As many of you already know, a recent Field Poll survey was released showing Senator Dianne Feinstein slipping in her approval rating. 43% of California voters surveyed approve of Sen. Feinstein, while 39% disapprove-- the highest disapproval rating she's had since first being elected to office in 1992. While these numbers don't necessarily spell trouble for California's senior senator, they do indicate that people are starting to think of a changing of the guards in the Golden State. It most certainly has crossed her mind as well.
There are always politicians and prominent Californians waiting in the wings for political jockeying. With Feinstein reaching 80 years of age soon, more and more elected officials are prepping their resumes and spending extra time coddling donors in preparation for the inevitable.
So it begs the speculative question, who would be ready and able to run a statewide campaign for the United States Senate in the event of Senator Dianne Feinstein's retirement? Who would make a great Senator? Who should make for a great race? Who would be an abysmal choice? In this "fantasy draft" diary, I've narrowed it down to the 13 most probable potential candidates who are at least thinking about a potential run from the Democratic side. All the apparent pros and cons will be listed, and your suggestions/comments are always welcome. And by all means, if you know of any Republicans that would seem likely, include those as well!
Well, it's been just over a week since the end of the Steve Poizner era at the Insurance Commissioner's office, and it didn't take long to see the changes. Right of the gate, Jones has come out fighting the massive insurance premium hikes:
Commissioner Dave Jones has already urged Blue Shield of California to refrain from raising rates for the third time in five months. The increases would drive up consumers' bills as much as 59% cumulatively.
On Tuesday, Jones notified Aetna Inc., Anthem Blue Cross and PacifiCare that he also is focusing on them. The insurers did not respond immediately to Jones' request. (LA Times)
While Poizner never officially took insurance company money for the gig, it did manage to find its way into his ballot measure accounts. Pretty funny how that goes. And while he did occasionally go after the massive increases, his policy against them was more talk than anything else. I think there are a lot of California consumers that would like to see a little more action from Jones than his predecessor. Knowing Dave Jones, I'd be shocked if we didn't see just that.
I'm heading up to Sacramento today to see the inauguration of Attorney General Kamala Harris. Working on the campaign for well over a year, it is the culmination of a lot of hard work. Truthfully, at some level, it hasn't really sunk in, so this will be a somewhat dramatic experience. However, I know she will do an absolutely amazing job for the State of California.
But, you know, there are other things going on today as well. The changing of the guard from the worst governor ever back to the more competent Jerry Brown will be a huge positive for the state, and perhaps we can start to recover from the shock doctrining of our Schwarzenegger years.
The rest of the Democratic slate, save Gavin Newsom, will also be inaugurated today. So, that means Tom Torlakson, Bill Lockyer, John Chiang, Dave Jones, Debra Bowen and the above mentioned Kamala Harris will also be inaugurated. And with Dave Jones joining John Chiang, we get our second Carl Sandburg High School (Orland Park, IL) alum in statewide office. What are the odds?
AKA California's Good Senator. Boxer is a reliable liberal in a senate full of utterly useless corporate centrists, and quite unafraid to make waves in the service of doing the right thing. In a career that has mostly been dominated by Republican control of the senate, Boxer has distinguished herself by pushing back against a decade of wingnuttery. By contrast, I knew about Fiorina's awful reputation in silicon valley a decade before she decided to make a vanity run for senate, just from techies I knew heaping scorn upon the CEO who drove HP into the ground and then walked away with millions. Thank goodness Boxer's a formidable campaigner, and Fiorina appears to be headed for the dusty place where all the gazillionaire right wing vanity candidates go after they lose, right next to Michael Huffington.
House of Representatives
CA-01 - Mike Thompson
Mike's generally a pretty good guy, and there have been no groaners like the credit card/bankruptcy bill. this time around. Mike's candidate-for-life in that district, but he does a good job representing his people, and I respect that.
CA-02 - Jim Reed
This district is so gerrymandered for Republicans it isn't funny, but I have to applaud Reed for making a serious hard run at the execrable Wally Herger, who isn't even bothering to campaign this time around, much less debate Reed.
CA-03 - Ami Bera
I am thrilled to see Democrats finally start to compete east of the Carquinez, and Bera is certainly giving Lungren a run for his money. As a once and possibly future denizen of the 3rd CD, I really hope Bera knocks off that right wing SoCal carpetbagger. The 80 corridor has changed, and deserves a good congressman.
Our apologies for being a little quiet here on Calitics this weekend. The convention has been a wee bit hectic for all of us. We'll get you a more detailed recap soon, but there were a few details that were worth sharing.
In the Insurance Commissioners race, Dave Jones was able to squeak out the endorsement. It was certainly a dramatic race, with both campaigns doing a really good job of rallying support. But in the end, Dave Jones' progressive base was simply too much for Hector de la Torre to overcome. The endorsement won't necessarily bring a big windfall, Chair Burton has said that they won't be spending any money in primaries. But, hey, Jones will now get that lower postage rate that everybody was seeking. Of course, the cache of the Democratic Party endorsement will be quite powerful on the mail that we will likely be seeing coming out of Jones' campaign very shortly. I like both of these guys, but in the interest of full disclosure, I did end up voting for Dave Jones. Either will make a much better insurance commissioner than Steve Poizner, that's for sure.
In the LG race, Gavin Newsom won the outright vote, but didn't get the endorsement. I know the Hahn folks were trying to spin this as a win, but I just don't get it. Newsom had already declined to seek the endorsement a while back, and it was Janice Hahn's campaign who forced the issue. If I recall correctly, the vote was about 57-43 52-42 in favor of Newsom. Which, considering Newsom's past, is fairly respectable. But, again, I'm not entirely sure why we went through the process. Perhaps Garry South figured it would make Gavin work and might cause some sort of game-changing drama. That clearly didn't happen, and Hahn is still looking for some way of overcoming Newsom's advantage in name ID.
On the Props, the resolutions committee went the right way on all the props, and we'll approve them. They supported Prop 15, the fair elections initiative, and Prop 13, a measure that would change the way seismic retrofits are taxed. They opposed Prop 14 ("open" primaries), Prop 16 (PG&E Power Grab), and Prop 17 (Mercury Insurance power grab).
General session is about to start, and we'll wrap up the festivities, approve reports of the committees, and perhaps get a chance to vote on a few endorsements. I know at least one campaign was trying to get signatures, but I don't know what came of it. A full recap to come soon.
UPDATE: I can't forget about the other Democratic candidate: SF Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier thinks she's running for the race as well. She entered the race too late to file for the July filings.
Here's today's entry into my continuing money race series: insurance commissioner. The insurance commissioner is kind of a strange gig. There are a number of other insurance regulators in the governor's administration that also do a lot of regulation that the title is kind of overbroad. For example, the department of managed care regulates HMOs and most health insurance, so strike that one off the list. Although I'm not really sure it should be an elected position, the insurance commissioner does play an important role in publicly defining the relationship between the state and insurers.
This should be an interesting race. In theory, it's one of those races where typically people vote based upon party because they haven't really heard of the candidates. The exception would be 2006 when voters had heard enough about the Democratic candidate, Cruz Bustamante, to know they thought his campaign slogan was very apt: Lose with Cruz. Seriously, the campaign was something about weight loss or something.
Anyway, this time you have three Assembly members running for the race, with the Republican, Mike Villines, probably having the highest profile due to his Assembly Minority Leader position until he was deposed after the February budget deal. On the Democratic side you have Dave Jones, a long-time progressive who is pretty popular with the grassroots wherever he goes, and Hector De La Torre, a pretty good guy himself.
Account/Candidate
Dave Jones
Hector De La Torre
Mike Villines
1st Half Contribs
$293,190.97
$528,459.96
$612,399.00
Ending Cash IC Account
$257,788.86
$512,328.15
$185,944.93
Assembly Account
$845,398.04
n/a
$44,717.28
Total Cash
$1,103,186.90
$512,328.15
$230,662.21
All of the candidates are pretty good fundraisers, but Villines has one key advantage: he's taking money from every insurance company he can. He's received money from Aetna ($1500), Farmers ($3900) and the Association of California Insurance Companies PAC ($2000), among others. Asm. Jones has said that he will not accept any insurance money, and I found no evidence that he has done so. Asm. De La Torre has taken a few contributions from insurance companies as well, but it seems to be less pervasive than Villines. That being said, if you are looking for the guy who is keeping as far away from taking money from the people you are supposed to be regulating, there is a clear winner: Dave Jones.UPDATE: It turns out those transactions were old, dating all the way back to 2006 and 2007. Asm. De La Torre has also pledged to take no insurance company money for this campaign. It is reassuring that both Democrats see this as an important issue this time around.
As for the money totals, Dave Jones takes a huge cash on hand advantage into the race from his assembly account. Contributions for the first half of the year, despite looking lopsided in favor of Villines and De La Torre, were actually quite equal, as both of those candidates included transfers from their old accounts into their new insurance commissioner accounts. Keeping track of Villines money was particularly confusing because he also has an account for state senate in 2014 where he raised for the first part of the year, and the transferred to the IC account. Nonetheless, each raised slightly under $300K for the first half of the year. Villines spent a ton of money, over $400K. It seems to have gone to slate mailers, so perhaps this was related to the May 19 election. Otherwise, I'm not sure when these mailers are going to go out.
This should be an interesting race. The Democratic primary could be an interesting discussion between two qualified candidates, while the general election could end up being a little more competitive than we'd like.
Yesterday, SF Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier announced her bid for California Insurance Commissioner. Despite the fact that most San Francisco elected officials have endorsed her opponent, Assemblyman Dave Jones. Despite earlier rumors she was going to run for Lieutenant Governor. Despite efforts to contest the City Attorney's legal opinion that she cannot run for re-election - a battle we can now conclude she has abandoned. As other sources have noted, this will be Alioto-Pier's third attempt at statewide office - having twice run for California Secretary of State. She also made a disastrous run for Congress back in 1996, and did not attain public office until 2004 - when Mayor Gavin Newsom appointed her to serve the rest of his term on the Board of Supervisors. The scion of a political dynasty, Alioto-Pier is not viewed on her own merits as particularly bright or effective - and has one of the worst attendance records at City Hall. In a state where politicians play a game of "musical chairs" for constitutional offices as they await the chance to run for Governor or Senator, is this Alioto-Pier's real agenda?
• Assemblyman (soon to be Senator) Mark Leno takes on a Liberty Council wingnut on marriage equality. And I think you'll agree with me that the Assemblyman is the winner here.
• Asm. Dave Jones announced that he'll seek the post of insurance commissioner, the one statewide office that the Republicans currently hold. Good, we need somebody who's focused on that position, and not posturing for the Republican primary. Jones is a smart guy, and would do a good job. It will be interesting to see if there are others angling for the gig.
• George Skelton sees a mandate in a 4 tenths point victory for Prop 11. You know, I just can't beat my head against this wall any more. The so-called reformers have no, I repeat ZERO, evidence that this will make any additional districts competitive. If this wins, perhaps one or two more districts become competitive, but the underlying demographics do not bear this out. Skelton claims he wants "geographically logical and competitive districts". Well guess what, I want my tree to give me lumber and apples. (Read the Giving Tree). You have one, or you have the other.
In California, we have self-sorted along political lines. Add that to the fact that California is trending toward greater control for the majority party, and you don't have the recipe for a lot of newly competive seats, save the regions where the GOP seats are already trending Dem.
And crowned with his big success of helping Prop 11 to victory, he's already pumping up the big Washington state style "Top 2" election, as if that will somehow be terrific. Great more opportunities for moneyed interests to dominate.
Listen, George, you want real reform? It's called Clean Money. That's the REAL reform that we need.
• Do Republicans even bother with lipservice to representative democracy anymore? Or are we totally over that in favor of putting everything to the ballot. Or perhaps better defined, they are just simply obsessed with the government employees unions. Why must the OC voters now approve government employee contracts? Because the Republicans are all about a new PR stunt to go after dedicated civil servants. Sad.
• I don't know what to make of this, but a senior aide to Barbara Boxer is facing child pornography charges. Jeff Rosato has been fired.
UPDATE by Robert:Major fire breaks out in Santa Barbara - threatening Westmont College and cutting power to most of downtown. These unseasonably warm November temperatures do have their cost.
Vice President Al Gore recorded a video and wrote an email to Courage Campaign members about the importance of investing in education even during a time of economic crisis.
In it Al Gore asks for people to respond back to him directly on Current.com with either a video response or text. They have a pretty nifty tool that will detect a webcam on your computer and let you respond right there, just scroll down to the bottom.
On Monday, I went to the capitol and filmed 18 different Assemblymembers responding to Al Gore. Dave has been cutting them into individual videos and uploading them. Below the fold is the rest of the email from Gore. I had hoped to be able to embed those videos from the Assemblymembers here, but the code from Current is not playing nicely, so you will have to click the link to see.
Assemblyman Anthony Portantino AD-44, Assemblywoman Betty Karnette AD-54, Assemblyman Dave Jones, AD-09, Assemblyman Kevin DeLeon AD-45, Assemblyman Ed Hernandez AD-57, Assemblyman Hector De La Torre AD-50, Assemblyman John Laird AD-27, Assemblyman Lloyd Levine AD-40, Assemblyman Lori Saldana AD-76, Assemblyman Sandré Swanson AD-16 and there are a few more coming including Speaker Karen Bass.
Dear Julia,
I don't write emails like this often.
But, with Californians facing a massive budget crisis and potentially devastating cuts to education, I feel compelled to speak out. As members of the Courage Campaign community, I hope you will speak out as well.
"Our state and its people cannot prosper in the 21st century if we force our schools to live on a fiscal starvation diet," Garamendi said Thursday at Sacramento City College.
However, in doing so my Republican colleagues in the State Assembly decided that while they were prepared to cut education funding and health care for the poor, they just couldn't stomach closing the yacht tax loophole. Too painful, apparently, to the Thurston Howell IIIs of the world. So they refused to provide the 2/3 vote necessary to close the yacht tax loophole. In doing so they robbed the poor to help subsidize tax avoidance by rich yacht owners. Are those the values we want reflected in our state budget? Those aren't my values, that's for sure.
(I love it. With the Presidential primary out of the way, these House races are the highest-profile races we can impact. I'll have a lot more this week, I promise to do a roundup! - promoted by David Dayen)
For those that live in the boundaries of District 3, which contains parts of Sacramento County, Calaveras County, and Alpine Country, you have a chance to elect a real Progressive.
Bill Durston is taking his second run to unseat Dan Lungren, a seven-term member of Congress, and staunch defender of Bush, and his lawless administration. Lungren has been in Congress since 1979, which was in the last century, and yes California, it's time for a change.
The Governor made today the Flood Control day I guess. He signed 6 bills dealing with flooding, which is a major threat in the Central Valley due to the levees' tenuous position these days. The bill of note here was AB 70, authored by Dave Jones.
In an effort to force local governments to consider flood risks in the planning process, one new law, Assembly Bill 70, will hold cities and counties potentially liable if they "unreasonably" approve new projects in previously undeveloped floodplains starting next year. (SacBee 10/10/07)
Why is this important? Well, developers have money. Money influences county supervisors to overlook the best interests of the land and their community in favor of a few bucks. Not that anybody would do that or anything...
This article written by: Former Assemblymember, Hannah-Beth Jackson of Speak Out California
A weekly update on the goings-on in Sacramento
For the week ending September 8, 2007
Key bills and issues we've been following during the
past week and beyond
The first of the final two weeks of the regular session is now done, with hundreds of bills having been heard and or otherwise disposed of. Healthcare, predictably continues to be front and center. The environment has seen some good news and bad, while civil rights--for both the gay community and working women round out the headline grabbers for the week.
Ballot initiatives and threats of same continue to be bandied about, while the Republican play to steal yet another presidential election is taking on broader national attention as its implications for Republicans holding the White House become known. Term Limits has dodged a bullet and will now appear on the February ballot, creating greater pressure to get a redistricting measure passed before the coming recess. And the Perata Iraq initiative sits on the Governor's desk, most likely facing a veto. Of course, the Gov didn't endear himself to his party this weekend at the Republican state convention, but that is of little concern as the Reps continue on a downward spiral in this state.
Now that the budget impasse is over (we'll have more to say on that subject in this coming week's update,"While California Dreams" ),we are focusing on Women's Equality Day. This Sunday, August 26th marks the 87th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution which gave women the right to vote after a 75 year struggle. There are many ways to mark the occasion. In California, there are at least two such ways we can ensure that victims of employment discrimination continue to have the opportunity to seek redress in the courts. For that to happen, our legislature should pass Assemblymember Julia Brownley's AB 435 and Assemblymember Dave Jones' AB 437 Both of these measures are pending in the California State Senate.
Some people underestimate Richard Nixon's legacy. Some of the most progressive social programs came during his administration. Legal Aid was one of these achievements. Since that time, the Legal Services Corporation has been phenomenally successful, to the limited extent of its funding. Unfortunately, funding for the LSC has been minimalistic since the 80s. Reagan came into office and slashed that commy program for the do-gooder lawyer types. Of course, that just left judges to deal with parties who were ill-equipped to handle the issues in front of them.
However, not all California Republicans are so naive. One example is the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, Ronald M. George. George has said that he would like the state to begin a pilot program to provide legal services to the indigent for a broad range of cases. Check over the flip.
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has been one of the most successful tax programs ever. It rewards working, so it is hard for conservatives to kill it, and it provides help to those with the least. So, as a progressive, it's hard not to love. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger, whatever he may be, can support it.
The City and County of San Francisco attempted to provide a local match for the program, called the Working Families Credit. It was partially funded by private corporations, primarily H&R Block, and partially from City coffers. The program was mildly successful, but there were some inherent problems with the program in that it was a city program and so you had to seek out a seperate form. Also, H&R Block's involvement was a bit...troubling given their problems with preying on the poor with Refund Anticipation Loans (RAL).
Despite the problems, the idea is a good one. Many of these problems could be resolved by using a state-based approach. And hey! Assemblyman Dave Jones has plans to introduce such a bill. (The full press release is over the flip). This plan provides a 15% match of the federal EITC, a simple plan that is similar to the other 19 states that already have such a match. It can provide up to $680, depending on your filing status. It's a great idea, but hopefully one that could be improved upon.
There are several ways to further optimize this program. First, make Steve Westly's Ready Return Program permanent. Ready Return simplifies the tax return program by filling out most forms for taxpayers, especially lower income taxpayers who have generally simple tax returns. Ya, yeah, I know this is slightly off topic...but oh wait it's not. Ready Return would encourage low-earners to a)file b) get all the resources that our programs should provide to them.
To go along with this, I encourage faster processing of returns for Ready Return filers that would provide faster refunds. This would discourage using high-cost tax prep services like H&R Block and the pernicious RALs.
Another reccomendation, which might be more challenging, is to focus on the cost of living. Filers who live in more expensive locations (ie LA and SF) should receive more money than those in cheaper locales (ie Barstow, Bakersfield, etc.). This would require some number-crunching, but would begin the long process of stopping the flight from our cities of all but the most wealthy.
However, as for Dave Jones' bill...Let's do it. It's a great idea.
