Earlier, I posted a report on the entrance of wealthy magazine publishing baron Russ Warner into the 2008 race for the 26th Congressional District Democratic Party primary, a seat held by veteran Republican Congressman David Dreier. Read it here.Armed with endorsements from prominent DC Democrats, it seemed as if this once-failed Congressional candidate was in better shape heading into the upcoming election cycle. (In 2006, Warner was the heavily-favored candidate leading up to Primary Election Day, yet he saw his Congressional hopes shattered after a shock defeat to an under-funded perennial candidate, Cynthia Matthews. Well, it seems as if another failed 2006 Democratic primary candidate will be running. Meet Hoyt Hilsman, a … Read More

Earlier, I posted a report on the entrance of wealthy magazine publishing baron Russ Warner into the 2008 race for the 26th Congressional District Democratic Party primary, a seat held by veteran Republican Congressman David Dreier. Read it here.Armed with endorsements from prominent DC Democrats, it seemed as if this once-failed Congressional candidate was in better shape heading into the upcoming election cycle. (In 2006, Warner was the heavily-favored candidate leading up to Primary Election Day, yet he saw his Congressional hopes shattered after a shock defeat to an under-funded perennial candidate, Cynthia Matthews. Well, it seems as if another failed 2006 Democratic primary candidate will be running. Meet Hoyt Hilsman, a … Read More

Our Governor (pictured with Florida Governor Charlie Crist) is off making headlines in the Sunshine State today:

Associated Press: Schwarzenegger, Crist say people not politics should come first Schwarzenegger: States need to push Washington on climate change Florida News Press: Schwarzenegger adds muscle to Crist cause Orlando Sentinal: Schwarzenegger steals show at climate summit… Read More

Rich Hasen of Loyola Law School reports that yesterday, Wisconsin Right to Life ("WRTL"), the recent winner of a U.S. Supreme Court victory gutting the "soft money" prohibitions of the McCain-Feingold law regulating late campaign issue ads, asked the district court in the same case (still alive because of outstanding issues to be cleared up after the Supreme Court’s ruling), to reconsider its earlier decision to allow Sen. McCain and fellow campaign finance "reform" activists to formally intervene in the case. As background, when the Supreme Court ruled,it also set down some strict guidelines on the conduct of such cases in the future to assure that they are not burdensome to First Amendment rights. WRTL now argues it not only wants those rules applied to some other ads that they did in 2006, but also that it wants the district court to apply the new Supreme Court guidelines to kick McCain out of the rest of the case. – and all future such cases.

According to Hasen, Jim Bopp, lead counsel for WRTL, stated: "The Supreme Court has said there can be no more of the burdensome, complex, intrusive, litigation that WRTL… Read More

I received two emails today. One forwarded from the RNC legal department, the other from the person who created the website. They say they are taking down the logo and didn’t realize it wasn’y allowed. See previous post here. I may get to speak to "S.L. Reeves" soon.… Read More

Here it is, July 13th, and the Legislature still has not approved a state budget. Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez says he’s cancelled his vacation plans and told his colleagues that they may have a long summer in front of them. But it is not only the members who pay the price of a late budget—legislative staff, governor’s office and agency staff and lobbyists also pay the price for a late budget.

But a late budget is better than a bad budget. Given the fact that the state continues to have an ongoing operating deficit of $2 billion, the annual budget process is an opportunity to, at the least, not continue to add to our fiscal problems.

But that’s not the Democrats’ take on the budget. As usual, they are pushing for more and more spending. The governor proposed total spending of $103.8 billion in spending, while the Democrats are promoting a budget of $104.4 billion. This week, the Assembly GOP proposed $2.2 billion in cuts to… Read More

This story is developing, but I want to give FR readers a preliminary heads up…

Since I am not a Capitol denizen and neither are the vast majority of our readers, I will try to keep this post as non-technical as possible.

Yesterday, it would appear that Orange County’s lone Democrat Senator, Lou Correa, was the only one present at a “check in” session of the Senate (check in sessions are another long story but suffice it to say that the Senate chambers were empty, with Senators only signing an attendence sheet for the day). Correa announces that “without objection” a waiver of Senate Rules are granted to allow a very bad bill, one that had been effectively killed for the legislative year, to be granted a new lease on life. Of course, since Correa was the ONLY Senator present, his “announcement” went unchallenged.

The bill was part of the “Trojan Horse” package being put forth as a companion to ACA 8, the effort by California’s Redevelopment Industry to stave off the end of all abusive takings of private property by local governments through eminent domain.

Thanks to… Read More

Here it is, July 13th, and the Legislature still has not approved a state budget. Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez says he’s cancelled his vacation plans and told his colleagues that they may have a long summer in front of them. But it is not only the members who pay the price of a late budget—legislative staff, governor’s office and agency staff and lobbyists also pay the price for a late budget.

But a late budget is better than a bad budget. Given the fact that the state continues to have an ongoing operating deficit of $2 billion, the annual budget process is an opportunity to, at the least, not continue to add to our fiscal problems.

But that’s not the Democrats’ take on the budget. As usual, they are pushing for more and more spending. The governor proposed total spending of $103.8 billion in spending, while the Democrats are promoting a budget of $104.4 billion. This week, the Assembly GOP proposed $2.2 billion in cuts to… Read More