Secretary of State Debra Bowen, an ally of the netroots and a Calitics favorite, held a conference to talk about the results of her top-to-bottom review.  I watched a bit on the webcast, but fortunately, BradBlog had it live-blogged. And if you're looking for a shorter snippet, try this . 

Erika Morphy at TechNewsWorld does a fine job of giving a brief to-the-point overview with some of the most stunning findings quickly explained. She also gives the response from vendors the time it's worth (very little, but a link to read more if you wish). The article also has the added benefit of a quote or two from yours truly. Scott M. Fulton, III at BetaNews gives a similarly informed, descriptive and human-readable overview and goes into a few more details. He also points out what much of the media coverage of the reports has otherwise overlooked. Namely, that the greatest threat revealed in these reports comes from election insiders.

“Manufacturers may have been reluctant to cooperate fully with red teams, under the theory that 'hackers' may not themselves enjoy a similar level of access,” writes Fulton. “Of course, that presumes that those seeking to actually break into a voting system to rig an election, and those who run the election, are in all cases different people.”

That, of course, is a flawed presumption since the greatest threat to election security, in fact, comes from insiders such as Elections Officials, Voting Machine Vendors, and poll-workers who are allowed to take pre-programmed, election-ready voting machines home on “sleepovers” for days and weeks prior to the election. (BradBlog 7/31/07)

So, as long as you trust Diebold, or County elections officials, you're fine! Why worry? What possible motivation would Diebold have to mess with elections? What? Seriously? Life would never really imitate Man of the Year would it? Would it? Nah…

It is official, Eric England has now filed to run against John Doolittle in next June’s primary election.  SacBee:

Egland is the first to flatly declare for the Republican primary. Auburn City Councilman Mike Holmes also is exploring a primary run for Doolittle’s seat, and he said Monday he is moving closer to entering the race.

Doolittle’s campaign consultant, Richard Temple, said the congressman is not worried, and welcomed the competition.

“In this case, the more candidates the better,” said Temple. He said that because the congressman has a strong base of support, multiple opponents will only divide the disenchanted.

“Neither of them can beat him,” Temple said.

Temple right, if both of these guys get into the race, it will split the opposition, but by how much?  It depends on the relative strength of the candidates.  Right now the NRCC is staying out of it.  They are “keeing a close eye on it” and hoping that it “turns out OK for John.”

England is a political neophyte.  He campaigned for Doolittle last year, siding strongly with him on Iraq.  He believes that Doolittle would lose to our man Charlie Brown in the general election.  No word of any outside groups getting involved in this primary fight yet.  Speaking of Charlie Brown, he will be at Yearly Kos and attending the CA Caucus.  And Charlie Parties, have you heard about those?

For those in Northern California, Charlie is starting his own version of house party fundraising.  Rather than having them all on one night and calling in to them, he is going to each of them on a different night.  He is hoping to have 40 of them by September 30th.  There are 8 scheduled thus far.  Here is the info, if you are interested in hosting one.

The New Yorker’s Hendrik Hertzberg penned a column about the California Republican Party’s attempt to siphon off what could be roughly twenty of California’s fifty four consistently Democratic electoral votes.  Naturally, they are using the initiative process to try and do this.

Two weeks ago, one of the most important Republican lawyers in Sacramento quietly filed a ballot initiative that would end the practice of granting all fifty-five of California’s electoral votes to the statewide winner. Instead, it would award two of them to the statewide winner and the rest, one by one, to the winner in each congressional district. Nineteen of the fifty-three districts are represented by Republicans, but Bush carried twenty-two districts in 2004. The bottom line is that the initiative, if passed, would spot the Republican ticket something in the neighborhood of twenty electoral votes-votes that it wouldn’t get under the rules prevailing in every other sizable state in the Union.

The Republican lawyers behind this convoluted effort, Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk, were deeply involved in the 2003 recall campaign against Democratic Governor Gray Davis that propelled current Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger into power.

It is no surprise that the law firm created a ficticious front group, Californians for Equal Representation, to do their bidding because they have a history of it.

• Dave Johnson reported in his September 15, 2006 The Huffington Post article on new MB&H client Economic Freedom Fund that other Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk’s clients include:
• California Tribal Business Alliance-“an ‘Indian Gaming’ organization” whose “mission statement is ‘to safeguard and enhance the success of the business enterprises of our tribal government members’ ……. and ‘will foster business development and coalition building with like minded government and business leaders in California.'” (Also see this.)
• “Californians for Paycheck Protection-yet another front group-this one sponsoring a California anti-union ballot initiative (Prop. 75). (Their major funders in 2005 (go see how much) included the Chamber of Commerce and the California Republican Party.)” (Also see this.)
• “notorious anti-environmental Congressman Richard Pombo.” (See here.)
• “big tobacco“, with BM&H as “Philip Morris Outside Counsel” (See this.)
• “A different partner at this firm, Thomas Hiltachk, filed the ‘Fair Pay Workplace Flexibility Act of 2006’-a stealth attempt to get rid of California’s overtime rules.”

Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk also represents the Blue Cross of California front group — a coalition of one — aimed at derailing movement on California’s top legislative priority: healthcare.

Two organizations. One address. Zero concern for the average Californian.

Now, just because they filed this initiative does not mean it will make it on the ballot.  They have no shot at making the Feb 5th date.  They could, if they raised the $1 million+ to pay for signature gatherers have a shot at making it on the June ballot.  That will be a very low turnout election.  We don’t have any major races occurring on that date.  Yeah, I know the Migden-Leno race will be big an all, but there is no major mayor’s race in LA or SF.  No constitutional officers up for election.  No Senate race.  If they do make it on the ballot, then a relatively small number of Californians could have a big impact on the presidential election.

This type of arcane rule initiative is among the hardest to pass.  It is not exactly something that grabs people.  There would be a very heavy push back from the Democrats if it looked like this was particularly viable.  I would not be surprised to see a competing ballot measure put up to try and confuse votes.  It worked wonderfully when big PhRMA put up Prop 78 to defeat Prop 79.

This will need to be something we track and see if it gets any traction.

[UPDATE by Julia] Here is an AP article on the initiative.  Arnold says that his is not involved and the CRP says the same.  I find that highly unbelievable, especially on the party’s end.  Notice what Nehring has to say about it.

“We’ll take a serious look at it, once it qualifies for the ballot,” state Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring said.

Not if it makes it on the ballot, but when.  This could be all a ruse to get Democrats to drop a bunch of cash to defeat it, when those dollars/resources could be used elsewhere. 

On the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle’s Sunday paper, there was an articleabout the YearlyKos Convention.

  The second annual gathering of the Daily Kos political blog starts this week in Chicago, and here’s all you need to know about how influential the YearlyKos convention has become: Five top presidential candidates are going — including front-runner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, even though the Kos bloggers don’t like her that much.

Analysts say the community of liberal online activists — the “netroots” — has become not only a coveted constituency for the left but a legitimate threat to conservatives, who trail Democrats in online campaigning and fundraising. (SF Chronicle 7/30/07)

And Calitics will have a big contingent at this year’s YearlyKos Convention. Julia Rosen, Lucas O’Connor, Dave Dayen, Bob Brigham, Dante Atkins (hekebelos) and myself will all be there. It should be a fantastic opportunity to network, talk about all the cool things Calitics is doing with Calitics en espanol and the Calitics show, and get more great ideas. In the interim, we won’t be doing a Calitics show this week.  We’ll be posting occasional stories about the event as time permits. And, since the presidential candidates are going to be there, we’ll try to get some video of that on the site.

Anything else you want to hear about from Chicago? Did I miss anybody on the list of attendees? Want to be on the Calitics trivia team? Leave a comment.

[UPDATE By Julia]  Well, why don’t I just use this thread to do what David, Matt Ortega and I were discussing last night.  The three of us are moderating the CA/HI regional caucus that Kid Oakland put together.  What issues would you like to see discussed at that meeting?  Keep in mind that we only have an hour and time will be set aside for the candidates.  Oh and yes Brian you missed at least two, Matt O and Jenifer Ancona.

(The DCCC announced that they were pleased with McNerney, is this what they have been pushing him to do? – promoted by Julia Rosen)

Back in 2006, when Jerry McNerney was running for Congress in CA-11, he would appear at forums, meetings and fundraisers where he would often be called upon to speak. One of the lines he used often, usually to thundering applause, was “I am a Barbara Boxer Democrat!”  Never once did he say, “I am a Dennis Cardoza Democrat!” I suspect his audiences might have reacted a little more coolly if he had.

And yet his stance on the issues to date has more closely mirrored that of Rep. Dennis Cardoza (CA-18), who is well known for his conservative Blue Dog associations. Why is McNerney making this rightward shift?

Well, I’ve given McNerney the benefit of the doubt over the last seven months, preferring to think that he was getting bad advice from his Chief of Staff, Angela Kouters. I figured that Kouters, who is young, ambitious, inexperienced and thoroughly under the influence of  Inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom, was urging him to take so-called “moderate” positions in an attempt to pander to the DC perception of conservative CA-11 residents.

But it appears that I may have been mistaken. Unfortunately, the news today has brought two separate stories which have led me to the difficult conclusion that Jerry McNerney is not the man he appeared to be. That is to say, it sure seems like he duped many of his strongest supporters.

See why on the flip…

After voting last Thursday against the Hinchey amendment to H.R. 3093, an amendment that would have prevented federal prosecution for medical marijuana usage in the twelve states which have legalized it, he offered this explanation in today’s Sacramento Bee:

McNerney insists he is not a Pelosi clone. Last week, for example, he broke ranks with most California Democrats by voting against an amendment to ban use of federal money to prosecute growers of medicinal marijuana.

“I’m a moderate,” he said.

Well, I hate to break it to the Congressman, but that was not a “moderate” vote. The amendment was co-sponsored by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (CA-46) — yes, you heard me. Jerry McNerney is to the right of Crazy Dana Rohrabacher. If McNerney had bothered to look at the  Field poll done back in 2004, he would realize that Californians statewide support the legalization of medical marijuana by close to a three-quarters majority. Even two-thirds of Republicans support it. Here’s a newsflash to Jerry McNerney. When only 24% of the residents of your state support your position, it’s not moderate. It’s extreme… extreme right-wing.

But almost as bad as his Hinchey vote is the news coming from Germany today. Rep. McNerney led a bi-partisan delegation of Congressional freshmen to Iraq over the weekend. On his way home from Iraq, McNerney participated in a conference call with reporters during a layover.

From the Stockton Record:

[McNerney] said his conversations convinced him that, at least in Ramadi, the U.S. military was indeed making progress. […]

McNerney said he will be more likely to listen to those who want more time in Iraq.

“If anything, I’m more willing to participate in a give-and-take with that viewpoint than I was before,” he said.

Congress is scheduled to vote on a major defense bill this week that may contain a provision creating a timetable for withdrawal of troops.

From USA Today:

McNerney, the California congressman, also said he saw signs of progress in Ramadi and was impressed by Petraeus, who argued in favor of giving President Bush’s troop surge strategy time to work.

McNerney said he still favors a timeline to get troops out of Iraq — something House leaders may bring to the floor again this week as part of a defense spending bill — but is open to crafting it in a way more favorable to generals’ wishes.

“As long as we start at a certain date I’d be willing to be a little more flexible in terms of when it might end,” McNerney said.

From Josh Richman:

Arriving in Baghdad on a C-130 from Kuwait, he met first with officials including Gen. David Petraeus, whom he said is working very hard and is “very optimistic about what’s happening in the conflict… He’s concerned about being given enough rope to finish the job here.” […]

“We need to put a timetable out there, it needs to make sense,” McNerney added — a plan to bring the troops home, so that the Iraqi government is compelled to unite and take over the task of securing the country. “I think we can work to find a way forward that would be bipartisan, that would accomodate the achievements they have had in the last four or five months.”

And from the Contra Costa Times:

Leading the delegation was Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Calif., who said he saw signs of progress in Ramadi in Anbar province and was impressed by Gen. David Petraeus, President Bush’s top military commander in Iraq, who argued in favor of giving Bush’s troop surge strategy time to work.

McNerney said he still favors a timeline to get troops out of Iraq — something House leaders may bring to the floor again this week as part of a defense spending bill — but is open to being flexible “in terms of when it might end.”

[Update] And in a later AP story from the Fresno Bee:

“I’m more willing to work with finding a way forward to accommodate what the generals are saying,” McNerney told reporters Monday during a conference call from Germany on his way back to the U.S.

I have a hard time figuring out how Jerry McNerney’s latest words and deeds have anything to do with being a “Barbara Boxer Democrat.” I know, I know, it’s better than Richard Pombo. But is this what we all really put our sweat and blood into? How has the reality of Congressman Jerry McNerney differed from what we might have expected from his primary opponent, the DLC-anointed Steve Filson? How do we, as a progressive movement, demand accountability from the candidates that we support? When they turn their backs on us and our issues, do we just shrug our shoulders and settle for scraps? I’m genuinely at a loss. What do you think?

Cross posted at The Progressive Connection

(From our good friend former Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson of Speak Out California – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Much has been made of the fact that today, July 30th is Governor Ahnold Schwarzenegger’s 60th birthday and wouldn’t it be a great present if the Reps. would come together and sing Happy Birthday and Kumbaya and give the state a budget and move on with the other important business at hand.

Such thinking is sweet, but as far from reality as one can get in Sacramento, where reality is usually cast by political consultants and clever media-spinners. No, the Gov. can’t rely on his flock for support—or likely even a birthday card. So much for the much ballyhooed smoking tent, late night schnapps and heavily testosteroned bantering meetings in the beautiful outdoors of the “horseshoe” in the Capitol. Must be pretty quiet these days as former Senate Democratic leader and first-buddy to the Gov.John Burton is long gone and any sense of Republican camaraderie with the Gov. has taken a similar route…

Nope, there’s no fun today in Mudville for this Governor. Of course, he doesn’t much mind. After all, he’s had his mug all over national and international newspapers and magazines, been meeting with the heads of state, the UN leadership and NYC’s own number one honcho, possible presidential candidate Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He’s also been seen at the Capitol gym while budget negotiations have been taking place, photographed down in Miami raising over $1.5 Million last week on a jaunt to that city a couple thousand miles away from our shores. This and several other long-distance photo-ops have demonstrated a less than a total commitment to getting a budget passed here in the place Schwarzenegger is actually authorized to oversee and govern.

IA budget will happen, of course, as it always does. But we shouldn’t fool ourselves that the Governor will be key in the process. For all of Gray Davis’ faults (and there are many), he stuck around and spent hours trying to cajole and strong-arm both parties into submission so that a budget would finally be signed, vendors and workers paid and the state back on track to keep itself functioning and maintaining some legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens.

There are the predictable long-term casualties in this process besides programs and individuals who need to be paid in a timely fashion. There are the elderly, the poor and the disabled. There are healthcare providers (not the insurance companies, but the real deals….those who actually do something for the dollars they receive) and the service agencies that provide respite or hope or opportunity for those who haven’t been lucky enough to be borne to wealth or able, for whatever reasons, to find success in their lives. Among those are the majority of foster children who try to maneuver through a flawed and convoluted system full of red-tape and antiquated rules. There are victims of criminal conduct who see justice move slowly and often capriciously due to lack of funding to incarcerated violent perpetrators while filling up the dangerously limited numbers of prison cells instead with those whose crime is substance abuse and mental illness.

Of course there are faceless victims of the political machinations of a party that simply doesn’t like government and wants to transfer all its functions to the “private sector”. The problem there is that the private sector’s only motivation is money with not a wit of concern for doing what is in the public’s interest. Our public transportation system is one of the most obvious victims of this short-sighted mentality this year. Not only did the Assembly pull over $1 Billion of public transit funds from their budget (in order to get Rep. votes) but now the Senate Reps. want to pull even more from that ever-diminishing funding source. So much for the right-wings protestations about ending our dependence on foreign oil, so much for working to reduce green house gas emissions and thus reducing the global warming threat that this Governor has been using as a vehicle for promoting his greater glory.

But today is the Governor’s birthday and we should focus on the positive side of all this– the cuts that were made in the name of “fiscal responsibility.” And since it’s his birthday, we shouldn’t mention the fiscally irresponsible tax GIVEAWAYS to the wealthiest corporations that were offered by the Republicans to their corporate sponsors.

But then, again, maybe that was the Republicans birthday gift to the Governor. The big, out-of-state and multi-national corporations who were to get these tax breaks are the very same folks who have filled Ahnold’s campaign coffers for years. I guess we’ve misjudged the Reps. Maybe they are on the same page with the Governor, and we’ve all just missed the signals….Maybe it’s time for the Gov. to call them all “downstairs” for some schnapps and they’ll hug and give us the budget that we should have seen a month ago. After all, they’re all on the same team, now aren’t they? Maybe in our haste to get the Republican leader of our state to lead his flock of 15 disgruntled underlings, we ignored the obvious….that they are indeed on the same page–giving tax breaks to the wealthiest corporations while taking away from the rest of us. Perhaps this is the birthday gift the governor was looking for after all!

Oh, and by the way, Happy Birthday Gov……wherever you are today.

Written by Hannah-Beth Jackson

Cross Posted from Speak Out California

If anything has become clear over the last month or so, it is that the teams are scattershot and unclear.  But after reading the final Harry Potter book, I think I get it now.  There are really four houses, and somewhere, hiding in the Capitol, is a sorting Hat. And before you run for election to the Assembly, the Sorting Hat sorts you out into your house. You’ve got the Griffindor (Senate Dems), HufflePuff (Assembly Dems), Ravenclaw (Senate Republicans), and Slytherin (Assembly Reps). I’m just thinking that Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines would make a fine Snape.  Why this elaborate analogy you ask? Well, the Perata-Nunez feud is now splashed across the pages of the state’s newspaper’s.

“The speaker was beside himself,” said one lobbyist familiar with the [early unveiling of Perata’s health care plan], who, like many, would speak candidly about the Democratic leadership only on the condition of anonymity, fearing repercussions. He was “furious that Perata hadn’t told him or consulted him beforehand.”

And thus began a chilly start to a legislative session that has seen the two increasingly at odds – one often undercutting the other in what seems to be an ongoing battle for pre-eminence at the Capitol.

The feud – mostly played out in the Capitol corridors beyond public earshot – burst into the open last week when Perata fired off an open letter slamming Núñez for coaxing Assembly Republicans to support the budget with a series of tax cuts. In strong words typically reserved for partisan opponents, Perata dressed down Núñez in public, raising questions about whether the two most powerful Democrats in the Legislature can effectively accomplish an ambitious agenda that includes health care and prison reform. (SJ Merc 7/30/07)

On the KQED forum program with Sens. Perata and Ackerman, Sen. Perata again blamed the Assembly. The tone of irritation, to put it nicely, was clearly apparent. However, the two leaders need to play nice for the Term limits initiative.  At some point they’ll need to hang out and show how well they work together.  A protracted budget battle doesn’t bode well for the initiative.

Now, I’m not sure how Schwarzenegger stacks up with Dumbledore though.