This just in: Montanez and Fuentes are out in L.A. CD7, leaving the seat to Alarcon.

That is, former AD39 Assemblymember Cindy Montanez and Felipe Fuentes, former Chief of Staff to former Los Angeles City Councilman (and now SD20 Senator) Alex Padilla, have cleared the field in the ’07 special election for Padilla’s vacated council seat in CD7.  That leaves former SD20 Senator (and former CD7 Councilman — he’s back!) Richard Alarcon the last man standing (with the exception of longshot Monica Rodriguez, former aide to Mayor Riordan, but that contest is over before it’s even begun).

For the full, epic, convoluted history, refer to my earlier diary.

As I reported a few stories down on this page, the L.A. Times and the L.A. Weekly each publicly flogged Alarcon for making this bid.  But hey, it worked.  And for the record, Alarcon has a long, proud history of standing with working families, so the district will be well-served by their new (former) Councilman.

Best of luck to Cindy and Felipe, wherever they go next.  Perhaps to duke it out in AD39?  Let’s hope not.

(Welcome first time blogger Javier Gonzalez who did some very important and largely unsung work both building and turning out the progressive base this year. It’s important that we in the netroots are in touch with what’s happening on the ground and vice versa. – promoted by Todd Beeton)

(Cross-posted from The Courage Campaign)

Believe it or not, progressives and working people in California made great leaps forward in the November 7th election. While for many progressives the election was all about beating Arnold and for others it was about keeping the statewide offices in Democratic hands, for many of us who work politics the old fashioned way, we were focusing on building, for the here and now and for the future, and we did fantastic.

As the Executive Director of SOL (Strengthening Our Lives) my job was simple: put 300 full time staff on the ground in Orange, Fresno, San Jose and Los Angeles Counties. Our goal was to reach out to 300,000 voters and then beef up to a 1,000 full time staff to get our target voters out to vote.

What is unique about our work is four things:

• we are not a Political Party – we are a Political Action Committee that runs Independent Expenditure campaigns funded by large progressive donors and labor
• the vast majority of our time AND MONEY is devoted to talking to voters door to door
• we hire community and labor leaders at all levels of our campaigns and not party huggers looking for a job/career. Our folks are activists by nature, motivated, hard working, credible messengers and adept at a grass roots message and approach to organizing the vote; and most importantly
• we target unlikely voters – and Latino Immigrants to boot!

More…

For those unfamiliar with electoral jargon or strategy, an unlikely voter is a voter that is deemed not likely to vote in the upcoming election. This is actually a majority of registered voters.

Unlikely voters are also among California’s most progressive voters. Unlikely voters earn less money and are less likely to have health insurance or own homes. There are higher numbers of unlikely voters among Blacks and Latinos than Whites. Among Whites, unlikely voters tend to be younger and less well to do. Building a progressive majority in California must both educate likely voters and get more progressives out to vote. The best way is by face to face voter education where we can have conversations and get people out to vote personally.

Imagine a political consultant handicapping a race for an aspiring politician. The consultant breaks the numbers down in a scenario as follows:

• There are 300,000 people in the district
• 200,000 of them are poor
• Of the 300K voters, only 110,000 are registered to vote
• In the last three similar elections only 50,000 voted
• 30,000 of them are white
• 5,000 of them are African American and the rest are Latino and Asian
• There are three decent candidates in the race and probably 20,000 votes wins, and
• Of the 50,000 that voted 40,000 have health care and 30,000 of them have household incomes over $60,000 a year.

The consultant then says “our base will be White and middle class voters. Let’s stay away from issues of race and class and focus on tax breaks, public safety and responsible government. We need to run the table on the more well to do and compete decently among people of color and stay away from radical proposals to health care, the economy and ‘other’ issues.” (plug other characteristics: environmentalists, gay rights, etc and the scenario still works).

Now, you get your moderate candidate and the result is, all too often, a moderate Representative. But this could change if we registered more regular people and inspired them to actually turn out to vote. In the above scenario just 10,000 more regular people voting in that race changes the math.

By adding 10,000 more working voices concerned about health care, the economy, the war, community services, and public education, the candidates are forced to defend their positions to those new voters. It’s simple really: turning out unlikely progressive voters forces the candidates to address issues they would otherwise avoid, perhaps change their position to address the concerns of progressives…and progressives are more likely to win.

This is not a novel idea. So why don’t others do it? Simple. It is too expensive and too hard. It took us weeks to recruit and train volunteers and staff. The full time effort took working 12-14 hours a day for 6 and even 7 days a week for 6 weeks. More importantly, we create a spirited and energetic feel that make our campaigns more like a movement of working people and immigrants fighting for better government for a better life. These types of campaigns have people asking “what else can I do? And not, “What time do we get to go home?”

This is what it takes to get people to vote and we need to stop focusing on what is wrong with everyone else and begin to invest in programs that get working people out to vote. As progressives we have lost the ability in California to mobilize mass numbers of voters to scope and scale. We need to get it back.

Yes, I understand that voters are cynical, blah, blah. I also understand that to most voters politics is mail and TV commercials. The majority of all of our opinions, ideas, and information about almost anything comes from friends, family and co-workers. That is, people they trust and people they relate to. We need credible messengers reaching out to voters and inspiring them to vote. SOL campaigns hire the same Janitors, hotel workers, laborers, parent activists, community college students, and community leaders you see fighting everyday for better contracts, schools, and safer communities. It takes them all of 15 seconds to win over voters face to face.

Of our targeted 300,000 voters we reached 140,000 doors and spoke to 112,000 voters. 96,000 of those voters stood with us in our fights. That is close to 86%! The results are proven: in the last two elections our targeted demographic turned out to vote at 21% higher rates and we were a major part of the efforts to Elect Tony Mendoza, Kevin Deleon and Jose Solorio to the Assembly and Lou Correa to the Senate in a heated battle with Republicans. We also helped to elect a completely new school Board in Fresno. These representatives can now work for the people and not their donors or political mentors.

In the future, we plan to expand to San Diego, San Bernardino and other parts of the North and Central Valley. We also hope to organize a mass voter registration effort. However, at some point we need to figure out how to connect with other progressive groups and funders to build even larger programs to win and make the types of reforms and changes we all hope for and desperately need.

(Another excellent take on Tauscher – promoted by juls)

Last year, after most of the members of Ellen Tauscher’s New Democrat Coalition made a rare break with their globalist dogma to vote against CAFTA, NDC leaders scurried to assure K Street lobbyists that the Coalition was still on board to promote future free trade agreements.  At the time Roll Call (subscription only) carried this story:

[T]he centrist House New Democrat Coalition is reasserting itself with the business community and sending the message that it has not abandoned its support for opening up global markets.

The first sign of the 43-member coalition’s efforts came late last week when the New Democrat leadership met privately with high-profile business lobbyists to negotiate the terms of an upcoming free trade agreement with Thailand.

That session, the New Democrats say, was the first of many meetings with K Street to help troubleshoot trade deals that are set to come before Congress.

“We want to be sure the business community knows that we are at the ready to work with them, and we are interested in working with them,” said Rep. Ellen Tauscher (Calif.), chairwoman of the New Democrats. […]

Now, the New Democrats are looking to help fine-tune future agreements, including those involving Thailand, the Andean nations, Panama and others. Tauscher said her group is “engaged” and “in the game” when it comes to helping put together upcoming trade policies.

Rep. Artur Davis (Ala.), a New Democrat co-chairman, said the group has a long history of supporting small-scale trade agreements, including those with Chile and Singapore, as well as major deals, such as fast-track trade negotiating authority for the president and Permanent Normal Trade Relations status for China.

One Republican lobbyist who was initially disappointed when the New Democrats bucked K Street to oppose CAFTA last year, made  this comment about the business/NDC relationship:

New Democrats since then “have been reaching out” and trying to find common ground with K Street.

The lobbyist added, however, that the test will come over time as New Democrats stay true to the center even if it means bucking their own party to support Republican ideas.

Now, I think most of us understand the problems presented by CAFTA that forced even Tauscher and the New Democrats to vote against it.  But what about these “small-scale trade agreements”?  What, exactly are their ramifications?  Well, let’s start with the most recent FTA which was passed by the House just a few days ago. David Sirota wrote last Friday about the passage of the Vietnam Free Trade Agreement earlier in the day:

The House tonight caved to K Street and passed the Vietnam Free Trade Agreement. I received a copy of the New Democrats’ press release trumpeting the passage. Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) claims that the deal “will help American workers and our economy by opening up a huge market for American industrial and agricultural goods and services.”

Sirota then went on to quote from BusinessWeek regarding the benefits to American businesses that will be relocating their operations to Vietnam to take advantage of the bill passed by Tauscher and her NDC cohorts:

A big reason for the change is rock-bottom wages. As labor shortages in some regions of China drive up costs, factory hands in parts of the mainland can earn more than five times the $55 per month that Vietnamese workers in foreign-owned factories are paid. That differential is a big reason why Sparton Corp. (SPA ) of Jackson, Mich., chose Vietnam over China last year when it made its first investment outside North America. It sank $8 million into a 50,000-square-foot plant to produce chemical diagnostic equipment. “I think productivity and quality will far exceed the U.S.,” says Jason Craft, managing director of Sparton subsidiary Spartronics Vietnam Co.

But it’s not just American manufacturing jobs that are being outsourced to foreign countries under these agreements.  American farmers are also under the gun, being forced to compete for market share with crops produced in other countries.  American commodity producers are increasingly finding themselves in a bind, according to Jeff Gargiulo, CEO of Sunkist, a cooperative of US citrus growers:

Almost half the produce sold in the United States today is grown outside its borders. American producers face increasing competition as the domestic markets are opened to more imports.

Those low-cost products, entering virtually duty free, put American producers at a substantial competitive disadvantage, says Gargiulo. Sunkist lemons grown in California and Arizona, for example, command about $16.50 per 40-pound box wholesale, while lemons transported from Chile earn about $13.50 per box. The major reason for the difference is the average hourly cost for farm and packinghouse labor. In Chile, it’s less than $1 vs. $16 in Sunkist country.

Couple this increasing domestic competition with stagnant export opportunities due to foreign tariff barriers, and American fresh citrus growers face enormous competitive challenges.

Obviously, Tauscher’s highly touted free trade agreements are mostly fair to business, not to labor or Americans concerned with earning a living wage so that they can support themselves and their families.

Finally, not content to just ship American jobs overseas, Tauscher and the New Democrats  have supported these “small-scale” free trade agreements which undermine American workers right here in America.  Under the terms of the Chilean, Singaporean and, now, Vietnamese agreements which are to serve as a model for the future Thai, Andean and Panamanian agreements, an unlimited number of workers may enter the US workforce on L-1 visas.  So what, exactly, is the problem with L-1 visas?

The L-1 visa has tended to attract less controversy in the popular press than its very contentious cousin, the H-1B visa. However, criticism has nevertheless been levelled that the L-1 visa allows foreign or multinational corporations to circumvent proper protections for US workers. For one thing, unlike with the H-1B visa, there is no requirement that the L-1 visa holder be paid a salary commensurate with that of US workers. For another, there is no limit on the number of L-1 visas that are granted annually. This has led to criticism that multinationals, especially consulting agencies, will hire a foreigner abroad for one year, and then transfer them to the US to work for US clients at a low salary as compared to US workers.

So is this how Ellen Tauscher and the New Democrat Coalition envision legislating to “help American workers and our economy”?  Is this the behavior of “a loyal Democrat… a real Dem”?

I’m going to stop right here and make a small confession.  I was motivated to write about Tauscher and her record of support for free trade agreements after reading Katie Merrill’s California Majority Report post yesterday. You know, the part where she said this:

[F]or the netroots, it’s not about an elected official’s entire record, it’s not about how they serve their district, it’s whether the elected official agrees with the netroots on their issue du jour (or, more to the point, issue of the cycle).

You see, I live in CA-10, and I am both a Democratic grassroots activist and a member of the netroots.  Ellen Tauscher gets paid $168,000 a year to go to Washington DC and represent me.  And yet, over the years, Tauscher has been very clear about whose interests she represents in DC, going so far as to make the following statement when she received the US Chamber of Commerce “Spirit of Enterprise” Award for her pro-business agenda: “I am pleased that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce finally set the record straight by putting policy above politics and acknowledging my voting record on behalf of business.”  On the other hand, she has never felt particularly constrained by loyalty to her Democratic base:

Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek, said in an interview that party loyalty isn’t the issue. “I don’t remember being elected to go to Washington to be a Democrat,” she said.

So instead of listening to her constituents and the activists who got her elected in the first place, Tauscher sends her lackey to accuse us of fracturing the Democratic party because we have the temerity to question her commitment to Democratic ideals.  Well, Katie Merrill can babble until she gets tired.  At the end of the day, Ellen Tauscher quite simply does not share the Democratic values held by me or any other Democrat in CA-10 of my acquaintance.

(Yet another reminder to constest EVERYWHERE. – promoted by dday)

The L.A. Times has a delicious expose today on one of the most unappetizing – and frustrating – Republican members of Congress, Rep. Gary Miller of CA-42.

One winter night in 2000, U.S. Rep. Gary Miller, R-Calif., implored Monrovia City Council members to purchase 165 acres he owned in the foothills and turn the land into a wilderness preserve.

Earlier that day, Miller asked one of his staff members to find a way to place one of the councilmen — a pawnshop owner with no parks experience — on the National Park System Advisory Board. The aide was told to “make it a priority.”

After staff members warned him that trying to secure the park board seat for the councilman could appear to be a bribe attempt, Miller continued to push for the councilman’s appointment, according to internal memos, interviews with former Miller staff members and official correspondence reviewed by the Los Angeles Times.

(Also available at DailyKos)

Back in May 2006, DailyKos poster Robbien ran a diary decrying the fact that, unless write-in candidate Mark Hull-Richter received a couple thousand votes in the June primary, Miller – one of the richest and most corrupt members of Congress – would be unopposed in November’s general election.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened. Miller’s was one of, I believe, 10 of the 435 House seats whose race included no Democratic candidate on November’s ballot.

Which was truly a shame, since, as ellefarr wrote in her August diary, the L.A. Times had just run a major story on Miller’s extra-smelly land dealings.

It appears the Times’ investigation did not stop in August. From today’s story (all emphases added):

The biggest recipient of the campaign money he raised from people in his district and big donors like the National Association of Homebuilders was Miller himself, according to campaign finance records.

Miller’s corporate office, located in an office park, doubles as his campaign office. But the presence of campaign activity was impossible to discern from the front office. There were no posters, pictures or bumper stickers for constituents. There were no yard signs out front, no campaign volunteers calling people to get out the vote. On election day, Miller was out of the office, a secretary said.

Yet Miller has used campaign money to pay himself for the use of the building and its equipment — nearly $25,000 a year for the past three elections.

Federal law allows members to rent office space to themselves for campaigning under three conditions: that the rent is paid with campaign donations; that the amount is typical for the area; and that the office is used for a campaign.

This fall, of the eight California Congress members who ran with little or no opposition, only two had campaign offices. The other one, U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., of Los Angeles, paid about $8,000 for rent on an office building.

And, while his donors might have gotten their money’s worth, the voters of his district evidently did not:

According to the Washington Post’s database of congressional votes, Miller missed 65 votes during this session, putting him in the top quarter for the most votes missed in the House of Representatives.

Ouch. Looks like Speaker Pelosi’s new five-day-a-week work schedule for the 110th Congress might just be too much for Rep. Miller to handle – not to mention any possible, um, ethics investigations, perhaps?

But probably the biggest lesson to come out of the unfolding Gary Miller saga is:

Leave no seat unopposed.

Darn!

(I had the pleasure of helping out Nick and Neil on the Brown campaign. They were greatly affected by what they learned about the Marianas and hopefully can draw greater attention to the atrocities. – promoted by juls)

The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) has been a sore issue with certain politicians in Washington. Political leaders such as Tom DeLay, John Doolittle, Richard Pombo, Conrad Burns, Ralph Reed and even President George W. Bush have been linked to the scandals involving Jack Abramoff and the horrific human rights abuses on these tiny Pacific Islands under US supervision. As concerned citizens who first learned about the Marianas while working as staffers on the Charlie brown for Congress campaign, Nick Shepard and myself (Neil Pople) decided to create a non-profit group that would address the issues our elected officials and political leaders seem unwilling and unable to tackle…

More below the fold…

Calling ourselves “Ripples of Hope” after an amazing 1966 Robert F. Kennedy speech in Cape Town, South Africa (http://www.americanr….), we hope to affect change in the world, one issue at a time, causing ripples of hope to the disenfranchised people who live on American soil. Our first in what we hope to be many projects spanning the globe, we decided to tackle the egregious human rights and labor abuses going on in the Mariana Islands. These three tiny islands just miles from Guam, are composed of Saipan, Tinia and Rota. While the islands themselves rival Fiji and Maui in their natural beauty, there is a dark and ugly side that needs to be discussed.

As a Commonwealth of the United States of America, the islands are under the sovereignty of this country. US Federal laws apply to the CNMI, with the following exceptions:

• The CNMI is not within the customs territory of the US
• Federal minimum wage provisions do not apply
• Federal immigration laws do not apply
• The CNMI can establish its own tax laws
• The Jones Act, requiring goods shipped between US ports to be carried on US- registered ships, does not apply to the CNMI [1]
The 1995 CNMI Census data showed that 53% of the population are not American citizens. Non-residents are precluded by law from certain occupations and are largely working in the tourist, garment, construction and domestic service industries [2]. The CNMI is advertised as a place for foreign workers to come for “good American jobs.” They came to pursue the American dream, but what they unwittingly walked into was a labor nightmare, complete with shadow contracts that set extremely strict guidelines that limit the personal freedoms of the workers. The immigration laws on the Marianas do not comply with US law. In addition, these laws allow uncontrolled immigration to American soil (a serious security threat) and at a direct economic benefit to Communist China, which owns many of the garment factories, casinos and sex shops on CNMI.

The garment industry itself has been dominated by Chinese manufacturers employed by such major designers as Polo-Ralph Lauren, GAP, Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein. These companies enjoy the fact that, as a US Territory, the Mariana sweatshops get to sew “Made in the USA” on the labels of Chinese-manufactured clothing brought in duty-free to the islands. 

Garment workers on the Marianas often aren’t paid at all, work 16-20 hour days, are forced to pay huge “recruitment fees” to foreign recruiters, live in squalid housing, are malnourished, forced by employment contracts to have abortions if they become pregnant, and fired if they attend church. Many do not even have promised jobs waiting for them when they get to the islands, and are forced by their recruiters to be a part of the islands’ growing sex trade, or face being sent back to their home country… penniless and in violation of legal contracts that could force them to see jail time.

A 1999 Department of the Interior report described that the federal government was well aware of the human rights abuses, immigration policies and minimum wage violations:

“Even though the (Federal-CNMI Initiative on Labor, Immigration and Law Enforcement) Initiative has provided increased resources to address the problems, the Administration finds that the government of the CNMI is unwilling to alter its basic immigration, minimum wage, and garment manufacturing policies, and that there are  fundamental weaknesses in CNMI law enforcement [3].”

Despite this report, the House of Representatives failed to take action, and bills proposed by Congressman George Miller and Senators Frank Murkowski and Daniel Akaka were killed in committee over 29 times in the last decade. Progress and basic human rights have been denied the immigrant workers virtually enslaved on the Marianas. There is a time to sit back and there is a time to take action. Now is the time to take action.

Please take a look at the links to the following websites. They will prove useful in your basic understanding of the desperate situation in Saipan. We all need to get educated on this issue if we expect to make ripples…

http://www.msmagazin….
http://www.hartford-….
http://www.house.gov….
http://www.americama….
http://akaka.senate…..
http://www.pacificis….
http://www.truthout…..
http://www.pacificis…

These are but a very small sampling of the diverse groups and individuals working on stopping the abuses on the Marianas. With your help writing your Congress and pledging support for Ripples of Hope, we can “build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

Thank you for your time and efforts,

Neil Pople and Nick Shepard
Founders, Ripples of Hope

PS- If you are interested in pledging support for our cause, please feel free to email us at [email protected].

[1] U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of Insular Affairs: A Report on the State of the Islands, 1999 page 25
[2] U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of Insular Affairs: A Report on the State of the Islands, 1999 page 26
[3] U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of Insular Affairs: A Report on the State of the Islands, 1999 page 6