Free Republic

Shortly after Barack Obama won reelection in November, New Jersey governor Chris Christie pointed out that Republicans’ cloudy political prospects had a bright silver lining. “One of the reasons you have 30 Republican governors in America, and why we’re the only organization to add Republican strength,” Christie said, “is because people see us getting things done.” Christie’s stance countered most of the elite postelection commentary, which gleefully pronounced the Republican Party’s political irrelevance. But the governor was right. Since Obama first took office in 2008, Republicans have picked up a net nine governorships, bringing their total to 30 states,...

Three wealthy Californians have launched a new effort aimed at helping elect state legislators who demonstrate the "courage" to tackle major issues facing the Golden State. "Govern for California" is backed by Democrat David Crane, who worked as an advisor to former GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican investor Ron Conway, and Greg Penner, a WalMart Board of Directors member who is registered decline-to-state. The group has created a website website to educate voters about the importance and actions of the state's 120 legislators, arguing that the Golden State's governance woes "will never turn around unless the good people of California...

California's fiscal pickle – state and local budgets that are many billions of dollars out of balance – may have just gotten worse by hundreds of billions of dollars. The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has dropped a bombshell with preliminary new rules that, if adopted, would force governments to increase projections of pension liabilities by using tighter "discount rates" – effectively, lower assumptions of pension fund earnings. The huge California Public Employees' Retirement System, the California State Teachers' Retirement System, the University of California Retirement System and dozens of locally managed pension funds would no longer be able to minimize...

California is the nation's shameful example of what happens when Democrats influenced by big-government labor rule the statehouse for forty years. With 12.5% unemployment (up from 4.5% a mere three years ago) and a "recognized" budget deficit of $21 billion, California has just found that out it is in much, much more financial trouble than anyone, especially a Democrat, really wants to admit. California's governor Schwarzenegger commissioned a study by Stanford University, which has found that California's three public employee pension funds (The California Public Employees' Retirement System [CalPERS], California State Teachers' Retirement System [CalSTRS], and University of California...

Democratic lawmakers have denied David Crane, one of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's friends and economic advisers, a seat on the California State Teachers' Retirement System board. The Senate Rules Committee voted 3-2 along party lines Wednesday to reject the Republican governor's appointment of Crane to the board. Democrats said they were concerned he would not protect teachers' pensions. Schwarzenegger last year was forced to withdraw an attempt to alter public employee pensions after police and firefighters launched an ad campaign against it. The governor wanted to shift retirement plans for teachers and other public employees to a defined-contribution system - one...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Democratic lawmakers have denied David Crane (D), one of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's friends and economic advisers, a seat on the California State Teachers' Retirement System board. The Senate Rules Committee voted 3-2 along party lines Wednesday to reject the Republican governor's appointment of Crane to the board. Democrats said they were concerned he would not protect teachers' pensions. Unions opposed Crane's nomination because he thought CalSTRS should not have weighed in on the governor's pension proposal. Crane, a San Francisco financier, has served as the governor's special adviser on jobs and economic growth since Schwarzenegger was elected...

Much has been made about high-profile, high-powered Democrats in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration, from his wife, Maria Shriver, to his chief of staff, Susan Kennedy. Then there's Bonnie Reiss, a close Schwarzenegger friend who serves as one of his most trusted senior advisers, and Daniel Zingale, Shriver's chief of staff. But there is another Democratic powerbroker in the Horseshoe, a long-time Schwarzenegger confidant who is as influential in the administration as he is invisible to the public: David Crane. "He is involved in all of the key deliberations that I have been a part of," said Sunne McPeak, secretary of...

SACRAMENTO -- Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger named a pair of Democrats Tuesday as his new Fish and Game director and new jobs adviser. Loris "Ryan" Broddrick will head the Department of Fish and Game after a career with the department. He began in 1981 as a game warden and rose through the ranks to chief deputy director in 1997. He left the department in 2001 to join the western regional office of Ducks Unlimited as director of conservation policy. Broddrick, 53, of Gold River, will earn $123,255. The position overseeing the $279 million, 2,000-employee department requires Senate confirmation. Schwarzenegger also...