Certainly the most intreguing news in California politics surrounds Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s reappointment of Joe Nuñez to the State Board of Education earlier this week. You see, Nuñez is a State VP with the California Teachers Association — and according to the CTA’s President Barbara Kerr, Nuñez is actually in charge of their union’s legislative and political activities. Yes, this would include the massive assault on Governor Schwarzenegger and his reform agenda on last year’s special election ballot. Even better — Nuñez is actually the Chairman of the Alliance for a Better California, which is the actual front-group formed by the unions to fight the Governor. It has been postulated in at least one newspaper that Schwarzenegger may have re-appointed Nuñez in order to shepherd through the confirmation vote on his former State Education Secretary Alan Bersin, whom Schwarzenegger also appointed to the State Board of Education last year. Once appointed, you can serve up to a year without Senate confirmation, which Bersin has yet to get. As a matter of fact, his one-year is coming up soon. I… Read More

A lot is happening in Orange County these days — and I have been remiss in keeping FR Blog readers up-to-date.

I’ll start with the most important news: the Wal-Mart near my house is now open 24 hours a day. OK, I admit that has zero impact on the lives of 99% of FR readers — but for a parent like me who is wont to forget until 11:00 o’clock at night that he’s supposed to bring 30 juice boxes to his daughter’s kindergarten class the next morning, it’s a very significant development. On to other news. This is the most litigious OC election season in my political memory. Tom Umberg unsuccessfully sued to have Lou Correa thrown off the 34th SD primary ballot. The Umberg camp felt they had maybe a 1 in 5 shot at winning the suit (based on the reluctance of judges to throw candidates off the ballot) — but you … Read More

Lets just look at the numbers, with minimal comments from me.

The raw numbers in AD 77

Anderson (Nygren) – 141k COH & 21k spent in period.

Beecham (Coronado) – 147k COH & 20k spent in period.

Beyer (Justin) – 85k COH & 10k spent in period. That’s pretty low COH for LaSuer’s candidate.

Dale (Wainio) – 82k COH & 38k spent in period. This campaign is spending a lot of money real early. My count shows 12k in finance and 9k in radio in this disclosure alone.

The raw numbers in AD 74

Garrick (Coronado) – 351k COH & 35k spent in period.

Packard (No Consultant) – No on-line filing. My understanding is that he has less than 35k COH.

Waldron (Gilliard) – 195k COH & 21k spent in period. Come on guys… right before every disclosure Waldron puts 100k in, and right after she takes it out. That’s nice cause the campaign can then claim to have raised 100k extra every time and at least on paper remain in the game for folks who dont pay that much attention. But in my book that means her campaign is actually at around… Read More

So Fabian Nunez thinks the illegal immigration issue is dangerous for Republicans. How thoughtful it is for him to want to help us avoid the electoral pitfalls of border enforcement (read it here.)

Nunez joins the ranks of media-appointed experts from across the political spectrum who warn that Republican officeholders who dare to support enhanced border security measures will be punished by a loss of support from Hispanic-American voters. But this isn’t such an easy issue for Democrats either.

Perhaps Speaker Nunez should ask Phil Angelides and Steve Westly why they weren’t giving speeches at last weekend’s protest rally in Los Angeles to half a million potential primary voters. Maybe he should ask them to explain the political calculations behind their decisions to not even attend. And he should definitely ask them when they will run television ads bragging about their support for drivers licenses for… Read More

Adam Smith of California hosted a 50th C.D. forum this morning at the Mission Valley Hilton. Thirty or sowere onhand to hear the views of six of the leading GOP candidates, makingthe gathering intimate enough for some fun … although it would have been even better to see Francine Busby squirm in this group. Apparently, she was too busy movin’ on or something, although she was invited.

As the six candidates tried to squeeze length-wise down an eight foot table made for four, I quipped that it looked like the last supper. Richard Earnest, not considered a contender at this point by many, proved his mettle in the humor department by quickly shooting back, "It is for some."

Adam Smith moderator Rick Otis’ first question was about the declining moral values of the nation, which Brian Bilbray handled as if a newborn fundamentalist. Alan Uke quickly referred to a Brian vote in support of gay adoption, with Bilbray shooting back that the vote was about single parent… Read More

Naturally when I am out of the country on vacation, we have one of the busiest days in California political news in a long, long time. It took me a long time to put together the main page this morning, which means less time to write up a commentary on the news. We’ll try it in bullet-point format today:

The lead column today is by California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson. Today marks the one-year anniversary of his appointment to this post by Governor Schwarzenegger, filling the vacancy left by the resignation of Democrat Kevin Shelley. Shelley had been elected to the post in 2002, but was forced out of office due to scandals. McPherson has really been doing a great job with the office – and has thoroughly ‘cleaned house’ from the previous administration. The culture of corruption has been replaced with a culture of hard work, and desire to bring the principles of representative government to every Californian. Please take a few minutes to read his column! Yesterday Rob Reiner finally called it quits from the Prop. 10 commission. In doing so, he may be attempted to shift the limelight away from the boatload of … Read More

Naturally when I am out of the country on vacation, we have one of the busiest days in California political news in a long, long time. It took me a long time to put together the main page this morning, which means less time to write up a commentary on the news. We’ll try it in bullet-point format today:

The lead column today is by California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson. Today marks the one-year anniversary of his appointment to this post by Governor Schwarzenegger, filling the vacancy left by the resignation of Democrat Kevin Shelley. Shelley had been elected to the post in 2002, but was forced out of office due to scandals. McPherson has really been doing a great job with the office – and has thoroughly ‘cleaned house’ from the previous administration. The culture of corruption has been replaced with a culture of hard work, and desire to bring the principles of representative government to every Californian. Please take a few minutes to read his column! Yesterday Rob Reiner finally called it quits from the Prop. 10 commission. In doing so, he may be attempted to shift the limelight away from the boatload of … Read More

Teachers unions on both sides of the Bay Bridge are threatening to strike. Yesterday, an Oakland Teachers Association representative said the union shortly would be announcing their “scheduled work action” plans while San Francisco teachers gave a big thumbs up to the union’s plans to strike if the district does not go along with their pay demands. The SF union representatives said that a strike could happen by mid-April if negotiations don’t go their way. Rumors in Oakland have been flying about a possible strike as early as next week, although parents and teachers have been working on plans to run “strike schools” for quite some time.

The big disagreement in … Read More