I was very pleased to read the announcement that today Governor Schwarzenegger appointed retired State Senator Ross Johnson as the new Chairman of the State’s Fair Political Practices Commission. This is an outstanding appointment. Ross Johnson is someone I have known since I first got involved in politics in the late ’80’s. By then, he had already cut his teeth as a conservative leader in the State Assembly, where he had been serving since 1978. I can remember like it was yesterday the hard-fought special election that Ross won in 1995 to become elected to the State Senate. It was a hard campaign, but a fun one. Ross was an outstanding candidate, and served as a great State Senator until term-limits forced him out of the legislature in 2004. It’s not always that I know a high-level appointee well enough to gush-on about them like this, but since I know that Ross, a humble man, will hate every minute of it, I will take the opportunity share that he is perfect for… Read More

I have had 100% confirmation that long-time California Republican Party Chief Operating Officer Mike Vallante is going to be soon departing from his post to take on new responsibilities with a presidential campaign. Back once upon a time, when I served as Executive DIrector of the CRP (since then, the title has been changed to COO), Mike Vallante worked for the CRP as its Finance Director. He’s a great guy. Which campaign, you ask? A picture is worth a thousand words.… Read More

The CRA Scorecard is here. And it has some interesting items. You can see the press release here.

Unfortunately, there were only 5 Assemblymembers that received %100 (La Malfa, Huff, Mountjoy, Walters And DeVore). No one in the State Senate received a perfect score. 60 lawmakers, all democrats earned a ZERO.

Lowest GOP Score: Shirley Horton 35%. Other interesting tidbits is looking at lawmakers that may run against each other for higher office. FR’s Doug La Malfa (100%) and Rick Keene (71%). Or things that make go huh? like Keith Richman (65%) earning a higher score than Bill Emmerson (47%).

Tom Harmon almost beat Abel Maldanado in the Senate even though he missed 8 votes in the Senate, because he wasn’t elected there yet! CRA has a policy (before my time) of scoring absences against the lawmaker. The philosophy has been that they "get paid to vote". Sometimes scores get hurt that way. For example Todd Spitzer missed the votes on the bonds, becasue his wife was giving birth, so they were… Read More

I want to build on Jon’s post below about my former Senate colleague, Ross Johnson, being tapped by the governor to be the Chairman of the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC).

Without a doubt, this is the single best appointment Governor Schwarzenegger could have made to head this troubled agency. Ross was a brilliant legislator. Highly regarded by both Democrat and Republican members. He’ll forget more about the minutia of campaign finance reform than most of us will ever learn in our careers. During his legislative tenure he always demanded accountability from the FPPC and was instrumental in many good solid reforms.

Ross’ appointment could not have come at a more opportune time. In the past six years (at least) the FPPC has run amok – ignoring significant violations and pursuing completely frivolous cases. Their decisions appeared all too political motivated. A terrible thing for an agency that is supposed to be non-partisan.

And then there was the outrageous statement from the outgoing chair last year that unless the legislature gave them more money, they would drop… Read More

I couldn’t believe my eyes. I received an email from the new Chairman of the California Republican Party about what was discussed at the CRP Board Meeting after the CRP Convention. I was stunned. Lately secrecy, runors and deceit were the orders of the day. This was a good start from new Chair Ron Nehring. I should note a big thank you to Ron and the Board for my selection to continue as CRP Initiatives Committee Chair.

Here is his email:

CRP Board of Directors Launches ’08 Campaign with Strategic Plan, Performance Review

With our convention now behind us, I wanted to personally thank you for the opportunity to serve as Chairman of our state Republican Party. With an important presidential and other elections just 21 months away, there’s a tremendous amount of work for us to do.

As we move forward together, it’s important to me that you be well informed on developments at the CRP, and actions the party is taking to maximize our opportunities for victory.

As promised, your new Board of Directors met… Read More

A couple of days ago, I kinda loosely criticized the SD Union-Tribune for the lack of coverage following Ron Nehring’s Sunday election as chairman of the state GOP (see the post).

As it turns out, I missed the fact that two days BEFORE the "ascension," the SDUT ran a detailed story by John Marelius on the anticipated Nehring victory (read it here), including this great lede:

Ron Nehring’s lifelong political odyssey has taken him to some of the most turbulent outposts on the planet – Iraq, Bosnia, the West Bank, Haiti, the Grossmont Union High School District and now the California Republican Party. My reason for missing it — although I have no excuse — can only be explained by my travel to the Sacramento GOP convention the day of the story (who reads the paper on the plane, when there’s such good foodto be had?).

So, my apologies… Read More

I know this is not the trendy opinion, but I think the move to change the primary date to February is a foolish idea.

The first time the idea came up was in 1994, when the Assemblyman Jim Costa suggested that California move its primary to late March to "make California" more relevant. Costa said he was tired of California being the bank for the rest of the country. Candidates should do more than just visit California for money, he said. The vote was usually over by June, he said, so California is not relevant to the ultimate selection of the parties’ nominees. A March primary was supposed to be an experiment to increase the influence of the state. I actually voted for that bill to test the Costa experiment.

It was a failure. The primary was over one week before the late March date. More important than that, it also made the state’s legislative and Congressional primaries a mess.

Asecond attempt to move the presidential primary to early March in 2000 failed as well. The experiments failed for one simple reason. Every time California moved its primary, every other state moved its primary ahead of California so that… Read More

BOE member Bill Leonard has been asking a lot of questions about the CRP Victory ’06 operation. His latest is here.Someone doesn’t like what Bill has beenasking and now he has been threatened with a lawsuit. I for one hope they sue, then Bill can get answers to his questions while the others are under oath. I posted the story from Bill’s site below.

***Is Someone Trying to Shut Me Up?*** By: Bill Leonard on: Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 ——————————————————————————–

It is always nice to know that folks are reading my newsletter but last week was different. I received a threatening phone call from an Arizona attorney who said that I have libeled the California Republican Party and that he is going to sue me. He must be referring to my call for a performance… Read More