This time of year is the silly season for candidates and their tripping all over each other to parade out their endorsements from newspapers. So I thought I would take a few minutes to share my ten cents about "newspaper endorsements" — which is this.

First and foremost — what IS the endorsement of a newspaper? In almost every case, it means that the editorial board of a newspaper has held some sort of vote and decided to put the good name of that paper behind a particular candidate for office. Who is on an editorial board? Well, to be honest, that varies from paper to paper. But it has been my experience that these are the editorial writers for the paper, and then add for good measure the editorial page director, sometimes it includes columnists, and even the local cartoonist. Decidedly NOT voting on the final decision to endorse a particular candidate are the political reporters from the ‘news’ side of a newspaper, though often the news reporters are invited to come and ‘explain’ the details of a race that they are covering, and answer questions from the editorial board. Of course, the important… Read More

This hopefully will be my last post on Judges (Please stop cheering) I’ve written about why we should vote NO on State Supreme Court Justice Kennard, my picks for LA County Superior Court Seats and how I’m voting on LA’s Appellate judges.

Finally, there is Carol Corrigan. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently appointed her to the State Supreme Court. Corrigan was appointed just after the Susan Kennedy debacle and some were relieved that she was at least registered Republican. Conservatives know that being a Republican isn’t necessarily good. (Souter, Stevens and Ron George here in CA)

Almost immediatelythere signs of some problems. She said the she admired the judicial philosophy of Sandra Day O’Conner. (I would like someone to tell me what that is; to me it is I know better… Read More

Our crack team of FR programmers over at Cloudspace have finished their first pass at re-programming the FR’s main page, Commentary page and Blog page to be PDA ‘friendly’ — and I would like to ask any FR readers who use their PDA’s to look at the FR (or who can) to check it out and see how navigation works on these pages of the site, and let me know. Thanks!… Read More

[This item is cross-posted on the O.C. Blog]

If I am State Senate President Don Perata, I am wincing this morning over news account that my Democrat nominee in my #1 ‘defend’ seat in the entire State has just cast a politically perilous vote. Orange County Supervisor Lou Correa is in the last month of what will be a hard-faught battle to win election to California’s 34th State Senate District. This seat was once reliably Republican (last held by former Senate Republican Leader Rob Hurtt) and then shifted to the Democrat column where it has been occupied by Joe Dunn these past eight years. Due to strong efforts by the Orange County Republican Party, Republican registration evened up with Democrats (despite the gerrymander) and has ultimately settled with Democrats having only a two point advantage. The Republican Party nominee for this seat is Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher. Electing Daucher to the… Read More

Supervisors today made San Bernardinothefirst county to approve ameasurefurthering the provisions ofJessica’s Law (Prop. 83) byunanimously givinginitial approval toa proposedordinanceby SupervisorsBill Postmus andGary Ovitttoexpand onsex-offendercontrol protections in the statewide initiative.

The County’s ordinance,scheduled for final adoption on Election Day, November 7,would prohibit sex offenders from residing within 2,000 feet of a daycare center and within one-half mile of a school. It would alsocreate 300-foot "Predator-Free Zones" around schools and parks inunincorporated areas.

In April,Postmus and Ovitt created a Child Safety Task Force to encourage municipalities and county departments to prepare to implement local-government provisions of Prop. 83.Postmus said the ordinanceis a result of that effort. He added thatit wasdrafted in a format to allow cities,where mostcitizens reside, toeasily be able to provide their residents suchincreased… Read More

What blogs do you visit to keep up on political issues in California politics? Obviously there is the FlashReport blog. But there are many others out there, and we want to make sure that we have them all. We’re getting ready to revamp the way that this website keeps track of the other blogs that cover California politics, to make it easier for our readers to monitor the ‘blogosphere’ for what else is going on, with the idea that the main page of the site right now keeps a pretty good eye on the main-stream-media, but not on political blogging. So please drop the FR a note, or post up a comment sharing any and all political blogs you visit that write on California politics. Thanks! We are pleased to let you know that while we are still working out a few bugs, the FlashReport development team has largely finished retooling the site to make it much easier to visit using a PDA. So whether you are on a Treo or a Blackberry, please surf the site and give us your feedback. We limited the fixes to the main page, the blog page, and the commentary page. But it should be much, much easier to navigate than it was before! Are you signed… Read More

What blogs do you visit to keep up on political issues in California politics? Obviously there is the FlashReport blog. But there are many others out there, and we want to make sure that we have them all. We’re getting ready to revamp the way that this website keeps track of the other blogs that cover California politics, to make it easier for our readers to monitor the ‘blogosphere’ for what else is going on, with the idea that the main page of the site right now keeps a pretty good eye on the main-stream-media, but not on political blogging. So please drop the FR a note, or post up a comment sharing any and all political blogs you visit that write on California politics. Thanks! We are pleased to let you know that while we are still working out a few bugs, the FlashReport development team has largely finished retooling the site to make it much easier to visit using a PDA. So whether you are on a Treo or a Blackberry, please surf the site and give us your feedback. We limited the fixes to the main page, the blog page, and the commentary page. But it should be much, much easier to navigate than it was before! Are you signed… Read More

Back in June, the Democrats had a pretty heated race in the 34th Senate Primary. Assemblyman Tom Umberg, backed heavily by the unions lost to Supervisor Lou Correa, who had Senate President Don Perata on his side. Despite the General Election match-up with Assemblywoman Lyn Daucher beingthe hottest legislative race in the state, and the Republicans’ best chance at picking up a seat in either house, rumors persisted that Labor was going to sit this race out.

It would certainly appear that those were more than just rumors.

As is the case every year, the unions have sent out their Voter Guide, pitting the “little guy” against “the man,” and urging votes for a predictable lot of liberal politicians.

This version of the Union slate comes from Central Orange County. In addition to the pre-printed section which advocates for Angelides, Garamendi, Bowen, etc down the line, they also have a laser section which goes on to pushing for the guy who’s going to lose to Dana Rohrabacher, Measure M, and Assemblyman-to-be Jose Solario. They… Read More