This Saturday, the action was right here at 30th and Euclid in downtown Cleveland.

Crowds were lined up at the Board of Elections despite gray skies and 40 degree weather, or what Californians might consider perfect ski weather. The weekend before Election Day, hundreds not thousands of voters were being processing

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The following are FlashReport.org’s recommendations on the eleven measures that will appear on the November ballot measures. These positions were arrived at through discussion by the members of our editorial board.

PROPOSITION 30: NO This proposition is a $50 billion sales and income tax increase on all Californians. This will further weaken an already fragile California economy and destroy more jobs in the Golden State. The Governor is trying to blackmail California’s taxpayers by holding education hostage and extorting these taxes despite the fact that the proposition does not guarantee net new funding for education. These taxes are simply not necessary as California has a spending problem and not a revenue problem. Rejecting this proposition will force Sacramento politicians to realign their priorities and successfully fund education. We strongly recommend a… Read More

Comparing headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio, it is clear that Republicans have the edge.

Fully Staffed Romney-Ryan Headquarters: There are three fully staffed Romney Victory Headquarters in Cuyahoga County–east, south and west of downtown Cleveland. On Saturday, I visited the city of Independence headquarters, an appropriately named town for a major Romney-Ryan command post.

There are many Republicans in Cuyahoga County; they just don’t live downtown. The bigquestionon Tuesday:will Republicans turn out in greater numbers to make up for the… Read More

Thanks to Jerry Brown’s recent appointment of Walnut Creek City Councilman Kish Rajan as director Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz), Rajan has withdrawn from his race for re-election to the Council. Councilman Rajan was the only Democrat in this year’s race.

Rajan’s departure has left four candidates competing for three open seats: Contra Costa County Deputy District Attorney Barry Grove, CPA Loella Haskew, Mayor Bob Simmons, and local business owner Justin Wedel. Grove, Haskew, and Wedel are Republicans, and Simmons is registered decline-to-state. The two remaining councilmembers, who are not up for reelection until 2014, are decline-to-state Kristina Lawson, and Republican Cindy Silva.

Even if Simmons, the only non-Republican in the race, wins re-election, the remaining two spots are guaranteed to go to Republicans. If all goes well, and the three Republicans win all three spots, Republicans will have a 4/5 supermajority on the Council.

This is certainly welcome news for Bay Area Republicans, who have seen the party’s share of voter registration decline in nearly every city in the region during the past… Read More

Republican Party membership has now dropped below 30% in the Golden State, marking a further decline in the party’s statewide strength and affecting the prospects of Republican victories in future years.

Understanding what is, and what isn’t, contributing to this development is important so Republican candidates, and more importantly, elected officials, can make increasingly necessary adjustments. Misdiagnosing the problem risks sending precious resources off in the wrong direction.

First, let’s recognize that party registration follows party self-identification. People register with the party with whom they identify.

Paid voter registration programs focused in targeted districts are designed to register people who by and large already consider themselves Republicans. By concentrating a disproportionate effort into a tightly confined area we can, and do, move the needle. Think of placing a hot poker into a bathtub: the water next to the poker becomes much hotter, but not the water at the… Read More

Recently at a forum in Yorba Linda, I was asked to present the statewide initiatives in my customary non-biased informational way and answer any questions.

Representatives of some initiatives did show up and received a few minutes to present their case. One representative from the local teachers union explained why in her view Proposition 32 was flawed. She then said anybody that wants to exempt themselves from political dues can. It is easy.

Really?

The West Covina School Board of which I am a member unanimously changed some of our policies.

The Classified Service Employees Association (CSEA) recently filed a charge of us committing “unfair labor practices”. I know, like I would be unfair to a union? They already are so disadvantaged with having state law mandate that they represent all employees and forcing employees to pay whether they likeit or not. Add in the disadvantages suffered from the special laws protecting unions and mandating rules and benefits passed in Sacramento and the factunions being the top political spenders. One would never want to be “unfair”.

The “charges” contained a lot of… Read More

In what is arguably the most conservative Assembly District in the State of California, Riverside County’s 67th, two Republicans are in a knock-down fight to the finish line — Phil Paule, who is Congressman Darrell Issa’s District Director and an elected Water Board member, and Melissa Melendez, who is a member of the Lake Elsinore City Council.

Yesterday afternoon I received a telephone call from my good friend Larry Smith, President of the influential Family Action PAC conservative group. I should probably tuck into this post that I am a member of the Family Action PAC. Early on this organization had endorsed Melendez before the June election, and she has touted her support from the FAP on many occasions, and the group’s endorsement is prominently featured on Melendez’s website. Larry called to tell me that the Board of his organization had held a meeting yesterday, and decided… Read More

In 1993 and 1994, I was involved in the passage of California’s Three Strikes law. Then Assemblyman Bill Jones introduced it in the Legislature, and Mike Reynolds pressed the initiative. I had a role, mainly exposing the legislative process to radio talk show hosts John and Ken, who then created a public outcry that changed California politics for, well, a year. I however was engaged in the discussions and debates about the scope and effect of the law.

One of the key debates about that three strikes law then was what should constitute a third strike. The Reynolds/Jones bill said the first two strikes had to be “serious or violent felonies,” but the third strike could be “any felony.” The theory was that a person who had committed two serious or violent felonies was probably a bad guy anyway, and if he (or she) still engaged in any criminal behavior, he (or she) should be isolated from the rest of us for the rest of his or her life. Some on the left tried to pass legislation that would require three serious or violent felonies before a life sentence would be imposed, but I was persuaded by the argument, made by Jones and Reynolds, that… Read More