We’ve been seeing reductions in staff at MSM newspapers for years now, as these publications deal with the significant decline in revenues and print-circulation. As these cuts have taken place, we’ve seen a serious pruning of veteran California political and policy reporters.

In the Voice of San Diego today there is an article about a new wave of cuts at the San Diego Union Tribune as its new owner makes changes in how they will operate. Included in the broad cuts are a number of local political reporters.

But of glaring interest (and alarm) to FR readers should be that longtime veteran political reporter and analyst John Marelius is among those departing the U-T in this latest reorganization. This is terrible news. John’s been observing and reporting on political here in the Golden State for as long as I can remember. Heck, I first met and dealt with John when I was an up… Read More

As implementation of Proposition 14 looms – which will emasculate political party primary elections – the organization and activities of local Republican Central Committees will become all the more important in helping to define differences between candidates. But the same election that spawned Prop. 14 also brought some curious changes to Republican Central Committees across the state as well. In Orange County, a whopping 17 incumbents were defeated in re-election bids for their party posts. And in Placer County, high profile GOP Chairman Tom Hudson and First Vice Chairman George Park both finished dead last in their districts and were thrown out of office. Why? The phenomenon did not occur in a number of other locations. Back in Orange County, high profile leaders like Scott Baugh and Tom Fuentes finished at the top of the ticket in their districts. The losers seemed contained for some reason. And in San Diego, Tony Kravric’s team was re-elected pretty much in tact. One observation was that “tea party” activists got traction in areas of some counties. That might be true in Orange County, but Hudson and Park claimed to represent the… Read More

From Today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary Email…… Read More

There was a lot of talk about the effect of Proposition 14 in the last election, and its effect on the legislative and congressional elections. The stated reason for enacting the "top two vote getters" idea for determining who gets to run in the general election was to "moderate" the caucuses, the idea being that if a moderate and an ideologue advance to the general election as the top two vote getters in the primary, the moderate is more likely to be elected, as members of the party whose candidates lost in the primary would be more likely to vote for the moderate of the other party.

While this idea is untested in practice anywhere in the country, interestingly enough, if Prop 14 was in effect in this election, it would not have accomplished its stated goal, at least on the Republican side of things. Of the 153 Congressional and Legislative elections held in the recent primary, only 10 would have sent two of the same primary to the general election. There would be 7 Democrat districts with two Democrats running in November, and 3 Republican districts with two Republicans. The Republican districts would have been Assembly District 25, and… Read More

It is summer and I just can’t avoid vacations centered around Gay Pride Days, at least that is what my friend and fellow YAFer Darin Henry says. I honestly don’t plan my vacations around these colorful events. Not that there is anything wrong with them. But it just happens. And too much!

Three years ago my wife and I planned a vacation to New York City and were able to snag a nifty room at the Peninsula Hotel at 555 Fifth Ave. Turned out it was ground zero for the annual Pride Parade, which I honestly had no idea was occurring this weekend. Below is a picture I shot at the time of one of the Pride Day participants. Streets were shut down all around the hotel and our lunch ended up being a dirty dog at a stand, because we couldn’t cross the street for raviolis.

Then we went to San Francisco last year for vacation. What happened? Pride Day Parade weekend. Lunch in the hotel. We decided we would go to church the next day.

I’m off to Dublin next week to work on my family tree. I’ll be in that lovely city for five days, working at the archives at Trinity College to pull info on 12… Read More

Only a foolish politician would make a crucial decision based on seeking revenge instead of enacting good policy. For proof, look no further than the Sacramento City Council and its mayor who voted last night to boycott any Arizona-based business in contract with the City.

It’s too early to tell if the act will have an injurious affect on Arizona, but I am willing to bet that Sacramento will suffer more than our neighboring Cactus state. A Sac Bee story reports about one AZ-based construction company (Sundt) that will lose contracts with the City of Sacramento, but at the cost of nearly 70 local jobs. (Insert Homer Simpson’s famous "Doh!" here).

Some people might ask why I care about the goings-on of the Sacramento City Council since I am a resident of Lancaster. But the fact of the matter is I spend time in the Sacramento city limits where I live part-time and purchase goods and services from local business people. I have reason to care and a right to be angry about local leaders choosing to engage in a political stunt over performing their civil servant duties entrusted in them by voters.

Furthermore, the Bee article states… Read More

My friend Larry Levine, a Democratic consultant, posted a very interesting factoid on our election law blog today. It is too interesting a matter to pass up on presenting here, so I want to be sure I am crediting Larry.

If Proposition 14 were in place in the most recent election, the top two vote getters for Attorney General would face off in the Fall general election. Who were they? Well, Republican Steve Cooley got the most votes of any candidate, Democrat or Republican. He would definitely be in the runoff. But conservative Republican John Eastman is currently within 9,435 votes of being the second biggest vote getter in the primary, as that is the small margin separating him and Kamala Harris, who won the Democrat primary.

Wow. The situation was caused by the fact that there were more candidates running in the Democrat primary for AG than the Republican primary, thus depressing overall vote among the Democrat candidates. That is a very interesting clue about how Proposition 14 will work in future. But could it be that under Proposition 14, Republicans will "own" the Attorney General position?… Read More

Last week, I mentioned that overmy next few blogs, I would provide someshort observations on the state of things here in Washington, D.C…and here is a group of several additional observations. Enjoy!

For decades, the assumption has been that government employees were paid less than their private sector counterparts. But the tradeoff was that the public sector jobs were more secure and often times, youcan’t be fired without gross malfeasance. That has since changed. Big time.The American Enterprise Institute, just completed a study whichshowed that the average government employee now makes significantly more than their private sector counterparts when pensions, generous vacations, and other benefits are taken into account. Equivalent workers in the private sector only make half that much! This is on the heels of another study which showed that government employees now earn about 25% more than private sector workers in straight salary without taking benefits into account. And of course, the … Read More