Manuel Pérez, quoted in the  The Desert Sun recently:

Solis’ legislation gives the Interior Department three years to study sites “significant to the life of César E. Chávez and the farm labor movement in the western United States.” Officials will examine ways to preserve the sites and interpret them to the public.

…… “This goes beyond just honoring him because it helps in so many ways,” Perez said. “He was always very family-oriented and an advocate for leadership development, youth development. The fact that we can dedicate these spaces in our communities for families and youth is such a positive thing.”  Perez, who recalls working on the farms as a child, said his parents were migrant farmworkers who settled in Coachella.  Now Perez is a school board member for the Coachella Valley Unified School District and a candidate for state assembly,  which he said reminds him to “appreciate the sacrifices of people like Chávez who did it in order to build up our communities.”

Crossposted at Daily Kos

Also quoted, our own Joe Mota:

“It’s a beginning and a good start to honoring a man that did so much for the plight of farmworkers,” said Joe Mota of Cathedral City.  Mota worked for UFW as regional director for Southern California from 2001-06.

“He was a very spiritual man,” Mota added, “and giving him parks is an honorable way to remember him because not only did he care for people but he cared so much about nature.”

This bodes well for The Desert Sun, let’s hope. 

It’s a treat to find unsolicited positive press on your candidate in the morning paper, and perhaps it’s a trend away from the usual RW worlitzer fare.  Today they ran an editorial supporting the legislation to honor Chavez,  and weeks ago The Desert Sun lauded Eddie Garcia, the new mayor of Coachella, for his rapid success in attracting businesses and providing civic services, just as he said he would. 

César Chávez so shaped many lives in this district.  It’s no coincidence that Manuel Pérez devoted his career to his community, that Joe Mota and Eddie Garcia did the same, and that they’re supporting Pérez’s run for State Assembly.  The UFW isn’t just a political ally or a social issue for Pérez, it’s family. 

Last night Democrats of the Desert presented Kian Kaeni of People for the American Way at the Peppertree Bookstore in LA Quinta. DoD members, DWD and other club members, and Manuel and Gladys and Amalia were there.  We talked about winning in the CA 80th, which was a priority for Kian, though the regional PFAW offices are now closing.  (New election cycle, new PFAW org structure.  Kian was philosophical about it.)  Kian believes that given the intransigence of the CA 45th voting patterns so far, we need to first win the 80th to win the 45th.

We talked about the gap between registration and actual voting, especially in Imperial County where Dems should dominate on election day, but so far we don’t.  This brought up questions about the southeastern end of the 80th, and Manuel Pérez had the answers.  Manuel brought our group of  western Coachella Valley Democrats up to date on the Democratic organizations in Mecca, Brawley, Calexico, also the newly formed Eastern Coachella Valley Democratic club.  Few knew how much good news there is for Democrats lately in the local Latino community. 

This candidate knows the whole district.  He lives the labor movement, the school reform issue, the healthcare crisis, and he’s completely committed to his community.  This is what the people-powered politics looks like in the 80th.
  Let’s put some energy into my Californians for Manuel Pérez Act Blue page, my fellow dfh brethren.  Manuel Pérez is exactly what we’re talking about.  For Pérez, the UFW is part of his life.  He doesn’t need to build alliances with labor, he can just call his parents to the podium.  They met working these fields.  It’s good that Representative Solis introduced HR 359 which will honor Chávez appropriately, and it’s good that so many of the generation to follow Chávez honors his work with their own.

Speaking of the Perez family, if you’re in the Coachella Valley, don’t miss the party:

Birthday Bash Fundraiser
Bring $35 for Manuel’s 35th

July 28, 2007
7-10pm
38-300 Rancho Los Coyotes, Indio
Rsvp: 760-772-3466
Come celebrate and enjoy food, drinks, & music.

Calitics Event Calendar listing (with map)

The big news out of Sacramento this week, aside from the worsening budget situation, is movement on health care reform. As was liveblogged here yesterday, Sheila Kuehl’s Senate subcommittee held a public hearing and vote on AB 8, the less ambitious effort to reform health care by bringing more people into private insurance. As that hearing revealed, one of the most common statements from groups offering conditional support was that cost containment was a necessity – without it the bill was worthless, and many of the groups present would come out in opposition to it.

Cost containment is the key to AB 8. It’s the devil that lurks in the details. It’s worth a further look, if we are to believe that AB 8 is something that we who support real health care reform should help with our time and effort.

The basic problem with health care in America is that it is controlled by private insurers. In order to make massive profits, they have a clear interest in driving up the cost of premiums while at the same time denying or limiting what they pay out in actual coverage. Health care costs wind up bankrupting households and forcing businesses to either shed jobs, cut coverage (thereby hurting themselves through loss of work days due to greater frequency of illness), or close / leave the state.

As I noted back in February, universal mandate plans such as those offered by Arnold or by Mitt Romney fail because they force individuals to pay exorbitant costs with little care in return. For AB 8 to be a positive step for California, it would need to be able to bring California workers and businesses good coverage without leaving them vulnerable to soaring premiums or copays or deductibles.

Hence the focus on “cost containment” in so many of the comments yesterday. Unless there is language in AB 8 limiting costs, it could very well backfire badly on California workers and businesses, saddling them with soaring costs to help line the pockets of Blue Cross and their ilk.

So what exactly are the prospects for strong cost containment measures in AB 8? Depending on who you talk to, they’re unclear at best, dim at worst.

As Anthony Wright noted in his excellent review of yesterday’s committee meeting, Speaker Núñez actually rejected the best cost containment amendments:

Nunez said he could not, at this time, accept the committee suggestion — which consumer groups supported — that total health care costs (including premiums, deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs) be limited to 5 percent of a family’s income. Right now, under AB8, only families in the purchasing pool under 300% of poverty ($62,000 for a family of four annually) are guaranteed to not have to pay more than 5% on just their premium….Nunez also did not accept amendments that would have established minimum package of benefits for private group coverage, with regard to preventative care and cost sharing. AB8 does have a basic HMO benefit (Knox/Keene and prescription drugs) in the purchasing pool. Nunez responded that AB8 does establish three standardized products in the overall private market, to help consumers better make comparisons between plans, allowing for “apples to apples” comparisons.

As Wright noted, Núñez’ explanation for the lack of a cap on costs for all consumers was that, while he “would love nothing more” than to achieve that, there was simply not enough money available to guarantee it. Given the Republican obstinacy on the budget that makes sense – but it does also raise the question of just how useful AB 8 will actually be, especially to middle class households that make more than 300% of the poverty line but who are squeezed by rising housing and other living costs.

Jerry Flanagan, of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, is less enthused about how AB 8 is shaping up. In a column today on the California Progress Report Flanagan argues that as it stands now, AB 8 is no better than the individual mandate plan Arnold proposed at the beginning of the year.  He provides damning stats on how donations from HMOs to Democrats Leland Yee and Gloria Negrete-McLeod may have led them to refuse to vote on cost containment measures in a separate but related bill, AB 1554, preventing its passage (he also provides excellent stats on how Republican legislators have also benefited from HMO cash). Combined with the failure of strong cost containment amendments to AB 8 itself, this suggests that the California Nurses Association may have been correct when they argued AB 8 was no better than Arnold’s own plan.

AB 1554 is not totally dead, it can be reconsidered before the end of the 2008 session. And the amendment process for AB 8 is by no means complete. But given the pragmatic realities of this year’s budget and the resultant inability of Speaker Núñez to embrace effective cost containment language, AB 8 may not be the good, stopgap solution to tide us over until we can get single-payer accomplished that many have claimed it to be. It might in fact make the present situation even worse, as it leaves open the possibility that insurers will be able to stick workers and businesses with dramatic cost increases and worsening levels of care.

Ultimately this situation shows the need to be assertive and bold in planning health care reform in California. The current political system, averse to taxes, hostage to an obstructionist Republican minority, in thrall to large corporate contributors, and unresponsive to the needs of Californians, is what has brought about the health care crisis. That system cannot be expected to produce useful reforms all on its own, no matter the good intentions of someone like Speaker Núñez.

That doesn’t mean we’re screwed. It instead reminds us that our approach has to be holistic – that we need changes in the way California politics operates if we are to revive the fortunes of progressive Democrats and finally start addressing the problems facing Californians. It’s a truth we’ve all known for some time now.

And it finally suggests that AB 8 isn’t any more or less pragmatic than SB 840 – they both seem to encounter similar obstacles, even as SB 840 is the clearly superior solution. Clearly a lot of work has to be done in California before we can get any meaningful health care reform. Why not mobilize, then, behind single-payer, and work to shorten the distance between it and its ultimate passage, than fighting over a flawed bill such as AB 8?

Sometimes, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. A couple of days ago, I opened up OC Metro to discover a feature article about all the major coastal resorts banding together to “brand the waterfront” as the ultimate luxury destination. And of course while looking for the article, I had to see a full-page ad urging me to “wake up to the waves” and “rest to the setting of the sun” at “Brightwater in Huntington Beach“, the new luxury housing development that sits just west of the other luxury housing development that sits atop what’s supposed to be protected wetlands. But of course, all this OC coastal luxuriousness mustn’t end there. I soon find a big ad telling me of all the decadently luxurious scenery awaiting me at the Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach. No matter where I turn the page in OC Metro, I find all this fabulous luxury. Who would have known that I was living in the lap of luxury here in oh-so-fabulous Orange County?

But wait, does everyone really enjoy the “luxurious lifestyle” in The Land of the OC? Can we afford those new houses sitting dangerously close to protected wetlands? Can we even reach the beach amidst all this development? Can we afford to continue ignoring the dire need for affordable housing in the region? Oh yes, and what about the poor kids who want to go to the beach, but can’t thanks to OCTA’s refusal to meet the demands of bus drivers who themselves can hardly afford the high cost of living in Orange County?

Follow me after the flip to explore just how luxurious (or not) life really is…

So how good do we have it here? Well, it depends how much of this “good life” one can afford.

Yesterday, the Coastal Commission decided to not decide yet on the proposed Parkside development. Now Shea Homes has been illegally filling in wetlands in order to plop a bunch of multimillion dollar McMansions there. They claim that they need to build these McMansions in order to alleviate the dire need for housing in Orange County. But is this the type of housing that we really need?

Why must all the new housing be these super expensive developments that encroach upon our open space? Why not work on housing near the areas where we all work? Oh yes, and why not work on housing that most of us can actually afford? People aren’t really clamoring any more for McMansions that they can’t afford. They need something that they CAN afford. Even the Orange County Business Council realizes that if they want to attract new skilled workers to OC, they’ll need to show these workers where they can find a house within their budget. We may very well risk a terrible “brain drain” if we don’t do something to ensure that our workforce can actually afford to live here.

Disney doesn’t want any affordable housing encroaching upon its resort district in Anaheim. They’ll do anything, even throw an initiative to “save the resort district” on the ballot, in order to save their plans for some lovely new luxurious timeshare units. But wait, aren’t there already plans for future hotels in the area? And don’t all these people who work so hard to keep the magic going at Disneyland deserve a decent place to live that isn’t so far away from where they work? Must a place for these workers to call home be an unattainable luxury that’s always out of reach?

Oh yes, and speaking of out of reach… Why is it allowable that in addition to affordable housing must always be out of reach to us working people, we must also be unable to reach what’s supposed to be our open spaces? Just think about all the recent developments that have eaten up our beaches, our hills, and our wetlands. Much of the Dana Point Headlands will soon be filled with overpriced McMansions. Just across the street from Crystal Cove, the old backcountry is now filled with overpriced McMansions. And of course, the Bolsa Chica Wetlands may have some unwanted new neighbors getting a little too close to the wildlife.

But really, why must we be robbed of our housing and our open space? Why must all the housing be built on our open space, and why can’t we be able to live within our means? While there will always be mid-level managers who may have received enough of a salary increase to buy one of these McMansions along the coast, nothing’s being done to ensure that all the folks who will be policing the new McMansion neighborhoods and providing fire protection for these McMansions and educating the children residing in the McMansions and caring for the seniors residing in the McMansions will have a place to live. Oh yes, and have we even talked about the poor folks who will have to clean the McMansions and the people cooking for the people living in the McMansions? Where the heck do they go?

And what incentive do all these regular folks serving the needs of the people living in the big McMansions to live in such expensive places like Orange County? Why can’t we get to the beach? Oh yes, all the McMansions are getting in the way. Oh, and the people living in the McMansions would rather not see bus service in the area.

So is this all just a luxury that we really can’t afford? And is the luxurious lifestyle of a few shutting out the desires and necessities of the many residing here? I wonder sometimes.

(Yes, Miller was mad. But if you want to see really, REALLY mad, check out this (kinda shocking, but a rhetorical move I’ve never seen before, watch closely) – promoted by blogswarm)

I have four posts up today at Working Californians and you can go check them out.  This one is going to be pretty linky, mostly things I wish I had time to write about today.

• While I disagree with Herdt on Arnold true attitude towards the environment, he shows quite the pattern when it comes to Arnold thwarting the public process.
• Can I just say that it is absolutely ridiculous that there is an entire system in place for loans for legislative staff.  It’s not that it exists, because it is good that they can still pay their bills, but that there is actually a routine need for such a system.  And yes there still is no budget.
• The Republicans are stepping up their opposition to AB 8, complete with a professionally produced YouTube.  They are even claiming that Arnold would veto AB 8 in its current form.
• And if you haven’t watched the Miller video linked in the quickies you really should.  He was mad and I like it.  More please.

Here is the Cliks video for “Oh Yeah”