I've had many incredible experiences during my 34 years in public service, but never have I been blessed to receive the support of two presidents in just over a week - until now. On Thursday, at a Bay Area event, I received President Barack Obama's support for the November 3rd 10th Congressional District special election. This followed our great endorsement rally with President Bill Clinton last week.
At President Obama's San Francisco event last night, the President introduced Garamendi, saying: "Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi, who is running for the California 10 [in the] upcoming election - everybody has got to go out there and work for John."
The President went on to say "The reason you're here tonight, the reason I'm here tonight is because we know that our work isn't done. We still have enormous challenges in this country. There are far too many people out there who are really going through a tough time - out of work, seeing their hours trimmed, their wages cut. Americans who are subject to the whims of health insurance companies or who can't afford quality health insurance in the first place. Too many Americans who are seeing the American Dream slip further and further and further out of reach. ... Now is the time to secure our future."
One of the enduring takeaways of the Schwarzenegger era is just how much latitude he is given on the national level as some kind of transformative post-partisan leader, when those same reporters know that California is crumbling into dust under, and in many cases because of, his leadership. We witnessed this again today as national media types heaped praise on the Governor issuing a letter about the Obama health care reform plan:
"As Governor, I have made significant efforts to advance health reform in California. As the Obama Administration was launching the current debate on health care reform, I hosted a bipartisan forum in our state because I believe in the vital importance of this issue, and that it should be addressed through bipartisan cooperation.
"Our principal goals, slowing the growth in costs, enhancing the quality of care delivered, improving the lives of individuals, and helping to ensure a strong economic recovery, are the same goals that the president is trying to achieve. I appreciate his partnership with the states and encourage our colleagues on both sides of the political aisle at the national level to move forward and accomplish these vital goals for the American people."
I love the phrase "significant efforts," by the way. Others might call them "failed efforts," but YMMV.
But this "praise" for health care reform is just a piece of paper. One would think that the national media would seek to know the actions of the Governor on health care - one would be wrong, but one would still think that. And it would take about 10 seconds of Googling to figure out that the Governor has vetoed key elements of the legislation working through Congress. Last year he vetoed AB1945, which would have banned rescission, the insurance industry practice of dumping sick customers for technical violations on their applications like typos the moment that they try to use their policies for treatment. He vetoed SB840, the universal health care bill, on multiple occasions in the past. He vetoed SB1440, which would have mandated that insurance companies spend 85% of premiums on medical care. He vetoed SB973, which would have created a public insurance option by linking local and regional measures. He vetoed AB2, expanding the state's high-risk pool for people with pre-existing conditions.
He basically has vetoed many of the same provisions to be found in the current health care bill. And he is threatening to veto every bill on his desk this year, including another bill to ban rescissions so that customers who have paid insurance premiums for years aren't left to die when they want to use their policies. Anthony Wright notes some of the other bills:
* AB 119 (Jones): GENDER RATING, to prohibit insurers from charging different premium rates based on gender.
* AB 2 (De La Torre): INDEPENDENT REVIEW, to create an independent review process when an insurer wishes to rescind a consumer's health policy, create new standards and requirements for medical underwriting, and requires state review before plan approval. Also raises the standard in existing law so that coverage can only be rescinded if a consumer willfully misrepresents his health history.
* AB 98 (De La Torre): MATERNITY COVERAGE, to require all individual insurance policies to cover maternity services.
* AB 244 (Beall): MENTAL HEALTH PARITY, to require most health plans to provide coverage for all diagnosable mental illnesses.
Dan Walters calls these bills "nothing of cosmic importance". Well sure, he's not going to have a kid, and women are charged more than men by insurance companies anyway! To an entitled white man with a good-paying job, he doesn't have to worry about losing his policy or not getting comprehensive medical coverage. But to a woman who can't afford to lose her job to have a baby, or someone with a mental health problem who can't get relief for his suffering, or someone with an individual policy living constantly in fear that his or her insurance will get revoked precisely when they need it, these are issues of "cosmic importance." Anyone saying otherwise is ignorant.
And yet the Governor will have no problem holding these bills, and these people, hostage. His buddies at the Chamber of Commerce probably don't want him to sign them at all. So he writes a pretty letter supporting health care reform, while denying the very same measures to his own constituents. And national media types call him a "bold leader."
When voters cast their ballots for Barack Obama last year, they could have been forgiven for harboring the expectation that they were voting for, among other things, a more humane American immigration policy. On the campaign trail, Obama had made such enlightened statements as: "Ultimately, the danger to the American way of life is not that we will be overrun by those who do not look like us or do not yet speak our language. The danger will come if we fail to recognize the humanity of [immigrants] -- if we withhold from them the opportunities we take for granted, and create a servant class in our midst." For the most disempowered population in the country, as for many others, hope was in the air. For the first time, a person of color (and son of an immigrant) was poised to control America's sprawling immigration enforcement apparatus, and the Democrats riding to Congress on his coattails were bound to loosen the grip that Nativism had held on the Capitol for nearly a decade.
With the news of this week's government-coerced layoffs of a quarter of American Apparel's workforce, those same voters could now be forgiven for looking back on those speeches as so much election season pandering. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency's audit of American Apparel - and the layoffs that it has provoked - have put the President one big step closer to the position of Brian Bilbray, Republican Congressman from northern San Diego County and former lobbyist for the anti-immigrant, vigilante-friendly FAIR, who applauded the crackdown on American Apparel and complained to the New York Times of employers that have "become addicted to illegal labor."
I mentioned the move by the La Mesa/Spring Valley school district to delay the President's speech to their students. I said then, and I believe more today, that we need to think about how treat each other in political discourse. On occasion, there can be a right and a wrong besides a right and a left.
I just spoke to [school board member] Halgren. She explained that she hadn't understood that the group experience -- not the exact content of the speech itself -- was part of what made the event important. Two teachers who talked with her about it convinced her that it should have been a collective experience. "There are certain things that you do in life that bring us together as a community and as a nation," she said.
I also got an e-mail from another board member, Bob Duff. He wrote:
After seeing the President's speech, I now believe the message should have been viewed live and I regret I was responsible for the delay. All should had the opportunity to have seen it live. For this I truly apologize.
Too bad you don't normally get do-overs for your moments of partisan inanity. The real losers here were the students of the district.
With all the furor over President Obama's speech to the nation's schoolchildren gradually dying down around the country, it's still raging in La Mesa:
Trustees of the La Mesa-Spring Valley School District met in a special session on Labor Day and voted to prohibit their schools from showing President Barack Obama's speech Tuesday to district students.
The address, which the president delivered at Wakefield High School in Washington, D.C., was televised at schools across the country. (SD U-T 9/9/9)
If you are interested in their litany of excuses, you can read the whole article. My favorites were, "it will take too long for the students to walk to the cafeteria" and "20 minutes was too long." Instead of simply allowing the students of the district to watch the speech along with the rest of the nation, the district apparently plans to "lesson plan" around it...ie, shelve it for a while until people forget about it.
Yet, this is part of something bigger. It says something quite disturbing about where the Right is taking the nation. Included in that is the right-wing media. For example, peep this article at the OC Register. Not only does the Register write an article about a completely unscientific "poll" but it tries to infer that somehow 26% of OC residents would support a white supremacist party. Now, I realize that there are some crazy people in this state, but I can't believe the numbers are really that high.
I suppose there was always some level of guttural discourse about politics, it's basic to the game. However, if we are to really address the problems of the 21st Century, we have to think about the issues, and talk about them, like adults. Enough with the scare tactics and race baiting already.
To my fellow Californians who are thinking of taking a sign with a Hitler mustache on Obama, some unsolicited advice. Take a deep breath. Think about whether you really want to compare your president to a man who killed millions of people for no reason other than he didn't like them. Godwin's Law needn't always be true.
Thousands of people are lined up in front of a sports arena waiting to receive the health care they desperately need from a nonprofit that specializes in treating patients from the developing world. Some of their grateful patients stand outside hours past sunset waiting to be treated. Basic dental work for working mothers, glasses for young children, infections left to linger, procedures delayed because the cost of treatment is too great.
No, I'm not recalling an incident from the years I volunteered for the Peace Corps in rural Ethiopia treating small pox. I'm talking about the Remote Area Medical Volunteer Corp's weeklong clinic in Inglewood, a community near Los Angeles. For the first time in their 25 year history, they are offering their worthy service in a major metropolitan U.S. city. Where did we go wrong?
Yesterday I was excited to announce that the SEIU California State Council has endorsed me in my race to represent California's 10th Congressional District, a Northern California district encompassing parts of Contra Costa, Solano, Alameda, and Sacramento counties. With 700,000 members, SEIU is the largest labor union in California, and their ranks include a broad cross-section of working Californians, including social workers, nurses, classroom aides, security officers, college professors, homecare workers, janitors, and more.
Why I'm motivated to lead on single-payer health care, the Employee Free Choice Act, and green-collar jobs over the flip...
The sole legitimate reason for opposition to federal aid to help "donor nation" California to deal with its budget crisis is that by rewarding failure and will invite all sorts of other states to line up for similar largesse. Governor Palin is among those who have raised the prospect of such a perverse incentive.
I think that I can solve that problem (and I know this isn't a new solution):
As a condition of aid, the Obama Administration should require Governor Schwarzenegger to resign.
To be fair, the Feds should probably also require Speaker Bass and Senator Steinberg to resign from their leadership positions, although I say that with regret, as I have little real animus towards them for their desperate attempts to deal with the current situation. That just may be what's required to make things look "unbiased."
President Obama's stimulus bill provides long overdue federal funds to communities facing hard times, but San Francisco will lose virtually all its money from Washington to Sacramento. The City will receive an extra $92 million in federal money this year, but the state has already cut $62 million from what it gave last year. And with Governor Schwarzenegger pushing a "cuts-only" budget to address the state's shortfall, things are only likely to get worse. Mayor Newsom's proposed budget set aside $25 million to plan for future state cuts, but it could be more like $200 million. Nearly all federal gains to the Human Services Agency have already been cancelled out by state losses, without counting Arnold's new proposal to eliminate Cal-Works (which would cut another $100 million out of that department.) Sacramento could decimate the City's Health Department, and it has already killed public transportation funding. Not only does this mean that advocates must fight for every cent in the City budget, but it forces us to pay close attention to what's happening in the State Capitol.
Barack Obama visits California for a couple DNC fundraisers today. I doubt he'll have time to turn on the teevee. But if he does, he will be greeted with a new ad featuring Pauline Beck, the woman who Obama worked with in the SEIU's "Walk A Day In My Shoes" campaign during the Presidential primaries.
The ad is aimed mostly at Arnold Schwarzenegger, who mandated cuts to home health care worker pay, and got the federal government to sign off on them without impacting the flow of stimulus dollars. Basically, Schwarzenegger used the technicality that counties would not be responsible for backfilling worker pay, and therefore burdened with dealing with state cuts, because they always have the option of just cutting the workers completely. It's just another example of the Governor thinking that the message of "the people" is to place the entire burden of the budget deficit on the backs of the most vulnerable members of society.
But a new print ad running in today's LA Times actually addresses Obama directly over the issue.
Dear Mr. President,
I am Pauline Beck - the California home care worker you spent a day on the job with in August 2007. You helped me provide care to Mr. John Thornton, an 86-year old man in a wheelchair who is able to stay in his home because of the care I provide.
I know you are very busy, but Mr. John and I, and my fellow home care workers and their clients, need your help.
You see, Governor Schwarzenegger wants to cut my pay back to $8 an hour. These are tough times, but if my pay gets cut to minimum wage I won't be able to support my family. It's just wrong to pay us so little for taking care of people who have given our communities and our country so much...
I know you are a good man and I am proud of the job you are doing. I hope you and the Governor can work together to help Mr. John, me and the 750,000 of Californians just like us. It would make such a difference in our lives. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Pauline Beck
SEIU is right to personalize this crisis and take on the Governor and the political leadership. The President ought to know about how California is seeking to reverse his stimulus package by slashing the salaries and services of those most able to contribute quickly to the economy, forestalling recovery.
...incidentally, at this link you can write a message to the Governor about these home health care worker cuts.
UPDATE by Brian: I was going to write about the 48-hour vigil that SEIU workers are engaging in right now, but it fits with Dave's post quite well. Beginning yesterday at around noon, homecare workers have been set up at Capitol Park to protest wage and service cuts. They'll be testifying about the very real pain these proposed cuts will cause.
SEIU has been focusing on the fact that there was a billion dollar plus corporate tax cut despite the budget mess, and they'll be hitting that note in a number of protests tomorrow.
When Obama was running as a Presidential candidate in 2007 he spent a few hours working with a home health care worker in Alameda, 61 year old Pauline Beck. Remember, this woman had a union contract:
While Beck's life - struggling to make ends meet with two jobs and regular visits to the food bank - couldn't be more different than the 46-year-old Democratic presidential candidate's, she came away feeling "he just cares about people. ... He wanted to know about me, yes, he did. He really wanted to feel what I did."
I wonder how Pauline Beck feels about the Obama administration helping cut her wage from $12.10 an hour to $10.10 an hour. I guess she can get a third job.
Actually, according to Andy Stern, Pauline and IHSS workers like her will get cut back to $8 an hour. Several bigger bloggers and national groups are picking up on this story today. As Greg Sargent notes, Pauline Beck even spoke at the 2008 DNC. There's video of the then-candidate's visit with Pauline Beck.
Sargent confirms with SEIU that Beck would be hit by this reduction in wages, just two years after Barack Obama walked a day in her shoes. The Administration could have used the power of the purse - and the threat of pulling stimulus money away from California - to get the Governor to back off on these wage reductions. Instead, they acquiesced, and Pauline Beck, Obama's former work buddy, will pay the price.
Brian Beutler of TPMDC has more on this, and Andy Stern has sent a message to his supporters asking them to call the Governor and stop the cuts, although the President is implicated in his message as well.
Two years ago, President Barack Obama walked a day in the shoes of SEIU home care worker Pauline Beck.
Today, Pauline and home care workers across California face pay cuts of up to 33% -- from $12.10 an hour down to $8.
Governor Schwarzenegger's belief that solving the state's fiscal problems on the backs of those who take care of the most fragile among us is an absolute disgrace.
Please call the Governor's office and tell him you strongly disagree with his misguided priorities:
916-445-2841
Earlier this week, Californians sent a clear message of no confidence in Governor Schwarzenegger -- soundly rejecting his proposed budget reforms.
He proposed four ballot initiatives, and all four went down to overwhelming defeats.
The L.A. Times noted that some are beginning to write his "political obituary."
It's no wonder why.
Stern intimates that he will "file a challenge" against the Govenror's decision. Maybe Schwarzenegger needs to walk a day in the shoes of these home health care workers- oh, wait, that didn't work either.
Arnold Twitters in that he got "permission" to enact the budget cuts on home health care workers and still qualify for all federal stimulus money in the health care sector. Cap Weekly has more.
The state of California has received permission from the federal government to cut wages of home healthcare workers without fear of losing federal stimulus dollars.
The ruling comes as a victory for the Schwarzenegger administration, and a defeat for the Service Employees International Union which had sought federal intervention to stop the cuts.
Cuts in home healthcare worker pay were part of the budget solution passed by Gov. Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders in February. As part of his May budget revision, Schwarzenegger has proposed further cuts for in-home support workers. The Legislature cut IHSS worker pay by $2 per hour, lowering wages from $12.10 to $10.10 per hour. The cuts saved the state an estimated $74 million.
It's important to note that, while these cuts suck and will really hurt IHSS workers, they are relatively minor compared to the cuts in health care and education Schwarzenegger wants to enact, while still qualifying for stimulus money. So the Administration can still wield some power here. But obviously this is a bad sign. The Governor should not be allowed to essentially reverse the effect of the stimulus on his own. In fact, he ought to just resign.
Schwarzenegger said he received the voters' message "loud and clear: an overwhelming majority of people told Sacramento, 'Go and do your work yourself, don't come to us with your problems...."
"The message was clear from the people, go all out and make those cuts and live within your means," he said.
Voters were so worked up, in fact, that they turned out in the lowest numbers in state history, and they voted down the same borrowing gimmicks and spending cuts for successful programs that will now compose the Governor's agenda. Let me suggest that I don't believe in his message-taking ability.
Marc Cooper actually has a decent column on Arnold's total failure.
The Obama Administration is poised to announce a major deal on tailpipe emissions standards, bringing the whole country under one federal standard that fairly closely appropriates what California passed in 2002 and has been trying to get a waiver from the feds about ever since.
President Obama will announce as early as Tuesday that he will combine California's tough new auto-emissions rules with the existing corporate average fuel economy standard to create a single new national standard, the officials said. As a result, cars and light trucks sold in the United States will be roughly 30 percent cleaner and more fuel-efficient by 2016.
The White House would not divulge details, but environmental advocates and industry officials briefed on the program said that the president would grant California's longstanding request that its tailpipe emissions standards be imposed nationally. That request was denied by the Bush administration but has been under review by top Obama administration officials since January.
But Mr. Obama is planning to go further, putting in place new mileage requirements to be administered by the Department of Transportation that would match the stringency of the California program.
Under the new standard, the national fleet mileage rule for cars would be roughly 42 miles a gallon in 2016. Light trucks would have to meet a fleet average of slightly more than 26.2 miles a gallon by 2016.
This is a major victory for California, as well as a step forward for all sides of this debate. Auto companies, who apparently signed off on the deal, can now have certainty about their future production needs. The states can get out of court and provide a better environment for their constituents. And we all can breathe cleaner air while using less oil.
But the hilarious postscript must be highlighted. Politico reports that this deal will be announced tomorrow, with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in attendance. As CapAlert notes, there's just one problem: California has a statewide election tomorrow, and Arnold is not an absentee voter. Yes, the Governor, the head cheerleader and supporter of the special election, might miss out on voting in it (although, if the announcement takes place early enough, he could be reasonably expected to make it home before the polls close at 8pm).
You know Arnold can't resist the lure of the spotlight. And better for him to stand at the side of a popular President than try in vain to rescue a flawed set of ballot measures which have probably already failed, given the 2 million vote-by-mail ballots already cast. It probably appeals to him to leave town on Election Day and hide out in Washington. That's par for the course for him, failing to ever accept responsibility for the damage he's caused.
(Some notes on organizing from our LG. Also see his diary from today. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
Today I'll be joining Vice President Joe Biden in San Diego to promote job growth in California. At a time when California's unemployment rate is at 11.2 percent, the highest rate on record, it's certainly premature to declare that happy days are here again. But in this time of economic uncertainty, it's nice to know that our leadership in Washington is in tune with the needs of everyday Californians.
President Barack Obama's stimulus package wisely addresses both short term needs and long term goals in a way that prepares our country for an internationally competitive, green by necessity economy. The stimulus package passed in February includes $144 billion for state and local fiscal relief, $53 billion for priority education spending, $111 billion for infrastructure and science projects, $43 billion for energy needs, $81 billion in funds to help protect the vulnerable, and $288 billion in targeted tax cuts. The package also calls for doubling our renewable energy production in three years.
In California alone, it will create or save 396,000 jobs. Job-creating projects include $1.5 million for alternative energy efficiency grants for business and workforce housing in Livermore, $500,000 for affordable housing in Palm Desert, $200 million for flood levy improvements in Natomas, and $250,000 for storm water capture in Pasadena.
Following the election in November, I noted briefly that Darrell Issa's ascension to ranking member on House Oversight bore watching because he gets off on being difficult and grabbing headlines. A profile from CQ last week finds that he's really enjoying the new role:
And House GOP leaders are already signaling that they expect Issa to stake out high-profile points of conflict with the White House. "He's the kind of guy who will charge forward and get to where it leads him," a figure who will "push the envelope," said Kevin McCarthy of California, the chief deputy minority whip.
Outside analysts underline the same point: At a time when House leaders such as Minority Whip Eric Cantor are looking inward and assessing longer-term electoral vulnerabilities, more autonomous figures like Issa can be full-time partisans. "You wouldn't put someone in there if all they wanted to do is talk consensus," said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. Tapping Issa for the oversight job "does say something about his party's faith in his ability to throw a few hand grenades," he added.
He's already changed over two thirds of his staff with a focus on investigation, and every week he's got a fresh outrage with which to whip the Hill into a frenzy. Which seems to suggest specific and more meta themes. For one, despite his efforts to dress up his actions as a vital watchdog protecting the checks and balances in government, Issa's full political career is a record of naked partisanism, distortions and outright nastiness. To CQ, "Massachusetts Democrat Jim McGovern contends, for instance, that Issa's mission is just 'to tear something apart.'" It's just who he is, and while that may make him well suited for this job in the narrow sense, it certainly doesn't carry any nobility when the goal is simply personal victory and aggrandizement.
In the broader sense though, this offers a striking counterpoint to Cantor's listening tours and Rush's push to the far fringes of the Right. Issa's tactics represent probably the only piece of the Republican party that have a shot of being effective right now- wearing down the administration with a thousand paper cuts. And in the process of triumphing on all the ticky tack stuff, Issa slides into a default position of leadership and triumph in the party. If you thought the GOP was petty and vindictive already, well, Issa would kick things to levels rarely seen and ideology would be incidental.
Keeping this administration honest is one thing, and frankly we're already seeing good signs on accountability. But Issa's job and his passion is to destroy government's ability to function and destroy his opponents in the process. It's a point to watch carefully as Republicans run out of other options for developing feasible counters to Democratic governance.
When the Obama Administration's plan to mitigate foreclosures came out, it was clear that it would be insufficient to deal with the particular challenges faced in California. Initially, the plan would only modify loans where the amount owed was 105% of the home's true value. Given that home prices have collapsed here, this would have helped almost nobody in California. State lawmakers, in particular the Democratic point person on mortgages and foreclosures Asm. Ted Lieu, went to Washington to lobby for changes. And today, faced with a sluggish mortgage rescue program attracting few lenders or homeowners, the Administration expanded the plan.
The Obama administration said Tuesday it is expanding its foreclosure prevention program to cover second mortgages and to direct more troubled borrowers to the Hope for Homeowners program.
Under the administration's new program, the interest rate on second mortgages will be reduced to 1% on loans where payments cover interest and principal and to 2% for interest-only loans. The government will subsidize the rate reduction, with the money going to the mortgage investor [...]
Also Tuesday, the administration said it is now requiring servicers to offer troubled borrowers access to Hope for Homeowners as a modification option if they qualify.
Expanding Hope for Homeowners would address one of the major holes in the original Obama foreclosure prevention plan. It helps homeowners whose homes are now worth far less than their mortgages.
Servicers had balked at participating in the Hope program because it required they reduce the mortgage principal balance to 90% of a home's current value.
Hope for Homeowners, which began in October, is being revamped in Congress. Servicers would have to reduce the principal to 93% of the home's value. The change would also reduce the program's high fees, which turned off many troubled borrowers.
Loan servicers get a fair bit of cash incentives for participating in the program, which I don't totally support, but if we have to bribe lenders in order to keep people in their homes, that makes more sense than spending the same amount of money on the fallout from a foreclosure. And lenders do take a haircut in the Hope for Homeowners program, the first loss to my knowledge that lenders have been forced to take.
(A post from Mayor Newsom. As a reminder, elected officials are encouraged to post on Calitics; we'll do our best to promote them to the front page promptly. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
Every day more San Francisco residents and businesses are signing up for two San Francisco programs that will cut monthly utility bills and help the City meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals. One is SF Energy Watch, which provides technical assistance and financial incentives that pays over half the cost of energy efficiency upgrades to commercial and multifamily properties. The other is GoSolarSF, which, when combined with federal tax credits and state incentives, can reduce the cost of installing a residential solar power system by more than 50 percent.
Edited by Brian for space. See the flip for the rest of the post.
Two of the eight "Obama Republicans," that is, members of the GOP delegation in the House whose districts went for Barack Obama in November, are in the news of late, and I think we can draw some conclusions about their behavior.
First of all, Dan Lungren held a "town hall meeting" in his district last week. I put "town hall meeting" in quotes because unlike actual town hall meetings, attendees weren't allowed to ask questions:
After a brief introduction by Elk Grove Mayor Patrick Hume, Lungren made it clear that the format of this 'townhall' meeting would not include direct questioning from the audience. Rather constituents were to fill out a questionnaire and submit for indirect questioning by Hume.
Lungren's reasoning was that he had received several constituent complaints that other district meetings were "so rambunctious" that they were afraid to come. To make the meeting open, Lungren said questions would be answered only by those filling out the questionnaires.
During the course of the meeting there were 15 questionnaires read covering a variety of topics, none of them pointed or very relative, in our opinion, to the staggering recession we find ourselves in. Lungren talked about his favorite topics of immigration, deficit spending and judiciary matters.
Hume, who had a table full of submitted questionnaires in front of him, never seemed to ask the questions as written. Hume was either being overly polite, or didn't want to incur the wrath of a congressman [...]
"If this is a townhall meeting, we should be allowed to be allowed to make comments," said Elk Grove resident Mike Monasky. Immediately Monasky was loudly told by city charter commission member Christopher Orrock to be quiet.
Now there's someone who doesn't want to be held accountable by his constituents. That makes the Bush "town hall meetings" look like free-for-alls.
Then there's Buck McKeon. His home in Santa Clarita was burglarized. We're sorry for him and his wife. But we did not expect McKeon to push a political angle.
A thief, who has since been arrested, broke into the McKeons' home on the morning of March 4 and stole jewelry from the master bedroom, said Bob Haueter, McKeon's 2010 campaign manager. The rest of the home was not disturbed, he said [...]
The burglary was mentioned in a McKeon fundraising letter, dated March 25, that discussed McKeon's opposition to the Employee Free-Choice Act - a bill that would make it easier for workers to unionize. The legislation is backed by President Barack Obama, whose political roots are in Chicago.
The letter says the labor legislation is "right out of Stalin's playbook" and part of the president's "socialist agenda." A note at the bottom of the letter, written by Patricia McKeon, read:
"As if things couldn't get any worse, our home was just broken into while we were in D.C. Some observant neighbors were able to identify the thieves and get the license plate number of the car they used.
"You won't believe this; the car is registered to a person in Chicago! Just know this, no matter what happens to us, Buck and I won't back down."
Are you kidding me? Apparently we're to believe that President Obama has a cadre of thieves he's dispatching across the country to Republican homes. While I admit that would be a simply ingenious strategy (note to Patricia McKeon: I'm joking), I simply don't think he's concerning himself with an underworld network.
Can we conclude that these two are maybe just a little bit scared, as they see their stranglehold on their districts slipping away?
I forgot about this (which is why I'm such a good reporter!), but the White House Health Care Forum in Los Angeles and several satellite sites around California is streaming at HealthReform.gov right now. Todd Beeton is liveblogging at MyDD.
(Sorry, guys, I wrote this one, as well as any "Open Thread" comment. I forget to log out sometimes...
- promoted by David Dayen)
State Democrats are buzzing about this weekend's Carla Marinucci article entitled "California Dems target 8 GOP districts", which claims that Republican voter registration is dropping fast, providing a major opportunity to pick up Congressional seats in 2010.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has targeted 35 districts across the country represented by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives - including eight in California - that were won by Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election, said Jennifer Crider, the committee spokeswoman.
The Democrats plan increased appeals to voters in those areas and will make aggressive efforts to recruit Democratic candidates to run against the Republican incumbents, she said [...]
The vulnerable California districts with Republican representatives that were won by Obama are those of Reps. Dan Lungren of Gold River (Sacramento County), Mary Bono-Mack of Palm Springs, David Dreier of San Dimas (Los Angeles County), Elton Gallegly of Thousand Oaks (Ventura County), Brian Bilbray of Solana Beach (San Diego County), John Campbell of Newport Beach (Orange County), Ken Calvert of Riverside and Howard "Buck" McKeon of Santa Clarita (Los Angeles County), the committee says.
It would be nice if I thought any of this would work. First of all, the registration changes didn't just spring up in December 2008. These trends have been occurring for some time, and were all present during the last election. Despite this, we had a candidate in CA-25 (McKeon) who spent less than $10,000 or her entire campaign. The candidate in CA-24 (Gallegly) won her primary because of her ballot designation and without spending any significant money. (By the way, CA-25 is now the seat held by the GOP with the closest registration gap between Republicans and Democrats in the whole state. Did you know that?) In the races where we managed to compete, our candidates significantly underperformed the top of the ticket, and in most cases underperformed Barbara Boxer's performance in 2004, when a less dominant John Kerry was at the top of the ticket.
I don't think there are that many other people who have followed California congressional races closer than I have, and I have to say that we simply suck at elections in these kinds of races out here in California. The state party is dysfunctional at best and downright criminal at worst. Put it this way: we had the same chance to win all these seats in 2008. Nate Silver, making a separate point, provides a list of the 30 districts where Obama won between 50 and 52 percent of the vote. As you'll see, we did extremely well in those seats, except for in California.
Barack Obama won 51 percent of the vote in NY-20 on November 4th. How did congressional candidates perform in other districts where he received between, say, 50 and 52 percent of the vote? Again, we see essentially an even split; Republicans won 16 of 30 such districts and Democrats won 14:
Won by Republicans (16): CA-24, CA-25, CA-26, CA-44, CA-45, CA-50, FL-10, FL-18, MI-4, MN-3, NE-2, NJ-7, NY-23, VA-4, WI-1, WI-6
Won by Democrats (14): FL-22, KS-3, MI-1, MI-7, MN-1, NC-2, NJ-3, NY-1, NY-19, NY-20*, NY-24, TX-23, VA-2, WA-3
Winning percentage in these seats in states other than CA: 58.3%
Winning percentage in CA: 0.0%
By the way, the other two districts not mentioned above that are now being "targeted"? CA-03 (Lungren) was 49-49 Obama, and CA-48 (Campbell) was also 49-49 Obama. Heck, even CA-46 was only 50-48 McCain. Obama got 46% in CA-19 (Radanovich), where there was no Democratic candidate, and 47% in CA-40 (Royce).
Some would argue that, properly resourced, these seats would suddenly become very winnable. I give you CA-50, where Nick Leibham consistently beat Brian Bilbray in fundraising and maxed out at the 45% ceiling on Democrats in that district.
CA-44 is somewhat winnable because Bill Hedrick came close in '08 and is running again. We lost our best candidate in CA-03, Bill Durston, and everywhere else, I'm just extremely dubious, because the state party has systematically psyched itself out of winning these seats (thanks to the Faustian bargain of incumbency-protected gerrymandering designed by... imminent state party chair John Burton), and the commitment at the national level has been known to wane. We've left dozens of winnable elections on the table the past two cycles, dramatically underperforming the nation. A little DCCC money won't change that.
