Free Republic

In the blue state of California, a Republican stronghold east of Sacramento has been buffeted by a fierce GOP internal battle for hearts, minds and votes. The tempest is fueled by a dose of local tea party politics and pits three GOP rivals against one another – and a Democrat – who are all vying Nov. 2 for California's 1st Senate District. The Republican rivalry for the seat is testing whether one of them, termed-out Assemblyman Roger Niello, can survive what for many in the GOP is a cardinal sin: voting last year for tax increases to help close a...

Assemblyman Roger Niello, who cast a key vote to pass a state budget that raised taxes this year, has been replaced as the GOP's point man on the Assembly Budget Committee. The Fair Oaks Republican will hand his committee post to Assemblyman Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber, who is a freshman in the lower house but served a dozen years in the Senate, leaving in 1990. The switch was made by the Assembly's new Republican leader, Sam Blakeslee of San Luis Obispo, who has stressed that taxes cannot be raised again in tackling a $24.3 billion shortfall. "There is no doubt that...

Assemblyman Roger Niello is the thinking man's Republican. If that sounds like an insult directed at some Republicans, it is. The man from Fair Oaks, a car dealer by trade, is a bit of an outcast in his own party for daring to put duty above orthodoxy. One of six Republican "yes" votes on a torturous state budget that raised taxes, brought needed reforms and prevented California from running out of cash, Niello should be hailed. Instead, he is vilified, as he was on conservative talk radio last week, for believing that statewide insolvency was worse than raising taxes. Over...

State GOP won't pay to support tax backers By Peter Hecht California Republican Party delegates passed a resolution Sunday to deny funding for campaign mailers for six state lawmakers who voted for a budget with tax increases. But the party action, approved in a voice vote at the Republican's state convention in Sacramento, didn't include a formal censure of the lawmakers as originally drafted. The vote may be mostly symbolic because only two of the six targeted legislators are eligible to run for re-election in 2010. But Jon Fleischman, a state party officer and a conservative firebrand who publishes the...

Sacramento, CA (AP) -- A California Republican Party committee has voted to reprimand six GOP lawmakers who voted for a compromise budget plan that boosts taxes. The measure, which was endorsed Saturday during the party's spring meeting in Sacramento, also denies the lawmakers any financial support from the party during the 2010 elections.

Don't read their lips when California's Republican lawmakers say 'no new taxes' – they've put it in writing, signed their names, essentially inviting their own party to oust them if they renege. Every GOP lawmaker except Fair Oaks Assemblyman Roger Niello has signed the "Taxpayer Protection Pledge" this year, casting a shadow on budget talks by making any vote to raise taxes a potential career killer. [snip] Opponents argue that such vows can torpedo budget talks by making the outcome intensely personal and hamper efforts to find tradeoffs in bridging the state's $15.2 billion deficit. "They've put themselves in a...

Don't read their lips when California's Republican lawmakers say 'no new taxes' – they've put it in writing, signed their names, essentially inviting their own party to oust them if they renege. Every GOP lawmaker except Fair Oaks Assemblyman Roger Niello has signed the "Taxpayer Protection Pledge" this year, casting a shadow on budget talks by making any vote to raise taxes a potential career killer. "If you break the pledge, the people who voted for you will say, 'Excuse me, not only did you raise my taxes but you lied to me,' " said Grover Norquist, president of Americans...

A fight to replace Assembly Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is raging full force, with six candidates jockeying for position, burning up the phone lines and twisting arms. The dominoes are lined up: If Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Bakersfield, retires from Congress this year, McCarthy will announce that he's running for the seat held by his mentor. McCarthy will then launch his campaign and, in coming weeks, step aside as GOP Assembly chief. McCarthy would be replaced by Sacramento Assemblyman Roger Niello, a fast-rising neophyte, or by George Plescia of La Jolla, Rick Keene of Chico, Sharon Runner of Lancaster, Mimi Walters...

California taxpayers, perhaps poised to spend billions of dollars on new public works projects, deserve to get the most for their money. But that won't happen without changes in state law to speed up construction and hold down costs. Gov. Schwarzenegger's proposed $222 billion Strategic Growth Plan has focused the state on the need for highway, school, water, prison and court projects. But the debate about what should be included and how much the state can afford should also involve changes in how projects are delivered. AB 2025, by Assemblyman Roger Niello, R-Fair Oaks, would allow the use of the...

A bill that would make it much easier to remove racist language from tens of thousands of property records statewide has cleared the Legislature by a unanimous vote and will become law, barring a veto by the governor. The bill - Assembly Bill 394 - seeks to clean up a vestige of America's racist past: the "covenants, conditions and restrictions (CC&Rs)" that once used race and religion to keep all nonwhites out of thousands of neighborhoods. "No persons of any race other than White Caucasian race shall use or occupy any building or any lot except ... by domestic servants...