THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CALIFORNIA - This site is dedicated to exposing the continuing Marxist Revolution in California and the all around massive stupidity of Socialists, Luddites, Communists, Fellow Travelers and of Liberalism in all of its ugly forms.
"It was a splendid population - for all the slow, sleepy, sluggish-brained sloths stayed at home - you never find that sort of people among pioneers - you cannot build pioneers out of that sort of material. It was that population that gave to California a name for getting up astounding enterprises and rushing them through with a magnificent dash and daring and a recklessness of cost or consequences, which she bears unto this day - and when she projects a new surprise the grave world smiles as usual and says, "Well, that is California all over."
TJ Cox “made an honest mistake” when he marked a second home in Maryland as his principal residence, the Fresno Democrat’s campaign said Tuesday.
Spokesmen for the campaign last week claimed the principal residence declaration was the result of an error by the state. The campaign then characterized it as Cox’s mistake after The Bee provided it with a notarized public document showing Cox had initialed and signed a section saying the home was his primary residence.
Cox, a Democrat who owns several businesses in the central San Joaquin Valley, is running against Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford, for California’s 21st Congressional District seat.
The Bee previously reported that Cox owned a three-bedroom, four-bathroom house in Bethesda, Maryland – a Washington, D.C., suburb – and claimed the nearly $1 million home as a principal residence. Cox also claimed a Fresno home as his principal residence, and federal tax laws do not allow an individual to claim more than one.
Campaign spokesman Phillip Vander Klay said Tuesday that, after The Bee brought the issue to his attention, Cox contacted the state of Maryland and Montgomery County, where his home is located, to change his residency status. He also is willing to refund the $692 tax credit he received from the county as a result of the error, Vander Klay added.
State property records show the home is no longer classified as Cox’s principal residence.
When asked why Cox did not notice the error in 2017, when he collected the tax credit, Vander Klay said: “It was an honest mistake that he filled out the principal residence not knowing the legal definitions. His family was living there.”
Candidates for the vacated 31st Assembly District, Clint Olivier and Joaquin Arambula, cast their votes for the open seat in the special election Tuesday, April 5, 2016.
Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/news/politics-government/election/article70056032.html#storylink=cpy
If only the GOP stood for something
You can't win elections by being "Democrat-lite". The GOP could have put a proposition on the November ballot to repeal the bullet train fraud. That would give Republicans a unifying issue to campaign on. But no. Too many GOP big shots are sucking at the bullet train cash cow.
(Fresno Bee) - In the days leading up to the 31st Assembly District’s 2004 election, then-Assembly Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield made a prediction: “Someday, this will be our seat.”
That day may never come.
There was a special election Tuesday to fill the unexpired term of Fresno Democrat Henry T. Perea, who resigned a year early to take a job with the pharmaceutical industry, and it appears all but certain that Kingsburg Democrat Joaquin Arambula will win the race. Just before midnight, his main opponent, Fresno Republican Clint Olivier, conceded.
Republicans always like their chances in special elections, which historically have low turnouts. Because of that, the GOP saw this as its best chance to steal the seat away from the rival Democrats, who have held it for 40 years.
With all precincts reporting but some absentee and provisional ballots still to be counted, however, Arambula, an emergency room physician, had 52 percent of the vote to 42 percent for Olivier, a Fresno City Council member. Caruthers Democrat Ted Miller, an engineer and the third person in the race, had 5.7 percent of the vote.
31st Assembly District
Though Arambula holds a 10-percentage point lead over Olivier, he had to win more than 50 percent of the vote Tuesday to avoid a June 7 runoff. Olivier would have to win an almost impossible number of the remaining ballots to force Arambula below that threshold.
“Tomorrow is a new day,” Arambula said. “I’m excited to head to Sacramento and be a representative for the Valley. I truly intend to be a public servant. Someone who listens more than I talk, and I’m excited about the possibilities for where we can go.”
Olivier remained optimistic early in the evening even as initial returns put Arambula well ahead in the race – and above the 50 percent needed to avoid the runoff. As more ballots were counted, Arambula’s lead held, and Olivier eventually conceded after the Fresno County Elections office finished counting for the night.
The election was high-profile and expensive as Republicans pushed hard to put the seat in the GOP column, the same way they had done during a 2013 special election in the 14th state Senate District, which overlaps part of the 31st Assembly District. In that district, Hanford Republican Andy Vidak won in a special election and then held the seat in 2014 for a full term after Bakersfield Democrat Michael Rubio resigned early to take a job with Chevron. Democrats, in the meantime, have always viewed the 31st Assembly seat as theirs. Currently, 47.2 percent of voters are Democrats, 28.5 percent Republican and 19.9 percent are registered with no political party.
Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/news/politics-government/election/article70056032.html#storylink=cpy
“Obviously things didn’t go as we had hoped,” he said. “I’m proud of my campaign team and I’m especially thankful to the thousands of people who voted for change Tuesday.”
R
Heading into Tuesday’s election, Democrats had posted 19 consecutive wins in the 31st District stretching back to 1976. Now Arambula looks to have made it 20 straight.
Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/news/politics-government/election/article70056032.html#storylink=cpy
Democrats were well aware of the political realities of special elections, and responded accordingly. Arambula has raised more than $930,000 for the special election, including more than $405,000 from the state Democratic Party. Olivier in turn raised close to $500,000, with the state Republican Party chipping in more than $254,000 of that total.
Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/news/politics-government/election/article70056032.html#storylink=cpy
(Fresno Bee) - Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin, considered by some to be an up-and-coming Republican Party star, is testing that theory by running for state controller.
Swearengin -- who still has almost three years left in her second and final mayoral term -- filed paperwork and paid $2,783.78 in fees Tuesday afternoon at the Fresno County Elections Office, said Tim Clark, her campaign consultant.
"I am very serious about getting into this race," Swearengin said Wednesday. "I love the role of public service, and frankly I'm ready for the next challenge."
Swearengin, 41, was first elected mayor in 2008, and easily won re-election in 2012. She was CEO of the Regional Jobs Initiative prior to being elected mayor.
She said running for state controller was the next logical step. It is a position, she said, that has the biggest influence over California's business climate and economic development. Those areas were her focus, she said, both as mayor and at the Regional Jobs Initiative.
Controller, Swearengin said, "is sometimes an overlooked function of state government, but one that has a tremendous impact on the business climate in the state."
There are still additional steps Swearengin must take to finalize her candidacy for the statewide run. These technical steps must be done by Friday to get on the ballot, and she said any run won't be set in stone until then.
But Clark, her consultant, said that's a formality.
"This is official," he said.
Winning the post, however, will be a much greater challenge because this is a blue state in which Democrats enjoy a 15-percentage-point voter-registration advantage over Republicans.
"I think she'd have a really tough time winning statewide office," said Melissa Michelson, a political science professor at Menlo College, located in the Bay Area city of Atherton. "The (voter) registration numbers are against her."
Swearengin will likely face Assembly Speaker John Pérez and Board of Equalization member Betty Yee in the June primary, and possibly others. Under state primary election rules, only the top two will move on to the November general election.
But Clark predicted that Swearengin will be the only Republican on the ballot, which should move her through to the November general election. Both Perez and Yee are Democrats.
Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/03/05/3804892/fresno-mayor-ashley-swearengin.html#storylink=cpy
(Update - It appears the announcement that Republican farmer Andy Vidak won outright former Senator Michael Rubio's seat may have been premature: an updated vote count puts Vidak below the 50-percent-plus-one threshold he needed to surpass to avoid a runoff against his Democratic opponent, Kern County Supervisor Leticia Perez.
An updated total posted on the Secretary of State's website at 3:21 this afternoon gave Vidak 49.8 percent of the vote and Perez 43.8 percent.
Observation. I find it interesting that the "extra votes" that are found after election day always vote Democrat. Just an observation.)
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A Republican has won a hotly contested state Senate contest in the southern San
Joaquin Valley, with his top Democratic rival conceding Wednesday that the race
will not go to a runoff.
With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Vidak -- a Republican from Hanford -- won 51.9 percent of the vote in Tuesday's special election for the vacant seat.
Democratic challenger Leticia Perez -- Kern County's 5th district supervisor -- won 41.7 percent of the vote. She conceded early Wednesday morning and congratulated Vidak on the victory.
Fellow Democrat Francisco Ramirez had 3 percent of the vote. Democrat Paulina Miranda had 2.6 percent, and Peace and Freedom candidate Mohammed Arif has 0.6 percent reports KERO 23 ABC News.
The special election victory by Hanford cherry farmer Andy Vidak will have no
practical effect on the state Senate, where Democrats retain a supermajority,
but serves as a psychological boost for the party after massive GOP losses in
recent election cycles.
Democratic Kern County Supervisor Leticia Perez, of Bakersfield, and Senate
President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, both ceded the 16th Senate
District race to Vidak. Perez has raised more than $1.1 million, largely from the state party, Senate Democrats in Sacramento and political action committees. Vidak raised more than $850,000, with a lot of cash from district agriculture, and an assist from Senate Republicans and the Tulare County GOP. Adding another Republican senator increases the hurdle for Democrats to reach the two-thirds majority needed to pass tax hikes and puts the GOP in a stronger position heading into next year's elections, said Senate Minority Leader Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar reports the San Jose Mercury News.
. "It's a big shot in the arm," he said. "The district just sent a pretty conservative salvo across the bow of the Democratic majority." Vidak's campaign did not immediately return multiple telephone calls seeking comment. Democrats won two-thirds majorities in both legislative chambers in November. That was the first time since 1933, when Republicans did it, that one party has held simultaneous supermajorities in the Assembly and Senate.
Vidak, who narrowly lost a congressional bid in 2010, had 52 percent of the
vote, enough for an outright victory.
Democrats have a large registration edge in the 16th Senate District—50
percent to Republicans' 31 percent—but three Democratic candidates and a Peace
and Freedom Party candidate split the left-leaning vote. That cleared the way
for Vidak to win a simple majority.
Democrats also blamed low voter turnout in their regions coupled with a
relatively high turnout in Vidak's stronghold of Kings County.
Steinberg issued a statement congratulating Vidak while suggesting that Perez
might make another run for higher office. Vidak will have to defend the seat in
2014.
"Special elections are unique voter-turnout environments, and this is clearly
not the last we've heard of the immensely talented Supervisor Perez," Steinberg
said.
Next year's election for a full Senate term will be under different district
boundaries, drawn by the state's independent redistricting commission in 2011.
The new 14th Senate District will encompass all of Kings County and parts of
Fresno, Kern and Tulare counties. According to the California TargetBook,
current voter registration in that district is 48 percent Democratic, 31 percent
Republican and 17 percent no party preference.
"In 18 months, this will be a new race in a new district with a very
different turnout model," said Jason Kinney, a political consultant for Senate
Democrats.
Democrats will retain their Senate supermajority despite losing the seat that
had been held by Democrat Michael Rubio, of Bakersfield, who resigned in
February to work for Chevron.
The party still holds 28 seats in the 40-member Senate, leaving it with one
more than the supermajority needed to raise taxes, pass emergency legislation,
override gubernatorial vetoes and put constitutional amendments before voters
without Republican support.
The supermajority could be trimmed temporarily to the bare 27-member minimum
because Democratic Sen. Curren Price appears poised to leave for a seat on the
Los Angeles City Council. Price will leave the Senate in July if his lead from
Tuesday's election holds.
