That's the report coming out of a meeting yesterday in Southern California with Diane Watson, who currently represents the 33rd District in Congress. A Swing State Project user diary from someone who attended the meeting, augmented by our own BruinKid who also was at the meeting and wrote about it in the comments to yesterday's open thread, explains the story:
Just left a CA delegation meeting with Cong. Diane Watson was quietly telling Members that she will not be running for re-election.
Word is that Former CA Assembly Speaker Karen Bass will immediately enter the race following Watson's announcement. Further proof of this plan --- Bass is scheduled to be in DC next week for a series of meet and greet events with potential financial supporters.
This would be a welcome development. Karen Bass brought a lot of progressive potential to the Speaker's office in 2008, but ran immediately into the brick wall of the state budget crisis, the 2/3rds rule, and the breakdown of California's system of government, all of which frustrated her agenda.
Term limits mean we'll never know how Bass would have taken those lessons and applied them to state government. But if the reports are true, she would be able to bring the experience of trying to revive an economy and protect the most vulnerable people in a truly broken political system to another institution, the US Congress, that is quickly going the way of the California Legislature in terms of Republican obstruction and inability to properly function.
Bass would certainly be both more progressive and more activist than Watson, who has not been very visible in her district in recent years. Bass would be a strong advocate for federal aid to state budgets, as she's seen the impact of budget cuts on core services.
The filing deadline is February 16th, just over two weeks from now, so we will soon learn whether these reports are indeed accurate. If so, the California Congressional delegation and the people of the 33rd District will be getting a good progressive leader to represent them in Congress.
The only downside, and this isn't Bass's fault, is that it shows California government, once regarded as the nation's best, is experiencing a worsening brain drain. Bass would join former Lt. Governor John Garamendi in going to Congress, and many other legislators are looking for more stable positions in local government. Term limits in particular have eviscerated our government, making it almost impossible for anyone to get the kind of experience and knowledge that is needed to help fix our ever-worsening economic and political crisis.
In some ways, the Legislature is becoming a kind of political graduate school, where those interested in public service go to learn the craft of representative government and then scramble to find a position in a tight job market that has a glut of folks competing for positions. That's not the kind of governance that the nation's largest state and one of the world's largest and most important economies needs.
Conservatives would claim that term limits are doing their job and making it difficult for "career politicians" to hog elected offices, and enables citizen representation. Not only has that not been the actual outcome of term limits, the notion that it produces citizen government is particularly absurd given the fact that huge sums of money are still needed to win a state legislative race. The same conservatives who claim term limits are needed to produce citizen government also support the Citizens United decision that allows almost unlimited corporate spending to influence our elections.
In short, while community organizers like Karen Bass are pushed out of the legislature just as they've come to understand the nature of our problems and have started to envision lasting solutions, the only "citizens" who actually have lasting power and influence in this state are the large corporations. Once again it becomes clear that to the right-wing, feudalism is the ultimate goal, not democracy. Power and representation should only go to the wealthy, and the rest of us should be grateful for the privilege of serving them.
Anyhow, rant over. I wish Karen Bass well should she decide to run for Congress. The House will be a better place with her in it.
Taking into account some suggestions and comments, I made some changes to my previous attempt at redistricting California. I conceded an additional 2 seats to the GOP, which concomitantly makes a number of other seats more strongly Democratic. The additional 2 safe GOP seats are CA-4 and CA-48. Here's what version 2 looks like, overall:
I decided to try my hand at redistricting California's Congressional districts for 2010-2012, using Dave's Redistricting App. After playing around with it a bit, here's what the map I came up with looks like overall:
Here's the 2008 Obama/McCain vote in California, on the precinct level:
Woohoo! Jerry did it! Jerry McNerney has managed to become the most un-progressive Democrat of the entire California congressional delegation. For those keeping score at home, Jerry's 82.45 was about a half point lower than the next CA Dem, Jim Costa, that progressive stalwart, at 82.97. And for all the talk of Harman changing her ways, she's still worse than even Joe Baca, almost 7 points worse from a very safe Dem seat.
For all of you CA-45 fans, "moderate" Mary Bono came in with a stellar 4.42 Chips are Down score. So, for all the bluster of the SCHIP vote, she's still dancing the same jig as the rest of her party.
On thing must be said, the Speaker has done an excellent job at preserving unity amongst the caucus. Whether that means she's being too incremental and/or ineffective, or just laying down the law is the big question. The reason her approval rating, and the Congress in general, is down has a whole lot to do with the fact that little has changed on the Iraq front. So, would it be better to have a speaker who is more willing to take risks? Perhaps, but the impediment of the president always lingers over her head, veto pen in hand. So, whether the unity is really there, is an open question. Full data over the flip.
(I was working on a similar post, but I'll still post my own, with all CA data and some other miscellany. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
The problem with most scorecards is that they are written by lobbyists concerned with always getting the votes of potential supporters. Thus, there is an equal weighting while in the real world not all votes are equal. In fact, regardless of everything else, some votes are dealbreakers and when they show up on scorecards as one of 12 votes or something, it looks silly. However, Progressive Punch has a new "when the chips are down" scorecard. After the flip is the ratings of CA's congressional delegation, in descending order.
I'm guessing that at tonight's Calitics' Actblue Celebrations there will be a lot of discussion about the votes to condemn MoveOn. The CA delegation split 50-50 in the senate and 16 yea and 17 nay in the house -- wedged successfully by the GOP in half. After the flip is the scorecard.
Leading up to the election last November, Chris Bowers initiated the Use It or Lose It project, urging unopposed members of Congress to contribute their money to the DCCC in support of other competitive races. In addition, I found 64 more districts with token opposition (Republican had raised less than $10,000 total). California's districts, safely drawn as many of them are, were well represented on these two lists, and while many of California's Democrats were very supportive, not all of them were. Our representatives have a responsibility to support the party as a whole whenever possible, and sitting on piles of cash is both a waste and a betrayal of good faith. Here's a look at how the delegation performed so that we can start applying pressure where necessary.
UPDATE III:Our friends from Color of Change stopped by to say, "Big news -- James, our director, talked with a credible reporter who talked with Carolyn Kilpatrick, who, after being pressed, said that there is a Fox debate in the works, it just hasn't been announced." Is Barbara Lee going to let this happen?
UPDATE II:ColorofChange worries that the CBC Institute is still in talks with Fox and says, "This is no time to let up the pressure. They could be waiting for it to blow over so they can announce next week."
UPDATE:No need to call, the CBC Institute made a smart move, Fox lost out to CNN. Huge victory for Color of Change and a great day for the Democratic Party
Can a couple of Californians -- armed with little more than internet connections and the truth -- change the Congressional Black Caucus?
Fox News has a horrible record of attacking Black people, leaders, and cultural institutions. But at this very moment, the Congressional Black Caucus Institute is negotiating to partner with Fox to host presidential debates prior to the 2008 elections.
For the CBC Institute to partner with an organization like Fox News-given its hostility to Black political interests-would be shameful. You can help prevent them from making this serious mistake by calling on them to drop negotiations with Fox [...]
Given its record, Fox News shouldn't enjoy the support of Black political or cultural institutions connected to the Congressional Black Caucus. We believe the CBC Institute will change course once it realizes that Black America, if not all of America, is watching. Please join us in making sure they hear us, loud and clear:
