In what is the clearest sign yet that conservative icon and FR friend State Senator Tom McClintock is just days away from formally declaring a candidates for the United States House of Representatives, District 4, the Senator has sent out an e-mail to his sizable list of supporters, entitled "Potential Campaign for Congress" in which he shares with his team that he is "seriously considering runng" for the seat, announces the formation of an official Congressional Exploratory Committee, and urge folks to make contributions.

My intel gathering tells me that when Tom McClintock gets IN to the race for Congress, that his fellow conservative, Rico Oller, gets OUT (as does also-ran Eric Egland, who has been campaigning for the better part of a year but has failed to gain traction).

The real question will be whether or not wealthy Sacramento business tycoon Doug Ose, a moderate Republican who has announced his candidacy for the same seat, would stay in the race. Recent polling data released shows it would be a long, uphill battle for Ose — especially when you consider that McClintock will be able to raise a considerable amount of money here… Read More

A lot of things come across the transom here at the FlashReport, but when I saw this release, I thought it was worth a mention.

You will all be happy to know that Dianne Feinstein is so anxious to protect our children that she now wants to ban certain chemicals that are used in the making of toys. Specifically, it’s a chemical used to make toys flexible. Apparently she wants all toys to be — inflexible. What a kill-joy.

Of course she is doing this because the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has said This chemical is dangerous, right? WRONG. Actually, it’s the opposite. They actually spent four years studying the chemical and found "no demonstrated health risk" from its use in toys and "no justification" for banning its use.

The Consumers for Competitive Choice, the organization that put out the release, makes the point that… Read More

My Republican state senator is a big zero. A cipher. A giant goose egg.

Senator Bob Dutton, who represents the 31st State Senate District (Riverside and San Bernardino counties), was just awarded a zero rating from ultra-liberal special interest group California Public Interest Research Group. The left-wing bestowed the low ranking to Senator Dutton specifically for his work against a big government health care scheme (Nunez/Perata), heftier fees on minivans and SUVs, and his stance against proposed bills that would have halted California’s economy.

You can tell a lot about a legislator by those opposed to him. In Senator Bob Dutton’s case, he ought to be proud of his rating from such an out-of-touch extreme leftist organization that aims for a California where Big Government reigns supreme. A California with an… Read More

Longtime California GOP leader Steve Frank publishes his winners and losers of the CRP Convention. His "big loser" is former State GOP Chairman Duf Sundheim.… Read More

Today Assembly Democrats informally chose Majority Leader Karen Bass to succeed Fabian "Louis Vuitton" Nunez. We call this rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Unless Bass is going to usher California Democrats into an era of reducing the size and scope of state government. Don’t hold your breath!… Read More

FR friend Shane Goldmacher, over at the Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Alert, interviewed incoming Senate Republican Leader Dave Cogdill. It’s an interesting piece that you can read here (free registration required).… Read More

FR friend Ryan Clumpner, Chairman of the California College Republicans, along with a number of his CR colleagues, presented signboards to State Senator Tom McClintock with hundreds of signatures, urging the Senator to run for Congress in the 4th District.

Below is a photo of the Senator talking to reporters with Clumpner and company, along with the signboards.

McClintock is still being coy about whether he will get into the race, but promises a final decision by "early next week" — whatever that means.… Read More

With last weekend’s convention, the state budget back-and-forth, and the presidential race, I missed the chance to comment on something the Governor has been pushing pretty aggressively: the continuation of Operation Jump Start.

If you’ll remember, that’s the code name given to the mission assigned to the National Guard to temporarily help secure the border while thousands of additional Border Patrol agents are hired and trained. In 2006, when the federal government announced the mission, Governor Schwarzenegger wanted guarantees that California’s Guard troops would still be available to assist during disasters here, which he received. The Governor then agreed to the mission and since then, National Guard troops have been supporting the Border Patrol along our border with Mexico.

And from what I have been told, the mission has been working. Illegal border crossings are down. Arrests are up. Drug trafficking has been reduced.

The mission was scheduled to end this coming July, but the feds are apparently only about halfway toward their goal of hiring and training 6,000 more agents.

Governor Schwarzenegger has urged President Bush to continue… Read More