By Megan Barth and Katy Grimes

“A lot of the other candidates have gone out of their way to smack him (Trump) with a two-by-four and said some really nasty, vicious things. I’ve sung his praises. He’s bold, he’s brash, and I think the support he’s gaining right now in the polls is because people are looking for someone willing to stand up to Washington.”

~Senator Ted Cruz

Several recent news articlesreported a number of Washington D.C. Republicans have told Bret Baier at FOX News that they may vote for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump.

Self-described “lifelong Reagan Republicans” are appalled and repulsed by him, dismayed that the Republican Party let his potential candidacy happen. They are simply projecting their own failures and fears… Read More

Taking a page from the experienced,aging Jerry Brown political playbook, Democrats in Congress and the Obama White House appear to have been trying to destroy the economy and bankrupt the government given their policies the past six years. However, they’ve been stopped in their tracks, thanks to American voters, who in November resoundingly thrashed President Barack Obama, together with the Democrats in Congress, and their destructive policies. By defeating Democrats across the country, voters ushered in a Republican controlled House and Senate.

If only California could be so charmed.

I met with California Congressman Tom McClintock, of California’s 4th District, following completion of the first week of the new Republican majority Congress. McClintock, a prudent, stalwart Conservative, cleared up several falsehoods being repeated in the media about Republican and Democratic leadership, and clarified the Constitutionality of the President’s recent actions. And McClintock smiled when he said that with former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid no longer in power, Congress can finally get to work and deliberate.

Congress had quite a first… Read More

Shutdown Day 12 and 13: I did not write you yesterday. Not because I have lost any affection for you, but because the “negotiations” in the House and the Senate were moving so fast that I feared that anything I wrote you would be obsolete before you had time to read it. There is still a risk of that on this gloomy and wet Sunday morning in Washington, DC.

I also wanted to put down my rhetorical sword in the hopes that real discussions to perhaps get a win-win solution here were ongoing. It seems that whenever I give this administration and their allies the benefit of the doubt, it leads to disappointment. And it did so again this weekend.

Here is where we stand as I see it. I put the word “negotiations” in quotes because it is quite clear now that the president was disingenuous in his agreement to enter negotiations. House Republicans made a good faith offer to begin resolution of this dispute. The offer was one that I and others didn’t think was very good from our perspective, but it was made. The White House took a day to pretend as though they were negotiating, because they are clearly sensitive to that criticism,… Read More

Government Shutdown Day 11: This will be a short update today. Negotiations are ongoing between Speaker Boehner and his staff and President Obama and his staff. Also, over in the Senate, there is a sizable group of Republicans and Democrats also working on an agreement. Apparently, only Harry Reid is still holding out to not negotiate and is not involved in any of this or may be trying to mess it up.

At this point, I have no idea what has been put on the table and what has not. I don’t know if the negotiations are going well or poorly. I don’t know if this is still two separate negotiations or if there is some collaboration with the Senate. I don’t know if a deal will be reached, and if so if I will like and support that deal or dislike it and oppose it.

But after 11 days, we are finally doing what should have happened 3 weeks ago. Both sides of divided government are talking, negotiating and compromising. That is as it should be. That is how it has to be.

I’ll give you another update when some proverbial smoke comes out of the chimney signaling some agreement.

Until then, drive fast and live free.… Read More

Government Shutdown Day 10: I hope you enjoy getting these daily laptops…because I think they’re going to be coming to you for a while.

This whole dispute has reached a new phase. First of all, we are now past just dealing with “Shutdown/ObamaCare” and are into “Debt Limit/Entitlement Reform” territory, as well. One is unlikely to be resolved on a long-term basis without also dealing with the other. Secondly, the rhetoric has stalled. The Democrats have been repeating the same messages for days now, as have Republicans. Thirdly, Washington is settling in to this debate, and both the House and the Senate are beginning to talk about doing a few things that are not directly related to the Shutdown/Debt Limit, such as the Farm Bill. .

But, political bodies do not stay stationary for long. So, there are a number of factors that may start to move things a little here. First of all, of course, is the looming Debt Limit. As you know, I don’t think that the well-publicized October 17th date (that the federal government is “supposed” to run out cash) has much meaning. But, by November 1st, the Treasury will likely be very close to… Read More

Government Shutdown – Day 2: Last night, we voted on three bills on the floor of the House. Each allowed one aspect of the shut down government to reopen until December 15th. The first one allowed the processing of veterans’ health claims. The money for these claims is entitlement spending and is not affected by the shutdown. But, the processing and paying of these claims stopped because of the shutdown and this bill fixed that. The second bill allowed locally derived revenues in the city of Washington, DC (revenue from things like parking meters and local taxes), which have nothing to do with the federal government, to be distributed to the city so it can continue normal operations with normal revenue. By the way, this is a quirk in the law specific only to the “federal city”. Thirdly, it would fund the U.S. Park Service in order to reopen the national parks.

All 3 of these bills were brought up under an expedited process in the House called “suspension of the rules”. This process enables quick action, but it requires a 2/3rds vote of the House to pass a bill. That means it is within the power of the minority party to… Read More

Compromise: First of all, thank you to all those who live in the new 45th Congressional District in California for your strong support of my reelection. It looks like I will have won by a margin of 18 points in spite of a new district (50% of which I have never represented), a poor year for Republicans and another opponent who spent many times more money than I did and spent it largely on negative advertising. I appreciate your confidence in me. I will not let you down.

But, I must confess, it didn’t feel much like a winning night. Frankly, I haven’t been this saddened in a very long time. Yes, I won convincingly, but politics is a team sport. I need friends and allies to get stuff done, and a lot of them lost.

I will let others do the political analysis of why the election turned out as it did. But, I will tell you that my sadness is much deeper than it was four years ago. In 2008, we were pretty sure that McCain was going to lose, and we had some hopefulness that Obama wouldn’t turn out to be as bad a president as we feared. But in 2012, we were pretty sure that Romney/Ryan were going to win, and we are pretty sure that Obama,… Read More

As an addendum to my “Fix It” episodes, I thought I’d share an op-ed I wrote that was published in the Orange County Register last Friday.

The Orange County Register: Opinion CAMPBELL: Biggest National Security Threat is Debt

Conservatives should not oppose attempts to makes cuts to defense, homeland security.

By Congressman John Campbell

As conservatives, we are always trying to reduce federal spending because there is a lot of waste and inefficiency in government, because more government spending often does not result in better outcomes, and because there are many things the federal government simply should leave to “the States respectively or to the people,” as the 10th Amendment instructs.

Clearly, spending for the “common defense,” enumerated in the preamble to the Constitution, is one of the unassailed responsibilities of the federal government. No argument there.

But, why is it conservative orthodoxy to assume that defense spending is immune from waste and inefficiency or that more spending in this area alone is… Read More