There was a bit of good news Thursday in the fight for Republicans to hold onto the 15th Senate District Seat formerly held by Abel Maldonado (some would actually call it a chance for a GOP pick-up!): Monterey County officials reported that the U.S. Justice Department registered no objection to their initial request for holding a special election on June 22. This means that the federal government has not yet been persuaded by any of the rather outrageous legal objections (the election violates the Voting Rights Act, is racist, etc.) Democrats have been raising to try to delay the election until November, when more rank-and-file Democrat voters tend to turn out.

To recap, this all started six months ago, when Governor Schwarzenegger first appointed (sigh) Abel Maldonado to be Lieutenant Governor. In a blatant political move, Speaker Perez and company turned Maldonado’s February hearing into a race-baiting partisan spectacle with no consensus, and then delayed his second hearing several weeks so that the deadline would pass for consolidating the special election with the June primary.

Nomination of Maldonado aside, fortunately, Governor Schwarzenegger… Read More

The Meg Whitman campaign has launched a new radio ad featuring Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association President (and FlashReport contributor) Jon Coupal… (h/t to Richard Costigan, who alerted us to this on his twitter feed)…

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Unfortunately we are all used to the fact that when the Governor issues lists of new appointees, it is filled with Republicans and Democrats and people of neither party. These days, it is not uncommon to see Republicans on the short end when you tally the batch of appointees.

What is not very common, though, is to see the Governor to appoint members of minor third parties. In the case of today’s appointments, the Governor has appointed a member of the Green Party to a position over at the Public Utilities Commission:

We’re going to start posting up .pdfs of the major slate cards that are dropping around the state (note: are you a slate mailing company? Send us your .pdfs!) — so that you can see what they look like, and who they are featuring for office. Of course each is a sample, so you’ll know who they are carrying statewide, and in the local area that happens to match up with the sample they send.

The first slate is the National Tax Limitation Committee’s Voter Guide, which is managed by Jim Lacy’s Landslide Communications. The piece goes out to 1,400,000 households, targeting GOP voters. Yes, they will mail in the fall. Go to their website if you want to inquire about how to get on it.

Click on the images to enlarge.… Read More

Well, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Ace Reporter Carla "Scoop" Marinucci reports that Steve Poizner’s campaign is launching a new ad for the San Francisco Bay Area. This is notable because up until now, Poizner has had no broadcast ads up in that entire area of the state.

Below is the new ad…

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This just in from Ana Matosantos, Governor Schwarzenegger’s Director of Finance… This afternoon, Governor Schwarzenegger sends the revised version of his January budget proposal – the “May Revision” – to the Legislature. And while a budget should be a reflection of what Californians value the most – and a budget that safeguards its most important services and its most vulnerable citizens – that won’t be the case today, and the Governor will spell out clearly why that is.

What’s changed since January? Much that’s not positive. The recession’s lingering effects mean our overall revenues are below forecast. Program costs have increased and federal judges have blocked the state from implementing budget-saving measures that the Governor proposed and the Legislature approved. Because the budgetary solutions adopted in the Special… Read More

Greek Tragedy: There has been much publicity as of late, particularly among the financial community, about the fiscal problems in Greece. The Greek government has spent far more money than it has taken in and done it for enough years that they now have a huge deficit and an even bigger debt. There are fears that Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Ireland could be next. Stock markets around the world lurched downward out of fear that these systemic debts and deficits may not be able to be repaid and that these countries may need to default on their debt.

But they are not alone. Here are the current year deficits (2010) and outstanding national debt as a percentage of that country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for Greece, the largest European countries and the U.S.:

Country

Deficit as % of GDP

Public Debt as % of GDP

As I read this article in the Los Angeles Times, it caused me to want to renew my call for Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner to stop his pursuit of trying to force Insurance Companies to divest from investments that he does not like, which is what is going on here. The United States government has an official process whereby, if for national security reasons, they feel the extraordinary step of suspending the property rights of Americans to invest their money where they see fit, needs to be suspended in any way.

Steve Poizner doesn’t like that some insurance companies have some investments with companies that do some business in Iran. I don’t like it either — those companies ought to make new choices. Poizner should do two things — he should ask (and probably NOT on Department of Insurance letterhead) companies to change their investments, and he can write his Congressman and Senator, like the rest of us.

In the… Read More