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

Some claim that although the City of San Diego and its politicians are in the headlines oft of late, and even sometimes the butt of late-nite TV jokes, that most of the city’s businesses and citizens are not impacted by their government’s sorry state.

Far more say the opposite, that the woes of municipal gummint are indeed negatively impacting business, which in turn is resulting in less tax revenue for the city. Downward spiral.

In yesterday’s Voice of San Diego, retired CEO Gary Sutton weighs in, penning "Jobs Aren’t Leaving SD? Right…" Read it here.

Former mayoral candidate and government watchdog Richard Rider says this of the article:

(It is ) an excellent article on the City ofSan Diego’s declining health. Not just the city government’s deteriorating services and fiscal meltdown, but as a center ofcommerce. San Diego midsize businesses either die or leave town.

Perhaps most… Read More

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