[Publisher’s Note: Today I am pleased to announce that I am seeking re-election as Vice Chairman, South, of the California Republican Party. Below my announcement letter is a partial list of my endorsements to date.]

Dear Fellow Republican: It’s been three weeks since the Republican Party’s worst election night in four decades. Senator Barack Obama’s landslide victory along with significant Republican losses in the House and Senate requires our party to critically examine why we lost, who lead us astray and how we can win in 2010. … Read More

Congratulations to State Senator-Elect Tony Strickland. We just heard from FR friend Bob Haueter, who has been on the ground there. Tony has an 801 vote lead and all that remains to count are a couple hundred LA County ballots, which will only widen his lead. Outstanding news!… Read More

With my home county of Butte reporting the last of the provisional and mail-in ballots for the 4th Congressional District, Senator Tom McClintock has netted1070 votes of the 1944 that were remaining to count in the Butte portion of CD 4, a plus of 196 to his 9 county total. This should bring his winning margin to 1772, [of about 369,000 total cast].So, with official certification due in all counties next Tuesday, here’s an even more ‘almost officially’ congrats to Tom!

[Butte still remained a ‘blue’ county for Obama by 2300 or so votes and even a ‘blue’ county by 87 votes in the 2nd CD.]… Read More

One of the great challenges of terms limits is the need to educate new legislators as they arrive at the capitol. There is a "training session" they all go through, and usually a "retreat" by each of the caucuses that all attend, but, in each case, the agendas in each of those programs tend to reflect the bias of the staff or the leadership. Not that the information is bad, but I found that sometimes it is not helpful, especially when it comes to the budget. Government budgeting is not like private budgeting, whether it is individual or business budgeting. Government budgeting has, as its central guiding theme, the desire to deceive the decision-maker, to prevent oversight of government programs, and to grant to unelected bureaucrats as much freedom to spend taxpayer dollars without interference from lawmakers as possible.

One piece of advice to new lawmakers, start with Schedule 6 in the Governor’s Budget Summary . A quick look at that document show that not one single dime has been cut from overall state expenditures in the last six years. In fact, the last Governor to actually cut spending was Governor Gray Davis, in the last… Read More

Come into the FlashReport fortune telling booth, won’t you? No, we won’t be throwing the bones or pulling out the tarot cards this morning. This morning we’ll use the FR crystal ball!

Gather round and we’ll gaze into its depths…

“I see… Chronic overspending…. I see… Tax rates that are some of the highest in the nation… I see… Poor economic times and Californians who can’t afford to pay higher taxes… I hear… Doublespeak where reductions in projected increases are called decreases… I see… Liberal ideologues in the legislation who see the redistribution of wealth in society by government as some sort of religious calling… I see… Democrat lawmakers… Read More

Come into the FlashReport fortune telling booth, won’t you? No, we won’t be throwing the bones or pulling out the tarot cards this morning. This morning we’ll use the FR crystal ball!

Gather round and we’ll gaze into its depths…

“I see… Chronic overspending…. I see… Tax rates that are some of the highest in the nation… I see… Poor economic times and Californians who can’t afford to pay higher taxes… I hear… Doublespeak where reductions in projected increases are called decreases… I see… Liberal ideologues in the legislation who see the redistribution of wealth in society by government as some sort of religious calling… I see…… Read More

Everyone get out their pencils and take some notes. Here's what's going on at the State Capitol this afternoon. The liberal Democrats are putting up their own budget revisions in the form of a package made up of a half-dozen or so bills.

Make no mistake about it, the package up for votes today represents no negotiation, no concessions, and no meeting of the minds. Once again the Democrats are trying to push more taxes on Californians – around $8 billion worth (just what our fragile economy needs — not!). The Democrats also put up some cuts — but it is almost impossible for this lay person to sort out potential real cuts from what appears to be a lot of accounting gimmickry (this from the people who call increasing spending less than they desire a “cut”).

Absent of course is the one item that Republicans have made clear is their Omaha Beach — a real spending cap measure to place before voters.

Look for the whole package to go down today without one Republican vote (even the cuts offered up are tied legislatively to the tax increases). As for the Democrats — let's see what some of them… Read More

Our efforts to do something about the state’s fiscal crisisis underway. We had a package of 6 bills presented this morning, with pretty wide open language and ‘poison pills’ that all link back to tax and fee increases. Upon taking the floor for session, the Dems have decided to pare today’s work to just 2 of the 6 proposed bills, known as AB 6 and AB 7 of the 4th Extraordinary session. First up is ABX47, which does have some cuts , [including to law enforcement], and funding shifts in itand with strings attached. Next up will be AB4X 6, the Vehicle license fee tripling to 2% of car value, up from .65%, which would roughly raise the fee per car $300, or $600 for a ‘typical’ 2 car family per year.

AB 7 has just received only 40 yes votes and 30 no votes.

AB 6 also could not muster the votes needed, failing with 41 aye votes and 31 no votes.… Read More