Free Republic

With all the attention focused Tuesday on Republican Mike Garcia’s smashing win in the special U.S. House election in California’s 25th District (Los Angeles), it was not surprising that the national press pretty much overlooked the big Republican win for state senate in the Golden State’s 28th District (Riverside). With nearly all votes counted, conservative State Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez rolled up 56 per cent of the vote over Democrat and Riverside County Board of Education member Elizabeth Romero. The special election was called to fill out the remainder of the term of Republican State Sen. Jeff Stone, who resigned earlier...

Donald Trump to Keynote CAGOP 2016 Convention Friday Kickoff Lunch Banquet SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Republican Party announced today that Presidential candidate Donald Trump will deliver the keynote speech at the CAGOP 2016 Convention Kickoff Lunch Banquet on Friday, April 29, 2016 at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport in Burlingame.   “We are very excited to have Donald Trump kicking off our weekend convention,” said California Republican Party Chairman Jim Brulte. “Mr. Trump’s success and experience as an American businessman is a result of his tenacity and unique ability to make any endeavor a triumph. He has built...

In his latest column, Washington Post commentator EJ Dionne advises National Republicans to learn from California's mistakes, or face declining voter support in election cycles to come.His first point of contact on this matter? The current Chairman of the California GOP, Jim Brulte:“California is the leading edge of the country’s demographic changes,” Brulte said in an interview. “Frankly, Republicans in California did not react quickly enough to them, and we have paid a horrible price.”That is true. Up to the early 1980s and the 1990s, California was a majority white state, Republicans did very well working the entire state. Other...

At the California Republican Party’s convention earlier this month, chairman Jim Brulte announced 2014 would be the year of “pushing the party outside of its comfort zone,” and introduced four candidates vying to take on incumbent Gov. Jerry Brown in November.

A campaign committee controlled by the newly elected chairman of the state Republican Party donated $1,300 to Democrat Wendy Greuel’s Los Angeles mayoral bid. Jim Brulte, who was elected chairman Sunday at the party convention in Sacramento, said he made the donation before he realized Kevin James was a viable Republican candidate.

<p>Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger is preparing a push to deregulate the state's electricity markets -- a move embraced by business leaders and some energy analysts but criticized by many Democrats and consumer advocates as a return to the failed policies that sparked California's energy crisis.</p>

The much discussed idea of removing the Legislature from the process of political map drawing is again the subject of some intense discussions at the Capitol. On Thursday, Governor Schwarzenegger met privately with a group of strong supporters of redistricting, including former Senate GOP Leader Jim Brulte, former Democratic Assemblymember Fred Keeley, and Proposition 77 author/recall proponent Ted Costa. A senior advisor to the governor said in the meeting, Schwarzenegger pledged to spend much of next week trying to win passage of the current redistricting proposal, SCA 3 by Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach). State elections officials have suggested that...

With all the talk about the former red state, Republican state, California, becoming a blue state -- which is not quite as true as some think -- there is someone talking about it becoming a purple state. That is California Republican Party chairman Duf Sundheim, who talked about his hopes for California during last week’s bus tour kicking off Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s re-election campaign against Democratic challenger Phil Angelides. The Silicon Valley lawyer came on a few years ago to put a moderate face on the party, whose apparatus was traditionally viewed as right wing and increasingly out of step...

Tuesday, September 23, 2003 This morning I am announcing my endorsement of Arnold Schwarzenegger for Governor of California. I am endorsing Arnold for a number of reasons. First, Arnold Schwarzenegger is a strong leader who understands the problems facing California and can bring people together to help solve them. Second, Arnold Schwarzenneger will be the check we so desperately need in California government today. No matter what the outcome of the recall election, the legislature will continue to be controlled by liberals who over-spend, over-regulate and over-tax. California needs a Republican governor who can check the excesses of that legislature....

A top California Republican endorsed Arnold Schwarzenegger for governor on Tuesday, stepping up pressure on the party's only other major candidate to drop out of the race. State Senate Republican leader Jim Brulte said he had concluded that his Senate colleague Tom McClintock could not win in a crowded field of replacement candidates hoping to take office should a recall against Governor Gray Davis on October 7 succeed.