Well, my convention guest, Erik Brown, and I just landed in Minneapolis airport. While we were generally disappointed no passengers on our flight in were carryinh stuffed red, white and blue elephants, we had a great trip out.

While we are tired from all of the cross-country travel, we’re not the most tired. Staring at an empty baggage carousel near ours, waiting for baggage after an even longer flight was the GOP Governor of Hawaii, Linda Lingle. Erik and I said hello with a tired enthusiasm that she managed to meet.

We’re currently off to the Bloomington Sheraton, which will now be the satellite HQ of the FlashReport for the next five days.

This week I encourage FR readers to keep an extra eye on the FlashReport and this blog for fun snippits out of the Republican National Convention. As my friend Anthony York of Capitol Weekly pointed out in his DNC Convention coverage — no real “news” comes out of these staged events. So we’ll be looking to bring you some up-close observations. For my part, I will attempt to be sarcastic and insightful in my observations, as you would hope and expect!… Read More

Official Statement of California Republican Party Vice Chairman, South, Jon Fleischman in response to an announcement today (see here) that at the “recommendation” of Senator John McCain, the RNC has announced that they are definitely scrapping tomorrow night’s convention session and leaving the opening that they might just cancel the whole thing (except “technical requirements” to place McCain/Palin on the ballot): **See Disclaimer Below**

"I couldn’t disagree more with this response to the tragic pending landfall of Hurricane Gustav along the Gulf coast. Of course this is a horrible occurrence, and I am sure that everyone agrees that all efforts humanly possible to assist those in need to should be taken.

I totally understand and appreciate if Senator McCain, President… Read More

In Saturday’s Sacramento Bee, Jim Wasserman reports that a UC Davis Graduate School of Management study found that overspending is the biggest culprit in personal bankruptcies. Previously, illness and unemployment were the primary reasons.

It certainly came as no surprise to me that irresponsible behavior leads to financial ruin.

The liberal California State Legislature and Governor have gone down the same path.

Read the story.… Read More

In this battle against growth in government, Republican legislators must stick together and be a team. When I say Republican legislators, I mean both Senators and Assemblymembers. There is strength in unity — and this budget battle is one where, working together, we can end up with a budget that does not raise taxes, ultimately ensures that taxpaying Californians are not penalized for the overspending ways of liberal politicians.

I have heard that Senate President Pro-Tem Don is contemplating bringing up the Governor’s so-called "compromise" plan (we prefer to call it the surrender-to-more-taxes plan) for a vote as early as today.

Here are some guidelines that we here at the FlashReport think would be good ones for our Republican legislators…

No Republican votes should go up on any budget until that document has been vetting by both the Senate and Assembly Republican Caucuses, and that there is agreement that both caucuses can support a particular budget. Nothing could be worse, this particular … Read More

In this battle against growth in government, Republican legislators must stick together and be a team. When I say Republican legislators, I mean both Senators and Assemblymembers. There is strength in unity — and this budget battle is one where, working together, we can end up with a budget that does not raise taxes, ultimately ensures that taxpaying Californians are not penalized for the overspending ways of liberal politicians.

I have heard that Senate President Pro-Tem Don is contemplating bringing up the Governor’s so-called "compromise" plan (we prefer to call it the surrender-to-more-taxes plan) for a vote as early as today.

Here are some guidelines that we here at the FlashReport think would be good ones for our Republican legislators…

No Republican votes should go up on any budget until that document has been vetting by both the Senate and Assembly Republican Caucuses, and that there is agreement that both caucuses can support a particular budget. Nothing could be worse, this particular … Read More

As the legislative session comes to a close, FR will once-again be publishing its annual list of the Top 20 Worst Bills that are on their way to the Governor. If you have suggestions on legislation that should make that list, please drop us an e-mail pretty quickly so our team can take your input!

Of course, there is a chance that the Governor will veto every bill this year, as a positive-by product of the budget stalemate (he promised to do so, but has already reneged at least once so his resolve is unclear).… Read More

UPDATE 5:30PM — Senate Republicans released more details on their plan. I have replaced the attachments to this post with one new single attachment (in .pdf form) containing all of the details released on this no new taxes plan. California’s Republican legislators today unveiled a budget compromise that balances the state budget with no tax increases, and with no borrowing from local government or transportation funds. The proposal was unveiled earlier this afternoon by Senate Republicans, led by Senate Republican Leader Dave Cogdill who was joined by his colleagues. They were joined by Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines and also Roger Niello, the Vice-Chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee, in a strong statement of GOP bicameral support.

I have attached some documentation that was disseminated by Senate Republican Leader Dave Cogdill with some high-level detail on the plan. Gone is the Governor’s proposed increase in the… Read More

This afternoon, a Republican budget package was released at a press conference here at the Capitol. It has no tax increases in it and is a very responsible base to work from in the budget discussions that need to happen very soon. Speculation is there will be an actual vote on it in the Senate. Many details [and criticisms from the spending community] will come soon!… Read More