When a seat in Congress comes open people start to scramble. People get so excited they can barely control themselves.

When Congressman Radanovich announced his retirement last week State Senator Jeff Denham announced right away. Former Congressman Richard Pombo has now said he is interested in trying to make a comeback. Now the Fresno Bee is reporting that former Secretary of State Bill Jones is considering the race.

Candidates are pounding their chests and observers are analyzing endorsements, fund raising ability, and conservative credentials.

When I looked at this district I didn’t really think about any of the three candidates above. My first thought was that former Senator Rico Oller was a likely candidate for this seat. He grew up there, he represented part of this district, and he certainly has conservative credentials and funding ability.

So how come no one is talking about an Oller candidacy? Someone tell me what I am missing.… Read More

Thirty years ago, when the words “mainstream” and “media” were still largely redundant, a conventional political wisdom developed that the presidency was too large a responsibility for one man. Regardless of whether you happened to be a supporter or an opponent of Ronald Reagan’s campaign for president in 1980, it’s safe to say that by the time Reagan left the White House eight years later, that school of thought had largely evaporated.

The echoes of that same question are now being heard in California, as the next generation of political observers has now settled in agreement that our state’s problems have grown to such a degree that we can no longer be effectively governed. As the candidates for governor prepare for what promises to be a fairly desultory election season, this thesis of ungovernability rings of the same sort of defeatism that later became known as “malaise” in Washington in the late 1970’s. While it has become fairly predictable for Republican politicians to wrap themselves in the flag of Reagan, the pessimism that currently infects our body politic does present the same type of psychological challenge that the Gipper… Read More

I looked over the state Legislative Analyst’s recent report about the fiscal outlook for next year. I certainly was not expecting any good news, but I at least expected a realistic view of the dire situation the state is in. I was stunned by what I saw. The LAO is projecting a 14.5% increase in expenditures next year over this year. Go ahead, read that sentence again: he is saying the state will spend 14.5% MORE money next year than this year.

In part that is because many of the sneaky "savings" games the Governor and Legislature have played will expire. No more borrowing from cities, stealing from redevelopment agencies, or shifting state employees’ December payday into the next calendar year. At the same time, federal stimulus money will expire and our state’s debt service will soar.

http://www.lao.ca.gov/2009/bud/fiscal_outlook/fiscal_outlook_111809.aspx

To put this into perspective, consider these figures distilled in a recent issue of Political Pulse: In 1990-91 the state spent $1,350 per person. By the current fiscal… Read More

Since our last day of officially publishing the links to top stories in California politics was Friday, December 19 — I thought I would provide FR readers with a quick summary of some of what took place while our FR elves were taking some much needed R&R.

Click through on any links to read the full stories!

The Center for Investigative Reporting has been around for a long time — but their new endeavor, California Watch, is new the California political scene. At a time when we see MSM newspapers devoting fewer and fewer resources to investigative journalism — especially in politics — California Watch represents an effort at serious watchdog journalism not by the media, but by a non-profit foundation. A longtime friend of this website publisher is the Editorial Director of California Watch — Mark Katches. I met Mark when he used to work at the Orange County Register. It is also noteworthy that another longtime FR friend, Bob Salladay (formerly an ace reporter and blogger with the Los Angeles Times) is onboard advising this endeavor.

I’m quite certain that everyone at California Watch would agree with my observation that this is no right-of-center endeavor. Hardly. That said, shining the light into the farthest, darkest corners of state government is an endeavor that should be applauded, even if many of those shining the flashlights voted for President Obama. I reached out to Mark and asked… Read More

When the Fresno County GOP was fined $29,000 for taking contributions from a San Diego family and donating them to a State Assemblyman, I said at the time that the primary function of political parties today is to "launder money". You would have thought I revealed a deep secret of politics, and of course, I was right, as today’s California Watch documents, there is significant money laundering on both sides of the aisle.

I was particularly amused by being taken to task for my statements by one Steve Maviglio, who is mostly famous for defending the records of such "effective" poltiical leaders as Gray Davis and Karen Bass. In his "California Majority Report" (why would they even be proud of being the majority when they’ve bankrupted the State?) he refers to money laundering as a felony, which is true.

I guess the entire political system is full of felons… Read More

From Judy Lloyd, Vice Chairman of Lincoln Club of Northern CA and a client of Jane Clark in AD 15 in 2008 – Bay Area Republicans are saddened at the loss of one of our most dynamic Republican fundraisers, Jane Clark this New Year’s Day.

Reports are that Jane had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer just a week before. At first the prognosis was for aggressive chemotherapy then the tragic news that Jane only had one week to live. Sadly, Jane passed on New Year’s Day, with Bruce McPherson, the former Secretary of State, her friend and former client, at her side as well as her dear friend Anne Appleman. Jane had been a great friend and colleague of mine for many years. She helped many national, Bay Area and Central Valley Republicans including McPherson, Jeff Denham, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Jim Cunneen, Dick Rainey, and most recently Carly Fiorina. She also had several non-profit clients who adored working with her… Read More

The Federal court trial on the constitutionality of Proposition 8’s ban on same-sex marriage will begin in San Francisco on January 11. But the parties to the suit are busy as bees with preliminary motions. One of those motions would have required the Prop. 8 political consultants to turn over all their internal strategy memos and emails to their pro-gay marriage opponents to examine them for evidence of anti-homosexual animus. The idea being that if these private documents and correspondences revealed any antipathy to gays and lesbians, as such, the entire intiative would be tainted as an unconstitutional conspiracy and quickly overturned. A Federal judge agreed to force disclosure of the documents late last year, but an appeal to the 9th Circuit leavened the hysterics of opponents and the political consultants can now keep their memos in their vaults. This trial will contrast the drama of a Perry Mason closing argument to the thrill of a visit to Fleischacker Zoo.… Read More