Cross posted from Sunlight Foundation

If you had a microphone and a media pass at the U.S. Capitol, what would you ask your lawmaker? What issues matter most to you during this election? The economy? Healthcare? Immigration, global warming, Iraq? Now’s your chance to make your voice heard in the corridors of power and on 200+ public radio stations across the U.S.

Using Sunlight grantee Capitol News Connection’s new Ask Your Lawmaker site and widget, you can ask powerful lawmakers on the air about the issues that will define this election. Plus, how lawmakers, as “super delegates” could end up picking the candidates at the conventions: how will they decide?

Capitol News Connection, the award-winning congressional news service that brings politics ‘home’ to almost 2 million public radio listeners nationwide, will compile the best – and most popular questions – submitted through the Ask Your Lawmaker widget and site. Citizens with the best questions will be chosen to ask them on the air. Listeners can also call them the CNC team at 202/546-8654.

All questions must be submitted by COB Monday, February 11. The Ask Your Lawmaker shows will air on over 200 NPR affiliates next Tuesday (2/12) and Wednesday (2/13).

PS: If you haven’t already, be sure to download CNC’s Ask Your Lawmaker widget and use it on your site!

I am the Outreach Coordinator for the Sunlight Foundation

(bump cause I like congressional and numbers – promoted by Lucas O’Connor)

Turnout from Tuesday’s primary by party.  Every district with a Republican leaning PVI plus Barbara Lee just for fun and comparison’s sake. Of the Republican leaning districts, Dem turnout was higher in 8 and close in several others.  Might be an interesting November. Just sayin.

Numbers on the flip.

Update: I should have mentioned in the first place, there are still no Democratic candidates in CA-02, CA-19, CA-22, or CA-25.  Turnout was dead even in the 19th and higher for Dems in the 25th, just for starters.

CA-02; R+13

Wally Herger (R)

R 80,090

D 70,563

CA-03; R+7

Dan Lungren (R)

R 70,544

D 80,070

CA-04; R+11

Open (R)

R 107,757

D 89,717

CA-09; D+38

Barbara Lee (D)

R 13,384

D 124,070

CA-11; R+3

Jerry McNerney (D)

R 69,766

D 81,650

CA-19; R+10

George Radanovich (R)

R 63,766

D 62,331

CA-21; R+13

Devin Nunes (R)

R 51,272

D 44,053

CA-22; R+16

Kevin McCarthy (R)

R 86,234

D 61,123

CA-24; R+5

Elton Gallegly (R)

R 78,422

D 82,293

CA-25; R+7

Buck McKeon (R)

R 60,837

D 64,048

CA-26; R+4

David Dreier (R)

R 73,144

D 74,934

CA-40; R+8

Ed Royce (R)

R 66,027

D 59,372

CA-41; R+9

Jerry Lewis (R)

R 68,055

D 59,833

CA-42; R+10

Gary Miller (R)

R 79,622

D 63,182

CA-44; R+6

Ken Calvert (R)

R 57,083

D 57,317

CA-45; R+3

Mary Bono (R)

R 53,635

D 59,067

CA-46; R+6

Dana Rohrabacher (R)

R 81,427

D 74,084

CA-48; R+8

John Campbell (R)

R 92,187

D 75,845

CA-49; R+10

Darrell Issa (R)

R 62,658

D 53,493

CA-50; R+5

Brian Bilbray (R)

R 78,489

D 82,358

CA-52; R+9

Open (R)

R 74,593

D 67,849

In the aftermath of the failure of Prop 93 on Tuesday, most attention seemed to be focused on the leadership contests in Sacramento. But Prop 93’s failure has sparked a whole series of contests to replace outgoing lawmakers. With the June primary four months away, potential candidates are scrambling to get their names out there in the public eye, raise money, and rally supporters. These contests will help determine the future of the Democratic legislature and progressive politics in the state, and so it’s time we looked at some of these in greater detail.

Here in the Monterey Bay area, in AD-27, we’re faced with the task of replacing the incomparable John Laird, one of the most knowledgeable legislators on the budget and a strong progressive. The Yes on 93 campaign won Santa Cruz and Monterey counties with an effective “Yes on 93 – Keep John Laird” appeal, but it wasn’t enough. Laird’s future is uncertain – like the equally talented Fred Keeley, who represented the district before he was termed out in 2002, Laird does not live in SD-15, the long coastal state senate district currently represented by Republican Abel Maldonado. Most of us here would love Laird to move a few miles east and run in SD-15, one of the most winnable Senate districts in the state (Dems now have a lead in registration), but Laird has not announced his intentions.

Five candidates have declared for the Democratic primary here in AD-27. Emily Reilly is a member of the Santa Cruz City Council and last year served as the city’s mayor. She’s visited Calitics before – in December she wrote an excellent piece attacking the “design-build” concept that Arnold is so much in love with, and I personally support her in the race to replace Laird. She has strong progressive credentials on issues from health care to sustainability and climate change, and has also demonstrated significant fundraising prowess – she raised nearly $120,000 from over 300 small donors in Q4 2007, even before it was known whether she would actually be a candidate for AD-27 (she, like most in the race, promised to withdraw if Prop 93 passed).

Bill Monning is another experienced entrant into the race. Monning is a Monterey attorney, and has challenged for this seat before – in 1994 he was the Democratic nominee, but lost to Bruce McPherson in that year’s Republican tide. Monning, like Reilly, emphasizes his strong progressive credentials, and is especially interested in action on climate change. According to the Monterey Herald Monning has $60,000 in the bank, but plans to raise $480,000 for the primary.

Over the flip I discuss the other announced candidates for the seat…

Barbara Sprenger is an activist from Felton in Santa Cruz County, and like Reilly and Monning has a strong commitment to progressive ideas – her website explains her support of single-payer care, student loan reform, and green jobs. Sprenger also helped organize the town of Felton’s public buyout of a private company that had controlled their water supply. According to the Santa Cruz Sentinel she had already raised $60,000 as of early January.

Stephen Barkalow, a Monterey doctor, emphasizes the need for health care reform (though does not explicitly call for single-payer) as well as action on education, environment, and affordable housing.

Finally there is Doug Deitch, of Aptos in Santa Cruz County. He doesn’t have a website yet his website is here, but he is running as a one-issue candidate – focused on water. Deitch believes that the Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency should have its state-delegated powers stripped because, in his eyes, the agency has given too much groundwater to farmers. Interestingly, Deitch was going to run in the primary even if Prop 93 had passed.

Overall it’s a strong field, and each one will be bringing a good set of progressive values to the campaign. Of course, with the state budget issue dominating all else in CA politics, and given that these candidates are vying to replace the legislature’s acknowledged budget genius, they’re going to need to explain to voters how they will help provide long-term revenue solutions to the budget, instead of going for short-term fixes and crippling spending cuts. My advice to the candidates is to take leadership on the budget, and show voters how that squares with the candidate’s other progressive positions.

That’s good advice for any Democrat running in the June primary, and I invite your comments on other races.

(full disclosure: I work for Courage)

There are 94,000 Decline-to-State (DTS) votes that have gone uncounted in Los Angeles County due to the “Double Bubble Trouble”

The Courage Campaign lawyers have been back in forth with Dean Logan, the LA County Registrar of Voters (ROV) over the last 24 hours.  While the Registrar is making noises to the press about counting all 94,000 votes that have not been counted because the voter missed the redundant Democratic bubble, he is only talking about sampling 5% of the vote.  Those 94,000 amount to about HALF of all of the ballots cast by Decline-to-State voters on Tuesday in LA County.  

That is why this afternoon we launched a petition to Dean Logan.  The message is simple. Count. Every. Vote.

We have gotten dozens of stories via email, phone and our website from DTS voters in Los Angeles who think their votes have not been counted, because they missed the extra bubble.  This one from Julian H. is just heart breaking to me.

“I’ve been following politics before I even hit my teens. And 2 weeks before this election, I turned 18, with my registration in weeks before. I knew the issues, the candidates, the propositions, and for the fist time in my life cast a ballot. I heard the next day about the double bubble. No one at the polls mentioned it, and I didn’t see instructions that even pointed to its existence. It’s not such a great feeling that you’re first close up experience in a system you’ve watched for so long at a distance could have amounted to nothing.”

Julian is just one of the 94,000 voters who are currently disenfranchised.

Despite Logan’s last minute attempts to notify poll workers about this problem, at the suggestion of our lawyers, not everyone got the message.

Maria wrote on a blog post of mine on the Courage site:

As a volunteer pollworker our training materials (which I still have) only indicated that non-partisan voters should be given a non-partisan ballot and should be directed to either a non-partisan booth, an AI booth or a Democratic booth.

Believe me if we had been told that their vote would not count if that bubble were not filled we would have emphasized that.

I feel betrayed by the county. After spending all this time preparing for the elections we had 1/6 of the voters voting provisional ballots because they could not be found in the rosters and now this.

Who can I talk to about what I witnessed on Feb 5th? I am really concerned. I have volunteered 3 consecutive times as a pollworker and this is the worst election by far.

We will not let this one go.  All of the votes need to be counted.  The Registrar needs to make sure that this never happens again.

We need to fix the underlying problem effecting all DTS voters.  Poll workers should be allowed to and trained to offer up choices of ballots to DTS voters.  There is no reason why they should have to ask for one.