Democrat, Marta Jorgensen announced today that she will be running for Congress in the 24th Congressional District, the seat held by Republican Elton Gallegly for the past 22 years. Last year, she was the Democratic nominee and with barely $20,000, Marta was able to win 42% of the vote.
Polling shows that voters in the 24th Congressional District are tired of Elton Gallegly and they want change. They want someone who can deliver healthcare and environmental reforms that will jump-start the economy.
Conventional wisdom says that the Republicans are the party of business and that the economy is in more able hands if they are in control. Well, this is a myth and conventional wisdom has been wrong for a very long time. So let's dig deeper into that myth, which the recent events in the housing market and now those on Wall Street have started to crack.
To Marta Jorgensen, protecting against discrimination of all kinds is paramount, and where vestiges of discrimination still remain in our society, she supports Congressional efforts to weed them out. One such effort was the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, designed to overcome pay discrimination once and for all; unlike longtime Republican incumbent Elton Gallegly, who voted against the bill, Marta Jorgensen strongly supports it.
The Fair Pay Act was a response to a misguided Supreme Court decision that struck a major blow to gender and racial equality in this country. In Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tires, the Court held that Goodyear was protected from Ledbetter's gender pay discrimination claim solely because its initial decision to discriminate occurred more than 180 days before the claim and even though Ledbetter was not aware of it until many years later. The Fair Pay Act would have removed this 180-day loophole.
Unfortunately, the bill was not received as well as Marta Jorgensen feels it should have been. It passed the House by a surprisingly slim 225-199 vote count thanks to the embarrassing efforts of Republicans like Elton Gallegly, who spoke and voted against the bill. When the legislation made its way to the Senate this year, the Republicans would not even let it be considered on the floor. Like Elton Gallegly, John McCain opposed it.
Had Marta Jorgensen represented California's 24th Congressional District instead of Elton Gallegly, she would have campaigned for and voted for the Fair Pay Act. To her, protecting women and minorities from discrimination is an extremely important issue, one of morality as well as of legality. She believes in her heart that everyone should receive equal pay for equal work, and she believes that the Constitution demands that the law follow suit.
Fair pay for women and minorities is not only a moral and legal issue to her, however. In line with her bold E-Revolution campaign platform is the idea that we must strengthen our sagging economy by making ourselves as competitive as possible, and equal pay for equal work is an important way to help achieve this. By fairly rewarding the most capable people regardless of sex, race, national origin, or any other factor unrelated to work product, we can ensure that qualified women and minorities will remain in our workforce and be motivated to be as productive as they can be. At the same time, we can also ensure that the inefficiencies created by paying more money to less qualified men will finally be removed.
Our district needs someone willing to stand up for equality, willing to work against discrimination, and willing to vote for what is right.
(Low-turnout primaries are really tricky things. And it's so hard to run a traditional grassroots campaign in California. This is a pretty amazing story, and ties in to what I was talking about below. - promoted by David Dayen)
Well, one thing's for sure: Democrats are tired of big business and the insurance industry. So much so, in fact, that Democrats in CA-24 elected to vote in landslide numbers for Marta Jorgensen, a candidate who did little traditional campaigning to speak of--including, apparently, not even purchasing the state voter file--simply on the basis of the ballot designation "educator".
The Democratic primary race in CA-24 to challenge perennial do-nothing Republican Elton Gallegly was a 3-way contest between progressive favorite Mary Pallant, the previous Democratic contestant Jill Martinez, and political neophyte Marta Jorgensen.
The outcome of this race is difficult for me to write about, as I was very enthusiastic about Mary's campaign: her progressive stances on issues from Iraq to healthcare to accountability for the Bush Administration are all very attractive, and of the three candidates, she is by far the most charismatic and hard-nosed. She also knows exactly what it takes to run a good campaign, and it was something of an open secret in the local political scene that Elton Gallegly was very nervous about having to face her in November. I was so impressed with Mary (and still am) that I signed on to become to her volunteer Netroots Outreach Coordinator. But in a low-turnout election, the strangest things can happen.
• I thought I'd have time to put together a monthly roundup for May, but it never came together, and the primary is going to change those analyses a bit, so I'll put something out after the primaries.
• I have to correct an error. On Saturday I wrote that Marta Jorgensen had dropped out of the race in CA-24. She had, but she recently got back into the race and is focusing on turning out new voters in Northern Santa Barbara County around Lompoc. This is a crucial effort to activate Hispanic voters who traditionally have not turned out, and I both salute Ms. Jorgensen for her efforts and apologize for the error. Hopefully she can visit Calitics and fill us in on that effort up in Lompoc.
• Doug Ose has loaned his campaign another $600,000 in the waning days before the GOP primary against Tom McClintock in CA-04. This primary now exceeds $4 million dollars, and it's hard to spend that much in that district. McClintock pulled out of a debate earlier this week, and there was the Pete Wilson savaging as well. Reading the tea leaves, I don't think Ose would make that extra investment if he wasn't close to nailing this down, but I could be wrong.
"Lungren's behavior is disgusting. He claims to be a leader in ethics reform, then he turns around and subverts House ethics rules. This is just one of many examples of Lungren's hypocrisy [...] The people of the 3rd Congressional District deserve better representation than a career politician like Dan Lungren who sells out to special interests. I've been caring for the people of our district for over 25 years as an emergency physician. I believe we have an emergency in our government. I'm running for Congress to help restore government of, by, and for the people."
I like it. Durston is trying to put up a big number in the June 3 primary, despite running unopposed, to show his strength in this challenge.
• And it's not primary-related, but I think we have the first ever Calitics mention in the LA Times in this story about Laura Richardson. Hey guys, you could have used my name, it's right above the title....
UPDATE (by Brian): I have said before that some of the IEs have really angered me. It seems that at least a couple of these annoying IEs have something in common: EdVoice. Chris Cabaldon's former lobbying organization employer has been quite busy this year. In SD-23, they have the cheezy "Carbon-neutral voting" mailers. In AD-8, EdVoice has gone all in for their former CEO, Cabaldon. Randy Bayne has the story on a negative mailer on Mariko Yamada for supporting vocational education for mentally retarded Californians. Not cool.
