Re full disclosure, BlueBeaumontBoyz is a supporter and friend of Greg Pettis for Assembly.

According to Richard Oberhaus, Campaign Director for the Greg Pettis for 80th Assembly District Campaign, as of yesterday, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 440 has now endorsed Pettis in his race to replace Bonnie Garcia.  IBEW Local 440 has long been active in Coachella Valley politics and Progressive Democratic circles.

Chuck McDaniel, a IBEW Local 440 leader and activist, is also a co-leader of the newly formed Desert Hot Springs Democratic Club, is a member of the Riverside County Democratic Central Committee, and attended the recent Pettis Campaign for 80th AD website preview.

Garcia, aka Barfcia due to her various verbal indiscretions and embarrassments to the District, is currently termed out and, pending defeat of the proposed ballot initiative to extend term limits, cannot again run for re-election.

The good news for Proud Progressive Democrats is that the Coachella Valley is trending blue with recent wins by Steve Pougnet for Mayor of Palm Springs, by Rick Hutcheson in the Palm Springs City Council, by Karl Baker in the Desert Hot Springs City Council, by Greg Pettis in the Cathedral City City Council, by Craig Ewing in the Desert Water Agency, and No on C.  Garcia barely won re-election in the last race against a little-known candidate, Steve Clute, who did not have the backing of all of the Democratic clubs because of his opposition to Marriage Equality.

In addition, Democrats now out-register Repugnants by 9% of the voters, i.e., 13,000 votes!  The voter registration figures are also trending Democratic across the district from Desert Hot Springs, Palm Springs, and Cathedral City in the West Valley to Indio, Coachella, and even Rancho Mirage, La Quinta, and Palm Desert in Down Valley.

Pettis has a well-funded, well-oiled candidacy and has already outraised all of his competitors combined in FundRace 2008!  In addition, Pettis already has endorsements from four of the local Democratic clubs, including the Pass Democratic Club, Desert Stonewall Democrats, Inland Stonewall Democrats, and San Diego Democratic Club.

Other labor organizations already endorsing Pettis include Building Trades of California, Cathedral City Professional Firefighters, and San Bernardino/Riverside Central Labor Council.

Update: So there's another story about this in Harper's Blog:

Yet Stern is currently presiding over what some within the union describe as a power grab, and one that could squelch opposition to some controversial deals he and his allies have supported (like a provision, ultimately shot down by internal opposition, that would have imposed a seven-year ban on strikes by Tenet Healthcare union employees). On Friday morning Stern is seeking to push through a deal that would severely weaken his chief critic inside the SEIU, in the name of “restructuring.”

“Stern is essentially seeking to take a public entity private,” one person familiar with the situation told me.

The chief battleground is California, where SEIU has around 650,000 members, 40 percent of its total membership. Back in 2004 there were 38 SEIU locals in California but that number was subsequently reduced to 20. This has occurred because in 2006 Stern and his allies pushed through a statewide reorganization that merged numerous locals into bigger entities, whose membership, critics say, was gerrymandered. Stern then handpicked the leaders at the newly formed unions, installing close allies as officers.

I guess to some extent, I was sucked into the frame of the LA Times story, that this was some profound change in SEIU's health care policy. And while there might be some long term impact on health policy here, I think it might require a keener eye than my own to see really what this is all about.  This could be about something more basic about what organized labor is, what their goals are, how to build a strong union.  There's most assuredly some personality and ego issues involved, but the timing of this potential putsch seems a bit sketchy. 

Updated: I should also link to this SF Weekly article about some of the differences between the two leaders here, just as background if you care to learn more. Ok, back to your regularly scheduled update.

This has been a crazy "YEAR OF HEALTHCARE REFORM," hasn't it? The Governor's Plan doesn't even get a hearing until the special session.  The best solution, SB 840, Sen. Kuehl's single payer bill, doesn't get very far because everybody's aware of the veto that would rain down upon it like a South Pacific typhoon.  The Assembly Dems and the Senate Dems eventually formed a comprimise plan at the end of the session only to see it get vetoed by the Governor. And now, while the Governor has moved on some important issues, like the lottery as a funding source, and changing his employer fee from 4% to 6%, an actual deal could yet elude us. 

And even when (and if) we actually get a deal, because of the funding provisions, we still have to go to the ballot. And now, there's issues in labor.  Exciting, huh?

 Turn the flip for the old story.

It seems SEIU's resolve on health care is rapidly crumbling. After months of towing the It's OUR Healthcare line, of supporting AB 8, and then tentatively supporting ABx1 1, it seems Sal Rosselli wasn't getting results at the pace that Andy Stern wanted them. 

While enthusiastic about the goal of securing coverage for the 5 million Californians who now are uninsured, Sal Rosselli — the president of an Oakland-based SEIU local as well as the state council — has insisted that any deal fully protect middle-class residents from having to pay premiums they may not be able to afford or forcing them to buy bare-bones policies.

But through a labor fight that has been more than a year in the making, Rosselli may be removed as president of the state council as early as this morning, two years before his term is scheduled to expire, according to union officials.

Many of the issues involved in the action have more to do with internal union politics about labor's direction than with the healthcare battle, but the leadership change could have substantial consequences. The potential new leaders are more eager than Rosselli and longtime Executive Director Dean Tipps to cut a deal with Schwarzenegger — in part to help advance their campaign to overhaul healthcare nationally.

That has been the view of Andy Stern, the president of the international union, who has personally expressed to the governor's office his frustration with the stance of California SEIU leaders, according to people familiar with the discussions. (LA Times 11/30/07)

So, Et Tu, Andy? To Mr. Stern, apparently the more important thing is getting immediate press releases, results are secondary. Look, ABx1 1 isn't perfect, far from it. It's not even as good as AB 8, and as It's OUR Healthcare has been saying there's much work to do. We need greater protections for the middle class and quality assurances. But how much more can we go? Are willing to just give in and require an entire individual mandate? Are we willing to yield on some of the cost controls and quality assurances that assure quality healthcare for Californians? Are we willing to give more money to Blue Cross so that Stern has some additional issues to grill Edwards and Clinton on? How'd that work in Massachusetts. Oh right, healthcare costs are double what the Legislature expected and costs have not been contained at all, so people have to just break the law and not carry coverage or buy shitty coverage. There's a whole lot more to this leadership switch than healthcare though. The rumored new leader of the State Council says this of Rosselli:

"Our experience in SEIU and across the country is you don't have to have the perfect bullet to slay the dragon," said Tyrone Freeman, president of the Los Angeles-based SEIU chapter representing 170,000 home care and nursing home workers.

 
So sure, there are plenty of sides to this story. And it's really not for me to judge the internal workings of SEIU. But is this the thinking of Stern as well? The man that was supposed to be our progressive champion? That we don't compromise enough? Wow. Just Wow.

Looks like that Dec. 5 deadline for voting on a health care proposal has been extended, after the power play of scheduling it on the day of the Republican Assembly retreat was justified by the Speaker’s office by saying “Deadlines are deadlines.”  Until they aren’t.

And now, there’s talk of a third special session, this one on the subprime mortgage crisis.  I guess the inaction on the first two was not sufficient; we need a third.  And I appreciate efforts to stop predatory lending, though I’m not sure how this would make a dent in what is a national credit lending problem.

I’m still not sure we have a housing “crisis” or just a housing market downturn, but I am pretty sure that nothing the Assembly is going to do in a special session this year is going to affect it one way or the other. Well, they are probably capable of making it worse. But I don’t think they can or will do anything to increase the value of my home, and while I’d love the help, I don’t particularly think they should try.

I’m not as dismissive as Dan Weintraub; this is most definitely a crisis.  But I’m not really sure what the Assembly can do.  The bills they have proposed would only apply to new loans.  That’s important, but they would not do a whole lot for those facing foreclosure.  And anyway, those entering into new loans would have to be deaf, dumb and blind to agree to some no-money-down ARM at this point.  And this bit from the press conference is flat-out embarrassing:

In an illustration of the complexity of the crisis, though, one of the homeowners presented at the press conference as a victim said the house he lost was actually one of two that he owned.

While many owners have lost homes they occupied, others were investors who saw the real estate run-up of the past decade as an investment opportunity.

Sacramento resident Carlos Villegas said he was forced into foreclosure when monthly payments on the house he bought in 2005 shot up from $2,200 to $3,550.

“They gave me three days to move,” he said. “I feel frustrated with the system.

In response to questions from reporters, Villegas said after the foreclosure, he moved back to a smaller house he had purchased 10 years earlier, which he had been renting out.

Of all the people with foreclosure problems, you found a guy with another house?!?

The credit mess is a national problem, and state solutions are nice, but they’re not going to work.  Perhaps driving down the costs of healthcare through a new reform would be the BEST way to help those struggling with home payments.

UPDATE: CPR has a summary of Democratic legislative proposals, and I have to say that the steps to address the current crisis are fairly weak tea.  Some of these, like foreclosure consultant reform, are already illegal; others, like facilitating reporting on workout agreements and increasing talk between homeowners and creditors, should have been initiated months ago.  The only substantive policy I see here is shoveling $10 million dollars to credit counselors.  The federal plan being worked out by the Treasury Department, to freeze teaser rates for some mortgages, would do a hell of a lot more good.

By Dave Johnson, from Speak Out California

One reason so many people in California and around the country “tune out” and don’t participate in our own government is they believe that creating change is beyond their control.  It often seems that things are locked in by powerful, wealthy interests with regular people locked out of the process.  This feeling of loss of control has been established by many disappointments over the years.  

There are experiments in “learned helplessness” in which rats are unable to control when they are given shocks.  Eventually they just lie down and give up.

For example, rats that have been exposed to shocks that they cannot control often become strikingly passive when later placed in new traumatic situations. They appear numb to the new trauma as if they have “given up.” Alternatively, they also become especially fearful of environments where they experience similar traumas and will try to avoid such situations.

Does this sound like you, or people you know?  Or maybe way too much of the state and country?

Take heart, for things CAN change!  In Australia’s last election the people threw out the bad-on-the-environment conservative government and brought in a government that promises to immediately sign the Kyoto anti-global-warming agreement to reduce carbon emissions.

And look who the new government is placing in charge of its environmental policies!  Former Midnight Oil rocker Garrett named Australia’s environment minister,

Peter Garrett – the towering, baldheaded former singer of the disbanded Australian rock group Midnight Oil – continued his long, strange tour from pop star to politician Thursday when he was named Australia’s environment minister.

With his wild dancing and strident voice, Garrett was one of Australia’s most recognizable singers until his band broke up in 2002, after belting out politically charged hits for more than 25 years.

Garrett founded Midnight Oil when he was a law student in 1973, but the semi-punk rock group did not achieve global fame until its 1987 track “Beds are Burning” – a protest song about Aboriginal land rights in Australia.

And so, to celebrate, here is something we can all “tune in” to:

Midnight Oil, Beds are Burning:

Click to continue.