Later today, State Senator Jeff Denham will formally announce his candidate to be the next Lieutenant Governor of California, according to sources close to the FlashReport. Denham has become rather legendary within GOP donor and activist circles because of the failed attempt to recall him from office because of his leadership in opposing new taxes to resolve the state’s fiscal woes. As someone who follows Golden State politics closely, I welcome Denham into this race as his moxie, and straight-forward style are much desired with a party in need of solid representatives, who will clearly articulate the differences between Democrats and Republicans.

Denham is a tough and aggressive campaigner who has carried his huge Democratic-leaning Senate district – which spans the Central Valley to the Monterey Coast – 3 times. Denham was first elected in 2002 and re-elected in a landslide in 2006. As I mentioned above,… Read More

Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner this morning is announcing a group of new legislative endorsements in his campaign for Governor. They are State Senators Dennis Hollingsworth and Mimi Walters, and State Assemblymembers Martin Garrick, Diane Harkey, Jim Nielson and Mike Duvall.

By my count, this brings Poizner to the point of having over 70% of the sitting Republicans in the legislature as backers of his bid — pretty impressive, I think.… Read More

Yesterday I blogged in response to the Governor’s throwing rocks at Republican legislators over their resolute stand against rewarding the chronic overspending with tax increases. The Governor’s office responded here. I figured that I should, in turn, respond to the Governor… So read on… Numbers can be manipulated all you want to make the Governor seem like he is a fiscal champion, but the fact remains that spending has increased by over 30 percent under Schwarzenegger, from $78.6 billion when the Governor took office to $103.3 billion today. (See the Legislative Analyst’s Historical Expenditure Chart here.)

We know that… Read More

I serve on the Yolo Solano Air Quality Management District. In fact, in January I am scheduled to be the Chair of the district. This morning I lost on a 10-2 vote regarding some proposed amendments to the "Motor Vehicle and Mobile Equipment Coating Operations".

The vote was everyone on the Board against myself and my fellow Yolo County Supervisor Duane Chamberlain. I tend to lose quite a few votes either 3-2 or 4-1 so that is not what had me thiking about this one vote all day.

The agenda and staff report are here. I draw your attention to point 6 of the rule requirements in the staff report.

As someone that believes in limited govenrment and truly desires smaller more efficient government I am often faced with trying to help make government programs run efficiently that I don’t necessarily believe in. That is not the case with the air district. The staff is exceptional and the results that have been acheived in terms of air quality are clear.

That part that bugs me is that we set up a regulation that prohibits people from… Read More

SEIU’s Plan for Belt-tightening (For You, Not SEIU)

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Earlier today Governor Schwarzenegger held a press conference, blasting state legislators for not resolving the budget crisis. We’re on our way to "fiscal armageddon" he said, announcing that the state’s fiscal hole is getting deeper by about $40 million each and every day that goes by without a resolution. Yeah, we get that.

But the Governor is living in a very simplistic world if he thinks that, from his first floor conference room, he can blast away indiscriminately at "the legislature" and expect that this is going to resolve the substantial differences that divide Democrats who want to raise taxes, and Republicans who — don’t, and won’t.

Frankly, I don’t see where the Governor is really accomplishing much of anything. He was clearly elected with a mandate from the voters to oppose new taxes, and yet has thrown that to the wind as he has developed some sort of "Solomon like" simplistic view of resolving the state’s fiscal woes — "let’s figure out the level of the program and cut half of it,… Read More

This came in from the Governor’s office in response to my blog post below:

Yesterday at a rare, joint meeting of the California State Senate and Assembly, lawmakers were treated to a admonishment by state finance officials about the dire circumstances facing the State of California. It’s a bad situation, made worse for every day that action isn’t taken. The question is whether the Democrats who dominate the legislature now truly understand the gravity of the situation and are ready to take a reasoned approach to making significant cuts in state government – we’re talking about ideas like eliminating functions of state government Last night, the San Diego County Republican Party unanimously endorsed my candidacy for re-election as Vice-Chairman, South, of the California Republican Party. The Southern Region includes Orange, Riverside, San Diego and Imperial Counties, and contains about 1/5 of the state’s 1500 or so State Central Committee Members. Last month I was unanimously endorsed by the Orange County Republican Party. Recently I announced my re-election campaign, and listed my prominent GOP … Read More