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:
There's so much going on in this bounty of close races, it's hard to follow it all as just lil' ol' me and without a full-time staff. But clearly, California is terribly broken because there are no competitive seats and so we must change the redistricting process and re-gerrymander competitiveness into them. Right? On the flip, I offer an update on every seat that's even reasonably close. I'll get to the Assembly and Senate races later today or tomorrow.
CA-11, CA-04, CA-03, CA-46, CA-50 and much more on the flip! Including the infamous "phone sex robocall"... no, I'm not kidding.
• General: Democratic challengers ought to take a close look at two bills passed through the House this week that make conservative priorities pretty clear. HR 6983, the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity Act, finally limits the ability of insurance companies to prohibit treatment of mental health in their policies. John Campbell, Darrell Issa, Ed Royce and Dana Rohrabacher were among the 47 Republicans to vote against it. HR 5244, the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights Act of 2008, would severely limit predatory lending from an industry that is at least a partial cause of the current crisis in credit. Brian Bilbray, David Dreier, Gary Miller, Jerry Lewis, Dan Lungren, Campbell, Issa, Royce and Rohrabacher were among the 111 Republicans who voted against that. These ads write themselves.
• CA-03: Bill Durston is up with two ads, as mentioned by akogun. It's unclear how big the buy is. One is a bio spot, and the other hits Dan Lungren for his, er, unique travel plans.
• CA-04: A lot to report here. While Tom McClintock is off putting together propaganda blogs attacking Charlie Brown, and of all things, this website, he ought to be paying attention to his campaign manager problem.
The camp of Democratic candidate Charlie Brown claims evidence shows state Sen. McClintock, a Republican, effectively is a substitute Doolittle, and in particular asserts that McClintock campaign manager John Feliz's connections to Doolittle are significant.
"John Feliz is the architect of Doolittle's first known political-practices transgression," said Todd Stenhouse, Brown spokesman. "The bottom line is McClintock claims not to be John Doolittle, yet he's using his former campaign manager, and he has the same treasurer (David Bauer)."
McClintock campaign spokesman Bill George said, "John Feliz hasn't worked for Doolittle in 18 to 20 years."
Note that he doesn't respond to Bauer, who is still the treasurer for an active Doolittle campaign committee.
Meanwhile, Charlie Brown has endorsed the Pickens Pledge. I am in complete agreement that the Pickens Plan for energy independence is just a scheme for a rich guy to get richer, but the pledge merely calls for an energy plan to be enacted in the first 100 days of the next Administration. There is a difference.
• CA-50: Al Gore was in the district to raise money for Nick Leibham. The Leibham campaign hopes this will kick-start their efforts, but the Cook Political Report recently downgraded the race to "Solid Republican." Their belief is that these Republican districts have been injected with momentum with Sarah Palin energizing conservatives to vote. We'll see.
• CA-46: One thing is clear: Dana Rohrabacher may allow insurance companies deny treatment to the mentally ill, and he may let the credit card companies fleece his constituents, but he draws the line at the Wall Street bailout. That's nothing new - lots of lawmakers are opposed to the bailout - but of course, the fact that Debbie Cook was first out of the gate with her opposition forced his hand, to be sure. Meanwhile, Cook was feted with a "Truth To Power" at the Association for the Study of Peak Oil conference this week. On Sunday, there's a small dollar fundraiser for Cook in Palos Verdes. Details and tickets at the ActBlue page here. I will be in attendance Sunday, so please come out if you're in the area.
• SD-19: Hannah-Beth Jackson has a new ad out with some personal testimonials about her leadership on a chemical spill in her district when she was in the Assembly, and I have to say I like it.
On Tuesday, Villaraigosa was forced into the fray - reluctantly, his aides said - after Parks had the city send a 60-day eviction notice to Strategic Concepts of Organizing and Policy Education, a nonprofit focused on community organizing and job training.
Parks said SCOPE was using the old fire station at 1715 Florence Ave. in South Los Angeles to help the Ridley-Thomas campaign, which the group denies.
• CA-04: I love this video from the Charlie Brown campaign. They traveled 412 miles down to Thousand Oaks to talk to constituents of California's Alan Keyes, State Senator and professional office-chaser Tom McClintock. It's really funny and drives the point home that McClintock is a do-nothing at best and a dangerous radical at worst:
And get this, McClintock is now running on the state budget, the Republican version of which has a 19% approval rating. That's like putting Nixon, Bush and Cheney in your campaign ad.
• CA-26, CA-45: Not one but two! Both Russ Warner AND Julie Bornstein have been added to the DCCC "Races To Watch" list. This is a prelude to being listed as Red To Blue candidates. If the D-Trip comes through with some money, maybe threatened incumbents like Dreier will have to stop mouthing off about other GOP races and start paying attention to their own. UPDATE: Mike Lumpkin (CA-52) is on that list now too, which is a pleasant surprise.
• CA-46: When John Fund tries to target a Dem challenger, you know something's going wrong. Fund is sounding the alarm on Debbie Cook, as Dana Rohrabacher tries to greenwash himself with a scheme to build solar-power plants on federal land without environmental impact studies. Fund says that Cook called this "an extreme position," but he chopped the quote:
Democratic challenger and Mayor of Huntington Beach Debbie Cook agrees that the process of approving solar power plants is sluggish and needs to be sped up, but not at the expense of the environment.
"This is just another extreme position by Dana Rohrabacher. What we need to do is come up with a balanced approach that streamlines these projects, because they're critically important to our energy future, but at the same time recognizes the impacts to the environment," Cook said.
Rohrabacher's doing the equivalent of saying he'll grow jobs by hiring 10,000 federally funded serial killers, and then wondering why everyone's worried about the mass death ("You wanted jobs, didn't you?"). There's a sensible way to free up the bottlenecks and a rash one. Rohrabacher chose door #2.
• CA-42: The internal poll results released by Ed Chau are intriguing (showing him up 44-38 after a mix of positive and negative information released on the candidates), but I don't think candidates who have minimal bank accounts should do polls stating the numbers after a mix of information if they don't have the money to get that information out. But if Gary Miller truly has a 28% re-elect number as the poll states, he could be in trouble.
Greetings and welcome to the latest installment of the California House races roundup. We're just around 100 days to go until the election, and things are starting to take focus. There are about a half-dozen seats where Democratic challengers have an outside shot at dumping the incumbent, and another six on the watch list in case something spectacular occurs. One thing to note is that the Cook numbers are tied to the 2004 election, and given the demographic changes and cratering of the Republican brand I think they mean significantly less now - it'll be interesting to see how all these districts change in November.
We have plenty of new information to judge these races, including 2nd quarter fundraising reports, national ratings from Charlie Cook and Swing State Project, additional DCCC targets, and the appearance of many challengers at Netroots Nation. So this list is really about who I think has the best chance to retain or take over a seat, not necessarily who should (though that may come through in the writing). Here are some helpful bits of information that I used to help judge.
I'll have another House roundup probably by Monday, but I wanted to toss out a few items of note:
• CA-26: I have to applaud Russ Warner's rapid response team for jumping on David Dreier's voting record immediately and choosing the issues where he can reveal that Dreier is not the moderate he portrays as being to his district. On the heels of yesterday's House vote on the GI Bill, Warner released this:
David Dreier voted against a bill to increase educational opportunities for veterans today. The legislation expands the education benefits veterans receive under the GI bill to restore the promise of a full, four-year college education. It passed the House with broad bi-partisan support, 256 to 166.
"I would have voted differently on this bill," said Russ Warner, a successful small businessman and the Democratic candidate for Congress from California's 26th district. "It's important to make the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan part of an American economic recovery, just like the veterans of World War II were. They put their lives on the line for us, and deserve to be able to come home and go to school if they so choose. We need new leaders with new priorities in Washington, and that's why I'm running for Congress."
Russ Warner's eldest son, Greg, is in the U.S. Army and served in Iraq for 17 months. Upon his return, he challenged his father to make a difference by running for Congress.
Down With Tyranny has more, including a great pic of Warner and his son Greg.
• CA-41: Please take some time to read IndieinSF's piece introducing the community to Dr. Rita Ramirez-Dean, a progressive candidate running for slimebucket Jerry Lewis' seat in the San Bernardino area. It's also linked at DWT. The post talks about the picture on the ground and the changing demographics in the district. Our growth potential in California is dependent on winning seats like this. I've met Dr. Dean and found her to be someone of character. She has also endorsed the Repsonsible Plan To End The War in Iraq, elements of which passed through the House yesterday (Rep. Jay Inslee of Washington even mentioned it on the House floor).
• CA-42: Next week, Ron Shepston has two fundraisers with Amb. Joseph Wilson. One is in Oak Canyon Park near Irvine on Wednesday, May 21, (purchase tickets here), and one is in Santa Monica on Thursday, May 22 (info here). Ron also snagged the endorsement of DFA Orange County.
• CA-04: Try to get the logic of this: by taking welfare payments in per diem checks from the state, Tom McClintock was denying benefits to soldiers. That's the premise of Doug Ose's new ad. Quite a logical leap, but potentially effective.
On Thursday the House of Representatives passed legislation that would provide federal underwriting for new loans to 500,000 homeowners at risk of foreclosures, as well as increase the limit on FHA loans to $729,750, include tax credits (which are loans to be paid back over 15 years) for first-time home buyers, tighten oversight of the lending industry and provide billions in grants to the states to buy and repair foreclosed homes for resale. Every California Republican voted against it except one - Diamond Bar's Gary Miller, not known as any kind of moderate squish (he voted with the majority of House Republicans 96% of the time last year). The housing crisis is playing out in districts like his, and Miller can't afford to ignore it.
...Miller, a land developer, called the housing downturn the most serious one he had seen in more than 30 years. "I really wish I could support my Republican colleagues," he said. "But I'm very concerned about the marketplace.
"A lot of people are losing their homes," he added. "That not only hurts them, but the neighbors around them because of foreclosure. Their home value drops." [...]
Miller, whose district includes parts of Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Orange counties, disputes the Republican portrayal of the bill as a bailout. Under the measure, lenders must agree to take a significant loss on a homeowner's debt in return for a federal guarantee that the reduced loan will be repaid.
"I'm not in any way supporting the concept of bailing people out who made bad decisions," Miller said. "But things happen in life. . . . There are a lot of innocent people out there."
Here's why this is notable. Miller is one of the greediest and most unscrupulous developers out there. In fact, part of his calculus may just be that it'll help bail out homeowners who can stay in the developments from which he profits. However, his concern for "innocent people" hasn't been borne out by his prior voting record. What's different here is that he ran unopposed last year, even as the FBI was investigating him for tax evasion and shady land deals. This year, three opponents have stepped up to challenge him, and if nothing else, they have forced him to at least pretend his district exists. This is going to be true in every district we're contesting in November. The twin victories by Democrats in special elections in Illinois and Louisiana (and possibly another in Mississippi next Tuesday) has House Republicans ranging from mildly nervous to scared out of their gourds. And as more swing seats open up (buh-bye, Vito Fossella), there's no way the NRCC, the campaign arm of the Republicans in the House, can step in with any cash infusion to bail out an incumbent. Tom Cole, the head of the NRCC (for now), has basically told lawmakers that they're on their own. So you're going to see more out-of-character votes like this for the rest of the year. And you will be able to tell who's more nervous by their positions on these votes. I'd say Gary Miller has a few beads of perspiration on the forehead.
You can also see which issues these lawmakers think will resonate in their particular districts. Obviously the housing crisis is hitting CA-42 hard.
(yes, I do some netroots work for Ron Shepston, who's one of the Democrats running in CA-42 to replace Miller)
(disclosure - I do a little volunteer work for Ron Shepston's campaign. - promoted by David Dayen)
We can talk about "unity" -- but the meaning of that word varies depending on the reader. I want to drive home the meaning for you, to tap into the energy and synergy that comes from people striving for a common goal. In the netroots, I'm sure a lot of people will assume that I mean unity of the Presidential candidates.
That is part of it. Click on the picture to sign our pledge for unity.
But we want to go further than that. We want to take this beyond gimmicks. We want to take this beyond cliche'. As my friend Dallasdoc says "Think movement".
This campaign has never been about me. It's been about all of us coming together to change the face of American politics to make the changes we know need to be made.
• CA-03: Bill Durston may be unopposed in the June 3 primary, but he's running very hard and trying to pick up as many decline-to-state voters as possible. He's actually running a GOTV operation. The gambit here is to prove to donors and the political establishment that CA-03 is competitive. I also think it makes sense just as practice for the general and for name recognition.
• CA-04: The Club for Growth, whose record this year in primaries is actually a little mixed, has released an ad attacking Doug Ose in his race against Tom McClintock. There's plenty of outside money on both sides in this one.
• CA-42: Communications Workers of America, Southern California Council has endorsed Ron Shepston. It's somewhat notable considering that Ed Chau got the Cal Labor Fed endorsement.
Anything else you're hearing, please put it in the comments. This is an open-source elections thread.
Getting this one in under the wire. On the last day of April, with just over a month to go until the June primaries, and six months to go until Election Day, there's a lot going on all over the state in the Congressional races. Of the 19 seats in California currently held by Republicans, 17 will be contested in the fall, and some strongly so. And we now have a full 34 Democrats with the election of Jackie Speier early in the month, and only one of them is a serious challenge. We also have the first quarter of 2008 fundraising numbers, which will raise some eyebrows. You can track these races yourself with the 2008 Race Tracker wiki.
A note: I'm mainly getting my numbers on cash-on-hand competitiveness from the Swing State Project. Fundraising information comes from the FEC.
From the beginning, this campaign has been about the netroots taking the next step to becoming the mainstream. You've been fantastic, but we need more if we are to win the primary. If we implement the plan below we will win and set the stage to win in November. We need to make a lot of noise and talk to a lot of people. Not enough people know about us and even fewer understand why we are doing this.
Without the money, there is no campaign - so I'm not going to beat around the bush. We need money; we need it now. We need your help. If you believe in candidates emerging from the netroots, like I know you do, then please contribute.
Click on this button to go to ActBlue.
Jump below for a story and some details on how your money will be spent.
(I was happy to co-host this event last night. After a day where there was a lot of sturm und drang among the grassroots, what I remember about this week is the incredible events I've been fortunate enough to witness, both with Tim Goodrich and last night with Darcy Burner. The grassroots is strong when we are all working for incredible candidates who can bring about progressive change. - promoted by David Dayen)
I met Darcy Burner for the second time last night.
It was pretty exciting, meeting a future president. If you have to ask why I would say that, why, then, you haven't had the pleasure of meeting Darcy Burner.
Welcome back to the California House races roundup for March. The races are coming into focus, with new challengers entering the fray before the March 7 deadline, and some actual campaigning between candidates (shocking!). And with the DCCC looking at four races in the state, California will certainly be a battleground in Congress in November.
We also know with a fair degree of certainty that Jackie Speier will be the next Representative in CA-12, after Lawrence Lessig declined to run. The initial primary is April 8 and Speier is heavily favored.
So that leaves just one Democratic seat in any degree of question, and I've decided to expand to write about 13 Republican-held seats that have varying degrees of challenges. Overall, Democrats are running in 18 of the 19 seats currently held by Republicans, and 52 of 53 seats overall. Only Kevin McCarthy in CA-22 (Bakersfield) is uncontested AFAIK. You can track these races yourself with the 2008 Race Tracker wiki.
A couple notes: I've changed the percentage of Democratic turnout in the February 5 primary statistics to reflect the final numbers from the Secretary of State's office. As you'll see, six of the thirteen Republican-held seats mentioned had majority Democratic turnout. Very encouraging. Also, I've noted where applicable which challengers have endorsed the Responsible Plan to End The War In Iraq. My hope is that eventually every candidate will do so; it will absolutely help them in their campaigns to show some leadership and offer a comprehensive strategy to end the war and change our conversation around national security.
(Disclosure - I've just signed on as Ron Shepston's netroots coordinator. And I'm proud that he's the first California challenger to endorse the Repsonsible Plan to End the War in Iraq. Ron is in a contested primary and needs your help to continue the leadership he's shown in supporting this plan all the way to Congress. Please consider making a donation to his campaign today. - promoted by David Dayen)
I was working in Brisbane, Australia on 9/11. I'd long past gotten over jet lag but something woke me in the middle of the night. When I turned on the TV to CNN International and saw the graphic "America Under Attack" my first thought was that it was simply more media over-the-top hype. As I watched, I saw that was not the case and my anger grew at whoever it was who attacked us. I'd never felt so much anger in my life and I doubt that ever will again. I called friends and family to "be" with them, but I knew that I couldn't, not only because of the distance, but because all air travel was suspended.
This is actually a pretty important weekend for Congressional and legislative Democratic candidates across California. State party delegates will get together tonight and Saturday in pre-endorsement conferences to vote whether or not to endorse particular candidates for the June primary elections. There's been a lot of organizing to woo delegates into endorsing one candidate or another, even in races where there is no opponent. Every delegate gets one vote in Congressional districts, Senate districts and Assembly districts, based on where they live. These endorsements become the official Democratic Party endorsement if a candidate receives 70% of the vote (If a candidate gets between 50 and 70 percent, it goes to caucuses at the state party convention in two weeks). UPDATE: That's the short version; the long version is below.
And then their names get sent out on all Democratic mailers, and that's not a little thing. Endorsed party candidates are in a very strong position. It doesn't mean the voters won't have their say, but it's a big help. In fact, there's a credible argument to be made that the party shouldn't endorse one Democrat over another in a primary. But that's the system we have now.
Throughout the weekend, it'd be good to hear from those party officials and delegates with reports on who, if anyone, received endorsements in the various districts. I'm particularly interested in AD-80, AD-78, SD-03, and some of the Congressional seats with multiple candidates like CA-24 and CA-42, among others.
Ron Shepston, the blogger and aerospace engineer who is challenging Dirty Gary Miller, is having his first house party in Pasadena this Saturday, from 7pm to 9pm, at a supporter's residence:
449 N Catalina Ave, #102
Pasadena, CA 91106
A $10 contribution is encouraged, but not required. Please show up if you can to support the Democratic challenger in CA-42!
If you have a Facebook profile, here is the event page. Go ahead and invite all your friends too.
disclosure: I am a member of the "brain trust" of Ron Shepston for Congress.
Welcome back to the long-awaited California House races roundup! These things take up an inordinate amount of time, but I've finally found some, and I'm ready to go with this roundup. There's a lot of additional information, including Q4 2007 fundraising numbers, the turnout in the February primary offering a decent snapshot of Democratic chances in a particular district, and quite a few new candidates to speak about. I'm going to rank the top ten challenges to Republican-held seats across the state, as well as take a look at the two intriguing races held by Democrats. But first, it should be mentioned that the deadline for applying to run for a Congressional seat is fast approaching (March 7, I believe), and 4 of the 19 Republican-held seats in the state still have no challenger: CA-02 (Herger), CA-19 (Radanovich), CA-22 (McCarthy), and CA-25 (McKeon). This is especially distressing in CA-19 and CA-25, where turnout in the Feb. 5 primary was either even or favored Democrats. So anyone in these 4 districts: run for Congress! It's a résumé builder!
(By the way, you can follow all of the candidates in all these races at the 2008 Race Tracker.
(bump cause I like congressional and numbers - promoted by Lucas O'Connor)
Turnout from Tuesday's primary by party. Every district with a Republican leaning PVI plus Barbara Lee just for fun and comparison's sake. Of the Republican leaning districts, Dem turnout was higher in 8 and close in several others. Might be an interesting November. Just sayin.
Numbers on the flip.
Update: I should have mentioned in the first place, there are still no Democratic candidates in CA-02, CA-19, CA-22, or CA-25. Turnout was dead even in the 19th and higher for Dems in the 25th, just for starters.
