2014 GENERAL ELECTION CANDIDATE RECOMMENDATIONS - SELECTED CALIFORNIA RACES Governor- Neel Kashkari, Republican He is reaching out to the low income and the jobless to get new voters for the Republican brand. Worth supporting though his self-appointed task to change the Republican Party image in this state to social liberalism will fall flat Tuesday. Lt. Governor - Ron Nehring - Republican Excellent organizer and team player supporting all Republicans on the ticket. No chance against the worst candidate on the statewide ticket, Democrat Lt. Governor Kevin Newsome the pro-business, pro-weed and pro-gay marriage San Franciscan. Secretary of State - Pete Peterson - Republican A ballot reformer who won endorsements from the CRA on the right as well as some liberal newspapers including the SF Chronicle and the Mercury News. Refused to endorse Kashkari. State Controller - Ashley Swearingen - Republican The older guys ooh and aah her and the women proudly say she is one of our own. She might squeeze in as a winner if the election is very low turnout. She also egotistically refused to endorse Kashkari perhaps because in July he played a jobless looking for work in Fresno where Swearingen is the mayor. The Mercury endorsed her. State Superintendent of Public Instructions - Marshall Tuck - Non Partisan - The trumpet of reforms is sounding in California from the younger and brighter reform candidate, Marshall Tuck. Meanwhile, the C.T.A. union candidate, incumbent Tom Torlakson, a retired former State Senator, is taking hundreds of thousands of bucks from the teachers unions to run our schools from Sacramento and stop the teacher reforms including the union prescribed least senior order instead of worst teacher layoff order, a method that hurts badly the education of our kids. U.S. Representative - District 17 - Ro Khanna, Democratic - This is the famous Khanna versus Honda tie race. Its 38% each in the polls. As one friend wrote of this Demo on Demo race, Honda makes good cars but a lousy congressman. I strongly support the 38 year old moderate, Stanford lecturer, attorney, the brilliant Khanna in a walk-away over super-liberal, tired, 73 year old unionist Honda. Even the Mercury editorial called Honda a liar about opponent Khannas stands. As I wrote to my friends about Honda in response to his personal attacks against me, Dont let the door hit you in the rump Mike on your way out of CD 17. State Senate District 10 - Peter Kuo - Republican - A Taiwanese immigrant who made good in America gives back to his community. Insurance broker, businessman / family man Kuo, a truly winning Mr. Nice Guy, is campaigning to stop a state law that would discontinue college admissions based on merit and allow admissions based on racial quotas...about as un-American as you can get. Democrat heavily favored but Peters campaign manager claims that per his poll Kuo is in the hunt! I just love Peters determination and courage in the face of these odds. California State Assembly - District 16 - Catharine Baker, Republican - This is the million dollar plus Northern California Democrat-to-Republican effort to stop the 2/3rds Democrat majority in the Assembly. Catharine is an attorney, a political moderate mom with twins trying to take the district for the Republicans over millions of resisting union dollars sent to Demo candidate, Mayor Tim Sbranti. Even Jerry Brown campaigned for Sbranti. Per polls, this is a 50/50 proposition that should win for Republicans in a low voter turn-out election. California State Assembly - District 28 - Chuck Page, Republican - This race, essentially my old Assembly district, is an underfunded and untargeted effort by the good looking Page, former mayor of Saratoga. His confident and charitable Demo opponent, Councilman Evan Low of Campbell, spent a lot of his campaign dollars on other Demo candidates. Chuck Page deserves to win but Low is a candidate with poor judgment who will likely be swept into office by the biannual California Democratic tide. Judge, Superior Court #24, Matt Harris - His opponent is sitting Judge Richie, who after a lot of negative publicity on competence grounds, was editorially opposed by the Mercury-News. Judge Richies response was not to campaign further. Instead, she is running ads in slate mailers such as COPS even though no law enforcement group supports her. Matt Harris has garnered key endorsements from District Attorney Jeff Rosen and his predecessor Dolores Carr, the Santa Clara County Bar Association. More of the Bars members rated Ritchie unqualified than qualified for the job in a survey. San Jose Mayor, Councilman Sam Liccardo - Councilman Liccardo, a Democrat and a tremendous political talent, has been endorsed by the County Republican Party and most of the pro Measure B pension reform folks. Liccardo, underdog in the polls, has suggested alternative ways to improve public safety in the city, such as expanding after school programs and summer jobs for at-risk young people. County Supervisor Cortese, another Mr. Nice Guy like his dad, my former colleague State Assemblyman Dom Cortese, focused on the idea of increasing the police presence in the city. Cortese, backed by the unyielding police union chief Jim Unland, wants to give the current police force an unaffordable big raise for a greater retention rate but refrains from discussing the Cortese tax increases needed for that raise. Speaking of the chest beating Unland he was absolutely not heard from when about twenty of his union members lost their privately paid temporary security second jobs at the 49ers stadium. Unfortunately the San Jose Police Chief did not back his cops either on conflict of interest grounds for he was the one who took the work permission away form those needed second jobs his police held in ANOTHER jurisdiction, Santa Clara. San Jose City Council - District 1 - I withdrew my endorsement in the District 1 council race 2014 NOVEMBER KONNYU PROPOSITION BALLOTT RECOMMENDATIONS Prop 1 – Water Bond: YES. This is a bi-partisan compromise in the face of our dangerous drought condition, a water bond good for California. $7.5 billion water bond that spends $2.7 billion for new water storage. It doesn’t overhaul the environmental laws that vastly inflate costs and it squanders a great deal more that won’t be used for storage but it still merits a “YES”. Prop 2 – Change State Debt and Fiscal Reserve Practices: YES. This repeals Gov. Schwarzenegger’s Prop 58, What I like most about Prop 2 is that the NEW practice will assure that to raid the required budget reserve, both the governor AND the legislature must agree and then, only for a specifically declared emergency. It’s better than what we have today. Prop 45 – State Rate Control Added on T op of Obama Care Controls: NO If you liked ObamaCare government control of medicine you’ll love the added state controls to be exercised by the California insurance czar. Of course, it is a trial lawyer measure that gives the state insurance commissioner the power to set health care rates. Doctors and other health care providers are already opting out of Obamacare because of artificially low rates; this compounds the problem for Californians. The good news is you’ll have cheaper health insurance but the bad news is you will have even fewer providers accepting it. Prop 46 – Trial Lawyers Quadrupling That Nebulous “Pain and Suffering” Limit: NO Prop. 46 means higher provider costs. A Los Gatos pediatrician explained it this way: “I charge about $900 to bring a baby into this world and about half of that $900 I have to turn around and give to my liability insurance company. Because of the increase from $250,000 to $1.1 million for pain and suffering, doctor rates and, therefore, patient insurance rates will have to increase by hundreds of dollars.” It also requires drug testing of doctors. If you want people’s medical care costs to rise, vote for this piece of trial lawyer trash. Prop 47 –Reducing Some Non-Violent Felonies to Misdemeanors: YES We’ve gone overboard on some non-violent drug-related offenses as we have noticed that California prison overcrowding was found unconstitutional by a Federal judge. Prop 47 is an attempt to reduce sentence length on non-violent crimes. Similar laws have been tried in Texas with the backing of Republican lawmakers with success. In a liberal and conservative compromise, it reduces many grand-theft crimes to misdemeanors. Reduces state prison costs but might increase your home owner’s theft insurance premiums it it passes. Prop 48 – Off-Reservation Indian Gaming: NO. This ratifies Indian Gaming compacts for two tribes in economically depressed regions of the state, that is Madera county. This would be the first off-reservation Indian gaming approved in California. We do not need more large gambling operations out in the country area. Measure Q - Santa Clara County Open Space District Parcel Tax: NO More money for buying up more land and possibly funding the preservation work needed for the Mt. Umumhum located former radar station with almost zero historical significance. In other words government waste of our taxpayer funds deserves a firm no even though this stuff is always approved mindlessly. Please feel free to forward/distribute these recommendations to your friends or club if you feel they are meritorious. Ernie Konnyu (R-San Jose)
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 19:13:44 +0000