Amid other campaign finance news emerging today (Jerry Brown has scads of cash with which to run for governor in 2010! Jack O’Connell doesn’t!), it seems both sides are still paying down their bills from the battle over Proposition 11, the redistricting reform ballot measure approved by 51 percent of voters in November.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s California Dream Team laid a cool quarter million dollars on the Yes on 11 campaign’s account and Stanford University physicist Charles Munger Jr. — son of Berkshire Hathaway billionaire Charles T. Munger — gave $117,000 yesterday; earlier this month, former laundry service magnate William Bloomfield Jr. of Manhattan Beach anted up $33,000 on Jan. 15, and Cypress Land Company president Brian Harvey of Los Angeles gave $50,000 on Jan. 12.

Meanwhile, the Voter Education and Research Fund – a independent committee backed by former state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland – put $38,000 into the No on 11 campaign’s coffers Tuesday, atop $12,500 it had chipped in back on Jan. 9. Nice to see Perata and his friends at VERF didn’t skip out on the bills entirely, given Perata moving $1.9 million in November and December from his Leadership California committee – which ostensibly had been raising money to help combat Proposition 11 – into his own legal defense fund for use in fending off a years-long federal corruption probe.

The pitiful turnout in the California June primary election produced at least one notable statistic: The highest percentage of voters on record cast their ballots by mail rather than at the polls.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen certified the election results and reported a 58.7 percent vote-by-mail rate, which topped the previous record of 46.9 percent in June 2006.

The growing numbers of voters who cast their ballots through the mail is raising questions about the increasing cost of funding two elections, one at the polls and one through the mail. It is also dramatically changing campaign dynamics as candidates must find ways to put out their messages to a bifurcated audience.

Here’s Bowen press release: Read the rest of this entry »

Three renowned California Republican political experts will speak on all things political at the Contra Costa Republican Party’s speaker series on July 15.

Dan Schnur, a political science lecturer at UC Berkeley, (pictured on the right) is the former communications director for presumed GOP presidential nominee and Sen. John McCain and chief spokesman for former California Gov. Pete Wilson.

Jon Fleischman (pictured on bottom right) is editor of the Flash Report, a go-to web site for Republican news in California, and the former former executive director of the California Republican Party. He is currently the elected vice chairman in the south division of the state Republican Party.

Steve Frank, a campaign consultant, publishes www.capoliticalnews.com, a site for the expression of conservative views.

The event is open to the public starting with a reception at 6 p.m. followed by the speakers from 7-8 p.m. at the Contra Costa Country Club, 801 Golf Club Road in Pleasant Hill.

The cost is $25 per person. To RSVP, call 925-930-9551 or send an email to director@contracostagop.com.

Here’s an interesting campaign strategy: Contra Costa Supervisor Federal Glover is offering free limo rides to the polls on Tuesday.

Two voters per ride minimum, presumably to cut down on the carbon footprint of the limousine.

Gee, turnout is supposed to be really low but do have to bribe people with fancy rides to get people to vote?

Contra Costa supervisor candidate Erik Nunn has reponded via email to my blog entry earlier today criticizing a mailer he funded that targets challenger and incumbent Supervisor Federal Glover.

Here’s what Nunn had to say and I have also included at the bottom my return email:

Lisa:

As a property owner and Section 8 landlord it’s Federal Glover’s responsibility to make sure bills are paid and if his tenants move out, he should obviously be aware of that and take appropriate action, which he has failed to do over and over, for seven years.

One lien, OK, two, fine, but seven and three are outstanding. Either Federal Glover thinks he doesn’t have to follow the same rules as other Section 8 landlords or he is uninformed and doesn’t care.

It sounds like Federal Glover is blaming his Section 8 tenants, the garbage company or the U.S. Postal service for not paying his bills, and they are his bills, he owns the property.

The fact that Federal Glover was alerted to these unpaid bills as a result of a campaign mailer is actually disturbing, especially considering how important of an issue Section 8 is to East County voters.

Read the rest of this entry »

An opponent-funded campaign mailer (see images below) targeting Supervisor Federal Glover of Pittsburg contains major misstatements and false impressions.

Erik Nunn of Oakley, one of five people running June 3 for the District 5 seat on the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors, paid for the four-page glossy brochure.

The Contra Costa Times periodically examines campaign literature and informs voters of the facts.

Here’s a breakdown:

What it says: “Federal Glover makes thousands of dollars a month as a Section 8 landlord.”

Is it true? No.

Glover has tenants in one Oakland triplex unit who qualify for federal housing assistance. The rent on the unit is $1,600 a month. The tenants pay a portion of the monthly rent, usually between 20 to 30 percent, and the Alameda County Housing Authority uses federal funds to pay the difference.

In addition to the triplex, Glover owns three rental properties with addresses in Pittsburg, Sacramento and Elk Grove.

Read on to see the rest of the mailer and the explanations. Read the rest of this entry »

Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, will lead a two-day congressional trip to the border of California and Mexico on Sunday and Monday, where he will hear firsthand from federal border patrol agents about efforts to stem illegal border crossings and stop drug trafficking.

The visit will include briefs, his staff said, on various aspects of the border control operation along 66 miles of the border south of San Diego. He will tour several ports of entry, meet with agents and view specialty teams and equipment used to monitor and patrol the border.

“I’d like to hear what kind of trends they are sensing and if they have found any particularly effective strategies to combat illegal border crossings and drug running,” McNerney said in a prepared release.

McNerney will talk from the border with reporters on Monday morning during a call-in press conference.

As a Democrat seeking re-election in a Republican-leaning district, illegal immigration is a subject that will definitely come up during his campaign this year against his expected GOP challenger, former Stockton Assemblyman Dean Andal.

Immigration reform remains a hot button political issue across the nation but Republicans, Democrats and President George W. Bush have been unable to come to an agreement. They disagree on how to handle the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already living in the country and the formation of a guest worker program that wouldn’t cripple industries that rely on migrants such as the picking of crops.

McNerney, who formed an agricultural advisory committee in his district, is a co-sponsor of a bill in Congress under consideration that creates a federally overseen program to permit immigrants to work in the U.S.agricultural industry for a temporary, specified period of time with a specific job, said McNerney spokesman Andy Stone.

GOP congressional hopeful Nicholas Gerber says he is already listening to his constituents.

And they apparently prefer him clean-shaven. Gerber says folks are telling him to ditch the beard.

“Polls even show that voters prefer candidates without beards,” Gerber says.

But there’s no free shave for Republicans who can’t abide the sight of a 5 o’clock shadow. Gerber says he will lather up and remove that unsightly facial hair if Contra Costa’s Republican womens groups donate $100,000 to his campaign against incumbent Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo.

Gerber told the San Ramon Valley Republican Women on Tuesday that he needs $1 million to run against Tauscher in 2008. (She has already raised nearly $500,000 as of Sept. 30.)

“If each of you writes a $35 check and you persuade 10 of your friends to write $35 checks and we do this in all the Republican women clubs, we will have raised $100,000,” Gerber said.

Gerber says he has contributed $100,000 of his own money and if the women pony up, that still leaves him $800,000 short. Well, not quite. As of Sept. 30, he reported $1,350 in contributions to the Federal Election Commission, so he’s $798,650 shy of his target.

At this rate, he’ll have to sell his beard quite a few times between now and November 2008.

But all is not lost. According to “Presidential Trivia” by Richard Lederer, from Abraham Lincoln to Benjamin Harrison, every U.S. president to have a beard has been a Republican.

Endorsements don’t often get my attention; they’re usually predictable and ubiquitous.

But here’s one that popped into my e-mail box this morning that may interest you: Ex-GOP presidential nominee and former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole will serve as the honorary campaign chairman for Republican Assembly District 15 candidate Judy Biviano Lloyd.

Whether or not this means Dole will actually set foot in District 15, which stretches from Walnut Creek to Livermore, is an open question that may or may not matter given Dole’s stature as a conservative statesman. (Click here to see a map of the district.)

Lloyd has come under some criticism for relying too heavily on endorsements of people who don’t live in the district. She also doesn’t live in the district yet, although she has put her Pleasanton house on the market and plans to move.

On the other hand, Lloyd is in a fierce, five-way race for the GOP nomination in June 2008 and clearly intends to use every political arrow in her quiver to distinguish herself from her male challengers: Scott Kamena, Robert Rao, San Ramon Mayor Abram Wilson and Joe Rubay. And Lloyd’s ammunition now includes Dole, the man she worked for as a special assistant when he was the U.S. Senate Majority Leader.

The Alameda County Registrar of Voters mistakenly sent letters to 234,000 permanent absentee registered Republicans, Democrats and members of other parties advising them that they had failed to select a qualified political party for the Feb. 5 presidential primary election.

The county meant to send the letter to about 60,000 voters permanent absentee voters registered as “decline to state” but a staffer sent the wrong mailing list to the out-of-state printing company.

In this climate of suspicion about the integrity of voting equipment and systems, hundreds of voters have deluged the registrar’s office with angry phone calls and complaints.

But no voter has been stripped of his or her party registration, nor has there been any nefarious activities on the part of any county employee, said Alameda County spokesman Guy Ashley.

“It was a mistake that we regret and we are doing everything we can to clear up the confusion,” Ashley said.

Next week, the election department will send out a follow-up letter of explanation to those who received the letter in error and it will send the original letter to the correct list of “decline to state” voters.

Why did the letter go out in the first place?

It was intended to let “decline to state” voters know that they cannot vote in the presidential primary for the candidates of registered parties except for the Democrats and the American Independents. In contrast, the California Republican Party restricts voting in its primary to members of its party.

This means that a “decline to state” permanent absentee voter may request a nonpartisan, Democratic or American Independent ballot for the Feb. 5 presidential primary. He or she may not ask for a Republican ballot.

But the letter did not mention the GOP or spell out the Republican Party’s rules. It simply said, “We are sending you this notice because you did not choose a qualified party when you registered to vote.”

“People are confused and angry,” said Ryan Hatcher, executive director of the Alameda County Republican Party. “We don’t think there was any voter fraud here. It was an honest mistake. But people are vigilant these days about the voting system and a lot of Republicans think this is a move against them.”

The wording of the letter also bolsters critics of the GOP’s decision to exclude “decline to state” voters who say the party’s policy will push the growing numbers of independent voters into the arms of the Democratic Party.

Hatcher plans to meet with the county election staff this afternoon to discuss the wording in both the apology letter and the notice “decline to state” voters.

For a link to today’s story on the issue in the Oakland Tribune, click here.