John Myers is the State Capitol Correspondent for KQED public broadcasting in northern California. Myers operates his own blog, Capitol Notes. Myers produces the Capitol Report for his radio station, and often has interesting items on his site (you can always check it via my Blog Roll above).

Today, Myers has a post concerning Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s calendar, which the Governor started making available to public scrutiny last year. Myers takes not that despite the making public of the calendar, there are a surprisingly high number of meetings that are marked ‘private’ with no details about them. Myers goes on to note:

GAY REPUBLICAN CALLS ON GOVERNOR TO REPLACE SUSAN KENNEDY After reading in John Fund’s Monday column, Conan the Appeaser, that the Governor allegedly told Assembly Republicans that their opposition to Democrat Susan Kennedy (pictured to the right advising former Governor Gray Davis, when she was his Deputy Chief of Staff, before being recalled) was based on Kennedy being a lesbian, I was rather taken aback. I have expounded (at length) on all of the reasons why our Republican Governor should not have a former Executive Director of the Democrat Party running his administration. That said, I reached out to a friend of mine, Chris Gilbertson. Chris and I engaged in many battles against the campus Left back in our youth activism days. Chris is gay, and so I thought I would ask him to weigh in on this… Read More

When Arnold Schwarzenegger ran in the recall election, he ran as a candidate who would stand up to the special interest groups that have been dominant in Sacramento. These special interests, largely employee unions, are pressing hard for an increase in the amount of the mandate on California employers on the minimum hourly wage that they can pay an employee. Emboldened by the defeat of the Governor’s reform package, they are pushing hard for such an increase to be a part of the Governor’s legislative agenda.

As a well-schooled libertarian, I know that Arnold Schwarzenegger is a big admirer of Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman. This is what Friedman says about the minimum wage:… Read More

The major candidates for the 50th Congressional and their teams are lining up. In this first report, I thought I’d concentrate on the “teams” which will consist of general consultants, pollsters, finance consultants, and campaign managers. I’ll update this regularly as I find out more information… if I make an error or there are changes in the line-up campaigns can simply email me and I’ll correct next time around. Consider this a “quick and dirty” version. And the required disclosure: Coronado Communications works for Bilbray. I’ll promise to be as neutral and fair as the OC guys are in the 35th!

In no particular order:

Richard Earnest. Former Mayor of Del Mar. Moderate. Team: unknown/changing

Howard Kaloogian. Former Assemblyman. Conservative. Team: consulting Russo Marsh + Rogers

Brian Bilbray. Former Congressman. Conservative. Team: consulting Tab Communications, Coronado Communications., BDPR, finance (local) Dorsee Productions & (DC) Todd Meredith

Bill Morrow. State Senator. Conservative. Team: consulting Joe Justin Company, finance (local) Lacee Beaulio, manager Vartan… Read More

[Funny when bloggers "post on top" of each other — please read Matt Cunnnigham’s post and analsysis below on this race – then you can factor in my 10 cents, along with my interview with Tran. Always full and complete coverage from the FlashReport! – Jon]

I just got off the phone with Assemblyman Van Tran, who shared with me that he has, in fact, launched an exploratory effort to gauge support for a run for State Senate in Central Orange County’s 34th District. This is the seat occupied currently by Democrat Senator Joe Dunn, who is facing term limits.

"I think that I have strong message to bring to the residents of Central Orange County – one of limited government, individual liberty and working to create economic prosperity," said Tran.

"I am very pleased that Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, as well as two very esteemed former State Chairmen of the California… Read More

[Note: I totally OWE FR Los Angeles Blogger Mike Spence now — get this, he had this breaking news much earlier than me, and had posted it up as a "draft" in our system. When I heard about this, I called him, and asked if I could put up his post. He said to go for it. One wrong button pushed, and instead of putting up his draft, I deleted it! Oops. So this is my apology to Mike, and my pennance – I had to write a post on this – but Spence gets the breaking-news nod, and he may post his analysis (again?) on the ramifications – Flash]

In 2004, the only thing that stood between ultra-liberal Adam Schiff’s re-election and retirement was Republican candidate Harry Scolinos. Scolinos would be in Congress today were in not for the horrific ‘incumbent protection plan’ that redrew this Burbank/Glendale/Pasadena House seat from one that would elect Jim Rogan into one that… Read More

With all due respect to Duane Dichiara, one of the FlashReport’s San Diego Correspondents,, whom I respect immensely, I am very pleased that one of the candidates for Congress has hired you. Former Congressman Brian Bilbray had the foresight to hire you, and since he is a regular reader of the FlashReport, he knows of your role with us. I would be disappointed, disclaimers included, if you did not help out your client, on occasion, with a positive post (perhaps you can talk about his lawsuit arguing how wrong it is that illegal aliens pay less tuition in California colleges than his children).

That said, I will be making great efforts to personally cover this special election as I have endorsed no candidate in the race, nor has any candidate hired me (though two have purchased ads on this site…so far). So if you have any thoughts or input on this race, by all means send them to Jantz and Dichiara (and to our DC Correspodent, Jason Roe) if you want, but please send them… Read More

Despitethe FR Publisher’s attempt to delete my post. See below. Here is the post Jon didn’t want you to see :).

In a move upsetting the long held assumptions about this race, Harry Scolinos dropped his bid for the Republican nomination in 59th Assembly District.

For my past report on this race click here.

Scolinos’s campaign needed to get get going in order to win this race. A successful lawyer and bisinessman, it looks like he liked making money instead of running for Assembly. (BTW nothing wrong with that)

This changes the dynamic in the raceinthree ways.

This self funding conservative dropping his bid should help front runner Anthony Adams. Clearly Anthony Adams looks like the most conservative candidate.

But in this district geography is an issue. You have the San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles County and the High Desert in San Bernardino County and a forest in between. Scolinos and the other two major candidates hail from the San Gabriel… Read More