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

Good call by the Gov (see my previous post).

SPECIAL ELECTION PROCLAMATION

BY THE GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

I, ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, Governor of the State of California, do hereby proclaim and order that a special election shall be held on the 6th day of June, 2006 within the 50th Congressional District of the State to fill the vacancy in the office of Member of Congress from said district arising from the resignation of office by Randy “Duke” Cunningham.

I also hereby proclaim and order that a special election shall be held on the 6th day of June, 2006 within the 35th Senate District of the State to fill the vacancy in the office of California State Senator from said district arising from the resignation of office by John Campbell.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of California to be affixed this 15th day of December, 2005.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Governor of California

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(I posted via Blackberry, so pardon any messed up fromating)… 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

My first attempt at online political activism follows. The Fresno Bee has quietly, without any fanfare, cancelled the weekly John Ellis political column and reassigned him to, of all areas, the federal courts "beat". I discovered this after I sent John an email earlier this week asking him if we was on vacation, as the column didn’t appear in the paper Saturday. He informed me that the column was no longer a part of the paper!

I want to be clear: he has not asked me to campaign for the column to reappear. But it is one of the top two reasons why I even take the paper, so its important to me and many political insiders across California.

The Ellis column was the most widely read and quoted column in the Bee. I’ve seen it excerpted in the Hotline, Rough & Tumble, Calpeek and the Flashreport dozens of times and on weblogs and political websites literally every week. The Bee evidently didn’t value (or even know) of this exposure. Worse, they don’t understand that the Central Valley and State need this column. It has existed since Editorial Page editor Jim Boren had it back in the 1980’s and 90’s and probably… 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

Does anyone ever make the wrong decision for principled reasons?

Reading the defenders of Tookie Williams in today’s news coverage, I couldn’t help but to be struck that every single critic of the governor dismissed his conclusion to reject clemency as a decision made for political purposes. Some talked about Schwarzenegger’s need to placate conservative voters, while others admitted that the majority of Californians support the death penalty and that Arnold didn’t want to offend them heading into re-election. But every single proponent for clemency automatically dismissed the idea that the governor genuinely believes that Williams deserved to die for his crimes, and that refusing to admit guilt for those crimes precludes the possibility of redemption.

Of course, this works both ways. Last week, the governor’s conservative critics assailed his hiring of Susan Kennedy, also arguing that the appointment was made because of political motivations. Arnold is moving to the left because of his defeat in the special election, he’s looking to reach out to disaffected moderates, Maria has cast a magic spell upon him, etc,… Read More