Andy Pugno is the legal counsel for ProtectMarriage.com and is the lead attorney defending Proposition 8 in Federal Court. Below is a column from Pugno worth a read… Pugno is blogging on the trial here. What First Amendment? By Andy Pugno, General Counsel, ProtectMarriage.com Over the last couple of days, we have been treated by the plaintiffs to astonishing intrusions into areas supposedly protected by the First Amendment, including religious freedoms and the political rights of… Read More

This may come as a surprise to some, but perhaps not to all — but State Senator Abel Maldonado, while fairly well known by Republicans, is not well liked by Republicans. Gee, I wonder why? Could it be his deciding vote to smack every Californian with higher income, sales and car taxes?

I have just reviewed a statewide survey for the Lt. Governor GOP primary taken by Smith Johnson Research, of 500 likely Republican primary voters and on a first ballot test, the results are pretty clear. When those surveyed were asked for whom they would vote for Lt. Governor, they responded: FIRST BALLOT Aanestad 20.4 Maldonado … Read More

8:30 am Update: Here is the Fox News take. See Jim Lacy’s blog post here on FR as well.

From the AP (click for the link)…

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that corporations may spend as freely as they like to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, easing decades-old limits on business efforts to influence federal campaigns.

By a 5-4 vote, the court overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said companies can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to produce and run their own campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states.

It leaves in place a prohibition on direct contributions to candidates from corporations and unions.

Critics of the stricter limits have argued that they amount to an… Read More

Here is my executive summary on the Citizens United case and a sad prediction.

Citizens United, a nonprofit corporation (formed originally by my friend Floyd Brown) released during the last Presidential campaign a documentary movie about Hillary Clinton that was critical of her. It sought declaratory and injunctive relief in Federal Court on whether it would be subject to criminal penalties from the Federal Election Commission for distributing the movie. CU lost at the District Court level but appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court under Chief Justice Roberts had previously decided some cases that marginalized the broad sweep of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, which placed additional restrictions of First Amendment freedoms in a Federal election context, most notably, the Wisconsin Right to Life decision, which scaled back McCain-Feingold to allow for unlimited "issue advocacy" by a corporation during an election campaign.… Read More

Yesterday U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina held a ten minute press availability in Sacramento, following the upset win of Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts on Tuesday. Because I am in Sacramento, I went over the handy Flash Flip Camera, and was able to tape the entire thing. So here’s your chance to see what one of these press avails is like, and of course to hear the candidate in her own words, as opposed to just a snippet or two in variou MSM stories…

… Read More

I still have not reviewed carefully all 185 pages, but the US Supreme Court issued the decision in Citizens United today by a 5-4 conservative majority vote and a lenthy dissent by John Paul Stevens. That means one thing: freedom and the First Anendment won! It appears corporations will no longer be banned from involvement in federal elections. More later……… Read More

Wednesday was a great day all around. Not only did Scott Brown win an incredible victory in Massachusetts, but I saw polling numbers that show Tom Harman is leading all potential opponents to be our Republican nominee for Attorney General. Like many of you, I believe the tide is turning in our country and our state. Tom has always been a great supporter of mine, an excellent conservative particularly when it comes to holding the line on the budget and strengthening our criminal justice system and an aggressive fundraiser. This new survey of 500 registered Republican likely voters (see below) shows decisively that Harman is the frontrunner for the GOP nomination.

These results, along with his support from leading “3 Strikes and You’re Out” champion Mike Reynolds, are extremely strong indicators about the strength of his campaign and our opportunity to put this seat back in the GOP column – particularly when you consider that these same 500 Republicans said they would be more likely to support a… Read More

Last year Michael Steele upset the Republican establishment as the first outsider in a generation to win election as Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Massive forces were aligned against Steele, but the harsh lessons of wholesale Republican repudiations of 2006 and 2008 helped propel Michael’s message.

The message from Steele? That for Republicans to win again, they must embrace and act conservative. We have valuable lessons to learn from the Tea Party movement. Depending on the Republican bulls in Congress could be fatal. Over the years, many RNC vendors grew rich over no-bid contracts. In fact, there still remains an RNC member who was paid over $1,000,000 from the RNC — who was a fierce opponent to Steele’s election. Chairman

Steele promised reforms. No more no-bid contracts. Old favored vendors would have to compete. The Establishment would have to move over and and re-invent themselves.… Read More