Last week, I wrote about how the pro Wal-Mart majority of the Rosemead City Council used a liberal ruling of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to undue the scheduled recall against two ofthe majority’smembers. See it here.

Oops again. One memberof that majority (of courseshe is the one not being recalled)changed her mind after the federal government said they wouldn’t punish the city for violating the law. So now the recall is on. See the article here.

Some words of caution for Rosemead voters. In the early 1990’s, I was involved in a successful recall of all five council members in Covina after they voted for a utility tax. Well, guess what? The tax is still there. I’m sure we can all think of examples of recall elections that didn’t work out as well as hoped.… Read More

It’s Saturday. And Congress is in session. Worse yet, it’s a week before Christmas and Congress is in session. And Congress will be in session on Sunday. While this unfortunate fact is bad for most of us, it’s been good for newly minted Congressman John Campbell who was sworn in just one week ago.

One of the reasons that the Congress is still in session is immigration. The House GOP is bitterly split over the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005 authored by Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner. The fight is over two issues: holding businesses that hire illegals responsible and guest-worker programs.

The bill has two sentences which seemingly appear to expand guest-worker programs but are in fact, merely a restatement of current law. However, some view this as an opening for the Senate to expand guest-worker. Others recognize that regardless of how tough the border security and law… Read More

Yes kids, we face, as conservatives, a mortal onslaught of horrendous ballot initiatives in the next year, led by the ridiculous “Universal Preschool” initiative this June. But looming in the background, and with a much larger scope and impact, is a property tax initiative sponsored by super rich Silicon Valley leaders, to raise property taxes on everyone in the State. Shrouded under the cloak of fail a safe “education” and “child friendly” ballot title, (we should sue the sox off of the Attorney General to have this farce changed), the proposal would solve a problem that doesn’t exist – a mythical shortage of funding for public schools. You can read an informative article by Jon Coupal on the subject at http://www.hjta.org/HJTACalCommentaryV3-50.pdf.

Batten down the hatches mates, the pirates are coming to loot and pillage once more!… Read More

During a news conference yesterday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, in discussing the GOP’s unhappiness with the left-wing Democrat activist the governor has chosen as his chief of staff, asked his party faithful to not judge him by his hires, but by his actions.

Here is the problem. Schwarzenegger cannot and will not be aware of every decision Ms. Kennedy will make in his name. She will take action, on his behalf, that will not reflect the principles for which people elected him. This is a woman who has been a true-believer and a party activist for the other side. Susan Kennedy may have made big business happy during her term on the PUC and she may be smart as a whip, but in the end, she is a die-hard, committed liberal.… Read More

In this blog and other news sources, there is an ongoing dialog about which GOP legislators are conservative or moderate or liberal. I think it might be instructive to take an actual look at the recently released 2005 California Republican Assembly Scorecard. I write this because I took the time today to actually read the votes that the legislators are judged on for the card. The votes pretty fairly expresses a range of "conservative" fiscal and social issues, including minimum wage hikes, 2nd Amendment questions, gay marriage, taxes, illegal immigration, and the budget.

And after reading this, and looking at the votes and scores of our legislative delegation, it can be pretty fairly concluded the the Republican Senate and Assembly delegation are as a whole pretty conservative. Basically a 94% vote means the legislator disagreed with the CRA position once – and usually that was on the somewhat unusual issue of spaying/neutering of dogs. I… Read More

I am going to share some thoughts with you about this meeting at the took place, and I am adding this sentence at the beginning of my commentary, having just written it. I understand from all that the meeting with the Governor was a productive one, and went well. That overall, board members were very pleased with the opportunity to give meaningful input to the state’s top Republican… Now, onto my other thoughts…

CRP BOARD MEETS WITH GOVERNOR IN ATTENDANCE… Yesterday afternoon, for about an hour, the Board of Directors of the California Republican Party, along with some guests, had a meeting at the Hyatt Hotel across the street from the Capitol. The board members gathered first at the GOP’s Sacramento headquarters (the meeting location was not disclosed to board members ahead of time). Then they were escorted as a group to the Hyatt where the meeting took place. It did not take long for the ‘cone of… Read More

If you didn’t see yesterday’s Union-Tribune front page story on the "other" Inzunza, it’s a must, a blockbuster when it comes to the ramifications it will likely have on next year’s 79th Assembly District race.

Nick Inzunza, mayor of National City and brother of resigned SD City Councilman Ralph Inzunza of stripper-gate fame, just had the county’s "newspaper of record" hand him his political future in a dead bouquet of black roses, kinda like those growing in front of one of his rentals.

The 79th seat, currently held by Juan Vargas, has one of the highest Democratic registrations in the state … it’s considered a cakewalk in November for the D winningthe primary … unless the Republican nominee gets to run against a slum lord.

Before yesterday, Mayor Inzunza was considered the Democratic front-runner for the seat. Some may say theU-T isn’t doing… Read More

There was a great column by Shane Goldmacher in yesterday’s edition of Capitol Weekly. If you haven’t had a chance to read it, you should. I am biased though, because it prominently features this website, and talks about the influence that it is having on California politics!

Also prominently mentioned are the efforts of my long time friend, Steve Frank. Like me, Steve is a former President of the California Republican Assembly (though he is OLD, so his Presidency was like around Lincoln’s time, or something like that). In all seriousness, Steve and I were on the phone joking about the ‘Rise of the Jewish Right’ — pretty funny!

Here is the beginning of the article, with a link to the rest at the bottom: