As the famed, late Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh (pictured) was famed for saying, "Money is the mother’s milk of politics."

For years now, Matt Rexroad over at Meridian Pacific has been known for producing some of the best information to keep track of how much folks have raised and spent on their campaigns. Hopefully Matt will continue with his great tracking of late-expenditures when we get to that season. But for now, you can direct your browser over to Meridian’s Cal-Races website and download an Excel Spreadsheet for your computer, that will allow you to look up any statewide or legislative races, and see the current snapshot of latest numbers filed with the Secretary of State.

THANK YOU to Matt and the team at Meridian for providing this resource!… Read More

Anyone reading my posts knows by now (yeah, ad nausem, you may say) that the San Diego County Board of Education will fill Ernie Dronenburg’s vacancy Monday night. The Union-Tribune this morning runs a detailed list of the 11 candidates, as well as another story, "Education board to fill seat," on the recent history and responsibilities of this sometimes enigma-of-a-body.

The latter-mentioned story, although not crediting the FlashReport (every other newspaper around seems to be lately), does make mention that "Conservative blogger and La Mesa Councilman Barry Jantz and online newspaper Voice of San Diego both raised questions about the county Office of Education’s failure to post news of the board vacancy until just days before the Jan. 27 deadline to apply." Factual, althoughI didn’t know that a strong belief in fully transparent government processes was something conservative. I thought it was common sense,… Read More

The City of Torrance is nestled in the South Bay of Los Angeles County. The population is about 140,000. Michelle Kwan hails from there and I love eating at the nearby Alpine Village. It has a conservative reputation, even though two of the last three Assemblymen from the area were Democrats on the Torrance City Council.

i was wrong about the 100K it is actually more that you would need. The Daily Breeze has an article about the upcoming June 6 election for Mayor. The challenger has loaned his campaign 100K and expects to get outspent by current GOP registered Mayor Dan Walker. See the article here.

Remember the days when 110K meant you were a leading Assembly candidate?… Read More

In further proof the this battle is shaping up for nowon geographical basis the Association of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs (ALADS) have endorsed Chris Lancaster. Their website still says they have endorsed drop out Harry Scolinos. But below you can see the letter.

The union that represents San Bernardino County Deputies has endorsed Anthony Adams for the 59th.

Both unions opposed Prop. 75 and tend to endorse Democrats. They have both endorsed Steve Westly for Governor. But in these safe GOP seats they do endorse Republicans. ALADS does have a slightly more GOP tilt with support of Strickland in the GOP primary for Controller.

FR Contributor Brad Mitzefelt has the latest previous column on this race. In that story are links to my latest previous postthat has links to all the other earlierposts. Knock yourself out by looking here.… Read More

THE WATER "FEE" IS A TAX. PERIOD. Jon Coupal, the President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association penned a piece that appeared in the FlashReport, drawing the distinction between a tax and a fee. Given that he is an authorative source on the matter, let’s make no mistake about it. There is a currently a proposal on the table to increase the tax burden on Californians by several billion (yes, with a "B") a year. This proposal would place a mandatory fee of $3/month ($36/year) on every parcel of property in the state, and then these funds would go towards water-related infrastructure investments. But the key is that there is no nexus to an individual’s payment and a project nearby that directly benefits them. Instead, all of these billions of dollars collected locally will be shipped to Sacramento and spent there by politicians. If this isn’t a tax increase, I don’t know what is. This tax increase is in the fine print of a… Read More

THE WATER "FEE" IS A TAX. PERIOD. Jon Coupal, the President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association penned a piece that appeared in the FlashReport, drawing the distinction between a tax and a fee. Given that he is an authorative source on the matter, let’s make no mistake about it. There is a currently a proposal on the table to increase the tax burden on Californians by several billion (yes, with a "B") a year. This proposal would place a mandatory fee of $3/month ($36/year) on every parcel of property in the state, and then these funds would go towards water-related infrastructure investments. But the key is that there is no nexus to an individual’s payment and a project nearby that directly benefits them. Instead, all of these billions of dollars collected locally will be shipped to Sacramento and spent there by politicians. If this isn’t a tax increase, I don’t know what is. … Read More

I don’t think Susan Kennedy is a Communist sympathizer. I don’t think she’s a spy for Gray Davis or Phil Angelides. I don’t know much about her politics, although it sounds like she’s somewhere to the left of most Republicans and somewhere to the right of most Democrats. Which, as most of the participants on this website have decided, is pretty much where her boss is.

But after reading Friday’s Los Angeles Times’ story on the payment Kennedy received from the Schwarzenegger campaign committee, I have an entirely different set of concerns than most of my fellow bloggers. My worry is less about ideology than it is about ethics. Or at least, the appearance of ethical questions in an administration that promised to clean up Sacramento when it came to power.

There’s all sorts of revisionist history about what elected Arnold Schwarzenegger in the first place. There are those who think it was his celebrity that pulled him into office, an opinion that not only drastically underestimates the intellectual capabilities of California voters but ignores the fact that Arnold’s campaign didn’t really catch fire until… Read More

The FlashReport started hearing a buzz yesterday that first-term Assemblyman Van Tran, who is now seeking the GOP nomination for the 34th State Senate seat being vacated by the term-limited Democrat Joe Dunn, had endorsed Garden Grove Councilwoman Janet Nguyen to replace him in the Assembly.

The source of the rumors was a mailing that has gone out from Nguyen’s campaign inviting people to a February 9th fundraising event with special guest Assemblywoman Sharon Runner, on which Tran is listed at the top of the Host Committee.

Knowing how close Van is with both Nguyen and the other GOP candiate vying for his seat, businessman Jim Righeimer, I put a call into Van so that I could try to sort this out.

Van told me that, "Both Janet and Jim are friends of mine – long standing friends. Janet asked me to lend my name to be on the host committee [for this event] in early January, at least a couple of weeks before I made my announcement for State Senate, and before Jim Righeimer had let everyone… Read More