House chairman disputes report of probe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A top Republican lawmaker disputed a report on Thursday that identified him as the latest target in a series of federal investigations of members of Congress.

The Los Angeles Times quoted sources as saying authorities had begun an investigation of California Rep. Jerry Lewis’ relationship with a lobbyist linked to convicted former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

Lewis said he had no knowledge of an investigation and denied wrongdoing in the awarding of contracts as the powerful chairman of the House of Representatives Appropriations… Read More

Things are getting ugly in Orange County lately.

In the 5th Supervisor District, former Assemblywoman Pat Bates (full disclosure: I do some consulting work for Pat) and Laguna Niguel Mayor Cassie DeYoung are squaring off for this open seat. DeYoung has access to a ship-load of personal wealth, and has probably spent $1.5 million thus far.

DeYoung has hit Pat with a series of negative mailers focusing on her sponsorship of a matricula consular bill — which Pat wound up being on of only 7 Republicans to vote against due to Democrat machinations. The mailers — here, here and here — depict Pat’s image on a matricula consular card.

Pat responded by taking the DeYoung campaign to court, and yesterday the judge agreed to slap a… Read More

Well, this shoe took so long to drop I’m not sure anyone will take note. But while Assemblyman Van Tran ‘effectively’ endorsed his colleague Lynn Daucher for State Senate in the 34th District some time ago by dropping out of the race, today the Daucher campaign made it official, sending out a release proclaiming that Tran has officially supporting Daucher’s candidacy.

Tran, who is riding high today because of this favorably press, is a hard-nosed campaigner. So the question was and is not whether he would endorse Daucher, but whether he will ‘turn on’ his considerable campaign operation to support her.

Tran’s number one political operative in Orange County, Barrett Tetlow, is currently heading up the State GOP/Join Arnold Victory 06… Read More

Due to a morning meeting, and the massive amount of news stories I had to format on the main page, there is no commentary today! I’ll try to swing back and post something later, and if I do, I will link it to the weblog.

Have a great day!

Jon

PS: Spend time on the main page, as I have some commentary under the stories, and have highlighted a few at the top. Of course, you wouldn’t want to miss my column in today’s Capitol Weekly, would you?

Care to read comments, or make your own about today’s Daily Commentary?

Just click here to go to the FR Weblog, where this Commentary has its own blog post, and where you can read and make comments.… Read More

One of my favorite Eagles songs is on their Hell Freezes Over album, “Get Over It.” There are days when I just want to hook a loudspeaker to the roof of my car and ride through the streets of California blaring that song.

The song came to mind the other day when Diane Schachterle of the American Civil Rights Institute (Ward Connerly’s 501(c)3) sent me a notice about an event happening in San Francisco this afternoon. While I would have liked to attend, it would have to be with three kids in tow so I won’t, but frankly, I’m not sure I’d have the stomach for it anyway. See, the “Discrimination… Read More

"Bullet Voting" is when a candidate in a multi-candidateelection tries to get people to just vote for one candidate. The ballots normally come with an instruction toVote for no more thantwo or three. In the case of LA Central Committees 7. If you can do thisbeyond you and your family, it can make the difference in close elections. The reality is most normal non-activist types think they are wasting a vote if they don’t use it.

The County recently mailed ballots in theTorrance Municipal elections that toldvoters to vote for no more than one. Hope this trend continues. We all know there can’t ever be three really good council candidates at the same time! If youlive in Torrance "Bullet Vote" for Rod Guyton, a former CRA VP.

… Read More

The next Santa Ana City Council meeting might be a little more tense than usual. Long-time directly elected Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido has endorsed Councilman Jose Solorio over Councilwoman Claudia Alvarez for the 69th Assembly District (one of Orange County’s two Dem Assembly seats, the other is the 56th which only takes in Buena Park).

While Pulido is not a powerhouse in Dem politics, he certainly has respect among the voters. There have been dueling polls on the race that show dramatically different results.

According to a new release from the Solorio campaign–Jose is polling slightly ahead of Alvarez:

A recent poll of likely Democratic voters in the 69th showed Solorio with a slight lead over Alvarez. Just last week in the Los Angeles Times, the publisher of the California Target Book, which analyzes assembly races said, "It’s really a tossup between Alvarez and Solorio, and I’d give a slight nod to Solorio."… Read More

A couple of weeks ago, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called together a group of leaders of taxpayer advocacy groups in his office in Sacramento. The purpose of the meeting was two-fold — for the Governor to restate his commitment to holding the line against any new taxes, and also to strategize about how to tackle the upcoming state budget negotiations. I asked FR friend Jon Coupal, the President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, who was at that meeting, if he would put pen to paper (or is that fingers to keyboard?) and tell us all about that meeting. When reading his piece, featured today on the main page, I was especially pleased to hear that the Governor made it clear that his opposition is to new taxes and to NEW FEES. As Coupal points out, this will foreshadow a host of vetoes during this legislative session as the Democrats love to pass fee increases left and right. Coupal’s piece ends with a warning, though. Which is that holding the line on taxation is very important, but that the big challenge ahead of the Governor is the reigning in of spending…. … Read More