Democratic activists hoping for big gains in the California legislature this year were dealt a serious blow after campaign finance reports released last Thursday raised troubling questions about Assembly Speaker John Perez's strategic priorities and the California Democratic Party's ability to achieve a two-thirds majority in the State Senate and Assembly.
Democrats would have to pick up at least two more seats in each chamber to achieve the super-majority needed to pass revenue increases over the objections of a Republican minority.
Yet campaign finance reports reveal that Speaker Perez, Sacramento Democratic lawmakers and PACs donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to safe Democratic Assembly districts while virtually ignoring new "swing" districts or defending others against possible Republican pickups.
In the 10th Assembly District (Marin, D+35) Sacramento Democrats gave $80,600 to Mike Allen, an incumbent Assemblymember who moved into the open district when his existing district was carved up and reapportioned. This, even though Mr. Allen is running against two other Democratic candidates and no Republican opposition.
Records also show that most of these donations were given to Allen and Butler during a three-week period last December, and that many Democratic Assemblymembers who donated did not give money to any other Assembly campaigns. The timing suggests a coordinated and conscious effort from leadership to funnel money to these candidates at the expense of other candidates running in more competitive districts.
But as Butler and Allen enjoy the largess of their colleagues in Sacramento while running in districts so safe a Democratic corpse could win, two other candidates running in swing districts which could potentially lead to Democratic super-majorities enjoy no such protection.
Even Democratic State Senator Ted Lieu, whose district overlaps much of AD66, gave $1,000 to Butler, but nothing so far to Muratsuchi.
Additionally, while PACs - including the Professional Engineers in California Government, the State Building & Construction Trades Council and the California State Council of Laborers - gave over $300,000 to Butler and Allen, many of them presumably at Perez's direction, Muratsuchi received only $11,900 in PAC money, including $1,000 from the California League of Conservation Voters - $6,800less than they gave to Betsy Butler.
The clock ticking down on the last night in the California statehouse is always a lot like waiting for last call at a rowdy bar around 2 AM -- you wonder how much damage will done before the last shot.
Looking more closely at the current ma (of course this can change) it appears our new State Senator until 2014, will be Noreen Evans. How many people are aware of this change? It's not a bad thing for sure. Mark Leno will run n SF in 2012, and it looks like Noreen will run in NORCO (that's us, Marin and points north)n 2014.
Now, the interesting question is whether Michael Allen will stay in his new District WINE, which he shares with Assemblymember Wes Chesbro, or move south and run in MARIN (and Southern Sonoma) in 2012. Or will he work it out with Wes, as Wes will be termed out in 2014, but Allen will have another term. Oh, the intrigue.
The Assembly Budget Committee is going all bonkers today, reviewing various proposals from the Governor. Fortunately, for the time being, Brown's proposals seem to be more of a ceiling than a floor:
The Assembly Budget Committee plans to approve much of Gov. Jerry Brown's budget today, but it will reject some of his most controversial cuts to social service and health programs, according to a document released Thursday by the committee.
In particular, Assembly Democrats will not eliminate welfare aid for children after a four-year time limit, and they plan to cut grants by 5 percent rather than 13 percent. They will, however, impose a four-year time cap for adults proposed by Brown.
As Senate Democrats did Wednesday, Assembly Democrats will reject Brown's proposal to cap doctor visits and prescription drugs for Medi-Cal patients. They will also reject Brown's plan to eliminate Adult Day Health Care.(SacBee)
Right now, the 10-cap Medi-Cal maximum, a cruel cut if there ever was one, won't survive very long. I'll try to update this a little bit more throughout the day. If you see anything interesting, put it in the comments.
California's clean air and water, pristine coastline, wild open spaces and public health protections don't happen by accident. They happen because champions for the environment run for office, and once they're elected, they work to pass laws that protect our natural resources and improve our quality of life.
Today the California League of Conservation Voters released our annual California Environmental Scorecard. The Scorecard is the behind-the-scenes look at the battle to protect the Golden State's natural legacy and public health, and reveals how the governor and members of the state legislature voted on critical environmental proposals in the 2010 legislative session. Take action and let your legislators know what you think about their 2010 scores: Visit http://www.ecovote.org/
The story of the 2010 Scorecard is as much about how the environmental community stopped multiple attacks on the environment as it is about how we passed strong laws that protect our quality of life. But the story doesn't end there, because we expect more attacks in 2011 that falsely claim we need to sacrifice the environment in order to improve the economy.
Emboldened by the tough economic climate, anti-environmental legislators introduced dozens of so-called "regulatory reform" bills in 2010 in an attempt to weaken environmental protections. The good news is that, with the help of environmental champions in the state Senate and Assembly, CLCV and our allies successfully defeated the bills that posed the most serious threats to the environment and public health. At the same time, environmental advocates were able to deliver several important proposed laws to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk, including bills dealing with energy storage, recycling, water conservation, pesticides, clean energy jobs, and oil spill prevention.
Schwarzenegger's 2010 score of 56% factored into an average lifetime score of 53 percent over his seven years as governor. The governor received national recognition for leadership on environmental issues. However, he leaves office with a mixed legacy, having championed some issues-notably, bold solutions to climate change-and having proven less reliable on others, including protecting public health and state parks.
How did your legislator perform on the environmental community's priority legislation to protect the environment and public health? Learn your legislators' scores and then let them know what you think! (More after the jump).
Orange County may be the big surprise of the 2010 election. The New York Times recently noted that No Longer Nixon Country, echoing a Calitics diary from February.
Today let's look at one campaign there, home of the national and California DFA Grass Roots All Stars.
Melissa Fox is running in AD-70, an assembly district that Obama carried by almost 9,000 votes. The district includes the progressive bastion of Irvine as its largest city and UC Irvine as its largest employer. UCI is also a huge pool of voters, with 26,000 undergraduates and 15,000 graduate students, staff, and faculty.
On the Republican side, the candidate has become an invisible man. After winning a hotly contested primary against three more moderate Republicans, Don Wagner disappeared. He hasn't updated his website since May, when he announced his endorsement by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, his Facebook page is collecting "work at home" spam, and he failed to file a candidate statement for the pamphlet that goes to all voters. Wagner has been seen at only a few events - Tea Party rallies outside his district.
CHERRY VALLEY - 65th Assembly District Democratic challenger Carl Wood has invited Republican incumbent Paul Cook to a series of debates. In a personal letter Wood declared it "our duty" as candidates "to make every effort to inform voters about our candidacies." In an election year where voters are said to be hostile toward incumbents Wood's invitation includes his assurance that he will make "every accommodation" for Cook in order to make these debates happen.
Wood's campaign manager, Michael Kreizenbeck, hopes Cook will agree to the debates. "A debate that discusses issues like jobs, home foreclosures and the substantial needs of veterans is certain to hurt Cook's chances of reelection, but I don't see how Cook can run from this opportunity to explain himself directly to voters," Kreizenbeck said.
(CaliforniaForever works on Carl Wood's Assembly campaign)
Carl Wood, the former PUC Commissioner that ended those rolling blackouts is now the Democratic contender for the 65th Assembly District seat, most of which lies in Riverside County. On June 15th it was reported in the Press Enterprise that a communications mix-up between the Riverside ROV and the USPS allowed 12,563 absentee ballots that were mailed on time to remain in the custody of the post office past their due date. The law is that the ballots cannot be counted unless they are in the ROV office on Election Day, June 8th. In a press release dated June 17th, after the fiasco became public, Carl Wood proposed a simple solution to prevent the disqualification of valid ballots in future - use the postmark to determine the timeliness of absentee ballots.
Two weeks after Wood took the lead, neighboring Republican Assemblyman Brian Nestande has followed according to an article in The Desert Sun, by introducing legislation to, you guessed it, allow postmarks rather than arrival time at the ROV to determine whether the ballots are on time. Of course it is possible that Nestande did not know that Wood had introduced the idea two weeks prior. Success, as they say has a thousand fathers.
Where was Carl Wood's incumbent opponent on the electoral travesty? So far Assemblyman Paul Cook is a no show on the thousands of uncounted ballots. If the AWOL incumbent ever decides to address the loss of voting rights to thousands of voters in his district, he may be hard pressed to avoid supporting the policy solution of his fast-acting opponent, Carl Wood. Perhaps in this case success will have only 999 fathers.
(This is a fantastic look at how dramatically Orange County has changed in the last 40 years, from Democratic candidate for AD-70 Melissa Fox. - promoted by Robert Cruickshank)
I recently came across a fascinating - and very revealing - article about the political history of Orange County.
Dated July 7, 1974, and titled Orange County: The Right Wing Cradle, the article shows how dramatically Orange County, and in particular my own 70th Assembly District (Irvine, Laguna Beach, Laguna Woods, Lake Forest, Foothill Ranch, and most of the cities of Aliso Viejo, Newport Beach, and Tustin) has changed, both politically and demographically, in the past four decades.
The article describes Orange County as "a stronghold of the John Birch Society, a former stomping ground of the Klu Klux Klan, the fastest growing county in the United States, and the home of the first drive-in church."
2010 won't be as good of a year as 2008 for Democrats. It is really hard to repeat that kind of success. However, here in California, we have a chance to do better than we did in 2008. In 2008, we picked up a few of assembly seats (10, 15, 78, and 80) and lost one (30). In the senate: nothing. Hannah-Beth Jackson lost to Tony Strickland by a razor's edge, but that's as close as we got.
The dynamic will certainly be different in 2010. Barack Obama is not on the ballot, instead we will have a senate and a governor's race to lead the ticket. Perhaps some Carlyfornia Dreamin'? With all that taken into consideration, the Target Book has officially come out with their "races to watch." As Dave pointed out last week, the Target Book is pretty much the chronicler of the conventional wisdom for these races. Not necessarily the best wisdom, but the CW in Sacramento, for better or worse.
In a couple of seats, this will make a huge difference. To take one example, Alyson Huber is in a very, very difficult position. She will not have the same kind of grassroots enthusiasm behind her, both for Obama-less reasons, and for reasons of her own relationship with the grassroots. Considering that she won by just a few votes, she'll need everything that can go right to go right. She voted for the budget, which will piss off some right-leaning DTS voters, and she's also skated close enough to the center to also piss off some left-leaning Dems and DTS voters.
Now, obviously some of the seats are a lot more likely to be competitive than others. It's going to be quite tough to get a Dem in DeVore's 70th AD or to take out Garrick. Yet, there are some interesting races, some of which were not really on the radar in 2008. It will be interesting to see if the Assembly pays a little more attention to races like AD-36 a little sooner this time around.
And over in the Senate, yup, it's just the one. SD-12 will be the sole race that is really in play, unless something crazy happens with the LG appointment.
The Assembly is struggling to to achieve what the Senate has already done: pass a substantive prisons bill. Instead we get a bunch of legislators changing their minds about a sentencing commission, and in the end, setting us backward on reforming the prison mess.
Today, Speaker Bass revealed the details of the legislation that she plans to put up for a vote come Monday. You can see a summary of that bill over the flip (h/t SacBee). To say it is entirely underwhelming would be an understatement.
The bill makes some minor changes to the Senate Bill on the way things are handled, including the "wobblers", which are crimes that can be charged as either a felony and misdemeanor. They changed some of the alternative custody rules and the definition of "grand theft." Really, nothing all that substanital. They don't restore funding for rehabilitation programs that were stripped in the Senate Bill.
But what they do take out of the bill is the "Public Safety Commission" aka the Sentencing Commission. Without the sentencing commission this bill isn't worth the pixels on your screen. It won't fix the prisons. It won't create any substantive change. It will merely kick the can down the road. In order for this bill to be worthwhile, it MUST have a sentencing commission with teeth. A sentencing commission that allows policy makers who understand public safety to make the decisions, not political hacks trying to make their way to the next job. Again, if it can play in Kansas, it can happen here. The only thing missing here are a few legislators with courage.
In other words, this bill misses the opportunity presented by the budget challenges. Frankly, we only have so many cracks at this apple, and this is the perfect storm for a sentencing commission: A Republican Governor providing some cover, a budget mess requiring cost savings, and a federal court order hanging over our heads. The time is now. Like Arnold and his crew are using the mess to shock doctrine the state, we should use this mess to fix the state.
But the Assembly frankly does not have the courage to do what they believe is right. I know they believe it is right, because they passed it as AB 160 back in 2007. The Senate can get it done, the Assembly should be able to muster the votes too.
We can move forward in one of two directions: We can pass a decent piece of legislation, or we can pass this half-hearted nothingness. We can have real reform, or we can just keep going on the same path that we've been pursuing. In all likelihoods, the Assembly will pick the latter, and nothing will really be accomplished. We might even end up with the federal courts deciding how to release prisoners. But, as activists, we must all remember who stood up to make the tough vote, and who did not. In politics, there is always an accountability moment.
While the Senate was successful in passing meaningful, albeit not the prettiest, prison reform , the Assembly has been stumbling over the task for a few days now. They were going to try it on Monday again. Needless to say, it hasn't succeeded. They've pushed back the vote again, indefinitely this time.
"Work is moving forward on a revised plan to increase public safety, improve the effectiveness of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and reduce state budget costs" Speaker Bass said Monday. "There were a number of calls and meetings throughout the weekend with various stakeholders, including law enforcement. Those conversations are continuing. When we arrive at a responsible plan that can earn the support of the majority of the Assembly and makes sense to the people of California, we will take that bill up on the Assembly floor. We will provide advance notice when a vote on the public safety package is to be scheduled."
If you want to take your time, and get this right, that's a great thing. Unfortunately, I think this delay is less about getting this right than getting it wrong. Weak-kneed Democrats are failing California when we most need them to stand up for sound policy. Like the lawmakers in Kansas were able to do a few years back:
"But you know the old 'trail em', nail 'em and jail 'em stuff doesn't work. We want people to come out and stay out and become responsible tax-paying citizens."
She says many ex-cons have learned their lesson and don't want to go back to prison but others have so little to lose that they lack motivation.
Now her job is to give people like Lorelei, who has spent most of her life struggling with crack addiction and drifting in and out of penal institutions, fresh incentives.
*** *** ***
The new strategy seems to be working: five years ago around 203 parolees returned to Kansas prisons each month but by 2007, the number reduced by 100 per month and the number of new crimes - felony convictions that people pick up while they are on parole supervision- also nearly halved. (BBC)
Our prison crisis cannot simply be resolved with more beds, or harsher sentences. These tactics have been tried for generations, and we are clearly losing the "War on Crime." The more we see ourselves as fighting a war on our own people, the more we fail. It's a quicksand that you don't get out of by just hitting the gas.
See, the thing about prison policy is that we have our whole system targeted at the wrong people. Instead of simply looking to sate ourselves, we need to look to how we preserve the goals and institutions of our soceity. What works best for us moving forward? That is what is sorely lacking in California that has been rediscovered in Kansas, even by the people who run the prisons:
Roger Werholtz, the secretary of corrections, was forced to examine how to spend criminal justice dollars more effectively. For decades, he says, policy in the US has been driven by the public's emotional response to criminals.
"We are mad at them, frightened by them, frustrated by them, and so our typical response has been very punitive," he says.
But Mr Werholtz argues locking people up is only a temporary solution since more than 95% of prisoners will eventually be released into the community.
"We have to think long-term and stop arguing about what criminals deserve. Instead we need to focus on what we deserve as citizens and that leads us to a very different set of interventions."
But as we sit in limbo, waiting for the California legislators to look beyond 6 or 8 years, or whenever their next election is, we must remember that legislators are also accountable to us. Take the current issue. In the assembly we have three legislators who fancy themselves as excellent attorneys general of the State of California. That's a gig that requires planning for a period beyond their own tenure. Yet, it is widely speculated that these three Assembly members have been very reluctant to vote for a sentencing reform commission for fear of looking "soft on crime."
The sentencing commission isn't soft on crime, it is a policy board that will allow policy makers, not politicians, to make decisions on what is best for the state. Instead of grandstanding on penalties for each infraction, we can allow policy research and good solid ideas to take hold of California's messed up sentencing laws.
Yet, the Democratic candidates for Attorney General must also pass through the Democratic primary, and there are alternatives for the job who have been quite up front about their position on ToughOnCrimeTM. This is about good policy, and good policy should be remembered by grassroots activists when the time comes around for donors and volunteers come primary time.
UPDATE: Whoops, I meant to include the target list for your comments. Over the flip I have now provided the list that Dave ID'd last week. If they represent you, call them early and often. If they don't well, it can't hurt can it? Tell them that you support a sentencing commission and the prison reform package as passed by the Senate. And if you really get going, tell them to restore rehabilitation funds.
I am so sorry to post a personal pet-issues diary so soon after registering to the site. But I just learned about this website in the last two weeks at the Netroots Nation Convention in Pittsburgh. What a gem!
Who am I? I am a 32-year-old mother and activist who lives in Berkeley, California. I run a progressive mothering blog called MotherTalkers and I am currently a contractor for the family organization MomsRising.org.
I wouldn't already be bugging you if the issue I was working on did not pertain to California families and was not important. I wanted to let you know that a bill sponsored by Sen. Mark Leno that would help rid certain baby products of toxic flame retardants is about to die a silent death unless we pick up the phone and call our Assemblymembers.
That's why the Assembly has stalled, we're hearing. The education part of the budget bill would statutorily put into language a payback of $11 billion in education funds denied to schools under the Proposition 98 mandate. The Yacht Party doesn't want to pay it back. And that's because they don't want to pay for it in the future.
The result of not writing into language a payback of these funds will be that education interests will sue, and win, and it will likely cost the state more in the long run. But you can say "it will cost the state more in the long run" about virtually every aspect of the budget, so why should that trouble anyone?
...so the Assembly came back in session briefly to vote for permanent freezing of COLA in social services programs, and CalWorks and IHSS anti-fraud measures. It got 43 votes, and only needed a majority, so it passes. Still nothing on the Prop. 98 payback changes.
Asm. Reeps holding up $24 B in budget solutions due to spat with Senate Reeps. Asm. Reeps kidding themselves if they think Senate returning
7 minutes ago from mobile web
Asm. Reeps mad because Senate Republicans because Sen. Reeps sent over one bill not two on educ. cuts & Prop 98 repayment. Dont they talk?
10 minutes ago from mobile web
I'm guessing they're pissed because they wanted to be able to vote against the repayment - which could pass by majority vote - and for the cuts to education. Complete political posturing. Too late, the Senate jammed them, and now they'll either walk the plank or blow up the whole thing. Because they want to be successful thieves that don't pay back what they steal.
Assembly Member Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) has a sense of humor. It's quite an asset in the Legislature these days. Today she dropped an invitation to join the Democratic Party on the desks of all of her Republican colleagues. (h/t to Josh Richman Some saw the humor, others don't know how to take a joke.
If you tune in to the CalChannel right now, you'll see an Assembly hearing regarding HR 5, Asm. Ammiano's Resolution opposing Prop 8. After twenty minutes of some heartbreaking stories from LGBT families, it was hard to see it move on to the opponents. There were stories of children questioning whether their families were real because their wasn't a marriage involved. There were stories of LGBT children being brutalized.
Apparently the only opponents to marriage equality are from Antioch and Petaluma, as it seems the first half of marriage equality opponents came from those two Bay Area cities. The arguments were the typical, don't disenfranchise us, there are more of us than there are of you, typical ridiculousness. One of the richest arguments, just littered with irony:
We cannot allow the minority to rule against the people. I'm sorry if it doesn't go in your favor...I ask that you support the people.
I actually think this speaker, one Florence Cusick, meant to give this speech to the Republican Senate caucus regarding the budget. It's amazing the hypocrisy, it just burns. She spoke of the persecution of her Irish ancestors, and the persecution of her minority.
It really is amazing how one minority seeks to push down another once they have moved up the ladder. The repeated invoking of allowing a majority to oppress a minority. They gloat of prevailing, cry of disenfranchisement. And of course, the slippery slope argument leads to pedohilia, thanks to a pastor named Chauncy Gillings of Salinas. Why the Yes on 8 folks can't fathom the distinction, one of consent.
But in the end, democracy can only go so far. Democracy can only go so far as the tyranny of the majority does not
Asm. Ted Lieu (D-LA County) made quite a powerful speech.
Ten years ago I did not support marriage equality. I am a proud co-author of HR5, and proud to support Sen. Leno's marriage equality bills. To me the issue is very simple, it's about love. You never see the words love in the constituion. And that's precisely the point. Government ought not to be regulating the most sacred private parts of loving indivisuals. I love my wife, but there is no reason that love takes any precedence over Asm. Ammiano's love, or Sen. Perez's love of his life. There is nothing unique about my love that qualifies my wife and I to get a piece of paper that says marriage, that Tom Ammiano can't get for the love of his life.
No matter where you believe love flows form Jesus CHrist, as I do, or from Allah or from the human condition, you believe that love is the most sacred part of life. ... For government to choose winners and losers as to which love qualifies for what, is the ultimate offensive notion of what we are ll about. The issue isn't about your beliefs, it is about whether you think the government should be regulating in this most sacred area.
My view is that government should not pick winners and losers. We need to treat everybody equally. Government should stay the hell out of regulating this most sacred institution.
(Good as always to hear from our Lt. Governor. - promoted by Julia Rosen)
My job and your government's job are to protect your job today and tomorrow. California's legislators are left little choice but to swallow hard and accept a very bad budget deal put together in secret without any public hearings and public input, all contrary to the open meeting laws of the state. The tragedy of this budget is that it robs our ability to advance our values and expand our economy by insuring a well-educated workforce. The budget does not allow us to provide adequate resources for the least among us. The budget does not allow transportation, water, and sanitation systems to keep up with population growth. Sadly this budget will force us to abandon robust research programs that will create tomorrow's wealth.
The governor wants to be known as the green governor, the education governor, the reform governor, yet he has utterly failed to lead a budget process that in the remotest way advances any of these goals. There is no real reform of education, prisons, or the state funded healthcare programs in this budget. Yet it is in real reform that efficiencies and increased effectiveness is found and fair cuts can be made. A significant change is in labor contracts that are unilaterally altered, setting aside a long and honorable negotiation process between labor and management. Where is the effort in this budget to advance the green economy?
Unfortunately the budget that is to be voted on in the days ahead does nothing to position California for a quick return to a healthy and growing economy. In fact the budget hastens the starvation of our educational programs at every level, thereby directly and in many case irreversibly damaging millions of our children. The budget accelerates the financial decline of the University of California and the largest university in America, the California State University. California needs teachers, engineers, nurses, doctors, and every other job skill. This budget gets a D in meeting the educational needs of tomorrow's workforce.
If you read the reader diaries column in April and May in this space, you would have noticed a somewhat antagonistic relationship between Greg Pettis supporters and Manuel Perez supporters during the Democratic primary for AD-80 in the Palm Springs area. It was probably more pronounced on the Interwebs, but I'm told from those in the district that there wasn't a whole lot of love there on the ground, either. Now, with the primary over, it appears that Democrats are coming together to take back the seat in the fall.
If Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton can make peace, we anticipate Greg Pettis and Manuel Perez can, too.
An olive branch was extended between the former Democrat rivals last week when Richard Oberhaus - campaign manager of Pettis' failed bid in the 80th Assembly race - announced he was joining Perez's camp.
"He endorses the ideals that we all hope and dream will be implemented in Sacramento," Oberhaus said in an e-mail announcing his plans.
"I shall implement all the strategies that are necessary to make this seat turn from red to blue."
While Pettis hasn't publicly endorsed, this move by his campaign manager and, as the article notes, several of his volunteers suggest that Democrats district-wide are committed to working for victory.
By the way, with less than 100 days until the election I am going to start a "drive for 2/3" legislative roundup. I was talking with some leading Dems in LA County over the weekend and they told me about some off-the-radar Assembly possibilities, particularly in the Inland Empire region. Did you know that Democrats are now within 1,500 votes of making San Bernardino a Democratic county? Last year that was a 35,000-vote majority. We need to turn them out, of course, but with a favorable top of the ticket we're going to see some surprises in the Assembly (the Senate is a tougher nut to crack).
Disclosure: I've been a volunteer with the Perez campaign since April 2007.
We won. Manuel Perez won the Democratic nomination for the 80th Assembly District in California. He won thanks to grassroots organizing, an insightful and professional grasp of core issues, and the powerful support of his brothers and sisters across the broad spectrum of the labor movement. But essentially because he's a mensch, and he's in this for us. His rally speech at 2pm:
It's been such a joy to be a part of this campaign. Manuel is the real thing, and it's an honor to help. This is a seat California Democrats are determined to win.
Updated on Sun., June 8th to trim a bit, title was From Rally to Victory Speech - Election Day.
I recently came across a fascinating - and very revealing - article about the political history of Orange County.