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!
I received this in my e-mail today and present it as a public service:
Friends,
I have great news! Over the weekend, Governor Jerry Brown, Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom, Congressional Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the California Democratic Party and a host of other Democratic Leaders have thrown their support behind my campaign for Congress. These great leaders share my commitment to ending the wars overseas, investing in our communities at home and creating sustainable, green jobs. They know what it will take to get it done, and they know I'm the right person to represent this district.
What you're about to read won't be an exercise in sour grapes.
The candidate I supported, Debra Bowen, lost fair and square to a better-funded candidate with far more institutional support and a well thought-out strategic path to victory.
Janice Hahn is unequivocally our best choice now to represent us in CA-36.
Her competitor, Tea Party Republican Craig Huey, is a nasty piece of work. Fortunately for us, Janice Hahn and our union allies have the resources to make sure he won't get elected in 2011.
However, 2012, after CA-36 is redistricted, might be a different story altogether. That's why I'm writing this final piece on the election.
To better understand what might happen in 2012, I first need to tell you how we got here, and how Janice Hahn's strategic choices, coupled with Marcy Winograd's ego, may have created a perfect storm in which to bring a previously unknown Tea Party candidate to national prominence.
When Jane Harman resigned from Congress earlier this year, voters were quickly presented with a daunting choice, as candidates from all over the political spectrum entered the race to replace her.
But for many of us, the choice was clear - we needed someone with conviction, who was principled and not beholden to special interests. We needed Debra Bowen.
And over the last couple of months, I've seen something remarkable, something I haven't seen since the Obama campaign. Hundreds of volunteers taking time out of their busy lives to phone bank and canvass week after week for Debra. These aren't paid contractors or City Hall insiders making a political calculus, these are our friends and neighbors taking an ownership stake in Debra's campaign and an ownership stake in their community's future.
So instead of telling you yet again why I support Debra Bowen, I thought I'd turn the floor over to them.
Meet my friends and neighbors who will be supporting Debra on Tuesday.
Debra Bowen has the intelligence, the passion and the integrity to not only be a strong advocate for our district in Washington, but to be a national leader for the Democratic Party. I know she will work tirelessly to defend the environment and bring green jobs to our district, because she always has. We are home to several of the largest US Aerospace/Defense contractors (Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon). Debra knows that resolving our problems will require sound, balance approaches based in facts and data so that everyone in our community participates in an economic recovery. That's why, on May 17th, I'll be voting for Debra Bowen for Congress.
- Tony Salvaggio (aeorospace engineer) Manhattan Beach, CA
I have known Debra personally since the mid 1980s. She has proven herself to be forthright, honest and a damned hard worker for us, her constituents, when she represented us as Assembly member and then in the State Senate. She will do the same in the US Congress. There are many stories that could be told to support my statement. I want to keep this story short. Sufficient to say that I gave more money than I could afford to her campaign and I would follow her lead to the moon.
- Challis McPherson (retired), Venice, CA
Debra Bowen was the first Democrat I ever voted for after switching parties in 1992. She has always been a strong advocate for LGBT rights, before it was the popular thing, and as a gay man that is very important to me. But the main reason I support her is because she is one of the very few politicians that truly have the political courage to take a position on an issue and have the conviction to vote accordingly. I know she will not be influenced by polls and special interests that throw money around and expect favors! The best example of this courage is how she handled the voting machine crisis in CA when she first became SOS. Even though the state had already spent $45 million on voting machines, she had the courage to stand up and say these Diebold voting machines are vunerable to fraud and decertfied them. For this she has earned my respect and vote!
- Varo Asorian (small business owner), Torrance, CA
As Secretary of State she has proved herself to be a sensible, no nonsense progressive who had clear and achievable goals, stuck to them and got them done. I have been continually impressed with Debra's commitment to improve government transparency and access. After 14 years in the California legislature, she has the legislative experience and knowledge to navigate congressional politics successfully. She will work on behalf of our district with thoughtfulness and compassion, but also with a keen understanding of how to move legislation forward to achieve success.
- Kim Drobny (community organizer), Mar Vista, CA
As an educator, I have been a teacher, principal, district administrator, and director of a statewide early literacy project. I am also a parent of a student who attended public schools from K-16. Debra Bowen has led efforts to create smaller class size in K-12 schools and also supported our community college and state university systems. I am so grateful that Debra Bowen understands the importance of public education for our future, supports parent involvement, and most importantly, understands the importance for teachers and principals to be trained to provide the best education.
- Dianne Wallace (educator), Manhattan Beach, CA
From her very first campaign, that being for the State Assembly in 1992, Debra had environmental credentials before anyone else was even bothering. Besides living an earth-friendly lifestyle herself, she had already been offering her legal services pro-bono to "Heal the Bay." For the 19-years she has held elected office, I have always known that I could trust her to sponsor and support cutting-edge environmental legislation and to be there for her constituents when a solar project or other earth-friendly measure called for her support.
- Dency Nelson (Sierra Club member), Hermosa Beach, CA
As a transportation advocate, it's very clear to me that Debra Bowen is the person for the job. You need someone who recognizes that war spending is an problem, and represents tremendous diversion of our nation's resources away from constructive uses that we're in dire need of - like building real sustainable and function transportation. You need someone with an eye for policy details, who can delve into the nitty gritty and come back with victory. And you need someone who can work against their short term political interests to gain long term victories that better all of us. Bowen is all of those, and outrageously experienced to boot.
- Alex Thompson (president, Bikeside LA) Del Rey, CA
I am voting for Debra Bowen for Congress because she is very smart, a proven thinker and problem solver, self proclaimed "policy wonk and techie" whom I trust most to serve our district as a US Representative during very difficult times. I have worked with Bowen and our neighbors to prevent a massive Century City sized development in Venice and to keep the local emergency hospital open. As Secretary of State, she prevented possible wide-spead voter fraud in CA by banning insecure voting machines. I was honored to be present when she was presented with the "Profiles in Courage" Award at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston by Senator Ted and Caroline Kennedy and I will be even proudere to have her represent me in Congress.
- Linda Lucks (neighborhood council president), Venice, CA
Statement of Warner Chabot, CEO, CA League of Conservation Voters
The California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV), rejects the latest round of the misleading campaign mail that questions Debra Bowen's integrity, her commitment to the environment and the public interest.
These attacks are unfair and unwarranted. Bowen has fought for the public interest, the public's full involvement in our democracy, and the environment her entire career. She's never given in to special interests of any kind, and has always stood up to big polluters like the oil industry.
That's why Debra Bowen is the only candidate to receive the endorsement of both the Sierra Club and CLCV.
Bowen earned a 96% lifetime score from CLCV's Environmental Scorecard on environmental issues while serving in the state legislature. Of all the candidates, Bowen brings the greatest depth of experience and achievement on a wider range of environmental issues. She fought for laws to oppose offshore drilling, fight climate change, promote alternative energy and to clean up the Ports of L.A. and Long Beach. With now-Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, she passed a landmark environmental justice bill to protect poor communities from becoming environmental dumping grounds.
We believe Debra Bowen's experience and integrity will make her a highly respected and effective environmental champion and leader in Congress.
Note by Brian: People, stopping tossing out Troll ratings for comments that you simply disagree with. There are other ratings to use for comments, and frankly, the ratings should be used as a grading on quality and sincerity of the post, not on whether you agree with it. So, I'll be uprating a few comments, but please, think before you rate.
The mailer starts out with the word WARNING bolded in yellow against a black background, then goes on to say, "Beware of Debra Bowen's Negative Campaign! Unable to find anything positive to say and desperate to win at all costs, Debra Bowen has been falsely attacking Janice Hahn and Marcy Winograd!"
The mailer then goes on "remind" voters that Bowen was "a lifelong Republican until she changed registration before she ran for office", and lists a number contributions Bowen received in 1998 and 2000 from energy and health insurance companies. Hahn also goes out of her way to portray Winograd favorably in a contrast and compare section in the midsection of the piece.
Those are the basics. Now let's deconstruct this a bit.
First of all, this mailer isn't an independent expenditure from an outside group, it comes directly from the Hahn campaign, which means Janice Hahn not only knows about the mailer, she had to approve the content.
Secondly, it's highly misleading in some respects, and plainly false in others. Here's why.
It's just flat out weird that Hahn would claim Bowen was running a negative campaign against her and Winograd. Of the five campaign mailers I've received from Bowen's campaign so far, two featured Bowen's "Profile in Courage" award for her work as Secretary of State, one featured her endorsement by the Sierra Club, and two highlighted her 14 years of experience representing most of CA-36 in the CA state legislature. None even mentioned Hahn or Winograd. In debates and forums where all three candidates have appeared, Bowen rarely mentions either candidate by name.
There are only two times I can think of when Bowen ever came close to going negative (on Hahn, not Winograd). The first time was at the CA-36 endorsement meeting in April, when Bowen pointed out Hahn had endorsed Republican candidates - this after Hahn dinged Bowen for not being "a life long Democrat" (a charge Hahn repeats in her attack mailer). The second time was last Sunday during a Daily Kos interview, when Bowen was asked to compare and contrast her campaign contributions with that of her opponents. Bowen's campaign manager and press person have made similar statements highlighting Hahn's contributions from LA City Hall lobbyists, contributions the LA Weekly pointed out would actually be illegal if Hahn were running for LA City Council and not Congress.
But when it comes to Winograd, the only Democrat in this campaign to go negative on the candidate was Janice Hahn, who slammed Winograd in a letter urging Bowen to sign on to a pledge supporting Israel. In the letter, Hahn quoted Henry Waxman who said "In Marcy Winograd's vision, Jews would be at the mercy of those who do not respect democracy or human rights."
The last week of a campaign, as our mailbox fills to overflowing with glossy brochures extolling the virtues of competing candidates, we often find ourselves donning black, rending our garments, and contemplating the death of a million innocent trees.
The campaign to replace Jane Harman in CA-36 is no different.
Spread out on my coffee table right now are a couple of mailers from Debra Bowen, one from Marcy Winograd that a volunteer stuffed under our welcome mat, one from Mike Gin, and even one from Tea Party candidate Craig Huey. However, none of these candidates holds a candle to Janice Hahn and her supporters, who sent out a thirteenth full-color mailer today.
According to the FEC, Hahn leads all candidates but Craig Huey in cash-on-hand (money left in the bank after expenses), and that's enabled her to fund this juggernaut-in-wood-pulp with over $300,000 in donations and independent expenditures from business interests and lobbyists connected with LA City Hall, real estate developers,the nuclear industry,health insurance PACs, and even rent control opponents.
Combing though the latest FEC reports, I found a number of interesting nuggets, but one recent donation worth noting in particular was from Tim Larkin, CEO of Warren Resources.
Why this donation? Because Warren Resources, a New York City-based oil company with considerable ties to the Wilmington and Harbor area oil fields, was a vocal critic of Measure O,the oil extraction tax Hahn opposed putting on the ballot after initially supporting it. In the end, Hahn was the only LA City council member to vote against bringing the measure to voters, saying at the time,"I've reconsidered this and I have heard from various business groups who do feel like this might be the wrong climate to put this on the ballot."
Butler has endorsed Debra Bowen in this congressional race.
According to FEC reports, Janice Hahn is the only candidate so far to benefit from independent expenditures.
It's likely to get worse before it gets better. I've heard rumors CAPC is planning to send out a negative hit-piece against Bowen this week, just as they did Butler, and that Hahn will be taking a page out of the Meg Whitman campaign, sending out yet another 20-30 page full-color brochure to voters for the general election.
But hey, there's good news too. According to the Sierra Club (who've endorsed Debra Bowen), it turns out all those mailers are recyclable.
I proudly stand with Veterans For Peace-LA in signing the organization's Declaration to defund the Iraq/Afghanistan wars, except to bring our troops home safely. To keep our troops in harm's way, to spend 2 - billion dollars a week on these occupations is a war on America's middle class. We have money for bombs, but not for books - as 5,000 teachers in Los Angeles receive lay - off notices and community colleges close their summer school programs.
I ask my opponents Janice Hahn and Debra Bowen to reconsider their decision not to sign the Declaration. Congress has the power of the purse, which it exercised to finally end the Vietnam War after an estimated 60,000 American soldiers and millions of Vietnamese lost their lives.
Let's not wait for the death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan to climb any higher. This week Veterans For Peace-LA carried coffins in downtown Los Angeles as the number of U.S. soldiers lost in Iraq/Afghanistan reached 6,000.
We do not know how many Iraqis or Afghan troops and civilians have died because the Pentagon does not keep a record.
We must protect our troops. Bring them home. Spread this Declaration throughout the land - and ask every congressional candidate to sign it.
One day after LA Councilwoman Janice Hahn told an audience in Venice that "Campaign decisions should not be happening in American's boardrooms. We need far tighter curbs on corporate campaign expenditures." the LA Times is reporting that The Cooperative of American Physicians IE Committee, a PAC which represents medical malpractice insurers, has spent $50,000 on mailers to support her in the CA-36 race.
A California physicians insurance group has spent more than $50,000 on two political mailers to support a candidate in next month's crowded special congressional election, federal records showed Thursday.
In documents filed with the Federal Election Commission, the Cooperative of American Physicians said it spent $51,092 on a mail campaign advocating the election of Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn. Hahn is one of 16 candidates on the May 17 ballot to replace former Democratic Rep. Jane Harman of Venice.
The physicians group is apparently the first to make a so-called independent expenditure in the 36th Congressional District race. Groups are allowed to spend unlimited amounts to support or oppose a candidate so long as they do not coordinate with the candidate's own campaign.
Hahn so far has led the pack in fundraising, outpacing even Secretary of State Debra Bowen, believed to be her strongest competitor for the seat. About half of Hahn's contributions appear to come from lobbyists, developers and others doing business with the city. The next campaign finance reports are due at the FEC on May 5.
Frankly, I think the LA Times is being conservative in their estimate. Dig a little deeper into the numbers, and you'll find that over 70% of Hahn's donations comes from LA City Hall contractors, lobbyists, the nuclear industry and rent control opponents. A year ago, this same PAC partnered with oil, tobacco and other special interests to go after 53D Assemblymember Betsy Butler in the June 2010 primary.
A coalition of oil interests, insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms and other business interests has poured at least $480,000 into a mail and television campaign to oppose one of the eight Democrats competing in the June 8 primary for an open Venice/South Bay Assembly seat......
"Groups funded by the Civil Justice Assn. of California and two medical malpractice insurance organizations have spent the money to defeat Betsy Butler, a former fundraiser for two major environmental groups and the Consumer Attorneys of California......
John H. Sullivan, president of the association, which seeks to cut the numbers of "excessive and unwarranted" lawsuits, said his organization objects to candidates whose campaigns "have been heavily supported by plaintiffs' lawyers. In our experience, [they], if elected, do not show much independence when it comes to matters affecting litigation."......
The association, which has spent more than $180,000 to oppose Butler, lists among its 56 board members Altria (parent company of Philip Morris USA), Anthem Blue Cross, Apple Computer Inc., BP,the California Apartment Assn., ExxonMobil Corp., GlaxoSmithKline, Southern California Edison and State Farm Insurance Cos.
Two other committees involved in the campaign against Butler represent medical malpractice insurance interests: California Allied for Patient Protection (which has spent $148,522) and the Cooperative of American Physicians (which has spent $150,000).
So far, no outside groups have reported independent expenditure campaigns for other candidates in the CA-36 race.
An internal poll released by the Bowen campaign shows the candidate tied with Councilwoman Janice Hahn in the CA-36 primary. Marcy Winograd - who received 41% of the vote against Jane Harman in the 2010 primary race - is only polling at 6%, putting her in 4th place behind Republican Mike Gin.
Bolstering their status as the presumed frontrunners in the crowded special election for a South Bay-based congressional seat, Democrats Janice Hahn and Debra Bowen have outdistanced their rivals in campaign contributions, reports filed with the Federal Election Commission showed Friday.
By the March 31 close of the reporting period, Hahn had raised $274,443 and spent $103,177, while Bowen had collected $195,224 and spent $102,227. Bowen, who is California's secretary of state, and Hahn, a Los Angeles councilwoman, are vying to succeed former Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) in a district drawn to favor Democrats, who hold a nearly 18-point registration edge.
But Republican Craig Huey, owner of an advertising firm, had more cash at his disposal than Bowen and came close to matching Hahn's money by lending his own campaign $250,000, according to his FEC report. He spent $155,695 and reported raising $1,727 in contributions from others.
While fundraising numbers as a metric of potential success are unreliable (Meg Whitman anyone?) and are an incomplete and constantly moving target (Debra Bowen raised an additional 40K just outside the reporting period thanks to a drive sponsored by Howard Dean), they can still provide insight into a campaign's strengths, weaknesses, priorities, and how influential power brokers perceive a candidate's potential value.
One meme I hear in the press a lot is that the race between Hahn and Bowen boils down between Hahn's "beer-track" blue-collar union support versus Bowen's more affluent "wine-track" coastal support.
Jobs are the first thing you read about on her website, (" I'm running for Congress to create new jobs.") It's in nearly every campaign press release, ("I will be a fighter for workers!") And it's the first thing she talks about on the campaign trail, "If the subject is jobs, I don't know anybody who has a track record as I do of creating good jobs.", Hahn told a gathering of moms in Mar Vista.
Yet in January - two days after attending President Obama's State of the Union speech as Jane Harman's guest - Hahn abruptly withdrew her support for a shipyard at the Port of Los Angeles that only 20 months before she'd touted would deliver a thousand "well-paying clean energy jobs, renewed economic activity, and a new standard for environmental stewardship."
Public records available online and news reports published at the time tells us what happened in those intervening 20 months. It's a complicated tale, featuring an ambitious termed-out LA City councilwoman, conflicting agendas between the Port of Los Angeles and the shipbuilder, Gambol Industries, intramural union warfare, maxed-out, suspiciously-timed campaign donations, accusations of influence peddling, and nearly two years worth of squandered goodwill.
Rather than ask you to sign a pledge, I thought I would simply request your assistance in the ILWU struggle for union recognition at Rite Aid. I've written a letter to the corporate headquarters, explaining why I support the union's boycott and urging the company to respect collective bargaining rights.
Please join me and rank and file ILWU members at the harbor in boycotting this store and urging your supporters to do likewise. Together, we can condemn all anti-union rhetoric and lend our support to workers living in fear of employer retribution. As my ILWU brothers and sisters remind us, "An injury to one is an injury to all," so let us be staunch advocates of self-determination at the workplace.
Today, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) introduced a 10-year budget proposal that would essentially eliminate Medicare and Medicaid, replacing it with a voucher and managed-care system that would drastically curtail benefits for the poor, disabled and elderly.
"This is not a budget. This is a cause," Ryan said yesterday on Fox News. "We are here to try and fix this country's problems. If that means we are giving our political adversaries a political weapon to use against us... shame on them. We owe it to the country to give them an honest debate."
Democrats universally condemned the plan, including CA-36 candidate Debra Bowen,
"Let's be clear: these are not simply 'cuts,' and this is not simply 'reform.' This is fundamentally abolishing Medicare as we know it and replacing it with a voucher system -- one with no cost controls which will force seniors to pay a greater and greater share of their medical bills out of pocket over time.
"While the Ryan Budget is a sweet deal for private health insurance companies and multi-millionaires, it breaks the faith with America's seniors and the tens of millions of working class Americans who have paid into Medicare their whole lives. It should not be passed."
The prospects for California would be pretty grim. Low-income Medicaid beneficiaries will lose their guaranteed benefits altogether. Currently, Medicaid is a shared responsibility between the federal government and states, which are required to provide comprehensive health care benefits to people in poverty. Ryan's plan turns the program into block grants for the states -- with no guarantees.
Cash-strapped states like California would likely be forced to drop beneficiaries from the rolls should the plan become law.
I have a confession to make: I am not a lifelong Democrat. I did not wear a "Tiny Democrat" onesie while my dad marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. My mom did not take me to CR groups. Admittedly, I think it would have been pretty fascinating to be that kid...but I wasn't.
Instead, I grew up in a conservative, Midwestern Catholic family, and I was instilled with a deep commitment to the ideas of family, faith, and freedom. My dad was the first generation in his family to go to college, and my mom was a homemaker who welcomed us home from school and made dinner every night. My faith shaped my commitment to treat others as I would want to be treated, and to be of service to those who are oppressed and in most need. My grandfathers served in WWII, and my uncles served in Vietnam and Korea, so I developed great respect for the service and sacrifice so many generations have made for my American freedoms.
Debra Bowen's Enron Connections and CA's $40 Billion+ losses due to Energy Deregulation.
Debra Bowen's Enron connections & various Energy Company Investments matter to me, to my family, to Venice, to CD36 (Jane Harman's old seat) and to California. Why? Debra Bowen voted in 1996 to de-regulate the CA energy industry, passing on the costs of the dangerous Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant to the ratepayer. During the energy crisis, when Bowen chaired the Senate Energy Committee, she took money from Enron and refused to support re-regulating the energy industry. She also has invested in and is currently invested in energy company shares (e.g., General Electric & Provident Energy (see below)).
I spend as much time as I can find building the Courage Campaign, a 750,000-member organization dedicated to building a progressive California and to bringing full equality to Americans nationwide. We focus on issues because elected officials can do only so much. And often they disappoint.
Our members determine the areas in which we act. Often times, we win; other times, we keep on fighting. In the course of my work as Chairman of Howard Dean’s presidential campaign in California, in building Courage and with charitable organizations such as Liberty Hill Foundation, I have seen repeateldy that America wins when political leaders stand up for principles. It’s okay to bend a bit to get something done; but to compromise so completely as to void recognition as a “political necessity” leads to disaster. Too few of our leaders understand and/or live by such principles.
One day before a Democratic special endorsing caucus meets to officially support a candidate in the 36th district special election, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn's campaign is presenting her as the only true Democrat in the race. It turns out California Secretary of State Debra Bowen was once a Republican.
The Hahn campaign hinted in a press release that she is the only Democratic candidate who has never been a member of another political party as it trotted out the endorsements of four officers of the state Democratic Party.
"Janice Hahn has always been committed to Democratic values," First Vice Chairman Alex Rooker said. State party Secretary Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer said, "there is only one candidate in this race that has always been a Democrat."
(editor's note: Roll Call should have attributed that last quote to Sergio Carrillo. See text of press release below)
Debra Bowen was a registered Republican until 1984, then switched party affiliation to become a Democrat. In 1992, during her first successful run for the California Assembly, she told the LA Times she made the switch because the Republican party lacked "compassion and tolerance and respect for others." She has remained a Democrat ever since.
Observers familiar with the race aren't convinced Hahn's charge will hold up to scrutiny. "Hillary Clinton was a Goldwater girl. Janice Hahn was a Clinton delegate in 2008. Does she want to renounce that endorsement because Clinton wasn't 'always a Democrat'?", said David Dayen, a writer for FDL News who's covered California politics extensively.
In an interview with the LA Weekly, California League of Conservations Voter SoCal director, David Algood, expanded on his organization's decision to back Debra Bowen over her rival Janice Hahn.
"Debra has a much longer record on the environment," said David Allgood, CLCV's Southern California director. "We know her to be a leader that doesn't knuckle under to pressure from special interests."
Allgood said the League had taken note of Hahn's flip-flop-flip on the L.A. oil severance tax. She proposed the tax last fall, before changing her mind and trying to keep it off the ballot. When it went on the ballot anyway, she then supported it. (It narrowly failed.)
"One of the things we considered was the ability of somebody to put their finger in the wind and change positions that quickly," Allgood said. "For her to have one position one day and the opposite position the next -- that was a big concern."
When people think “California League of Conservation Voters” they focus on the words “California” and “conservation.” And rightfully so. First and foremost, CLCV is the political arm of the environment. For nearly four decades, we have worked tirelessly to seek out and endorse environmental champions and then fund and support their campaigns to help them get into office. This has always been a primary part of our mission.
But every now and again we find a candidate who is not only an environmental champion but also demonstrates leadership in another critical piece of our mission: aiding voters. For the special election in Congressional District 36, we’re lucky to have found such a candidate, and it’s none other than Secretary of State Debra Bowen.
Secretary Bowen has a long track record of expertise and leadership on the environment. During her fourteen years serving in both houses of the Legislature, Bowen authored bills to protect our coast and restrict offshore oil drilling. She also co-authored four landmark environmental laws including the first bills in California to ever address global warming, environmental justice, and create a renewable portfolio standard. She also aided Senator Alan Lowenthal with his critical legislation to clean-up pollution in the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
At a time when Congress is not only lacking environmental leadership but when the majority has become downright hostile towards any attempt to protect open spaces, improve public health, and protect clean air and water, Bowen will be a needed breath of fresh air in Washington.
In fact, if protecting the environment alone was the only reason to send Secretary Bowen to Washington, it would be enough. But electing her to Congress would also add an incredibly important leader in the field of fair elections and open government. While her environmental work has been notable, Secretary Bowen’s single most important piece of legislation was arguably AB 1462, the landmark law that made all of California’s bill information available on the Internet. A voter can easily find out how his or her legislator voted on any piece of legislation because of this bill, so if you’re following any piece of legislation online as it works its way through the California Legislature at the Senate and Assembly websites, you have Debra Bowen to thank for it.
Secretary Bowen also has a record of holding corporations accountable. Bowen was chair of the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee during the height of the infamous Enron scandal. She was one of the lawmakers leading the charge against Kenneth Lay and Enron and investigating their manipulation of the energy market. Only too recently, Massey Energy and BP ignored safety violations that caused unparalleled environmental disasters and cost lives. We need a legislator who is smart, full of integrity, and has a track record of standing up against corrupt and powerful polluters and hold them accountable. We have such a leader in Debra Bowen.
Repeating 
The last week of a campaign, as our mailbox fills to overflowing with glossy brochures extolling the virtues of competing candidates, we often find ourselves donning black, rending our garments, and contemplating the death of a million innocent trees.
