Unfortunately we are all used to the fact that when the Governor issues lists of new appointees, it is filled with Republicans and Democrats and people of neither party. These days, it is not uncommon to see Republicans on the short end when you tally the batch of appointees.

What is not very common, though, is to see the Governor to appoint members of minor third parties. In the case of today’s appointments, the Governor has appointed a member of the Green Party to a position over at the Public Utilities Commission:

The Meg Whitman campaign has launched a new radio ad featuring Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association President (and FlashReport contributor) Jon Coupal… (h/t to Richard Costigan, who alerted us to this on his twitter feed)…

… Read More

There was a bit of good news Thursday in the fight for Republicans to hold onto the 15th Senate District Seat formerly held by Abel Maldonado (some would actually call it a chance for a GOP pick-up!): Monterey County officials reported that the U.S. Justice Department registered no objection to their initial request for holding a special election on June 22. This means that the federal government has not yet been persuaded by any of the rather outrageous legal objections (the election violates the Voting Rights Act, is racist, etc.) Democrats have been raising to try to delay the election until November, when more rank-and-file Democrat voters tend to turn out.

To recap, this all started six months ago, when Governor Schwarzenegger first appointed (sigh) Abel Maldonado to be Lieutenant Governor. In a blatant political move, Speaker Perez and company turned Maldonado’s February hearing into a race-baiting partisan spectacle with no consensus, and then delayed his second hearing several weeks so that the deadline would pass for consolidating the special election with the June primary.

Nomination of Maldonado aside, fortunately, Governor Schwarzenegger… Read More

My statement on the May Budget Revision…

“The budget cuts proposed by Governor Schwarzenegger are tough ones – but are realistic ones, given that revenues simply aren’t available to fund state government and its spending programs at their current level. The reality is that California is in a recession, and when the economy restricts, that means that the size of the state government must do the same. What cannot be on the table – which seems to be acknowledged in this May revision – is asking already over-taxed Californians to pay more in taxes. Blame lies on the Democrats for the tragedy of this situation – which has been directly caused by excessive social program spending, massive and unsustainable concessions to public employee unions, and draconian regulations that have caused terrible damage to this state’s economic health. I commend the Governor for having the courage to set out as a priority in this budget… Read More

I am going to go out on a limb — and figure that former Governor Pete Wilson does not poll well among Spanish-speaking Californians. I could be wrong, but I think that a new Spanish-language radio ad released this morning by the Poizner for Governor campaign bears out my theory.

The ad actually replays the message from Governor Wilson in a recent Whitman ad…

What I found to be most interesting is the candor of Poizner, telling listeners that he supports the Arizona law…

Here is the translation — and if you want to hear the ad "en espanol" — it is below…

Translation for “Hablando Claro/Tell It Straight”: Narrator:

Don’t you hate it when politicians say one thing to one group and something else to another? That’s what Meg Whitman is doing. Here is the radio spot that she… Read More

On today’s main page, the FlashReport debuted the latest television spot from the Poizner for Governor campaign, which talks about how opponent Meg Whitman didn’t vote for 28 years, missing scores of opportunities to vote against tax increases and such.

You can see the ad here:

The Whitman campaign has responded by directing the attention of politicos to an Associated Press article penned by Juliet Williams that "fact checks" the ad. Spokeperson Sarah Pompei says, “This ad is an absolute and total lie. Meg registered as a… Read More

This mail piece dropped in the primary in Congressional District 19 where State Senator Jeff Denham, former Congressman Richard Pombo and former Fresno Mayor Jim Patterson are duking it out to be the GOP standard bearer in this "safe" Republican Central Valley House seat, where incumbent George Radanovich is retiring… (click on the graphic to enlarge)… Read More

I think the only thing this political cycle that troubles me more than Republican candidates who tout the endorsements from editorial board of major newspapers (said editorial boards packed with liberals trying to mess in the Republican primary when virtually none of these editorial writers are Republicans) — are Republican candidates who are rolling out the endorsements of — public employee unions!

Seriously. I know that everyone likes it when I name names — but for the purposes of this blog post, I will refrain. But today alone I have received emails from two Republican candidates, campaigning as conservatives, bragging that they the choice of public employee unions.

In one case is the endorsement of the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association and in the other case it is the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.

In case anyone hasn’t noticed, our state and local governments have been hit by a pension tsunami of epic proportions and the state’s public employee unions have been at the forefront of lobbying for unsustainable salaries and benefits — with no seeming regard of whether these… Read More