Judges! Who knows anything about the judges on the ballot? I get asked this more than any other question. So the next few days I will be adding my two cents to some of these. First Los Angeles County has several judges up for election to Superior Court. The Los Angeles County Lincoln Club has a Judicial Improvement Committee headed by the able Richard Reinjohn. They make recommendations to the Governor for appointments. (He should listen more) and they make election recommendations. Their Nov 2006 endorsements are below. Pretty good stuff for people in LA County that need help.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Office 8 – Deborah L. Sanchez Office 18 – Daviann L. Mitchell Office 102 – Hayden Zacky Office 144 – David W. Stuart… Read More

Nationally syndicated columnist Bob Novak, most recognizable from his many years as a co-host of CNN’s Crossfire program, follows politics pretty closely. As a matter of fact, his Evans & Novak Political Report is a great e-mail to receive if you don’t get it already. It’s free, so you can check it out if you want (if you aren’t wary of feeding your e-mail to him, and whomever he sells it to). Anyways, Novak has officially placed Arnold Schwarzenegger in the "Likely Republican Retention Column" in his latest e-mail. Here’s his chart:

Republican-Held Governorships In Play… Read More

My friend Nathan Barankin who works for Attorney General Bill Lockyer has to be having a good chuckle after reading the latest post on the Los Angeles Times Political Muscle Blog, penned by veteran political reporter Bob Salladay.

From the Tales of the Bizarre comes this story about some long-ago history on Claude Parrish, the GOP nominee for State Treasurer. Apparently once upon a time back in the ’80s, when Parrish owned an ice-cream company, he bought a pricey sports car, and according to records unearthed by the Times, he proceeded to not make his payments. The story of what happens from their is, like I said, bizarre. I would try to summarize it here, but I have to say that Bob Salladay does a delightful job of sharing the story. But with players like Claude Parrish, the "Cheap Detective Agency." and a Mercedes-Benz SL380 Roadster — we know it will be interesting.

I will make two observations, and then send you on to read the sordid details…

… Read More

Today’s lead Editorial from the Orange County Register Are we borrowing trouble again? Audit finds millions misspent from parks, water and wildlife bonds passed in 2000 and 2002. An examination of annual state audits of four bonds passed in 2000 and 2002 shows "questionable spending on public relations, lobbying and even yoga classes."

The San Jose Mercury News, in stories published on Tuesday, outlined that some groups receiving bond money "failed to properly document expenses, claimed unallowable costs and went over budget because of inconsistent monitoring by state agencies."

California voters should keep such audits in mind as they consider five bond measures on the November ballot: Propositions 1B (transportation), 1C (housing), 1D (schools), 1E (levees) and 84 (water quality and parks).

The Mercury News studied audits from the California Department… Read More

California politicians are for the most part still ignoring one issue: Illegal immigration

Defend California and U.S. Senate Candidate Dick Mountjoy are promoting an initiative that will stop the benefits that help sustain and attract illegal aliens. See Press Release below. Get more info here. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Jeff Evans @ 916-858-8190

DEFEND CALIFORNIA: NEW INITIATIVE WILL STOP GOVERNMENT FROM PROVIDING BENEFITS TO ILLEGAL ALIENS Legislative Analyst Says Initiative Will Save Hundreds of Millions of Dollars Annually

Fed up with legislative action every year to give driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, former State Senator Dick Mountjoy has joined with the non-profit organization Defend California to craft an initiative to prohibit such efforts.

"Our initiative will once and for all prohibit any government entity from giving tax-funded benefits to illegal aliens," said Mountjoy, a… Read More

Many politicos in San Diego and Riverside are chuckling over Monday’s SDUT story indicating that Democrat challenger Mark Hanson hopes to raise $1.6 million to unseat Senator Dennis Hollingsworth in the 36th SD.

Uh huh, right. The district is 50% Rep, 27% Dem, and elected Bush over Gore in ’04 by 30 points. Hollingsworth initially won the seat over the more moderate Charlene Zettel, even though he had way less money. Even SDUT reporter Phil LaVelle had to have written Hanson’s claim while smirking about such gravitas.

By all standards, SD 36 is a suicide seat for any Democrat.Hanson, who doesn’t seem to have any significant personal resources, raised $80k thru September 30, with $11k cash-on-hand.His unrealistic hopes may be based on the fact that Hollingsworth has only raised twice that and has a mere $56k on-hand.

OK, for some fun, email me and take a stab at how much Hanson will actually raise for the… Read More

Thanks to FR friend Karen Hanretty for tipping us off this morning to a great post on the KQED Capitol Notes Blog site authored by John Myers that previews a in-depth article on former California Finance Director Donna Arduin. You can read Myers intro post right here, or skip it and read about Arduin in Duke Magazine here. (Arduin is a Duke University graduate).

We here at the FlashReport are big fans of Donna’s. She has written for this site, and was a Director of Finance that was undeniably focused on rooting waste and largesse out of state government spending.

Arduin was Governor Schwarzenegger’s first Finance Director, and now is in consulting firm with reknowed economist Arthur Laffer.… Read More

As avid readers of this blog know, I am not a big fan of reproducing canned press releases up onto this site (though I personally receive over 100 press releases each and every day from various candidates and causes).

Every once in a while, though, I get one that is noteworthy. Usually it is NOT because of the "content" of the release, but because it represents something novel in political tactics. So I am passing this one along which happens to be from the Schwarzenegger campaign and it is about Phil Angelides making claims that don’t bear out when you check the facts.

Check it out — kudos to whomever at TeamArnold thought up this one!

Of course, while you are reading it, you may as well wonder what other lies Angelides is out there spinning. This at a time when he Angelides is trying to say that his opponent is a liar — right. Look in the mirror, Phil! (Sorry for the awkward formatting on some of the links below — moving the release to the FR format was not flawless.)… Read More