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

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:

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

The FlashReport would like to extend congratulations to Jennifer and Dhillon Gibbons on the arrival of their newest family member, Rusty (pictured right). May your newborn bring you years of love and joy! Jennifer is Communications Director for Assembly Republicans and Dhillon is the Chief of Staff to freshman GOP Assemblywoman Connie Conway. I am sure both would appreciate words of congratulations, and any "parenting’ advice…… Read More

14 of the 29 Assembly Republicans serve in a broad leadership structure that is hand-picked by Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines.

Today Villines announced his team and we'll start by going straight to the most interesting picks first — who did Villines tap to represent the large freshman class on his leadership team? Serving as Whips are Assemblyman Jim Nielson (not surprising as he is a former State Senator), Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, and my own Assemblyman, Jeff Miller. Congratulations to all three of you!

Last week Villines announced that his #2, serving as Caucus Chairman, is Cameron Smyth. Rounding out the team: Floor Manager: Sam Blakeslee. Assistant Leaders: Roger Niello, Bill Emmerson, Van Tran, Martin Garrick and Ted Gaines. Chief Republican Whips: Anthony Adams, Chuck DeVore and Jean Fuller.… Read More