One day after LA Councilwoman Janice Hahn told an audience in Venice that “Campaign decisions should not be happening in American’s boardrooms. We need far tighter curbs on corporate campaign expenditures.” the LA Times is reporting that The Cooperative of American Physicians IE Committee, a PAC which represents medical malpractice insurers, has spent $50,000 on mailers to support her in the CA-36 race.

A California physicians insurance group has spent more than $50,000 on two political mailers to support a candidate in next month’s crowded special congressional election, federal records showed Thursday.

In documents filed with the Federal Election Commission, the Cooperative of American Physicians said it spent $51,092 on a mail campaign advocating the election of Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn. Hahn is one of 16 candidates on the May 17 ballot to replace former Democratic Rep. Jane Harman of Venice.

The physicians group is apparently the first to make a so-called independent expenditure in the 36th Congressional District race. Groups are allowed to spend unlimited amounts to support or oppose a candidate so long as they do not coordinate with the candidate’s own campaign.

Hahn so far has led the pack in fundraising, outpacing even Secretary of State Debra Bowen, believed to be her strongest competitor for the seat.  About half of Hahn’s contributions appear to come from lobbyists, developers and others doing business with the city. The next campaign finance reports are due at the FEC on May 5.

Frankly, I think the LA Times is being conservative in their estimate. Dig a little deeper into the numbers, and you’ll find that over 70% of Hahn’s donations comes from LA City Hall contractors, lobbyists, the nuclear industry and rent control opponents. A year ago, this same PAC  partnered with oil, tobacco and other special interests to go after 53D Assemblymember Betsy Butler in the June 2010 primary.

From the L.A. Times, May 20, 2010

A coalition of oil interests, insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms and other business interests has poured at least $480,000 into a mail and television campaign to oppose one of the eight Democrats competing in the June 8 primary for an open Venice/South Bay Assembly seat……

“Groups funded by the Civil Justice Assn. of California and two medical malpractice insurance organizations have spent the money to defeat Betsy Butler, a former fundraiser for two major environmental groups and the Consumer Attorneys of California……

John H. Sullivan, president of the association, which seeks to cut the numbers of “excessive and unwarranted” lawsuits, said his organization objects to candidates whose campaigns “have been heavily supported by plaintiffs’ lawyers. In our experience, [they], if elected, do not show much independence when it comes to matters affecting litigation.”……

The association, which has spent more than $180,000 to oppose Butler, lists among its 56 board members Altria (parent company of Philip Morris USA), Anthem Blue Cross, Apple Computer Inc., BP,the California Apartment Assn., ExxonMobil Corp., GlaxoSmithKline, Southern California Edison and State Farm Insurance Cos.

Two other committees involved in the campaign against Butler represent medical malpractice insurance interests: California Allied for Patient Protection (which has spent $148,522) and the Cooperative of American Physicians (which has spent $150,000).

So far, no outside groups have reported independent expenditure campaigns for other candidates in the CA-36 race.

An internal poll released by the Bowen campaign shows the candidate tied with Councilwoman Janice Hahn in the CA-36 primary. Marcy Winograd – who received 41% of the vote against Jane Harman in the 2010 primary race – is only polling at 6%, putting her in 4th place behind Republican Mike Gin.

The Feldman Group conducted the poll among 451 registered likely voters in California Congressional District 36 from April 4-7, 2011. The sample consisted of 401 registered likely voters and an oversample of 50 DTS voters. The margin of error for a sample of 401 is ± 4.9%.

In an initial match-up between all of the declared candidates, Bowen and Hahn are tied at 20 percent each, with the closest candidate, Mike Gin, at 8 percent.  Marcy Winograd, another  Democrat in the race, receives only 6 percent support. Twenty-four percent of the electorate remains undecided.  Bowen dominates in the Beach Cities and Venice with a double digit lead  over both Hahn and Winograd, and leads in all geographic regions except the Harbor area..  

In a run-off matchup between Bowen and Hahn, Bowen (40 percent) pulls ahead of Hahn (36 percent) without any messaging.  Sixteen (16) percent are currently undecided.  While Hahn may have an advantage of name recognition in the district it is not translating into an advantage in votes, perhaps because her unfavorable rating is double that of Bowen.  

Democrats continue to hold an advantage in this district. Voters in the district are more  likely to prefer a Democrat (41 percent), and 29 percent say they would prefer a Republican with another 27 percent say that the candidates party doesn’t really matter. Bowen shows her strength over Hahn among Decline-to-State voters, receiving 47 percent of the vote.  

Bowen’s lead over Hahn grows even after voters are informed about key endorsers for  each candidate (including Feinstein, Lieu, Nakano, Firefighters and others for Hahn) and positive arguments being used by the respective campaigns.  

With a July 12th runoff virtually assured, a couple of points jump out at me. At 24% in the primary and %16 in the general election, the number of undecideds in this race will be a huge factor. Hahn has high name recognition, but she also has relatively high negatives – twice that of Bowen – and Hahn’s endorsements don’t seem to have had much effect on her polling.

Hahn’s campaign manager pushed back with an impressive bit of verbal gymnastics,

“We’re stunned that Bowen would release a poll that shows 80% of the voters she represented for 14 years rejecting her.” said campaign manager, Dave Jacobson.

Forgetting the fact Jacobson apparently can’t do math (24% of voters are undecided about anyone yet),  did he really mean to highlight Bowen has already represented most of CA-36 for 14 years, and that an equal number of Hahn’s current constituents have rejected the LA City Councilwoman?

From the LA Times:

Bolstering their status as the presumed frontrunners in the crowded special election for a South Bay-based congressional seat, Democrats Janice Hahn and Debra Bowen have outdistanced their rivals in campaign contributions, reports filed with the Federal Election Commission showed Friday.

By the March 31 close of the reporting period, Hahn had raised $274,443 and spent $103,177, while Bowen had collected $195,224 and spent $102,227. Bowen, who is California’s secretary of state, and Hahn, a Los Angeles councilwoman, are vying to succeed former Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) in a district drawn to favor Democrats, who hold a nearly 18-point registration edge.

But Republican Craig Huey, owner of an advertising firm, had more cash at his disposal than Bowen and came close to matching Hahn’s money by lending his own campaign $250,000, according to his FEC report. He spent $155,695 and reported raising $1,727 in contributions from others.

While fundraising numbers as a metric of potential success are unreliable (Meg Whitman anyone?) and are an incomplete and constantly moving target (Debra Bowen raised an additional 40K just outside the reporting period thanks to a drive sponsored by Howard Dean), they can still provide insight into a campaign’s strengths, weaknesses, priorities, and how influential power brokers perceive a candidate’s potential value.

One meme I hear in the press a lot is that the race between Hahn and Bowen boils down between Hahn’s “beer-track” blue-collar union support versus Bowen’s more affluent “wine-track” coastal support.

But if the latest fundraising figures are any indication, Hahn’s support is more like “LA City Hall/Veuve Clicquot-track”

Besides the union and PAC support that can be expected from her endorsement list, Hahn’s donors include high-powerd Los Angeles developers Eli Broad and Rick Caruso, who donated $2,500 a piece.

Edison International, which owns a 78.2% stake in the San Onofre nuclear power plant, donated a whopping 10K

The National Apartment Association PAC, an association which lobbies against rent control, donated $2,500. NAAPAC’s local affiliate, the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, seemed especially proud  of it’s fight against “socialized housing”

Rent control in Los Angeles surfaced following Armistice Day on November 11, 1918. One of the earliest successes of AAGLA was defeating this early rent control attempt. But rent control reappeared in World War II. Tenant activists and federal officials wanted to keep the wartime controls in effect, but our organization fought to end rent regulation and helped build the massive expansion of rental housing that occurred in the post war era.

An attempt at “socialized housing” occurred in the 1970s when Chavez Ravine was a political war zone over whether or not to build $110 million worth of low-income high-rise rentals of the type sprouting up across the nation. The result was a nationwide glut of instant slums.

As amusing as AAGL’s position on rent control might be, the “money” donation – literally and figuratively – comes from the high-powered LA City Hall lobbying firm of Ek & Ek, whose president and employees donated $8,000 to Hahn’s congressional campaign.

Ek & Ek is of special interest both because of their deep connections to Hahn and because of their involvement in last year’s controversial “food fight” over a highly lucrative LAX concessions contract.

It seemed an obvious idea: Bring in new concessionaires to improve the food and shopping at Los Angeles International Airport, giving a distinctive L.A. flair to a drab facility that receives often-dismal ratings from passengers.

Five months after the contract was supposed to be approved, however, another distinctive L.A. feature has taken over – the tangled politics of City Hall. Like past plans to modernize the airport, the effort to overhaul the concessions has slowed to a crawl……

For many of the restaurant and store owners who had hoped to move into the airport, the delay has been frustrating. “We are mostly small, locally run businesses, and it’s just impossible to plan because this thing is just in limbo,” said Richard Karno, owner of Groundwork Coffee Co., which is part of one winning bid package. “It seems like it’s coming down to who has the bigger, badder lobbyist.”…...

Karno’s Groundworks, along with a number of local LA eateries, had won a competitive bid to take over the $600 million contract, but were stymied after HMS Host, the existing concessionaire and losing bidder, appealed the award to the LA City Council.

HMS Host is a major client of lobbyist Ek & Ek.

The firm, Ek & Ek is based in San Pedro, where Hahn lives, and its principals are close friends of the councilwoman. Hahn raised $36,750 from Ek & Ek and its clients during her recent unsuccessful campaign for lieutenant governor. She has gone on vacation at least four times with the firm’s vice president, Esther Ek, traveling to such destinations as Hawaii and New Mexico……

From the LA Weekly:

The city of Los Angeles has fairly strict campaign-finance regulations. Lobbyists are banned from contributing to city campaigns, and contributions to council members are capped at $500.

But when Councilwoman Janice Hahn announced her candidacy for lieutenant governor last fall, a gaping loophole was created that Host and other bidders wasted little time walking through. Nothing barred the companies from contributing to her statewide campaign, even though she still sits on the City Council.

Hahn is well positioned to influence the case. She serves on the Board of Referred Powers, which is to hear Host’s protests this month. She also chairs the Trade, Commerce and Tourism Committee, also expected to review the contract before it goes to the full council.

Last fall, Hahn’s campaign for lieutenant governor received $6,500 – the legal maximum – from Host, along with $1,000 from Host’s minority-owned partner, Concessions Management Services.

Because there is no ban on lobbyist contributions to state campaigns, she could also take money from Host’s lobbyists. John and Esther Ek, of the San Pedro lobbying firm Ek & Ek, each contributed the maximum amount. The law firm Sheppard Mullin, which also represents Host, gave another $1,000.

Hahn also received money from other bidders and their lobbyists. In total, at least $40,000 of her contributions for lieutenant governor can be tied to LAX concessions businesses or their lobbyists.

From 2009-2010 Hahn amassed nearly $55,000 in donations from companies involved in the LAX concession fight, more than any other politician at City Hall. Despite receiving contributions from some of the interested parties, Hahn never recused herself from voting.

Last fall Hahn – along with a majority of the Board of Referred Powers – voted in favor of Ek & Ek’s client. They ordered that the winning LAX contract package, which included Venice’s Groundworks Coffee, be thrown out and rebid. Separately, the airport commission moved to consider contracts for terminals not considered in the original, controversial package.

In a related move, the airport commission on Monday was presented with a list of six concession companies that will likely submit proposals for the next round of retail and dining contracts spanning Terminals 1, 2, 3, 6 and the Tom Bradley International Terminal.

A call for proposals could go out within a month, airport officials said.

Interested companies include Los Angeles Caruso Affiliated, which is owned by developer Rick Caruso, who announced earlier this year that he is looking to expand his retail empire to airports across the country, including LAX. Caruso oversaw construction of The Grove outdoor shopping mall in Los Angels and the Americana at Brand in Glendale.

Yes, boys and girls, that Rick Caruso, the developer who just donated $2,500 to Hahn’s congressional campaign.

My own councilman, Bill Rosendahl, summed up the City Hall/lobbyist merry-go-round better than I ever could. Last summer, upset that a meeting to decided the fate of Groundwork’s LAX contract would be postponed yet again, he almost quit the board.

“I know one thing. This room is full of lobbyists, and they’re out there with lots of grins and smiles,” he said. “I’m nothing but frustrated by the backchannel crap that’s going on.”

(full disclosure, I have endorsed Debra Bowen for CA36 on my website: www.venice4change.com)

Janice Hahn says she’s all about jobs.

Jobs are the first thing you read about on her website, (“ I’m running for Congress to create new jobs.“) It’s in nearly every campaign press release, (“I will be a fighter for workers!“) And it’s the first thing she talks about on the campaign trail, “If the subject is jobs, I don’t know anybody who has a track record as I do of creating good jobs.“, Hahn told a gathering of moms in Mar Vista.

Yet in January – two days after attending President Obama’s State of the Union speech as Jane Harman’s guest –  Hahn abruptly withdrew her support for a shipyard at the Port of Los Angeles that only 20 months before she’d touted would deliver a thousand “well-paying clean energy jobs, renewed economic activity, and a new standard for environmental stewardship.”

Public records available online and news reports published at the time tells us what happened in those intervening 20 months. It’s a complicated tale, featuring an ambitious termed-out LA City councilwoman, conflicting agendas between the Port of Los Angeles and the shipbuilder, Gambol Industries, intramural union warfare, maxed-out, suspiciously-timed campaign donations, accusations of influence peddling, and nearly two years worth of squandered goodwill.

At  the end of April, 2009, thousands of party faithful gathered in Sacramento for the annual California Democratic Party convention. The mood was high after coming off an historic November win, Brown and Newsom were still duking it out for Governor, and no Democratic candidate had yet thrown their hat in the ring to go up against Republican Abe Maldonado for Lt. Governor.

In a Sacramento hotel bar, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn openly contemplated being that candidate. Only a month before she’d won a landslide victory for her third and final term on the LA City Council, but she was already thinking about the future.

That weekend, according to a delegate present during the conversation, she apparently decided running for Lt. Governor was her best option.

A month later, Hahn wades into an ongoing dispute between two competing interests in her district –  yacht builder Gambol Industries and the Port of Los Angeles.

At issue was a $50 million shipbuilding facility Gambol hoped to build at the port. The problem? They wanted to build the facility precisely where the Port of Los Angeles planned to dump 3 million cubic yards of contaminated soil for their long-planned Main Channel Deepening Project (MCDP).

The project, which appeared dead just days ago, was tossed a lifeline by Los Angeles City Council members who ordered port officials to reconsider their April 29 rejection of the bid by Long Beach-based Gambol Industries.

(Port of Los Angeles) staff had argued the planned facility was unlikely to succeed financially and would cause unreasonable delays in a long-planned channel deepening project.

In the weeks since, supporters led by San Pedro-area Councilwoman Janice Hahn had urged the port to strive for a compromise with Gambol.

“Before we simply give up on this shipyard and the potential for good jobs and a steady revenue source, we need to make sure we’ve really studied the options,” Hahn said.

The intervention was risky for Hahn – accommodating Gambol was hardly a high priority for the Port of Los Angeles. Even though a shipbuilding facility would diversify the area’s economy – something Hahn’s constituents were very much in favor of – harbor officials contested whether Gambol’s project was even economically viable, or could deliver on the thousand jobs it promised.

According to the Port of LA’s executive director, there were also considerable concerns Gambol’s plans would throw a monkey-wrench in the entire Main Channel Deepening Project.

Port officials fear that allowing Gambol Industries to rebuild the shipyard would put years of complicated negotiations in jeopardy….

After reviewing 13 potential sites to dump the sediment, port officials chose the Southwest Marine terminal site, which was already contaminated from its use as a shipyard. They decided that the boat slips were the best place to “entomb” the toxic material….

“This is a huge undertaking because we try to match our dredging and land filling operations,” said Geraldine Knatz, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles. “There are a lot of interrelationships among the various projects. I think a lot of people really didn’t understand that.”

Construction on the $370 million MCDP had already ground to a halt once while the Port negotiated a location for the contaminated soil. Trying to find yet another place for all that toxic waste could have jeopardized thousands of short-term jobs, derailment cost hundreds future long term jobs.

But if the risks for Hahn were enormous, so were the rewards. If she could somehow broker an agreement with both parties, she could bring a thousand new jobs to the port and lay claim to revitalizing a flagging shipbuilding industry. It would be a tremendous public relations coup as she launched her run for Lt. Governor.

That summer, under pressure from Hahn and threat of a lawsuit from Gambol, the Port of Los Angeles agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding” (or MOU for short) brokered by the councilwoman.

The Port entered into exclusive negotiations with the shipbuilder. As part of the agreement, if both parties were unable to come to an understanding within the next few months, Hahn herself would act as an impartial mediator.

That’s when things got interesting.

• On August 5th, five weeks after Hahn announced the MOU, Robert Stein, the president of Gambol Industries, donated $500  to Hahn’s officeholder account.

• On September 29th, the law firm of Jeffer, Mangels, Butler and Marmaro, the law firm representing Gambol Industries, made a $5,000 donation to Hahn’s Lt.Governor campaign

• A week later, on October 5th, Robert Stein also made a donation to Hahn’s campaign, this time for $6,500, the legal limit.

All in, Gambol Industries and it’s lawyers made a total of $12,000 in contributions to Janice Hahn after the MOU was signed.

By February of 2010, however, things were going nowhere with Gambol and the Port of Los Angeles. So on February 4th, both parties announced they would enter into mediation. The mediator, as specified in the MOU, would be Janice Hahn.

The ongoing dispute over whether to allow a ship-building business to open at a pair of unused slips at the Port of Los Angeles is expected to move into mediation this month, officials said Thursday….

Long Beach-based Gambol Industries has tried for several months to open a $50 million shipyard at old Southwest Marine site, but the company’s latest proposal does not appear to pass muster with port officials.

As a result, the matter will now be mediated by Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who has been a proponent for Gambol. Additionally, the city’s administrative office will examine Gambol’s proposal to determine if the business would fit in with the port.

There was only one problem. A week later, the media found out Hahn had a conflict.  $12,000 worth of conflict.

“I don’t think it’s a conflict,” Hahn said initially when reached by telephone Wednesday.

“I’ve been asked to not talk to the press about this,” she said. “The city attorney advised me to not discuss anything about this.”

Now, stop and think about this for a minute. If you or I were a candidate that had received $12,000 from a company and were then asked to mediate a dispute involving that company, we would probably feel obligated to disclose that fact, if not recuse ourselves completely.

Janice Hahn apparently felt no such obligation, not even after LA City Attorney Carmen Trutanich warned Hahn the donations raised a red flag. In fact, it wasn’t until the media blew the lid off the arraignment that Hahn suddenly got an attack of common sense.

Several hours after she was contacted by the Daily Breeze, Hahn called a reporter to say she had decided to recuse herself from the mediation, adding that since a committee she chairs oversees the matter it would give a perception of bias.

“I’d been thinking about it since last week when the city attorney instructed me before I went into a committee meeting that he had concerns,” she said late Wednesday.

After talking to the newspaper, she said, “I thought about it again — and thought it was best if I stepped down as mediator.”

Hahn said she does not plan to return the campaign contributions.

“I think I could have been neutral,” she said, “but I wouldn’t want to jeopardize both sides being able to reach a compromise, so I’m stepping down.”

While the situation would not have been illegal, it did raise questions about Hahn’s ability to serve as a neutral mediator between Gambol and the Port of Los Angeles, according to Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies in West Los Angeles.

“If the people at Gambol never previously gave her contributions, then the question is why are they giving her money now?” Stern said. “They aren’t going to be wasting money on somebody who isn’t helping them.”

After the revelation and Hahn’s recusal, negotiations between Gambol and The Port of LA began to unravel. The International Longshore and Warehouse union jumped on the news, claiming Hahn was jeopardizing the Main Channel dredging project and “acting on behalf of her campaign contributor Gambol Industries.”

Meanwhile, the June primary for Lt. Governor came and went. Rival Gavin Newsom, who joined the race that winter, beat Hahn 55% to 33%.

In August, Gambol Industries filed conflict of interest charges against the LA Board of Harbor Commissioners, the deciding body in the dispute.

As its options are just about to run out, a company wanting to build a $50 million shipyard at the Port of Los Angeles has leveled conflict-of-interest allegations, officials said Tuesday.

Executives with Long Beach-based Gambol Industries claim the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners should not be allowed to decide the shipyard’s fate due to alleged conflicts by two board members and the fact that the commission president’s term has expired.

The move comes just as the harbor commission was expected on Thursday to decide whether to cut off exclusive negotiations with Gambol Industries based on findings that the company’s proposed shipyard is not commercially viable and would likely delay the port’s Main Channel deepening project…..

Stein alleged that Harbor Commissioner Joseph Radisich, a former international vice president for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, may be prejudiced against the shipyard.

The union representing the port’s dockworkers has expressed concerns that Gambol’s shipyard could delay the Main Channel deepening project, which will eventually make room for larger cargo ships visiting port terminals.

Ironically (or not, depending on your level of cynicism) Gambol’s attorneys demanded the dispute be sent to the Board of Referred Powers, a panel of five LA City Council members – including, you guessed it –Janice Hahn.

 This irony was not lost on the media.

Hahn declined to comment on the conflict-of-interest allegations raised by Gambol.

Additionally, Hahn did not return a phone call and a series of e-mail messages inquiring whether she would recuse herself from the Board of Referred Powers and what role, if any, she has played in the port’s ongoing negotiations with Gambol Industries.

Stein abruptly hung up on a reporter when asked about any potential conflicts with Hahn, who has publicly advocated in favor of Gambol’s proposed shipyard.

As expected, the Harbor Commission finally sunk Gambol’s shipbuilding project in December, terminating the exclusive agreement brokered by Hahn, and allowing the Port of LA to proceed unhindered with the Main Channel Dredging Project.

In early January of this year, backed by the Orange County/Los Angeles Building and Construction Trades Councils, Hahn brought Gambol’s project to the LA City Council in a last ditch effort to save it.

But then a funny thing happened on the way to the council vote. On January 25th, Hahn attended President Obama’s State of the Union speech in Washington D.C. as Jane Harman’s guest.

Hahn told Roll Call during an interview at a local sushi restaurant that Harman had asked her that week about her future political plans and whether she would ever be interested in running for Harman’s 36th district seat.

“I said, ‘Of course it would be wonderful to be in Congress, but you’re not going anywhere.’ And so she just nodded,” Hahn said between sips of hot tea.

Two days later, Hahn withdrew support for the project she’d championed for almost two years. 

The Gambol project, unpopular with the rest of the City Council, tainted by accusations of conflicts of interest, and opposed by powerful unions she’d need in a potential run for Congress, suddenly became a risk Janice Hahn was no longer willing to take.

Hahn’s about-face came after myriad warnings that the port’s Main Channel dredging project would be delayed up to three years if Long Beach-based Gambol Industries were allowed to build a $50 million shipyard at the shuttered Southwest Marine site on Terminal Island.

Hahn acted alone in her recommendation after a lengthy council committee hearing. Councilmen Bill Rosendahl and Tom LaBonge, who also sit on the three-member Trade, Commerce and Tourism Committee, were absent……

Gambol has paid $780,771 to lobbyists, according to the most recent records posted on the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission’s online database…..

The issue had divided opinions between groups that normally cooperate with each other.

The Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce this week urged Hahn to give up on Gambol’s proposal, while the San Pedro Chamber of Commerce supported the shipyard.

The Los Angeles/Orange County Building and Construction Trades said Gambol’s plan would lead to construction and shipbuilding jobs.

At the same time, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union warned that delays to the dredging project would negatively affect dockworker jobs.

The deal with Gambol Industries was dead. The LA Weekly summed it up this way.

If Hahn could have pulled it off, it would indeed have been good for her constituents and good for her. (In addition to all the economic benefits, a successful shipyard would have been a source of campaign cash for years to come.) But when the Port of L.A. indicated it couldn’t be done without threatening the dredging project, Hahn didn’t back off. At that point it became a contest of wills between Hahn and the port.

Hahn brought the issue to the council not so much to win on the substance — even if the council had agreed with her, the port could have deliberated the proposal to death —  but to make a point. Ultimately, the rest of the council opted to side with the port and bring the whole thing to an end.

“This is a sad day,” said Ben Reznik, Gambol’s chief lobbyist. “You had two years to make this work, and you’ve blown it. You blew it… Who is really running this show?”

At today’s meeting, speakers who have fought against Hahn on the shipyard plan lined up to praise her commitment to the Harbor area and to jobs. Rudy Svorinich, a former councilman, laid it on the thickest, saying that Hahn had “moved from councilwoman to stateswoman.”

At that point, a longshoreman leaned over and whispered, “From chicken to turkey.”

Twelve days later, on February 7th, Congresswoman Jane Harman announced she was resigning her seat for California’s 36th Congressional District. Within hours, Janice Hahn announced she would run to replace her. Her website was up by noon, a team of political consultants in place by the end of the day.

Within weeks, the LA/OC Building & Construction Trades Council, ILWU, and the San Pedro Chamber of Commerce – groups previously at odds over the Gambol project – all endorsed Janice Hahn for Congress.

In the end, no laws were broken, no shipyard was built, and none of the promised jobs were created. The Main Channel Dredging Project went on as planned, termed-out LA City Councilwoman Janice Hahn did not become Lt. Governor of California, Gambol Industries received nothing but unwanted media attention for their $12,000 investment in her, and many of Hahn’s constituents were left wondering about their councilwoman’s judgement.

Janice Hahn says she’s all about jobs. In this case, she was.

Her own.

(full disclosure, I have endorsed Debra Bowen for CA36 on my website: www.venice4change.com)

Today, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) introduced a 10-year budget proposal that would essentially eliminate Medicare and Medicaid, replacing it with a voucher and managed-care system that would drastically curtail benefits for the poor, disabled and elderly.

“This is not a budget. This is a cause,” Ryan said yesterday on Fox News. “We are here to try and fix this country’s problems. If that means we are giving our political adversaries a political weapon to use against us… shame on them. We owe it to the country to give them an honest debate.”

Democrats universally condemned the plan, including CA-36 candidate Debra Bowen,

“Let’s be clear: these are not simply ‘cuts,’ and this is not simply ‘reform.’ This is fundamentally abolishing Medicare as we know it and replacing it with a voucher system — one with no cost controls which will force seniors to pay a greater and greater share of their medical bills out of pocket over time.

“While the Ryan Budget is a sweet deal for private health insurance companies and multi-millionaires, it breaks the faith with America’s seniors and the tens of millions of working class Americans who have paid into Medicare their whole lives. It should not be passed.”

The prospects for California would be pretty grim. Low-income Medicaid beneficiaries will lose their guaranteed benefits altogether. Currently, Medicaid is a shared responsibility between the federal government and states, which are required to provide comprehensive health care benefits to people in poverty. Ryan’s plan turns the program into block grants for the states — with no guarantees.

Cash-strapped states like California would likely be forced to drop beneficiaries from the rolls should the plan become law.

Less than a month after Janice Hahn’s allies in City Hall conducted a whisper campaign questioning Debra Bowen’s stand on marriage equality, now it’s Hahn herself leading the charge, this time questioning Bowen’s loyalty to the Democratic Party.

One day before a Democratic special endorsing caucus meets to officially support a candidate in the 36th district special election, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn’s campaign is presenting her as the only true Democrat in the race. It turns out California Secretary of State Debra Bowen was once a Republican.

The Hahn campaign hinted in a press release that she is the only Democratic candidate who has never been a member of another political party as it trotted out the endorsements of four officers of the state Democratic Party.

“Janice Hahn has always been committed to Democratic values,” First Vice Chairman Alex Rooker said. State party Secretary Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer said, “there is only one candidate in this race that has always been a Democrat.”

(editor’s note: Roll Call should have attributed that last quote to Sergio Carrillo. See text of press release below)

Debra Bowen was a registered Republican until 1984, then switched party affiliation to become a Democrat. In 1992, during her first successful run for the California Assembly, she told the LA Times she made the switch because the Republican party lacked “compassion and tolerance and respect for others.” She has remained a Democrat ever since.

Observers familiar with the race aren’t convinced Hahn’s charge will hold up to scrutiny. “Hillary Clinton was a Goldwater girl. Janice Hahn was a Clinton delegate in 2008. Does she want to renounce that endorsement because Clinton wasn’t ‘always a Democrat’?”, said David Dayen, a writer for FDL News who’s covered California politics extensively.

Current party affiliation hasn’t always been a deal breaker for Janice Hahn either. Recently she endorsed Republican Mitch Endglander in the March 8th LA City Council race.

An official California Democratic Party endorsement would be helpful to a candidate as they compete for votes in the crowded, bipartisan field. A candidate would have to garner 60% of the caucus votes to win the endorsement.  Janice Hahn is reportedly worried enough about the endorsement that she showed up unannounced on delegate’s doorsteps this week hoping to sway their votes.

As she did in the Lt. Governor’s race against Gavin Newsom, Janice Hahn has shown no hesitancy to go negative in this race early and fast, first baiting Marcy Winograd into joining the race with the hope her candidacy would cut into Bowen’s votes, then conducting whisper campaigns questioning Bowen’s stand on marriage equality and party affiliation.

However Hahn’s strategy may backfire. Even though party registration in this district leans Democratic, the May 17th special election runs under “open primary” rules, where voters can cast a ballot for any candidate regardless of party affiliation.  Historically, Bowen’s appeal has crossed party lines, especially with pro-choice Republican women, who helped Bowen win her first Assembly race in 1992 when the district was still majority Republican.

Hahn also runs the risk of turning off Democratic voters who see Bowen as a hero for her work on election protection and government transparency.

“It just smells,” said Tony Salvaggio, a registered Democrat and party delegate from Manhattan Beach, “We should be debating facts, issues, and who’s better qualified for the job, not what somebody’s party affiliation was 27 years ago.”

Below is the text from Hahn’s press release:

STATEWIDE CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATIC PARTY OFFICERS ENDORSE JANICE HAHN FOR CONGRESS

Hahn Earns Major Endorsements from Statewide, Regional, and Local Democratic Party Leaders

LOS ANGELES- Several leading California Democratic Party officers endorsed Janice Hahn for Congress today, including, First Vice Chair of the California Democratic Party Alex Rooker, Secretary of the California Democratic Party Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer, Sr., Regional Director for the South Bay and Harbor Area of the California Democratic Party Sergio Carrillo, as well as Regional Director for West Los Angeles of the California Democratic Party Terrance Montgomery.

Today’s news comes after several days of Hahn rolling out major endorsements this week, including endorsements from the California Labor Federation, Los Angeles Police Protective League and Congresswoman Linda Sanchez.

“Janice Hahn has always been committed to Democratic values and will be a strong voice for Democrats in Washington,” said Alex Rooker, First Vice-Chair of the California Democratic Party. “Janice will be a fighter for more jobs, a cleaner environment, better schools, and more access to healthcare, and that’s why I am proud to endorse her for Congress.”

“We need Representatives in Congress who won’t back down from a tough fight, and I know that Janice will not only be a fighter, but she will be a champion for Democrats in Washington,” said Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer, Sr., Secretary of the California Democratic Party.

“There are several good candidates in this race, but there is only one candidate in this race that has always been a Democrat, and has always stood up for Democratic values, and that’s Janice Hahn,” added Sergio Carrillo, Regional Director for the California Democratic Party.

“I was born a Democrat, I was raised a Democrat, and when I am elected to Congress, I will never forget that I’m a Democrat,” said Councilwoman Janice Hahn. “I grew up learning early on about Democratic values-my dad, former Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenny Hahn taught me about civil rights, equality, and the importance of the middle class. When I go to Congress I pledge to stand up for these Democratic values and be a fighter for the people of the 36th Congressional District.”

In an interview with the LA Weekly, California League of Conservations Voter SoCal director, David Algood, expanded on his organization’s decision to back Debra Bowen over her rival Janice Hahn.

“Debra has a much longer record on the environment,” said David Allgood, CLCV’s Southern California director. “We know her to be a leader that doesn’t knuckle under to pressure from special interests.”

Allgood said the League had taken note of Hahn’s flip-flop-flip on the L.A. oil severance tax. She proposed the tax last fall, before changing her mind and trying to keep it off the ballot. When it went on the ballot anyway, she then supported it. (It narrowly failed.)

“One of the things we considered was the ability of somebody to put their finger in the wind and change positions that quickly,” Allgood said. “For her to have one position one day and the opposite position the next — that was a big concern.”

Back on March 4th, I ran a story on Venice For Change about Hahn’s “flip-flop-flip”, on Measure O, the ballot initiative to tax oil taken from within LA City limits she was for before she was against it before she was for it.

Responding to reports in Venice For Change and also at Calitics, Janice Hahn apparently tried to rewrite history in regards to Measure O, the oil severance tax she opposed putting before voters for the March 8th special election.

The City Maven wesbsite report that Hahn  reversed her position again on Measure O, releasing a statement in support.

“I’ve always supported an oil extraction tax, and I continue to support it. In fact, during my recent campaign for lieutenant governor, I proposed a statewide oil extraction fee to help fund higher education,” Hahn said. “I support Measure O. I proposed Measure O. I will vote for Measure O. I hope Measure O passes.”

Quibbling with the past, Hahn went on to say that her no vote was out of an abundance of concern regarding voter turnout.

“I supported placing Measure O on a regular election ballot where turnout and participation is higher and it would have a greater likelihood of passing. I opposed placing it on the March ballot because turnout is substantially lower and less representative of the electorate as a whole,” Hahn said.

According to City Maven, a review of of the November 17th council meeting shows there was no mention of voter turnout in regards to the oil tax. At the time, Hahn was quoted as saying,

“I’ve reconsidered this and I have heard from various business groups who do feel like this might be the wrong climate to put this on the ballot. We know the oil companies are probably going to mount a massive campaign to defeat this and at the end of the day, the way we’ve structured it, really would only generate around $2 million to the city of Los Angeles. So, at this time, it is my recommendation that we don’t put this forward on the ballot.”

KCET reports that the measure is opposed by the California Independent Petroleum Association,, which has lobbied extensively to expand offshore drilling off the coast of California and in ANWAR, opposes Cap and Trade, and any limits to hydraulic fracturing (aka “fracking”), a controversial and dangerous means of natural gas extraction made famous by the HBO movie, “Gasland”

According the KCET, CIPA has given more than $400,000 to California candidates from 2001 to 2010. Sixty-two percent of those candidates were Republicans.

Some of Measure O’s opponents have gone on to endorse Janice Hahn in her bid to win the Congressional seat vacated by Jane Harman.

Measure O was narrowly defeated in the March 8 special election.

Eighteen candidates – Six Republicans, five Democrats, one Libertarian, one Peace and Freedom and five candidates without party preference – met the deadline to file nominating papers for the May 17 special primary election ballot to replace Congresswoman Jane Harman, who resigned last month.

The candidates who filed nominating papers include the following (candidate descriptions are from the filing papers):

DEMOCRATS

Daniel H. Adler. New media entrepreneur in Marina del Rey.

Debra Bowen. California Secretary of State.

Loraine Goodwin. Physician, teacher, arbitrator of Madera.

Janice Hahn. Los Angeles City Councilwoman.

Marcy Winograd. High school teacher and anti-war activist.

REPUBLICANS

Patrick “Kit” Bobko. Hermosa Beach City Councilman.

Stephen Eisele. Businessman and aerospace entrepreneur.

Mike Gin. Redondo Beach Mayor.

Craig Huey. Small business owner.

George Newberry. Real estate agent and retired military.

Mike Webb. Redondo Beach City Attorney.

LIBERTARIAN

Steve Collett. Certified public accountant.

PEACE and FREEDOM

Maria E. Montano. Public school teacher.

NO PARTY PREFERENCE

Matthew Roozee. Business executive, mathematician.

Michael T. Chamness. Non-profit consultant.

Katherine Pilot. Longshore office clerk.

Al Salehi. Entrepreneur.

James L. Thompson. Retired.

The list may change again if some of the candidates’ nominating papers can’t be verified.

The number of candidates pretty much guarantees no one candidate will succeed in winning the May 17th election outright. Under the new “top two” primary election rules, if no candidate receives 50%+1 of the votes, the top two voter-getters will advance to a July 12th election.  

Howard Dean’s Democracy For America, a PAC with over a million members nationwide, announced today they’re endorsing Debra Bowen for Congress.

We asked DFA members where they stood in the upcoming special election for Congress and the answer couldn’t have been more clear — DFA members overwhelmingly support Debra Bowen.

Thousands of DFA members in the district voted in our member poll and 70 percent of DFA members said that we should endorse Debra. So today, I am honored to announce our endorsement of Debra Bowen for Congress. join the campaign today — Volunteer to put Debra Bowen over the top in the May 17 special election.

You already know Debra Bowen. DFA members across California worked hard for a national endorsement when Debra ran for Secretary of State in 2006. Local DFA members said Debra was a strong progressive who would lead reform of California’s voting system from top to bottom. Her goal was to turn California into a world leader in voter integrity and protection.

We heard you loud and clear and together we worked to make sure Debra won. And you were right, Debra has been an outstanding Secretary of State and she’ll make an outstanding Congresswoman for California’s 36th District.

Join DFA members across the district in supporting Debra Bowen for Congress — Sign up to volunteer today.

Working together, we can put Debra over the top on Election Day and send a progressive leader to Congress.

In 2010, DFA endorsed Marcy Winograd in her bid against Jane Harman. This is the second independent progressive organization to make the switch. In February, Blue America announced they would be supporting Debra Bowen in the race instead of Winograd.

At a gathering of over a hundred grassroots supporters, campaign staff, and elected officials from throughout the CA-36 district, California Congresswoman Judy Chu (CA-32) announced she was endorsing Debra Bowen for Congress.

I’m here today because we have a tremendous opportunity to elect Debra Bowen to the 36th congressional district. It’s truly exciting for me. I’ve known her for a long time. I’ve known her as a state assembly member, I’ve known her as a state senator, I’ve known her as Secretary of State. I’ve known her as extremely intelligent, always outspoken, a true leader, someone with integrity in every seat that she’s been in.

And that’s why I’m so proud to say I was was the very first Congressperson to endorse Debra Bowen for Congress.

You know with Debra Bowen in this seat, you will have someone who will stand up to Wall Street. You know that she understands our coastline is a national treasure and she will do as much as she can to defend it. You know that she understands the value of education, and that we have to concentrate like a laser to make sure we get jobs in this district.

And you know as Republicans attack a woman’s right to chose, Debra will be there to stand up for us.

The Bowen campaign released dozens of endorsements to the press yesterday. Besides Congresswoman Chu, State Assemblymembers Betsy Butler, Gil Cedillo, Wes Chesboro, State Senators Alan Lowenthal, Mark Leno, and Fran Pavley, Hermosa Beach Mayor Howard Fishman,  as well as former Assemblymember Sheila Kuehl and former City Council watchdog Laura Chick also endorsed Bowen.

The campaign also lists scores of “citizen endorsements” from ordinary voters in CA-36. Anyone interested in adding their name to that list can go to this link.