With the resignation of long-time Los Angeles South Bay Congresswoman Jane Harman, there is a big food fight taking place between two of California’s highest profile liberal ladies to succeed her — Secretary of State Debra Bowen (who represented that area locally in the State Legislature for many years) and Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn.

I know that when I assess the state of play in a Republican primary, one of the first thing I do is look to third-party endorsements, to help me understand what’s really going on. So when I look at the race between Bowen and Hahn, I figure that the best way to figure out that race is to do the same — look at the endorsements. Of course, on the Democrat side of things, no endorsements are more significant than labor.

My first assumption was that Bowen would be cleaning up with big labor endorsements. After all,… Read More

Recently, I posted a couple districts that make sense to me. In the end, I think the commission has many many different options on how to draw these lines but this is one take. Clearly there are other ways to do this.

The North State has a couple issues. One is that it is tradition to have a 101 District (AD 1), and I-5 District (AD 2) and a 395 District (AD 3). The commission is not required to do this but it would make sense.

The other issue is that Yuba County is a Section 5 County. It is going to remain whole. It would just make sense to keep it together.

So with that I throw out this district for consideration. I started in Modoc, and included the entire counties of Lassen, Plumas, and Sierra. Then I added all of Butte, Yuba,and Sutter. After all of this I was just a few thousand residents short of an Assembly district. So in looking at communities that identified more with Yuba/Sutter I added in the community of Rough & Ready. This community tends to associate more with the Yuba Sutter area than the rest of Nevada County.… Read More

This just in from longtime FR friend and conservative leader Mark Bucher… To put this in context, the City Council in Costa Mesa just announced pink slips and possible layoffs of around half of the city workforce due to a huge budget deficit. Last November the unions got a sweetheart four year extension of lucrative benefits before a change-over to a Council makeup that would likely have driven for significant reductions in employee pay and benefits… Here’s more info. On March 22, City of Orange City Manager, John Sibley, sent a letter to all city employees discussing the suicide of Huy Pham, an employee of the nearby city of Costa Mesa, who had been given notice that he was… Read More

Just looking at some recently published statistics worked up by the Sacramento Bee on California Congressional Districts, it seems pretty obvious to me that Republicans should end up with several more competitive seats than the Democrats will have, when the Redistricting Commission finishes its work. This is because it appears that, of California’s 53 Congressional districts, Democrats are "over-representing" (elected to districts that are populated by less people than there should be) by 5% or more in 22 seats statewide, of the "ideal" population of 702,905 in each district, while Republicans are "over-representing" by at least 5% in just 3 seats. All this over-representing has to be shaken out so that these seats get more voters, meaning in clusters there will be fewer districts. Some of the Democrat "over-representation" is in double-digits, as high as 13% for Democrat Xavier Becerra and 10.2% for Democrat Loretta Sanchez. (This is somewhat akin to being a U.S. Senator from Rhode Island!) It reflects… Read More

Comparing them to Kiwanis Club elections, San Diego County Registrar of Voters Deborah Seiler is involved in an effort to remove the county central committee elections of all parties from primary ballots across the state, citing the high cost of providing a “complete taxpayer subsidy of a private organization.”

Last Tuesday, the Union-Tribune reported on the savings move by several apparently annoyed county registrars in California, which reporter Christopher Cadelago noted — perhaps significantly — had not yet garnered a legislative author.

It’s a must read for the many FlashReport readers involved in the nuts and bolts of local party politics, which — we must admittedly agree — draws little notice from voters (other than the “science” of going down the ballot and selecting a handful of unknown candidates).

Of interest to Republicans, County GOP Chairman Tony Krvaric, minted last weekend as vice chairman South of the State Party, said he is open to looking at an… Read More

A few months ago I posted here a quick look at the Congressional seat currently occupied by Congresswoman Bono Mack. (See that post here.)

Now that the data is in it is probably worse that I expected.

The big issue for her is if Imperial County is included in her district, or in the one currently represented by Congressman Filner (possible candidate for Mayor of San Diego).

As you can see by the attached maps Imperial County makes all the difference in the world to her.

At this point just based on the Voting Age Population of Latinos I would bet that Imperial ends up in her district. If that happens Assemblyman Victor Manuel Perez ends up in Congress. That is a shame.

New District – All Riverside County … Read More

From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail… … Read More

A brief commentary on the state budget, and the request of Governor Brown for a GOP term sheet… (Disclaimer: This is only my second attempt to cut video at my desk.)

… Read More