FR friend Greg Lucas over on his California’s Capitol blog posts up a media release issued jointly by Senatoor Mark DeSaulnier and Assemblyman Mike Feuer, who are Chairmen of each house’s Select Committee On Improving State Government, are convening the first joint hearing to, "address the pressing need for state government reform."

I noted with interest the group of panelists that will appear before the committee:

Bill Lockyer, State Treasurer and former President Pro Tem of the California State Senate Robert Naylor, former Republican Leader, California State Assembly Laura Chick, Inspector General of California, former Los Angeles City Controller Mac Taylor, Legislative Analyst of California William Hauck, Chairman, California Constitution Revision Commission Fred Silva, Senior Fiscal Policy Advisor, California Forward and former Executive Secretary, California Constitution Revision Commission Bruce Cain, Executive Director, U.C. Washington Center and former Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies, University … Read More

FR friend Greg Lucas over on his California’s Capitol blog posts up a media release issued jointly by Senatoor Mark DeSaulnier and Assemblyman Mike Feuer, who are Chairmen of each house’s Select Committee On Improving State Government, are convening the first joint hearing to, "address the pressing need for state government reform."

I noted with interest the group of panelists that will appear before the committee:

Bill Lockyer, State Treasurer and former President Pro Tem of the California State Senate Robert Naylor, former Republican Leader, California State Assembly Laura Chick, Inspector General of California, former Los Angeles City Controller Mac Taylor, Legislative Analyst of California William Hauck, Chairman, California Constitution Revision Commission Fred Silva, Senior Fiscal Policy Advisor, California Forward and former Executive Secretary, California Constitution Revision Commission Bruce Cain, Executive Director, U.C. Washington Center and former Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies, University … Read More

Today mailboxes in AD72 were hit by two positive mail pieces promoting Linda Ackerman. The timing is critical because all of the district’s absentee ballot voters are also receiving their ballots right about now.

One piece ("Dear Friend" below) has been put out by the Ackerman campaign.

The other piece ("Ackerman IE Piece One") has been sent by an Independent Expenditure.

I will say this — it is critical that Ackerman’s campaign, in such a tight campaign window, put out mail that both promotes the positive image of her own candidacy — but, frankly, Norby who is popular in North Orange County will need to be brought down a notch or two (or twenty).

It will be interesting to see if the IE money for Ackerman continues to come — and also it will be interesting to see if that IE starts to go after Norby, hitting him hard.

I actually believe that for Linda Ackerman to win, it will be more important for her to sour voters’ impressions of Supervisor Norby that it will be to promote her own image — though clearly a mix of both is called for…

Enjoy the mail…… Read More

Matt Cunningham has posted up over on Red County that a significant amount of money is now coming to AD 72 voters on behalf of Linda Ackerman through an independent expenditure out of Sacramento — tens of thousands of dollars so far in just a couple of days of late-IE reporting. The mail is all listed as being in support of Ackerman (it could otherwise be marked as "opposing" Norby). We’ve written before that many of the Sacramento based associations that have been close with former Senator Dick Ackerman were rumored to be working towards an independent expenditure. We’ll have to look more closely to see exactly who is funding this one…

The Ackerman campaign has dropped another piece of mail today (linked below) that clearly is throwing down the gauntlet. The message from Ackerman to voters essentially is this: elect Chris Norby and you’re getting more of what you had with the last guy. That’s quite a case to make. Heck, the campaign has even entitled this piece, "Fresh Start."

Will that stick with the… Read More

Since July 2007, California has officially lost one million jobs and shows no signs of slowing down.

What will California’s elected leaders do about the abysmal economic climate that is pushing quite a few businesses out of our state?

Will Democrat leaders finally wise up and suspend Assembly Bill 32 – the Global Warming Sideshow – and work towards meaningful reforms of California’s business climate to enable companies to maintain jobs here, and God forbid actually expand and grow jobs in California?

Or, as I suspect, will they be unsatisfied untilCalifornia hits the two-million-jobs lost mark?… Read More

For over a year State Senator Jeff Denham has been running for the GOP nomination for Lt. Governor. Senate Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth had endorsed his colleague in his bid for higher office.

Today off the transom came a release from the campaign of State Senator Sam Aanastad, who recently announced that he, too, is seeking the GOP nomination for LG. The release announced the endorsement of Hollingsworth of his candidacy.

Needless to say, it seemed like an interesting story if Hollingsworth was dropping his support for Denham in favor of Aanestad. Were Hollingsworth not the leader, that wouldn’t be too shocking. Between Aanastad and Denham, the former is more ideologically conservative. But because he is the leader, it would have been a head-turned.

**There is more – click the link**

View Full Commentary… Read More

Over the weekend the campaign of Chris Norby dropped a mail piece to voters. "Why does Linda Ackerman Lie?" is in large print on the piece which takes to task Ackerman for dropping a piece attacking Norby on sexual harassment allegations.

This mail piece really highlights the fact that AD 72 voters will be getting a lot of "he said, she said" pieces going back and forth, which will make it very hard for those not closely involved in politics to sort of the truth of allegations (heck, even for those hip-deep in this stuff it is hard to figure it all out).

Nevertheless my initial thoughts are still relevant, the burden to overcome the back-and-forth and get a positive image of herself out there to voters will be on Linda Ackerman. Supervisor Norby is already a well known commodity in North Orange County. The challenge here is highlighted by a conversation I had with a non-political Republican voter from the district whom I asked about this race. He said that he was skeptical of allegations being brought up about Norby now. He wondered why allegations hadn’t been brought up before. I tried to explain that Norby hasn’t been… Read More

This last Friday evening and Saturday was the third annual Western Conservative Political Action Conference held in Newport Beach, California. The event, which drew as many as 350 people at its peak, represented a third straight year of growth for the event. While the event was relatively short in length, starting with a sunset reception on Friday and concluding with a dinner Saturday evening – Western CPAC was jammed pack with a great program that included a whole slew of great speakers.

For my part, as a Co-Chairman of the event, I wanted to see this event get high-level exposure through-out the conservative blogosphere, with a top-notch bloggers row. I reached out to my friend Elizabeth Crum, Vice President of the Nevada-based Citizen Outreach and Editor of the Nevada News Bureau, who… Read More