For the last few years, I’ve been quite involved in the CDP.  I care deeply about the California Democratic Party and the tactics and policies that it pursues. I know that this Party can be a vehicle for real fundamental progressive policy change at all levels of government. However, we have a wide range of obstacles in front of us in the coming years to ensure that we strengthen our Party for the challenges of the next generation. That is why I have decided to run for vice-chair of the California Democratic Party.

As Democrats, we are fortunate. We needn’t concern ourselves with suppressing any voting blocs or hiding from our positions. The simple truth is that when the people come out to vote, we win. But turnout operations require people, thus we must become a truly people powered party. In word and deed. We need to continue the work of the neighborhood leader program, and build upon our recent successes. We need to register more voters, and then make sure they get to the polls.  That much we all know, but getting all that done requires a people-powered machine of volunteerism.

We must engage the grassroots of the party, and throw open the doors of the California Democratic Party.  It is increasingly clear that if we are to truly build a people-powered party that we need more transparency at all levels within the CDP. If we are to ask people to volunteer for our campaigns, shouldn’t they know what they are signing up for? It’s simply a matter of motivation, people are more likely to dedicate their time, effort, and resources to a party that explains their strategy to them.  This CDP should be of, by, and for grassroots Democrats as we attempt to ensure our collective success.

This people-powered party shouldn’t simply exist to serve a legislative caucus or any particular donor, but rather to ensure that the collective action of thousands of grassroots Democrats can be heard.  This means truly opening up ourselves to introspection.  It means reviewing our processes to ensure that we are an institution that is seeking the best solution rather than the easy solution. It means recalibrating ourselves to overcome inertia in the service of positive change. After all, if there is one thing that term limits have taught us, it is that incumbency is ephemeral, values are permanent.

But reform is a two-way street.  In order to build a truly people-powered party, we must follow up by building a program to increase donations to the party from grassroots activists. As transparency can increase activism, it can also increase fundraising.  While nobody expects to compete with presidential candidates, the growth of online donations from Howard Dean to Barack Obama shows that there is money there for those who speak clearly and openly of their beliefs. The same is true of the CDP .  Grassroots donations will not come until the grassroots activists are completely assured that their money will be spent wisely and for their intended purpose of supporting Democratic values.  This is not an overnight process, but rather a long process of growing relationships and building trust.

One way of supporting those Democratic values is to invest resources to expand the reach of our Party and fully implement our 58-County Strategy. Despite any conventional wisdom to the contrary, we are capable of growing the Party all across the state.We should encourage the growth of our Democratic County Central Committees and support their party-building efforts, whether they be volunteer voter registration drives or the hiring of regional field organizers.  Furthermore, we need to field candidates everywhere, because, as Howard Dean said, we can’t expect votes unless we ask for them.  We needn’t limit ourselves to the Coast, because despite the attacks that our leveled against us, we are right.

We are right that we can’t sell our civil liberties for a false promise of Big Brother providing us security. We are right that we all deserve access to health care without the concern of going broke (and then losing our homes to foreclosure). We are right that climate change presents to us a major and immediate challenge. We were right that Iraq was a war that should have never been authorized and never been waged. And we are right to provide the troops with all that we have promised, including quality health care and quality education when they return. Because despite the foolhardy nature of the mission, they have served admirably.  We are right that California, and the nation, need clean, publicly-owned, and trustworthy elections. And we are right that all Californians should be free to marry the one that they love.

We already have the capacity to make this a people-powered party. All the tools are already here. It’s simply a matter of will. Together we can build this CDP into our CDP .  Over the coming months I hope to talk to any delegates and as many interested Democrats as possible to discuss these challenges to the CDP in more detail.  I do not take this lightly. I have considered this for a long time, and feel that I can provide value to the CDP in the role of vice-chair. My experience with Calitics has given me a catbird seat view of the issues presented to the CDP.  And I am confident that my education and experience as a lawyer and a policy analyst will be an asset to the party. I have experience working for and against statewide propositions, and understand the good, bad, and ugly of California politics.  I have high expectations for this party and know that we will always have more work to do.  I’m ready to do some of that work.  If you have questions, let me know. Email me at brian AT calitics dotcom, and I’ll get back to you promptly. And if you’re going to be in Denver, well, I’ll do my best to speak to as many Californians as possible.

Bio: Brian Leubitz runs Calitics.com, the leading California progressive blog covering California politics and policy. He holds a law degree from the University of Texas and a Master of Public Policy (M.P.P) from the Goldman School at The University of California, Berkeley. After practicing law in San Francisco, Brian transitioned into politics and launched Calitics .com in 2005.  He has worked on several campaigns in the state, including the Yes on 93 (term limits reform) and the No on 98/Yes on 99 (eminent domain and property rights) campaigns. He currently is a member of the Democratic State Central Committee, serves on the CDP’s resolutions committee, and is on the boards of the San Francisco Young Democrats and the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club.

Monday night.  Be there.

Maybe he can tell them all how they have to compromise and raise taxes and to stop with the nonsense right-wing Republican talk that lies to the people.

Somehow, I expect it to be more in line with the dogma.

By the way, aren’t the legislators not supposed to leave for their respective national conventions until a budget is signed?

I guess it’s OK if you’re Arnold.

One of the most important but so far overlooked narratives of this election cycle is the return of taxes as a major political issue. The recession is hitting government budgets just as that same downturn, combined with soaring gas prices and global warming is creating demand for new spending.

Against this backdrop conservatives are now convinced that their way out of an ugly election cycle is to rally the public behind their rabid anti-tax politics. Constant attacks on Obama as a tax-raiser are partly to blame for McCain’s recent rise in the polls.

And here in the states Republicans are again turning to the tax revolt, their bread and butter for 30 years. Republican intransigence on the California budget is best seen as part of this national strategy to break Democrats on the tax rack.

The Wall Street Journal has a great overview of tax politics in the states, including a lunatic proposal to eliminate Massachusetts’ income tax and a equally nutty plan to allow Oregon residents to deduct an unlimited amount of federal tax on their state returns.

Here in California conservatives are already circling the wagons on taxes. John and Ken, the reliable bellwethers of SoCal conservatism, raked Arnold over the coals yesterday over taxes:

Schwarzenegger tried to defend new taxes as necessary because the state was still paying off debts incurred by predecessor Gov. Gray Davis. But the hosts pressed further and suggested that Schwarzenegger abandoned his original mission of fixing the state’s fiscal situation in order to pursue environmental goals.

That seemed to upset the governor, who maintained that his environmental policies had nothing to do with the state budget.

“This is absolutely absurd what you’re saying right now,” Schwarzenegger said. “….You’re living in the Stone Age if you think that the environmental issue has anything to do with the budget or the declining economy worldwide.”

“Don’t lie to the people,” Schwarzenegger added. “That’s all I can tell you, don’t lie to the people. Don’t pull wool over their eyes. It’s nonsense Republican right-wing talk.”

To which John and Ken then asked whether Arnold was under anesthesia. Stay classy, Los Angeles.

What this shows is that the conservatives are in no mood whatsoever to give ground on taxes. The drubbing John and Ken gave Arnold is a taste of what many Sacramento Republicans might face from within their own party. Their fear is that by voting for a tax increase, they’re going to face primary challengers who will simply tell the wingnut base “my opponent voted for a tax increase” and their ambitious political careers will be over.

So it seems very unlikely that Republicans will give in this time. That leaves it up to Democrats to force the issue. The only thing that should scare Republicans more than a primary fight is losing the general election. That means Dems have to go after Republicans hard – and that in turn means Dems have to finally stop avoiding the issue and for the first time in 30 years make a case for taxes.

The problem is that, with reporters like Lisa Vorderbrueggen repeating conservative tax framing, Dems have an uphill battle. Way too many Californians assume taxes are taken out of their own pocket and never returned to them, even though Californians derive great and real economic value from government spending.

One angle would be to, as Anthony Wright suggests over on the left-hand column, make the budget about the economy. Explain the value of the services Californians receive from government and show how, in a recession, the loss of those services will hurt their bottom line.

Dems would also do well to explain to voters how Republican tax cuts are behind this crisis – from the 1998 McClintock tax cuts to Arnold’s $6 billion VLF cut to the repeated borrowing that Republicans have demanded, this budget crisis would be quite manageable were it not for reckless tax cuts.

Further, explain how tax cuts are also responsible for our economic downturn. With more government spending on higher education, health care, and mass transit, many of the costs that currently cripple households would be eased.

It’s not about the “budget” and never has been. This about taxes. With their backs up against the wall conservatives have returned to the strategies that brought them to power in the first place, and in California that means stoking a tax revolt. Unless Dems are able to defang that argument this budget crisis, and perhaps even the 2008 election, are not going have a happy ending.

At this point the judiciary is pretty much the only government entity in this state I have a modicum of belief in; they aren’t hamstrung by ridiculous rules that make it impossible to function, so they can simply follow the law.  State agencies, when properly run, also can exhibit some independence.  Lately, there have been several cases ruled in favor of reformers at the expense of malign protectors of the health care status quo.

After a series of investigations from the California Department of Public Health, 18 hospitals have been fined for substandard care.

Violations included an improperly inserted catheter, a ventilator that was not turned on and surgical tools left inside patients after operations […]

The hospitals were fined $25,000 for each violation – the latest of dozens of penalties the state has issued in recent years to more than 40 hospitals.

“The number of penalties will decrease and the quality of care will dramatically improve as hospitals take action to improve,” said Kathleen Billingsley, director of the health department’s Center for Healthcare Quality. “The entire intent of these fines is to improve the overall quality of care in California.”

As care is improved, so must access for treatment.  The proposed cuts to Medi-Cal by the governor would have decimated the ability for the poor to find a doctor.  The cuts never made it through district court.

A federal judge has ordered a temporary halt in the state’s 10 percent reduction in Medi-Cal reimbursement rates, improving access to care for 6.5 million low-income patients but throwing a new wrench in already difficult budget negotiations.

The U.S. District Court decision forces the state to reimburse most Medi-Cal providers at rates prior to the 10 percent cut, which lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made effective July 1 as a cost-cutting measure to help resolve a $15.2 billion budget shortfall this year.

The move increases reimbursement rates the state pays to doctors, dentists, pharmacists, adult day-care centers and other providers who serve Medi-Cal patients. It excludes some hospitals who do not contract with the state and do not provide emergency care.

This just shows the fallacy of a cuts-only budget, which runs into all kinds of voter mandates and constitutional demands.  The good news here is that reimbursement rates will be sustained, albeit at a level low enough that half of the state’s doctors will still probably reject Medi-Cal patients.  The Democratic budget would also have rescinded the Medi-Cal rate cuts.

In a separate decision in the State Supreme Court, the justices ruled that doctors cannot deny care to gays and lesbians based on moral objections.

Justice Joyce Kennard wrote that two Christian fertility doctors who refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian have neither a free speech right nor a religious exemption from the state’s law, which “imposes on business establishments certain antidiscrimination obligations.”

In the lawsuit that led to the ruling, Guadalupe Benitez, 36, of Oceanside said that the doctors treated her with fertility drugs and instructed her how to inseminate herself at home but told her their beliefs prevented them from inseminating her. One of the doctors referred her to another fertility specialist without moral objections, and Benitez has since given birth to three children.

Nevertheless, Benitez in 2001 sued the Vista-based North Coast Women’s Care Medical Group. She and her lawyers successfully argued that a state law prohibiting businesses from discriminating based on sexual orientation applies to doctors.

Of course, we cannot rely on the courts to shape public policy.  But they set the boundaries – the lines that lawmakers cannot cross.  And those boundaries are leading to increased access and improved care.

Those who believe in investing in health care, education, and other vital services appropriately focus in the budget debate on the devastating impact of the specific budget cuts.

Those who oppose the revenues and taxes that are needed to find those programs generally make a broad anti-tax argument, often with an economic case. Witness many of the Republican Assemblymembers who spoke during the five hour+ debate on Sunday.

But the fact is, it’s the investment that helps the economy, and we should make that case more often. Noted academics Steve Levy and Manuel Pastor had an excellent Sacramento Bee op-ed that makes this very point.

In a recent study “Significant Side Effects: The Economic Impacts of Health Care Cuts in California Communities,” Health Access California (my organization) looked at just the health care cuts: and the comparison is stark. It finds that, due to federal tax deductions and matching Medicaid dollars, preserving California’s health care budget would have three times the positive economic impact as preventing an equivalent amount of increased taxes for upper income Californians.

In fact, the worst thing you could do for an economy is make health care cuts, which means twice the impact just from the lost federal matching funds denied to our economy. There are also economic ripple effects, from lost jobs and wages, increased private health premiums, and more.

Money spent on health care immediately goes into circulation, through wages and vendors, which then gets recycled and multiplied in the economy. In contrast, an upper-income bracket tax impacts money that may be in the economy, or may simply be in the bank. Also, state income taxes are deductible on federal returns, which means that translates to be 35% less to the upper-income family, and in effect, more money in the California economy, courtesy of DC.

We need to forcefully rebut arguments that make economic claims about taxes without considering the economic repercussions of the cuts. Preventing the cuts is not just good for our health, but the health of the economy as well.

Cross-posted at the Health Access WeBlog.

The Assembly Dems have pumped out a couple of videos on the budget in the last week.  Sure, I’m partial to Mark Leno, so I thought I’d share his speech from the Assembly floor on Sunday.

Hey, did you know FDR caused the depression? Pretty amazing that he did that in 1929, 3 years before he became president in 1932. It’s cool what you can learn from the Republicans! And, you know, FDR did some pretty darn bad things like establish the social security system. Man, what was that guy thinking, providing a safety net for our nation’s seniors?! That pretty much ruined America, right?

The important part here is that the Republicans don’t want to lay their cards on the table. Why not? Well, could you imagine a true cuts only budget? It would be horrific, with massive cuts to education and healthcare services.

I suppose they just want to let the next generation pay for operating expenses of today. No better way to show you love your kids than saddle them with debt.