**Update: A loyal FR reader just clued me in — apparently Dole is stepping down to be replaced by Nevada Senator John Ensign. A good sign as Ensign has shown his meddle – voting against the President’s medicare expansion plans. Excellent.** Not too long ago, I posted a short rant on this site about my contempt for United States Senator Lincoln Chafee ("R"-Rhode Island). I put his "R" in quotes because this registered Republican votes with Democrats so often that it is disingenuous for him to be registered in the party of Ronald Reagan. He famously brags about how he didn’t cast a vote for President Bush in his last election battle with uber-liberal John Kerry. He also voted against confirming Sam Alito to the United States Supreme Court. When I wrote about him… Read More

Mike Villines came up the ranks with Pete Wilson and Chuck Poochigian, stepped into a very succesful business career, and made the decision in 2003 to take out Steve Samuelian in the 29th Assembly District race in 2004. He’s a family man, an experience businessmen, and respected leader on both sides of the aisle. There isn’t a more principled conservative in California than Villines, and he is deeply disappointed that Republicans in Sacramento keep voting out deficit budgets and putting bond measures on the ballot with the State’s fiscal mess still not under control.

I don’t know whether he will be able to hold his caucus together, but that is essential to any success Villines might have as leader. There is only one vote that counts, and that is on the State budget. If he has his way, California will have seen its last deficit. In my discussions with him, he agrees that California Republicans need to have a set of issues to be identified with before any electoral success is possilble. I think he will be the strongest negotiator on financial matters we’ve seen in several years in Sacramento. He understands the numbers, and has… Read More

Lynn Daucher’s lead has jumped by several hundred after another day of counting – to over 500. As Chick Hearn would say, “the jello’s jiggling.”

Or, to put it more simply, Game Over.… Read More

After meeting for hours today, Assembly Republicans have "unanimously" selected a new leader: Mike Villines of Fresno. Congratulations!! More to follow from the slower folks…… Read More

The FlashReport is on location at the Registrar of Voters in Orange County – the last place where the sun has not set election day.

The 34th State Senate District has been represented by Democrat State Senator Joe Dunn. Term limits have come along and it is now an open seat. The Democrat: Lou Correa, The Republican: Lynn Daucher. If you need more info on the candidates, you are failing CA politics 201. Currently Daucher is sitting on a 138 vote lead – it had been a mere thirteen votes on election night, but they’ve had one run of uncounted ballots that boosted Daucher’s number.

Speaking of uncounted ballots, I spoke with County Registrar Neil Kelley who said that there are likely 20,000 or so uncounted absentee ballots to be counted (the number isn’t clear, it’s based on division using the outstanding number countywide). In addition there are an estimated 3400 uncounted provisional ballots outstanding.

Representing “Team Daucher” are Bryan Lanza, Daucher’s CM, Joel Yang – here for Ackerman as the “numbers guy” – and batting cleanup is former FPPC Chairman Ben Davidian,… Read More

Other than providing a 400,000+ margin to Democratic candidates for LG and SOS, there were some other results of interest in Los Angeles County.

Candidate wise, Illegal alien councilman Sergio Calderon did win his water board seat. See here. LA GOP Leader Norm Ryan lost his re-election bid not to Frank Colonna who didn’t run. But he lost none the less. See here.A big upset was that Assemblyman Paul Koretz lost his bid for a water board seat.

Some passed.

In Santa Monica, Measure Y passed. This means that pot smoking is a lower police priority than cigarette smoking. See previous note on campaign here. The good news they passed a parcel tax to clean up beaches of everything but the homeless.

Los Angeles passed an illegal alien housing bond in Measure H and changed term… Read More

I think that the Governor may be carrying ‘bipartisan’ a bit too far – or, he needs to think more carefully about how what he says at the microphone is going to be received by the people who read it — in this case, his core Republican supporters.

The State’s top Republican elected official is in Mexico on a trade mission.

The Associated Press is reporting that the Governor on his trade-mission, "hailed the Democratic takeover of Congress as heathy for Democracy, saying ‘Washington was stuck.’"

Apparently the Governor said, "I think this is good that we have new blood coming to Washington, that we have new people with new ideas coming to Washington."

Newsflash: The Democrats are not bringing NEW IDEAS to Washington, they are bringing OLD IDEAS about how to increase the role of government in the lives of Americans.

Don’t get me wrong, many Republicans have called for change in Washington, D.C., but our version of change was for Republicans in Congress and the President to get their… Read More

(Published November 9th, 2006 in Capitol Weekly)

When I offered to write this column for Capitol Weekly, I must admit I was hoping for a much different outcome on this Election Day, which clearly was a big day for the party of Hilary Clinton–especially when you look at the results of the midterm elections around the country.

The GOP loss of the House, and most likely the Senate, is bad news for all of those who believe that our federal government is too fat and spends too much. Republican leaders need to make the case to voters in 2008 as to why the GOP should be given back the reigns of leadership. The impact of the national GOP losses in Congress was given an emphatic exclamation point with the defeat of House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo in California’s 11th Congressional District.

**There is more – click… Read More