In the race for House Leader, two of the three candidates running already were in leadership posts. Roy Blunt was the current #3 in the leadership team as Majority Whip, and John Shadegg was serving in the #5 post as Republican Conference Chairman. Shadegg, believing strongly that you should leave one office if seeking another, vacated the #5 spot, while Blunt held onto his spot.

The vacancy in the Policy Committee Chairmanship (which was held by Californian Chris Cox before he was confirmed as Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and then Shadegg took over for him) meant a race for a second "open" leadership spot.

A number of candidates got into the race, but for the purposes of informing FR readers, one of the candidates was California Republican Darrell Issa (pictured to the right), of northern San Diego County. The ultimate winner in the final ballot was a Florida Congressman, Adam Putnam, who by… Read More

FlashReport friend John Feliz, a senior strategist with the Liuetenant Gubernatorial campaign of State Senator Tom McClintock put together some very interesting numbers that are worth sharing.

At the risk of telling you how this book ends before you read it — Tom McClintock is clearly demonstrating an ability to raise funds, and that his base of support is wide and grass-roots driven. That said, please read this briefing, then applaud Tom for his accomplishments thus far, and then – most importantly – click here to get involved with his campaign!

Here is an excerpt from Capitol Weekly’s digest (by ace CW reporter Shane Goldmacher) today on the down-ticket campaigns for statewide office:

… Read More

Two years ago today, Mayor Gavin Newsom unveiled a "financial justice" program for the city of San Francisco: the Working Families Tax Credit. Modeled after the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), San Francisco’s WFTC was designed to give working poor people several hundred dollars in additional income per year. (The federal EITC is a program which effectively gives cash grants to working poor people. Although it was designed to help offset taxes for the working poor, it has morphed into a federal welfare program, giving more money back than some people actually paid in taxes.) At the time the program was announced, Newsom said he believed the WFTC would stimulate the local economy and "reduce tax inequity by providing… Read More

Does this guy (who is an Irish citizen) even pay US taxes?

Bono pushes to increase aid to poor By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer Thursday, February 2, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) – Quoting from Islamic, Jewish and Christian texts, rock star Bono called Thursday for the government to give an additional 1 percent of the federal budget to the world’s poor.

Speaking to President Bush and members of Congress at the National Prayer Breakfast, the U2 front man said it’s unjust to keep… Read More

Senator Dianne Feinstein has reported $5.7 million cash-on-hand as of the end of last year. In the last reporting period, she raised the better part of a million bucks. Of course, this says nothing for her vast personal wealth.

On the GOP side, conservative former State Senator Dick Mountjoy had not entered the race before the 12/31/05 cut-off. Mountjoy, popular among the GOP right, has a strong grassroots network, but is not known for his fundraising prowess.

If there is a political handicapper anywhere in the country who doesn’t have at least 100-1 odds on a reelect for DiFi, I would be surprised.

It’s too bad, given that Feinstein (despite her lack of ‘stridency’ compared to her colleague, Barbara Boxer) is easily to the left of most California voters.… Read More

Steve Maviglio, spokesperson for Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, sent this item over to me in response to the Spitzer piece and my commentary today:

There’s a reason the Attorney General, California Police Chiefs Association, and the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault supported AB 50 – and strongly opposed the unanimous decision by Assembly Republicans to remove $23 million for GPS surveillance of high-risk sex offenders and SAFE teams to monitor sex offenders.

• The Runner legislation says an offender cannot live within 2000 ft. of a school. It does nothing to stop offenders from trespassing… Read More

Assembly Republican Caucus Chairman Russ Bogh (R-Yucaipa) has endorsed Anthony Adams (pictured left) in the 59th Assembly District Republican primary. And by way of further update on the contest for this equally divided L.A. County/San Bernardino County seat, I want to provide some additional thoughts on the heels of Mike Spence’s excellent post yesterday. Read it here. (Mike doesn’t have a dog in this fight. I do — It’s Adams.)

The two candidates with six figures cash-on-hand are Chris Lancaster ($150,000), from LaVerne in L.A. County (pictured right),and Adams ($108,000), from the high desert in San… Read More

The 67th Assembly District campaign has been pretty sleepy with OC Supervisor Jim Silva as the presumed winner. Diane Harman (wife of sitting Assemblyman Tom Harman) is also in the race as is Cypress city councilman Mike McGill.

The OC Blog reports that McGill was the strongest fund raiser this period. This is a big surprise since Silva is a sitting county supervisor with the ability to raise BIG money, but apparently hasn’t.

Silva does have more than double the cash on hand of either one of his opponents.

Silva has excellent name ID having served on the city council in Huntington Beach (the largest city in the District) and now on the Board of Supervisors for more than 10 years. Diane Harman has never stood for office and I have never seen her at anything GOP in Orange County, she is trading largely on her husbands name. McGill has been on the Cypress council since 1998. He gained some notoriety for voting with the majority to, well I will let Steve Greenhut of the OC Register explain:

(from back in June 2002) On Tuesday night, in a… Read More