Daily Archives: May 12, 2008

Uncategorized

Debbie Cook Campaign’s Official Kick-Off

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Huntington Beach Mayor Debbie Cook opened the doors to the nerve center of her Congressional campaign today as the momentum builds for a victory in the June 3 primary and beyond.

Cook, who is running for the Democratic nomination in the 46th Congressional District, has garnered an impressive list of endorsements and is enjoying a successful fundraising campaign. Opening a campaign headquarters will support her growing corps of volunteers.

“I am looking forward to using the office here in Huntington Beach as a staging area for getting our message out to voters,” Cook said. “We’ll be working the phones and pounding the pavement to spread our message of fiscal responsibility in government, healing our economy, creating ‘green’ jobs and bringing our troops home from Iraq.”

Cook and dozens of volunteers celebrated the new campaign headquarters by participating in a nationwide voter registration and mobilization effort. Later, they walked precincts and concluded the day with a campaign kick-off party.

Uncategorized

CA Superdelegate Crystal Strait Chooses Obama

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Friend of Calitics and DNC superdelegate Crystal Strait has endorsed Barack Obama today, one of several recent superdelegate endorsements for Obama that have now given him a lead with the supers over Hillary Clinton for the first time in the campaign. Strait, who is also the political action director for the California Democratic Party, is quoted in a press release put out by the Obama campaign:

While representing the Young Democrats of America at the DNC, my number one priority is to ensure that young people are fully represented at the polls and in the Party. Barack Obama has shown a real commitment to young voters in his campaign and in response young people have overwhelmingly voted and caucused for Obama in these primary contests. We know that if a young person votes three times in a row for a Party, they become a Party voter for life. We know that because of high youth turnout in 2004 and 2006, 2008 is the third and critical election for young voters. And that’s why I know I want to pledge my delegate vote to Barack Obama.

This is pretty solid reasoning, and not just because it mirrors my own thinking. Crystal Strait helped to put together a panel on youth voters at the San José CDP convention in March and many of the stats she cites were presented there as well, and I recall thinking to myself “if this isn’t a powerful argument for an Obama nomination I don’t know what is.”

Her decision comes after some intense lobbying. As Frank Russo notes at the California Progress Report Chelsea Clinton had met with her on several occasions to try and win Strait’s support, and both Hillary and Bill Clinton had “private conversations” with her as well. There are bound to be some questions about why Strait did not make this decision sooner, as the reasons she cited were apparent several months ago – but it is clearly an important decision.

And it’s the right decision. Kudos to Crystal Strait for throwing her support behind Barack Obama.

San Francisco

SF: Yes on Prop E

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Prop E MailerI don’t usually post much about specifics of SF’s propositions, but typically the proponents of said propositions don’t get me pissed off by using pugs in their deceptive mailers.  Look, hacky types, if you are going to use a pug in mailer, I demand you cut it out with the BS. Pugs deserve better! (Disclosure: We have 2 pugs.)  

So, the mailer is basically the same thing as the crappy No on E website. Even the name of the website is deceptive (Don’t Raise Our Rates). But before we get to that, what does Prop E do?  

Very broadly, Prop E would lower the threshold required to reject the Mayor’s appointees to the Public Utilities Commission. It would not allow the Board of Supes to appoint members to the PUC, but merely allow them real confirmation powers.  Follow me over the flip

Here’s what it does according to the ballot simplification committee & the Dept. of Elections:

Proposition E is a Charter Amendment that would change the process for appointing members to the PUC and would set qualifications for commission members. The Mayor would continue to nominate candidates to the PUC, but the nominees would not take office until the Board of Supervisors voted to approve their appointments by a majority (at least six members).

Proposition E also would require that PUC members meet the following qualifications:

• Seat 1 must have experience in environmental policy and an understanding of environmental justice issues;

• Seat 2 must have experience in ratepayer or consumer  advocacy;

• Seat 3 must have experience in project finance;

• Seat 4 must have expertise in water systems, power systems, or public utility management; and

• Seat 5 would be an at-large member.

Seems relatively straightforward, doesn’t it? It requires pertinent experience and approval of the majority of the board rather than a small minority.  In fact, this is quite restrained. Other commissions have board appointed members, but to get Supervisor Elsbernd, a Newsom ally, on board, the Supes went with a more moderate reform. This is a reasonable reform endorsed by nearly every major club in San Francisco. It is endorsed by 9 of the 11 supes, the SF Democratic Party, both SF LGBT Clubs, the SF Young Dems, and a slew of other organizations.  

This dispute comes directly from the Mayor’s firing of Susan Leal, the former executive director of the PUC. The reasons for the firing are still unclear, but the reasons given were almost entirely political. Sure, Leal owed her position at the PUC to politics, but to decry politics now seems a bit tacky. The fact is that most confirmations in legislative bodies require a simple majority to overrule the executive’s power. Heck, in practice the Senate only requires 40% to block an Administration appointee. I say, if it’s good enough for the Senate, I’m sure it will work just fine at the Board of Supes.

But more than that, Prop E is just good policy. Perhaps it came about through politics of the day, but the fact is that this policy sets San Francisco in a good position for the future.  Even if you support this Mayor, it doesn’t mean you will support the next. Prop E provides reasonable checks and balances and a more balanced, and less political, PUC. Each seat, save one, carries a requirement of experience in these issues. We get an environmental expert and a consumer advocate. A finance seat and a public utility manager. This is what we need on the PUC, not more political cronies.

Nonetheless, PG&E and a few of their subsidiaries have decried this as a “power play”. Sure, it’s a power play. It’s what checks and balances are all about.

PG&E continues their deception with the “they are going to raise your rates” argument. The fact is that this arguments makes absolutely no sense at all. They say that the Supes have voted to raise rates, but what they fail to mention is that these rate increases were also supported by the PUC and the Mayor’s appointees. The reason we have higher rates has nothing to do with arbitrary decisions of the Board of Supes, rather it is due largely to decisions of the PUC and higher energy costs.  

Finally, I should point out that one of the two Supervisors who opposes Prop E, supported the rate hike. Supervisor Alioto-Pier couldn’t actually make it down from St. Helena to vote in the matter of Sup. Elsbernd’s attempt to block the rate hike, but her failure to attend the meeting effectively killed the measure. (oh, and she said that she was planning on supporting the increase if she could have made the commute on time.)

In the end, the No on E arguments just carry no weight.  Prop E is good policy. Vote Yes on E.