The Board of Trustees of the Capistrano Unified School District has agendized for tonight consideration of a potential settlement in Lackey v. Kochendorfer, a Brown Act open meeting law enforcement case brought by private citizen Ron Lackey. Claims in the Lackey case stem from actions of the Board alleged to violate the open meeting law during the troubled administration of former Superintendent James Fleming.… Read More

Over the fun-filled weekend up in Sacramento for the CRP Convention, it seemend that just about every 2nd or 3rd person I bumped into was running for aState Assembly seat next year. With a good-sized crop of incumbents terming out (we’ll at least according to the current schedule, they are), many folks well-known inside Republican circles are tossing their hats into the ring.

Over the next few days, I’ll roll a few of them out…

Most interesting of the crop though, and so where I begin is with my FR Blogpen member/CRA President Mike Spence.

Several very-in-the-knowpeople I talked to said they had heard Mike was actively looking for a piece of property in the Diamond Bar area — to move the 3 miles or so needed to be a resident of the 60th Assembly District — to begin a run to replace Assemblyman Bob Huff when Huff makes his way up the ladder next year.

I asked Mike about such rumors, to try to pull a quote out of him for this, but all he gave me was his usual big smile that typically means,… Read More

When former Chairman Mike Schroeder, decided that serving for only two years was not enough, he changed the Bylaws allowing the Chair man to extend their term another two years, if approved by the delegates. Duf Sundheim was the first Chairman to serve 4 continuous years. As we know it’s a full time job that offers no salary.

Ron Nehring was just elected as Chairman to his first term without opposition. He did this before when he was elected as Vice Chairman. No opposition. In the CRP, it is rare for a someone to reach the top spot with out having a contest, for Vice Chairman or for Chairman. Ron is someone to watch.

Tom Del Beccaro won his Vice Chairmanship spending relatively little money. Usually such contests have gone for over $100,000 per candidate. Del Beccaro instead made over 250 speaking appearances last year and earned a huge grass roots following.

The moderate vs conservative factions had very few contests. Tom Bordonaro and Tom Del Beccaro are both good guys and movement… Read More

Here’s a story from the New York Sun on Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s visit to CA and bid to become the GOP nominee for president in 2008. FR blogger Mike Spence is quoted in this story.… Read More

Congressman Brian Bilbray (disclosure: Bilbray is a Coronado Communications client) announced that he is succeeding Congressman Tom Tancredo as chairman of the 91 memberImmigration Reform Caucus in the House of Representatives.

"The federal government’s refusal to act has only exacerbated the problems associated with illegal immigration," Bilbray said. "As Chairman of the Immigration Reform Caucus, I am calling on both the House and Senate to take action now. Republicans, Democrats, and the White House can agree that we need real employer enforcement and border security. Let’s at least take action on the things we agree on."

Building the fence would be a good start.… Read More

Ode to Fleischman… I mistakenly believed that at some point in life I would become old enough (perhaps even responsible enough) to actually pass a night at a Republican Party convention with a good night’s sleep. Some things never change.

It is with firsthand experience that I can now tell you the down-side of staying in Jon Fleischman’s hotel suite at a California Republican Party convention. Not that Jon will always have a suite of rooms, but in this case he did, so I accepted his gracious offer to stake a claim. The disadvantage is that regardless of the hour in the morning I had planned to arise by my own volition via a front desk wake up call, I instead was awakened at 5 a.m. by the soft but persistent tap-tap-tap of the notebook keyboard as Saturday’s FlashReport was being compiled. The show, apparently, must go on…regardless of my needs.

As has already been posted, a big congratulations to Jon for handily winning the California Republican Party’s vice chairman south position… Read More

For those following such things, congratulations to Tom Del Becarro on being elected Vice Chairman of the California Republican Party. He bested his opponent, former Assemblyman Tom Bordonaro, Jr., by a couple hundred votes.

He will lead the Party with Ron Nehring, who was unanimously elected Chairman.… Read More

On Friday Sacramento Superior Court Judge Gail Ohanesian rejected in its entirety a lawsuit brought by GOP volunteers to have Jerry Brown’s election as Attorney General overturned on the highly technical grounds that his bar dues status was inactive for a few years while he was Mayor of Oakland.

I have written on this issue before a few times in this space. As I have said before, I am no fan of Jerry Brown, however, this lawsuit againstBrown was unfair from the start.First, thePlaintiffs filed the action too late (they filed it after the Secretary of State had already certified Brown as a candidate and after he had won the election for the Democrat nomination, and just a few weeks before the general election. The proper time, and best time legally for Plaintiffs to have a chance to win, would have been to file the action right afterBrown filed as a candidate and before he was certified or before he won the Democrat primary). But by letting time pass andfiling the action late in the electoral process, the Plaintiffs assured they would lose their case, because a judge would clearly view the prejudice to the voters of California in turning outa… Read More