Let’s face it. California is not as strongly Democratic as we think it is, or as we’d like it to be. Right now our state is a “blue state”, but it is fast turning RED. In 1992, Bill Clinton won 36 California counties when he first ran for President. In 2004, John Kerry only won 22 California counties. In the past six years, Democrats have only picked up ONE CONGRESSIONAL SEAT from the Republicans… And Democrats have actually LOST SEATS IN THE STATE LEGISLATURE during that same period!

So what can we do about it? Well, if you’re a delegate to the State Democratic Convention in San Diego this weekend, then you can find out what to do after the flip…

Leon Thompson, the Executive Board representative from the 77th Assembly District, has written a resolution to be voted on at the convention. Now we’ve heard all this talk about a “58 county strategy” to make Democrats more competitive throughout the state, but what will it actually do? Leon’s resolution actually has some teeth in it, as it requires the state party to give some seed money to EVERY PARTY-ENDORSED LEGISLATIVE CANDIDATE in the general election. This resolution will actually direct the party to refocus resources to grassroots campaigns in “red districts”. This resolution actually gives a boost to those Democratic candidates in “red districts” who fight hard for our Democratic values, but who may not have enough funds to really get the message out throughout the district. This resolution actually does something to make our party more competitive statewide, and more importantly it offers more than just pretty language and empty rhetoric…
It offers real action.

This may not be the ultimate solution, but it is a good start. And it’s something we really need to start doing a better job at. After all, if the Democratic candidates can’t depend on their own party for at least some support, then what’s the point of having a Democratic Party?

The full text of the resolution is directly below, and can be found here.

All District Strategy for Funding California Legislative Races

Whereas the recent Democratic takeover of Congress has proven the effectiveness of Howard Dean’s 50 state strategy for funding the Democratic Party in every state regardless of the voter registration advantage to the other side or the history of Republican voting patterns and resulted in election victories and Democratic Party advances and

Whereas the California Democratic Party’s recent election funding decisions resulted in only modest advances and victories not on the scale of results nationally, and

Whereas providing resources for candidates in each legislative district will build the Party’s identity in every geographical area, develop a deep reserve of competitive Democratic candidates and encourage volunteer loyalty,

Be it resolved that the California Democratic Party shall adopt at its 2007 Convention to allocate at least $4 million to be spent in all Assembly and State Senate districts that are open seats or in which there is a Democratic challenger to a Republican incumbent, to assure that every endorsed Democratic candidate for the state legislature gets at least some funding for the general election, enabling candidates to mount a viable campaign, then

Be it resolved that for the general election, each party-endorsed Democratic challenger or party-endorsed Democratic candidate for an open legislative seat shall receive at least $50,000 in seed money, and that candidates who raise $50,000, produce a field plan, and sign up 50 volunteers or more shall received at least $50,000 in additional matching funds. The money shall be spent to implement a grassroots organizing and GOTV effort by the candidate. Evidence of volunteer sincerity will be a five dollar check to the candidate.

This policy will spread the Democratic message to voters in every part of California, thus helping to grow the Party and get out the vote even in conservative regions. This strategy will improve the chances of victory not only for those legislative seats funded, but for all Democratic candidates in California – including “down-ticket” candidates for local offices as well as candidates running for statewide and national offices.

Submitted by Leon Thompson

77th Assembly District E-board Representative

(Crap… What’s going on in our institutions of higher learning? – promoted by atdleft)

In their ever-continuing quest to turn California’s public higher education into a de facto private institution, the University of California, not content with jacking up graduate student tuition yet another 10% (and nearly doubling fees since 2002), is now trying to stiff TAs, readers, and research assistants in the latest series of contract negotiations by freezing fee remissions and health insurance premiums:

The UAW Local 2865 bargaining team met Monday, April 16 with university representatives to discuss changes the university would like to make to our contract.

Unfortunately, the bargaining team was alarmed by the uncooperative, antiunion tactics of the university. The university is proposing to cut a number of critical benefits and roll back several groundbreaking union victories. Not only would these cuts and rollbacks have a negative financial impact on all our members, they would also undermine the ability of UC to continue to be competitive, encourage diversity, and attract the best and brightest.

FEE REMISSIONS
At the same time that we are proposing to expand the types of fees covered and who is eligible to receive remissions, the university is proposing to end full fee remissions for graduate-student employees, proposing instead to cap remissions. What this would mean is that whenever fees increase-which is the unfortunate trend-we would end up paying that increase out-of-pocket.

HEALTH INSURANCE
Additionally, under the current contract, many of us have our health insurance premium fully covered. Again, while we are proposing to expand the types of fees covered and who is eligible to receive remissions, the university is proposing to cap our health insurance premium remissions at a fixed dollar amount, thus transferring the rising cost of health care onto us. Given that the health plans at many campuses are already inadequate and steadily deteriorating, this proposal is unacceptable.

The university also made several proposals which would prevent teaching assistants, readers, and tutors from being informed of their rights, and which would limit our rights to express solidarity with workers in other campus unions.

The university is proposing to take us in the wrong direction. This is unacceptable. As bargaining continues, we will keep you informed of developments at the bargaining table and opportunities to participate in winning a great fourth contract.  If you have questions or would like to get more involved, please reply to this message or contact your campus office.

In solidarity,

UAW Local 2865 Bargaining Committee

This is not the first time that the university has tried this, but it is pretty bad news that they’re looking to freeze remissions while the fees continue skyrocketing this way. For most UC graduate students, fee remission and health care coverage when working for the university are the only way to make ends meet, and often their value is far greater than the actual pay that the work provides.

I have heard many fellow grad students wonder  aloud what the point of paying those union fees is. Here is my answer: the only reason why we even have health insurance and fee remissions when we work is that grad students organized and were willing to strike to make the point that the University of California does not run without our labor. The Regents do not just pay us out of the goodness of their hearts, and they will not continue to respect what gains we have negotiated in perpetuity, out of the goodness of their hearts. Only by organizing and demonstrating the value of the work that we do by being willing to deny it if need be, will we get the kind of pay and benefits that allow us to scratch out a public graduate school education.

Academic student employees are not asking for an unreasonable amount of pay or benefits here. The University of California has been utterly unreasonable in raising fees over the past several years, far beyond the rate of inflation and at the same time that executive and administration salaries and compensation have skyrocketed. This latest attempt to further wring more money out of already-indebted graduate students is unconscionable. I would hope that our elected representatives would take notice, in particular Davis’ own Assemblywoman Lois Wolk, and Lt. Governor John Garamendi, who is a Regent for the UC system (and whose son, John Garamendi, Jr., is an administrator at UC Merced, and reportedly considering challenging Lois Wolk for the 5th State Senate Seat). There are a lot of academic employees here in Yolo County, and we do vote.

If you are a grad student and interested in getting involved on any of the UC campuses, bookmark the Academic Student Employee union page. If this negotiation continues in this direction, we’re going to need as many students working together as we can to turn things around.

originally at surf putah

Why is there a big gap in 2008 California Presidential Democratic Primary in the two most recent poll results?

Hillary Rodham Clinton leads the Democratic presidential candidates in California, with four in 10 likely primary voters saying they will support her, according to a Field Poll released Tuesday.

That is a higher level of support than she has registered in national polling or in a recent statewide poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, which found her leading with 35 percent.

Chris Bowers has started a new page on MyDD dedicated to the Inflated Clinton Poll Theory and his recent calculations of national polls are in line with what we are seeing in California.

Bowers examines whether Clinton performs worse as poll samples are tightened. Since Field Poll only interviewed Registered Voters, here is the situation at that level.

Bowers summarizes why this debate is important:

Right now, this is still just a theory. However, it is an important theory to test, because accurate reports on who is currently ahead in the race for the Democratic nomination, and how much that person is ahead by, are crucial to developing an informed Democratic primary and caucus electorate. Whether or not we like it, and whether or not we think it should, information of this sort has an impact on the nomination campaign. As such, it would be a disservice to the Democratic primary and caucus electorate if we did not work to make certain they had accurate information on who is winning, and by how much that person is winning. I imagine there are quite a few Republicans out there who feel the same way about their party.

One professional pollster (read through to his comment) suggests that California may be particularity prone to this which could mean Hillary may not even have a lead:

Among the general election voters who claimed they would vote in the Dem primary, Clinton scored eight points higher than among the past primary voters.