I just got off of the phone with Tony Strickland. Needless to say, he is a bit anxious, as this race has ended up being not only the most expensive legislative contest this election cycle, but now it is the closest.

What’s the status of things? Well, FR readers probably know that this sprawling district is mostly in Ventura County, with a big portion of it also being in Santa Barbara County, and a sliver of it is in Los Angeles County.

Generally, Strickland performed better in Ventura County, and Jackson did better (by a slightly larger margin) in Santa Barbara County. In the tiny LA portion, which is up in the very conservative Santa Clarita area, Strickland performed much better.

Today, most of the outstanding absentee ballots in Santa Barbara were counted. The effect of this was to leave Jackson with a roughly 250 vote lead over Strickland. Between remaining absentee ballots and provisional ballots, there are probably around 7,000 votes left to cast in Santa Barbara County.

In Ventura County, it sounds like there are probably somewhere around 50,000 ballots left to count, and it’s really hard to tell what is left in Los… Read More

People all across California (and America) are anxious for information about the McClintock/Brown race. Today, Tom’s lead increased to 889 votes.

I spent the entire day at the Placer County Registrar of Voters, observing the ballot counting. It’s a slow, tedious process and can certainly be boring. But I will say that I’ve never been prouder of my local election officials. They take every precaution to ensure every vote is counted. Even in races that aren’t closely contested, each vote is considered extremely important. Until today, I had no idea that every absentee signature is scrutinized, the integrity of the ballots makes them untouchable by anyone other than a select few, and voter intent is paramount. Some voters are actually called if their signature is slightly off, or if there is any suspicion of fraud.

While I’m proud of my local elections officials, there are some in other areas that have been less impressive. I’ve heard some horror stories from other areas in the 4th CD—and in a close election like this one, tensions are high. As Assemblyman LaMalfa mentioned last night, the Democrat lawyers have descended upon the 4th CD and they are… Read More

Just moments ago, Mike Villines was unanimously re-elected Leader by his fellow Assembly Republicans. Congratulations, Mike!!… Read More

I've been up in Sacramento for a couple of days, doing the kind of networking that FR readers would expect in order to be able to bring you the insights and commentaries you've come to expect here on the FlashReport. As I sit in my hotel room at the Capitol Hyatt hotel, formatting some columns for tomorrow morning's FR, there is a roar coming from the nearby Capitol building. There is a crowd of protesters gathered there, I would say about 1500 people strong – all upset about the defeat of Proposition 8. They are all screaming, “We want it. Now.”… Read More

Today, the Assembly special session was convened, the budget mess being the purpose. Thetax ideas being floated to "fix" it include 3 ideas I’ll talk about here, [plus,there’s a new tax on services and a vehicle fee increase].

Let me put it this way: When you get in your car [with a higher reg fee? or higher repair fees?], you pay a newoil tax. When you get to the store, you pay an increased sales tax. When you find you have less to spend because government is spending it for you, you may stop at the local watering hole and pay an increased alcohol tax per drink. Even then you may realize that dying won’t get you off the hook as the Fed death tax increases exponentially when the death taxphasedown expires Dec 31 2009, but that’s a Federal issue that I’ll leave out of the rest of this post.

The oil severance taxapplies to domestically produced oil…a sure fire incentive to decrease our dependence on foreign oil,yeah!

The sales tax increase, only temporary you know, of 1.5% is a surefire winner for boosting the economy going into… Read More

We here at the FlashReport are pleased to present this Guest Commentary, submitted by the Governor’s office, authored by David Crane. Mr. Crane is a Special Advisor to the Governor for Jobs and the Ecomony. Governor Schwarzenegger has called a special session of the legislature to deal with an $11.2 billion shortfall in the current fiscal year budget. He has introduced a plan to deal with this problem that contains billions of dollars in both cuts and new taxes. Crane discusses the Governor’s proposal below. You can read the Governor’s proposal as it was presented here (you can even watch a video of the Governor presenting his plan).

$11.2 BILLION SHORTFALL REQUIRES A TOUGH… Read More

In Congressional District 4, Tom’s lead edges up to 709 votes from 451 on election night. According to folks on the ground there, Rahm Emanual has his goon squad lawyers up there throwing their weight around with elections offices to try tohassle and intimidate the workers and election clerks processing the ballots still not handled.… Read More

We here at the FlashReport are pleased to present this Guest Commentary, submitted by the Governor’s office, authored by David Crane. Mr. Crane is a Special Advisor to the Governor for Jobs and the Ecomony. Governor Schwarzenegger has called a special session of the legislature to deal with an $11.2 billion shortfall in the current fiscal year budget. He has introduced a plan to deal with this problem that contains billions of dollars in both cuts and new taxes. Crane discusses the Governor’s proposal below. You can read the Governor’s proposal as it was presented here (you can even watch a video of the Governor presenting his plan).

$11.2 BILLION SHORTFALL REQUIRES A TOUGH… Read More