Free Republic

Democrat grabs slim lead as phone-call accusations fly Republican lawyers are investigating potential campaign fraud in the hotly contested 34th state Senate District race after Friday's ballot count pushed the Democratic candidate ahead by 783 votes. Senate Republican leader Dick Ackerman said he suspects Democrats working on Lou Correa's campaign may have coordinated with an independent campaign committee to siphon off conservative Republican votes from GOP candidate Lynn Daucher. Correa flatly denies the allegation, saying, "I had nothing to do with it." Ackerman says party attorneys also are investigating who funded last-minute campaign phone calls that attacked Daucher, including one...

The two major parties and special interest groups spent many millions of dollars in one state Senate district this year, and the net result was a virtual tie. Republican Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher eked out a 13-vote victory over Democrat Lou Correa in Orange County's 34th Senate District on Election Day, with hundreds of absentee votes still to be counted, and by Thursday, her margin had climbed to 138 votes. Regardless of who winds up with the seat, it's a fairly meaningless contest. Partisan competition for the Legislature was all but eliminated five years ago, when leaders of both major parties...

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...