Free Republic

Moderate Republicans in California, having watched their party become increasingly dominated by conservatives as it sunk deeper and deeper into minority status, had big hopes after Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor in 2003. A new leader had arrived, one who because of a lightning strike of political good luck did not have to subject himself to the ideological litmus test of a statewide Republican primary. Just maybe, they thought, he could lead them out of the political wilderness. Schwarzenegger, as they saw it, was their kind of Republican: supportive of abortion rights, receptive to gay-rights issues, tough-minded on taxes, sensitive...

SACRAMENTO State lawmakers are betting that voters eager to avoid a Katrina-style disaster in California will rally behind a $4.1 billion bond on the November ballot to shore up the state's fragile levees. While few experts disagree that California needs to rebuild its aging levee system, an Associated Press review of the bond has found the measure requires voters to take a leap of faith that the state will spend the money the way lawmakers have promised. An extensive examination of the measure, reviews of state and federal studies, and interviews with two dozen water experts, lawmakers and environmentalists have...

California voters will be asked to approve a $4.1 billion levee bond in November. The figure represents a compromise between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had sought about $6.5 billion, and Democratic lawmakers, who had wanted to spend about half that. THE PROBLEM: _ Levee system: A fragile network of 2,300 miles of levees in the state's Central Valley and Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is in need of major repairs. The system includes 1,600 miles of levees that were reinforced in the 1960s and 1970s and 700 miles that amount to little more than grassy berms. It was built more than...

Mention Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in this heavily Hispanic section of Los Angeles County and the response is almost invariably negative. "I still think he's an actor, and not a good one at that," said Flora Lopez, 56, a supervision aide at a local school. "To me, Arnold hasn't done anything," said America Aguilar, 26, a student at California State University, Fullerton. "He cut the budget for the schools," said Arely Gonzales, a 27-year-old nurse, who pronounced the governor, "Awful." Their harsh views illustrate how far Schwarzenegger's star has fallen among Hispanics since the heady days of the 2003 recall election,...

Guess where the California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is tonight. How 'bout at a fancy White House dinner honoring his mother-in-law, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and the Special Olympics, the organization which she founded? In a measure of just how reluctant the Republican governor may be to be linked to the unpopular Republican president, Schwarzenegger took off for the East Coast today with no announcement that he and Maria Shriver would be VIP guests at the big White House fete held on the birthday of the First Lady's mom. We called the governor's office today and got no immediate confirmation on the...

Guess where the California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is tonight. How 'bout at a fancy White House dinner honoring his mother-in-law, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and the Special Olympics, the organization which she founded? In a measure of just how reluctant the Republican governor may be to be linked to the unpopular Republican president, Schwarzenegger took off for the East Coast today with no announcement that he and Maria Shriver would be VIP guests at the big White House fete held on the birthday of the First Lady's mom. And talk about secrecy! The governor's press office just put out a perfunctory...

Thirteen propositions that have qualified for the Nov. 7 ballot ask voters to authorize billions of dollars in bond issues and new taxes, creating political land mines for the candidates for governor, especially Democrat Phil Angelides. The cumulative weight of the measures could make it more difficult for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sell his ambitious package of public-works bonds. In the June primary election, voters decisively rejected a seemingly routine library bond issue whose price tag was a tiny fraction of what the Republican governor is promoting. The proposed tax increases on the November ballot complicate life for Angelides, the...

Four years ago, the state set a new low for turnout in the 2002 governor's election. But don't look for that to happen again, said Stephen Kinney, a partner with Public Opinion Strategies, in a speech Friday at the Southeast Chapter of the Los Angeles County Lincoln Club. Kinney predicted a turnout of 58 percent for the Nov. 6 election, in contrast to 50.5 percent in 2002. He based the prediction on his polling data. Schwarzenegger's approval ratings are up to about 56 percent, he said. "If you ask people what the important problems are, Iraq rarely comes up," Kinney...

Californians worried about local governments abusing their powers of eminent domain can rejoice in the news that the Protect Our Homes Act has officially qualified to appear on this November's ballot. The Secretary of State's office announced Tuesday that it had verified 683,712 of about 1 million signatures for the initiative, which would protect individuals and small-business owners from having their land seized and transferred to other private holders. (snip) From 1998 to 2003, California seized 223 properties for private development projects on the theory that the properties were "blighted," a requirement for using eminent domain. Most of these were...

Twenty-four years after he left the governorship of California— spending the intervening years as a radio host, attorney, state party chairman, presidential hopeful and mayor of Oakland—Jerry Brown, once dubbed “Governor Moonbeam,” is poised to return to statewide office. Brown easily won the June 6 Democratic primary for state attorney general. Should he win in November (and take over a position that his father held for eight years before becoming governor in 1958), the 68-year-old Brown will likely become a national political figure again. He could use the office of attorney general of the nation’s wealthiest and most populous state...

Kevin Spillane says that he and Ken Khachigian are confident that their candidate, state Senator Chuck Poochigian, can take down former Governor and current Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown. But there are some holes in the argument. Spillane, a veteran of moderate Republican campaigns, is senior consultant to the Republican nominee for state attorney general; Khachigian, former chief speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, is chief strategist. “When Californians are reminded of Brown’s record, Chuck will win. He simply needs enough money to get his message out," says Spillane. Spillane won’t say what their fundraising goal is. “I won’t go down that road,”...

Never mind that nine of 10 Californians have not heard of him. Never mind that his opponent enjoys blanket name recognition throughout the Golden State, more campaign cash and a double-digit lead in the polls. Chuck Poochigian — state senator from Fresno, a conservative Republican with a tough record on crime and punishment — has a blueprint for beating Jerry Brown in the race for California attorney general. He wants to run against Gov. Moonbeam. Poochigian plans to cite Brown's progressive past ... He wants to spotlight Brown's record as mayor in crime-rattled Oakland. He will rail against Brown's personal...

Tension between Antonio Villaraigosa and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Phil Angelides surfaced Friday as the Los Angeles mayor declined to say whether he backed his own party's candidate to unseat Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The rift between two of California's top Democrats became clear just after they appeared with Magic Johnson to celebrate the opening of a Starbucks on Crenshaw Boulevard. Minutes after Villaraigosa's tepid remarks on his candidacy, Angelides refused to take a stand on Villaraigosa's plan to take over the Los Angeles public schools. The dual snubs were part of a broad conflict between the two Democrats. Villaraigosa is torn...

Could Phil Angelides, the newly anointed Democratic candidate for governor, defeat Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger? Sure, it's a possibility. But will Angelides oust Schwarzenegger? With five months of campaigning ahead, it doesn't seem likely. Liberal Democrats may have gotten the champion they wanted, but in choosing Angelides over rival Steve Westly after a mudslinging contest, they also gave Schwarzenegger the challenger he wanted. The governor and his advisers believe that Angelides is too liberal, too angrily intense and too charisma-challenged to expand his appeal beyond hard-core Democrats to independents and moderates. Pre-election polls uniformly showed that Angelides fared worse than Westly...

Welcome to the live thread for the California Primary Election. Polls are open until 8pm tonight. If you are a registered voter, it is your duty to vote and defend your rights and civil liberties, protect your pocketbook, and vote the bums out where applicable. Feel free to discuss issues key to your local area that others may be interested in. Post your polling place experiences if you like. And post numbers as they come in later tonight.

After months of having the Democrats all over the state airwaves, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will be wasting no time after the June 6 primary to get back into the starring role in California politics. .... Then, it's Terminator Time: Word is filtering out that he'll hit the road on a big bus tour the next day. If that's true, it will not only put the pedal to the metal -- it won't give the Dems (or hey, the press corps) much time to recuperate from what's been a scorched earth campaign. ...... One other thing: Arnold looks to be going...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is attempting a political comeback as he faces reelection this year, courting Democrats and independent voters by distancing himself from President Bush and pushing an expensive bond proposal to rebuild California's levees, schools and highways. Schwarzenegger, one of the nation's most prominent Republicans, has criticized Bush's plan to dispatch the National Guard to the Mexican border. He has appointed Democrats to key state jobs. In recent weeks, he helped engineer a bipartisan compromise to get the $37 billion bond proposal on the November ballot, traveling the state with Democratic legislative leaders to promote it. And he has...

Arnold Schwarzenegger now has the former top aides to his two would-be Democratic rivals working for him. It’s all part of his strategy of “buying off the ticked off,” as an Arnold friend puts it. Yesterday the governor moved unilaterally to take another major Democratic issue off the table by raising the minimum wage. Today he appoints lifelong Democrat and environmental favorite Linda Adams as his new secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency. With the retirement of veteran air quality warrior Alan Lloyd from CalEPA, there had been concern in environmental circles that the secretaryship would go to a...

The Democratic candidates for governor didn't mean to -- but they gave the voters a step-by-step televised demonstration this week of why, when it comes to beating Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in November, it just might be time to start humming the theme from "Mission Impossible." Name-dropping: In the first 10 minutes, Angelides replayed the list of his endorsements -- Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi, the California Democratic Party, etc., etc. -- over and over. Hey, this was "Decision: 2006,'' not "Pimp My Ride.'' -- What's to disagree on? Westly and Angelides were twins on the McCain-Kennedy...

Arnold Schwarzenegger is one lucky fellow, which is to say he’s smart enough not to make the same mistakes twice. If I were a betting woman in this bluest of blue states, I’d put my money on the Terminator to win re-election, no small feat when you consider that every single other statewide office here is held by a Democrat. Let me make my biases clear at the outset. I’m a Democrat, but I don’t have a horse in this race. I’ve known Phil Angelides, one of his opponents, since 1988, when he was an early supporter of my presidential...