Ramos

Wednesday, May 23, 2012 – 09:30 a.m.

It sure looks as if San Manuel Band of Mission Indians Tribal Member and San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors candidate James Ramos’ campaign is pulling out all the stops in the final days running up to the June 5 primary.

Ramos is seeking to unseat Supervisor Neil Derry in the three-way contest.

Defense Department employee Jim Bagley is the third candidate.

Polls, in both Derry and Ramos camps, indicate Ramos may be in for some level of embarrassment in two weeks.

What level remains to be seen.

But weak support for Ramos in the low thirty-percent area won’t cut it in any way.

One thing is for sure. Ramos will be the first candidate, since bill former Assessor Bill Postmus, to spend upwards of $1 million in a primary contest, place second, and possibly face a runoff at best.

Postmus was successful in his bid.

But Ramos has many demographic factors working against him.

The largest of which is partisan party registration.

Ramos has been frantically trying to appeal to republican voters to throw Derry out.

A move that’s not working.

First. Republican registration dwarfs democrat by large 13% in the Third District.

Second. Ramos’ preferential tax treatment, because of his soverign tribal status, pisses people off.

Third. Ramos has no clue as to what a county supervisor does.

The latest sign of desperation in Ramos land?

Ramos had a information tent at Cal State – San Bernardino on Tuesday.

Not that there are really any votes to garner at the college campus. But I guess it makes for a good waste of time.

The message from the likely-paid Ramos representatives?

Neil Derry is a convicted felon!

Yep! That was the big message being conveyed to class go-er’s.

Desperate times do require desperate measures.

BY BEN GOAD
WASHINGTON BUREAU
bgoad@pe.com

Published: 22 May 2012 06:56 PM

A high-stakes showdown with national implications is brewing in the San Bernardino Valley, where six candidates are vying to represent California’s newly drawn 31st Congressional District.

No House race in the country on the regular 2012 election schedule has attracted more outside spending than the 31st, which stretches from Redlands to Rancho Cucamonga and includes San Bernardino, Loma Linda, Grand Terrace, Colton and parts of Fontana and Rialto. Special interests have pumped more than $900,000 into the race.

Democratic Party leaders in Washington see the seat as key in their quest to win back control of the House, and Republicans say they are resolved to stop them.

“It’s a must-win for Democrats,” said David Wasserman, an analyst specializing in House races for the Cook Political Report. “It’s not as critical a hold for Republicans, but they’d like to keep it.”

Two Republicans are running for the seat: Rep. Gary Miller, R-Diamond Bar, and state Sen. Bob Dutton, R-Rancho Cucamonga. On the Democratic side, there are four candidates: Redlands Mayor Pete Aguilar, Loma Linda attorney Justin Kim, nonprofit founder Renea Wickman and retired educator Rita Ramirez-Dean.

Under California’s new primary system, the top two vote-getters will advance past the June 5 primary, regardless of their party affiliation.

THE NARRATIVE

Reps. Joe Baca and Jerry Lewis, who together have represented the San Bernardino Valley for more than a decade, both reside in the 31st district. But neither is running for re-election there.

After California’s redistricting commission drew new political lines last summer, Baca, D-Rialto, opted to run in the adjacent and more solidly Democratic 35th district. In January, Lewis, R-Redlands, announced plans to step away from politics at the end of the year.

Lewis’ departure created an opening for Miller, whose home district had been redrawn. He quickly jumped into the race, saying he planned to move to Rancho Cucamonga anyway.

Dutton, who will be termed out of the state Senate, also announced a bid for the seat, creating an intra-GOP tussle. Dutton has the advantage of living in the district, and voters there are used to seeing his name on the ballot.

Miller, meanwhile, has a large fundraising advantage and won endorsements from both the National Republican Congressional Committee and the state Republican Party, thanks in part to his status as an incumbent.

Both candidates have also received support from Super-PACs and other outside groups that have injected large sums of money into the race. While state and federal law sets limits on contributions to candidates, Super-PACs are allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts through independent expenditures.

The National Realtors Association has spent more than $700,000 on TV ads, polling, consulting and other services in support of Miller through its congressional fund and political action committee. A Super-PAC known as Inland Taxpayers for Jobs has spent more than $50,000 in support of Dutton.

To read entire story, click here.

Four months after a California assemblyman was cited and released for carrying a gun into an airport, the Assembly passed legislation today that would require offenders to be taken into custody in such situations.

Democratic Assemblywoman Norma Torres said her Assembly Bill 2182 did not stem from the January incident involving Republican Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, which occurred at an Ontario airport on the first day of this year’s legislative session.

“This issue is about protecting the public,” Torres said of her bill.

With Republicans opposed, the Assembly voted 46-25 to approve Torres’ bill. Donnelly voted no on the bill but did not speak during floor debate today. AB 2182 now goes to the Senate.

Peace officers currently make the decision to take an offender into custody or to issue a citation based on an evaluation of risk to the public, such as prior criminal record and whether the suspect is a gang member.

To read entire story, click here.

Published: 20 May 2012 05:38 PM

In San Bernardino County’s safely Democratic 47th Assembly District, Joe Baca Jr. wants to return to the job he held for a single term several years ago.

And in the county’s safely Republican 33rd Assembly District, Assemblyman Tim Donnelly is trying to avoid becoming a one-term lawmaker himself.

Opposing Baca Jr. and Donnelly are a mix of elected officials, business owners and others running on the June 5 ballot. The districts’ strong partisan leanings and new, top-two primary system make it possible that the November elections will be a repeat of the primary campaigns.

The redrawn 47th Assembly District closely resembles the current 62nd Assembly District and includes Rialto, Colton, Fontana and part of San Bernardino. The new district, though, picks up Grand Terrace, drops the area around San Bernardino International Airport and reaches north to Devore.

Baca Jr., the son of Rep. Joe Baca, D-Rialto, represented the 62nd from 2004 through 2006, when he lost the Democratic primary for state Senate. He successfully ran later that year for the Rialto City Council, where he still serves.

In his candidate questionnaire for The Press-Enterprise, Baca Jr. said his top priorities as a lawmaker would be to encourage the creation of jobs through repealing “overly burdensome” regulations, increasing funding for community colleges, and approving public-works projects.

Newspaper publisher Cheryl Brown, of Rialto, a fellow Democrat, is Baca’s main rival. Brown is backed by the lawmakers who represented the area in the Assembly before and after Baca Jr.: John Longville and Assemblywoman Wilmer Amina Carter, D-Rialto.

Fixing the state’s chronically imbalanced budget is paramount, Brown said in her candidate questionnaire for The Press-Enterprise. She said she also wants to attract businesses and improve education and health care in the district.

Also running for the 47th are two Republicans, Thelma E. Beach, of Grand Terrace, a retiree, and Jeane Ensley, of Rialto, a retired fraud investigator.

To read entire story, click here.

Neil.Nisperos and Benjamin Demers, Staff Writers
Created: 05/20/2012 07:05:00 AM PDT

Donna Lowe will have her work cut out for her if she wants to represent the newly redrawn 41st Assembly District.

The Claremont resident and Tea Party supporter will be going up against three well-connected and better-funded Democrats – Pasadena Councilman Chris Holden, South Pasadena Mayor Michael Cacciotti and businesswoman Victoria Rusnak.

Lowe will also have to make sure GOP voters don’t cast ballots for Republican Ed Colton, who has experience as a business executive.

Lowe said the way to garner those votes is by bringing attention to the state’s economic business climate.

“People are moving out of the state, it is simply because of California’s insatiable thirst for spending and not being able to curtail its spending even during these hard economic times,” Lowe said.

“What we need to concentrate on doing is repealing a lot of the business regulations that make it unstable for businesses to relocate or start here.”

Lowe is an information technology manager for Safenet, Inc. She is the founder of the Claremont Conservatives Tea Party and a former Mountain View Republican Club board member. She has the support of the state GOP and lawmakers such as Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Hesperia.

The 41st Assembly District includes Upland, Claremont, La Verne and San Dimas as well as much of the southern San Gabriel Mountains and into Pasadena. Democrats hold a 43 percent to 34 percent edge over Republicans among registered voters.

The strong Democratic district, though, won’t be the only hurdle facing Lowe.

In a campaign finance report for January to March, Lowe had about $15,000 in her war chest. It put her available campaign contributions well behind the three Democrats.

At the conclusion of the January to March period, Cacciotti had about $46,000 and Holden had about $97,000.

Those figures though were no match to money that Rusnak had in hand – $232,000.

In recent weeks, residents in the 41st Assembly District have seen their mailboxes peppered by advertisements touting Rusnak. The Rusnak name will ring a bell with any car-conscientious voter in the region. She is the chief operating officer and president of the Pasadena-based Rusnak Auto Group.

While running as a Democrat, Rusnak’s campaign is also touting an anti-Sacramento sentiment. Her ads have splashed phrases such as “Results. Not Politics” and “Spending alone won’t improve our schools. We need to spend smarter.”

“I’m running because I think our state is in crisis. We need people from the private sector to participate in the Legislative process and bring a sense of reality to Sacramento,” Rusnak said.

Rusnak, a former environmental attorney, said she would not vote for any government program that does not have a previously identified revenue source.

The Democratic-dominated Legislature may be pleased if they see Holden make his way up north. The former mayor of Pasadena is the choice of the Democratic Party as well as the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO.

Holden’s campaign has highlighted his work in supporting the expansion of the Metro Gold Line to Pasadena. The work, his campaign says, has created jobs and helped businesses.

The Gold Line will expand into more cities in the foothills in coming years. For Holden, the foothills isn’t quite far enough. The commercial real estate consultant wants to see the line go all the way to LA/Ontario International Airport.

“I think one of the important projects we can continue to support is the completion of the Goldline out to Ontario airport,” Holden said. “It goes beyond a regional transportation project. It becomes a real job stimulator for the region.”

To read entire story, click here.

Sacramento– Gov. Jerry Brown’s latest budget proposal attempts to close a formidable $15.7 billion deficit, but the real debate at the Capitol in the next few weeks probably will be over how to cut just a fraction of the big amount.

That’s because about $2 billion in the governor’s budget represents permanent reductions in spending on state welfare, child care and other programs that Democratic leaders in the Senate and Assembly have pledged to protect.

Brown’s other budget proposals might be more controversial with the Legislature if the state weren’t facing such a large shortfall. Those include one-time solutions such as his proposal to seize almost $300 million from the national mortgage settlement that Attorney General Kamala Harris hoped to use to help distressed mortgage payers stay in their homes.

Some of Brown’s other reductions, like delaying the repayment of some loans, won’t cause a stir at all. The Legislature, which can pass a budget by a majority vote, has just under four weeks to approve a spending plan to cover the deficit by the June 15 deadline.

The scope of the dilemma faced by Democratic lawmakers and the governor was reflected in comments made by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, last week as he sought to reframe the situation by comparing it with the huge deficits of the past several years.

“I’m going to stop referring to this as a crisis,” Steinberg said. “It’s a problem.”

Not that the haggling on the relatively small permanent cuts will be easy. Both Brown and Steinberg predicted difficult negotiations, though Steinberg said, “I’m not looking for a big public fight here.”
4 touchy proposals

There are four main proposals over which Democrats and the governor are most likely to butt heads.

Those include proposed cuts to CalWORKS, the state’s welfare-to-work program; cuts to Cal Grants, which provides financial aid for low-income college students; reductions in state support for child care; and reductions to the In-Home Supportive Services program for the blind, elderly and disabled.

Brown has proposed $1.85 billion in reductions to those programs, including:

– An $880 million cut to CalWORKS by reducing from four years to two years the amount of time adults can receive welfare payments if they do not meet specific requirements for work activities.

– A $292 million cut to Cal Grants by increasing the minimum grade point average for students to qualify and reducing grants for students attending private or for-profit colleges and universities.

– A $425.5 million cut in the funding the state gives families to subsidize child care expenses, resulting in the loss of 29,600 child care slots.

– A $224.5 million cut to In-Home Supportive Services through a 7 percent reduction in hours for providers and by eliminating some services for people who are in a shared living arrangement.

To read entire story, click here.

BY JIM MILLER AND BEN GOAD
STAFF WRITERS
jmiller@pe.com | bgoad@pe.com

Published: 19 May 2012 06:16 PM

Fueled by new political boundaries and court rulings, campaign committees representing special interests have revved up spending this election cycle, and much of that largesse is focused on Inland Southern California candidates.

Independent expenditures committees, known nationally as super-PACs, have been a fixture of legislative and statewide elections in California since 2001. The Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision brought the same type of unlimited spending to federal contests, from president to Congress.

While state and federal law sets limits on contributions to candidates, super-PACs are allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money through independent expenditures. Super-PACs are prohibited from coordinating their efforts with candidates or their campaigns.

As of Friday, May 18, independent groups’ spending this year in California congressional and state contests totals at least $5.5 million, according to government filings. That’s on top of millions of dollars that state and federal candidates have poured into races from their own campaign coffers.

Last year’s redistricting process created several competitive congressional, state Senate and Assembly districts in the region that are drawing big money from special interests.

Through mid-Friday, San Bernardino County’s 31st Congressional District had more than $818,000 in super-PAC spending, the most of any House race in the nation in the regular 2012 election cycle, according to federal records.

The spending was dominated by the National Association of Realtors, which has shelled out more than $709,000 to support the candidacy of Rep. Gary Miller. The money went for polling, consulting, mailers and advertising.

Scott Reiter, the group’s political director, pointed to Miller’s background in real estate and development and record as an advocate for housing in Congress, where he serves on the Financial Services Committee and has worked to protect the mortgage interest tax deduction and tax credits for homebuyers.

“He’s a longtime supporter of homeownership, and he’s got a tough race so we wanted to help,” Reiter said.

Miller, R-Diamond Bar, is running in a new district representing much of the San Bernardino Valley. The five other candidates include state Sen. Bob Dutton, R-Rancho Cucamonga, and Redlands Mayor Pete Aguilar, a Democrat.

With at least three serious candidates competing for two spots in the general election, Reiter said the group, which usually focuses on November, thought it best to help Miller in his primary race. The fact that the group’s spending put the 31st above the other 434 congressional districts in terms of outside money is probably just a temporary situation, he said.

“I just think it’s a matter of timing,” Reiter said. “I would suspect you’ll be seeing a lot more from other groups very shortly.”

Other independent groups have spent money to help Dutton and Aguilar.

“Me and some friends of Bob Dutton wanted to help out … beyond what the law says we can give directly to candidates,” said former Inland lawmaker Bill Leonard, who helped organize the pro-Dutton Inland Empire Taxpayers for Jobs.

The group has spent about $50,000, records show. The money has come from several Inland donors, including Dutton’s father, Ted.

Leonard said the super-PAC was conceived as a way to help Dutton hold his own against Miller, a seven-term incumbent whose campaign committee had $1.2 million in cash on hand as of March 30.

“That was our hope and expectation a few months ago. But I didn’t expect the large amounts of Washington-interest money coming in. We’re kind of being swamped,” he said.

A super-PAC called Restoring Our Community has given more than $60,000 to Aguilar’s campaign. The identities of the donors have not been reported.

The only super-PAC spending on Inland congressional races outside the 31st took place in the High Desert’s 8th Congressional District, where the Jobs Opportunity and Freedom Political Action Committee has spent more than $30,000 on behalf of San Bernardino County Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt, a Republican.

SENATE CONTEST

In Riverside County, a vaguely named independent expenditure committee with unclear sources of money has injected itself into the 31st Senate District race.

To read entire story, click here.

Supervisor Neil Derry left. San Manuel Tribal Member James Ramos right.

Election 2012

Joe Nelson, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/19/2012 06:01:36 PM PDT

Things don’t appear to be slowing down one bit in the contentious race for San Bernardino County’s 3rd District supervisorial seat in the June 5 primary election.

Outspoken incumbent Neil Derry has sharply criticized one of his two opponents, former San Manuel tribal Chairman James Ramos, saying Ramos doesn’t have the political background to serve a constituency of roughly 407,000 people.

Jim Bagley, a former Twentynine Palms councilman and three-time mayor, is the third candidate in the primary race.

The geographically diverse district includes parts of the San Bernardino Valley, the San Bernardino Mountains and the High Desert. Redistricting based on new Census figures has expanded the district to include the Morongo Basin and the cities of Twentynine Palms and Barstow.

Derry doesn’t believe Ramos, whom he calls a “liberal Democrat,” is a good fit in a district with a heavy conservative base.

“If you don’t have the right message and the right background, it doesn’t matter how much you spend. I fit the district well. Mr. Ramos does not,” Derry said. “Ramos has no municipal government experience.

“His only experience is being chairman of the San Manual Band of Mission Indians and serving on the (San Bernardino Community College District) board, and that’s it. He has no land use experience.”

Ramos’ camp has criticized Derry, saying Derry has not led by example and arguing he campaigned for supervisor in 2008 on a platform of government transparency and ethics, but was charged by the state Attorney General’s Office last year with three felonies for allegedly laundering a $5,000 campaign contribution from a Highland developer.

Derry pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor for failing to report the contribution and prosecutors dropped the felonies, allowing Derry to retain his seat on the Board of Supervisors.

Derry denies doing anything wrong, and said he pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor to put the matter behind him so he could get back to serving the citizens he represents.

Ramos announced his candidacy for supervisor the day after prosecutors announced that Derry had been charged.

“I believe if the voters want to stop the corruption in San Bernardino County, they’re going to have to start choosing people who are basically ethical in their very nature, and that is James Ramos,” said Betsy Starbuck, Ramos’ campaign manager and the county’s former assistant auditor-controller-recorder.

Mudslinging aside, Ramos’ wealth from income generated by San Manuel Indian Bingo & Casino has allowed him to spend generously on his campaign, which makes the 3rd District supervisorial race unique.

To read entire story, click here.

Neil Nisperos and Benjamin Demers, Staff Writers
Created: 05/19/2012 07:08:49 AM PDT

Democrats Cheryl Brown and Joe Baca, Jr. could easily be considered the favorites to make it though June’s primary for Assembly District 47 and face each other in November.

The have name recognition in local communities.

They have funding from significant donors.

They have support from high-profile politicians.

But first, they will have to get by two Republicans, including a 95-year-old woman intent on helping her peers.

People who are lucky enough to reach their ninth decade might be grateful to take it easy. For Thelma Beach, she wants to take a seat in Sacramento.

“Age is a just a number. The years are just numbers,” Beach said. “Grant you, I don’t have the strength or stamina when I retired or when I was working but I’m up at 4 in the morning hitting the desk and the paperwork, catching up on all of the mail that I get.”

Beach’s platform centers on helping out fellow senior citizens. Recent budget adjustments have included cuts to public services that help the elderly such as in-home support care.

If elected, Beach said she would steer more public funds towards programs that would provide better care for the elderly.

The Grand Terrace resident was a senior administrative staff analyst and budget chief for the New York City Department of Corrections. She is for strict immigration control as well as improving the state’s school systems.

Beach and fellow Republican Jeane Ensley are running for office in an overwhelmingly Democratic – 50 percent to 28 percent – district.

District 47 includes Rialto, Bloomington, Colton, Grand Terrace and parts of Fontana.

Ensley, who is a retired fraud investigator for a credit card company, echoes a familiar Republican platform: The state has too many business regulations.

“In San Bernardino County, a lot of our tax base comes from mining,” Easley said. “There are so many restrictions – we are not allowed to mine as much as we use to and that would be a great source of income.”

Easley has slammed Assembly Bill 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act, which mandates that the level of emissions of greenhouse gases must return by 2020 to levels last seen in 1998. She said the environmental law hinder job creation and forces business out of the state.

To read entire story, click here.

Legislative Democrats aren’t organizing a bake sale just yet, but they say they will desperately search for cash in the coming weeks to avoid the most severe cuts proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown.

Saying the state’s budget deficit has risen from $9.2 billion to $15.7 billion, the Democratic governor has proposed more cuts to programs that serve the state’s poorest residents.

Brown has described it as a “day of reckoning” and wants his fellow Democrats to slash as much as possible before he asks voters to hike taxes on sales and high-income earners in November.

But Democrats signaled immediately that they plan to block some of the deepest cuts to welfare, child care and college scholarships for low-income students.

“We will scour the cupboards, look behind the pots and underneath the cushions, doing everything we can do to see if there’s some opportunity to reduce the extent to which we have to make these cuts,” said Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento.

Democratic lawmakers say they have cut enough in the wake of the recession and that Brown’s proposals would result in homelessness, even death.

“To me, a cut that you know may result in the difference between life and death, and a cut that will increase homelessness, it’s our obligation to avoid those cuts,” said Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, referring to proposed cuts in welfare grants.

Several Democrats said they want to “buy out” Brown’s cuts with creative ideas but offered few specifics. In the past, that has meant one-time accounting maneuvers, fund shifts and inventive changes that often fall short.

The governor insists the cuts are necessary to solve California’s budget problem not just this year, but in future years. Told that Democrats want to “buy out” his cuts, Brown responded, “With other cuts?”

“The key to true budget balance (is) ongoing cuts, and they are the most difficult, but also absolutely indispensable,” Brown said.

Besides his need to balance the budget, the governor has ample political motivation to persuade Democrats to approve as many cuts as possible, said Dan Schnur, a former GOP consultant who serves as director of the University of Southern California’s Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics.

“Brown seems to understand the voters don’t trust state government with their money, so he’s been trying to find a way, whether through pension reform or cuts in these areas, to regain some fiscal credibility with them,” he said.

Since 2007-08, lawmakers have cut monthly grants and reduced the time limit in the state’s welfare-to-work program, CalWORKs. The maximum grant for a family of three fell from $723 to $638 a month. Adults cannot receive benefits after four years, rather than five.

The state has slashed child care for low-income parents by imposing stricter income-eligibility requirements and cutting funding to child care providers.

California still has a disproportionate share of the nation’s welfare cases, because of the state’s demographics – a large share of younger, poorer residents – and the state provides aid for children after their parents exhaust eligibility.

But Democrats say cuts have been too fast and too severe. Brown now proposes to revamp the CalWORKs program by cutting off aid after two years rather than four for parents who do not seek work, training or education. The plan would save $880 million.

“We recognize that we’re going to have to make some cuts,” said Sen. Curren Price, D-Inglewood. “But we think these areas have already been cut to the bone. And so we’re going to be looking for ways to increase revenues. Taxes are certainly one way. Taking a look at some other loopholes, seeing how we can shift funds around.”

To read entire story, click here.

Outgoing Congressman Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands) left. Former San Manuel Band of Mission Indians Chairman James Ramos right.

Friday, May 18, 2012 – 10:00 a.m.

The sauce pan is simmering in the race for San Bernardino County Third District Supervisor.

The three-way race consisting of Supervisor Neil Derry, Former Twenty-Nine Palms City Councilman Jim Bagley and Former San Manuel Band of Mission Indians Chairman James Ramos is heating up heading into the home stretch to the June 5th primary.

If no candidate receives fifty percent, the top two contenders will face a November runoff.

Four years ago Congressman Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), District Attorney Michael Ramos and then-Sheriff Gary Penrod all recorded radio spots and automated dialer messages supporting Supervisor Dennis Hansberger, a republican.

The result? Hansberger lost to Derry, who is also a republican.

Lewis was reportedly bitter over his friend Hansberger’s loss and has been privately disparaging Derry, non-stop, since his election to the board.

Well it looks as if Third District voters are being treated to more of the same.

However this time the support is being bestowed upon Ramos, a lifelong democrat.

Automated dialer calls with a message from, the republican-in-name-only, Lewis have started peppering republican voters.

Somehow someone, likely Lewis, must feel he has sway with voters.

An arrogant assumption to make.

But it appears republicans are growing irritated as they learn Lewis is backing a democrat.

As many voters can recall. This is the same Jerry Lewis who;

• Spent his entire campaign war chest defending himself from an FBI probe into earmarks and influence peddling.
• Couldn’t regain the chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee after republicans took control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010.
• Led the charge in accelerating the growth in U.S. debt, by way of out of control spending under his previous appropriations chairmanship.
• Is retiring because of uncertainty surrounding his reelection potential.

And now Lewis is trying to shove a democrat down the throats of republicans.

The House leadership must be glad to see this guy leave.

But you never know. Lewis may be looking for a job at the casino.

Another bottle of scotch sounds more appropriate right about now.

Congressman Joe Baca left. State Senator Gloria Negrete-McLeod right.

BY BEN GOAD
WASHINGTON BUREAU
bgoad@pe.com

Published: 15 May 2012 06:03 PM

Neither U.S. Rep. Joe Baca nor state Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod has had trouble getting elected in San Bernardino County, where the Democratic stalwarts have held public office for a combined 50 years.

Now Baca, D-Rialto, and Negrete McLeod, D-Chino, are set to do battle in territory both have represented before: California’s newly drawn 35th Congressional District.

The Green Party’s Anthony Vieyra of Pomona also is running for the seat, which covers Ontario, Chino and Pomona, as well as parts of Fontana and Rialto.

With greater name recognition and significant war chests, Baca and Negrete McLeod are considered front-runners in the race. And both could wind up in November’s general election, thanks to California’s new primary system, under which the top two vote-getters advance — even if they belong to the same party.

Baca’s Rialto home was drawn into the adjacent and less Democratic 31st Congressional District when the state’s redistricting panel created new political lines last summer. But there are no rules prohibiting him from running in a district where he doesn’t live and, since no other member of Congress resides in the 35th, Baca chose to run there instead.

Baca, whose current district includes about 60 percent of the 35th, touts his tenure in Washington in telling voters what separates him among candidates.

“As the incumbent running in the 35th Congressional District, I have the seniority and experience necessary to achieve important victories for families in the Inland Empire,” Baca wrote in his responses to a questionnaire The Press-Enterprise asked candidates to complete.

Baca said that, as a member of the fiscally moderate “Blue Dog” congressional caucus, he is able to forge agreements with GOP lawmakers in Congress. He noted occasions when he worked with Republican members of the Inland area’s congressional delegation on transportation, public safety and water projects.

Negrete McLeod also pointed to what she describes as a record of bipartisanship during her 12 years in the Legislature. She noted that, unlike Baca, she lives in the 35th.

To read entire story, click here.

Watching the sad spectacle of Governor Gandalf yet again expounding on California’s budget horrors Monday was like going to see one of those dreadful, anemic sequels to a long-ago tapped-out blockbuster franchise.

“Jaws 5: Devouring the Poor,” maybe, or “Die Hard Drowning in Red Ink” or even, “Groundhog Day 2: Punxsutawney Phil’s May Revise.”

The only thing worse was reading the inane Back East commentary, written by the usual assortment of Romney-sniffing blowhards, ill-informed thumbsuckers and right-wing mantra-chanters whose knowledge and understanding of California politics seems proscribed by the collected rantings of Flashreport freelancers and the world’s shortest book, viz. The Wit and Wisdom of Jon Coupal.

By far the day’s dumbest offering was submitted by the Wall Street Journal’s William McGurn, who must have spent at least 10 or 15 minutes after lunch coughing up his hairball analysis comparing Jerry Brown to Chris “Two Man” Christie without mentioning what you might call some of your Key Differences between California and New Jersey like, oh say Prop. 13, Prop. 98 or the two-thirds vote. But we digress.

The funniest comment came from the governor his own self, who put a new entry into Krusty’s Collected Coinages by characterizing the maze of interlocking and convoluted political and financial entanglements that define the chronic budget mess as “a pretzel palace of incredible complexity.”

Spurred by that fine phrase, utterly exhausted by watching the wheezy old Lakers vainly try to run with the OKC Thunder and certain that, as past is prologue, everything worth saying about the budget plague has long ago been said, we burrowed deeply into our incomparable Dustbin of History Archive, returning to the surface with three Calbuzz Classics that frame the issue for all time:

Why California is still broke(n). Once upon a time, before anyone had heard of Tanning Mom, Instagram or Dubstep, we proved with geometric logic that the state’s fiscal woes, far more than a simple matter of budgetary arithmetic, in fact result from a confluence of mind-numbing political calculus.

Since then, some incremental progress has been made in addressing the utterly dysfunctional structure of state government, most notably the terrific job done by the Citizen’s Redistricting Commission and the electorate’s willingness to throw down a bet on the new top-two primary system as a way to send at least a few more pragmatic pols and a few less ideological hacks to the swampland of Sacramento. Sadly, the bottom line remains the same:

As state and local officials struggle to weather a fiscal crisis that threatens to drive California into insolvency, they wield power with the damaged machinery of a patchwork government system that lacks accountability, encourages stalemate and drifts but cannot be steered.

Friends make the worst enemies. Of all the budgetary idiocy that’s unfolded since Gandalf took office, not least of it the Department of Finance’s blue-sky, rosy scenario revenue projections last summer, the single lamest move may be the legislative leadership’s delay of previously agreed-to cuts that made the current awful problem worse, a shining example of a political dynamic we described with a major assist from Calbuzz Poet Laureate William Butler Yeats.

But for a governor of California in recent years – at least since the days of Pete Wilson and Willie Brown, when leaders had power and deals could be made and enforced — finding that one’s most difficult challenge is the opposition party is actually an anomaly. For Gray Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger — and this year Jerry Brown — the most debilitating opposition force in Sacramento is the extreme wing of his own party…

Jerry Brown is a centrist. Like Wilson, Davis, Schwarzenegger, he is trying to hold the center while those filled with passionate intensity flap and swirl around him. It is no service to the civic good for those on his left to set loose mere anarchy…

To read entire story, click here.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012 – 04:50 p.m.

Here is some news reverberating across the transom this week.

Brown wants portion of Harris foreclosure settlement

You gotta love it.

California Governor Jerry Brown, in an effort to cobble together more money to blow, wants to steal hundreds of millions of dollars meant to help distressed homeowners. The dough, a part of a national foreclosure settlement obtained by Attorney General Kamala Harris, is meant for distressed homeowners.

Harris has objected to Brown’s position.

And Brown appears as if he could care less.

One can only image what Harris is saying behind closed doors.

Issa endorses Cook

Stop the presses!

Congressman Darrel Issa (R-Vista) has endorsed Assemblyman Paul Cook in his quest to represent the 8th Congressional District.

Now this nod is definitely a scale tipper.

Laugh out loud.

CD 8 -  The Marine factor?

The battle of the Marines.

Yes, in the full out war in the 8th Congressional District, Assemblyman Paul Cook, a retired Marine colonel, and San Bernardino County Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt, a former Marine Non-Commissioned Officer, are pressing those credentials hard.

The latest mailers has Cook displaying his medals, while Mitzelfelt is in full dress uniform.

It was Cook’s ballot title of Retired Marine Colonel that swept him into the 65th Assembly District six years ago.

A title now unavailable to him this go around.

U.S. Postal Service slow with campaign mail deluge

The U.S. Postal Service is struggling to deliver campaign mail this go around.

The combination of heavily contested races along with San Bernardino County’s new rocket scientist registrar of voters has buried mail carriers.

Registrar Michael Scarpello decided to hold off on the early mailing of sample ballots this year.

Scarpello decided voters were irresponsible in keeping the pamphlet available.

This year the sample ballots were mailed at virtually the same time as actual absentee ballots.

The only addressee’s receiving political mail in a timely manner?

Voters using P.O. Boxes!

Assemblyman Tim Donnelly (Anne Cusack/LA Times)

Neil Nisperos, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/13/2012 01:52:32 PM PDT

A flap over a gun has provided fodder for Assemblyman Tim Donnelly’s opponents in a battle for the hearts and minds of voters in the 33rd Assembly District.

For his opponents in the June 5 primary election, Donnelly’s arrest for carrying a loaded gun into an airport was a vital lapse in judgment.

For Donnelly, R-Hesperia, it’s an overblown incident that clouds the real issues he says he stands for – smaller and more efficient government, with an unwavering anti-illegal-immigration stand.

At stake in the election is the right to represent voters in an area that includes Victorville, Apple Valley, Hesperia, parts of San Bernardino and Redlands, Barstow, Baker, Crestline, Lake Arrowhead, Highland and Newberry Springs.

If no one wins a majority of votes in the primary, the top two finishers, no matter what party, will face each other in the November election.

Donnelly’s opponents are quick to bring up two areas they see as vulnerable – what they say is a lack of legislative productivity and the now-infamous incident in which he was caught with a loaded handgun in his bag at L.A./Ontario International Airport in January.

Fellow Republican Bill Jahn, the mayor of Big Bear Lake, and Democrat John Coffey, an educator for special-needs students in Barstow Unified School District, pulled no punches against Donnelly, a tea party conservative and anti-illegal immigration activist.

“Everything he touches is dead on arrival because he’s pretty much well alienated both sides of the aisle,” said Jahn, a construction developer who has served on a number of local agency boards. “During my trips up to Sacramento, talking to different folks, I pretty much confirm that to be the case.”

Jahn’s campaign website provides several articles about Donnelly’s run-in with the law. Jahn said he believes the assemblyman received special treatment because, unusually, he was let go easily without arrest.

“I don’t care who you are,” Jahn said in a recent interview. “We’re not above the law, and we should all be playing by the same rules. …

“I’m a responsible gun owner, but you can bet your boots I know where my gun is. I know if it’s loaded. I know if I’m going carry it around I’d better have a concealed weapons permit, and I expect my assemblyman to do the same thing.”

Coffey, a lifelong Democrat and a former board member for the Newberry Springs Community Services District, said voters are tired of what he called the lack of legislative success from Donnelly, but he also called into question Donnelly’s judgment over the gun flap.

“I think it shows an appalling lack of judgment, and it’s indicative of irresponsibility,” Coffey said. “The man has children at home and he doesn’t know where loaded guns are at all times. I believe it gives the general public and voters cause for concern.”

In recent months, Donnelly pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor charges related to the gun incident and led a signature-gathering effort to repeal the Dream Act, which provides public funds to help illegal immigrants go to college.

Donnelly, who has been apologetic over the gun incident, isn’t shy about bringing it up. He says most people who have spoken to him about the gun incident have been supportive.

“The thing at the airport got blown up into a massive story way out of proportion to anything that made any sense,” Donnelly said. “The media knew they could sell papers, and my political opponents were pushing for it.”

On the matter of legislative success, Donnelly said it would be better if lawmakers passed fewer laws, and called attention to what he called his effectiveness as a voice on immigration and budget issues on the popular “John and Ken” radio show and “The Daily Show.”

“If you ask if I have been effective and if you measure it by whether or not I’ve taken the message that I went there to take and have done everything I could to leverage it with the media and talk about real issues, then I would say, yes absolutely,” said Donnelly, who is for shrinking state government. “I’ve been most effective in the state of California at trying to use the bully pulpit in our direction.”

Jahn painted himself as a lawmaker who is able to work across political parties in order to “get budgets in line” and reverse unemployment.

“I’ll be the first guy to tell you I’m a conservative, and I’m not going to vote to raise taxes, and there are other conservative principles that I’m not going to bend on,” Jahn said, “but there’s a whole lot of other stuff that can get done by both sides without either side compromising their principles.”

While Jahn aims to protect Proposition 13, the 1978 voter- approved measure limiting property taxes, Coffey said he would introduce legislation to curtail or eliminate commercial property from the measure’s protection.

“My best guess is this would generate $5 billion or $6 billion to exclude commercial property not occupied by the owner,” Coffey said.

Voter registration in the 33rd Assembly District is 33 percent Democratic and 41 percent Republican.

Reach Neil via email, call him at 909-483-9356, or find him on Twitter @InlandGov.

Read more: http://www.sbsun.com/ci_20615476/educator-mayor-challenge-donnelly-33rd-assembly-district-race#ixzz1urWaBuNN

In the first broad test of California’s new “top-two” election system, many candidates in heated races for Congress and the state Legislature have been campaigning earlier, spending more money and downplaying their party affiliation as they try to widen their appeal.

Gone are the party primaries, except in the presidential race. Now all state candidates appear on a single ballot. Only those who come in first or second on June 5 will move on to the November general election, in which no write-in or other added candidates will be allowed.

The new rules, approved by California voters in 2010, further empower voters who don’t belong to a political party — already the fastest-growing category in California, accounting for more than 21% of the state’s registration.

For the first time, some ballots for 53 congressional, 20 state Senate and 80 Assembly seats include unaffiliated candidates. Among the 36 who list themselves with “no party preference” are two congressional candidates who recently ditched their party ties: Ventura County Supervisor Linda Parks and former Assemblyman Anthony Adams of Hesperia, both previously Republicans.

Along with the new voting districts drawn last year by a citizens commission rather than by lawmakers protecting their own seats, the fresh election rules have prompted many campaigns to rewrite their playbooks.

“What the open primary has done is reshuffle the strategic deck,” said Democratic strategist Richie Ross. “The timing and the manner in which you communicate have got to be adjusted.”

Going negative on opponents during the primary could come back to haunt a candidate if it alienates voters needed to win the November runoff, Ross said. Candidates are no longer assured of getting to November by courting only voters in their own party. And races in some districts that used to be all but over in the primary will probably remain competitive through the fall.

“It’s very complicated, very new, and everybody’s going to learn a lot about how this is going to work,” said Richard Temple, a GOP consultant. His clients this year include Nathan Mintz, one of two Republicans and a Democrat running for a “swing” Assembly seat in the South Bay’s 66th District that could be won by either major party in the fall.

The other Republican in the race is businessman Craig Huey, who already has sent out at least one mail advertisement introducing himself to voters and knocking the Democrat, Al Muratsuchi, a Torrance school board member and deputy state attorney general. Given the nearly even registration of the two parties in the district, local politics watchers view Muratsuchi as the probable winner of one runoff spot. Mintz and Huey have to compete for GOP voters while also wooing independents and third-party voters.

Those voters can be unpredictable. Moreover, unless there is a contested presidential race or a controversial ballot measure or two to stir their interest, most unaffiliated voters typically do not turn out in big numbers for primary elections. Temple and others think that will change dramatically once independents understand their new power, but it could take at least one or two election cycles to sink in.

Democratic consultant Mike Shimpock, who is overseeing Muratsuchi’s bid and that of several others, said the new rules present a new challenge in deciding when and where to spend campaign money. That is especially true in districts that are strongly Democratic — like many in the Los Angeles area — or heavily Republican.

Previously, a candidate who matched a district’s lopsided registration had only to worry about winning the party primary and would campaign hardest, and spend the most, for that purpose before coasting to victory in the runoff. Now, with the possibility that two members of the dominant party could square off in November, those strategic choices are trickier, Shimpock said.

To read entire story, click here.

California Governor Jerry Brown (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

By Kevin Yamamura
kyamamura@sacbee.com
Published: Sunday, May. 13, 2012 – 12:00 am | Page 1A
Last Modified: Sunday, May. 13, 2012 – 10:48 am

In a gloomy preview of his May budget release, Gov. Jerry Brown said Saturday that California’s deficit has mushroomed to $16 billion, nearly $7 billion higher than he last estimated.

The Democratic governor blamed a slow economic recovery, as well as federal judges and administrators who blocked cuts to health care for the poor. Brown had previously pegged the deficit at $9.2 billion.

“This means that we will have to go much further, and make cuts far greater, than I asked for at the beginning of the year,” Brown said in a video released on YouTube. “But we can’t fill a hole of this magnitude with cuts alone without doing severe damage to our schools.”

The governor then made a campaign pitch, asking voters to approve his November ballot initiative to raise taxes on sales and wealthy earners.

Fiscal experts for months warned that Brown had been too optimistic in his January plan, particularly in his assumption that capital gains from California’s wealthiest residents would propel the state’s funding higher.

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office warned in February that Brown had overstated tax growth, a concern borne out when California ended last month $3 billion in the red for the fiscal year.

The governor is slated to release his revised budget Monday, and no sector that relies on state funding is likely to escape deeper cuts. Brown has already told state worker unions to expect at least a 5 percent compensation reduction.

Advocates for low-income residents expect another proposed round of deep cuts to health and welfare programs beyond what the governor sought in January, when Brown asked for a $1 billion reduction in welfare-to-work.

They predicted Brown will make another run at cuts in Medi-Cal health care for the poor that federal officials and courts rejected in recent months.

“It’s bad, it’s big and it’ll mean brutal cuts,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California. “The kind of cuts left to make will have huge impacts not just on families but the economy. There’s no good news here.”

After disappointing tax revenues last month, the Legislative Analyst’s Office said the state should expect a “few billion dollars” less than Brown projected through June 2013.

Brad Williams, a former budget forecaster for the analyst’s office, said Saturday that Brown not only had to assume $3 billion less through June, but he likely reduced his expectations for the 2012-13 fiscal year by a similar amount.

On top of that, the governor alluded to federal court and administrative decisions that blocked spending cuts he had counted on in January.

Federal officials in February rejected $575 million in annual savings from requiring low-income patients to submit co-payments for medical services. A federal judge also has blocked about $500 million in annual savings from reducing payments to doctors, pharmacists and other Medi-Cal providers.

Meanwhile, a judge blocked a $100 million cut to in-home care providers who serve low-income elderly and disabled residents.

“It’s a daunting number,” said Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, of the governor’s new deficit estimate. “We’ve dealt with a larger number before, but … the choices are even more difficult this time.”

To read entire story, click here.

BY JIM MILLER
SACRAMENTO BUREAU
jmiller@pe.com

Published: 11 May 2012 10:04 PM

Michael Fine, Riverside Unified School District’s deputy superintendent for business services, can tick off the hard numbers of what four years of recession-era state budgets have meant for his 42,000-student district.

The district has lost $110 million and confronts an annual $20 million gap between revenue and spending. The school year, which spanned 180 instructional days before the recession, is now 176 days.

There are 187 fewer teachers and other certificated personnel, an 8 percent reduction, and all staff has had at least five days of furloughs. Class sizes have gone from 20 students to 26 in kindergarten through third grade, he said.

“We have gone so far the wrong way on this, in my opinion,” Fine said.

California’s economic struggles have lasted longer than many officials expected. In Sacramento, the budget tumult of recent years has had another result: widely differing interpretations of the statewide impact of the downturn’s toll on state programs used by tens of millions.

Both parties agree that cuts have been made. But Democrats and Republicans are billions of dollars apart in their assessments of how much the state has reduced actual spending.

A thicket of fund shifts, borrowing, payment deferrals and fluctuating federal aid that have defined recent budgets hamper comparisons of spending changes from one year to the next.

“There have been cuts, no doubt,” said deputy legislative analyst Jason Sisney of the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. “The truth is it’s almost impossible to track spending apples to apples. It really just shows how complicated the budget has become.”

The debate will continue after Gov. Jerry Brown releases a revised version of his January budget plan Monday that is likely to project a significantly larger deficit through June 2013.

And in the coming months, Brown, fellow Democrats and allied groups will try to persuade voters weary of the state’s budget problems that they should approve temporary sales and income taxes to help schools and other state programs, or else face midyear trigger cuts.

LAWMAKERS DIFFER

State Sen. Bill Emmerson, R-Hemet, the top Republican on the Senate budget panel, said Democrats exaggerate the scope of spending reductions to justify a need for more revenue.

Many so-called cuts, Emmerson said, have actually been backfilled by money from other state funds, the federal government, or by money from deferring payments to schools, among other steps. Some have been blocked by the courts or otherwise never took effect.

“When my Democratic colleagues talk about the general fund being reduced by $40 billion, those aren’t the numbers I see,” Emmerson said. “If you look at total general fund spending, that has not decreased. If you look at specific programs, that has ratcheted down.”

To read entire story, click here.

Friday, May 11, 2012 – 10:00 a.m.

It was a bright, sunny and hot Thursday afternoon in the city of Highland, California.

When sightings of a campaign sign crew emerged.

Yes. A sign crew out at 3:30 p.m.

A sign crew out putting up and repairing the, oddly-constructed, wood framed signs is of no significance.

But who was a part of the sign crew and what candidate signs were being placed is.

Placing and repairing signs for State Assemblyman and 8th Congressional District candidate Paul Cook and Former San Manuel Band of Mission Indians Chairman and Board of Supervisors candidate James Ramos, was none other than Jim Foster and Jim Rissmiller.

Both men, who held the position of chief of staff for Former County Supervisor Dennis Hansberger, consider themselves staunch conservative republicans.

In this case, Cook is the republican, but Ramos is a life-long democrat.

Something both men probably have to hold their noses to stomach.

That’s of course unless there’s tribal or campaign dough involved.

Rissmiler, a retired California Department of Forestry Fire Captain, has been a part-time analyst for the city of Highland, while Foster leases billboards under the name Mentone Investments.

And yes, Foster’s old red pickup truck still runs.

Indeed! The word is spelled R-E-V-E-N-G-E………….

Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s re-election campaign can’t approach donors who already contributed the maximum amount permitted by law in order to replace roughly $4.5 million that was siphoned from its accounts in an embezzlement scheme — at least for the time being.

The Federal Election Commission today failed to approve either of two draft proposals that it had circulated on the matter. Commissioners asked their general counsel to come up with a new draft that covers the areas of consensus between the two groups.

Lawyers for the Feinstein for Senate campaign had argued before the commission last month that barring the California Democrat’s constituents from writing new checks would trample on their rights because their original contributions were not used for their intended purposes.

“Donors have a constitutional right to associate with and support a candidate of their choice. … That right has [currently] been extinguished by a criminal act of the treasurer,” attorney Marc Elias of Perkins Coie told the commissioners during an April meeting.

To read entire story, click here.

Thursday, May 10, 2012 – 04:30 p.m.

Mayor Pete Aguilar (D-Redlands) has pick up some desperately needed campaign help in his quest to represent the 31st Congressional District.

Aguilar just received over $48,000 in independent expenditure help from the Restoring Our Community PAC.

The expenditure was reported to the Federal Election Commission today.

Aguilar is running against West Valley republicans Gary Miller (R-Diamond Bar) and Bob Dutton (R-Rancho Cucamonga).

It’s expected more than $2 million will be in play for Miller, inclusive of his own campaign war chest.

It’s still most likely Aguilar will make the November runoff against Miller.

Dan Walters

By Dan Walters
Published: Tuesday, May. 8, 2012 – 12:00 am | Page 3A

California is struggling to emerge from the worst recession since the Great Depression and has more than 2 million unemployed workers, plus countless others who have given up seeking work out of frustration and/or have fled to other states.

Clearly the state needs many billions of dollars in job-creating investment. But its attractiveness to that investment is, to say the least, problematic, given its relatively high tax burden, its dense regulatory structure, its deficiencies in education, transportation and water supply, and its tangled government finances.

Chief Executive magazine’s most recent survey of corporate leaders finds that California ranks dead last among the states in business climate for the eighth straight year.

Given that, one might think that Gov. Jerry Brown and other political figures would place improving the state’s investment climate at the top of their agendas. But they may be making California less competitive.

Brown’s tax increase ballot measure, for instance, would sharply increase state income taxes on those at the top of the economic pecking order. And Brown and other politicians are fiddling around with corporate taxation, aiming to increase taxation of out-of-state corporations by about a billion dollars a year.

Requiring multistate corporations to base their California tax liability on what’s called a “single-sales factor” would, if enacted, tax out-of-staters more while, it’s said, benefiting in-state companies.

But that’s a bit specious because the in-staters already have the option of using sales only to apportion taxable income, if they wish, thanks to a change in law three years ago.

Two years ago, voters turned down a measure to impose the single-sales factor on all corporations, but it’s back this year.

To read entire column, click here.

Monday, May 7, 2012 – 10:30 a.m.

Former Massachusetts Governor and apparent Republican Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney is displaying strength in three newly-released polls this morning.

A Politico/George Washington University/Battleground Poll gives Romney a 48%-47% lead over President Barack Obama.

Rasmussen Tracking gives Romney a 47%-45% lead.

And Gallup Tracking shows Romney with a 46%-45% edge.

This is the first time a series of polls has given Romney an ever-so-slight edge.

Two older polls by Democracy Corps and Fox News show both Romney and Obama tied at 47% and 46% respectively.

It should be noted that Romney has opened up a double-digit lead with independents.

Monday, May 7, 2012 – 10:20 a.m.

An interesting campaign depiction courtesy of the Internet.

I have to admit this is pretty good. I never thought of San Manuel County.

Former San Manuel Band of Mission Indians Chairman James Ramos

THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE
Published: 06 May 2012 07:26 PM

When it comes to Internet prominence, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie stands out as a potential running mate for Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.

So says a survey by PeekYou, a company specializing in online people searches. PeekYou recently ranked possible GOP vice presidential candidates based on how often they’re mentioned on the Web, the amount of Web content they generate, their participation in social networks and other factors.

The candidates were ranked 1 to 10, with Christie scoring highest. Coming in second was former presidential candidate Rick Santorum.

The other candidates, in order of finish, were: ex-Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty; U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin; Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul; Florida Sen. Marco Rubio; former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush; Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal; Ohio Sen. Rob Portman and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell.

Sarah Palin, the GOP’s veep nominee in 2008, didn’t make the cut.

CAMPAIGN AID

Speaking of Romney, the former Massachusetts governor lost a key strategist last week, when Richard Grenell stepped down from his post as the campaign’s foreign policy spokesman on what was supposed to be his first day on the job.

Grenell, who is gay, came under criticism from some conservatives, who felt he was too outspoken in his support for same-sex marriage. He blamed his departure on the “hyper-partisan discussion of personal issues” swirling about the presidential race.

Romney’s loss would appear to be Inland Rep. Mary Bono Mack’s gain. The Palm Springs Republican announced via Twitter that Grenell “is coming back to his home in Palm Springs & has offered to help with my campaign,” before adding, “That’s terrific.”

Marc Troast, Bono Mack’s campaign manager, said Grenell will not have an official role with the campaign, but rather has offered to lend his support as a volunteer. Troast said the campaign isn’t worried about the criticism that led to Grenell’s resignation from the Romney camp, and pointed to his years of experience as a communications strategist, including a stretch in the George W. Bush administration.

“He’s a conservative, leading voice on foreign policy,” Troast said.

Inland newshounds might also remember Grenell as a spokesman for developer Jeff Burum, who is now facing criminal charges as part of San Bernardino County’s ongoing corruption scandal.

POKER SPLITS TRIBES

An influential tribal group that includes several Inland Southern California members recently poured some cold water on state Senate legislation that would legalize online poker and, perhaps, more games in the future.

To read entire story, click here.

Inland Rep. Mary Bono Mack’s team is confident it can again ward off a challenge, though it may be tougher /Amanda Lucidon

BY BEN GOAD
WASHINGTON BUREAU
bgoad@pe.com

Published: 06 May 2012 08:34 PM

California’s primary next month will be dress rehearsal time in the 36th Congressional District, where U.S. Rep. Mary Bono Mack and challenger Raul Ruiz will square off in the first of two contests for the Riverside County seat.

Bono Mack, R-Palm Springs, and Ruiz, an emergency room doctor and Democrat from the Coachella Valley, are the only two candidates in the race, so they are both assured to move on to November’s general election. Still, Republicans and Democrats will be watching closely to see whether Ruiz shows signs that he is a serious threat to Bono Mack’s bid for an ninth term.

The 36th stretches west from Hemet, across Riverside County’s desert communities and all the way to the Arizona state line. The state redistricting commission that drew new political lines last year to account for shifts in population carved Moreno Valley out of the district and added Beaumont and Banning.

THE NARRATIVE

Fourteen years after she was elected to replace her late husband, entertainer-turned-politician Sonny Bono, Bono Mack, 50, enjoys more clout in Washington than ever before. She serves as chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade, which has broad jurisdiction over a range of issues. From the position, she has become a leading congressional voice in national debates over online privacy, internet gambling and prescription drug abuse.

Bono Mack said she believes Inland Southern California’s economy could profit from an increased focus on manufacturing in the region, and vowed to push for a lower corporate tax rate and the elimination of rules and regulations that unnecessarily raise the cost of doing business.

“I firmly believe that our area is uniquely positioned to benefit from a manufacturing renaissance because of its strategic location and a workforce hungry for new opportunities to become prosperous,” she wrote in answer to one of a series of questions posed to the candidates in a questionnaire compiled by The Press-Enterprise.

Ruiz, on the other hand, has never served in elected office — a fact that he emphasizes at a time when voters’ appraisals of Congress are at historic lows.

“I am not a politician,” Ruiz wrote in his questionnaire. “I’m an emergency room physician who is trained to handle crises and focus on solutions.”

Ruiz, 39, grew up the son of farm workers in the Coachella Valley. After high school, he went door-to-door, asking local businesses to donate money toward his college tuitions, promising to become a doctor and return to practice in the area, he said. He went on to earn three degrees from Harvard University and, in 2007, came back to the valley, where he works in the emergency room at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage.

THE ISSUES

Health care is one of several issues upon which the two candidates disagree. Both candidates vowed to protect medical benefits for those who earned them and need them most. But they differ on their approach.

Ruiz said he would resist Republican efforts to overhaul the way Medicare is run. He said taking steps to reduce the cost of health care — such as allowing Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to lower the price of prescription drugs — would also bring down the cost of the entitlement program to taxpayers.

Bono Mack said entitlement reforms are needed to counter the exploding costs of health care. She favors gradually raising the eligibility rate for Medicare to 67 by 2034 and repealing President Barack Obama’s sweeping 2010 health care bill.

To read entire story, click here.

May 06, 2012 6:54 PM
From Staff Reports

As the June 5 primary approaches, the Daily Press asked the 13 candidates running for the newly drawn 8th Congressional District representing the High Desert to weigh in on this question, in 50 words or less: What are your ideas for reducing the federal debt? Where specifically would you cut?

“I would cut from the single fastest growing segment of the national budget, the entitlement programs. These programs are an important part of our social safety net, but there must be cost-containers in place that allow for the programs to be financially sustainable.” — Anthony Adams, no party preference, businessman and attorney from Hesperia

•

“I would reduce the federal debt by: 1. Cut foreign spending. 2. Growing the economy by providing tax incentives to businesses in order for them to increase revenue in an increasing and sustainable way.” — Dennis Albertsen, R, Navy veteran from Apple Valley

•

“Grow the economy by infrastructure expenditures in the U.S. and getting money into the hands of the small businesses with growth models and history. Military cuts as well.” — Jackie Conaway, D, law office manager from Phelan

•

“I favor a systematic review of government to find redundancy, outdated bureaucracies and unneeded functions. Government shouldn’t be structured on talking points, and government programs should not persist without evidence that they’re working.” — Paul Cook, R, Assemblyman from Yucca Valley

•

“First, stop/cease borrowing. We have to produce budget surplus(-es) in order to pay-down federal debt. Regarding cuts, think federal departments as in Education and Energy, and the EPA.” — George Craig, R, plastic surgeon from Apple Valley

•

“Government spending, defund the United Nations, cut redundant agencies like the federal department of education.” — Gregg Imus, R, custom home builder from Lake Arrowhead

•

“We must reduce the federal debt by reducing, if not eliminating, the EPA, IRS, Federal Reserve Responsibilities and the Departments of Energy, Education and Interior.” — Bill Jensen, R, real estate broker from Hesperia

•

“Oppose any attempt to raise the debt ceiling. Audit for spending cuts in every agency, department and program. Cancel unspent stimulus funding and dedicate those funds to debt payment. Enact a budget amendment that requires cuts, not tax increases. Repeal Obamacare. Audit the Federal Reserve. End payouts for illegal immigrants.” — Phillip Liberatore, R, taxpayer advocate and businessman from Lake Arrowhead

•

To read entire story, click here.

Sunday, May 6, 2012 – 10:30 a.m

Ramos struggles through final candidate forum.

Former San Manuel Band of Mission Indians Chairman and San Bernardino County Board of Supe’s candidate James Ramos showed up for the final candidate forum held at Copper Mountain College on Friday night.

Nothing changed.

The conversation was basically between County Supervisor Neil Derry and Former TwentyNine Palms City Councilman and Defense Department employee Jim Bagley.

With all due respect, the can’t we all get along and come together answer to every question is getting old for Ramos.

A county supervisor can’t function by way of reading from a notepad.

To get a flavor for Ramos’ command of the issues, click this link and select county supervisor forum: http://www.channel6bigbear.com .

The link is to a candidate forum sponsored by the Big Bear Democratic Club.

Last week, Ramos ditched a, previously committed to, live on-the-air event on KBHR-FM 93.3.

The key words in the last sentence being on-the-air.

Derry and Bagley did show up.

House of cards about to fall for San Bernardino

The financial house of cards is about to fall for the city of San Bernardino.

That is, now that the piggy bank known as redevelopment money has been turned off.

For years, San Bernardino has been using its economic and redevelopment agencies to augment its general fund operations.

Now that the music has stopped, it’ll be interesting to see just how much the California Department of Finance forces the city to repay.

Expect the city to start leveraging it’s city-owned water department and discuss converting its refuse operation into a franchise.

Three tax measures likely headed to California ballot in November

It looks like three differing tax propositions will be headed to the November ballot in California.

With three measures to consider, voters will likely reject them all.

The measure backed by Governor Jerry Brown, at this point, is polling in the low 50% range.

National debt finally exceeds Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

The U.S. debt is now 101% of the country’s total annual output of goods and services.

As the number climbs the likelihood of a debt default increases.

Expect the percentage to accelerate as deficit spending continues unchecked.

Keep in mind this is the U.S. national debt and does not include state and municipal obligations.

Saturday, May 5, 2012 – 06:00 p.m.

You gotta love San Bernardino County politics.

The letter to the editor by San Bernardino attorneys Philip Kassel and Sanford Kassel, printed below, says it all.

The two stellar supporters of Former San Manuel Band of Mission Indians Chairman James Ramos, when slamming Third District Supervisor Neil Derry, neglected to mention their firm represented former County Administrative Officer Mark H. Uffer in his $15 million lawsuit against San Bernardino County for wrongful termination.

Recently, on a 4-1 vote, county supervisors, with the execption of Derry, voted to pay Sanford Kassel and his client a cool $650,000.

Maybe Ramos has promised to vote in favor of their clients regardless of merit.

Afterall, Ramos, in his few campaign appearances, says he wants to go-along, get-along with the other supervisors.

Here’s the lawyer’s well-reasoned letter:

Ramos right choice

In determining who should be elected in the 3rd Supervisory District race, the public has a clear and easy choice to make.

James Ramos, a candidate in this race, is a well-known San Bernardino businessman who serves on a large number of different boards and community organizations. He is a member of the San Bernardino Community College Board of Trustees, and also serves on the state Board of Education, a very prestigious position.

James Ramos is also instrumental in leading San Manuel families in many philanthropic endeavors that significantly benefit the County of San Bernardino. Never in the history of San Bernardino County has anyone been as generous as Mr. Ramos and the San Manuel families he represents in supporting projects for San Bernardino County and the state of California.

The San Manuel business operations employ more than 3,500 people, and are one of the county’s biggest employers. In addition, Mr. Ramos owns and operates personal business in San Bernardino. Mr Ramos is well qualified to serve on the Board of Supervisors. He has completed his college education and received an MBA degree from the University of Redlands.

Mr. Derry, the present supervisor, has no business background. The San Bernardino Superior Court has even agreed that he is not a businessman. In a recent newspaper article, Mr. Derry is quoted as saying, “My goal is to be honest and open on how I make money.” How he handled his money received as political donations

To read entire letter, click here.

State Senator Bob Dutton left. Former San Manuel Tribal Chairman James Ramos right.

Saturday, May 5, 2012 – 10:15 a.m.

State Senator Bob Dutton’s support of Former San Manuel Band of Mission Indians Chairman James Ramos was front and center Thursday night.

Dutton attended a Redlands Tea Party Patriots event held at Mill Creek Cattle Company Restaurant in Mentone.

Ramos is trying to unseat San Bernardino County Third District Supervisor Neil Derry, who is a staunch republican.

However Dutton, who publicly conceded his endorsement of Ramos, a life-long democrat, conjured up a new spin.

Rather than saying he endorsed Ramos because Derry endorsed his opponent, Congressman Gary Miller. Dutton says his wife, Andrea, is Ramos’ cousin.

It didn’t work with the rather large audience in attendance.

Dutton is being heavily outspent by Miller and should never have entered the contest.

Miller will likely face-off against Mayor Pete Aguilar (D-Redlands) in November.

It’s interesting that party disloyalty is an issue ths year.