The region around SD-23 is getting hit really hard with some just atrocious mail. Not only do they get the mail for the "Collosal Waste of Paper" Race in SD-23, they also get mail from the "Even Bigger Waste of Paper" Race in AD-40. There are trees in Indonesia currently begging for mercy. Vote for Pavley or the Polar Bear Gets it? Maybe, but those trees already bit the dust.
The first ad is from Pavley's campaign, calling Levine the "King of the Luxury Junkets." I love the cute little crown hung from his head, but I gotta tell you, the ad just really doesn't do it for me. I'm not sure who this one convinces. I suppose you could get a few people concerned about "lobbyist money," but not
But, if that's the case, Levine's ad hits the mark. It's a simple explanation of who is paying for the Carbon-Free Pavley Ads. The answer is EdVoice, but the Carbon-Free Campaign has got to be one of the worst mail campaigns. Do the people doing those campaigns think voters aren't going to wonder about the carbon that it takes to print and mail the 7 mailers that get delivered talking about this magnificent carbon-free campaign.
Nonetheless, I doubt that too many of these "who paid for these" really get too far. It seems a bit insider baseball for people to really put the effort into sorting all these mailers out. In the end, all this mail ends up clogging landfills or just being recycled (hopefully).
It sure would be great if these IEs and the campaigns could at least send some worthwhile campaign crap. I know some campaigns are giving out potholders or other such useful items. I mean, if we are going to be spending all this money anyway, why not print the mailer up on, say a reusable shopping bag, or a roll of paper towels. (Of recycled paper and printed with soy ink, of course.)
Vice President Al Gore recorded a video and wrote an email to Courage Campaign members about the importance of investing in education even during a time of economic crisis.
In it Al Gore asks for people to respond back to him directly on Current.com with either a video response or text. They have a pretty nifty tool that will detect a webcam on your computer and let you respond right there, just scroll down to the bottom.
On Monday, I went to the capitol and filmed 18 different Assemblymembers responding to Al Gore. Dave has been cutting them into individual videos and uploading them. Below the fold is the rest of the email from Gore. I had hoped to be able to embed those videos from the Assemblymembers here, but the code from Current is not playing nicely, so you will have to click the link to see.
Assemblyman Anthony Portantino AD-44, Assemblywoman Betty Karnette AD-54, Assemblyman Dave Jones, AD-09, Assemblyman Kevin DeLeon AD-45, Assemblyman Ed Hernandez AD-57, Assemblyman Hector De La Torre AD-50, Assemblyman John Laird AD-27, Assemblyman Lloyd Levine AD-40, Assemblyman Lori Saldana AD-76, Assemblyman Sandré Swanson AD-16 and there are a few more coming including Speaker Karen Bass.
Dear Julia,
I don't write emails like this often.
But, with Californians facing a massive budget crisis and potentially devastating cuts to education, I feel compelled to speak out. As members of the Courage Campaign community, I hope you will speak out as well.
Before we get into the next round of endorsements, we have a few comments in here about how we envision this working. The endorsements are the opinion of the board, not the community as a whole - we would hope they generate a good discussion about the various candidates in every district.
Furthermore, these are primary endorsements, so somebody is not going to be happy about them. We apologize for that, but if you don't like our opinions, you should let us know that. Write a comment here. Post a diary about the candidate of your choice. Let the community know why you think your preferred candidate is the best choice in the Democratic Primary. Unlike newspapers, this is a two-way medium. We not only accept comments on these endorsements, we encourage it. So, feel free to tell us how wrong we really are.
And with that said, here are the State Senate Endorsements. Explanations over the flip.
SD-03: Mark Leno SD-05: Lois Wolk (UPDATED) SD-09: Loni Hancock & Wilma Chan SD-12: Simon Salinas / Yes on Recall SD-15: Dennis Morris SD-19: Hannah-Beth Jackson SD-23: Lloyd Levine and Fran Pavley SD-25: No Endorsement SD-33: Gary Pritchard
Over the flip, I'll be posting some legislator's remarks on the marriage decision. I'll only get a few now, so any editors should feel free to add some or throw them in the comments.
Senator Barack Obama:
"Barack Obama has always believed that same-sex couples should enjoy equal rights under the law, and he will continue to fight for civil unions as President. He respects the decision of the California Supreme Court, and continues to believe that states should make their own decisions when it comes to the issue of marriage."
On the issue of constitutional amendments, Senator Obama has been on record for some time: He opposes all divisive and discriminatory constitutional amendments, state or federal. That includes the proposed amendments in California and Florida.
I really like Fran Pavley, and have enormous respect for her. She's running in a tight race with Asm. Lloyd Levine for SD-23. And, fortunately, the former Assembly Leader doesn't have to take credit for this horrendous website and the accompanying mailers. This is an Independent Expenditure (IE) by EdVoice with the mailing address of a law firm up in Marin. I'm not totally sure what EdVoice, an education group is doing sending out environmental mail, but let's just go with it.
In short, the mailer says, you better vote for Fran Pavley or the Polar Bears are all going to die. The other mailers displayed on the website's "Gallery" are not so egregious, but they are all based upon this "carbon-free" concept. David Dayen, who lives in the district, points out that he's now received several mailers from the group, which undercuts the "Carbon-free" argument. Sending 5 mailers and offsetting one absentee vote. I'll let others think about the math on that one.
With this, and Arnold's Great Honor, it is really turning out to be a banner day in California politics. Oh, and Karen Bass is being sworn in today as the first African-American female Speaker in any of the United States.
I don't think that's the message Fran Pavley wanted to convey in this mailer (PDF), but that's pretty much what I'm getting out of it. The front page is a polar bear standing on a lonely block of ice after much of it has fallen away into the sea, looking forlorn. Accompanying the picture is the text "Save a Polar Bear, Vote Carbon Free For Fran Pavley." The inside of the mailer explains why; Pavley is an environmental leader, and fighting global warming will help save the polar bears, the reasoning goes.
Now, I've already explained once why this carbon-free voting idea is kind of a joke, particularly when it's being conveyed to the public by using multiple full-color mailers. I know from my mailbox that Pavley has been far more aggressive in direct mail than her opponent Lloyd Levine. The new information in this mailer is that Pavley's campaign has "purchased carbon offsets to cover every vote-by-mail ballot in the 23rd Senate district," but I'm not getting what the metric is. Does that cover the ballots? The constant stream of mailers? The carbon used by the post office to deliver the ballots? Does it cover the fact that carbon offsets are kind of an environmental shell game that assuages liberal guilt without taking the meaningful steps needed to reduce our carbon output?
Kind of unclear from this mailer.
UPDATE by Brian: I believe this is actually an Independent Expenditure by EdVoice with the mailing address of a law firm up in Marin. I'm not totally sure what EdVoice, an education group is doing sending out environmental mail, but let's just go with it.
Edited by Brian for space. This article from Assemblyman Levine appeared in today's LA Daily News. Money quote here, full op-ed over the flip. By the way, Asm. Levine will be at the Long Beach Convention Center for a workshop on "Hot Topics in the Legislature" at 2 PM.
California students didn't create this budget crisis, and their education and futures should not be sacrificed to solve it. Schwarzenegger and other state lawmakers must make California's students a top priority. This is why the final budget agreement must include increased revenues as part of any approach to balancing the budget - or the dog days of summer will become the winter of our discontent.
Just a quick final reminder of the Calitics Show. You can stream it live on the Radio show home page or listen to a podcast there or at iTunes.
Assembly member Lloyd Levine and former Assembly member Fran Pavley will join us to talk about a number of California policy issues. I figure they might also mention the fact that they are both running for SD-23 as well.
(Don't forget the Calitics Show this afternoon! - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
I'm really proud of the growth and improvement of the Calitics Show. I like to think that the podcast is becoming an exciting new medium for some good Calitics content. We've interviewed candidates and elected officials from across the state, and covered some of the major issues and races in the state.
This Monday, we have another exciting show. We will have both candidates for SD-23 Assembly member Lloyd Levine and former Assembly member Fran Pavley LIVE! We want to use this as a chance to discuss important policy issues facing the state, such as our worsening budget situation, the challenges facing our environment, the energy crisis and whatever issues they or YOU care to bring up. We'll have time for just a few callers. The number is available at the Calitics Show Page. Also, if you have questions, feel free to leave them as comments to this post.
Post-Pennsylvania and... well, nothing much different actually. But next time, for sure! Meanwhile, here are some California-centric notes:
• The California School Employees Association made their endorsements for the June primary. In addition to Migden, they strike of an aversion to go out on a limb. They only endorsed one Congressional candidate in a Republican-held seat (Charlie Brown), and they opted out of a lot of contested primaries in the legislative seats as well. Manuel Perez did get the endorsement in the 80th AD, however (he is a school board member, so not a big shock).
• We don't get into a lot of rural issues on the site, probably because of the bias toward writers here in urban environments. But this salmon fishing ban is a big deal along the Mendocino coast. This actually goes back to the Klamath fish kill in the beginning of the decade and Darth Cheney's efforts to ensure that. I think there are going to be a lot of angry fishermen wanting answers this fall.
• I keep forgetting to write about the State Senate primary in my own backyard of SD-23, between Fran Pavley and Lloyd Levine. Here's some background on the race to succeed Sheila Kuehl. I actually attended an environmental forum with these two last week and found them both to be really solid, with different strengths. While Pavley is an astonishingly effective lawmaker - she probably has her name on more far-reaching climate change legislation than anyone in the entire country - Levine really seems to understand the nature of the fight in Sacramento and how best to bring about sweeping change. I'm not going to be disappointed on June 3, regardless of the winner. We're hoping to get both Pavley and Levine on a future Calitics Radio show.
• Here's a user-created video of our debate protest at ABC last week. We have our own video set for release as well.
• Adam Liptak in The New York Times today: "The United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population. But it has almost a quarter of the world's prisoners."
Yet we must remain "tough on crime," even though rises and falls in the crime rate are not correlative to imprisoning people (Canada's rate goes up and down roughly at the same time ours does, without a corresponding increase in the prison population).
In a letter, Yoo's lawyer told Conyers he was "not authorized" by DOJ to discuss internal deliberations.
"We have been expressly advised by the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice that Professor Yoo is not authorized to discuss before your Committee any specific deliberative communications, including the substance of comments on opinions or policy questions, or the confidential predecisional advice, recommendations or other positions taken by individuals or entities of the Executive Branch," Yoo's lawyer, John C. Millian, wrote in a letter to Conyers.
As we all know, the executive branch can ignore subpoenas and prevent Congressional oversight. Why, Yoo wrote it in a memo! But he can't discuss it. Because the executive branch follows the law. That he wrote.
It's becoming predictable every election season. California's anti-gay groups are attempting to put a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage on the November ballot. They presume Californians will agree with them and flock to the polls, erasing years of progress.
My hope is this November California voters will be galvanized and electrified by a sense of hope for the future, not limiting it. That's why I am STRONGLY supporting the "Decline to Sign" campaign fighting to keep the same-sex marriage initiative off the ballot. Whether or not they succeed, California voters will be put on notice that this potential ban would write discrimination into the state's Constitution.
It's certainly not lost on most voters that the anti-gay marriage initiative is also a shameless tactic used by Republicans before to get voters to the polls. Recently, Arizona voters saw they were being played for fools by the Republicans and defeated a similar same-sex marriage ban.
SACRAMENTO - Assemblymember Lloyd Levine (D-Woodland Hills), the Sierra Club California, Environment California, Coalition for Clean Air and Clean Power Campaign today delivered the following letter to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger stating why they oppose giving nuclear power a second chance. The Governor earlier said nuclear power has a great future because it has no greenhouse gas emissions and it's clean.
Apparently, voting by mail is "carbon-free"! And to prove that point, the carbon-free voting people have sent me a four-page glossy mailer to tell me so. But it's printed on soy ink! And if you vote permanent absentee, you don't have to get in your car to get to your polling place! And anyway, they puchased carbon offsets to mitigate these campaign activities!
So what the hell is going on here? Why is an environmental group sending a mailer touting "carbon-free voting," which, um, pretty much doesn't exist? Well, that would be explained by the picture of Fran Pavley on the back.
Now, Fran's great. As Assemblywoman she authored the landmark global warming law that will hopefully become a model for the nation, AB32. But she's also running for State Senate to replace the termed-out Sheila Kuehl, and obviously she's interested in raising her profile. So everyone in the Senate district, my district, got this mailer. The LA Times ran a story on it.
The mailer is being derided by some, while others are questioning whether it is improperly trying to influence a state Senate election in the West L.A. area by prominently featuring one of the candidates, former Assemblywoman Fran Pavley.
"It looks dubious," said Tracy Westen, chief executive of the Center for Governmental Studies, a Los Angeles-based non-partisan group that promotes political reform in Los Angeles. "It's coordinated with her, it has her picture on it and it is going into that Senate district."
Her main foe in the race, Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, wouldn't comment for the story.
There are about 500 good reasons for vote-by-mail, and since Republicans kind of have a head start on permanent absentee organization I'm happy to see someone on the left promoting it. But calling it "carbon-free" is a stretch. And using it as a cover to tout a Senate candidate is pretty suspect.
(We flat out banned them in SF's largest supermarkets, but plastic bags are very recyclable, so this is a good start. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
Paper or plastic? It seems like an innocent enough question, doesn’t it? But, when you stop and think about where all the grocery bags we use end up, the question no longer seems quite so simple – particularly in the case of plastic bags.
The numbers are astounding: Californians use more than 19 billion plastic grocery bags each year, creating 147,038 tons of waste in our landfills. With Californians throwing away over 600 bags per second, they are creating enough waste every year to circle the planet over 250 times.
The California State Assembly has passed Assembly Bill 1634 - the California Healthy Pets Act - by a 41-38 vote. If enacted, this legislation would require most pets in California to be spayed or neutered.
I authored this measure because every year, nearly 1 million cats and dogs pass through the doors of animal control agencies throughout California. And every year, more than 50 percent of them - many perfectly healthy and adoptable - are euthanized by overcrowded shelters which are unable to find them good homes.
(I was stunned to see Arnold's decision today. -juls. Here's the story from the SJ Merc. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
I celebrate today's decision with all the citizens whose lives would have been adversely impacted by the BHP Billiton project. An environmental impact report associated with the project identified more than a dozen harmful effects on marine life, air quality and the coastal environment, and we already knew this project was not in compliance with our Clean Air Act. These factors, combined with the great efforts of many concerned Californians, helped to sink this proposal. It was the wrong project at the wrong time for California.
Four years ago, our energy situation in California was in a much different place. However, after several productive years of passing legislation focusing not only on energy efficiency standards, but also on green, clean, and renewable energy sources, there is no need to lessen our state's commitment to a clean environment by approving the BHP Billiton terminal.
(Obesity is a big problem, in California and the nation. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
I was thrilled with the response to my first post. I am really grateful for the welcome comments, but even more, I appreciate the questions that I received. If I could categorize the questions, they roughly broke down into three issue areas: one was health care and wellness, another was energy efficiency/ energy independence, and lastly, transportation (mainly high speed rail.) In my first substantive Calitics post, I want to talk about health care and wellness since we are in the middle of Fitness Month in California.
The first thing that I want to say about health care policy is that single-payer is the answer to California's health care crisis. I was proud that in my first months in office I was an original co-author of the bill that would ensure health care for all. SB 840 will ensure more accessibility, at lower cost, with better overall care for all Californians. I am fighting to make sure that SB 840 is on the Governor's desk again, and I am hopeful that we can convince him to sign it this year.
With respect to the Leno-Midgen battle royale, the most interesting State Senate primary may end up being in the 23rd District, replacing the termed-out Sheila Kuehl (who is likely to run for LA County Supervisor, as she wants to stay closer to home). Up until now, it was assumed that the race would be between former Assmblywoman Fran Pavley and current Assemblyman Lloyd Levine. Each has their base of support in different parts of the district, and that would be an interesting enough battle in and of itself. But now I hear that Santa Monica City Councilman Bobby Shriver, brother of Maria, is looking to possibly run for that seat. Shriver was elected to the City Council in 2004 (I remember getting robocalls from Ted Kennedy for a City Council race), has been a music and television executive, and co-founded the Debt AIDS Trade in Africa organization and the RED Initiative with Bono and others. His donor list reads like a Who's Who of Hollywood celebrity, and he wouldn't have any problem raising money (he spent more than $350,000 to win a City Council seat in a city of around 90,000).
However, there is a bit of tension between Shriver and the progressive grassroots community. The dynamic in Santa Monica is between the beachfront hotels, who want pro-business policies forwarded, and SMRR (Santa Monicans for Renters Rights), who are more in line with citizen concerns. The beachfront hotels went after Councilmember Kevin McKeown (easily the most progressive) in 2006 with an aggressive and vindictive campaign that included dishonest TV ads. SMRR wiped the floor with them, as McKeown grabbed the largest share of the votes.
That same group of business interests backed Shriver with huge dollars in 2004. Now, Shriver and McKeown don't vote all that differently, though McKeown is somewhat more progressive. But that perception, combined with the fact that Shriver really hasn't had much interest in engaging with the local grassroots, has strained relations. And Pavley is certainly their candidate in this race. The high name-ID of a Shriver throughout the district and his ability to bring in big money will be formidable, but the grassroots connections for both of the other candidates will be an obstacle. This is going to be an outstanding race.
(Welcome Assemblyman! - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
I am really excited to start blogging on Calitics. Recently, while I was at the Democratic Convention in San Diego, I was blown away by how well Calitics bloggers connected the grassroots activists across the state with the events in the convention hall. It was eye-opening to see first hand how professionally the netroots report the activities of the party infrastructure through this site. That weekend, I decided that it was important for me to begin engaging the conversation that is taking place among active, progressive Democrats everyday on the Calitics online community.
I am leaving myself room to blog about just about anything that I feel Calitics members would be interested in reading. I imagine that most of my entries will focus on the policies that I work on, day to day. I want to ensure that, to the extent that there is interest, the netroots are aware of the legislation that I am promoting in California. However, I also want to use Calitics to inform readers in my community about events in my district, thoughts that I have on politics at all levels, and even an occasional post about my marathon preparations.
Equally as important to me is hearing the feedback of Calitics readers. Members of the progressive blogosphere have never been shy about sharing their thoughts on certain issues, and I have benefited greatly from the input. However, I am really interested in generating more thoughts on specific proposals that I am working on. In the coming weeks and months, I hope to write a series of diary entries about some of the bills that I have authored this year, in hopes of generating feedback from Calitics readers.
For those of you who may not be familiar with me, or the work I have been doing, I posted my bio as an extended entry.
In the interest of regional balance, here are a few things in the part of the state that gets sun (jus' kiddin', guys) which caught my eye:
• Full public financing of municipal elections will be on the agenda at tonight's Santa Monica City Council Meeting. Solidly progressive City Councilman Kevin McKeown raised this issue earlier in the year and couldn't get a second, but they ran a staff report, and both Common Cause and the League of Women Voters are pushing this hard. Just like everything else, we'll need to win the Clean Money battle from the bottom up.
