There was an impressive turnout of volunteers this morning at the Modesto headquarters of Senator Jeff Denham’s campaign against the recall.Almost 100activists heard words of encouragement from Senate Republican Leader Dave Cogdill, California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring, Assemblyman Tom Berryhill and congressional candidate Dean Andal (see them all, along with Senator Denham, in the photo below to the right, taken by Bob Phelan).Despite the noteworthy presence of several of the state’s top GOP leaders, a number of the volunteers were local Democrats outraged at Don Perata’s abuse of the recall process.

Senator Denhamtold the assembled precinct walkersthat even thoughSenate President Pro Tem Perata has publicly declaredhe is no longer funding the pro-recall campaign, voters need to be reminded that the issue remains on the June 3rd ballot, particularly given the expected low turn-out on… Read More

If a textbook on winning campaigns is ever written, exhibit A should be the State Assembly Campaign of Nathan Fletcher. He cleared the Republican field in the open seat of one of the prize Assembly seats in California —beautiful, prosperous, coastal– yet Republican. The seat is about 80% city of San Diego, with Poway, some county land, and part of Escondido rounding it out.

Historically, this seat has been a vicious primary— lot of candidates, lot of money and the winner emerging in a tight and hotly contested race. The 2008 contest for the open seat of termed out Assemblyman George Plescia looked early to be no break from the past.

Surprisingly, when Republican voters go the polls next Tuesday they will see only one choice: Nathan Fletcher.… Read More

This just in from the Secretary of State via the Bee Capitol Alert, that the over 1.2 million signatures turned in for an initiative for November have been verified by random sample.In an affirmation of parent’s rights, It wouldrequire parental notification before their child canobtain an abortion. It is the 4th item to qualify for November [it would probably be known as Prop 103] Previously, a similar Prop 73 tried and came close on the 2005 special election, it being the highest performing of all the initiatives that failed. Prop 85 lostby a couple more percentage points in 2006.

This is a positive for conservatives. It can link up on the same ballot with the likely Protection Of Marriage initiative that has a similar number of signatures being verified right now and should soon receive certification by the Secretary. Soon after that, we could see the Save Our Kids initiative turned in. That effort is gathering signatures right now. There is about 2 months left for that project, which is the repeal of the content of SB 777, passed last fall, that requires school curriculum and school… Read More

With reckless abandon, Los Angeles city leaders gave payroll increases and lucrative compensation packages for city workers, which can be directly attributed to the $406 million budget deficit they are now facing for fiscal year beginning in July. Sadly, city leaders knew they were putting Los Angeles’ future into financial jeopardy by agreeing to the payroll raises last year—but did so anyhow. According to the L A Daily News, May 11, 2008, “As Los Angeles grapples with its largest budget deficit in history, lucrative compensation packages for thousands of city workers are driving much of the gap , and there’s little end in sight.” It is mind-boggling that, “In the past year alone, gross annual payroll costs have soared $120 million for nearly 48,000 city employees – $90 million of that going to 35,000 civilian and sworn workers- and bumped the total… Read More

Gang violence permeates urban life. Hollywoodencourages sympathetictreatment; teenage fashion moguls emulate gangster attire; left wing writers extol gangster revolutionary ideals.

It’s quite telling how urban politicianstalk about gang violence. A Supervisor’s race in Orange County reveals serious gang involvement with a major candidate. Gangs are as old as… Read More

“Well, why, all of a sudden, if he had all these grave concerns, did he not raise these sooner? This is one-and-a-half years after he left the administration. And now, all of a sudden, he’s raising these grave concerns that he claims he had. And I think you have to look at some of the facts. One, he is bringing this up in the heat of a presidential campaign. He has written a book and he certainly wants to go out there and promote that book.” No. That is not the words of an angry Republican talking about Scott McClellan. Those are the words straight from the horses mouth—Scott himself on March 22, 2004 talking about the book of former homeland security advisor Richard Clarke. Seems Scott has a different take now that he is the one on a book tour. I have known Scott for a decade, since the late 90s when I was the campaign Press Secretary for then-Governor Bush in Texas where Scott was running the campaign of his mother – Carol Keeton Rylander (aka “one tough grandma”) to be State Comptroller. She won and Scott came to work in the Governor’s state press office for Karen Hughes. He later joined us at the presidential… Read More

We join with our lefty counterpart Steve Maviglio in lamenting the decision by the Stockton Record to close its Sacramento Bureau, issuing a pink-slip to veteran Capitol reporter Hank Shaw. (See Steve’s blog post.)

Shaw is a superior reporter — who is thorough, objective, and passionate about his coverage. Hopefully he will "land" somewhere that will enable him to continue to write about California politics.

In the meantime, this trend is disturbing. As Maviglio points out, this is just the latest in a trend as newspapers try to figure out how to remain profitable in a changing economic scene.

Imagine a world where the only people covering politics are Maviglio and me. Ooohhh… A nightmare scenario.

P.S. One upshot is that we’re bound to see more great post’s on Hank’s personal blog — Hunter, Angler, Gardner, Cook.… Read More

The Assembly finished it’s work last night at about 6:30, getting through a deadline for settling the bills from the "House of Origin."[It is kind of strange finishing a deadline not at 3 AM] That means that a bill introduced by a member of the Assembly had until the end of business today to be voted off of our floor or the bill dies. [Win or go home as they say in the playoffs] The Senate faced the same deadline for their House ofOrigin and was finishing their work yesterday also.

There is one bill of note that passed jumps out that I haven’t reported on yet from yesterday. [I decided that it would be nice to get home at a decent hour while the kids are awake or not ‘make’ my staff stay late and write an analysis of the days work for me, I’ll have more later on some of the actions taken…we did stop a few bad bills or discourage some from even being taken up!]

The bill had to do with aerial spraying in the Bay Area. A pest known as the Light Brown Apple Moth has become enough of a problem that the Ca Dept of Food and Ag, with others had moved to eradicate the pest. This has touched off a… Read More