Minority Status

Resolute leadership for a floundering GOP

Assemblywoman Connie Conway, a Tulare County Republican, made her presence felt immediately in the California Legislature. First elected in 2008, Conway’s GOP colleagues unanimously voted her Assembly Minority Leader barely two years later. Since then, the affable, plainspoken Conway, whose 34th Assembly District is the largest in California, has helped craft her party’s agenda with a dominant focus on easing government regulations and improving the state’s business climate. But while Republicans recently have made historic gains in Congress and statehouses across the country, California’s GOP has plummeted in both membership and political power, including being shut out of every statewide elected office. We sat down with Conway recently to discuss these challenges. (click to continue reading)

Rich Ehisen

Rich Ehisen has been a reporter and editor for almost 30 years, and is currently the editor in chief at Capitol Weekly, which covers the California State Capitol in Sacramento. For two decades previous he was the managing editor of the State Net Capitol Journal, a LexisNexis publication that covers state public policy issues and trends nationwide. In that role he was also the producer and host of the SNCJ Deep Dive podcast and the SNCJ Hot Issues webinar series. He is also the producer and moderator of The Open Mic: Writers in Their Own Words, a podcast and YouTube show that features his discussions on writing with crime fiction, mystery and thriller authors.