Free Republic

LOS ANGELES - Despite millions of dollars in campaign spending and a flood of attack ads, the 2007 California Legislature could end up with the same partisan lineups as the 2006 version. Democrats won 47 of the Assembly's 80 seats and were leading in a 48th district that was too close to call early Wednesday. Republicans captured at least 32 seats, the number they had going into the election. In the Senate, where half the seats were on the ballot, only one seat had a chance of changing hands - the lone district held by Democrats in heavily Republican Orange...

SACRAMENTO -- Nearly every time I've walked into the Capitol building this week, I've been buttonholed by one Republican or another who says something like, "Did you see that Nicole Parra voted for driver's licenses for illegal immigrants?" It's all part of the GOP's search for anything they can use to help Republican Danny Gilmore in his campaign to unseat the Democratic assemblywoman who represents the west valley 30th Assembly District. Republican strategists believe the district, while it is heavily Latino in population, is conservative, especially on social issues like immigration, abortion and guns. They hope to paint Parra as...