I'm honored to share a letter that was sent by Maria Elena Durazo, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, regarding her recent endorsement of my re-election. I urge you to watch her video message and share it with your friends and family.
Dear Friend,
My name is Maria Elena Durazo, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO. I am proud today to announce my endorsement of Congresswoman Jane Harman.
The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor represents over 300 unions - the men and women who make up all of the different industries that make Los Angeles work - from the public sector and the private sector.
In the years I have known Congresswoman Harman, she has shown herself to be leader. She takes hold of an issue in Congress and gets the job done. She is as courageous as she is energetic.
Congresswoman Harman has always fought for a worker's right to organize, and she is an original co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act. She refuses to cross picket lines and has marched with local janitors, health care workers, and others to make sure that people who work hard and play by the rules are paid well and treated with dignity.
She has opposed unfair trade agreements, including NAFTA and CAFTA, and has long advocated better technology and fairer hours for air traffic controllers.
Most importantly, as we fight our way out of the Bush recession, we are proud to work cooperatively with her to create good, high-paying, skilled jobs for our communities.
I hope you will watch this short video and share it with your friends and family.
(Calitics promotes diaries from candidates and elected officials. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
Dear Friends,
The opportunity to serve is not an entitlement. Our country can only move forward when elected leaders work hard to continue to earn the support of the people they serve and fight for the issues and causes that matter deeply to our communities. I am no different.
During my time in Congress I have pushed for change, fought hard to create jobs, supported sweeping health care reform with a public option, and worked tirelessly to protect our pristine coastline.
I am asking for your vote on June 8 in the Democratic Primary to continue the work I've set out to do.
EDIT By Brian: More (including a video) over the flip.
First, let me say this: I am a big fan of primary challenges. But to make it really get past the statement phase, you really have to catch lightning in a bottle. Of course, Republicans are doing it all over the place these days, but that's not the case for Democrats.
So, with that I give you news from the Harman - Winograd primary challenge. According to a new poll for the Harman campaign, she is up by 41 points, 58-17. Now, much of this is about name ID, where Harman is known by the community, and Winograd basically isn't. Harman's favorable/unfavorable ratio is at 64/18, while Winograd's is at 20/6.
Now, the caveats: this poll is a fairly small sample, so the margin of error is almost +/- 5%. But with the lead being so large, that shouldn't matter all that much. What these numbers are telling me is that Harman is going to win the primary on the strength of her name ID. With only a few weeks to go before the election, Winograd is left playing the statement role.
Back in 2006, she garnered about 38%, and she might just reach that number. But, for now, it looks like Harman has herself in a position for a comfortable win come June 8.
Delegates, Floor Fight? You Bet!
Winograd vs. Harman: Choose Our Street over Wall Street
Delegates, I need your support to block the endorsement of Blue Dog Jane Harman on the floor of the California Democratic Party convention this weekend. Harman is a formidable opponent, particularly with her campaign consultant Harvey Englander, the man who engineered the passage of Howard Jarvis' Prop 13.
You will hear Harman's appointees argue that we should not usurp the local caucus's power to endorse. Delegates are aware that incumbents enjoy institutional support and as such, many are unwilling to expend political capital or perceived accessibility to incumbents even though those incumbents may vote against core Democratic values. Our Party's bylaws however, provide for exactly this type of challenge because when a candidate is endorsed, that endorsement reflects the will of the entire statewide Party, not just local delegates. Moreover, when a corporate Democrat, funded by military contractors and personally invested in those same contractors, takes us to war without exercising her oversight responsibility, all of us pay the price.
You may hear that we must respect what Party activists in the 36th congressional district want. Please know that I am proud to be endorsed by the majority of grassroots Democratic clubs in my district, including the San Pedro Democratic Club; Torrance Democratic Club; Progressive Democratic Club (Harbor); Gardena Valley Democratic Club; Progressive Democrats of America-36th District.
February 10, 2010
Winograd accepts Jewish Journal's Debate Offer: Harman, No Response
"Let's pack the house," says Winograd
(Marina del Rey, CA) Congressional Candidate Marcy Winograd (CA-36) accepts the Jewish Journal's offer to participate in a proposed debate with opponent Jane Harman, and urges her opponent to accept, as well. In a recent Jewish Journal article, Editor Rob Eshman issued an open invitation to both candidates, saying, "I invite Winograd and Harman to discuss this issue (Israel/Palestine) in a public forum hosted by The Jewish Journal at a mutually convenient date." Harman has not responded.
The offer to sponsor a debate followed a controversy over a letter Congressman Waxman wrote urging potential high-dollar donors to contribute the maximum to Harman's campaign because of Winograd's support for equal rights for all in Israel/Palestine. Winograd is the co-founder of LA Jews for Peace, an organization which calls for an end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
Winograd responded to Eshman's invitation, saying in a letter published in the Jewish Journal, "I thank the Jewish Journal for graciously inviting me to debate my opponent in the June 8, 2010, Democratic Party primary. Given the diversity of opinion, I look forward to a robust and open debate, not only on issues pertaining to middle east peace, but also on single-payer health care, immigration and citizenship, and the transition from a war economy to a new Green economy. Let's pack the house, wrestle with critical issues, and do some serious soul searching."
During the 2006 campaign, Harman refused to debate, or even stand on the same stage. In 2006 Winograd jumped into the race only three months before the primary, mobilizing almost 38% of the vote on an anti-war and pro-constitutional rights platform. In 2010, Winograd's platform calls for ending multiple perpetual wars and investing in human needs at home.
Contact: Michael Jay
Campaign Manager, Winograd for Congress
michael@winogradforcongress.com
Ph: (818) 445 4520
I was overjoyed to see that a serious progressive, one who is COMMITTED to helping TEACHERS, is being supported by one of the most influential of our unions, UC-AFT. We need to STOP sending back to Washington the same old incumbents who can't seem to separate themselves from their corporate sponsors. I personally think they should be registering as LOBBYISTS when they take so much money from the corporations.
Here's the release I received:
Marina del Rey, CA, January 27, 2010 -- The University of California American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT) has endorsed public school teacher Marcy Winograd for Congress in her challenge to Jane Harman in the 36thDistrict. The union local represents 3,000 lecturers and librarians on ten UC campuses.
In today's Willie Brown column, Willie praises Gavin Newsom for "having the courage" to drop out of the race, he speaks that which the Chronicle's news section, as well as the LA Times, refuses to admit is a possibility: there just might be another candidate on the Democratic side.
But it is absolutely necessary for a politician to have that type of courage if he wants a long career. And make no mistake, Newsom still has a future. He is still a tremendous communicator.
Although Attorney General Jerry Brown comes out the early winner in Newsom's withdrawal, I have to believe there are many Democrats out there who still say, "Can't we find someone with a newer paint job?"
Two names have already popped up: Rep. Jane Harman, D-Venice (Los Angeles County), and Maria Shriver. (SF Chronicle 11/1/09)
For a few weeks these rumors have been going about. There a number of reasons for this, the big one being that there is money sitting out of this race. This is more than just your normal money sitting out of the race for economic reasons, but some typical players that didn't take a side. That could have been that they were leaning away from Brown and weren't sure about how long Newsom could survive. Or that Newsom wasn't able to extract money and just tried for the second best and asked people to hold off on giving money to Brown.
Jerry Brown has a lot of inherent advantages in the race, yet he's certainly not unbeatable. Brown coould yet lose to a well-funded candidate, especially if that well-funded candidate was a minority, a woman, or a combination of the two. Harman carries baggage with the base, and the word on the street is that she may not be able to self-finance her campaigns going forward. Shriver carries some baggage of her own, prinicipally from being married to a rather poor governor.
But those two names are not the only two taking a look at the calculus of the 2010 governor's race. If I were to be putting odds on somebody else getting into the race, I think I'd peg it at slightly better than even money, maybe 60%.
Jane Harman isn't exactly popular around these parts. Or around her district, to tell the truth. But while Marcy Winograd challenges her from the left for the CA-36 seat, this attack from the right is rather silly. There are two fine candidates in the primary, both profiled in the Daily Breeze today.
Pete Kesterson, a tea party activist, and is running on a campaign in opposition to "out of control debt." But, this man has just about every strike possible against him. While he is running his campaign on "fiscal sanity," he has filed for bankruptcy twice and currently under-earning his monthly expenses by $1,000.
His opponent, Mattie Fein, just moved from Washington, DC to Venice to run fir the seat. But, you know, we learned that a carpetbagger can occasionally squeak out a win in CA-04, so just to make this Keystone Cops thing complete, Fein abandoned a house in Kentucky after having "fallen victim to unscrupulous lending practices."
This crew sounds like something straight out of opposition research central casting, you'd almost think Harman recruited these people into the race herself. Either way, this is a safe Democratic seat, whomever comes out of the primary stands a fantastic chance in the general.
I previously wrote about a situation where Jane Harman condemned those planning to oppose Iraq war funding in 2007 as being in favor of letting troops die from IED's, and how she herself ended up voting against the war funding. Apparently, Harman's condemnation of herself is becoming a habit.
This time it's over passing war funding in emergency supplemental budgets.
Yesterday at the Venice Pier, Marcy Winograd announced her campaign for Congress in front of about 75-80 supporters and friends, and many leaders of the progressive activist community in Los Angeles. The campaign showed their thrift and commitment to recycling by using the old Winograd '06 campaign posters and skillfully pasting a "'10" sticker in the appropriate place. It's going to be that kind of campaign.
After a few speakers (I particularly enjoyed Julian Barger from the Harbor area of the district calling Jane Harman "Congresswoman Helmsley" for her double standard on civil liberties for her vs. civil liberties for all Americans), Marcy gave a short speech where she emphasized her no-holds-barred progressive values and offered a true contrast to her incumbent opponent. She called for a "new New Deal" to put America back to work, announced support for John Conyers' HR 676, questioned the continued bailout of the banks and the use of Predator drone strikes in Pakistan, argued for rapid transit and renewable energy in the Los Angeles area, and said of her primary challenge, "this will reverberate throughout the country."
Winograd spoke to various concerns of families in the district, noting that areas of Torrance are experiencing skyrocketing foreclosure rates, and that business has declined over 20% in the port at San Pedro. This is an area where, with a longer campaign time frame than her quick run in 2006, Winograd can make headway in all areas of the district and throughout the South Bay, speaking to the economic concerns of the area and drawing contrast with Jane Harman's more conservative approach. Obviously, the greater concern about Harman more recently has been her defense of the Bush Administration's the warrantless wiretapping and her generally hawkish stance abroad. But there is an opening for a core economic argument, still the major preoccupation of voters, to be made.
Winograd's announcement got covered in LA Weekly and the CoCo Times. Mainstream news pieces about this primary challenge never fail to emphasize that the 36th is a "moderate" district and that Winograd will have to "broaden her appeal" to win over those voters. This assumes that Democratic primary voters, or virtually anyone, makes election choices based on firm ideological footing. Poll after poll has shown that on the issues, Americans portray a far more progressive belief system than their typical electoral choices. Maybe consultants and Democratic strategists need to "broaden their appeal" to potential candidates that can articulate a progressive agenda.
So I'm quoted in this Politico article about potential primary challenges to Jane Harman. I've said clearly that she'll either face a primary or drop out, and now multiple challengers, including 2006 opponent Marcy Winograd, have stepped up. One thing that people don't totally remember about that 2006 challenge is that Marcy got in the race in February for a June primary. She ended up raising and spending about $380,000, but she did not have time for a national fundraising base or a netroots strategy. She basically just went ahead and ran, and she got 38% of the vote. Starting the primary a year out this time will simply yield better results.
The other part, which Alex Eisenstadt acknowledges, is that Harman was a target long before the recent revelation of wiretapped conservations between her and suspected Israeli agents offering vague quid pro quo deals on getting some AIPAC members out of legal trouble.
It's true that Harman holds a firm grip on her comfortably Democratic district, having won 69 percent in the 2008 general election.
Still, her left flank remains exposed in large part because of her hawkish, pro-military reputation. After Sept. 11, 2001, Harman was an early advocate for the creation of a Department of Homeland Security, and she threw her support behind the American-led invasion of Iraq. She went so far as to criticize the FBI and the CIA for moving too slowly to respond to terrorist threats.
Those stances continue to rankle local progressives, and the recent controversy has only revived the frustrations that seemed to crest in 2006 with Winograd's challenge. Last week, Winograd organized a protest outside Harman's district headquarters, with activists calling on the California Democrat to resign. The environmental organization Greenpeace is coordinating a mailing in the district pressuring Harman, who has a seat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, on energy issues.
David Dayen, a California activist who writes for the liberal blog Calitics, said he expects progressive organizations to ramp up their efforts against Harman in the weeks ahead.
"I don't get the sense that in May, the year before this primary is happening, there is going to be a lot of clamoring over Harman, but I do think you're starting to see progressive groups get involved," said Dayen.
I reject the theory later in the piece that CA-36 is a moderate district. The PVI is D+12, and the formerly conservative areas have moderated their views. Torrance, the supposed "Orange County of LA County," just elected two Democrats to its City Council. What's more, Harman votes substantially to the right of the district and has for years.
Winograd will be holding a campaign kickoff on Monday at the Venice Pier around 4:00pm, so she's obviously serious about making this run again. And she'll be taking questions in a liveblog session at Firedoglake today at 11am. John Amato of Crooks and Liars fame may also make a run at this seat.
UPDATE: LA Progressive now has a post from Winograd herself announcing her campaign kickoff.
Via the website Activist Los Angeles comes the announcement that Marcy Winograd will be challenging Jane Harman for the Democratic nomination in the 36th District.
Winograd Challenges Harman - Campaign Kick-Off in Venice
May 7, 2009 by Admin1
Mon., May 11, 4 pm
Join Marcy Winograd and supporters at the Venice Pier as they kick off the Winograd for Congress 2010 campaign to unseat incumbent Jane Harman in the 36th congressional district.
Assembled at the Venice Pier, near the northern end of the district, Winograd for Congress will launch a year-long campaign involving listening tours and grassroots precinct organizing.
"I am challenging Jane Harman because the 36th district deserves a representative who stands for integrity, commitment, and leadership," says Winograd. "Jane Harman got caught with her hand in the cookie jar - trading favors with a foreign lobby group in order to advance her own political agenda. That's not leadership; that's corruption," says Winograd, adding, "Harman's apparent willingness to campaign for warrantless wiretapping in order to avoid an FBI investigation reflects a disregard for the Constitution and Americans' right to privacy."
Winograd is founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Progressive Democrats of America. In 2006, in less than three months of campaigning, Winograd garnered almost 38% of the vote in the June primary challenge to Harman. Daniel Ellsberg, Gore Vidal, Dolores Huerta, and Susan Sarandon all supported Winograd's challenge.
Winograd's 2010 campaign has received early endorsements from 36th district notables, such as Mitch Ward, Mayor Pro Tem of Manhattan Beach; Carl Clark, Vice-President of the Redondo Beach School Board; David Greene, President of the San Pedro Democratic Club; Julian Burger, President of Progressive Democrats - Wilmington/Harbor Area; Mickey Oskey, Pres of Westside Progressives and Nativo Lopez, President of the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA), which has thousands of members in the harbor area.
Winograd's platform calls for redirecting expenditures on war and occupation to address human needs for jobs, Medicare for All, education and housing. "We need a massive green jobs program, a new New Deal," says Winograd, "and incentives for cities to mediate foreclosure disputes in order to allow homeowners to modify their loans. It is a time of crisis but also of opportunity as we look at ways to strengthen local economies and reinvest in our communities."
Winograd teaches English at Crenshaw High School in South Los Angeles.
The 36th congressional district includes: parts of West LA, Venice, Westchester, El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, Wilmington, Harbor
City and San Pedro.
If she can afford to get a professional campaign in place, then she can probably go far. Even without a really polished campaign, she got 38% with a campaign that was only 3 months long. With a well-coordinated and planned campaign, she could probably do a lot better. The initial signs, though, are that we're not there yet. (More below)
By a twist of fate, Jane Harman actually appeared at the AIPAC convention over the weekend, bringing full circle the recent controversy over her comments picked up on a wiretap offering help to get AIPAC staffers out of a Justice Department probe in exchange for help getting the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee. She vowed to begin a crusade against illegal wiretapping and overreach from the surveillance state.
Harman has described the wiretap as an abuse of government power. But sources have told The Washington Post that she was not being surveilled; the tapped phone belonged to the suspected Israeli agent, who happened to talk to her.
"I will not quit on this until I am absolutely sure this can never happen to anyone else," Harman told the AIPAC audience, which warmly applauded her. She said the incident was having "a chilling effect" on members of Congress who "care intensely about the U.S.-Israeli security relationship . . . and have every right to talk to advocacy groups."
Later, she called herself a "warrior on behalf of our Constitution and against abuse of power". Which, coming from Harman, is utterly absurd, a magic act where she transforms herself from a vigorous defender of executive prerogatives on wiretapping to a civil liberties zealot who wants to take down the surveillance state.
Jane Harman is a warrior on behalf of the Constitution and against abuse of power -- that's the same Jane Harman who tried to bully The New York Times out of writing about Bush's illegal spying program, who succeeded in pressuring them not to publish their story until after Bush was re-elected, who repeatedly proclaimed the program to be "legal and necessary" once it was revealed, who called the whistle-blowers "despicable", who went on Meet the Press and expressed receptiveness to a criminal investigation of The New York Times for publishing the story, who led the way in supporting the Fourth-Amendment-gutting and safeguard-destroying FISA Amendments Act of 2008, and who demanded that telecoms be retroactively immunized for breaking multiple laws by allowing government spying on their customers without warrants of any kind.
That is who is a self-proclaimed "warrior on behalf of our Constitution and against abuse of power."
As Atrios notes, Jane Harman is primarily concerned about wiretapping of People Named Jane Harman. And her point that this represented a potential abuse of government power, which by the way is
entirely plausible, was the entire point of people like me when we decried an illegal wiretapping program that would be ripe for abuse. You know, the one Jane Harman defended.
Worse, in the "Fact Sheet" Harman is sending around to supporters in the district, she characterizes herself as, among other things, a longtime critic of warrantless wiretapping in the most fantastical way possible:
• Harman has never supported so-called "warrantless wiretaps" on Americans. "We must use all lawful tools to detect and disrupt the plans of our enemies; signals intelligence and the work of the NSA are vital to that mission. But in doing so, it is also vital that we protect the American people's constitutional rights." (Press release of Dec. 21, 2005 -- four days after the President declassified the existence of the Terrorist Surveillance Program).
• Harman introduced the LISTEN Act (H.R. 5371) with House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers to add resources to the Justice Department to ensure the issuance of individualized warrants under FISA. (Press release of May 11, 2006).
• Harman, Senator Obama, and Speaker Pelosi supported amendments to FISA to expand protections to US citizens, and give limited court-reviewed immunity to telecommunications firms that prove they relied in good faith on what they believed was a valid order to produce records. (Vote date of June 20, 2008).
She must think we're all idiots. That vote of June 20, 2008, the amendments to FISA to "expand protections to US citizens," in addition to providing retroactive immunity for the telecoms for breaking the law, actually granted sweeping new powers to the federal government, including the ability to "conduct mass, untargeted surveillance of all communications coming into and out of the United States, without any individualized review, and without any finding of wrongdoing." The fact that this lack of oversight or judicial review could lead to abuses of surveillance power has been confirmed by reports that the NSA overstepped its legal authority to wiretap by intercepting the private emails and phone calls of Americans, problems which grew "out of changes enacted by Congress last July in the law that regulates the government's wiretapping powers." The fact that Barack Obama supported that bill, considering that he was massively criticized by progressives for that FISA vote, doesn't exactly help the cause.
Harman's record on wiretapping is well-known and her efforts to wiggle out of it are frankly laughable. And the rest of her record, as demonstrated by Swing State Project today, shows her to be among the top 20 Democrats voting less liberal than what their districts would support. That, more than this hypocrisy on civil liberties, is why she'll draw a primary challenge next year, should she choose to run again.
The talk of the nation yesterday was, of course, Arlen Specter's switch from Republican to Democrat in the U.S. Senate, effectively delivering a filibuster-proof majority to the Demcorats upon the seating of Al Franken. Specter's move was precipitated by a poll showing Specter trailing Club for Feudalism Growth candidate Pat Toomey by over 20 points.
Most of the commentary since has correctly focused since on the rightward shift of the Republican Party as a whole, and the regressive Neanderthal nature of its base, which drags the party backward and away from the mainstream even as the progressive base pulls the Democratic Party forward, mostly into positions supported by a majority of the electorate.
But there's a danger in interpreting the Specter decision as simply a function of extremists vs. moderates, playing into a Broderite concern for a loss of "bipartisanship". Let us ignore for a moment the argument that "moderate" should be defined on a national rather than individual Party scale, as those supporting the majority of American opinion: national healthcare, an immediate end to the occupation of Iraq, etc. That would be too easy.
No, the problem is that I can already hear the mewling of Democratic consultants in California, tying any moves toward accountability by progressives, including but not limited to primaries against the likes of Jane Harman or Dianne Feinstein, to the shortsighted actions of Pat Toomey and his merry band of fools.
There's a big difference--so, in the spirit of Jane Harman, allow me to make a pre-emptive strike in an effort to nip any such whining in the bud. The difference isn't whether to take action against squishes and "moderates" in one's party, but where to do so.
Since I've been offering one side of the Jane Harman story as the bits of intrigue trickle out in the media, I thought I'd explore the second option - that Bush-era officials at the CIA are using the Harman story as a warning shot against further investigation of their practices with torture and wiretapping, as well as pushing back against a thorn in the CIA's side:
But the former intelligence official familiar with the matter noted that (ex-CIA Director Porter) Goss has given only one on-the-record interview on these CIA controversies since leaving the CIA director job. In the December 2007 interview, he said that Congressional leaders, including Representatives Pelosi and Goss himself, Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL) and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), and later Rep. Harman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), had been briefed on CIA waterboarding back in 2002 and 2003. "Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing," Goss told the Washington Post. "And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement."
Who was the lone lawmaker the article identified as objecting to the program?
Jane Harman.
"Harman, who replaced Pelosi as the [House intelligence] committee's top Democrat in January 2003, disclosed Friday that she filed a classified letter to the CIA in February of that year as an official protest about the interrogation program," the Post reported. "Harman said she had been prevented from publicly discussing the letter or the CIA's program because of strict rules of secrecy. 'When you serve on intelligence committee you sign a second oath -- one of secrecy,' she said. 'I was briefed, but the information was closely held to just the Gang of Four. I was not free to disclose anything.'"
There is compelling evidence that Goss approved continuing the wiretap on the Israeli agent after seeing Harman's involvement, and in fact tried to get a wiretap up on Harman herself. The internecine battles between Goss and Harman go back a ways, so it's not impossible. We learned yesterday that the wiretap in question did not come from the NSA, and so CIA may have had some direct control over it, although the proper chain of command would have been the FBI. Why was Goss so involved in this?
Of course, none of this changes the fact that Harman did, as has been confirmed by multiple sources, approach the Washington editor of the New York Times in 2004, before the Bush-Kerry election, to try and get them to spike the warrantless wiretapping story. Nor does it change the fact that Harman, a full-throated supporter of wiretapping, now has become a civil liberties champion when denouncing the surveillance of her. This must be why she's hired Lanny Davis to do spin control (and surely he can do a better job than her disastrous efforts so far).
(Exactly. If anyone thinks that this AIPAC/wiretapping story is the only reason progressives have to primary Jane Harman, they're wrong. See my comment here as well. - promoted by David Dayen)
In the grand scheme of things, what one individual voter does is statistically insignificant. As a professional researcher, I know this better than anyone else.
Still, I felt it was important to say that Jane Harman matters a great deal to me because of a deeply personal experience.
You see, Jane Harman alone got my Dad, a lifelong anti-war Democrat (with some very conservative social views, but an anti-war yellow dog Democrat nonetheless), to support the invasion of Iraq. He didn't trust Bush or Cheney. He certainly didn't trust the Republican Party. He hated the Military-Industrial Complex and still does. But he believed Saddam Hussein must have been an imminent threat because Jane Harman said he was.
Here's the latest on the Jane Harman/AIPAC story that I haven't previously discussed here. We know that she discussed the case against two AIPAC lobbyists with a suspected Israeli double agent, possibly Haim Saban, and made at least an implicit arrangement to push for the dropping of the case against the lobbyists in exchange for help getting appointed the chair of the House Intelligence Committee. It is unclear whether this actually represents a violation of the federal bribery statute (doing a favor in exchange for something of value), but according to the story by Jeff Stein at CQ Politics, the Justice Department felt they had Harman in a "completed crime." Nancy Pelosi was briefed that Harman had been picked up on a federal wiretap but was barred from disclosing it to her House colleague, and this could explain why Harman was not appointed to that Committee Chair. The reason that the DoJ failed to charge Harman was because Alberto Gonzales intervened on her behalf, because, among other things, he knew she would be helpful in the forthcoming battle over, amazingly enough, the Administration's warrantless wiretapping program.
A person who is familiar with Mr. Gonzales's account of the events said that the former attorney general had acknowledged having raised with Mr. Goss the idea that Ms. Harman was playing a helpful role in dealing with The Times.
But Mr. Gonzales's principal motive in delaying a briefing for Congressional leaders, the person said, was to keep Ms. Harman from learning of the investigation before she could be interviewed by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A spokesman for Ms. Harman said the congresswoman had never been interviewed by the bureau.
There's also the charge that then-NSA Director Michael Hayden provided talking points for a Harman discussion with NY Times Washington editor Philip Taubman BEFORE THE 2004 election, to get the paper to squash the warrantless wiretapping story. And today, Stein advances the story by noting that a whistleblower informed then-Speaker Dennis Hastert about the Bush Administration suppression of the wiretapped Harman call (it's a violation of standard procedure to withhold information involving national security and a member of Congress from either Democratic and Republican leaders in the House).
Needless to say, this is a tangled web of intrigue, and with more disclosures it's likely to get worse. This has led to speculation that Harman would either not run for another term, or face a primary challenge. I can confirm that Marcy Winograd is likely to run if Harman does seek re-election. Winograd, who took 38% of the vote in 2006, was not planning a run until the AIPAC/wiretap revelations. But she is uncomfortable with Harman not being held to account, and saw no other option on the horizon. She has a federal account and will take the pulse of the district before a formal announcement.
"I think she's clearly in trouble and I think she knows it and is doing whatever she can to turn the tables on the situation," Winograd said. "And now she is the spokesperson for the ACLU or the Bill of Rights Foundation. It would be comical, if the stakes weren't so high." [...]
One of Winograd's first steps is going to be "taking the pulse" of the district on issues like military spending and single-payer health care, among other issues. It's entirely possible that Harman might bow out and try to annoint a successor. Or that another establishment Dem might try to take advantage of her weakened position. Which is why I wanted to get the word out as quickly as possible that there's a really credible progressive alternative. Winograd has already run a primary once in the district. Activists there know who she is, and a lot of them have already worked for her in 2006. This would not be a net-based candidacy, but it will certainly help to have it be net-supported.
In addition, the name of blogger John Amato has surfaced as a possible challenger.
(Howie) Klein said a group of bloggers met earlier this year to discuss challenging Harman in a primary, weeks before the recent revelations. He said many in the blogging community would like a fellow blogger, John Amato, to challenge Harman and that Amato is considering it.
Winograd said that she would step aside for the right candidate, and that she's taking up the mantle at least for now.
"I don't know who else will answer the call, if not me," she said. "People with great name recognition and track records in public office are not going to take her on."
I think Marcy feels the duty to run. At the same time, she agreed that there needs to be one progressive alternative to Harman. But my sense from people in the district is that Harman is unlikely to try another re-election campaign. Even the above-mentioned NYT article refers to this.
While the two women do not display overt hostility, Ms. Harman seems to have never quite gotten over the slight. Colleagues say that since Ms. Pelosi, 69, thwarted her ambitions for a more prominent role on security issues, Ms. Harman, 63, has grown weary of Congress and has been eyeing a post in the Obama administration, perhaps as an ambassador.
This tracks with everything I've heard from locals. She wanted the Intelligence Committee chair, and failing that she wanted an Administration job, and failing that she wants out.
There would be a whole host of elected officials who would jump in if Harman retired. Ted Lieu, the Assemblyman in this district, could be enticed away from his Attorney General campaign. City Councilwoman Janice Hahn would take a look. And there would be others. But if Harman stays in, none of these electeds would run, avoiding what would be an expensive primary. Harman is the richest member of Congress and has no problem spending her own money to keep her seat.
Either way, there will be a contested race in CA-36 in June 2010. And I do believe that a primary would feature only one major challenger. The question is, who would that be?
Jane Harman is not doing herself any favors with her insistent maintaining of innocence in the AIPAC/wiretapping scandal. First off, her instinct to lash out in anger, saying that she is about secret wiretaps and considering the taps an abuse of power, really comes off badly, considering that she lobbied to spike the NYT story revealing the Bush Administration's warrantless wiretapping program. It's darn near impossible to reconcile her past statements with this new image as a civil liberties extremist.
So if I understand this correctly -- and I'm pretty sure I do -- when the U.S. Government eavesdropped for years on American citizens with no warrants and in violation of the law, that was "both legal and necessary" as well as "essential to U.S. national security," and it was the "despicable" whistle-blowers (such as Thomas Tamm) who disclosed that crime and the newspapers which reported it who should have been criminally investigated, but not the lawbreaking government officials. But when the U.S. Government legally and with warrants eavesdrops on Jane Harman, that is an outrageous invasion of privacy and a violent assault on her rights as an American citizen, and full-scale investigations must be commenced immediately to get to the bottom of this abuse of power. Behold Jane Harman's overnight transformation from Very Serious Champion of the Lawless Surveillance State to shrill civil liberties extremist [...]
Besides, if Jane Harman didn't do anything wrong -- as she claims -- then what does she have to hide? Only Terrorists and criminals would mind the Government listening in. We all know that government officials have better things to do than worry about what innocent Americans are saying. If she did nothing wrong -- if all she was doing was talking to her nice constituents and AIPAC supporters about how she could be of service -- then Bush officials obviously weren't interested in what she had to say.
Beyond that, even if there were "illegal" acts committed here, surely we should be rushing to retroactively immunize those responsible, just as Harman eagerly advocated and engineered and then voted for when it came to the telecoms who broke our laws and enabled illegal spying on American citizens. That was when she voted to gut FISA protections and massively expand the Government's power to eavesdrop on Americans with no warrants as part of the Cheney/Rockefeller/Hoyer Surveillance State celebration known as the "FISA Amendments Act of 2008."
This goes double for Steny Hoyer, who's out there whining about wiretapping after pushing the FISA Amendments Act through the House.
Worse, Harman's appearance on NPR went completely off the rails, as she admitted key elements of the conversations unwittingly (over):
The frontpage at DailyKos, which has borne no love in the past for Iraq and domestic spying enabler Jane Harman, is your source for keeping track of the latest developments regarding the story swirling around--first reported by CQ Politics--that Congresswoman Harman offered to intervene on behalf of convicted Israeli agents in exchange for AIPAC lobbying for a prominent committee position for Congresswoman Harman.
But there are more important elements here. As David Waldman (still and forever known to me as Kagro X) writes:
Putting aside the links to espionage. Putting aside the betrayal of Democratic political hopes by a Blue Dog who was personally compromised.
This is also a story about the hyper-politicization of the Bush "Justice Department" under Alberto Gonzales.
The attorneys in the intelligence and public integrity sections believed they had evidence of a "completed crime." But does Alberto Gonzales take the case where the evidence leads? No!
Instead, he calls off the dogs for a political ally -- if just a temporary ally of convenience -- for the political benefit of the Bush "administration."
Jane Harman is in a world of hurt. If the allegations are true and Harman "committed a completed crime" by agreeing to this deal, then she should resign. If the allegations are not true, then she has a severe black eye from supporting a domestic wiretapping program that may or may not have ended up being used against her. And her muddled self-defense isn't doing her any favors.
Either way, however, there's one thing that shouldn't be forgotten in this whole mess: The lawyers in the Bush Administration must be held accountable. This applies to the Justice Department, where there still has been little fallout from the U.S. Attorneys scandal, and it applies to the Office of Legal Counsel as well, from which Judge Bybee still to this day holds a place on a federal bench in this state. At what point will citizens stand up and proclaim that this kind of criminalization of our government for political ends should not simply be water under the bridge?
This Jane Harman/AIPAC scandal continues to grow. It jumped from the inside the Beltway rag CQ Politics to The New York Times.
One of the leading House Democrats on intelligence matters was overheard on telephone calls intercepted by the National Security Agency agreeing to seek lenient treatment from the Bush administration for two pro-Israel lobbyists who were under investigation for espionage, current and former government officials say.
The lawmaker, Representative Jane Harman of California, became the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee after the 2002 election and had ambitions to be its chairwoman when the party gained control of the House in 2006. One official who has seen transcripts of several wiretapped calls said she appeared to agree to intercede in exchange for help in persuading party leaders to give her the powerful post.
But that's not what advances the story today. Harman has denied contacting DoJ abut the AIPAC case, though she left out contacting the White House, and she did not deny that the phone call existed. Remember that a key part of the story concerned the idea that Harman was saved from prosecution on this by Alberto Gonzales, who "needed Jane" to help front for the Administration's warrantless wiretapping program. In today's article, the Times drops this bombshell:
Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, said in a statement Monday that Ms. Harman called Philip Taubman, then the Washington bureau chief of The Times, in October or November of 2004. Mr. Keller said she spoke to Mr. Taubman - apparently at the request of Gen. Michael V. Hayden, then the N.S.A. director - and urged that The Times not publish the article.
"She did not speak to me," Mr. Keller said, "and I don't remember her being a significant factor in my decision."
Shortly before the article was published more than a year later, in December 2005, Mr. Taubman met with a group of Congressional leaders familiar with the eavesdropping program, including Ms. Harman. They all argued that The Times should not publish.
Ultimately, it's on Bill Keller whether or not to publish, so I don't want to give Harman too much credit here. But as Greg Sargent notes, this is a startling turn of events. A Democratic Congresswoman acted on behalf of a Republican President's NSA director to spike a story about illegal activity in the executive branch before a close Presidential election. The ramifications are enormous.
This discussion between Harman and Taubman apparently happened before the wiretapped phone call between Harman and the Israeli agent, according to the TPM Muckraker timeline. So Gonzales knew that Harman could be counted on to support the warrantless wiretapping program, because she had years of experience doing so at that point.
This gets uglier and uglier. Small wonder that Harman was passed over for a position in the Obama Administration.
UPDATE: It is entirely possible that the CIA and Bush-era officials directed this set of leaks in a show of force. That of course has nothing to do with Harman's conversation with Taubman to try and get the NYT to spike the wiretapping story, which was confirmed by Bill Keller on the record.
UPDATE II: ...Harman has released a letter calling on the Attorney General to release all transcripts and investigative material related to her collected by the Justice Department in 2005 and 2006. This is a bit of misdirection, since by all accounts these were legal wiretaps of foreign agents. But given the revelations about continued illegal wiretapping at the NSA, I understand Harman's strategy.
