization he founded in May of 2005. Gilchrist was thrown out of the organization as a Director and President in late January amid claims by other Directors that Gilchrist had bounced too many checks and was not properly managing the organization. Since then, the directors have conducted an audit and problems in the organization’s direct-mail fundraising program have surfaced, along with regulatory problems with the U.S. Postal Service and failure to file documents with the Internal Revenue Service and California Secretary of State.… Read More