Retired State Senator Dick Mountjoy is thinking of running for the United States Senate. Dick Mountjoy is a retired State Senator that represented the Eastern San Gabriel Valley during his career in the legislature. Before that he was a councilman in Monrovia. In 1994 he was re-elected to the State Assembly and elected to the State Senate in special election at the same time. That was the year the Republicans won 41 seats in the Assembly. He couldn’t resign without giving the Democrats the edge. After the Horcher betrayal, Willie Brown threw him out of the Assembly and into the Senate. In 1998 he ran statewide for Lt. Governor losing the GOP primary. After he was term-limited out of the State Senate, he headed the California Republican Assembly preceding yours truly. It’s obvious there is no … Read More

The ultimate ranking guide to your legislators has arrived. The CRA Scorecard is out and about. The publisherordered me to giveeveryoneaccess to the rankings. There werenine lawmakers who received a perfect 100. The rest well… You’ll have to look.… Read More

**If you don’t read anything else today, don’t miss this article from Capitol Weekly. Purely insightful journalism from Shane Goldmacher, if I do say so!

GOP BOARD TO MEET WITH GOVERNOR Today the Board of Directors of the California Republican Party will meet in Sacramento. Usually the Governor sends a representative to these meetings — but today’s meeting will have the Governor participating in the meeting – which is appropriate – given that the reason for the meeting was the Governor’s hiring of a Democrat activists as his Chief of Staff. Republican volunteers around California are reeling from the news – dismayed that the Governor they toiled to elect in the recall election has brought one of Gray Davis’ top advisors back into the Executive Offices of the Governor.

So,… Read More

WHAT WILL THE GOVERNOR DO?? SPECIAL ELECTION TIMING…

Orange County and San Diego are looking to have special elections very soon. In San Diego, the Congressional seat belonging to the disgraceful Duke Cunningham is now wide open. It is safe GOP territory. Similarly, in Orange County, with John Campbell’s election to Congress, his State Senate seat is wide open – also a safe GOP seat.

The political low-down on these primaries has been, and will be talked about on this blog. But the purpose of this post is to talk about the fact that Governor Schwarzenegger has to choose when these special elections will take place. He does have some lattitude.

Election officials from both counties have asked to have these elections consolidated with the June primary, for a savings of many, many millions of dollars. If the Governor does this, then the primaries (which is the whole game for… Read More

If I were putting together a strategy for Arnold Schwarzenegger to employ that would attempt to calm the anger among Republican activists regarding his hiring of Susan Kennedy (which I am not), I would hire a Democrat to do something really extreme that reminded Republicans why Arnold is still their best option next year.

So I’m assuming that the Schwarzenegger team has put Democratic Assemblyman Paul Koretz on their payroll, and bribed him to propose legislation and hold high-profile hearings to push for a death penalty moratorium in California. Then the governor could spend the first few months of his re-election campaign fighting heroically to preserve the death penalty in the state, while Phil Angelides and Steve Westly looked for safe hiding places until their party’s primary was over.

But even for a principled opponent of capital punishment, and even for a legislature gerrymandered into safe districts, Koretz’s quote in this morning’s Los Angeles Times offers an excellent reminder on why competitive legislative elections would improve the quality of political debate in California. Defending his proposal, Koretz told… Read More

"Republican lawmakers scolded Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday, telling him in a closed-door meeting how seriously his support among party stalwarts is wavering." – Los Angeles Times

**So…want to know which 19 GOP Assemblymembers actually showed up to hear from the Governor in yesterday’s caucus meeting? It’s at the bottom of this Commentary!**

In today’s Commentary:

I continue to be knotted up inside over the… Read More

If you are the Chairman of the California Republican Party, and your Republican Governor appoints a Democrat to be his Chief of Staff, what do you do about it? Well, today, State GOP Chairman Duf Sundheim and newly appointed Gubernatorial Chief of Staff Susan Kennedy were seen having lunch at one of Sacramento’s political ‘hot spots’ – Chops steakhouse.

One can only imagine the awkwardness of such a meeting. You have Kennedy, who has spent a lifetime toiling for Democrat causes (you’ll recall her resume — Deputy CoS for Gray Davis, Comm. Director for Feinstein, Exec. Dir. for both State Dems and Abortion Rights Action League), and is now dealing head-on with the awkwardness of having to break bread with a Republican Party Chairman. I would imagine the heat that Kennedy took working for pay-for-play Gray Davis… Read More

Businessman Jim Grimes has dropped out of the race for the 65th Assembly District seat currently held by termed-out GOP Caucus Chair Russ Bogh of Yucaipa. Yesterday, Riverside County FlashReport correspondent Phil Paule reported that Grimes had parted ways with his consultant, Tim Clark. Read it here. Grimes had nothing but good things to say about Clark today and hinted that he’s considering endorsing San Jacinto Councilman Jim Ayres in the June ’06 primary. "I’ve always been a team player," Grimes said. "As long as a Republican wins the seat and we move the party forward, that’s what I’m about." Grimes, a Realtor from Running Springs in the San Bernardino County side of the district, said Ayres’ fundraising success was too much to compete with. He also said he plans to remain active and involved in… Read More