Orange County

Wanna know what's driving Republican politics in California? It's not the Republican governor, or the Republican minority in the legislature. It's the Flash Report, the blog and web site run by Jon Fleischman, an Orange County political operative (and friendly acquaintance of your blogger) who is also an official of the California Republican Party. Flash Report posts often drive news coverage and radio talkers around the state.

If you doubt the Flash Report's power, check out the memo -- at the bottom of this item -- that is being distributed by Gov. Schwarzenegger's team and the campaign committee that supports the measures on the May 19 special election ballot. The memo, titled "Flash Report Myth-Fact," offers a direct refutation of multiple Flash Report posts criticizing the most important measure, Prop 1A, which would establish a new state spending limit and beef up the rainy day fund. The memo also provides a useful back-and-forth (sort of centrist vs. conservative back and forth) on the advantages and disadvantages of Prop 1A.

The California Secretary of State's office has added a great new feature to its pages on ballot initiatives: daily spreadsheet updates on signature verification. As instructed by press secretary Kate Folmar (whose journalistic work is badly missed here), I went to the web site, http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_j.htm#pending_sigs, and clicked on the link Random Sample next to each initiative that is pending signature verification.

The verification data on the initiaitve that would ban gay marriage is instructive. It shows that the initiative turned in more than 1.1 million signatures for random sampling. So far the verification rate is very good -- over 83 percent on more than 20,000 signatures that have been checked. If that rate holds, the measure should qualify easily for the November ballot. (In the signature biz, 70 percent). One other thing that this data shows--the outsized role that San Diego and Orange counties play in signature gathering. Only LA produces more signatures, and per capita, both counties far surpass their neighbor to the north.

Orange Coast magazine doesn't have its April issue on the web, but please pick it up and check out my piece on the fight between Disney and developer SunCal. The fight produced two municipal ballot measures -- a referendum and a ballot initiative -- that were taken off the June 3 ballot by the city council.