(The DCCC announced that they were pleased with McNerney, is this what they have been pushing him to do? – promoted by Julia Rosen)

Back in 2006, when Jerry McNerney was running for Congress in CA-11, he would appear at forums, meetings and fundraisers where he would often be called upon to speak. One of the lines he used often, usually to thundering applause, was “I am a Barbara Boxer Democrat!”  Never once did he say, “I am a Dennis Cardoza Democrat!” I suspect his audiences might have reacted a little more coolly if he had.

And yet his stance on the issues to date has more closely mirrored that of Rep. Dennis Cardoza (CA-18), who is well known for his conservative Blue Dog associations. Why is McNerney making this rightward shift?

Well, I’ve given McNerney the benefit of the doubt over the last seven months, preferring to think that he was getting bad advice from his Chief of Staff, Angela Kouters. I figured that Kouters, who is young, ambitious, inexperienced and thoroughly under the influence of  Inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom, was urging him to take so-called “moderate” positions in an attempt to pander to the DC perception of conservative CA-11 residents.

But it appears that I may have been mistaken. Unfortunately, the news today has brought two separate stories which have led me to the difficult conclusion that Jerry McNerney is not the man he appeared to be. That is to say, it sure seems like he duped many of his strongest supporters.

See why on the flip…

After voting last Thursday against the Hinchey amendment to H.R. 3093, an amendment that would have prevented federal prosecution for medical marijuana usage in the twelve states which have legalized it, he offered this explanation in today’s Sacramento Bee:

McNerney insists he is not a Pelosi clone. Last week, for example, he broke ranks with most California Democrats by voting against an amendment to ban use of federal money to prosecute growers of medicinal marijuana.

“I’m a moderate,” he said.

Well, I hate to break it to the Congressman, but that was not a “moderate” vote. The amendment was co-sponsored by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (CA-46) — yes, you heard me. Jerry McNerney is to the right of Crazy Dana Rohrabacher. If McNerney had bothered to look at the  Field poll done back in 2004, he would realize that Californians statewide support the legalization of medical marijuana by close to a three-quarters majority. Even two-thirds of Republicans support it. Here’s a newsflash to Jerry McNerney. When only 24% of the residents of your state support your position, it’s not moderate. It’s extreme… extreme right-wing.

But almost as bad as his Hinchey vote is the news coming from Germany today. Rep. McNerney led a bi-partisan delegation of Congressional freshmen to Iraq over the weekend. On his way home from Iraq, McNerney participated in a conference call with reporters during a layover.

From the Stockton Record:

[McNerney] said his conversations convinced him that, at least in Ramadi, the U.S. military was indeed making progress. […]

McNerney said he will be more likely to listen to those who want more time in Iraq.

“If anything, I’m more willing to participate in a give-and-take with that viewpoint than I was before,” he said.

Congress is scheduled to vote on a major defense bill this week that may contain a provision creating a timetable for withdrawal of troops.

From USA Today:

McNerney, the California congressman, also said he saw signs of progress in Ramadi and was impressed by Petraeus, who argued in favor of giving President Bush’s troop surge strategy time to work.

McNerney said he still favors a timeline to get troops out of Iraq — something House leaders may bring to the floor again this week as part of a defense spending bill — but is open to crafting it in a way more favorable to generals’ wishes.

“As long as we start at a certain date I’d be willing to be a little more flexible in terms of when it might end,” McNerney said.

From Josh Richman:

Arriving in Baghdad on a C-130 from Kuwait, he met first with officials including Gen. David Petraeus, whom he said is working very hard and is “very optimistic about what’s happening in the conflict… He’s concerned about being given enough rope to finish the job here.” […]

“We need to put a timetable out there, it needs to make sense,” McNerney added — a plan to bring the troops home, so that the Iraqi government is compelled to unite and take over the task of securing the country. “I think we can work to find a way forward that would be bipartisan, that would accomodate the achievements they have had in the last four or five months.”

And from the Contra Costa Times:

Leading the delegation was Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Calif., who said he saw signs of progress in Ramadi in Anbar province and was impressed by Gen. David Petraeus, President Bush’s top military commander in Iraq, who argued in favor of giving Bush’s troop surge strategy time to work.

McNerney said he still favors a timeline to get troops out of Iraq — something House leaders may bring to the floor again this week as part of a defense spending bill — but is open to being flexible “in terms of when it might end.”

[Update] And in a later AP story from the Fresno Bee:

“I’m more willing to work with finding a way forward to accommodate what the generals are saying,” McNerney told reporters Monday during a conference call from Germany on his way back to the U.S.

I have a hard time figuring out how Jerry McNerney’s latest words and deeds have anything to do with being a “Barbara Boxer Democrat.” I know, I know, it’s better than Richard Pombo. But is this what we all really put our sweat and blood into? How has the reality of Congressman Jerry McNerney differed from what we might have expected from his primary opponent, the DLC-anointed Steve Filson? How do we, as a progressive movement, demand accountability from the candidates that we support? When they turn their backs on us and our issues, do we just shrug our shoulders and settle for scraps? I’m genuinely at a loss. What do you think?

Cross posted at The Progressive Connection

(From our good friend former Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson of Speak Out California – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Much has been made of the fact that today, July 30th is Governor Ahnold Schwarzenegger’s 60th birthday and wouldn’t it be a great present if the Reps. would come together and sing Happy Birthday and Kumbaya and give the state a budget and move on with the other important business at hand.

Such thinking is sweet, but as far from reality as one can get in Sacramento, where reality is usually cast by political consultants and clever media-spinners. No, the Gov. can’t rely on his flock for support—or likely even a birthday card. So much for the much ballyhooed smoking tent, late night schnapps and heavily testosteroned bantering meetings in the beautiful outdoors of the “horseshoe” in the Capitol. Must be pretty quiet these days as former Senate Democratic leader and first-buddy to the Gov.John Burton is long gone and any sense of Republican camaraderie with the Gov. has taken a similar route…

Nope, there’s no fun today in Mudville for this Governor. Of course, he doesn’t much mind. After all, he’s had his mug all over national and international newspapers and magazines, been meeting with the heads of state, the UN leadership and NYC’s own number one honcho, possible presidential candidate Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He’s also been seen at the Capitol gym while budget negotiations have been taking place, photographed down in Miami raising over $1.5 Million last week on a jaunt to that city a couple thousand miles away from our shores. This and several other long-distance photo-ops have demonstrated a less than a total commitment to getting a budget passed here in the place Schwarzenegger is actually authorized to oversee and govern.

IA budget will happen, of course, as it always does. But we shouldn’t fool ourselves that the Governor will be key in the process. For all of Gray Davis’ faults (and there are many), he stuck around and spent hours trying to cajole and strong-arm both parties into submission so that a budget would finally be signed, vendors and workers paid and the state back on track to keep itself functioning and maintaining some legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens.

There are the predictable long-term casualties in this process besides programs and individuals who need to be paid in a timely fashion. There are the elderly, the poor and the disabled. There are healthcare providers (not the insurance companies, but the real deals….those who actually do something for the dollars they receive) and the service agencies that provide respite or hope or opportunity for those who haven’t been lucky enough to be borne to wealth or able, for whatever reasons, to find success in their lives. Among those are the majority of foster children who try to maneuver through a flawed and convoluted system full of red-tape and antiquated rules. There are victims of criminal conduct who see justice move slowly and often capriciously due to lack of funding to incarcerated violent perpetrators while filling up the dangerously limited numbers of prison cells instead with those whose crime is substance abuse and mental illness.

Of course there are faceless victims of the political machinations of a party that simply doesn’t like government and wants to transfer all its functions to the “private sector”. The problem there is that the private sector’s only motivation is money with not a wit of concern for doing what is in the public’s interest. Our public transportation system is one of the most obvious victims of this short-sighted mentality this year. Not only did the Assembly pull over $1 Billion of public transit funds from their budget (in order to get Rep. votes) but now the Senate Reps. want to pull even more from that ever-diminishing funding source. So much for the right-wings protestations about ending our dependence on foreign oil, so much for working to reduce green house gas emissions and thus reducing the global warming threat that this Governor has been using as a vehicle for promoting his greater glory.

But today is the Governor’s birthday and we should focus on the positive side of all this– the cuts that were made in the name of “fiscal responsibility.” And since it’s his birthday, we shouldn’t mention the fiscally irresponsible tax GIVEAWAYS to the wealthiest corporations that were offered by the Republicans to their corporate sponsors.

But then, again, maybe that was the Republicans birthday gift to the Governor. The big, out-of-state and multi-national corporations who were to get these tax breaks are the very same folks who have filled Ahnold’s campaign coffers for years. I guess we’ve misjudged the Reps. Maybe they are on the same page with the Governor, and we’ve all just missed the signals….Maybe it’s time for the Gov. to call them all “downstairs” for some schnapps and they’ll hug and give us the budget that we should have seen a month ago. After all, they’re all on the same team, now aren’t they? Maybe in our haste to get the Republican leader of our state to lead his flock of 15 disgruntled underlings, we ignored the obvious….that they are indeed on the same page–giving tax breaks to the wealthiest corporations while taking away from the rest of us. Perhaps this is the birthday gift the governor was looking for after all!

Oh, and by the way, Happy Birthday Gov……wherever you are today.

Written by Hannah-Beth Jackson

Cross Posted from Speak Out California

If anything has become clear over the last month or so, it is that the teams are scattershot and unclear.  But after reading the final Harry Potter book, I think I get it now.  There are really four houses, and somewhere, hiding in the Capitol, is a sorting Hat. And before you run for election to the Assembly, the Sorting Hat sorts you out into your house. You’ve got the Griffindor (Senate Dems), HufflePuff (Assembly Dems), Ravenclaw (Senate Republicans), and Slytherin (Assembly Reps). I’m just thinking that Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines would make a fine Snape.  Why this elaborate analogy you ask? Well, the Perata-Nunez feud is now splashed across the pages of the state’s newspaper’s.

“The speaker was beside himself,” said one lobbyist familiar with the [early unveiling of Perata’s health care plan], who, like many, would speak candidly about the Democratic leadership only on the condition of anonymity, fearing repercussions. He was “furious that Perata hadn’t told him or consulted him beforehand.”

And thus began a chilly start to a legislative session that has seen the two increasingly at odds – one often undercutting the other in what seems to be an ongoing battle for pre-eminence at the Capitol.

The feud – mostly played out in the Capitol corridors beyond public earshot – burst into the open last week when Perata fired off an open letter slamming Núñez for coaxing Assembly Republicans to support the budget with a series of tax cuts. In strong words typically reserved for partisan opponents, Perata dressed down Núñez in public, raising questions about whether the two most powerful Democrats in the Legislature can effectively accomplish an ambitious agenda that includes health care and prison reform. (SJ Merc 7/30/07)

On the KQED forum program with Sens. Perata and Ackerman, Sen. Perata again blamed the Assembly. The tone of irritation, to put it nicely, was clearly apparent. However, the two leaders need to play nice for the Term limits initiative.  At some point they’ll need to hang out and show how well they work together.  A protracted budget battle doesn’t bode well for the initiative.

Now, I’m not sure how Schwarzenegger stacks up with Dumbledore though.

Tauscher wrote back to a constituent who told her that Congress should impeach Alberto Gonzalez and said such a thing was not possible. 

The Attorney General serves at the pleasure of the president in a non-impeachable office. Unless convicted of an illegal act, the Attorney General cannot be removed from office without the president asking for or accepting his resignation. However, please be assured that I will keep your thoughts and concerns in mind as I review the circumstances surrounding recent allegations of impropriety within the Justice Department.

She’s wrong of course.  And for her to not know the Constitution is truly shameful.  With Bush and Cheney wiping away the checks and balances in our system of government, it’s kind of pivotal that the legislative branch knows what powers the Constitution grants to it, don’t you think?