With Tom McClintock’s announcement this morning that he is running for the GOP nomination in the 4th Congressional District, already two of the three other candidates that had been in the race have dropped out and endorsed the popular conservative State Senator. Veteran Eric Egland and former State Senator Rico Oller both are now solidly in the McClintock camp.

So now all eyes will be on former Congressman, moderate Doug Ose. Ose, a super-wealthy businessman, has to now huddle with his advisors and make a big decision — whether any amount of money can boost him past a very popular and formidable McClintock. Especially since McClintock will be able to raise quite a bit of money himself, and stands to benefit from big efforts from groups such as the Club for Growth.

From talking to folks, Ose’s genetic makeup is never to "back down" from a fight. Then again, you are successful in business by understanding where you take advantage of opportunities, and when to commit, or in some cases, not commit resources.

Anyways, below is text of a letter that Rico Oller just sent out to his supporters. Rico’s a great guy who… Read More

With Tom McClintock’s decision this morning to focus his aim on Capitol Hill, it leaves a very big vacuum in the race for who will succeed Board of Equalization Member Bill Leonard, who is in his second and final term on the BOE (his current term ends in 2010). With McClintock in the race, he had pretty much cleared the field. BOE districts are vast, each of them encompassing one quarter of the state’s voters. Thus they are very difficult in which to campaign. The amount of money and resources required to communicate your message, as a candidate, to Republican voters is staggering. McClintock’s high state-wide name I.D. made him a shoo-in, and now… There is no longer a presumptive front-runner to replace Leonard. Or is there?

I am sure that a significant number of current and former legislators, among others, will now be seriously looking at a run for this safe, Republican BOE seat. One person whom you can figure is very likely to announce her candidacy sooner than later is… Read More

As I write this, California conservative icon Tom McClintock is announcing his candidacy for Congress in the 4th Congressional District, where incumbent John Doolittle is retiring.

FR’s Meredith Turney is at the event, and will bring us some post-press conference coverage. So stay tuned!… Read More

California legislators are notorious for their many harebrained ideas, but some proposals are such an affront to commonsense and decency that it is impossible to comprehend their motivation. Senator Alan Lowenthal is the author of one of the most shocking bills introduced in the state senate not just this year, but in many years. SB 1322 would actually allow the promotion of communism in California’s public schools. Yes, communism—the very government system responsible for the deaths of an estimated 100 million people since its implementation.

Under current law in California, it is illegal for communist organizations to use public school or community college property for their meetings. Senator Lowenthal wants to strike that law. He also wants to strike the law that requires public (government) employees forswear membership in an organization (the Communist Party) bent on the “forceful or violent” overthrow of the United States government.

But that’s not the worst of it. Senator Lowenthal also wants to strike the law that prohibits a… Read More

A couple of weeks ago, the delegates to the California Republican Party Convention adopted a strong, bold platform to serve as the ideological and policy document for the State GOP for the next four years.

Along with many others, I was proud to serve as a member of the Platform Committee that adopted this platform. It represents a lot of work by a lot of people, and I encourage all FlashReport readers to take a few minutes to peruse it. It is broken down into sections and is quite easy to digest. A lot of CRP members took a leadership role in the drafting of this document, certainly worthy of specific mention would be Mike Schroeder, Mike Spence, Mark Pruner, and Laura Gadke, with whom I worked closely in the process. But the overall effort included dozens of great Republicans, and the final version that you have here before you represents an additional five hours of work by the Platform Committee at the convention, with many different additions and revisions. CRP Chairman Ron Nehring and Committee… Read More

A couple of weeks ago, the delegates to the California Republican Party Convention adopted a strong, bold platform to serve as the ideological and policy document for the State GOP for the next four years.

Along with many others, I was proud to serve as a member of the Platform Committee that adopted this platform. It represents a lot of work by a lot of people, and I encourage all FlashReport readers to take a few minutes to peruse it. It is broken down into sections and is quite easy to digest. A lot of CRP members took a leadership role in the drafting of this document, certainly worthy of specific mention would be Mike Schroeder, Mike Spence, Mark Pruner, and Laura Gadke, with whom I worked closely in the process. But the overall effort included dozens of great Republicans, and the final version that you have here before you represents an additional five hours of work by the Platform Committee at the convention, with many different additions and revisions. CRP Chairman Ron Nehring and Committee… Read More

Hell hath no fury like a defense contractor scorned or members of Congress miffed at a Pentagon decision impacting jobs and a major American corporation during an election year. Boeing, American labor and a motley crew of all stripes are rallying to protest the recent $40 billion Air Force contract awarded to Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman (Airbus, et al) for next generation aerial tankers built on an Airbus airframe. Here, here, and here.

Speaker Pelosi and Democratic members continue the push on "ethics reform", here and here, from The Hill and Roll Call respectively.

The McClintock or McClintock-hinted race in Rep. Doolittle’s soon-to-be former seat is noted in… Read More

After reading Jon’s post about the Legislative Analyst I was compelled to disagree in writing on several points.

You aren’t going to hear anything from me that encourages tax increases. It would be my preference to eliminate large sections of the state government. Despite this preferred course of action the comments Jon made about the role of the LAO and their budget proposal should not go unchallenged.

The budget proposal from the Governor that Jon praises is the easy way out. It makes 10% cuts to most all state programs. This assumes that all state programs are of equal value to the people of California. That is clearly not the case. It also makes it easy to grow all of those programs back to full-size when revenues increase.

Some people may be looking at revenue shortages as a problem. They should be looked at as opportunities to restructure… Read More