Art Torres

The California Republican Party filed a complaint Monday with the Federal Election Commission over four different situations where the party said Barack Obama's presidential campaign and/or its allies are flouting the law.

In one part of the complaint, the party said Obama's campaign failed to disclose its release of a donor list to ACORN, a federal housing rights group under investigation for possible voter registration fraud.

A day after a West Hollywood man took down an effigy of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the chairman of the California Democratic Party condemned the display.

"Hanging an effigy of any of the four candidates for president and vice president is reckless, irresponsible and is a distraction from the real issues in the final days of this historic election," Torres said in a statement released Thursday. "This may be ‘art' under First Amendment, but it is not acceptable in an American presidential election."  

Ron Nehring, chair of the California Republican Party, released a statement Monday drawing attention to a "liberal blogger" who claimed to be the author of the racist cartoon of "Obama Bucks" that wound up in the October newsletter of the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated.

SACRAMENTO - California Secretary of State Debra Bowen said that Republican claims aside, there's no partisanship in how her office looks at potential voting fraud cases, including one that led to the arrest Sunday of a 23-year-old man in Ontario who'd been signing up new voters for the GOP.

Bowen, speaking at a "drive-thru registration" event on the last day to register to vote in the Nov. 4 election, said she'd investigate Mother Teresa if there was reason to think the late Nobel Peace Prize winner was engaged in voter fraud.

"If a complaint is brought against any party, any individual, my office will investigate," Bowen said.

RIALTO - San Bernardino County, the largest county by land area in the United States, has officially turned "blue" once again, with more registered Democrats than Republicans for the first time in more than seven years.

SAN FRANCISCO - John Burton, the Golden State powerbroker who nearly single-handedly set the Democratic agenda in Sacramento for three decades, signaled Friday that he will likely seek to become chairman of the California Democratic Party at during its elections next spring.

The California Republican Party blasted both state Democrats and the California Secretary of State's office Wednesday for what it called blatant partisanship ahead of the Nov. 4 election.

In a press release, the party said the California Democratic Party didn't fully understand a program by Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner to provide a bounty for new voter registrations in the next few weeks.

The chairman of the California Democratic Party tried to light a fire under the feet of the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters on Tuesday, claiming the elections chief has done nothing to prevent to an ongoing voter registration fraud operation in that county.

In a letter sent Tuesday to Kari Verjil, San Bernardino County's registrar of voters, Art Torres questioned whether she was doing any about an alleged Republican-financed "registration slamming" scheme.

The Democratic side of the California political blogosphere exploded with delight Friday afternoon as word of an embarrassing gaffe in Sen. John McCain's acceptance speech Thursday at the Republican National Convention spread.

During the Republican nominee's acceptance speech the giant video backdrop behind the Arizona senator was showing colorful photographs of great American places and institutions, including the famed Walter Reed National Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Only the producers of the video made a small mistake. The photograph that came up was indeed of Walter Reed -- only it was an image of the Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood -- as in North Hollywood, California.

California Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres issued this statement on Sen. John McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential runningmate: 

"John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate may have been a calculated political risk, but much more importantly it's an even greater risk for the American people. In choosing Palin, John McCain has picked a governor with less than two years in office, zero experience in national issues and whose only prior elected position came as part-time mayor of a small town in Alaska, a town not quite the size of Cloverdale, California.
 
"While we'll certainly learn more about Sarah Palin in the coming days and weeks, here's what we know already: like John McCain, Palin is strongly anti-choice, closely tied with Big Oil and the NRA, and committed to continuing the failed Bush economic policies of the last eight years. Further, Palin is currently under an ethics investigation by her own state legislature.
 
"Placing a candidate with as little experience as Sarah Palin one heartbeat away from the Presidency is a risk that Californians will not take."