🍊 🇺🇸 OC Conservative Brief - 2.3.23

Happy Friday, and welcome to the OC Conservative Brief, your weekly go-to for the biggest and latest developments in Orange County's local politics from a conservative perspective.

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Now have that sip of coffee and let’s get to it.

🚨 RON ALERT! Governor Ron DeSantis is coming to Orange County to headline an OC GOP fundraising dinner on March 5th.

• Read between the lines... yes, it is an OC GOP fundraiser, but it's also a convenient chance for DeSantis to firm up connections with Orange County's deep-pocketed Republican donors ahead of a possible presidential run.

• Time is the most valuable asset any politician has; DeSantis isn't flying across the country to fundraise for the OC GOP purely out of the kindness of his heart.

• In fact, according to Politico, DeSantis is also scheduled to appear at GOP events in Houston and Dallas that same weekend.

Given the media speculation swirling around DeSantis, expect this event to be a blockbuster. If you want to be a part of the action, individual tickets start at $500!

THIRD FOURTH TIME'S THE CHARM? Ronna McDaniel comfortably won an unprecedented fourth term as RNC Chair last Friday at the RNC's Winter Meeting here in Orange County (Dana Point), fending off an insurgent challenge from California's own Harmeet Dhillon in a secret vote by the RNC's 168 National Committee members.

• Wondering who California's three RNC Committee members supported? Two of them, Shawn Steel (husband of OC Congresswoman Michelle Steel) and Jessica Millan Patterson (Chairwoman of the California GOP), are McDaniel allies. Meanwhile, it's not unreasonable to assume that the third - Harmeet Dhillon - voted for herself.

• “I opted for Ronna because she has been successful. She’s raised a billion and a half dollars,” Steel told the LA Times, noting that it was still a difficult decision between her and Dhillon.

McDaniel touted recent Republican successes in Orange County - particularly the development of RNC community centers - in her quest for a fourth term (although that might not be so well-received by those of us still living in Katie Porter-land.)

NO MORE "INFLATION" IN LAGUNA BEACH? The Laguna Beach city council unanimously voted last week to ban the sale, public use, and distribution of all balloons (not just the more dangerous foil types), which the Ocean Conservancy considers the "second most dangerous type of debris" to the environment because they are often mistaken for food.

• The California Grocer's Association argued that customers will just buy balloons for private use outside of the city or online, costing grocers sales.

What's a local Republican take? "The ban for balloons for commercial purposes does not offend," India Ravel Hynes of the Greater Laguna Beach GOP told OC Conservative Brief via email, noting her opinion was not necessarily indicative of the entire group. "You can still use them on private property. Many in this group are for protection of the environment, and a balance works."

PORTER'S PELOSI PROBLEM. Orange County Democrat Katie Porter's campaign for U.S. Senate isn't getting any love from her fellow-Californian Nancy Pelosi, who announced Thursday that she is endorsing LA-area Democrat Congressman Adam Schiff. (Hopefully Katie Porter didn't take her rage out on her staff...)

• Pelosi's endorsement came with a major caveat, though: if 89-year-old Senator Dianne Feinstein (D) decides to run for re-election in 2024 instead of retiring (she still hasn't announced a decision either way), Feinstein will have Pelosi's full support.

Pelosi's conditional endorsement, which immediately triggered 20 other endorsements for Schiff from various California Democrats, sets Schiff up as the Democrat establishment's choice. It also allows Schiff to tap into Pelosi's vast fundraising network. He'll need it - Katie Porter remains one of the most prolific fundraisers in the entire Democrat Party and has won three tough races in a row.

This will be a doozy to watch! Meanwhile, California Republicans will have to spend the next year pondering whether a Senator Schiff 🤮 would be better or worse than a Senator Porter 😱.

CLIMBING THE 37TH LADDER... Porter's decision to vacate her 47th congressional district seat and run for Senate has sparked chain reactions down ballot. 

Last week, we covered Democrat state Sen. David Min's (SD37) announcement that he is running for Porter's open seat...which means his OC-based state Senate district 37 is now up for grabs. This week, former Republican Assembly member Steven Choi announced he's running for it.

• Choi, the former Mayor of Irvine, lost his re-election to the Assembly in 2022 after redistricting pitted him against another incumbent Democrat.

• Because California State Senate terms are four years, 2024 will be the first time any candidate has run in the 37th District under the newly-drawn maps.

Don't know where the 37th state Senate district is? We've got you covered with the map below.

FOX NEWS' FAVORITE ORANGE COUNTY NATIVE... If you regularly watch Fox News, you're likely familiar with reporter Bill Melugin and his jaw-dropping live TV coverage of the border crisis (he did 1,000 live shots on Fox from the Rio Grande last year).

The LA Times wrote a great profile Wednesday on Melugin, who is an Orange County native from Aliso Viejo, and his meteoric rise from relatively obscure journalist to Fox News TV staple (did you know he briefly worked as a model in Milan?)

• Melugin's coverage has become so impactful that, according to Politico, he's become an irritating nuisance to Biden White House officials, who watch his reports with "increasing frustration." Good job, Bill! Keep making OC proud!

DO YOU RECALL... Santa Ana's powerful police union is spearheading an attempt to recall two Democrat City Council members, Jessie Lopez and Thai Viet Phan, over "defunding the police" and "harmful housing development measures and policies."

• Per the Epoch Times, recall supporters cite Santa Ana's 2021 rent control law (which hasn't sat well with property owners) as well as a less-than-hoped-for 3% raise for the city's police officers.

• The council members response is that they are being targeted in "vengeance" after labor negotiations with the union that stripped power away from the union's controversiualpresident.

• The same union successfully recalled a Republican council member in 2020 after she voted against a $25 million police pay raise.

FWIW, the Orange County Register penned an editorial Thursday criticizing the recall effort: "We oppose many of Lopez’s and Phan’s housing policies, but this attempted recall of these two Democrats has no more to do with housing policy than it did with their recall of Republican Iglesias."

WAIT, THERE'S MORE...

💉 A lawsuit against California's AB2098 "medical misinformation" law that allows the Medical Board of California to suspend the licenses of physicians who spread whatever it deems "medical misinformation" notched its first legal win last week after a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction halting enforcement of the law. The lawsuit is being led by OC local and former UC Irvine professor Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, who was fired from UCI in 2021 after he refused to comply with the University's vaccine mandate.

🦭 Runoff elections for two spots on the Seal Beach city council were held on Tuesday and the candidates endorsed by the OC GOP (Lisa Landau and Nathan Steele) are currently narrowly winning both seats.

🏘️ Orange County home sales plummeted 40% in December from a year prior, and the LA-OC housing market had the slowest December since 1988.

☑️ Garden Grove City Council member Kim Bernice-Nguyen, a Democrat, announced she is running for Congress in California's 45th congressional district against Republican Congresswoman Michelle Steel.

⭐️ Irvine City Council member Tammy Kim, a Democrat, announced she is running for Mayor of Irvine in 2024. The current mayor, Farrah Khan, is serving her second term and cannot run again.

🗳️ Irvine is actively considering reforming the way city officials are elected. The proposal would add two more city council members to the chamber, and switch the way those members are elected, from at-large city-wide elections (Irvine voters currently vote for all of the members) to by-district elections. Irvine is California’s largest city with only a five-person council that uses citywide elections.

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Have a tip on a news item in Orange County conservatives should know about? Drop me a line at [email protected]