My friend Grover Norquist tipped me to this report from Daily Kos on the impact of the Libertarian Party vote on the recent Congressional elections, including here in California, where the Libertarian Party candidate almost figured in a defeat for Republican Congressman John Doolittle:

The Libertarian spoilers

by kos Wed Jan 31, 2007 at 07:59:56 AM PST One of the under-reported factors for the Democratic victories in 2006 was the spoiler effect that the Libertarian Party played. Here are races in which the Libertarian vote was larger than the Democratic margin of victory:

Missouri Senate

McCaskill (D) 1,047,049 50 Talent (R) 1,001,238 47 Gilmour (L) 47,504 2

Montana Senate

Tester (D) 198,302 49 Burns (R) 195,455 48 Jones (L) 10,324 3

That’s control of the Senate right there. And in the House there was at least one race in which Libertarians helped deliver a seat to Democrats:

IN-09

Hill (D) 110,185 50 Sodrel (R) 100,503 46 Schansberg (L) 9,920 4

In… Read More

In Ronald Reagan’s White House, there was an adage that “Personnel is Policy.” That those who are in the room to make the recommendations do matter.

So, it is always good to see when elected officials’ offices are filled with good people. Michelle Steel’s is one that certainly meets that standard.

Erik Caldwell comes to Michelle’s office as her Chief of Staff/Chief Deputy/Whatever they call it in the BOE from being President of the San Diego Young Republicans and once upon a time as President of the statewide College Republicans.

Ken Maddox is Michelle’s Director of Legislative Affairs. Ken is a former Army Officer, former Assemblyman, and former CRA-backed candidate for State Senate. In addition, and more near and dear to me, Ken is a former member of California YAF.

John Hrabe is Michelle’s Communications Director. John also is an established activist, currently serving as Executive Director for YRFC. Before he moved down to LA to work for Michelle, when he used to spend his days working in the Capitol for… Read More

Everyone knows that the Governor and State Legislators are actively considering a move of the 2008 California Presidential Primary from June to the first Tuesday in February.

There is no doubt that it is within the authority of these politicians to move around the date of California’s primary — and they have done so, a lot, over the years. I would go so far as to say that it is extremely likely that it will move.

In some recent news articles about this potential change of date, there have been references to making changes in the way that the major political parties select their delegates to their respective national political conventions.

So this seems like a great opportunity to make it very clear to the Governor and to the Legislators — that is not a decision for the State of California to make… Both literally, and legally.

While the State does have authority to determine when the primary election is held, it is actually political parties themselves that have the legal right to determine how (or if) they are going to use the results from that primary in apportioning delegates their party’s respective… Read More

Debate rages in the capitol (although with the slow-motion pace of the Legislature, this inferno is more like a can of Sterno) about reforming redistricting, with a little inducement of extending term limits.

But California voters have had this debate already – they passed term limits for Legislators (Prop 140 in 1990), and later passed term limits for Federal Reps as well (Prop 164 in 1992.)

After courts threw out Term Limits for Federal Office holders in 1995, US Term Limits and others sought and received promises from hundreds of US House members to abide by the three-term limit. Most Congressional reps simply broke their pledge.

But former Congressman Doug Ose (R- Sacramento) did something unprecedented – he kept his promise.

Ose’s seat was originally one of the few competitive CA Congressional seats, but after redistricting, it was solidly GOP – so Ose could have been Congressman for life.… Read More

Everyone knows that the Governor and State Legislators are actively considering a move of the 2008 California Presidential Primary from June to the first Tuesday in February.

There is no doubt that it is within the authority of these politicians to move around the date of California’s primary — and they have done so, a lot, over the years. I would go so far as to say that it is extremely likely that it will move.

In some recent news articles about this potential change of date, there have been references to making changes in the way that the major political parties select their delegates to their respective national political conventions.

**There is more – click the link**

View Full Commentary… Read More

While there are many things I don’t like about living in the Bay Area, one of the biggest is that Congresswoman Barbara Lee represents me in Washingon, D.C. As painful as it is, I subscribe to her constituent email so I can be fully appraised of her goings-on in DC. Today I received the following e-mail from Rep. Lee:

Congresswoman Lee Wields the Gavel Congresswoman Lee will serve as presiding officer of the House today, wielding the gavel and overseeing debate on the House floor between 11:00 AM -1:30 PM Pacific (2:00-4:30 PM Eastern). You can tune in on C-SPAN (Ch. 23 on Comcast, 53 on Castle Cable, 350 on DirecTV, and 210 on Dish Network), or at http://www.c-span.org/watch.

As if having Nancy Pelosi as speaker wasn’t bad enough…..

… Read More

If Chuck DeVore’s no-terrorism-apologists-in-the-classroom legislation isn’t enough to make the left cringe this session (see blogdevore), Joel Anderson is now putting the screws to CalPERS, wanting to divest retirement funding in terrorism, specifically businesses investing in Iran. Joel announced AB 221 Monday and will hold a press conference on the bill this morning.

As well, his op-ed on the subject appears in the Union-Trib this morning. Anderson writes:

Given (the existing) legal restrictions, and the laser-like focus of America on fighting terror since Sept. 11, how can public employee retirement systems in the United States continues to invest hundreds of billions of public employees’ taxpayer-funded retirement funds in corporations doing business with countries that support terrorist groups? Why do we not do everything we can to assist our government in unplugging the life support of terrorist regimes?

I believe that California’s citizens and public employees will be appalled to learn that Iran, which is being sanctioned by the United… Read More

I waited until today to write this in the hopes that one of the candidates for vice chairman of the California Republican Party would have gotten their act together enough to engage in a real campaign including a genuine effort toward getting the job.

But alas at this point none of them have.

The election is Feb. 11 at the CRP Convention in Sacramento. Campaigning for party office is very different than running for say city council or water board, even if the town or district is very small (the CRP is made up of 1600 members). However, a campaign for CRP office can be just as expensive or even more so. Smart candidates raise funds, do direct mail, have volunteers and run operations at the convention where voting takes place. Those who are well funded, hire staff. For instance, even though he is running unopposed, current CRP vice chairman Ron Nehring who is up for the job of chairman, has a paid campaign manager–the best there is, Jimmy Camp.

Candidates for CRP office have the challenge of corralling votes among a highly aware and engaged population of voters. The business of getting these votes is very much based on personal… Read More