Free Republic

Opening of La Fille du regiment tonight. He repeated Ah! mes amis! The only thing I've heard encored in 35+ years at the Met is Ah Pensiero (a chorus piece). I've never heard a soloist repeat anything. ML/NJ

Watchdog Group Accuses Sen. Florez of Extensive Election Law Violations Including Questionable Payments to Wife Thu Oct 13, 1:43 PM ET To: State Desk Contact: Ken Boehm of NLPC, 703-237-1970; Web: http://www.nlpc.org Dean Florez WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 /U.S. Newswire/ -- In a formal complaint filed Wednesday with the California Fair Political Practices Commission, a national ethics watchdog group detailed scores of violations of California's Political Reform Act by State Senator Dean Florez of Shafter. Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), which filed the complaint, said, "Sen. Florez has filed campaign reports riddled with errors and...

<p>SAN JOSE -- This time around, Assembly Member Nicole Parra is leaving nothing to chance.</p> <p>The Hanford Democrat is determined to leave this weekend's state Democratic Party convention with an official party blessing for her re-election bid this coming November against Bakersfield Republican Dean Gardner.</p>

SACRAMENTO -- What are we going to do about Dean Florez? That's the question fellow legislators in both parties are asking as they shake their heads over the latest set of unorthodox tactics the maverick state senator used to blast away a political roadblock threatening to stymie one of his bills. Florez, D-Shafter, inveigled Democratic members of the Assembly Appropriations Committee to vote for his big anti-smog bill even though he infuriated them in the process by publicly attacking a charming young Latina assemblywoman who also represents Kern County. It wasn't the first time Florez has gotten things done by...

<p>SACRAMENTO -- The political tornado surrounding the defeat of a key clean-air bill intensified Thursday with sharply worded letters to Democratic lawmakers accused of tanking the measure to help a colleague. Sen. Dean Florez fired letters to Assembly Members Nicole Parra, D-Hanford, and Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, after the bill to end the agriculture industry's historic exemption from air operating permits was held up Wednesday in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.</p>

<p>Should the Democrats have a replacement candidate on the recall?</p>

<p>The day after Assemblyman Dean Florez was yanked off a legislative committee that investigated the Davis administration's computer software contract with Oracle Corp., the only defenders of the Shafter Democrat came from the opposition party.</p> <p>Behind closed doors Wednesday, the Assembly Democratic caucus gave Speaker Herb Wesson a standing ovation for not only removing Florez from the chairmanship of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee but for kicking him off the panel completely.</p>

<p>Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson on Tuesday stripped the committee chairmanship from the crusading legislator who probed the Davis administration's computer software deal with Oracle Corp. -- just as his audit panel was about to investigate Davis' handling of veterans affairs.</p>

<p>Assemblyman Dean Florez, the maverick Bakersfield Democrat who this spring led a contentious inquiry into California's botched Oracle contract, was stripped of his committee leadership Tuesday by the Assembly speaker.</p> <p>Los Angeles Democrat Herb Wesson, who removed Florez from the chairmanship of the Legislature's leading investigative committee, would not give a reason for his decision.</p>

<p>SACRAMENTO - Issuing a blistering indictment of the Davis administration, the lawmaker leading the investigation into the Oracle deal concluded his inquiry Monday and blamed the failed contract on officials who bowed to political pressure.</p> <p>Florez, a Bakersfield Democrat who has presided over two months of hearings, recounted in extraordinary detail how a powerful lawmaker and advisers to Gov. Gray Davis pushed a controversial software contract that ``was at a standstill before Oracle began pulling strings.''</p>

<p>An executive of the company lashes out against a delay in the testimony of employees.</p> <p>An Oracle Corp. executive, outraged that a state legislative committee has postponed its plans to take testimony from company officials, lashed out Friday at what he called unfair and politically motivated treatment from the lawmaker leading the effort.</p>