Last month, the California Republican Party held its semi-annual convention in Anaheim . By most measures, the convention was a tremendous success for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Governor had not only well-timed his “I’m running for reelection” announcement (great news for a GOP that had already endorsed his bid for second term in advance) – but he also came into the convention having just promised to veto a prominent homosexual marriage bill, and at the convention luncheon, he announced his official support for Proposition 75, the Paycheck Protection Measure. Party Chairman Duf Sunheim and Vice Chairman Ron Nehring were very prominent at the convention (as they should be) as well, speaking to groups, at meal functions and at the general session.… Read More

I won’t pretend to have as much background as Mr. Roe on the national ramifications of California’s redistricting initiative. I have found him to be a reliable indicator of national impacts and trends. I’m actually more concerned, though, with the potential ramifications of the redistricting initiative right here in California.

One unpleasant scenario is the passage of redistricting and the failure of paycheck protection. In that case, the number of real legislative targets increases from, say for example, between 3 and 6 to between 10 and 15. GOP resources would probably stay about the same or increase a bit – enough for Republican Leadership to fully fund give or take half a dozen legislative targets. However, Democrat/Union resources, already grossly superior, could always be increased with additional member assessments which would allow them to compete with superior cash in all of the expanded target seats. The result of this uneven fight might well be to eliminate the Republican Assembly delegation’s “veto” power of budgets and other 2/3 votes.

My argument is not that we should not try to pass the redistricting… Read More

Poochigian will need to prove his mettle…twice…

Up until this point, Republicans have been able to sit back and enjoy the beginning volleys in the battle between former Governor-turned-Oakland-Mayor-wanna-be- Attorney-General Jerry Brown and up-and-coming-Demo-Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, as they duke it out to become the Democrat nominee for State Attorney General.

Well respected State Senator Chuck Poochigian from Fresno has been enjoying a clear field, raising over $2 million dollars in a show of strength as a candidate. He has been traveling up and down the state, working hard to court grassroots activists and donors alike.

Today in an interview on KPCC radio, Pierre Prosper, who has been serving since 2001 as a war-crimes prosecutor in… Read More

Orange County has its own measures on the ballot in November. The most politically charged is ‘D’ which would take Prop. 172 (the statewide half-cent sales tax for public safety) dollars currently allocated to the Sheriff and DA and send some of the new tax increment increases to the Fire Authority. Its a generally boring topic of little consequence. Unless there is a raging forest fire in which case we all want the firefighters to have what ever they need or if there is a kidnapping and we want the Sheriff to have the resources necessary to find the kid alive, or if Robert Blake decided to move to OC and not kill his wife again we would want the DA to have the money to hire expert witnesses.

Basically, on a regular day it really doesn’t matter, only I trust the elected Sheriff and the elected District Attorney and dare I say the elected five member board of supervisors over the appointed couple-dozen member Fire Authority board of directors who are hardly accountable to the public, to spend our… Read More

There is no new commentary today.

But did you catch some of these commentaries?

Take care, and enjoy your Sunday!

Jon… Read More

Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamonte has been located. Repeat, Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamonte has been located.

His own ambitions having been thwarted, he is now busy meddling in the San Diego City Council for "overachiever" (yup… that’s actually one of the campaign slogans) professional student, Democrat staff member and candidate Lorena Gonsalez.

Hint, Cruz: if you want to keep meetings with labor bosses a secret, don’t go to known GOP hangouts to have them. Better yet, don’t let known GOP operatives sit at the table next to you and take notes. Make sure that San Diego Democrat Party money gets spent only on Democrat membership communication, Cruz.

By the way, missed you last night at the Republican Party fundraiser that hit 700k, net.… Read More

Congressman Devin Nunes from the Central Valley has taken a step beyond any of his pro-redistricting colleagues (slightly less than half of the delegation is willing to nuke the ‘incumbent protection plan’ that locked us into minority status in Sacramento).

The Congressman has started running his own ads in his area, encouraging voters to vote YES on 77. I have attached the ad so that you can download it and check it out!

Way to go Devin!

Jon

PS: Props to the Governor for putting SEVERAL more MILLIONS of dollars down on his reform measures. Right on!… Read More

Annoyed by fundraising solicitations for the 2006 elections before the special election of 2005 is over. No worries. 2007 elections are just around the corner. Kevin Milton filed to run for Los Angeles City Council in 2007 against Bernard Parks. Read it here.Hey, I’m up for election in 2007. Maybe I should announce, but then again 2008 is just around the next corner.