As a member of the leadership team for our caucus, I must honor that our internal workings and decisions of our caucus must remain internal with the outcome being the aspect that we may or may not go public with. Obviously, with the new term and our organizational meeting on the horizon, the discussions turned to the leadership of our caucus. Controversy surrounded as to how that discussion would be carried out and when. Our unity being one of our most important assets in my 4 years in the legislature, I had great concern as to how this was going toplay out.

Our leader, George Plescia, inherited a situation not to be envied in terms of the transition. He jumped into the fire during the bond ‘negotiations’ and counter to what some may say, was not twisting arms of members to vote for any bonds. Nor during the budget, when more than the usual 6 Republicans usually needed to pass a budget were there. Members complaining about these issues and voting for them, look in the mirror.

It was a 2nd year of the session, an election year, where the leader’s job is to protect our targets and wage the battle on new seats that we… Read More

Preamble The position of the Republican Party is that state government is too big, and spends too much. That taxes should be cut, and many government-funded programs be eliminated. Families should be able to keep more of their tax dollars, to spend as they would see fit, not shipping them to Sacramento through high taxes and onerous fees, to be redistributed by politicians to their various causes. If everyone would ingrain that into their thinking on policy debates, then there would a better understanding about why Republicans in the legislature are not hip on drinking the ‘bipartisan’ Kool-aid being poured by Governor Schwarzenegger, Senator Perata and Speaker Nunez right now. You see, the Democrats are only willing to jump on… Read More

**Update: A loyal FR reader just clued me in — apparently Dole is stepping down to be replaced by Nevada Senator John Ensign. A good sign as Ensign has shown his meddle – voting against the President’s medicare expansion plans. Excellent.** Not too long ago, I posted a short rant on this site about my contempt for United States Senator Lincoln Chafee ("R"-Rhode Island). I put his "R" in quotes because this registered Republican votes with Democrats so often that it is disingenuous for him to be registered in the party of Ronald Reagan. He famously brags about how he didn’t cast a vote for President Bush in his last election battle with uber-liberal John Kerry. He also voted against confirming Sam Alito to the United States Supreme Court. When I wrote about him… Read More

Other than providing a 400,000+ margin to Democratic candidates for LG and SOS, there were some other results of interest in Los Angeles County.

Candidate wise, Illegal alien councilman Sergio Calderon did win his water board seat. See here. LA GOP Leader Norm Ryan lost his re-election bid not to Frank Colonna who didn’t run. But he lost none the less. See here.A big upset was that Assemblyman Paul Koretz lost his bid for a water board seat.

Some passed.

In Santa Monica, Measure Y passed. This means that pot smoking is a lower police priority than cigarette smoking. See previous note on campaign here. The good news they passed a parcel tax to clean up beaches of everything but the homeless.

Los Angeles passed an illegal alien housing bond in Measure H and changed term… Read More

Larry McCarthy is the President of the California Taxpayers Association, and he has penned his thoughts on Tuesday’s election, and the message sent by California voters about tax increases…

(Published November 9th, 2006 in Capitol Weekly) When I offered to write this column for Capitol Weekly, I must admit I was hoping for a much different outcome on this Election Day, which clearly was a big day for the party of Hilary Clinton–especially when you look at the results of the midterm elections around the country. The GOP loss of the House, and most likely the Senate, is bad news for all of those who believe that our federal government is too fat and spends too much. Republican leaders need to make the case to voters in 2008 as to why the GOP should be given back the reigns of leadership. The impact of the national GOP losses in Congress was given an emphatic exclamation point with the defeat of House Resources Committee Chairman Richard… Read More

Mike Villines came up the ranks with Pete Wilson and Chuck Poochigian, stepped into a very succesful business career, and made the decision in 2003 to take out Steve Samuelian in the 29th Assembly District race in 2004. He’s a family man, an experience businessmen, and respected leader on both sides of the aisle. There isn’t a more principled conservative in California than Villines, and he is deeply disappointed that Republicans in Sacramento keep voting out deficit budgets and putting bond measures on the ballot with the State’s fiscal mess still not under control.

I don’t know whether he will be able to hold his caucus together, but that is essential to any success Villines might have as leader. There is only one vote that counts, and that is on the State budget. If he has his way, California will have seen its last deficit. In my discussions with him, he agrees that California Republicans need to have a set of issues to be identified with before any electoral success is possilble. I think he will be the strongest negotiator on financial matters we’ve seen in several years in Sacramento. He understands the numbers, and has… Read More

(Published November 9th, 2006 in Capitol Weekly)

When I offered to write this column for Capitol Weekly, I must admit I was hoping for a much different outcome on this Election Day, which clearly was a big day for the party of Hilary Clinton–especially when you look at the results of the midterm elections around the country.

The GOP loss of the House, and most likely the Senate, is bad news for all of those who believe that our federal government is too fat and spends too much. Republican leaders need to make the case to voters in 2008 as to why the GOP should be given back the reigns of leadership. The impact of the national GOP losses in Congress was given an emphatic exclamation point with the defeat of House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo in California’s 11th Congressional District.

**There is more – click… Read More