Daily Archives: August 22, 2007

Uncategorized

Russ Warner, SoCal Grassroots Make ActBlue Splash

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I want to take the time to cross-post this week’s entry here as two California groups made the list. I’ll try to do that each week in any state with a community blog if they have candidates on that week’s list as a service to the larger blogging community. It should not be construed as an endorsement by me or ActBlue in any way. That said, read on!

A new blog series that I’m starting up at the ActBlue Blog is a weekly activity report (to be posted each Monday). In it, we’ll look to feature the most active campaigns and fundraising pages at ActBlue for the prior week. It’s a scaled down version of our Monthly or Quarterly activity reports but if something neat or creative sticks out we’ll try to highlight it.

Total Contributions last week: $226,262.30
Total Donors: 1794
Avg. Contribution size: $128.33

Here are the Top 5 Recipients on ActBlue last week by number of donors.

Name District Raised Donors
John Edwards President $36,870.80 520
Rick Noriega TX-Sen $12,332.61 154
Steven L. Beshear KY-Gov $2,433.02 106
Democracy for America Organization $1,722.70 88
Tom Allen ME-Sen $2,601.03 84

Here are the Top 5 Candidate Recipients on ActBlue last week by total amount raised.

Name District Raised
John Edwards President $36,870.80
Rick Noriega TX-Sen $12,332.61
Gary Trauner WY-AL $11,200.00
Jamie Eldridge MA-05 $10,004.61
Russ Warner CA-26 $9,196.60

Here are the Top 5 ActBlue Fundraising Pages last week by number of donors.

Name Donors Raised Average
John Edwards 494 $36,031.66 $72.93
DFA for Steve Beshear 132 $4,135.65 $21.42
Blue America ’08 127 $11,533.12 $32.30
Netroots for Rick Noriega 91 $10,444.00 $114.76
SoCal Grassroots 42 $1,095.00 $26.07
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Health Care

Single-Payer Poll is *Great* News

A new Field poll today in California shows voters choosing a single-payer healthcare plan over the insurance-driven proposals supported by Governor Arnold and his Democratic allies.

The finding is in line with past research finding voters way ahead of politicians on the issue of guaranteed healthcare.  The timing on this poll, however, could not have been better for healthcare advocates, as the California budget just got passed and Governor Arnold, his Democratic helpers, and their insurance buddies are about to try to shove a regressive healthcare measure through the legislature.  Their plan just got harder.

We’ll take a look at this and more, cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

Tom Chorneau in the San Francisco Chronicle:

As voter dissatisfaction with the state’s health care system grows, increasing interest is emerging in moving to a state-run, single-payer program, according to a Field Poll released today.

For years, a single-payer system had been the favorite of a small but loyal minority, but the new poll shows that 36 percent of California voters now favor replacing the current employer-based system with one operated by the state – a jump of 12 percent since December.

Meanwhile, the number of voters who want to make reforms within the framework of the current system has dropped from 52 percent in December to 33 percent in August.

Mike Zapler in the Mercury News notes:

Ironically, the drumbeat of attention on health care this year, fueled by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other would-be reformers, seems to have dampened support for the one approach to change that had majority backing last year: shoring up the current insurer-based system. That solution, which is favored by the governor and calls for shared responsibility among government, employers and individuals, is now favored by just one-third of voters, down from 52 percent in December.

Call it the Michael Moore effect.  Sicko drew unprecedented attention to the problem of for-profit insurers…and now legislators want to expend the reach, customers, revenue, and medical influence of these same movie villains?  Thumbs down!

A Bureau of National Affairs article today (sub. req’d.) updates the latest backroom maneuvering on AB 8, which is the legislative offer to Governor Arnold:

SACRAMENTO, Calif.–“Play or pay” health care legislation authored by California’s Democratic legislative leadership was amended Aug. 20 to move up by one year, to Jan. 1, 2009, the proposed date that employers would be required to offer health coverage or pay 7.5 percent of payroll into a state-run purchasing pool .

The health care bill, A.B. 8, amended the same day lawmakers reconvened after a month-long summer recess, is pending in the Senate Appropriations Committee. It must clear both houses of the Legislature by Sept. 14, the last day of the regular legislative session. 

One problem with making this the centerpiece of a healthcare reform initiative?  It is blatangly, obviously, blindingly illegal-and will be tossed out of by the courts faster than you can say Erisa. 

So why put it in there?  To give the appearance of standing up on behalf of patients-while distracting attention from the other provisions in the law.  The other elements of this plan?  Expanding some public health programs while pushing some half-baked insurance “reforms” that will just lead to more paperwork…and more insurance overhead.

That’s it!

Here is a recent  background column from Sen. Sheila Kuehl’s office about the various proposals being thrown out as road-blocks to her single-payer plan, which has the big advantages of being the only plan that will actually work, as well as being the only one with a solid constituency (of healthcare reformers and a growing number of labor unions) pushing for it.

To join the fight for guaranteed healthcare (with a “Medicare for All” or SinglePayer financing), visit GuaranteedHealthcare.org, a project of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association.

Uncategorized

At a Loss

40 Comments

Oh Jerry McNerney.  What is to be done with you?  Frankly, I am saddened about this whole thing.  It has been clear that all of our work to create communications channels about your Iraq positioning was for naught.  Many a blog post has been written, warning you to take a strong stance on withdrawing from Iraq or face the loss of the blogosphere’s support.  In fact, you heeded our calls to do exactly that.  You were praised here and across the blogosphere.  Finally, it appeared that you were living up to your campaign promises.

But only hours later came this article in the WaPo.  There are so many things wrong with this story and your role in its creation that it is hard to know where to start.  The entire premise of the article is that the Democrats are in disarray.  After all of the work done this summer to divide up the Republicans, we are now undoing all of our gains through these articles.  Repeat with me, “the bloodiest summer yet”.  Just check out this lede:

Democratic leaders in Congress had planned to use August recess to raise the heat on Republicans to break with President Bush on the Iraq war. Instead, Democrats have been forced to recalibrate their own message in the face of recent positive signs on the security front, increasingly focusing their criticisms on what those military gains have not achieved: reconciliation among Iraq’s diverse political factions.

I am no foreign policy or Iraq expert.  What I can say is that the Democrats are screwing up the messaging in their attempts not to appear against the troops.  But that’s what Obama, Edwards and Clinton have been screwing up on.  You take a different tact to blow up the national strategy for Iraq: declare the Republicans reasonable, announce your desire to negotiate with them for a timetable and undercut the Democratic leadership.  It’s a trifecta on a day when you appeared to mend fences.

Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.), who made waves when he returned from Iraq by saying he was willing to be more flexible on troop withdrawal timelines, issued a statement to constituents “setting the record straight.”

“I am firmly in favor of withdrawing troops on a timeline that includes both a definite start date and a definite end date,” he wrote on his Web site.

But in an interview yesterday, McNerney made clear his views have shifted since returning from Iraq. He said Democrats should be willing to negotiate with the generals in Iraq over just how much more time they might need. And, he said, Democrats should move beyond their confrontational approach, away from tough-minded, partisan withdrawal resolutions, to be more conciliatory with Republicans who might also be looking for a way out of the war.

“We should sit down with Republicans, see what would be acceptable to them to end the war and present it to the president, start negotiating from the beginning,” he said, adding, “I don’t know what the [Democratic] leadership is thinking. Sometimes they’ve done things that are beyond me.”

Answer me this, what is possibly gained from trying to negotiate with the Republicans about a specific timeline for withdrawal when they are trying to keep the war going on indefinitely?  Negotiating over a specific timetable can and will occur when we have enough votes for a timetable in the first place.  We don’t have that yet.  What exactly do you mean Jerry, when you say that we need to stop being partisan about our withdrawal resolutions?  You can’t possibly be suggesting that we agree to the “moderate” Republican demands for a non-binding timetable.  What the heck do you think you or the fight to end the war will gain by attacking the Democratic leadership in the Washington Post?  They have bent over backwards to ensure you have an excellent shot to retain your seat, despite the concerted efforts of the Republicans to target you.  I would argue that they have been more timid than I would like in terms of ending this war, not too much.

You were supposed to be our Mr. Smith goes to Washington and be a fighter to end this war, not some squishy person in the middle attacking both sides.  You have listened to what we have to say, but it has done little good.  I am at a loss of what to do.  More talking has clearly not been productive.  I am curious about what the community here thinks should happen.  You seem to have hung our friend Eden out to dry here, but more than that, you tried to pander to us and then undermined the entire movement to end the war.  This one hurts and I am reluctantly coming to the conclusion that there must be consequences.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Health Care

Thoughts Turn To Health Care

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With the budget resolution, the clock starts for the rest of the legislative session in Sacramento.  The Assembly and the Senate have until September 14th to pass bills before them and send them to the Governor’s desk for signature.  And obviously the centerpiece of the session is health care reform.  AB8 will be the organ for Democratic legislative leaders and the Governor to come to an understanding about how they want to fix the state’s health care crisis.  And the people are weighing in and saying that their preferred solution has a different bill number; SB 840.

UPDATE by Brian: Here’s the PDF of the relevant health care poll from Field.  Over…

Frank Russo reports:

36% of California voters support a new government run system–like Medicare–up from 24% in last December’s survey. At the same time support for making “reforms with the framework of the current health insurance system, with shared responsibilities by government and individuals” has dropped from 52% to 33%. Reliance on “free market competition to improve the health insurance system” draws only 14%, down from 18% previously.

So after months of all actors in the health care debate talking to their constituents, more people want to see health care for all than a shared responsibility framework that keeps the current for-profit system in place.  And the vast majority want to see something changed over the status quo.  Frank Russo teases this out, and exemplifies why I think the aggressive strategy by groups like the California Nurses Association has moved the goalposts:

Only eight short months ago in December 51% of California voters described themselves as satisfied with the current system. That number has dropped to 28% while those responding that they are dissatisfied has risen to 69% from 44% previously. The numbers who are very satisfied with what we have now has dropped to 7% from 13% previously and those who say they are “very dissatisfied” is now the largest response with 42%, up from 20% in that category before.

Table 4 in the poll shows the direct correlation of dissatisfaction with the health care system and those who want single payor. It also shows that the largest proposition of Democrats (47%) and “non-partisan/others” (39%) support single payor, while for Republicans the largest response is to reform the current system with insurance and “shared responsibility” (37%).

While it is not surprising that 55% of “liberals” support single payor, perhaps one of the more salient points of the Field Poll is that self described “middle-of-the-road” voters are split between these two options at 34% apiece and with only 10% saying they want to rely on a free market approach. While 31% of “conservatives” support the free market approach, 35% want to reform the current insurance system and 19% even support single payor.

This focus on not-for-profit health care has made reform of the current system completely reasonable, EVEN TO CONSERVATIVES.  Change is now demanded rather than sticking with the status quo.  Of course, Republicans are not needed to pass health care reform.  But they still have to vote on it, and so this can be a significant club to beat Republicans with in the next election, on the biggest domestic policy issue facing Americans.

As for how this will effect the actual legislation, it’s clear that this ups the pressure for SOME reform.  Democratic leaders should be emboldened by this, and should hold firm on the positive amendments that have already been added to the bill:

AB8, the Democratic plan, has been undergoing some work under the hood. Several amendments will hopefully be made to increase the affordability of health care, among those include a prescription dug purchasing pool that will have about 3-4 million participants. That will make it 2-3x larger than CalPERS. There is also talk of creating a public insurance program that everyone will be able to participate in. This is similar to a few of the Democratic presidential contenders plans to ensure there is an affordable option for health insurance for all residents. These amendments will be considered in hearings over the next few weeks.

It’s obvious that the public wants as progressive a proposal as possible.  The consequences of failure to reach a compromise are bad for everyone, but especially the governor.  He’s staked his entire year on this.  So let’s see a health care reform discussed out in the open so that everyone in the state knows where the main actors stand.

And the FIRST thing the Governor can do is to call the President and tell him to stop this campaign to deny children health care.  The onerous new S-CHIP rules must be abandoned.  If the Governor is serious about providing health care for all Californians, he must stand up to the President and live up to that responsibility.  DFA has started a campaign on this; you can call the Governor and tell him:

“President Bush’s new rules which reduce the availability of the Children’s Health Insurance Program for uninsured kids must be repealed. Governor Schwarzenegger must call President Bush today and demand a complete rollback of the new rules. Can I count on the governor to stand up for our kids?”

California

California Needs Higher Standards for the Use of “Snitch” Testimony

By John F. Terzano of The Justice Project

Harold Hall was only 18 years old when he was sent to prison.  He spent nearly two decades of his life in a California prison for crimes he did not commit.

Hall was wrongfully convicted of double murder in 1985 based in part on evidence provided by a jailhouse informant who fabricated a confession Hall allegedly made to him. 

Jailhouse informant testimony is widely regarded as the least reliable form of testimony in the criminal justice system, but unfortunately in Mr. Hall’s case and numerous others, uncorroborated testimony from unscrupulous jailhouse informants, or “snitches,” is still used by prosecutors to obtain convictions.

According to a San Francisco Magazine study, unreliable testimony of informants was a factor in approximately 20% of all wrongful convictions in California.  This problem extends nationwide as shown in a study by The Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law, which identifies snitch testimony as the leading cause of wrongful convictions in U.S. capital cases.

Higher standards for admitting snitch testimony at trial must be put in place to protect innocent people like Mr. Hall from the consequences of unreliable, incentive-driven testimony. Best practices to safeguard against perjured testimony include:

  • Mandatory, automatic pretrial disclosures of information related to jailhouse informant testimony
  • Corroboration of the facts to which an informant testifies, special jury instructions
  • Higher standards for the admissibility of snitch testimony at trial.

(Please visit The Justice Project’s website for more details on snitch testimony reforms. http://www.thejustic….  Also the ACLU of Northern California has an effort underway to help end wrongful convictions.)

A vital piece of legislation for raising the standards of use for jailhouse informant testimony, is California Senate Bill 609, sponsored by Senator Majority Leader Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), which requires corroboration for jailhouse informants.

The bill has passed the State Senate and Assembly Public Safety Committee, and will soon be heading to the Assembly Floor for a final vote. The Los Angeles District Attorney’s office has endorsed the bill and they are already applying informant corroboration as a rule. But if the bill passes the Assembly, Governor Schwarzenegger will have an opportunity to implement this important reform statewide.

In addition to corroborating jailhouse informant testimony, improving eyewitness identification and videotaping custodial interrogations have been shown to prevent wrongful convictions.  Senate Bill 756, sponsored by Senator Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles, Culver City), addresses the development of new guidelines for eyewitness identification procedures, and Senate Bill 511, sponsored by Senator Elaine K. Alquist (D-Santa Clara), would require full electronic recording of interrogations in both juvenile and adult cases.

Wrongful convictions such as Mr. Hall’s plague our criminal justice system and can no longer be ignored. We hope that the legislature will support these three critical bills and that the Governor will ultimately sign them into law. California law enforcement, prosecutors, and the community will all benefit from more reliable outcomes in criminal cases.

John F. Terzano is the President of The Justice Project, a nonpartisan organization that works to address unfairness and inaccuracy in the criminal justice system, with a focus on the capital punishment system.

Click here to help The Justice Project.

Budget

Keeping Up the Pressure on Denham

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I know the budget battle has come and gone, but there is still an outstanding question: What becomes of Senator Jeff Denham (R-Merced)? Do we just forget about the whole Recall Denham thing? (That’s likely to happen in the aftermath, but is that right?)

How do we use the resources that have been spent against him already? Sure, it may not be huge monetary figures as of now, but it sure would be nice to not see that money just down the drain. (Other than drawing $150K of Denham’s money out). So, I’ll give my take in the comments, what do you think?

Arnold Schwarzenegger

NYT: Hey Arnold, Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are

1 Comment

Today the New York Times weighs in with an editorial about the right-wing Electoral College power grab, and in fairly bold language excoriates it.

The Electoral College should be abolished, but there is a right way to do it and a wrong way. A prominent Republican lawyer in California is doing it the wrong way, promoting a sneaky initiative that, in the name of Electoral College reform, would rig elections in a way that would make it difficult for a Democrat to be elected president, no matter how the popular vote comes out. If the initiative passes, it would do serious damage to American democracy.

The editorial goes on to explain the damage this initiative would cause, rightly calling it a Republican power grab and explaining how their goal is to fool the public into giving away the election in the name of “reform.”  Obviously written before the news of the competing ballot initiative came to light, there’s a perfunctory paragraph approving of the idea of the National Popular Vote.  But the concluding paragraph calls out the Governor to show his true colors on this issue:

Leading Republicans, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, have been silent about the initiative to split California’s electoral votes, but they should be speaking out against it. The fight isn’t about Republicans vs. Democrats. It is about whether to twist the nation’s system of electing presidents to give one party an unfair advantage. No principled elected official, or voter, of either party should support that.

Most Republican politicians aren’t principled, but Arnold at least fashions himself to be.  He should be asked about this at every opportunity until he gives a satisfactory answer.

Uncategorized

Relief Turns To Indigestion

2 Comments

Jerry McNerney clarifies today’s WaPo story in tomorrow’s WaPo: (emphasis added)

Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.), who made waves when he returned from Iraq by saying he was willing to be more flexible on troop withdrawal timelines, issued a statement to constituents “setting the record straight.”

“I am firmly in favor of withdrawing troops on a timeline that includes both a definite start date and a definite end date,” he wrote on his Web site.

But in an interview yesterday, McNerney made clear his views have shifted since returning from Iraq. He said Democrats should be willing to negotiate with the generals in Iraq over just how much more time they might need. And, he said, Democrats should move beyond their confrontational approach, away from tough-minded, partisan withdrawal resolutions, to be more conciliatory with Republicans who might also be looking for a way out of the war.

“We should sit down with Republicans, see what would be acceptable to them to end the war and present it to the president, start negotiating from the beginning,” he said, adding, “I don’t know what the [Democratic] leadership is thinking. Sometimes they’ve done things that are beyond me.”

Crossposted at The Progressive Connection

California

FLASHBACK: August 2003

22 Comments

Seeing the competing ballot initiative today, got me thinking about the utility of using the confuse to kill strategy in a low turnout election. It is my view that it has often worked in general elections — and even high turnout primaries. But granting your opponent’s talking point that something needs to be done, in my mind, is a disastrous idea for a low turnout election. We’ve seen how the granting the need for change in a weird, tiny turnout election has worked before:

SACRAMENTO, California (CNN) — The Democratic solidarity that California Gov. Gray Davis had counted on to help defeat the gubernatorial effort crumbled in earnest Thursday as the state’s lieutenant governor — a fellow Democrat — said he was putting his name on the October 7 recall ballot.

Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, 50, cast his decision as a political calculation on behalf of members of his party.

Political calculations don’t work if you don’t understand numbers. In related news, for the life of me I can’t see what relevance a NATIONWIDE poll has in contrasting with a Field Poll (that even oversampled Dems) in CA. Seeing this campaign look like a Davis Recall “Get the Band Back Together” for a reunion tour effort isn’t exactly encouraging. I put this out there to play Devil’s Advocate, but I think it is important to get it out there because figuring out how to beat this initiative is critical and for my money this is the last initiative I’d move to accomplish those ends. So please rebut, but not until you’ve signed the petition against the GOP power grab. And speaking of which, where have I heard that messaging before? Oh yeah…

Budget, Health Care

August 21, 2007 Blog Roundup

Today’s Blog Roundup is on the flip. Let me know what I missed.

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Budgets are Moral
Documents

Republican “Reform” vs. Actual Reform

Voting Integrity

Local

The Remainder