TheFederal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that an Arizona law thatbans out-of-state residents as petition circulators is unconstitutional. The logic of the decision, according to "Ballot Access News," would apply to circulation of any types of petitions. The court also ruled unconstitutional in the same case (brought by Ralph Nader) a separate Arizona law establishing a deadline for independent presidential candidate’s filings to be on the state ballot. But the big constitutional victory was on petition circulation.

Readers will know I have posted in the past and criticized restrictions government places on who may circulate a petition. The Federal constitutional right to petition government does not evaporate just because someone crosses a state-line, and whether or not a petition circulator gets paid does not sully or diminish that important right.

A tactic of liberals in California to dillute the people’s power of initiative guaranteed by the State Constitution, and thereby build up the power of our gerrymandered permanent Democratic-dominated state legislature, is to impose every… Read More

FR friend Jennifer Kerns has been tapped as Communications Director for the high profile Protect Marriage Act campaign. Here is an excerpt from their release… Congrats Jennifer…

California Marriage Protection Act Hires Top Communications Director

“The proponents of Yes on Proposition 8, the California Marriage Protection Act, and ProtectMarriage.com announced today the hiring of public relations professional Jennifer Kerns as Communications Director for the statewide ballot initiative.

Kerns, the owner of K Street Communications, recently served as Senior Press Secretary for California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner. She also served as Communications Director for his election campaign, helping Poizner successfully win the endorsements of all 37 major newspapers in California in his landslide election over sitting Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante.

She previously served as an Assistant Secretary of State and Spokeswoman in the office of Secretary of State Bruce McPherson, where she represented the State on Elections issues, crisis communications, voting system integrity, Special Elections, the 2005… Read More

Obesity is a major problem in America. Here in California, it is an especially big problem in state government. Government spending keeps going up and up, and government income keeps going up and up. Right now we find ourselves in a state government money crunch because while the state’s income continues to climb, the voratious appetite of legislative Democrats to spend (aided by Governors of both parties) seems to have no limits.

Well, it is time for state government to go on a diet. It is time to get on the treadmill and shed billions of dollars in unsustainable spending. Government will have to do less, to provide less.

From an ideological perspective, this kind of reasoning is foreign to the liberals in the majority, who today called for shameful growth in state taxes to the tune of over $9 billion. From a pragmatic side, eventually spending is going to have to be prioritized. There is no magic wand for our overspending problem, we’re simply going to have to make cuts.

Raising taxes to match overspending is not only immoral, it is also impractical as we need our economy to thrive – and nothing will help promote a… Read More

There is no publication that has devoted more time to the shady deals of lame duck Senate President Pro-Tem Don "The Golden Pig" Perata than the East Bay Express. It’s been a well publicized fact that Perata and his shady deals have been the subject of a major investigation by the Feds.

The Express is running front-web-page story saying that an indictment may be just around the corner for Mr. Perata and his cohorts. Read it here.

(H/T to Steve Frank)… Read More

Democratic Presidential candidate Barrack Hussein Obama has established an "enemies" list on his official campaign website that "names names" of people and organizations that are publicly critical of him. "Who is Behind these Lies" is the name of the landing page at http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/behindthesmears, part of the offfical "Obama ’08" website and paid for by the official Obama for President campaign. Obama identifies "Smears Inc." to include my friend and fellow Western Conservative Political Action Conference director Floyd Brown, conservative author Craig Shirley, mega conservative donor Bob Perry, and me, among others, as his official enemies. Obama attacks me on the site for being "a long-time conservative activist" who has been a "soldier in the conservative movement for many years." Yikes! How many years in Obama’s jail systemdo you get for that?

These hit lists are nothingnew forliberal Democrats. During the Clinton Administration, the First Lady had FBI… Read More

This morning, the FlashReport wants to draw the attention of our readers to a very important column in this month’s edition of Red County Magazine. While not a lengthy piece, the commentary, We Refuse To Support A Permanent Minority, penned by Orange County Lincoln Club President Rich Wagner and fellow Board Member Chip Hanlon, represents an important watershed moment in Republican politics — the leadership of one of America’s most prominent Republican donor organizations shining a bright spotlight an ugly side of our Republican Senate and House Conferences in Washington, D.C. — an addiction to big government and pork-barrel earmarking. Wikopedia defines the phrase Elephant in the Room as an, "English idiom for an obvious truth that is being ignored or goes unaddressed. It is based on the idea that an elephant in a small room would be impossible to overlook." The strongly-worded… Read More

This morning, the FlashReport wants to draw the attention of our readers to a very important column in this month’s edition of Red County Magazine. While not a lengthy piece, the commentary, We Refuse To Support A Permanent Minority, penned by Orange County Lincoln Club President Rich Wagner and fellow Board Member Chip Hanlon, represents an important watershed moment in Republican politics — the leadership of one of America’s most prominent Republican donor organizations shining a bright spotlight an ugly side of our Republican Senate and House Conferences in Washington, D.C. — an addiction to big government and pork-barrel earmarking. Wikopedia defines the phrase Elephant in the Room as an, "English idiom for an obvious truth that is being ignored or goes unaddressed. It is based on the idea that an elephant in a small room would be impossible to overlook." The strongly-worded… Read More

Today marks day seven of the new fiscal year — a week without an adopted budget for the state of California. Much has been said already, and will be said over the coming weeks and possibly months about how we’ve ended up with such a budget challenge — but Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters summed it up nicely in a column yesterday when he said, "…today’s crisis primarily stems from voters and politicians spending more money than the revenue system can produce, even in a good economy." Last week it was reported that Assembly Speaker Karen Bass had sent legislators home until July 14. That is ridiculous. The (unfortunate) reality is that California has an overdue budget AND a full-time legislature. That means that, frankly, all of our state legislators, having taken their three day weekend for America’s birthday, should be returning today to the State Capitol to roll up their sleeves and work towards a fiscally prudent state budget… Read More