Today’s Capitol Morning Report outlines the announcement of GOP Assemblyman Benoit’s"There Ought To Be A Law" Contest for high school students. I know the object is to get kids involved in the political process and that is good.

And I don’t mean to pick on John. He is a good man, but the problem is that this contest presumes there should be more laws and more controls by a bigger government. Sen. Tom Harman did such a contest and then took the idea from one kid to force other kids to "volunteer" before they could graduate. Sen. Harman and this kid didn’t see that forcing someone to "volunteer" means you are no longer "volunteering".

Republican lawmakers should show leadership and help kids learn. They should sponsor "There Ought NOT To BeA Law" contests among high schoolstudents.Turn these kids loose on the thousands of pages of Education Code and have them come up with something that needs tobe repealed.

Shouldn’t we send… Read More

"Everything is on the table," said Governor Schwarzenegger yesterday, when asked whether he would support a statewide sales tax, in this case, as part of a massive government intervention into health care in California. The Governor said that he could support placing a tax hike on the ballot on which Californians can vote. Presumably the Republican Governor, after negotiating such a "deal" for California taxpayers, would then advocate its passage as well. Shame on Arnold Schwarzenegger. I don’t know how to sugar coat this, so I will just say it like it is — he lied. He lied to me, he lied to his supporters and he lied to all Californians. When he campaigned for re-election last year, he said he was "moderate on social issues, progressive on environmental issues, and conservative on fiscal issues." I cannot remember a stump speech that the Governor delivered to Republican activists, and I heard quite a few as a grassroots supporter of his campaign, wherehe did not flat out state his opposition to raising taxes, period. There was no audible "asterisk" qualifying his opposition… Read More

I would like to extend a very special FR “greetings” to the newest member of our blog team — Matt Rexroad! For those who do not know Matt, he is a seasoned veteran political consultant and activist. He is a Yolo County Supervisor (I know, most of you have never heard of Yolo County — it’s west of Sacramento County). He’s a husband and a father. And, of course, he’s a Republican. Matt has a keen sense of politics, is articulate, and occasionally funny. Please welcome Matt — his first post is below!… Read More

The situation regarding the appointment of Erwin Chemerinsky as the Dean of the law school at UC Irvine is another example of the one way street regarding political views in academia. When Chemerinsky and his liberal political views were not welcomed by conservative commentators the purists in academia went on a rampage. They claimed it was a violation of academic freedom.

The response to the outrage has been for UC Irvine Chancellor Michael Drake to do a complete u-turn (via a trip to Duke University) and welcome Chemerinsky to UC Irvine with a joint statement on "academic freedom".

At UC Irvine the faculty agrees with Chemerinsky so they demand that he be able to serve as Dean.

Meanwhile at UC Davis and with the UC Regents the view of academic freedom has a very different conclusion. This article in the Davis Enterprise explains how former Harvard President Larry Summers was "uninvited" to be a speaker at a meeting of UC Regents.

The UC Davis faculty does not agree with Summers so he is not allowed to speak to the… Read More

I am pleased to announce that this year the FlashReport will once-again be bringing you our Top 20 Bills To Veto list. Last year we garnered a lot of attention as we assembled our list, and then ranked Governor Schwarzenegger on his performance as we urged him to veto all 20 bills. How did he do? Click here to see last year’s scorecard. We are very pleased this year to announce that State Senator Dennis Hollingsworth will be joining with Assemblyman Chuck DeVore to co-author, along with FR Publisher Jon Fleischman, this years list. The goal of the list is to find the 20 most egregious bills that the Democrats have sent to the Governor’s desk, to write a little something about them, and to urge the Governor to veto them. In addition, as we did last year, we’ll be giving the Governor a running ‘batting average’ on how he does in terms of rejecting or signing these atrocious bills. There are only a couple of days for you to make suggestions on bills that should be included in our Top Twenty. Some of the bills we included last… Read More

Kevin Yamamura and all the other Sacramento based journalists have no understanding of the lack of relationship between the Governor and State GOP. We aren’t talking about Republicans being more moderate. Arnold Schwarzenegger is not governing from the center, and thus is nothing close to a "moderate". Profligate spending (worse than Davis), massive borrowing (into an uncertain economy), health care taxes (what a novel idea!), ridiculous "greenhouse gas" legislation (let’s run MORE business out of California), scores of judges appointed that don’t support the death penalty, and the like, are all leftist policies. It isn’t that the GOP isn’t moderate, we refuse to be dragged left of center.

Throw in a pinch of ignoring Bruce McPherson and Tom McClintock in the last election, "dissing" GOP legislators altogether in 2006, and leaving the State GOP in debt, and it is no surprise that the GOP and Governor are not on the same playing field.

The Governor gets high marks for Workers’ Comp reform, easily his most significant public policy… Read More

I am pleased to announce that this year the FlashReport will once-again be bringing you our Top 20 Bills To Veto list. Last year we garnered a lot of attention as we assembled our list, and then ranked Governor Schwarzenegger on his performance as we urged him to veto all 20 bills. How did he do? Click here to see last year’s scorecard. We are very pleased this year to announce that State Senator Dennis Hollingsworth will be joining with Assemblyman Chuck DeVore to co-author, along with FR Publisher Jon Fleischman, this years list. The goal of the list is to find the 20 most egregious bills that the Democrats have sent to the Governor’s desk, to write a little something about them, and to urge the Governor to veto them. In addition, as we did last year, we’ll be giving the Governor a running ‘batting average’ on how he does in terms of rejecting or signing these atrocious bills. There are only a couple of days for you to make suggestions on bills that should be included in our Top Twenty. Some of the bills we included last… Read More

Assemblywoman Shirley Horton is termed out next year, and the word on the street is that Dem leadership in Sacramento is worried about the candidacy of Republican-turned-Democrat Auday Arabo, nephew of former State Senator Wadie Deddeh.Democrats are still reeling over six GOP years in a seat they thought they designed for themselves in 2001.

Arabo has raised big early money, but he might be the first to admit a two-edged sword exists as a result. His ties to the California Independent Grocers & Convenience Store Owners (CAIGCS) provides loads of fundraising ability, but also puts many of the donors in the alcohol and tobacco categories, an inordinate number in fact. To be fair, he also has quite a few donors from the D.A.s office, given his past employ there. The irony is a significant mixture of donations from law enforcement and convenience store related interests.

There may be nothing wrong with that on the surface, but any decent consultant with a potential horse in this race has gone thru Arabo’s campaign disclosures while imagining mail pieces. Welcome to elective politics, Auday.

According to key players, there are a growing… Read More