Flying way under the news radar for most Republicans outside of the South Bay part of Los Angeles is a Congressional Special Election to fill the seat of Jane Harman, who up and left Congress to head up a think tank.

The map of CD-36 is one of those that fueled the cries for redistricting reform over the last several years, taking in obviously very specially selected parts of the South Bay – but not others. And by others, I mean the Republican parts. As of February, the voter registration stats in the District were 45.28% Democrat to 27.46% Republican.

But those numbers are deceiving, as the gap between Democrats and Republicans among voters who actually turn out to vote in this District is much smaller. For instance, the last time this District saw a Special Election was the May 2009 Statewide Special Election. In that Election, among the 77,775 voters who turned out – 43.15% were Democrats and 39.38% were Republican.

That to say, of course it is a long shot for a Republican to capture this seat, but it is within the realm of possibility enough for Republicans to be anxiously… Read More

Sunday night was one marked in history for our country. That night, I received a call from Secretary Gates alerting me that our special operations troops had launched a daring operation deep in Pakistan and killed Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the September Eleventh attacks and numerous other attacks on America. He also told me that DNA-evidence confirmed that bin Laden was dead. This was news that our countrymen had waited to hear for a long time. As Americans picked themselves up after the terrorist attacks of September Eleventh, President Bush told us that we would get Osama bin Laden and President Obama delivered on that promise. The events of 9-11 affected us all – in California, across America, and among our nation’s allies, and the memory of those killed that day are etched in my memory for life. We will never forget. And while it has taken longer than many expected, Osama bin Laden is no longer living, and his death serves as a type of proof to terrorists who wish to harm us, that no matter how long it takes, we will find justice.

Our brave military forces and their civilian counterparts who have been… Read More

California Congressman Buck McKeon, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, appeared on MSNBC this morning…

… Read More

From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail…

California Dems Get Even Less Serious California Democratic leaders, frustrated by the refusal of Republican state legislators to go along with tax increases to close the state’s $15.4 billion deficit, are threatening to focus budget cuts on the districts that those Republicans represent.

“You don’t want to pay for government, well then, you get less of it,” Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg told reporters last week. Mr. Steinberg echoed comments made by Treasurer Bill Lockyer, who said that budget cuts should be targeted at the districts of lawmakers who oppose putting $11 billion in tax increases before the state’s voters in a referendum.

“When it comes to kids or the vulnerable, I wouldn’t want to make distinctions between who lives in a Democratic district and… Read More

– Last night voters in the 4th Assembly District elected Beth Gaines — Congratulations! Despite her healthy margin of victory, Democrats will invariably try to spin that Gaines should have won by a bigger number of votes, making the case that voters in that conservative district suddenly are sour on conservatives. The unspin is that Gaines just went through a nasty, negative campaign against a well financed Republican opponent who opted not to endorse Gaines when he lost.

– It appears likely that California Democrats will work to mitigate the negative impacts of Proposition 14 by having in place a system where local Democrat Committee Members will be able to endorse a candidate for partisan office (Congress, State Senate, State Assembly) going into the June elections. This will put Democrats at a strategic advantage to Republicans who adopted a very restrictive system that will likely lead to the GOP sitting out most races until after June. Since the new rules no longer guarantee that each party will have a candidate on the November ballot, this could be a big boost for Democrats.

– Apparently “nice” and… Read More

It was not particularly surprising to see Democrats in the State Senate yesterday vote to ratify six more State of California public employee union contracts. After all, to say that these unions are the largest special interest funding Democrat campaigns for statewide and legislative office would actually be kind of an understatement. The financial donations made to Democrats by the state’s public employee unions are off-the-charts in terms of generosity. As the late Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh said, “Money is the mother’s milk of politics.”

Jesse Unruh

Shocking and disappointing, however, were the votes of two Senate Republicans to ratify all of these union contracts —… Read More

This is not a joke. The California Affiliates of Planned Parenthood, the country’s largest abortion chain demand parental consent. I know what you are thinking. Didn’t Planned Parenthood spend millions of dollars to stop several parental involvement laws for minors getting abortions?Didn’t Planned Parenthood support efforts to let kids from 12 on up make their own medical decisions about mental health and contraception? Doesn’t Planned Parenthood lobby against ANY effort to let parents know if their kid is getting an abortion?

The answer is of course yes to all those questions.

Planned Parenthood still believes that young girls can get abortions without ever informing their parents. Never mind the complications that can severely harm or even kill them. Let alone the fact they may never address the underlying issues that resulted in a 12 year old getting an abortion. See, today is Teen Capitol Day in Sacramento. Planned Parenthood is taking kids out of school to meet lawmakers and lobby on bills. Today AB 1306 by Assemblyman Tim Donnelly is being heard in health committee. It would require a flyer with … Read More

President Obama made the right call in approving the highly-surgical killing of master terrorist Osama Bin Laden at a compound in Pakistan, and he deserves credit for the successful mission. As Commander in Chief, he took a risk – both militarily and politically. Intelligence reports were reportedly initially far from conclusive when planning for the mission began last August. By last Friday the president felt he had enough intelligence to believe that Bin Laden was actually in the compound, and approved the mission.

As with any mission, success was far from certain, yet Obama gave the order. Good for him. Had it backfired, the news today (and for a longtime afterwards) would have been that Obama is an incompetent leader. We would have had a replay of Jimmy Carter’s disastrous April 1980 attempt to rescue 52 American hostages in Iran. In that failed mission, several helicopters crashed, no hostages were rescued and eight American servicemen lost their lives. The event played a major role in Carter’s defeat to Ronald Reagan later that year.

Instead, today we are celebrating the death of one of the most horrific terrorists in the history of civilization as a… Read More