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

**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

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

In a virtually improbable turn of events, Republican Cal Minor appears to have lost the Fresno County Sheriff’s race to Democrat Margaret Mims. Despite having the endorsements of Congressman Radanovich and Nunes, Assemblyman Villines, the Lincoln Club, the Chamber of Commerce, the Deputy Sheriffs and Fresno Police Officers Association, Mims finished the evening with a slim 155 vote lead over Minor.

North Fresno precincts were a ghost town yesterday, with brutally low turnout fueled by: disgust with the Republican led Congress, last week’s Field Poll showing Chuck Poochigian losing by 21 points, and no real contested races for the Legislative seats. This low turnout is what evidently cost Cal Minor an election he should have won handily.

There will likely be a recount, but this one shouldn’t have been close. It appears Cal Minor has become yet another Republican election night casualty.… Read More

Ward Connerly and his team have won the hotly contested campaign to end racial preferences in Michigan. With the help of our own FR alum, Joe Justin, Proposal 2 passed by a huge margin, 58%-42% Despite the pile-on opposition by politicians, labor unions, businesses and the education establishment, the voters saw clearly that the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative was a straightforward, fair measure that simply called on government to treat people equally, without regard to their race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. Ten years after California voters passed the California Civil Rights Initiative, Prop. 209, Michigan voters got it right and passed their own ban on racial and gender preferences. Congratulations, Ward,… Read More

Contesting an election that you have apparently lost by a handful of votes is one thing, but apparently former Assemblyman Steve Clute, who just lost his attempt to take out incumbent Republican Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia by a couple of percentage points, is apparently making the motions to start contesting the results of the election.

The outcome of this pouting-session is preordained — or is it? I have no clue about what the ‘politics’ are down at the Imperial County Registrar of Voters. Hopefully Secretary of State McPherson will dispatch some of his folks out to AD 80 to make sure that everything is handled on the up and up.… Read More