The Governor currently has a bill sitting on his desk that has not received a single Republican vote.

(Note: I stand corrected. Senator Tom McClintock voted for this bill. See vote here.)

When looking at the bill analysis it is easy to understand why. It is hard to agree with the City of Davis (I almost never do), Common Cause, Cal PIRG, and the California Democratic Party.

Despite the unsavory cast of characters supporting it (not including McClintock), the bill has merit. AB 1294 allows general law cities and counties to be able to use ranked voting (RV) systems if it passes by local initiative.

Local Control I actually believe in local control. As a former Mayor and current County Supervisor I think we even need to let cities and counties run their own systems. We don’t need Senator Battin, Assemblyman Smyth, Speaker Nunez or anyone else in Sacramento telling us what is good for Woodland.

Cities and counties should be able to be wrong. The City of San Diego… Read More

**Preview: Coming tomorrow and Wednesday, I had an opportunity to conduct yet another insightful and provocative interview with well-known and well-respected veteran California pollster Arnie Steinberg. This interview with Steinberg is a two-parter, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading it as much as we spent bringing it your way. Look for Part I tomorrow! – Flash**

California 4th Assembly District is safe GOP territory. Currently represented by conservative Ted Gaines, the district lies to the East of Sacramento, taking in all or most of Placer, El Dorado and Alpine Counties, a portion of Sutter County and a small piece of Sacramento County. Here is a map.

Most notable about this legislative district these days is that it falls within California 4th Congressional District where the long-time incumbent, John Doolittle… Read More

This morning, I was reading a column from my good friend, Debra Saunders who expresses why she is pleased that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has decided NOT to seek the Presidency. I think that Debra is the only Republican columnist for that left-wing paper who writes consistently on political issues. While not as conservative as yours truly, when you consider the arena in which she is expressing herself, she is a very conservative writer. Anyway, I read her column and realized that I that I was harboring many of the same feelings. Newt Gingrich had his shot, when he was Speaker of the House of Representatives, to show what kind of leader he can be — and he fell short. I don’t want to turn this Sunday morning column into a negative diatribe on Newt, as I do not bear him personal animus. But I will say that when it was revealed that he had been in the midst of a torrid affair with a mistress at… Read More

This morning, I was reading a column from my good friend, Debra Saunders who expresses why she is pleased that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has decided NOT to seek the Presidency. I think that Debra is the only Republican columnist for that left-wing paper who writes consistently on political issues. While not as conservative as yours truly, when you consider the arena in which she is expressing herself, she is a very conservative writer. Anyway, I read her column and realized that I that I was harboring many of the same feelings. Newt Gingrich had his shot, when he was Speaker of the House of Representatives, to show what kind of leader he can be — and he fell short. I don’t want to turn this Sunday morning column into a negative diatribe on Newt, as I do not bear him personal animus. But I will say that when it was revealed that he had been in the midst of a torrid affair with a mistress at… Read More

Fletcher Scores Entire Escondido City Council… In what may be the first time the mayor and councilmembers have ever agreed on anything, the Escondido five have all endorsed Nathan Fletcher in George Plescia’s term-limited 75th A.D. seat.

Ok, that’s not completely fair…even the most divided city councils still tend to vote together a significant majority of the time. It’s the minority-of-the-time controversial votes that are the source of rifts and media play. The same is true in Escondido. It follows, then, that there must be nothing controversial about supporting Fletcher for Assembly. A no-brainer, in fact.

Rose Bird in the Hand is Worth an Analogous PAC… Broadsheet and electronic coverage was pretty heavy re: last Tuesday’s East County press conference (see the SDUT story) in response to SD Mayor Jerry Sanders’… Read More

Over the years, I’ve always tried to take advantage of, and use, the best technology available not only to win elections but to serve my constituents.

I know websites are passe now – everybody’s got one (Ihave five different ones I run), but my staff and I worked very hard on updating my official state site recently and want to use this space to show it off and detail what we’ve done.

Sure we have all the usual stuff – you can read my bio, see my latest news releases, track legislation and find out all about my great district (SD 37). But we went further. We wanted to turn the website into a tool people can use for information and, frankly, to protect themselves.

In this post, I want to highlight a feature we call RivCo’s Most Wanted.

For years and years and years… Read More

Here are a few passing thoughts for a quiet Saturday…

Former State Senator and FR friend Ross Johnson is Chairman of the State’s Fair Political Practices Commission. He is opposed moving to electronic-filing only for required FPPC filings from candidates, PACs, etcetra. I agree with Johnson, mainly because of a law that prohibits some informations from the paper reports from being placed on the internet. Such a change should not limit any degree of public disclosure. Putting aside the fact that I am a Lakers fan, I think that all taxpayers need to be very worried over discussions that the Kings might move to a new arena at the government-owned Cal-Expo site. The Maloofs were salivating over a taxpayer subsidy of their franchise not too long ago, and I’m sure they are still anxious to gauge Joe and Jane Public. If House Republicans are going to make a stand on earmarking, they should do so by calling for some objective criteria that all earmarks must meet in order to be in order. The problem is that everyone’s focus on reforming the earmarking process doesn’t address our biggest challenge — that a vast … Read More

The Presidential Election Reform Act of 2008 is dead, and good riddance. I don’t support any effort to change the Electoral College and the way Electors are chosen, even if it gives my side an advantage.

Every "Blue" State has a valid complaint – urban areas control Statewide elections. Whether you are in New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania or California, the electoral maps are a swath of red with blue coloring around the big cities. So those of us that live in the rural or inland areas get sick of big cities determining our Electoral votes. Oh well, I guess we need to work a little harder, take our case to the big cities, and look at all the benefits we dole out to residents of big cities. Oh wait, I forgot, we had a Congressional majority for 12 years with the Presidency for 6 years at the same time and ………. we just tried to buy big city votes too – without success.

Leave the Electoral College alone. Opening it up to tinkering will lead to DEMOCRAT tinkering in the future and NOTHING good can can from that.… Read More