Originally posted on Red County/ San Bernardino:

Just moments after Republican Senator Bob Dutton was "Freed" from Senate Chambers, the senator briefly spoke with me on California’s impasse over the proposed state budget for 2007-08. Senator Dutton spoke with a steady resolve on protecting California’s taxpayers against new taxes, deficit spending, and wasteful expenditures.

"We’ve all rallied as a team and we speak with one voice," stated Dutton, on the sentiment of the entire California State Senate Republican Caucus. "We will not waver on our commitment to protecting California’s taxpayers, and I give our leader, Senator Dick Ackerman, credit for unifying our caucus against a plan that includes deficit spending and is not balanced."

Furthermore, Dutton pointed to the need… Read More

Freshman GOP Assemblyman Cameron Smyth just dropped us some comments on the budget, which we present below:

I have really enjoyed keeping up with the Senate debate on the budget this weekend, but I wanted to offer the perspective of a Republican Assemblymember who did oppose this year’s spending plan. As the FlashReport readers are now well aware, early Friday morning (4:15AM) the Assembly concluded several weeks of discussion and passed out our version of the state budget, which is now held up in the Senate until Wednesday. Although nine of my Assembly Republican colleagues voted in favor of the plan, I simply could not. I believe our leadership negotiated a solid deal, considering our minority status, and included many supportable provisions.

However after consulting with more senior members of the caucus and theState Senators with whom I share areas of representation, too many uncertainties… Read More

Missed in the morning craziness of checking 50+ websites every morning for relevant news on California politics was a column today in the LA Times by Dana Parsons, profiling Republican political guru (and FR friend) Ken Khachigian. Ken is ‘answering the call’ to help out Fred Thompson in his bid for the White House.

The column begins below, and then there is a link over the the Times’ site for the rest.

A veteran advisor answers yet another bell Ken Khachigian, a lawyer in San Clemente, has advised Reagan, Nixon and others. This cycle, he’s aiding Fred Thompson. By Dana Parsons, The Los Angeles Times — July 21, 2007 … Read More

Well, 120 California legislators can enjoy their weekends, as I just got off of the phone with Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman who told me that there will not be any budget nogiations taking place over the weekend, at least not on the Senate side of the building.

Ackerman did say that he expects more activity on the budget next week.

In the meantime, the taxpayers can be assured that the legislature will not be convening over the weekend. UPDATE: Genuinely nice guy and devout socialist Frank Russo has a post up at the left-of-Berkeley California Progress Report website that (if you can get past Frank’s rhetoric) contains a nifty transcript of the from-the-roster dialogue between Perata and Ackerman at the end of the lock-down this morning.… Read More

I am a little worked-up that our intrepid publisher tag-lined my last post on the Fabrizio national Republican poll to somehow undercut the import of this unbiased survey showing broad support for Giuliani as a secondary note of the poll, by qualifying my post, in red no less, that I am also a Giuliani supporter! In response, and rather than bury my thoughts in a comment, I am issuing this blog challenge, and not to Fleischman! Hey Jon, I’m just reporting what I heard a respected pollster say, who is not a Giuliani consultant. I hope when I go see the Red Sox play the Angels in a couple of weeks here in Anaheim, that you won’t tag-line my further posts thinking I’ve joined the Romney road show with Mike Schroeder (former CRP Chairman), Scott Baugh (current OC GOP Chairman), and Adam Probolsky (respected OC-based pollster), all of whom have endorsed Romney, and call Orange County "Romney country." Well, I’ll be rooting for the Angels during that series. I hereby challenge Schroeder, Baugh and Probolsky to show up at the upcoming Angels/Red Sox series wearing those same questionable Red Sox hats they quite visably sported in the media when… Read More

We here at the FR have carte blanche to pick up Senator McClintock’s posts from over at the Citizens for the California Republic website, and here’s what he says in the wake of the liberation of the Senators from their chambers: **This is a good chance to remind all of our GOP legislators that if you send in commentary or thoughts on the budget or other issues, we try within reason to get those posted up.**

From the Senator:

BUDGET VICTORY – THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU FOR YOUR CALLS AND E-MAILS – YOU MADE A DIFFERENCE. … Read More

Well the lockdown is over – we’re FREE!

After a fruitless effort of trying to break us into passing the irresponsible Assembly budget, the seige is over.

Finally, calmer heads have prevailed and instead of the "we’ll break ’em" tactics, Senator Perata has decided that we should negotiate like adults.

We are working toward a budget without a deficit – that’s our goal. Our budget team will be working over the weekend with the Democrats. Hopefully we will get there.

Senator Perata is a bit testy, but at least we’re free.… Read More

And then there were two. Radlovic, Escobar and now Stan Carroll have abandoned thier bids for the 60th AD race to replace Bob Huff. That leaves Larry Dick and Curt Hagman to slug it out. See here. See previous post on Carroll here.… Read More