In the heart of Orange County, there is currently a four-way donnybrook taking place in the Republican primary in the 70th Assembly District — the victor of this primary will go on to succeed Chuck DeVore as the representative to the legislature from this district.

Three of the four candidates — Tustin Councilman Jerry Amante, South Orange County Community College District Board President Don Wagner, and the son of the late Assemblyman Gil Ferguson, Jay Ferguson, are all long-time residents of the district. The remaining candidate, Irvine Councilman Steven Choi (pictured), is not. In fact, depending on whose version of reality you choose to believe, he either (according to Choi) carpetbagged from his million dollar plus home outside of the district into a modest apartment inside of the district , just in time to file for office — OR — you can believe what is being asserted in one of the most comprehensive complaints of this nature… Read More

Prop 16 is the statewide version of something I told my city manager and one of city council members I would do back in 2005. At that time I was on the Pleasanton Energy Committee (PEC), and community choice aggregation (CCA) was a new option for communities. It basically allows cities to become the purchasing agents for the electricity used by the residents and businesses within their borders. Some of the strongest supporters of CCA’s were liberal politicos with an ax to grind with PG&E, and I was against it from the get-go. The mayor of Pleasanton and one of her left-leaning cohorts brought in consultants from Navigant to try to convince the PEC to vote to recommend that Pleasanton enter into a joint powers authority (JPA) with Berkeley to become a CCA. Supposedly, this JPA would allow Pleasanton and Berkeley to obtain more green energy than we could get from PG&E (impossible without significant rate hikes), and avoid certain fees that PG&E rate payers had to pay to cover some of the expenses still being paid off from the deregulation/Enron debacle. Imagine our surprise when we found out that the Navigant consultant who was trying … Read More

Meg Whitman has launched a new radio ad… The topic? Immigration. This ad, at the very end, features a testimonial from Governor Pete Wilson…

… Read More

I do a fair amount of Independent Expenditure work in California. Often times my clients make more resources available to shape a race than the candidates have available to them. You can thank the intersection of campaign finance reform and the 1st Amendment for that.

This time of year we are all waiting for the voting to start. During the next week we will see what sort of efforts third parties will make to elect or defeat candidates. That is why many of us are looking at the Secretary of State’s website each day for information about committees being formed and expenditures being reported.

So here is my rub.

If someone like me wants to help a campaign like yours — then meet me half way. I can’t call you. I can’t e-mail you. I won’t even return your calls or e-mails.

Most of the time I’m depending on your campaign website to guide me to where the race is going. I’m looking for pictures, themes, logos, examples of your mail, sources for quotes, all that stuff.

Two years ago a client wanted to help in an Assembly race. I could not find a good picture of the candidate anywhere. I had to… Read More

Thursday evening I had the opportunity to attend the taping of the U.S. Senate Republican primary debate. The hour-long debate will air on ABC affiliates throughout the state on Sunday, May 9th. As far as I know, this is the only scheduled television debate with all three candidates before the primary election on June 8th.

Held at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, the debate was moderated by Los Angeles ABC anchor Mark Brown. Since readers can watch the debate themselves this weekend, I won’t go into detail about what took place. Although, I live tweeted the entire debate that evening. I will offer a few insights on the general response from the audience (mostly filled with campaign supporters for the respective campaigns), and share some of the feedback I encountered immediately following the debate.

Each of the candidates stuck to their strengths as they squared off. Tom Campbell, ever the professor, provided detailed policy answers to each question. I heard those around murmuring about how knowledgeable he is, and how he always comes across as an expert on technical policy issues.

Chuck DeVore… Read More

I just got off of the phone from a "media" conference call with the Carly Fiorina campaign team — the call was hosted by Fiorina’s top campaign strategist Marty Wilson, and her media strategist Fred Davis — with some insightful tid bits from Judie Soderlund as well.

Marty Wilson opened by saying that the campaign had reached the "finally" phase — in that with a month to go, with a large number of undecided voters, it is finally time for the voters to be able to get introduced to Carly Fiorina through an aggressive voter contact campaign.

Marty said that the campaign would be focused on the "three M’s" – Momentum, Message, Messengers…

Momentum Great debate performance — Carly has the, "policy and intellectual chops to go up against our primary… Read More

Whitman Campaign Senior Advisor Rob Stutzman (pictured) just held a "starring role" in a telephone conference call with "media" (co-starring Whitman Comms Director Tucker Bounds where they talked about a new media buy by the California Democrat Party — which has purchased $800,000 of television time over the next four days.

While as of this moment the CDP has not yet released these ads online, and they have not yet appeared on television, the Whitman campaign has seen the piece (via the stations who have received it) and Stutzman characterized the ad as a, "Goldmach Sachs hit."

Stutzman went on to say that, "This is proof positive that the unions are intent on influencing the Republican Primary. Proof that they fear Meg Whitman as the only real… Read More

Most FR readers probably are not familiar with what is called the "Sinclair Paint" decision — and it would take an entire column to go into all of the details. But suffice it to say that this court ruling smashed a big hole in the taxpayer protections of Proposition 13, saying that unlike general tax increases that require a 2/3rds vote of the legislature, raising taxes for a specific program where there is some (often dubious) nexus between the tax and the program is no longer called raising taxes, it is called a "fee" — and requires only a majority vote.

For example — hypothetically — a tax of $.25 on every plastic bag in a grocery store that is sold, which then goes into "public education" about how plastic bags can damage the environment would be sold as a "fee" requiring a majority vote.

Over the years, this egregious "loophole" has been used raise vast amounts of taxes (disguised as fees) on the people of California.

The campaign to Stop Hidden Taxes today has turned in the signatures necessary to place an initiative on the November ballot that would close the loophole, and… Read More