If you feel like someone has hit the fast forward button on the DVR, you aren’t alone. I just got a call from Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby saying that we here at the FlashReport were the first to get the news — he is "all in" in the pending special election to fill out the unexpired term of Assemblyman Mike Duvall in the 72nd Assembly District, encompassing most of North Orange County.

Norby is in his 7th year on the Board of Supervisors and faces term limits next year. Norby rather famously won his Supervisor seat by taking out a sitting incumbent (Cynthia Coad) who was seeking reelection. Before that, Norby served for years on the Fullerton Cityu Council, and was a high school teacher.

And for those interested in such things, Norby’s campaign will be handled by the Lewis Consulting Group.

Will Norby clear the field for this run? It’s hit or miss in the OC where some primaries are non-events, and others are spectacularly rancorous. We’ll see how this develops…… Read More

[Publisher’s Note: This post went up a 9:09 on 9/9/9!] The Capitol Resource Institute, one of the state’s leading pro-family organizations, just released a very strong statement from their President, Karen England, concerning the revelations surrounding Assemblyman Mike Duvall. The CRI’s "100%" rating of Duvall was highlighted in the KCBS story exposing the Assemblyman bragging about multiple affairs near a legislative microphone that he was unaware was turned on…

Granting prisoners early release credits for “continuous incarceration” is a win-win policy according to proponents of SB18XXX who claim the proposal will save money while improving the morale of lazy inmates. The idea of rewarding prisoners for doing nothing is not new and has long been advocated by the same legislators who support social promotion for public school students with failing grades. In fact the failing student population and the prison inmate population substantially overlap.

In fact, SB 18XXX, strikes the following words from the existing law: “Worktime credits shall apply for performance in work assignments and performance in elementary, Under current law, a convicted felon can earn early release credits as follows: “For every six months of full-time performance in a credit qualifying program, as designated by the director, a prisoner shall be awarded work time credit reductions from his or her term of confinement of six months.”

Accordingly, a felon newly convicted of carrying a loaded… Read More

Jon Coupal, President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, and Jon Fleischman, Publisher of the FlashReport Website on California Politics, this morning released the following statement to the State Legislature concerning ongoing discussions to achieve a solution to our state’s water crisis that the legislature would then place before the voters of California…

"As the Governor and state legislators work earnestly with a goal of pulling together a “comprehensive water solution package” to potentially bring before the full legislature this week, we believe that the frame of mind of those… Read More

As we reported last week, today the Committee to Recall Anthony Adams will turn in around 40,000 signatures to registrars of voters in both Los Angeles and San Bernardino County. In order for a recall election to be called against Adams there will ultimately need to be about 36,000 valid signatures of voters from the 59th Assembly District turned in. (The media event will be this afternoon at the Los Angeles County Registrar, headed up by Recall Adams leader and former State Senator Dick Mountjoy.)

The recall against Adams is taking place over his deciding vote to increase state income, sales and car taxes by billions — actually it was the largest tax increase ever at the state level in any state in the history of America. Adams took a pledge not to raise taxes in his critical first primary… Read More

A few weeks ago, the organization California Forward sent a letter to the Governor and members of the State Legislature outlining what they believe to be a series of reforms that, if passed, would improve the condition of government here in California. You can see that letter here (h/t KQED).

Many of the reforms have merit, a few are more questionable — all deserve closer examination.

But for the purposes of this commentary, I am focused on what would be, for me, a "deal killer" when it comes to "reforms" — and that is a proposal to severely weaken California’s legislative term limits, placed into the State Constitution back in 1990. Three times now, most recently with Proposition 93, the political-class have sought to undo in some part what the voters put into place — and all three times their efforts have been rejected.

Under the "reform" proposed by California Forward, while an individual currently is limited, in their lifetime, to serving three terms in the State Assembly and two terms in the State Senate,… Read More

Until recently, Assembly Bill 402 by Mike Davis (D- Los Angeles) was called “the Michael Jackson Child Performers Workplace Protection Act.”The author amended the bill to take out Michael Jackson’s name.I guess someone finally told Davis that most people do not associate Michael Jackson’s name with protecting children. While the title was amusing, the bill is not.It would create a new $50 tax for every child who applies for an entertainment work permit.California law requires children to obtain free work permits from the Labor Commissioner to work in the entertainment industry.The proposed new tax would be collected even if the permit is denied. As usual, the proponents call this tax a “fee” even though most children will receive no benefit at all, unless being allowed to submit an application for a work permit is somehow considered a benefit.The bureaucrats are … Read More

[Cross-posted from RedCounty.com]

The Poizner for Governor campaign has taken advantage of the Van Jones controversy by circulating a video clip of GOPrival Meg Whitman saying she’s a "huge fan" of the controversial green, extremist lefty.

In the battle for the hearts and minds of GOPactivists and regulars, this is good hit by the Poizner campaign that’s received a lot of play. Campaigns aren’t tiddly-winks: Whitman said those words on video, and the Poizner campaign took advantage of that. If the situation were reversed, I’ve no doubt the Whitman campaign would have done the same thing.

Here’s what Whitman said in the clip (recorded in May of this year):

"There’s a guy over in Oakland, I think his name is Van Jones. And he and I were on a cruise last summer in the Arctic, on climate change. And I got to know him very well. And… Read More