The campaign to re-elect Assemblymember Betsy Butler to the California State Assembly today announced the support of Congresswoman Judy Chu and former Congresswoman Diane Watson.
Betsy currently is a board member of Equality California and previously served as President of the National Women's Political Caucus (LA Westside Chapter), and as the Director of Development for Consumer Attorneys of California. Assemblymember Butler also has served as an appointed member of the California Film Commission, where she worked to keep the film industry as a driver of the state's economy.
At a gathering of over a hundred grassroots supporters, campaign staff, and elected officials from throughout the CA-36 district, California Congresswoman Judy Chu (CA-32) announced she was endorsing Debra Bowen for Congress.
I'm here today because we have a tremendous opportunity to elect Debra Bowen to the 36th congressional district. It's truly exciting for me. I've known her for a long time. I've known her as a state assembly member, I've known her as a state senator, I've known her as Secretary of State. I've known her as extremely intelligent, always outspoken, a true leader, someone with integrity in every seat that she's been in.
And that's why I'm so proud to say I was was the very first Congressperson to endorse Debra Bowen for Congress.
You know with Debra Bowen in this seat, you will have someone who will stand up to Wall Street. You know that she understands our coastline is a national treasure and she will do as much as she can to defend it. You know that she understands the value of education, and that we have to concentrate like a laser to make sure we get jobs in this district.
And you know as Republicans attack a woman's right to chose, Debra will be there to stand up for us.
The Bowen campaign released dozens of endorsements to the press yesterday. Besides Congresswoman Chu, State Assemblymembers Betsy Butler, Gil Cedillo, Wes Chesboro, State Senators Alan Lowenthal, Mark Leno, and Fran Pavley, Hermosa Beach Mayor Howard Fishman, as well as former Assemblymember Sheila Kuehl and former City Council watchdog Laura Chick also endorsed Bowen.
The campaign also lists scores of "citizen endorsements" from ordinary voters in CA-36. Anyone interested in adding their name to that list can go to this link.
A new initiative organized by Howie Klein, Jane Hamsher, fellow Calitician Dante Atkins and myself to verbally and financially reward Congressmembers who pledge to vote down any healthcare bill that does not include the public option is catching fire today. The objective is to use carrots as well as sticks to achieve progressive goals. As I said in the diary kicking off this intiative at DailyKos:
Human beings are psychologically predictable creatures, much like Pavlov's famous canine. We do respond well to punishment, but we respond just as well if not better to positive reinforcement. Do nothing but beat a dog with a stick, and the dog is likelier to be aggressive than lovingly loyal. Do nothing but scream at a child, and the child will eventually fail to respond to her abusive parent. Senators and Representatives, no matter how elevated, are still just people: the rules of psychological conditioning still apply. If all we can do is scream at people who don't do what we want, eventually no one will listen to us at all.
If you have the resources, please consider donations to our excellent California legislators. For those who can't chip in, DFA has a thank you action item to thank our healthcare heroes.
With an approach that uses more carrots and less sticks, hopefully we can encourage others in California and across the country to join these brave progressive leaders.
It looks like Arnold has appointed Jerome Horton to fill Judy Chu's seat on the Board of Equalization, now that she's in Congress. But the L.A. Times piece warns that liberal Democrats may not be so happy about this.
Q: Horton's a Democrat. And there's nothing wrong with being a moderate. So what's the big deal?
A: In tax policy circles, "moderate" is code for business-friendly, which changes the balance on the five-member board. The state is divided into four districts: 1st (representing the entire California coast, from Oregon to Santa Barbara; automatically a Democratic seat); 2nd (cow counties, tax revolt counties, the desert portion of L.A. county: Republican seat); 3rd (San Diego, Orange, Inland Empire; in other words, Republican seat); and 4th (the non-desert portions of L.A. County. Democrat). The tie is broken by the state controller, who is Democrat John Chiang. But Horton would be expected to mix things up by voting, sometimes, with the Republicans. And those tax policy votes will make a far bigger difference to California, in the short run at least, than anything Chu could possibly do in Congress.
....
Q: Is Horton going to be confirmed by the Legislature?
A: Not without a lot of angst and political saber-rattling. If he's not confirmed, and no follow-up appointment is confirmed, a former Chu staffer will fill in until the BOE election next year. Bet you can hardly wait.
Together with family, friends and staff, we watched Dr. Judy Chu being sworn in as the Congressional representative for California District 32. Congratulations to Representative Judy Chu! And congratulations California - we are fortunate to have such an experienced, dedicated elected official representing our state in Congress, especially during these difficult times.
Sitting with Rep. Chu's family, friends and staff, we reminisced about her background. She has long been a fierce public servant and she understands the importance of navigating the electoral pipeline. From my perspective, as an advocate to build the pipeline of future leaders, her story is important.
Rep. Chu began political life in her San Gabriel neighborhoods, but she's no typical valley girl! During her more than 20 years as a public servant, Rep. Chu has served on the Garvey School District as a Board member, was a three term Mayor of Monterey Park, was elected to the California State Assembly, and was elected to the Board of Equalization where she served as Chair. Rep. Chu has fought to protect working families, end discrimination, save healthcare, protect the environment, protect women, protect consumers, improve education and worked to close special interest tax loopholes. Now she has distinguished herself as the first Chinese American woman to ever serve in Congress winning her seat with 62% of the vote in the March special election. With her background, we can all rest assured that Rep. Chu will bring her passion, commitment, and integrity to represent our State in the Nation's capitol.
Congratulations Rep. Chu, you are a shining example to the power of the pipeline!
So, where are all the women leaders of tomorrow? California is facing a crisis in the feminist fight for equality. Only 33 women currently serve on our state legislature and just 6 women have ever held an Executive Branch office. Each election cycle we lose more women to term limits and the pipeline of new women leaders has slowed to a trickle. There are many reasons, but research shows women are choosing not to run because of the daunting hurdles facing our female candidates. Raising huge amounts of money to run a viable race, making personal sacrifices, and all too often defending themselves from gender based biases from their opponents.
Unfortunately, the pipeline for future women leaders is dwindling on every level. City councils, supervisory boards, and boards of education are all reporting fewer numbers of women running and winning locally. Watching Rep. Chu being sworn reminded me once again how important it is to elect women at each level of government.
We need more women to run for office. Rep. Chu's election to serve California in Washington, D.C. confirms the power of the pipeline! Rep. Judy Chu probably never thought she would be working in the House chamber when she first ran for the Garvey School District Board. Today she will cast her first votes as a member of Congress -- I encourage women to follow Rep. Chu's example because when you start small, you can accomplish big things. Congratulations again to Congresswoman Judy Chu!
Judy Chu was sworn into office today as the first Chinese-American woman to serve in Congress. Her departure opens a whole at the Board of Equalization, a little-known four-member board that collects taxes and determines a lot of corporate tax policy. The four districts are gerrymandered to produce two Democrats and two Republicans, with the state Controller making up the swing vote. Today the Governor announced his choice to replace Chu, and boy are the richest companies doing business in California happy:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today will appoint Jerome Horton, a business-friendly former Democratic lawmaker, to the state's tax board, an administration official said.
The pick probably will shift the balance of power on the tax panel, which, despite its low public profile, holds broad influence over corporate taxes [...]
Reliably liberal Democrats have formed a solid three-person majority on the five-member tax panel in recent years. But the moderate Horton, who was known during his tenure in Sacramento for abstaining from votes to keep himself in the political center, is expected to change that dynamic.
Well, good for the business lobby, right? It's not like they have had multiple victories in the past year, what with getting all sorts of permanent corporate tax breaks in the past two budget agreements and pushing the Parsky Commission in an effort to eliminate corporate taxes altogether. They needed a leg up.
Horton needs both houses of the Legislature to sign off on the appointment, but much like with Supreme Court appointments, I fail to see how rejecting him would somehow yield a better result.
I almost forgot about this, but today was Election Day in CA-32, a runoff from the May 19 primary between the top vote-getters in each party. Judy Chu and Betty Tom Chu, who depending on who you talk to either are or are not related, are the leading candidates, but given the makeup of the district it's a near-certainty that Judy Chu will emerge victorious tonight and become a member of Congress. LA County has reported the early vote totals:
This won't be a results thread, just a congratulations to Judy Chu, who will make a great Representative. Now, somebody ask her tomorrow about the public plan.
So...what's the aftermath and what can we learn--besides, of course, that Judy Chu will defeat her distant cousin easily on July 14? Postmortem below the flip.
(I am proud to be doing netroots outreach for Judy Chu for Congress but I am speaking personally here, not on behalf of the campaign)
Election day is upon us here in California and in addition to the statewide ballot initiatives (I'm voting NO on 1A-F, more on why HERE and HERE), the 32nd district of California (East Los Angeles stretching east to Covina) is going to the polls to choose a new member of Congress to replace former Congresswoman Hilda Solis.
Polls have been open since 7am and close tonight at 8pm. If you haven't voted and are not sure about your voting location, go HERE. If you have further questions, call (800) 345-VOTE or check out SOS Debra Bowen's voter guide.
Usually on election day, I'd write a post analyzing the state of the race from the ground. Instead, for that coverage I'm going to refer you to Calitics whose coverage has been consistently excellent (check out Dante Atkins's last two updates HERE and HERE as well as David Dayen's HERE and HERE.) Instead, what I'd like to do in this post is write my own personal reflections on the campaign and the candidate I've been proud to work for throughout this brief special election.
If you've been following the CA-32 coverage on Calitics, you might have noticed that most pieces in traditional media outlets have portrayed the race as a toss-up between Chu and Cedillo. But now, that coverage is apparently starting to change: the apparent strength of Chu's absentee voter operation, combined with the surging Pleitez campaign that experts are estimating will drain more votes from Cedillo than Chu, have caused recent news about the race to cast Judy Chu has the frontrunner. From The Hill:
Endorsements, a hefty war chest and an effective absentee ballot program appear to have put California Board of Equalization Vice Chairwoman Judy Chu (D) in position to succeed former Rep.-turned-Labor Secretary Hilda Solis (D-Calif.).
In earlier coverage, I reported that as of Wednesday, 29% of the 12,000 or so ballots cast were cast by voters of Asian-Pacific Islander descent, according to Chu campaign consultant Parke Skelton. Skelton must be even happier now:
Skelton said that as of Friday, between 16,000 and 17,000 voters had returned absentee ballots and 31 percent of those were Asian - far higher than the 18 percent of Asian voters in the district. He expects that there are another 4,000 absentees that were returned over the weekend, and expects to do well among those as well.
"We had a very substantial door-to-door campaign generating absentee ballots," he said.
Similarly, NPR's political blog, Political Junkie, is even more explicit:
California's 32nd Congressional District, just east of Los Angeles, is about 63 percent Latino, 22 percent Asian. It is the seat held since 2001 by Hilda Solis (D), now the secretary of labor. Prior to that, it was held for 18 years by Matthew Martinez, a Democrat, who lost to Solis in the 2000 primary at the age of 71 amid charges that he was ineffective and invisible.
But if anecdotal evidence is to be believed, this overwhelmingly Hispanic district may send an Asian woman, Judy Chu, on her way to Congress in Tuesday's special primary.
So, if Emanuel Pleitez is eating away at Cedillo's base and Judy Chu is making the Asian vote perform, two questions arise: 1) how does Chu lose, and 2) how does Cedillo win?
The first question can be answered with a name you've probably heard before: Betty Chu (if you haven't, here's some background.) In such a low-turnout special, voter confusion could matter--and Betty Chu appears to be taking full advantage. From The Hill:
Complicating matters further for Judy Chu, Betty Chu chose to have her name transliterated into Chinese on the ballot, opting for a symbol that bears a striking resemblance to Judy Chu's Chinese character.
As Parke Skelton, Judy Chu's top strategist, deadpanned: "It's kind of a problem for us."
Skelton countered the issue by playing up the difference in the two Chinese characters. Since Judy Chu's character means, in part, "heart," Skelton sent mail to Asian voters with an Americanized heart symbol around his candidate's name, hoping to remind them to remember "heart" in the voting booth.
Hardly a coincidence, I would imagine. But the second question...how can Cedillo win? That question actually has two answers. The first, as mentioned before, is an extensive ground game:
Cedillo's camp, however, isn't giving up any ground. Derek Humphrey, Cedillo's campaign manager, believes he has a superior Election Day get-out-the-vote campaign in place.
"We've got three campaign offices, five or six staging locations," he said. "We're everywhere in the district."
But apparently, the Cedillo campaign has another secret weapon...the Los Angeles Lakers!
No word on whether Kobe Bryant is going to walk any El Monte neighborhoods before the game--or whether the Cedillo campaign got (or needed) permission from the NBA to use official affiliate logo on its campaign materials.
You would think you would want the endorsements before GOTV weekend, but the Judy Chu campaign rolled out a series of endorsements in the past 48 hours. Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez (CA-47) endorsed Dr. Chu yesterday and appeared with her at a GOTV rally. And today, Chu announced endorsements from Congresswoman Diane Watson (CA-33) and the United Farm Workers. Previously UFW co-founder Dolores Huerta had endorsed Chu, but prior to today, the UFW had endorsed Gil Cedillo, so this is a very surprising reversal.
"Judy Chu has always been a champion and friend to farm workers and working class families everywhere. When farm worker Asuncion Valdivia died after toiling in the extreme heat of the Central Valley for hours on end and was denied adequate medical care by his employers, Judy proposed legislation that would ensure such a tragedy would never happen again," said Arturo Rodriguez, UFW President. "Today, California's workers are entitled to mandatory shade, rest, and water breaks thanks to the law Judy helped pass. It is because of her dedication to the health and well-being of our members that the United Farm Workers of America proudly endorse Judy Chu for Congress!"
Considering how late in the game it is, something has to be getting these endorsers off the fence and into Chu's column, especially with respect to the Farm Workers, who appear to have reversed their endorsement. Maybe it's Gil Cedillo's vindictive, ugly campaign.
I don't think it will matter to GOTV efforts, but it's a telling sign when the players start lining up at the very end of the game.
UPDATE by Dante: The endorsement by UFW is, according to Judy Chu Press Secretary Fred Ortega, a dual endorsement. The UFW endorsement of Gil Cedillo was not withdrawn. Said Fred Ortega: "The endorsement is yet another sign of Judy Chu's crossover appeal, and she is very proud to have the endorsement of the organization founded by Cesar Chavez to protect the rights of predominantly Latino workers."
First of all, forgive me for not posting an update about the CA-32 race yesterday--I happened to have the honor of being a volunteer driver in Vice President Biden's motorcade during his recent stay in Los Angeles. Mr. Dayen did an admirable job of picking up the slack.
In addition, I wish to issue a correction today. In Wednesday's roundup, I made a factual mistake in implying that if Judy Chu were to win the CA-32 race, that there would be a special election to replace her. This is not true. The California Constitution specifies that in the event of a vacancy on the Board of Equalization, the Governor appoints a replacement subject to the confirmation of a majority of the Assembly and the Senate. It would be interesting to ask whom Schwarzenegger would appoint in that scenario, as well as to see if the Democratic Legislature would permit the Governor to appoint a Republican to fill a strongly Democratic Board of Equalization district. In any case, I apologize for the error.
Five days left to go, and the news continues out of CA-32--mostly recaps and summaries. And most of these articles are some of the prime examples of just why journalism is suffering--perhaps I should call it "the banality of balance." In the attempt to be as even-handed as possible, the truth is often a casualty. But there are a couple of good, more detailed pieces about the election, which I'd like to highlight below.
For the sake of brevity, go beneath the flip. I promise it's worth the click. There's a lot of interesting material today.
Six days left to go, and the chattering class is paying attention. Here's what they're saying.
• The Los Angeles Times is doing their take on the ethnic divide on the race, and presents something you probably never knew--that voters tend to prefer voting for candidates of their own ethnicity over those of other ethnicities! I guess Avenue Q was right. Especially telling is the final quote:
"Ethnicity is a factor," said Harry Pachon, president of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at USC. "But it's not the only factor."
My world has been rocked beyond belief. Sarcasm aside, though--if you're going to do a piece on ethnicity in the CA-32 race, you could at least include some of the juicier, more intriguing aspects of the race--things like, what type of support will Emanuel Pleitez draw and how will that affect the race? What will the impact of Betty Tom Chu be? You know--more like our coverage.
• If national media coverage won local Congressional elections, Emanuel Pleitez would be in really good shape. Following up on the positive coverage in the Los Angeles Times about his candidacy, National Journal has what amounts to a glowing review of Pleitez' online strategy in today's online version. While I think that calling Pleitez a "web candidate" in the title does him a little bit of a disservice, the point is that Pleitez has tried something relatively new for a Congressional seat: using social media to facilitate a more lateral structure as a major part of the organization.
To me, the most interesting part of Pleitez' run against two much better known heavyweights is the fact that if the same race had been run five years ago, someone like Pleitez would have struggled to even get off the ground, much less be talked about in the same breath as the major candidates in this race. But the creation of easy-to-use online fundrasing through ActBlue as well as the massive proliferation of social media has allowed for the creation of an entirely different element to politics that really used to only apply at a more national scale, starting with Dean and perfected by Obama. The most interesting thing will be to see what happens when today's Facebook generation become political heavyweights themselves--how will the traditional and currently non-traditional elements of politics interact? I expect that at some point in the future Pleitez' run for Congress will become a reference point for political experts about both the benefits and the drawbacks of dependence on social media as a key element in the campaign.
• Presuming that either Gil Cedillo or Judy Chu advances to the expected runoff and then proceeds to victory in July, the game of musical chairs will continue--either for Chu's Board of Equalization seat, or for Cedillo's 22nd District Senate Seat. La Opinión is reporting (Spanish-language) that if it's the latter, Los Angeles City Councilmember Ed Reyes (District 1) is going to take a shot at the seat. That, of course, would open up a seat on the City Council as well. Just one more reason for Democratic politicians to really support Democratic Presidents--it opens up all sorts of opportunities for career advancement.
• I'm glad we have better commenters than the people at Mayor Sam. This nugget is particularly entertaining:
I could dream that 3 Dems could split the enough so that the R can win but that is dreaming. If we were competitive in urban areas that scenario wouldn't be out of the question.
Some people just don't understand that this is a consolidated Primary election. Just to clarify: if nobody gets 50%, the top vote-getter by party will proceed to the July runoff.
Eight days before the special election, and the campaign activity is really heating up. Today's roundup includes the latest endorsements, media coverage, and, of course, your absolute favorite...more attack mailers!
This will be somewhat lengthy and slightly opinionated--so come beneath the flip.
Over the past couple of days, my email box has become a lightning rod for supporters of various candidates in in CA-32 special election, many of whom have been communicating alternately their approval or dismay at my post concerning the recent mailer from the Cedillo team.
I was also contacted by Gil Cedillo's campaign manager Derek Humphrey, who provided me with this quote in defense of the mailer:
A number of people contacted our campaign about the Pleitez facebook page. I think they were really shocked to see these pictures of him partying and drinking on what is essentially an extension of his campaign website. These are recent photos that any internet user can easily access.
I am sure it's common place for a 26 year old recent college graduate to post photos to their facebook page that glamorize drinking, partying, and dancing on tables. But, members of Congress and elected officials are role models for young men and women in their community and their behaviors reflect their character.
But you know what I really like to get in my inbox? The ones that provide me PDF's or images of the mailers that other campaigns are sending out--because those provide me not only more material to cover for the race, but in some cases an increasing amount of hilarity.
So without further ado, below the fold I present you...
CA-32 mail-a-palooza! Images and mild commentary below the fold.
In 2007, Calitics watched as Laura Richardson ran a nasty, race-baiting campaign in a special election in CA-37, emphasizing that the seat "should be held by someone from our community" and using what amounts to an identity politics wedge to carry her to victory. We found that distasteful, and hoped that Democrats in future campaigns would not resort to such dirty politics. When the race to replace Hilda Solis in CA-32 began, we thought the candidates, nominally progressive Democrats, would highlight their policy positions and positive attributes instead of using divisive tactics. The major candidates, Board of Equalization member Judy Chu, State Sen. Gil Cedillo and former Obama transition official Emanuel Pleitez, all espoused generally progressive ideas throughout the campaign. But then again, so did Richardson, and we do believe that, at some level, how you campaign does dictate how you govern.
Therefore, we have been extremely disappointed in Gil Cedillo's divisive and often false attacks on his rivals. He started his campaign talking about "our community" and "our people", clearly attempting to play upon a Latino/Asian divide inside the district, which has a larger Hispanic population (which is an odd tactic for someone like Cedillo, who has never represented anyone from the 32nd district, to take). Cedillo's blatantly false mailers against Judy Chu during the race, attempting to blame her for the economic crisis by associating her with unrelated headlines and claiming that "Politicians like Judy Chu give tax breaks to their big corporate contributors," when as a BoE member she merely returned tax refunds owed corporations, were bad enough. But the mailer against Emanuel Pleitez, using Facebook images to build a false narrative of Pleitez as a drunken womanizer who hangs around with non-Hispanic women (a deliberate effort - we wouldn't be surprised to learn that this mailer only went to Hispanic women) and throws "gang signs" (actually that's the sign for Voto Latino, an organization for which Pleitez was a past board member), goes beyond the pale. This slandering, not only of Pleitez but of women in general, as if appearing in a picture at a bar connotes being a slut, goes well beyond what should be expected of a public official, and certainly beneath someone asking to be given a promotion and sent to Washington.
Calitics was generally comfortable with giving no official endorsement on this race until the events of the past couple weeks. We find Dr. Chu to be a progressive leader and Pleitez to have a significant amount of knowledge and energy, and Cedillo has been a past champion on significant issues like immigration. But the events of the past couple weeks have forced us to end our silence. Our somewhat unusual endorsement for voters in CA-32 is to vote for ANY DEMOCRAT BUT GIL CEDILLO. The behavior he has displayed in this campaign should be rejected, not rewarded.
I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles County, in the district formerly represented by now Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis. Like me, 60 percent of the residents of Congressional District 32 are Latino. That didn't stop my mother and I both from voting for a Chinese-American, Judy Chu, when she ran and re-ran for Monterey Park City Council in the 80s and 90s. Nor, by the way, did it stop then-Assemblymember and Latina Hilda Solis from endorsing her.
Today there's a pitched battle to fill Solis' very large shoes, with Judy Chu, currently serving on the state Board of Equalization, running against State Senator Gil Cedillo. Cedillo's main point of persuasion for voters seems to be that since the 32nd district is a Latino district, as a Latino he is better suited to represent it.
Unfortunately for the Cedillo campaign, however, he's not the only candidate in the race with that qualification. Emanuel Pleitez, a 26 year-old Mexican/Salvadoran-American who served on Obama's Treasury Department Transition Team, though trailing in third place, is apparently close enough on Cedillo's tails to find himself the target of a vicious piece of attack mail. The message of the mail piece: Pleitez is a "party animal." The evidence: Pictures on Facebook.
It's no longer necessary at this point to further describe how innocent these pictures actually were; Calitics and The Hill have already done a great job of it. However, given Cedillo's primary qualification for office, it's worth pointing out another detail his attack piece got wrong.
In the mailer, Cedillo accuses Pleitez of "flashing gang signs -- and then posting the pictures on the internet." It then goes on to ask rhetorically, "Doesn't he know about the lives and neighborhoods that have been destroyed by the gangs?"
If Cedillo knew the movement behind Latino political empowerment a bit better, he may have recognized that the woman standing next to Pleitez in one of those photos is Rosario Dawson, star of 'Rent' and '25th Hour' and founder of Voto Latino. The "gang signs" the two of them are "flashing" are a 'V' and an 'L,' as in, 'Voto Latino.' Voto Latino's mission is to empower Latino communities like CD-32 by getting out the vote and promoting civic engagement. Admirably, Pleitez served on the organization's Board of Directors.
Perhaps failing to recognize the hand gestures for what they were was a simple oversight by an ignorant communications staffer. But eagerly jumping to the conclusion that Pleitez was endorsing gang activity on Facebook at the expense of families in the 32nd district was a reckless and malicious ploy to attract cheap votes.
The tragedy is that Cedillo has been nothing short of heroic in California in his numerous fights in the State Legislature on behalf of undocumented immigrants. But in an all-too-typical phenomenon among politicians, the integrity that inspired him to take on these principled fights in the State Capitol have evaporated on the campaign trail.
The good news is, desperate attacks like these tend to backfire. Unfortunately, they tend to turn people away from important elections in the process. Senator Cedillo should bear both of these facts in mind next time he decides to go negative on his opponents.
The League of Women Voters sponsored a forum in Baldwin Park last night for candidates in the May 19 special election to replace Hilda Solis in the Congress. The two front-runners in the race, Gil Cedillo and Judy Chu, emphasized their strengths.
Cedillo said he has had about 80 of his bills signed into law and said he has worked with the governor to save 25,000 jobs. Chu told the audience that she was proud to have the endorsement "of everybody in the family" of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, who held the congressional seat until her cabinet appointment this year.
At the forum at Baldwin Park's Julia McNeill Senior Center, many of the candidates agreed on some issues, including the need for immigration reform that provides a path to citizenship, eliminating tax loopholes for corporations using offshore accounts to shelter income and the need to reform education, especially regarding the federal No Child Left Behind law.
With two weeks to go, the signals I'm getting suggest that Gil Cedillo is nervous. The massive unforced error of those negative Emanuel Pleitez mailers makes me believe that Cedillo fears Pleitez is capturing a good bit of the Hispanic vote. The earlier negative mailers on Judy Chu showed a similar lack of substance (attacking someone for returning tax refunds OWED?). Negative mailers don't inspire turnout, they suppress it. And the May 19 election will already feature low turnout. Which magnifies the importance of GOTV, and with the Democratic Party and key labor groups having endorsed Chu, I would probably be throwing the kitchen sink at everybody in the race myself if I were Cedillo.
What I'd prefer to hear about, instead of who endorsed whom and such and such negative attack, are concerns of the local area. El Monte is crashing. The city made 60% of its tax revenue off of the auto dealerships that lined the city, and with the demise of the auto industry throwing auto sales off the cliff, revenue has shrunk. Many cities with clusters of dealerships will soon face the same problem. What can be done at the federal level to diversify the local economy, and shouldn't the efforts to revive the economy in auto manufacturing states like Michigan extend to cities with a proliferation of car lots like El Monte? If anyone from the campaigns is reading, maybe we can get an answer to that.
It was precisely through community organizing that I got my start. I was inspired to first get active on campus when I joined the movements to stop the Vietnam War, to fight for civil rights, and to pass the Equal Rights Amendment.
My activism continued beyond college when in the mid-1980s, a group of longtime residents in Monterey Park scapegoated new immigrants in the city by pushing for English-only signs in the city and English-only books in the library. When they got a resolution passed in the city council saying that only English should be spoken in the city, that was the last straw. I decided to join a multi-ethnic coalition of Latinos, Asian Americans, and whites to defeat the resolution and we were successful. Out of that movement, I ran for a seat on the Monterey Park city council, and won, spending the next 13 years working toward my goal of getting the diverse groups in the community to work together in harmony.
