Tag Archives: Mark Desaulnier

education

CA-10: Yesterday’s Victory and Tomorrow’s Challenges

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What a night! As you may have seen, last night I was the highest vote-getter in the 10th Congressional District special primary election and will now face Republican David Harmer in the November 3rd general election.

I want to thank our incredible team of hard working volunteers. They spent countless hours knocking on doors, making phone calls, and making their presence known at community events throughout the district. Our success would not have been possible without them, and they have my deepest gratitude. Because of their efforts, we won all four counties in the district.

I also want to take a moment to acknowledge my competitors in this election:

To David Harmer: Congratulations on your victory among Republicans. I look forward to two months of dialogue focused on the issues and solutions that matter to the people of the 10th Congressional District. I intend to make it clear that a radical right wing agenda that seeks to stop health care reform, starve the education of our children, fails to finance the transportation and infrastructure systems we need, and advocates more tax breaks for the most wealthy is not in the interests of the people of the 10th Congressional District, California, or America.

To Senator Mark DeSaulnier: Your health care town halls helped establish an important dialogue in the campaign about the need for comprehensive health care reform. You are an institution in Contra Costa County, and you have many admirers. You deserve special acknowledgement for your work seeking a constitutional convention. The two-thirds majority requirement has worsened California’s problems and I look forward to working with you to bring a working democracy and majority rule back to California.

More over the flip…

To Assemblymember Joan Buchanan: Thank you for highlighting the concerns of small businesses in your campaign. I look forward to having a conversation with you about innovative ways we can promote job growth in the region. As a former school board member, you also helped focus the debate on education policy, and I thank you for that. I think you’d agree that in the long term, a sound investment in education is the most important economic stimulus of all.

To Anthony Woods: I’m not the first person to say this and I won’t be the last: you have a bright future in politics should you choose to pursue a political career. I first joined the state legislature around your age, and I quickly fell in love with public policy. You have an intelligence, grace, and resume that is worthy of elected office. Thank you for your service to our nation; and thank you for helping to make the issues facing LGBT people a focus in this campaign. You deserve the freedom to openly serve our country, and I pledge that one of my first acts in Congress will be to co-sponsor legislation to repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”

To Adriel Hampton: Thank you for highlighting the importance of online outreach. We followed your use of social networking and Web 2.0 tools, and I look forward to chatting with you about the ways we can use the Internet to better reach out to our constituents. You were an accessible and upfront candidate and have my sincere respect.

It’s been a hard fought campaign, and now that the primary is over, we Democrats must unite. We will not allow radical, regressive right-wingers, with their block-progress-at-all-costs agenda, to get a toehold here is the 10th Congressional District – this is a forward-looking, forward-thinking, progressive Democratic district and I intend to fight for every vote to keep it that way!

I look forward to working with President Obama and the Democrats in Congress to protect Social Security, fix our broken health care system, create jobs, broaden educational opportunity, protect the environment, and bring needed federal money back to the district. This election was truly a wonderful experience. I can’t wait to get to Washington, DC to represent the people of the 10th and begin to tackle the many challenges facing our nation!

Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi is the Democratic nominee for California’s 10th Congressional District. He is a University of California regent, California State University trustee, chair of the California Commission for Economic Development, and chair of the California State Lands Commission. He was a twice elected State Insurance Commissioner, Deputy Interior Secretary under President Bill Clinton, and a Peace Corps volunteer. A special election will be held on November 3rd. For more information, please visit http://www.garamendi.org.

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CA-10: A Quick Post-Mortem

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Just a couple random thoughts from last night’s victory for John Garamendi:

• Survey USA has been maligned by some for its robo-polling techniques, but they consistently overperformed other pollsters throughout the 2008 primaries, and they basically nailed the polling in CA-10.  The final numbers track almost precisely with the final vote tally.  Well done.

• These special elections largely come down to name ID, and there’s not a whole lot you can do about that.  The challengers certainly tried – Joan Buchanan spent $850,000 of her own money and got a whopping 12% of the vote.  But Garamendi really cruised to victory in this one.

• Katie Merrill, last seen yelling at the netroots for daring to consider a primary of Ellen Tauscher, became Mark DeSaulnier’s campaign manager, where she devised the craptacular strategy of focusing on Garamendi’s residency requirement, which approximately nobody cares about, instead of building a campaign infrastructure outside of Contra Costa County.  Despite having a minority of residents, in Solano, Alameda and Sacramento counties, Garamendi picked up over 6,000 votes on DeSaulnier, who finished well back in all those regions.  There was no way he could have ever won that back in CoCo, where he lost as well by 2,300 votes.  Maybe introducing yourself to people outside your base would have worked better than the “neener-neener, here’s this technical non-violation” nonsense that is a proven loser.

• Lisa Vorderbrueggen still doesn’t get it.

6. I thought Anthony Woods might break into double-digits. Instead, he ended up with 8.5 percent of the vote. He is a strong candidate who was probably too liberal for the moderate 10th District but he kept the elected officials on their toes. I suspect we will see Woods on a ballot again one of these days.

This “moderate district” thing really has to get flushed down a toilet somewhere.  John Garamendi was endorsed by the California Nurses Association, the most progressive organization maybe in America.  He’s a single-payer advocate.  He’s strongly liberal and far to the left of Ellen Tauscher.  And he won.  Woods’ difficulty was simply a product of name ID and a quick-strike primary.  He didn’t have labor ground troops and that was that.

• Just to reiterate, there will now be a general election between Garamendi and David Harmer on November 3.  Garamendi will be strongly favored.

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CA-10: Garamendi Poised For Victory, Only Woods Has Momentum

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As John Garamendi touts in a diary here, the most recent SurveyUSA poll shows the Lt. Governor with a comfortable lead in the CA-10 primary set for Tuesday.  I am surprised that another candidate hasn’t talked it up as well, however, because the only candidate showing movement from the previous SurveyUSA poll is Anthony Woods.

In fact, this new poll, from 8/26-8/27, has Garamendi at 25%, Sen. Mark DeSaulnier at 16%, Asm. Joan Buchanan at 12% and Anthony Woods at 9%, with 5% undecided.  The last poll, from 8/10-8/11 was Garamendi 26%, DeSaulnier 15%, Buchanan 12% and Woods 5%.  I don’t think there are enough undecided voters to push Woods much further, but he’s running the only race drawing undecided voters, if the polls can be believed.

Among those who have already voted, the numbers are similar: Garamendi 27%, DeSaulnier 18%, Buchanan 13% and Woods 10%.

Certainly, Garamendi looks very strong for victory, and there aren’t likely to be enough voters Tuesday to favor a late riser, but Anthony Woods is running the only race moving from no built-in support to a credible challenge.  As for the relative flatness of the two state legislators, I’d say the choice by Sen. DeSaulnier to decide on a monomaniac focus on Garamendi’s residency issue, which simply has not moved voters in numerous other instances, instead of giving voters a reason to support him, would offer some answer.  Buchanan has run a self-funded campaign focused mainly on finding female support, but not necessarily a larger message.  In an environment with three safe or fairly lackluster campaigns, the expected form is holding.  Only Woods appears to be taking in new support, but his uphill battle was perhaps too high to climb.

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CA-10: One Week To Go

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Just a rundown of events in the CA-10 race with a week until primary day:

• Late last week, fundraising reports were due, showing that over $2 million dollars has been raised by the various candidates seeking Ellen Tauscher’s old seat in Congress.  By any metric – total cash raised, cash raised in the last cycle, cash raised since June 30, cash on hand, and cash on hand less debts – John Garamendi has the lead, though much of his money comes from big donors.  Anthony Woods, and to a lesser extent Mark DeSaulnier, have found a smaller-donor base, though Woods’ is mostly out of district.  Joan Buchanan has basically not raised money at all; she has given herself as much as $750,000 in loans and is generally self-funded (and what donations she has not given herself have come from such health industry interests as Wellpoint, one of the largest insurers in America).  I would say the top four candidates probably have enough money to get out the message within their budgets, however.

• The Contra Costa Times, the main newspaper in the main population center of the district, endorsed John Garamendi for the position.  However, their criticism of Mark DeSaulnier, that he “acced(es) to the wishes of organized labor, particularly public employee unions,” gives you an indication of their orientation and whether or not you find them a trusted source.

• DeSaulnier continues to hammer on the largely irrelevant point that Garamendi doesn’t live inside the district.  Here’s a mailer to that effect.  And practically every missive from campaign staff re-emphasizes this point.  I would like their research department to find one instance of when a residency issue like this had any impact on a Congressional race.  I just really think DeSaulnier has missed his target here.  He’s better off showing his progressive bona fides on issues like health care, transportation and the environment, IMO.  This is such a critical time, and residency issues do not appear to be at the top of the minds of people who want to see this country make good on the change agenda from 2008, particularly Democratic partisans who would vote in a special election primary.

• Anthony Woods held another live chat at AmericaBlog this week.  His position in local endorsements always comes at the end and reads something like “we were very impressed with him and think he has a bright future.”

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CA-10: Is That All You’ve Got?

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I’m baffled by Mark DeSaulnier’s decision to run a goofy Jib-Jab attack ad on John Garamendi based on the one thing we pretty much know voters could give a crap about – district residency.

First of all, Jib-Jab ads are to 2009 what using Matrix-style graphics were to 2005 – dated, uncreative and boring.  Second, look merely to the north and the election of Tom McClintock, who lived 400 miles away from the district, or to the east of him and at one of the SUBJECTS of the ad, Dan Lungren, who has represented Long Beach as well as the Sacramento area, for evidence that Voters. Just. Don’t. Care.  They want a candidate who will fight for them and who will make bold stands on big issues.  Garamendi has done that and so has DeSaulnier on occasion, and I understand that the campaign must be looking for something to use as an attack in the absence of policy.  But this ain’t it.

Also, if this is about running where the party needs someone the least, couldn’t that also apply to DeSaulnier, attempting to leave the state legislature at a time when the Yacht Party uses the 2/3 rule to hijack state government, and any vacancy in the Assembly or Senate just emboldens them and raises the bar?  Why even bother with an attack like this if it can be plausibly turned on its head so easily?  Maybe because DeSaulnier reads the polls and figured that he had to go on the attack.

Primary fights are so rarely about issues, but we have tried at Calitics to dig down and see what each candidate in CA-10 believes.  You can read those interviews at the CA-10 tag, or educate yourself further by watching this candidate forum.

…by contrast, the ad Garamendi released today is simple and straightforward and issue-based, with him talking to the camera about health care, although I could do without using the same footage of him on the horse twice.

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CA-10: DeSaulnier’s Endorsement Trouble

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Sen. Mark DeSaulnier has based a lot of his campaign strategy in the quick-sprint Congressional race for CA-10 on endorsements.  Not a day goes by when he doesn’t release some endorsement by one character or another into my inbox.  The other day he touted that he received a “majority of endorsement votes” from California Democratic Party delegates at their endorsement meeting over the weekend, without mentioning that he did not reach the 60% threshold that would be required for an official CDP endorsement.

However, one endorsement has caused DeSaulnier a bit of a headache – the support of the former holder of this seat, Ellen Tauscher.  DeSaulnier has made no secret of that endorsement, including it in mailers and on his TV advertisement.  One problem with all this: with Tauscher now at the State Department, some have raised concerns that her endorsement while working at a federal agency violates the Hatch Act, which prohibits executive branch employees from participating in partisan politics.  DeSaulnier’s camp has countered that the endorsement, which was made before Tauscher was confirmed for the post at State, always says “Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher” and thus indicates that it was made prior to that appointment.  But the State Department has weighed in, asking DeSaulnier’s campaign to remove the endorsement.

The U.S. State Department has asked 10th District Congressional candidate and state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier to remove all references in his campaign materials to his endorsement from former congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, who is now undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security at the U.S. State Department.

While a legal adviser to the U.S. State Department concludes that the endorsement broke no laws or policies, “Under Secretary Tauscher is committed to the highest standards of ethical conduct. To avoid even the appearance of impropriety, on behalf of Undersecretary Tauscher, I have asked Senator DeSaulnier to remove all references in his campaign material of any endorsement she may have made,” wrote James Thessin, deputy legal adviser and designed agency ethics official.

The DeSaulnier campaign is fingering John Garamendi for complaining to the State Department about the use of Tauscher’s name.  Actually, the complaint was made by Jason Bezis, an individual who claims not to be affiliated with any campaign, but who apparently enjoys filing complaints with the State Department and the FEC (he filed one there against DeSaulnier’s campaign over a health care mailer).  It looks like the DeSaulnier campaign won’t change current materials already printed, but will consult the State Department “about what qualifies and what doesn’t under their request.”

I actually question whether this means as much as the DeSaulnier team seems to think, but their strategy all along has been to gather up local endorsements.

California, Health Care

CA-10: An Interview With Sen. Mark DeSaulnier

Mark DeSaulnier has had a rapid ascent through the state legislature and now, potentially, into Congress.  Within three years, this former restaurant owner won elections to the State Assembly (in 2006) and the State Senate (in 2008), with a Congressional primary scheduled for September 1.  Prior to that, he was a 3-time member of the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors and the California Air Resources Board.  A former liberal Republican in the mold of Edward Brooke, DeSaulnier switched parties several years ago and compiled a liberal voting record in the State Legislature.  His first ad of the campaign covered the topic of health care, and I asked him about this and several other issues in an interview conducted last week.  Having taken place before the crucial budget vote, I spent a good deal of time asking DeSaulnier about that, and you can see his responses here.  Depending on your perspective, he either did or did not fulfill the promise to vote against “most” of the budget, by the way, voting no on 11 of 26 bills, including all of the more controversial ones.

I’ll pick up with a paraphrased transcript of the rest of the interview below:

DD: So, other than the budget, how’s it going with your campaign?

Mark DeSaulnier: Well, this is a tough campaign, with a big field and a lot of good candidates.  The polls we’ve done show us winning.  We’ve got 70% of the money that we need to compete, and a lot of great endorsements.  I would say we have the most local endorsements inside the district.  And we’re going to be able to put together a great ground campaign, with people I’ve worked with for 20 years in the district.  I think we’re going to be concentrated in Contra Costa County, where we can post a big number.  I think we’re putting ourselves out there as the local candidate, who has represented the district for a long time.  And we have people out there walking and phoning, putting forward that message.

DD: As long as we’re on California, obviously you’ve seen the dysfunction at the local level.  What do you think you can do at the federal level to remedy this situation?

MD: You know, I read a lot of Paul Krugman, and I agree with him that we’re going to need a second stimulus package.  And I think we need it sooner and not later.  I think we can take what’s been learned from the stimulus package that we’re doing now.  I think the problem is that the banks like Citi and Bank of America aren’t lending, and so we need to require the banks to lend, with relief for the credit worthy who are falling behind on their payments, and more money out to the credit unions who have done a better job handling this crisis.  Next, I think we have to do some sort of fiscal stabilization.  I see it in this state, people who need to access the safety net go up when the economy goes down.  And so we have to break that cycle, and I think we can by providing some relief.  Finally, we should say that we can do things more efficiently.  There shouldn’t be this silo mentality.  I’ll give you an example.  We put together these “one-stops,” places where you can go for unemployment and job training.  And people tell me that you have to get out of one line and pick up a phone in the office to get your unemployment benefits.  That just doesn’t seem like good government to me.  And I think we have an opportunity to make government work better.

DD: Let’s move on to health care.  Seems to be a big issue for you.  What are the principles you carry in this debate?

MD: To me, the gold standard is single payer.  We have the problem of getting health care to those who need it, and also how we get control of costs.  I think the public option is the first step, and if we do it right, it could be, and really I think it should be, single payer.  The question is what are the Democrats willing to give up to get moderates on board, and I think there have to be some lines we cannot cross there.  In the end, it has to be about flexibility and more choice.  That’s the way you’re going to sell this thing.  It’s telling that the moderates want firewalls in their plan, they don’t want the people to have more choice, they want to preserve something for the insurance companies.

DD: Will you commit to not vote for anything that doesn’t have a quality public plan available on day one, not a trigger, open to everyone, and with the kind of rates necessary to force the insurance companies to compete?

MD: Yes.  I think as liberals, as progressives, something we don’t do a lot but which we can learn from Republicans, sometimes we’ve just got to say no.

DD: Congress has started to debate the regulatory reform ideas put forward by the Obama Administration, and they’re getting a ton of pushback from the banking industry, particularly on the concept of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency.  It’s the same way on a lot of these issues, the banks just won’t relent.  How do we solve this problem?

MD: Honestly, the politics will never get totally fixed without a public finance system in this country.  And then people say, “why should we pay for elections?”  The truth is that the average American is paying disproportionately already, when the giveaways to businesses and corporations are factored in.  They buy elections fairly cheaply, and they get the rewards.  So that’s something we have to pursue.  As far as your question, yes, I think we need a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, in fact I think it should be cabinet-level.  A Secretary of Consumer Protection.  The point to all of this is that if middle income people don’t have wealth, democracy ends.  That’s just the bottom line.  And one way to ensure that is by protecting consumers, so you don’t see all their wealth go into someone else’s pockets.  Inequality is just killing us right now.  Kevin Phillips wrote about this years ago, in Bad Money, and he was very prophetic.  I also think that you can’t reform the financial system without holding people accountable.  And so I would involve the Department of Justice right at the beginning.  That’s the only way to really ensure it doesn’t happen again.

DD: You mention inequality, it’s something Democrats don’t talk about enough.  A recent Wall Street Journal story talked about the top 1% earning 35% of all the compensation in the country.

MD: It’s stunning.  And our tax structure, by the way, rewards the accumulation of wealth, not work.  This happens when you get a financial services economy, which is completely not sustainable.  We don’t have manufacturing, we just have this financial services giant, and it trades in bubbles.  So one way to reduce that inequality is to retool the financial services sector, make it smaller, make it more boring.

DD: OK, last question.  I wanted to ask you about SB375, the smart growth measure that you played a big part in passing last year.  This bill doesn’t get a lot of attention, but it really offers a blueprint to how to achieve smart growth policies with the statewide authority working in concert with local communities.  Do you plan to scale that up if you make it to Congress?

MD: Oh, absolutely, and this is where I think my background really suits me to replace Ellen Tauscher.  I chaired the Transportation Committee in the Assembly as a freshman, I think the first person to do that.  I spent ten years on the California Air Resources Board, and I co-authored SB375.  I’m pretty sure there’s a companion bill in Congress right now.  Doris Matsui (CA-05) is carrying it right now.  I have honed in throughout my career on the changing transportation and mobility side of the energy issue.  We accomplish this, in part by reducing miles, and also finding new energy sources for transportation.  We need more transit, and a move away from single-occupancy vehicles and long commutes.  It’s about bringing the work space closer to the living space, and creating livable communities.  So I think I’m naturally suited  for such a task.  I’d like to get on the Transportation Committee if I get to Congress.

DD: Thanks for your time today.

MD: No problem, thank you.

Budget

Exclusive: Mark DeSaulnier Voting No on “Most” Of The Budget

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I interviewed Sen. Mark DeSaulnier just a few minutes ago for a series on CA-10 candidates.  But I took the opportunity to ask him about the budget deal.  Un unusually blunt and what I would characterize as irate language, DeSaulnier blasted the budget and the process that created it.  “It’s all awful,” he said.  “On a majority-vote level, with votes that require a majority vote, California still leads the nation.  But on a fiscal level, we’re living in the Dark Ages.  The system is completely dysfunctional and maybe the only good thing is that people will finally see the kind of change we need.  Sadly, too many people are still in denial about that change.  But we can’t go on like this.  It’s just a mess.”

DeSaulnier thinks that the economy is unlikely to change dramatically to bail out this budget, and it will take a long time for General Fund revenues to get to a point to pay off the money borrowed from education.  And so we’ll remain in this dark place for some time.

The Senator is carrying a bill in the legislature to put together a Constitutional convention, and he is “more convinced than ever” about the need for it.  He believes that, after the budget is put the bed, there is an urgent need, recognized by the leadership, to turn completely to reform.  Sen. Steinberg has said to him that the message will be nothing but change, change, change.  And the caucus wants to work, whether through a revision commission or reforms that could be put together with majority support, to do a “Constitutional convention in the building.”  Unfortunately, DeSaulnier said, everyone on both sides of the aisle immediately goes to the worst-case scenario of a convention, thinking that their gains and protections will be lost.  But that’s no excuse.  DeSaulnier hoped he could get with Republican leaders like Sam Blakeslee to find common ground on a few reform issues, but he’s not sanguine about those choices.  “They’re individually good people, but put them together and they’re a cult, not a party.  Milton Friedman’s dead, move on.”

When I asked what he would vote for on Thursday, he said “I will probably vote against most of it.”  DeSaulnier singled out two pieces that could not get his support: the offshore drilling in Tranquillon Ridge, and the raid on local governments.  On the drilling, he doesn’t understand why Democrats would approve such a proposal for a paltry $100 million dollars in this budget year.  “I don’t know why the Governor would do that.  Whatever environmental record he claims to have will go down the tubes.  I never thought he was particularly green to begin with, he tried to slow-walk AB32 and all sorts of environmental initiatives.  He’s the worst Governor in state history, just like George W. Bush was the worst President in history.

On the local government raid, DeSaulnier said that as someone who came from local government, he could not see clear to essentially bankrupt them.  Those takings don’t take place until December, according to him, so he would rather get the LAO involved, score the kinds of tax credits at the local level, things like enterprise zones that don’t work and other giveaways to corporate interests, and suspend them to make local government whole.  I think it’s an interesting strategy, though I don’t know if it could succeed.  Tying it to local government needs is smart.

And by the way, the crazy redevelopment money scheme, to borrow against those future funds and securitize 10% of property taxes for 10-20 years?  DeSaulnier called that “insane” and “illegal,” and just a shadow play by Republicans “so they can go back to San Diego and Riverside and say they tried to save their local money and failed.”

DeSaulnier has an election coming up, and thus an incentive to take a bold stand.  But this is pretty darn bold.  And if there are enough Democrats to go along with him, Republicans may indeed be forced to own this budget.

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CA-10: The Back Channels Of Power

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X-posted at Progressive Sundae

The special election to replace Ellen Tauscher in CA-10 is taking an ugly turn. The CDP has announced that its endorsement caucus will take place on August 1, and I’m already having flashbacks to Migden-Leno and the 2008 CDP convention.

You see, even though major flaws in the endorsement process were exposed over a year ago, nothing has changed; nor is there, at least to date, any apparent desire on the part of the CDP to address a situation where powerful outsiders are invited to skew the outcome of endorsements in local races.

I’ll do my best to explain it all on the flip…

First a brief lesson in how the endorsement process works in a special election. The chair of the party picks a caucus date and location, and all the members of the California DSCC (Democratic State Central Committee) who live within the district meet and cast their votes. In order to win the endorsement of the CDP, a candidate must receive 60% of the votes cast by these local party members.

So what is the DSCC and how do you become a member of it? Well, statewide, the DSCC is comprised of about 2800 people. Approximately one-third of them are elected by County Central Committees every two years; approximately one-third of them are elected through the ADEMs every two years; approximately one-third of them are appointed by elected officials (or nominees) and serve at their pleasure.

So the Central Committee and AD delegates serve for fixed two-year terms, but the people appointed by the electeds can be changed purely at the whim of their elected. And, as it turns out, there is no requirement in the CDP bylaws that the electeds select their appointees from within the district they represent.

So now that the endorsement caucus has been set for August 1, we can start to examine who will be showing up to vote that day. There will be members elected to the DSCC through the Central Committees of Alameda, Contra Costa, Sacramento, and Solano Counties — but only the ones who physically reside in CA-10. So, for instance, if you’re a DSCC member elected by the Solano Central Committee and you live in Fairfield (CA-10), you can attend the caucus; but if you’re a DSCC member elected by the Solano Central Committee and you live in Vacaville (CA-07), no dice. Same thing goes for the AD delegates. But it’s an entirely different story for the appointees of the electeds.

At least in theory, every Democratic state officer, Senator, Congressmember, State Senator, and Assemblymember in the entire state could dismiss their current appointees and replace them with people who live within CA-10 and are therefore qualified to vote in the caucus. And that’s a lot of appointees. The CDP Bylaws (PDF, Art. II, Sect. 2, beginning on P. 2) spell out how the appointees are allotted:

  • State Officers — 6 delegates each
  • US Senators — 6 delegates each
  • US Congressmembers — 5 delegates each
  • State Senators — 6 delegates each
  • State Assemblymembers — 5 delegates each

(And those nominees who ran for the offices listed above but did not win their election are allowed to appoint ½ the number of delegates as their elected counterparts — either 3 or 2, depending on the office).

So what’s happening in CA-10 right now? Well, reports have surfaced that the campaigns are pulling out all the stops to get electeds to replace their appointees with CA-10 residents.

So, several of the CD10 Democratic candidates’ campaign teams have in the past couple of weeks lobbied elected officials from up and down the state and asked them to appoint as their delegates folks who live in the 10th District and support their respective candidates.

As a result, the number of delegates in the 10th District has expanded to as many as 300, sources say. Reports put state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier in the delegate count lead over Lt. Governor John Garamendi and Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan.

Well, that makes sense. A cursory look at the endorsements listed on the major candidates’ websites shows the following:

  • Joan Buchanan:  Not listing her endorsements at this time.
  • John Garamendi:  Five Congressmembers and one Assemblymember, for a total of 30 potential appointees.
  • Mark DeSaulnier:  One state officer, four Congressmembers, eleven State Senators, and eight Assemblymembers, for a total of 142 potential appointees.

Now, we currently have no way of determining whether the electeds who have endorsed are backing up their endorsements by appointing CA-10 residents (or, for that matter, whether electeds who have not formally endorsed are doing likewise). But just speculating, based on the raw numbers, it would look like Mark DeSaulnier is going to be the big winner of this sweepstakes. After all, he has a lot of friends from having served recently in both the Assembly and the Senate, and he has a major Congressional cheerleader in Rep. George Miller.

Indeed, if that 300 number is accurate, there’s already more stacking taking place than occurred even in the Migden-Leno conflagration of 2008. It’s exactly this kind of raw power play that turns loyal local Democrats who have been plugging away on behalf of their candidate into cynics who end up walking away from Democratic politics. And I’m saying this as someone who definitely leans toward supporting the beneficiary of this cronyism.

Here’s the thing. Whether they find the practice acceptable or repugnant, all campaigns are going to play the hand they’re dealt. And when the CDP bylaws offer candidates the opportunity to exploit the delegate selection process, they have to take it; frankly, they can do no less.

But, you know what? It doesn’t have to be that way. We now have a CDP chair who campaigned on the issue of reform. John Burton has been giving a lot of lip service to “grassroots activists”; yet here is a perfect example where the local stakeholders are being pushed aside by the electeds who are stacking the deck against them. If Burton really intends to walk the talk, he might want to start by taking action to amend the bylaws so that electeds are required to appoint their delegates from within their district.

It may be too late for CA-10, but this kind of rigged endorsement process should never be allowed to happen again.