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

San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Postmus scored a legal victory today in his campaign for County Assessor when Superior Court Judge Christopher J. Warner denied incumbent Assessor Don Williamson’s motion for a temporary restraining order against Postmus’ use of acampaign logo.

Williamson’s lawsuit alleged that Postmus’ logo (pictured right) implies that Postmus is the incumbent Assessor because it includes the name "Bill Postmus" and the words "County Assessor" below it in the logo graphic, without the words "Elect" or "For" included.

Ben Davidian, Postmus’ attorney and former Chairman of the California Fair Political Practices Commission, argued that the Postmus campaign logo was created in accordance with standard business practices and design techniques used for decades in American political campaigns, and thatWilliamson’s motion was tantamount to asking the Court to design Postmus’… Read More

David Drucker penned this piece in today’s Roll Call Magazine:

CALIFORNIA Businessman Will Reveal 50th District Plans Soon Millionaire businessman Eric Roach (R) may be out, but another millionaire businessman, Bill Hauf (R), said he is very likely in and will mount a challenge to ex-Rep. Brian Bilbray (R) in the 50th district GOP primary on June 6 < even as the former Congressman battles Democrat Francine Busby the same day in the special election to replace ex-Rep. Duke Cunningham (R). "I can tell you that if I go ahead it will be… Read More

FR friend Shane Goldmacher (who writes for CapWeekly) has reported on his blog that conservative Republican Assemblyman Ray Haynes has endorsed…Abel Maldonado in his bid for Controller. On one level, this is surprising because idoliogically and stylistically, Haynes and Maldonado’s primary opponent, former Assemblyman Tony Strickland are very much on the same page.

At first blush, this would simply seem to be a calculated ‘pay back’ from Haynes to Strickland, who has endorsed Haynes’ primary opponent in his race for Board of Equalization, conservative businesswoman Michelle Steel.

The key difference here, of course, is that Haynes and Steel are both hardline conservatives. So you can’t really say that someone is more or less conservative based on which of the two someone endorse. Either Haynes or Steel would be a marked improvement over Claude Parrish, who seems to relish the regulatory role of the BOE, instead of seeing it as a resource to come to the aid of taxpayers.

Anyways, I think I am… Read More

As you have seen over the past couple of weeks, we are very actively ‘enhancing and retooling’ the FlashReport Weblog Contributor Pool.

I am very excited that we have a great team of folks…

From the ‘north state’ (above Sacramento) we have Doug LaMalfa. From the Bay Area, Bill Whalen and Jennifer Nelson. From the Sacramento Area, Tom Ross and Joe Justin. From the Central Coast we have Amy Thoma (though she is on leave as the Assembly Republican Leader, for whom she works, grapples with whether to let Amy continue to write for us…). From the Central Valley we have they ‘shy guy’ Mike Der Manouel, Jr. From Los Angeles we’ve got our high-volume producer, Mike Spence. From San Bernardino County, the one and old Brad Mitzelfelt. From Riverside County, the Howard Kaloogian’s best friend Phil Paule. From Orange County the irrepressible duo of Adam Probolsky and … Read More

The editorial cartoon that the Oakland Tribune ran today is great (it’s syndicated from the Detroit News). This cartoon particularly hits home here in California after an Oakland judge struck down the state’s exit exam yesterday, calling it unfair. Of course, what’s unfair is allowing students to graduate from our public high schools who don’t even have a grasp of sophomore-level English, which is what the exit exam requires.… Read More

ARE THESE EIGHT GOP LEGISLATORS THE NEW FACES OF "BIG GOVERNMENT" CONSERVATISM? … Read More

CRP Vice Chairman Ron Nehring sent an important email out today and if you missed it, you need to visit www.unionfacts.com to check out the beginning of an important strategy to retain the Governorship. I am not going to get into how many times I have written about the importance of defining unions before they beat up the Governor, again. As a matter of fact, the Governor really needs to run his race against them, and not against Westly or Angelides.

Democrat approval numbers are even lower than Arnold’s. This is why they have transferred their voice to teachers, nurses, firefighters, cops and prison guards. And those groups are our real opponents in November. Run your campaign against the legislature, the unions, and the Democrat nominee, in that order, and you just might win.… Read More