One of the reasons that our main page is shut down this time of year, is that the drop-off of interesting political news is substantial these last couple of weeks of the year. Especially on an election year, the political reporters who pushed themselves to the limits covering all of the elections have typically already made their "quotas" for the year and are enjoying a break.

Today, there were a few links worth highlighting on a very disturbing topic. As you know, last week Governor Schwarzenegger announced that he would veto massive taxes that were passed by the Democrats in the legislature by a majority vote. We here at the FlashReport feel strongly that these tax increases are illegal, as do taxpayer advocates such as Jon Coupal, President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

When the Governor held his press conference to announce his opposition to the package, though, he avoided opining on the issue of the absence of a 2/3 vote on the "revenue increases" and now is apparently negotiating directly with Democrat leaders, and there is no mention of… Read More

Our own Shawn Steel, who is Republican National Committeeman from California, has penned this piece which appears in Politico today. It is worth a read. A healthy critique of the incumbent RNC Chairman Mike… Mike who?

MIKE WHO? By Shawn Steel A friend of mine recently attended a “where do Republicans go from here?” session with a selected group of high-powered politicos — congressmen, legislators, donors, party leaders and activists — in the Republican citadel of Orange County, Calif. It was a group closely attuned to GOP politics. As a test, one of the congressmen queried the group, “Who is the chairman of the Republican National Committee?” drawing blank expressions as attendees racked their brains. Only two could come up with the correct answer —… Read More

A few months back, longtime FR friend Dan Weintraub of the Sacramento Bee started on a new project for the Sunday Opinion page of the Bee. This new feature is called "The Conversation" — they pick a topic, and ask someone to pen a lead editorial on the subject, and then get a couple of others to pen smaller companion pieces (to start a "conversation"). Today’s topic is the Future of the Republican Party and the lead editorial on the topic is penned by yours truly. The other, shorter columns are from Tony Quinn and State Senator Abel Maldonado. The Bee’s editorial board also weighed in with their own ten cents (with some sort of bizarre "we need a Republican Party that believes government should be smaller, but we think they shouldn’t be intractable and should actually compromise to give us bigger government — bizarre).… Read More

A few months back, longtime FR friend Dan Weintraub of the Sacramento Bee started on a new project for the Sunday Opinion page of the Bee. This new feature is called "The Conversation" — they pick a topic, and ask someone to pen a lead editorial on the subject, and then get a couple of others to pen smaller companion pieces (to start a "conversation"). Today’s topic is the Future of the Republican Party and the lead editorial on the topic is penned by yours truly. The other, shorter columns are from Tony Quinn and State Senator Abel Maldonado. The Bee’s editorial board also weighed in with their own ten cents (with some sort of bizarre "we need a Republican Party that believes government should be smaller, but we think they shouldn’t be intractable and should actually compromise to give us bigger government — bizarre).… Read More

SEIU’s response to the Governor’s executive order regarding state employees is so typical and predictable, but I find it thoroughly offensive this time. Usually, I can’t bring myself to emote over their antics, but today I’m fuming.

The business section of today’s Valley Times newspaper gave data to support my gut feeling for several weeks…the East Bay is taking the brunt of the unemployment burdens for the Bay Area, and is in fact, outpacing the state’s monthly unemployment rate by more than 2 to 1. The article by George Avalos states, “During the last 12 months, the Bay Area has lost 31,200 jobs. The East Bay accounted for 72 percent of all the jobs lost in the nine-county region in the last year. That is a stunning reversal from recent years, when the East Bay was the employment engine of the Bay Area economy, sometimes producing more than half the jobs in the Bay Area.”

It’s getting tough in my neighborhood. At every gathering I attend, the conversation always turns to either who has lost their job or who is afraid they will. Families are having a very tough time, and these are hard working people who have put in 60-80 hours a week to… Read More

Here is an exclusive commentary from Cameron Smyth, Chairman of the Assembly Republican Caucus:

Governor Is Right to Veto Unconstitutional Democrat Budget Plan By Assembly Republican Caucus Chairman Cameron Smyth

Rather than working with the Governor and Republicans to bridge our budget differences, Democrats embarked upon a different course Thursday.

Ignoring the Constitution and the will of the people, they tried to impose billions in higher taxes through a simple majority vote of the Legislature. The Democrat budget plan would send you and your family a $10.8 billion tax bill to bail them out for the years of reckless budgets and out-of-touch priorities by the liberal majority that caused our budget crisis in the first place.

They call their plan a “balanced” approach, but the only balance is that every kind of tax you can… Read More

We would like to wish our readers a Merry Christmas or a Happy Hannukah, and a great New Years. The FlashReport is currently in our "holiday break" mode, where we offer much more limited coverage. This takes place annually from the Saturday before Christmas through New Years Day. Traditionally the political news coverage is very slow, and it gives the elves here a chance to recharge their batteries before we return full steam ahead on January 2nd. The FlashReport Weblog on California Politics will be up and running during our seasonal break, and so we encourage you to keep an eye on it. Thank you so much for making 2008 the most successful year yet, by any measurable standard, for the FlashReport. We had more blog posts and more featured columns than any other year. We’ve had more readers (by far) than we’ve had since we began as an e-mail newsletter in 2001. We’ve had more visibility in terms of being mentioned in other blogs or in main stream media publications, and done more interviews than even before on television, radio, and for print media.

We… Read More

I may not be the biggest Schwarzenegger fan, but he had a strong message for the legislature this morning: solve the budget problem now, make real spending cuts and don’t punish the people of California with higher taxes. I have no doubt that the final agreement will include tax increases in some fashion (the people did put the never-met-a-tax-I-didn’t-like party in charge of the legislature and the governor has shown that he is willig to consider some level of tax increases). However, a responsible budget cannot ignore the need to cut the size of government.

Spending cuts are never popular. PTA leaders at my children’s schools are meeting parents at drop off and pick up with letters to send to the legislature to ask for schools to be spared from cuts. I refused the letter because I know that schools have to be part of this solution. So do health and welfare programs and the prisons. Those are the three areas where this state spends the majority of its money. But if we had real leadership in the administration of our public schools, we’d be making some serious changes in the bureaucracy, including making cuts in the fat in the school system… Read More