I have really come to enjoy the writing style of columnist William Bradley. I don’t always ‘agree’ with him, but that is a separate issue. He has penned a story for the LA Weekly that includes some observations of yesterday’s ceremony honoring recalled Governor Gray Davis as his official portrait was unveiled. It is a ‘must read’ for those following state politics…

While, I’m a Flashreport writer, I’m also President of the California Republican Assembly. The recent vote of our board has raised many questions. For further information on our unanimousvote to try pull the CRP’s pre-primary endorsement of the Governor click here.… Read More

In a move that pretty-much guarantees the escalation of this issue over Governor hiring Susan Kennedy as his Chief of Staff, I just received a press release from the California Republican Assembly calling for the State GOP, at its upcoming February convention, to pull the Governor’s pre-primary endorsement. The angst comes from the fact that Kennedy has spent the last two years as a Gray Davis appointee on the Public Utilities Commission, and before that she was the now-recalled Governor’s Deputy Chief of Staff, she served as Communications Director and senior policy advisor to United States Senator Dianne Feinstein, and she served as Executive Director of both the California Democrat Party and the California Abortion Rights Action League.

This resolution of the CRA Board of Directors (passed unanimously by their 27 member Executive Committee) is significant because a large percentage of the State GOP Central Committee (which has roughly 1400 members) is made up of proud CRA conservatives. The CRA is the… Read More

A couple weeks ago theradical Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a rulling declaring that the Voting Rights Act requirement that election materials be in various languages applies to recall petitions. The case was the succesful2003 recall of Nativo Lopez from the Santa Ana Unified School District Board. See a quick recap here.

A bitter campaign by unions against Wal-Mart in Rosemead has been derailed by that decision. After the city council apporoved 5-0 a development plan for a Wal-Mart, the unions and other Wal-Mart haters went to work. First they defeated 2 or the three incumbents that supported Wal-Mart.

That still left them one vote shy of a majority. So Wal-Mart opponents started a recall against the two incumbent members that weren’t up for election. They collected enough signatures and the election was on until the Ninth Circuit made their decision.

Now, the majority put off the election citing the lack of multi-language recall petitions. See the story here.

For now the liberals… Read More

As a follow up to my post the other day on the Grossmont Union High School District charter proposals, lots of media since then:

U-T: Support for charter plan urged

U-T EDITORIAL: Spectacle and substance at Steele Canyon High

NEHRING OP-ED: A plan for more charter schools in East County

On a side note, it seems the Grossmont donnybrook that took place the other night during the meeting on the Steele Canyon charter proposal, included some contentiousness over the election of board officers.President Jim Kelly retained his seat on a 3-2 vote, but only after an “attempted” nomination of board member Priscilla Schreiber.Attempted, in that – apparently – her nomination was somehow out of order, and a parliamentary challenge… Read More

RECALLED GOVERNOR DAVIS GETS PORTRAIT IN CAPITOL Well, the news loves to eat up photo-opportunities like this one. At any other time, disgraced former pay-for-play Governor Gray Davis would have slinked into the state capitol for a subdued ceremony to unveil his ‘official’ portrait to adorn some obscure wall on the ‘old site’ of the capitol. But Gray Davis’ stock is on the rise now, as two of his former Deputy Chief’s of Staff have now taking on two prominent spots as Chief of Staff to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Chief of Staff to First Lady Maria Shriver. Sound like a nightmare to you? Me, too. You couldn’t make this stuff up if you wanted: Here are two choice quotes for you:

Conventional wisdom is that the major issues facing the Congress leading up to the 2006 elections will be immigration, the deficit, and the war in Iraq. From where the Republicans sit today, we are in big trouble with less than a year to go, but a year in politics is three lifetimes. The GOP has a real opportunity to show improvement on all three defining issues in that year.

Today, the House Judiciary Committee will mark-up immigration reform legislation. This legislation, a Judiciary-Homeland Security Committee bill, will deal with border security and law enforcement and will likely sail through the House. The Senate could take up immigration reform in the next few weeks but likely won’t deal with it until next year (I know, it’s shocking that the Senate is moving too slow, but hey, they had to take this week off). Expect to see a bill signed by the President by spring at the latest, with a Senate-sponsored guest-worker program.

With modest deficit reduction ($50 billion over 5 years) working its way through Congress and a humming economy, the deficit is going to drop further. In fact we could see impressive… Read More

Now that a month has passed since the defeat of the Governor’s reform ballot measures (Props. 74, 75, 76, and 77), it may be a good time to begin a frank policy discussion about whether the initiative power should be itself reformed.

Back when the initiative power was added to the California Constitution, its purpose was to provide the people of the state with a direct way to implement public policy without having to go through the state legislature and governor to make needed reforms. The idea was that if special interests had a stranglehold on the state legislature, meaningful reform could still be implemented by direct democracy. How things have changed. Now, the initiative power is a virtual cash cow for political consultants and election lawyers (your humble author included) who often create from whole-cloth initiative proposals for the sole purpose of creating issues that give candidates a way to distinguish themselves from each other (recall Proposition 187), to advance a client’s singular interest (such as Propositions 79 and 80), or to provide a source of income in off-year elections. [Yes, I know I am cynical.]

Its not… Read More