The resolution was introduced last week by councilmembers Richard Alarcon and Bill Rosendahl. It seeks to address "the City's position to support the First Amendment Rights carried out by 'Occupy Los Angeles,'" according to the L.A. City Council Agenda.
The recommendation supports the continuation of peaceful protests and advises the city departments to bring the already-approved Responsible Banking measure up for a final vote before the council by the end of October.
The council members saidthe Responsible Banking measure will alleviate some of the concerns of the downtown demonstrators. The measure demands accountability and results from banks supported by taxpayer dollars.
The responsible banking ordinance will score banks based on the number of home loan modifications accommodated, the number and location of its branches and how they contribute to affordable housing.
(There's an Act Blue page soliciting funds to take a poll on the Lakoff Initiative)
You may have seen me live-tweeting the events last night at SEIU Local 721 in LA, where Professor George Lakoff and the folks behind CA Majority Rule met with around 200 activists, union members, elected officials, legislative candidates, representatives from Speaker Bass' office, and more, to talk about the just-released proposed November 2010 initiative on majority rule. If you read through both the live tweets and Dante Atkins' notes on the meeting, I think you get a picture of a potential split inside the California Democratic Party, one that could have major implications for all elections next year.
It should be noted that CDP Vice-Chair Eric Bauman was there to offer support. He gave a typical stump speech and said very plainly that "the reason you're here tonight is the solution" to the problems that grip the state, problems he laid out very carefully and completely. He was honest in saying that any Democrat who opposes this kind of measure will be told that "vertebra are available for installation... I think the chiropractor's lobby can help us with that." He made clear that we don't have a spending problem, "we have a common sense problem," and he pushed everyone in the room to work toward a real solution.
But Professor Lakoff's speech seemed to capture the dynamic between the grassroots and the establishment much better. Lakoff opened by talking about the origins of the initiative that he filed yesterday:
I got into this last spring when Lonnie Hancock invited me to speak to a group of State Senators. And I said, what's the problem, you're the majority! And they said they don't have any power. And they explained the whole 2/3rds rule, and how the leadership has to work with them because we want to lose as little as possible.
And I asked, why aren't you in every assembly district explaining this problem? It's about schools, healthcare, everything, and there's no answer. I went back and said that there's something really wrong. Its name is democracy [...] Which is more Democratic? Majority rule, or minority rule? You knew the answer from the 3rd grade on. Even Republicans know the answer but they don't like to. We know there will be a blowback if we try to change things, but the hardest blowback is coming from our side. The reason that Loni Hancock invited me was that there was a poll done by a progressive organization, and it asked the wrong question.
This is my business. Studying language and the framing behind language. If someone presented you with the poll question: would you rather have more taxes and higher services, or fewer taxes and less services. Obviously, it went with the latter. And the legislature concluded that they shouldn't put anything about taxes on the 2010 ballot. Why do they think that? Because they think that polls are objective, and that language just floats out there. They're wrong. Language is not neutral. There's a truth here that that language hides. It's the truth that we don't have Democracy in this state. We have minority rule.
In response, because nobody else would do so, Lakoff's initiative reads: "All Legislative actions on revenue and budget must be determined by majority vote." It's tweetable and it's fairly simple to understand. It's framed as a democratic action to return the state to democratic rule. And it appeals very much to those interested in preserving democracy.
Which is the consensus opinion inside the Democratic Party. We know this because, back in July, the state party passed a resolution calling for majority rule for budget and revenue. And it didn't pass with contentious debate - it passed unanimously. One of the very few people to speak out against it was the Party Chair, John Burton. But the rank and file supported it utterly.
It was something of a reversal for Burton, who when he was trying to get the votes of those rank and file supported a majority vote position. Now he's seen some polls and decided to take half a bite out of the apple. Lakoff described his exceedingly short meeting with Burton last night.
Burton wouldn't talk to me for more than a minute. He just said that he saw the polls, and it said 55% on budget and nothing on taxes. How many of you were at the state convention? You voted on a resolution about this. How did that resolution come before you? The resolutions committee. And that was the point. We got the resolutions committee to do it and got a standing ovation. The rank and file Democrats know it's the right thing to do and they have to tell their leaders. So how do you change this? You have to have a poll, but you have to have pressure. The major donors have to call Burton and say, if you want any money from me, you get behind this. And he has to hear that from donor after donor and organization after organization. We have to win in our own party first. I think John Burton is a good person, same with Bass and Steinberg. It's the good people that we have to win over first.
Later, a woman from AFSCME asserted that Willie Pelote was willing to give $1 million dollars to a majority vote campaign until Burton called him and told him to forget it.
You can argue about what the most effective approach is to deal with California's budget dysfunction. We've been doing that all week. You could say that leaders must prepare the ground by tying things Californians want to revenue, and tell the story of Republicans thwarting the popular will. You can say that we need to throw out the Constitution and move straight to a convention. But what becomes incredibly clear is that there is a groundswell of support inside the party for a simple move to restore democracy to the state, and if the establishment in Sacramento rejects that, in particular John Burton, the subsequent outrage will have a major impact on grassroots support for all Democratic candidates next year. There's just no question about this. The grassroots already feels disrespected and abused by the leadership. They got Hillary Crosby into a statewide officer position based on just this kind of frustration. They feel that one of the richest economies in the world is run like a third-world country, and they know that they will never change that when procedural rules force Democrats into a defensive crouch, where they see their role as losing as little as possible. This split will grow and branch out into statewide officer races, legislative races, etc. The grassroots workhorses won't be very inclined to work so hard for a Party that disrespects them and fails to act in their stated interests. Not to mention the fact that everyone knows that, while we wait another Friedman Unit until the electorate figures out the problem on their own, people will suffer from budget cuts, people will go bankrupt, and people will die.
The CA Majority Rule team has a multi-pronged strategy. One, they are raising money for this poll, to try and prove that a properly framed set of questions will elicit the desired results. Two, they will put Speaker's Bureaus together in every district in California with people who can talk about majority rule and restoring democracy, complete with real-world examples of the fruit of the state's dysfunction. Three, they will seek to pass endorsements of the one-line majority rule initiative in every Democratic club and county committee in California. There's an executive board meeting coming up in November where this will probably come to a crescendo, too.
The real story of the Lakoff initiative is a story about rank and file Democrats wanting their leaders to follow their will. You can argue about tactics or strategy or approach, but that's what it boils down to. And the party leadership had better take heed.
It's taken the proposed destruction of practically the entire social safety net in California for progressives both inside and outside the political system to fight back. I'm actually more heartened by the work done outside it. I expect Lenny Goldberg to come up with a great alternative budget calling for tax fairness, and end to corporate welfare and a government for all the people instead of the rich. I expect Jean Ross to do the same, as well as AFSCME. They're all good proposals, but this is what they are paid to do. What I don't expect, and what I haven't seen, is a citizen's movement to rival the institutional and advocacy machinery. The Fix the California Budget Facebook page is really one of the first such grassroots pushes I've seen in recent memory.
Californians deserve real solutions to the budget deficit. Responding to our economic crisis with an all-cuts budget will only make the state's problems worse. Deep cuts to vital programs undermine our economic recovery and President Obama's investment in economic stimulus, disproportionately harm the most vulnerable Californians, and go against our core values.
More than 70 percent of voters sat out the May 19 special election because it is the Governor and Legislature's job to fix the budget. Polls show the defeat of the initiatives was neither an endorsement of an all-cuts approach nor a rejection of raising revenues.
Under Governor Schwarzenegger, we have suffered $23 billion in spending cuts in the current budget year alone. Additional drastic cuts will irrevocably change the state we love. Californians support and deserve a state that provides for the common good and the needs of our residents, and we need to pursue realistic revenue solutions that will protect our shared priorities. Cuts are not the only option!
Our state needs courageous leadership. We will support those who stand against an all-cuts budget, speak out for fair ways of raising revenue, and work to deliver a budget that invests in our future and protects all the people of our state. True leaders get their strength from the people they represent. We pledge to be that strength, and mobilize to support a sensible budget solution.
The specific action items are to call your lawmaker and provide that counter-weight to the internal pressure to support the all-cuts approach. They reference the majority-vote fee increase as a legitimate option that must be put before the Governor in place of the worst cuts. County Democratic Chairs and local activists are actually driving the pressure from below, rather than having solutions imposed upon them.
This represents an opportunity. It doesn't mean we win this fight - we're going to lose more than we win at first. And in a way, this is the corporate "reform" community's worst nightmare - the Bay Area Council and California Forward would rather drive the reform process themselves and keep it within their own particular boundaries. But we can build a movement of a newly-roused core group of activists committed to setting California on the right path by restoring democracy, eliminating the conservative veto and reforming the broken system. This is a first step.
The SEIU donated $500,000 to the No on 1A campaign, the first truly major expenditure by any group against the ballot measures on May 19. The No on 1A campaign now hold about $1 million in their bank account. While this is dwarfed by the money dumped into the Yes campaign by, among other groups, the CTA, billionaires like Jerry Perenchio, and Chevron, given the attitudes of the electorate even a little money on the No side could be enough to stop the onslaught and tip these measures. Politicos understand this fairly well:
"It just got a lot harder," said Dan Schnur, director of the University of Southern California's Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics and a former Republican strategist.
"The biggest advantage the proponents have had all along is the lack of a well-funded opposition," Schnur said. "Historically, you don't need to outspend ballot measures to beat them, and in a low-turnout election this is a decent amount of money." [...]
"Right now there's a tremendous tendency to reject anything out of Sacramento," said Republican strategist Dave Gilliard.
Good for the SacBee, by the way, for pointing out that Prop. 1A "has a long-term impact and would not directly alter the budget until 2011."
I've been speaking at a lot of grassroots Democratic groups against these measures, purely on the public policy merits, and the overriding sentiment I'm seeing out there lines up with what Dave Gilliard says there. The disconnect between the establishment and the grassroots is truly striking. People don't feel like their concerns have been met, either this year or for the last thirty, really. They see another layer of budget dysfunction forced upon the voters that fails to get at the structural problems. And now, they're starting to see their voices manifested with action, as well as the mother's milk of California politics, money.
Today, Seth Hemmelgarn of the Bay Area Reporter (BAR) ran a story titled "Growing pains seen in grassroots work" which describes some of the tension in the marriage equality movement as the power begins to shift from the old guard leadership to the new generation of powerful grassroots leaders heading the charge for change.
Specifically, the story focuses on Robin McGehee, the head organizer for the large event "Meet in the Middle 4 Equality" or known as MITM. (Disclosure: Unite the Fight is the official blog covering the event.) The tension described in the story rose when Robin was informed by local community member Sandy O'Neill of Visalia, CA, that Geoff Kors, President of Equality California (EQCA), had mentioned to her at the Dinah Shore fundraising event in Palm Springs that they were supporting buses to transport people to Fresno for MITM. In fact, no monetary support from EQCA for the event had been given.
"I went [to the Dinah Shore fundraiser] to tell Geoff and Kate [Kendall, Exec. Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR)] how excited I was to see MITM on their websites, especially after their absence in the valley during the No on 8 Campaign," Sandy told Unite the Fight.
The Los Angeles County Democratic Party held their endorsement meeting for the May 19 special election yesterday. The Yes side brought out all the big guns to talk up Prop. 1A: four State Senators, including President Pro Tem Steinberg, Attorney General candidate Ted Lieu, State Superintendent for Public Instruction candidate Gloria Romero and Lieutenant Governor candidate Dean Florez. The No side had two union members from the SEIU and the California Faculty Association and a 2008 Assembly candidate. (UPDATE: It was Carol Liu, not Ted Lieu.)
And the LACDP went neutral.
It's quite remarkable to see practically the entire establishment of the Democratic Party selling fear and so few people buying. My fear is that they will chalk up their failure to the typical right-wing anti-tax bias, when the real indictment here is a failure to lead, to articulate an actual solution instead of the same nonsense that does nothing to effect structural reform. The first ads for 1A and 1B only have one unequivocally true statement in them - that the budget is "A total mess, and we all know it." And yet the prescription for solving the mess is nothing more than making people afraid of some amorphously bigger mess, while neglecting the clear disaster that would arrive with the passage of a spending cap.
This is not about an aversion to two years' worth of sales taxes. It's about an aversion to more demonstrably awful solutions to layer onto an already dysfunctional system. Maybe instead of dictating to their constituents, the leadership in Sacramento could bother to listen to them.
Since it's Don't Curse Week here in LA County, I will be forced to be brief. Last night a group of grassroots activists, including remnants of the Obama organizers in California, various progressive advocacy groups, and Democratic Club leaders, discussed a potential citizen-led ballot initiative to reform the California budget process. Nobody disputes that something drastic must be done to permanently end the conservative veto and restore democracy to the process. If you ask 100 activists what needs to be done you will get 105 answers. Arriving at the conclusion that offers the best opportunity for success, both in being adopted as a reform by the voters and as a practical matter for the legislature, ought to be opened to a vigorous debate and a deliberative process.
That is the direct opposite of what happened yesterday, when a group of self-appointed leaders tried to dictate the form in which the reform will take, and sought to invite the remainder of the group to join their already-decided-upon course of action. So the fight to restore democracy has begun with an undemocratic edict, from the grassroots no less, that is based in the same kind of mushy, don't-make-waves approach that has devastated the state for decades upon decades. If it sounds topsy-turvy, you're not alone.
In short, the self-appointed leadership has decided to put up a website to "eliminate the two-thirds rule" and "restore majority rule" to the budget process. This is a very tightly controlled statement based on, essentially, the fiction that eliminating the two-thirds rule is what these folks are seeking to do. They are not. As you may know, there is a 2/3 rule for passing a budget, and a 2/3 rule for any changes in the tax code that involve increasing revenue. To the layman, this might seem like two discrete parts, but that's really not true. A budget includes taxes, spending, and a few other priorities. Changing one without the other does actually nothing to overcome the conservative veto. And yet this is what the self-appointed grassroots leadership's proposal would do, only covering the repeal of 2/3 for passing a budget and not for taxation.
This is really the final blow in what was a long slide away from progressive leadership at the grassroots level. I've heard a lot of justifications and rationales for not including fully half of the equation of settling a budget in the process of reforming the budget, most of them so twisted with pretzel logic as to be indecipherable. Some say that there's no way tax changes could pass in the current environment, so we should strive to make whatever progress we can. That's the kind of tissue-soft, gutless, out-of-touch-with-where-America-is-right-now statement that has made California a political basket case. Those who bow down to the keepers of the tax revolt are usually the same people that are saying a spending cap that includes tax increases is destined to pass, or the same people saying a constitutional convention will take care of the tax problem even though it, too, is subject to a vote of the people. It doesn't make any sense. There's an argument that the polling shows any tax issues are a loser. That's just not true. The latest PPIC poll shows very little difference between repealing two-thirds for the budget and for taxes - within the margin of error.
The other argument is that California lawmakers, given a majority vote on the budget, will have powerful leverage to bend the Yacht Party to their will on tax issues, or go directly to the people with tax solutions. These are the same people who spend every day of their lives lamenting the terrible negotiating skills of Democrats in the legislature, and laughing at those who claim the Yacht Party is surely just a little bit more pressure away from folding.
Changing the (repeal of 2/3 for the) budget but not taxes is TOM MCCLINTOCK'S view of things. It makes Democrats own a budget that can only be modified with expenditure cuts. In the event of a deficit, Democrats would have to either cave and cut services or hold out with the exact same dynamic that we saw this year. And it will not allow the legislature to tackle the structural revenue gap that comes from a tax system too closely tied to boom-and-bust budget cycles. This is perverse consultant-class thinking that is dangerously outdated, constantly compromising, and believes in political reality as static rather than lifting a finger to change that reality. Thinking that March 2004 and June 2010 are the same is just ridiculous, and thinking that no argument can be made to the public, after the longest and most self-evidently absurd budget process in decades, that the system is fundamentally broken and has to be changed to allow the majority to do their job, is in many ways why we're in this position to begin with.
And this is where the self-appointed grassroots leadership will take us. This was carried out through perhaps a deliberative internal process ("Several hours!" we were told), but with no input from the broader grassroots. The website set up has no ability for public comment, no discussion of why the position was taken, and, most crucially, no explanation that "restoring majority rule" as conceived by the proposed ballot initiative does not restore majority rule. You can call that a lot of things, but the most accurate would be "a lie." It is a lie to suggest that this proposal would repeal 2/3. It does not. And it is being carried out in a top-down process that reminds one of the worst aspects of the Sacramento consultocracy rather than progressive leadership in the grassroots.
The working theory is that everything is on the table and this effort is initially to gauge support in the process. That it is being done through misleading means really doesn't inspire confidence in how open the process will be. They can go down that road, and I actually support signing on to the site as a show of support. But caveat emptor. And if you do sign, maybe contact the leaders and ask them why they aren't being truthful about their intentions or transparent about the decision-making process.
You don't have to constantly refresh or check your RSS feeds for the next couple days - budget talks have been called off for Christmas. There is a meeeting between the Big Three tentatively scheduled for Friday.
In my view, just that we're talking about a Big Three instead of a Big Five is progress, suggesting that the Gov will go along with the work-around budget if he can save face on a few "stimulus" items (like, you know, taking people's overtime and meal breaks away. They can eat while working!). The Governor never appeared in a movie about schizophrenia, but that's how he's been acting the past few days, holding press events at key sites where infrastructure improvements are being shuttered (a levee in Sacramento, the 405 Freeway in Karen Bass' district in LA) blasting the legislature, while at the same time claiming that progress is being made toward a budget solution.
During a press conference along Interstate 405 in Los Angeles, the Republican governor said he and Democratic leaders made "some great progress" Sunday and that it may only take two more meetings of the same sort to reach a compromise this week. Schwarzenegger had been calling for a solution by Christmas, though he acknowledged Monday that a legislative vote would not take place until next week at the earliest.
"It could easily be that before Christmas Eve or Christmas Day that we have an agreement, that the legislators can be brought back between Christmas and New Year's to vote on it," Schwarzenegger said.
(UPDATE: Kevin Yamamura reports that the negotiations have come down to three issues: "rollback of environmental review for construction projects, greater use of private investment and contractors, and deeper spending cuts, including those affecting the state work force." These have almost no impact on the budget as a whole - you're talking about cutting two state worker holidays - and are designed only to reward private business interests. Arnold has always been in the pocket of the Chamber of Commerce.)
You'll notice that none of these press events are being held in front of any state employee offices. That's because, in general terms, people don't look kindly on mass layoffs and cutbacks right before Christmas. It gives them the impression that the person making those layoffs is kind of a Scrooge. Of course, the immediate halt to all public works projects, at a time when we should be encouraging stimulus projects of this type, also have an impact on jobs. Not only does every contractor working on those projects get fired, but vendors get stiffed for work that they've already completed, leaving the state open to lawsuits. The Governor should kind of be ashamed to stand in front of any backdrop with cancelled projects behind him, considering his epic mismanagement is partly to blame. This is particularly true when considering that the voter-approved infrastructure work is vital to public safety and the state would undoubtedly be liable in the event of catastrophe.
Communities nationwide have repaired fewer than half of the 122 levees identified by the government almost two years ago as too poorly maintained to be reliable in major floods, according to Army Corps of Engineers data.
State and local governments were given a year to fix levees cited by the corps for "unacceptable" maintenance deficiencies in a February 2007 review that was part of a post-Hurricane Katrina crackdown. Only 45 have had necessary repairs, according to data provided in response to a USA TODAY request. The remaining unrepaired levees are spread across 18 states and Puerto Rico - most in California and Washington.
The Governor is cleverly casting this as a problem of "the legislature" hoping nobody will notice that he performed the veto, he blocked the very plan that could get these projects restarted.
Fortunately, grassroots Californians are noticing, and you can see the contours of a coalition forming, perhaps resembling the 2005 special election coalition only with more staying power. Groups like Courage Campaign and the local blogosphere have the reach to engaged communities starving for information. The California Budget Project provides the statistical heft. Labor and environmental groups have the ear of the legislature. And there's a new member of the coalition - former Obama organizers in California who are moving with unusual speed to support a sane budget solution and slam the Governor for his intransigence. At Schwarzenegger's 405 Freeway presser, you can hear a small band of protesters in the background noise. That was organized by Obama volunteers through their new Facebook-like application, CommunityOrganize.com. Pam Coukos distributed a letter-writing tool urging a budget solution. California for Obama has done the same in an email blast, asking it to be distributed to the various volunteer teams. And there is already talk about veterans of the Obama movement running for state and local office.
This is pretty new and early. But you can see how this network of committed organizers can gradually become a state political force, especially if the coalitions are built and networks made between the groups mentioned above. I have long said that what is missing in California is a popular grassroots movement that can go around the media filter and whip up support for progressive values through direct action. It is said that California is too big for such a movement to catch fire, but in political terms, we all know that the state is very small, and a committed movement can make an outsized difference. This won't happen overnight, but we're moving in the right direction. Now we just need a gubernatorial candidate to ride the grassroots wave...
Yesterday 150 former Obama campaign volunteers and staff, and other organizers from around the Bay met in San Francisco to reflect on the successes of the campaign and to strategize about how to support community organizing in the Bay Area and across California. Participants came from San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, Marin, Contra Costa County, San Joaquin County, Tri-Valley, Fremont, Palo Alto and Santa Clara. Most had worked for the Obama campaign, including traveling to other states and organizing hugely successful phonebanks.
We spent the afternoon working on our vision of community organizing, and thinking about the incredible potential of this group working together on a local, regional and statewide level.
I feel like I'm back at the scene of the crime. Nearly 4 months to the day, we were back where it all started at LA Trade Tech in downtown Los Angeles, where we attended our first Camp Obama and learned how to change the world.
Myself, my co-RFO Mike Bonin, team members Marc Saltzberg, Mary Jack, Warren Bowman, Dave Dayen, Jan Popiden, Julie Priess, Julie Soller and over 400 other Camp Obama graduates, campaign alumni, community organizers, and would-be community organizers have gathered here on a cold, rainy Saturday morning all hoping to have the same question answered.
Now what?
The simple answer is that Change Is Coming To California. And that Change is Us.
• The CDP has a version of Neighbor-to-Neighbor called Neighborhood Leader. The program asks for a commitment from the activist to talk with 25 friends on multiple occasions throughout the year. I don't have metrics on it, which would be nice to know, but my suspicion is it needs to be expanded.
• There is a lot of back and forth about the extent of the ground game here in California. Many have written in to talk about the field operation in key districts and field offices throughout the state. Some have said that I overlooked this element, including all the doorhangers and phone calls made inside the state. Others have told me that the calls tried to shoehorn too many messages into one (I did have experiences calling for multiple propositions and a candidate at the same time, which ends up shortchanging all of them) and that the results on the ground in general were unfocused. And the insistence from some to talk about field elides the point. Even if I grant that every targeted legislative campaign had the most aggressive and far-reaching field program in American history, the facts are that most of these campaigns lost, and so it's time to come to terms with the fact that the type of organizing done in the state isn't working.
• Some have suggested that Democrats, in fact, did not underperform the Presidential ticket in House races, but I think a lot of this is fun with statistics. Yes, House Democrats in California may have done better than Barack Obama, but that would be because a substantial number of them had token or no competition. Like 30 out of 53. While on the chart at the link, it appears that California exceeded the Presidential numbers, the proof is in the lack of pickups despite a 24-point blowout at the top of the ticket.
• Other local organizers have the right idea. I'm going to reprint this comment in full:
We ran a very intensive and very grassroots effort in Monterey County with more than 1000 volunteers (5 fold increase over 2004) that was by and large successful, got some newcomers into office and saved some progressive incumbents from conservative challengers.
We did all of this without CDP help.
We were offered use of the CDP voter database which in many ways was quite inadequate when it came to mapping and would have costed us money. We were also offered 1000 doorhangers on Thursday before the election (we have 80,000 Democrats in Monterey County).
Instead we commissioned our own slate mailers and door hangers and mailed and hung 80,0000 and 30,000 respectively in conjunction with the local unions. We used the VAN through CAVoterConnect for free with great results for us. We were able to manage our volunteers with it and we used it for all of our phone banking and Neighbor-to-Neighbor activities.
Here is what the CDP could have done - and can still do for future campaigns:
Support the VAN and help all local parties get access. Help integrate State VAN with Obama VAN.
Conduct more capacity building, especially in how to run county-based campaigns, along the lines of Camp Obama but applied to state and local races.
Provide a template for door hangers that local parties can buy into instead of having to go out and design their own.
Work toward a more modular - bottom-up campaign.
Vinz Koller/ Chair/ Monterey County Democratic Party
I particularly want to emphasize the VAN, the California VAN is for some reason not integrated with the DNC's Votebuilder program, which doesn't make much sense to me. There ought to be an effort to clean up all that idea in the off-year to get it ready for 2010. Votebuilder is simply easier to work with and can be managed by volunteers. And since there will be off-year elections this year, it can be test run.
• I don't think I ever blamed the Obama campaign for draining the state of resources, but let me say again that I don't. In addition to many of the best volunteers leaving the state, many of the top organizers, including most of labor, left as well. And Obama's election was crucially important for a variety of reasons so you can't blame them.
• Therefore, the biggest thing California Democrats can do to reverse this disturbing trend of the "political trade deficit," sending money and organization elsewhere and never importing anything, is to argue for and pass the National Popular Vote plan, which would force locals to organize their own communities in a Presidential election. If the Electoral College were offered as a system today, it would be found to be an unconstitutional violation of the principle of "one person, one vote" as determined by the 14th Amendment. It shrinks the pool of competitive states down to a geographically significant battleground, and has made California irrelevant - again - as it has been for Presidential races for a generation. A disruptive change like the National Popular Vote would go a long way to changing how campaigns are conducted in Presidential years in California.
Back in 2006, I and a lot of other grassroots progressives were angered that California showed little to no movement in its Congressional and legislative seats despite a wave election. You can see some articles about that here and here, when I explained why I was running as a delegate to the state Party. And frankly, I could rerun the entire article today, but instead I'll excerpt.
I've lived in California for the last eight years. I'm a fairly active and engaged citizen, one who has attended plenty of Democratic Club meetings, who has lived in the most heavily Democratic areas of the state in both the North and South, who has volunteered and aided the CDP and Democratic candidates from California during election time, who (you would think) would be the most likely candidate for outreach from that party to help them in their efforts to build a lasting majority. But in actuality, the California Democratic Party means absolutely nothing to me. Neither do its endorsements. The amount of people who aren't online and aren't in grassroots meetings everyday who share this feeling, I'd peg at about 95% of the electorate.
I mean, I'm a part of both those worlds, and I have no connection to the state party. I should be someone that the CDP is reaching out to get involved. They don't. The only time I ever know that the CDP exists is three weeks before the election when they pay for a bunch of ads. The other 23 months of the year they are a nonentity to the vast majority of the populace [...]
Only two Democrats in the entire state of California were able to defeat incumbents last November: Debra Bowen and Jerry McNerney. Both of them harnessed the power of the grassroots and used it to carry them to victory. They also stuck to their principles and created a real contrast with their opponents on core issues. The only way that the California Democratic Party can retain some relevance in the state, and not remain a secretive, cloistered money factory that enriches its elected officials with lobbyist money and does nothing to build the Democratic brand, is by building from the bottom up and not the top down. By becoming more responsive to the grassroots and more effective in its strategy, we can ensure that California stays blue, which is not a given. This is a long-term process that is in its third year, and will not happen overnight. But it's crucial that we continue and keep the pressure on.
In 2008, we experienced that most anomalous of events, a SECOND wave election in a row. Barack Obama won the biggest victory at the top of the ticket in California since WWII. And yet, the efforts of downticket Democrats yielded only minimal success. This is despite a decided improvement in the party in terms of online outreach and voter registration. So something is deeply, deeply wrong with how they're conducting campaigns.
I'm going to lay out the good, the bad and the ugly on the flip and make some suggestions as to what we must do to improve this for the future.
Eric Bauman is going to raise $1 million dollars for 2008. The best part is how he's going to spend it.
Last night, members of the Los Angeles County Central Committee raised their hands to take an oath of office from Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno, and took to electing Party officers. Among them was Chairman Eric Bauman, unanimously re-elected to a fifth term.
I'm told that's a record. From his words last night, it's easy to see why.
Bauman has been singled out here as someone who speaks his mind and knows the mechanics of electioneering, even when his opinions and techniques run against the grain of some Democratic leaders.
He showed what he's made of in thanking the Central Committee and looking ahead to 2008 - and perhaps beyond:
Now is the time to rebuild, refresh and reassemble the mosaic that comprises our Democratic Party for it is only through unity, strength and shared purpose that we can be successful this fall.
As we work to build unity however, we must take seriously our responsibility to remind those we have elected or put in positions of power of their obligation to do the right thing by our Party and our people.
Whether it is protecting those most at-risk from harsh budget cuts or standing up for our Constitution or avoiding situations and actions that have the appearance of impropriety, as leaders of our Party, we must not fear holding feet to the fire and speaking truth to power.
If we truly are leaders, we must act like it: respectfully, responsibly, but fearlessly.
Who else senses a little tough love in there?
What I find interesting about Bauman's leadership of the LACDP is not just his (sadly uncommon) willingness to speak truth to power, but how he marshalls forces and resources on the ground to help candidates up and down the ballot, even in those districts often written off as unwinnable.
After the jump I'll share what I heard last night (and from Bauman separately), and what I've seen him do to build and strengthen the Democratic Party in Los Angeles County.
Please, wait, just stay for a little bit and read about my husband's campaign? I know you are busy and I know there are a lot bigger fish to fry, but I'm hoping you will hear me out, please?
You see, Gary needs your help. In order to raise money you need to raise money. Make sense?
That's right, I'm a candidate's wife, it happened rather quickly too. Well, I've been married to the guy for almost ten years, but the candidate part has unfolded in just a few days.
Now, why am I not the candidate? Oh, it's a long story and I've not been as good of a Democrat as my husband has been, really. I am still registered as Decline to State. Yes, how is that for a confession? But Gary, my husband, has been registered as a Democrat for many years and he unabashedly calls himself a party loyalist.
Yet another reason to love Air America: Stephanie Miller and Jim Ward are coming to the desert in support of Democrats of the Desert's Annual Awards Dinner:
The money we raise supports Democratic candidates in the CA-45th Congressional district, the 80th and 64th California Assembly Districts, and the California 37th Senate District. We're making Democrats cool here, at last, as Julie Bornstein recently exhorted us to do. KPTR is beloved of all Democrats out here, and they're giving our sponsors one heck of a deal. Tell your friends, and come out to the Palm Springs area this April to party with us. Stephanie Miller!
Dear California... a report from the Draft Movement and their CA Primary Ballot Campaign
We are in the halfway mark of the ballot effort. It's been real interesting meeting people, listening to their comments and learning how to work the political system from the grassroots levels. I recommend it to everyone to get involved with this effort as it will open your eyes to what is really been felt and said by us regular Americans.
Right now in my area I am pushing for voter registration along with our nomination papers. You can't believe how many people don't know their address has to be updated every time they move, some people don't even know what party they are. So we working on correcting these problems.
I wish this experience could go on a long time, but alas, we must stop Dec. 4.
We are looking for volunteers, money and properly registered CA Democrats with a little moxy, imagination and political will. Are YOU one?
WE NEED MONEY AND PROFESSIONAL CIRCULATORS RIGHT NOW TO FINISH OUR JOB! GO TO
www.california4gore.org
The Draft Gore Movement Is Setting A Standard. We believe our "candidate" represents the level to which all other political aspirants should aspire to, including our current crop of presidential candidates.
And guess what? So does a lot of mainstream America.
I have Green Party members becoming Democrats so they can sign the nomination papers.
So many people ask me "Oh we really wish Al would run." Less and less are saying no thanks. Get the picture?
From The Santa Barbara Independent
"The People’s President"
The Draft Al Gore For President Movement
By Marta Jorgensen, co-regional director of AlGore.org (AGO), Southwest chapter.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
“In my heart, I do believe that democracy was harmed by my network and others on November 7, 2000.”
—?Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of Fox News Network, February 14, 2001. (How to Steal an Election, David W. Moore)
Most of us remember painfully well the 2000 election. But some of us aren’t content to let it be simply a painful memory.
In 2002, a dedicated group of individuals who had been involved with Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign set up a Web site called gore04.org and organized a rally in Nashville, Tennessee. Gore told them to stop. He wasn’t into it. In the middle of 2006, the group got it rolling again, teaming up with AlGore.org (AGO) and working with other sites such as draftgore.com, meetup.com, and algoresupportcenter.com. To date, the combined Draft Gore Movement has collected 120,000-plus signatures urging Gore to run. And this time Gore hasn’t told us to cut it out.
The Draft Gore Movement is a labor of love on the part of its rapidly growing membership. Members and organizers do not have deep pockets, but use their own resources and intelligence to try to accomplish what mainstream political parties accomplish with their special-interest money and media spin doctors. They intend to place his name on the primary state ballots and put in place a voting base. Just in case …
Why all this effort? Why not support one of the Democratic candidates who has officially thrown his or her hat in the ring? To put it bluntly, none of them come close to Gore. He has established relationships with numerous world leaders, is well-liked internationally, and is not in anyone’s pocket.
Given the Bush administration’s unprecedented expansion of the unitary executive and sweeping constitutional changes, our next presidency may mean the difference between preserving our constitution and the principles upon which this country was founded, and losing them forever. Gore put it best himself in his 2006 speech, “Restoring the Rule of Law”: “If the pattern of practice begun by this administration is not challenged, it may well become a permanent part of the American system. Many conservatives have pointed out that granting unchecked power to this president means that the next president will have unchecked power as well. And the next president may be someone whose values and belief you do not trust.” The Clintons were involved in various breaches of constitutional law while in office, including allegations that Hillary’s brothers received large sums of money in exchange for requesting (and obtaining) presidential pardons. Both John Edwards and Barack Obama are too inexperienced to adeptly lead America out of its current constitutional and diplomatic crisis.
Gore would make the climate crisis the number one issue for 2008, a necessary agenda no candidate from either party has adopted. By unifying world powers in pursuit of the goal to save our planet, Gore would restore America’s standing in the world, thereby changing the global dialogue on other geopolitical crises as well. If elected president, Gore would: eliminate all payroll taxes and replace that revenue with pollution taxes, principally on CO2; help negotiate a stronger second-generation Kyoto Treaty; create an “Electranet,” a smart electricity grid that would allow individuals and businesses to buy and sell electricity, forcing them to monitor their own consumption; and promote profitable alternative energy business models. Gore is also committed to ending the war in Iraq, which goes hand in hand with reducing our dependence on oil.
In The Assault on Reason, Gore stated, “Many Americans now feel that our government is unresponsive and that no one in a position of power listens to or cares what they think. They feel disconnected from democracy. They feel that one vote makes no difference, and that they, as individuals, now have no practical means of participating in America’s self-government.” Gore is well connected with the citizenry, even engaging in citizens’ Web blog discussions from time to time. As president, he would restore public participation in politics.
Gore has stated that he can accomplish his goals as a private citizen, without getting caught up in the political game. But that can only go so far. Real change in governance must come from the executive. The goal of the Draft Gore Movement is to show him that the people want him to run, and that he has enough popular support to win. According to a recent 7NEWS / Suffolk University poll, 32 percent of Democratic voters would support Gore over the candidate toward which they are currently leaning.
That’s why the Draft Gore effort is becoming so insistent and vocal. Members have shown up at all of The Assault on Reason book-signings. In Los Angeles recently, the “Gore People” were in full force, handing out Gore ’08 buttons, signs, and gear to the 2,000 attendees. Gore said he was “flabbergasted” by the level of organization.
This is real democracy in action. Since 2000, a sizable part of the nation has grown from its pain, is less naïve, and more politically active and vocal, thanks to the Internet. Gore has also grown from his pain, as a man and as a leader. He would be the People’s President. It’s high time the nation and the leader shook hands.
Visit AlGore.org to get involved.
Our latest project: Getting his name on the CA
Primary Ballot.
History was made again yesterday. Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to Huntington Beach once again for the Fourth of July Parade. And once again, the OC Democrats had a fantastic time being a part of the largest Independence Day celebration west of the Mississippi River. And the party didn't stop when the parade ended, as local activists pitched up tent by the pier to wake up the neighbors, and let them know about the importance of next year's election. All in all, we all had a great time!
Follow me after the flip as I take you on a tour of the biggest and best party one could be at on the Fourth of July!
The mainstream media has discovered Vote Hope, and it seems like they can't quite get their heads around it.
While we are thankful for the publicity (any press is good press as long as they get the url right!), it's clear that it's going to be a little difficult for some people to grasp an independent campaign that isn't designed to ruthlessly smear someone. News stories published in two places today, both the L.A. Times and MSNBC's "First Read", are focusing on the past history of negative independent campaigns, rather than on the reality of what Vote Hope is trying to do in California.
