Attention Senator Florez: if concerns about your upcoming election for Lieutenant Governor are in any way influencing your statement that you don’t see the Senate you’re in charge of confirming Schwarzenegger’s appointment of Abel Maldonado to that same seat, I just want to say:

Don’t worry, be happy!

See, I can understand that you might be concerned that facing someone who could now put his title as “appointed incumbent” might make a general election campaign more difficult, but the likelihood is that you wouldn’t be facing him anyway.  You might, after all, recall the story about Maldonado’s last run for statewide office, as reported by Robert Cruickshank.  If you don’t, I’ll just reprint it in full.

State Sen. Abel Maldonado, the deciding vote in the big state budget morass, came to see me last week with a very interesting story about his fellow Republicans.

I was telling him what a good name he has, because no one can figure out if it is Spanish, Italian or Portuguese.

He proceeded to tell me that when he was running for state controller in 2006, he commissioned a poll to gauge the feelings of Republican voters in Orange County.

The poll came back showing him losing to the Democrat by almost 2-1.

“This is impossible,” Maldonado said. “Orange County is loaded with Republicans.”

They did the poll again and the results were the same – the Democrat won.

So Maldonado ran a little test. He had the pollster go back and give voters the same information as before – his age, that he’s a rancher and the like – but this time, he said, tell them the candidate’s name is Smith.

The result: Smith came out ahead.

So he ran another poll, a Republican named Garcia vs. a Democrat named Smith.

Smith won again, even among Republicans.

At that point, Maldonado said, “We’re not spending another nickel – there ain’t no way that anyone with a Spanish name is going to win anything in a Republican primary in this state.”

He was right, in his case at least – he lost the primary to Tony Strickland.

Keep in mind, of course, that this was in 2006–a few years before the inmates took over the asylum that is the Republican Party.  And keep in mind, I’m not just talking about the racial aspect.  I’m also specifically referring to the difficulty that moderate Republicans of any ethnicity will have in winning a primary against a more conservative opponent, especially in light of the fact that RNC is in fact on the verge of imposing a purity test that would be pretty hard for Maldonado to meet, compared to a potential primary opponent.

Bottom line: Dean Florez and the rest of the Democrats in the Senate should be licking their chops in anticipation of getting a chance at this seat.

disclosure: I have leadership positions or membership in multiple organizations affiliated with the Democratic Party that have endorsed Paul Krekorian for City Council.

Forgive me for continuing to write about Los Angeles City politics on a statewide site, but this is too interesting to pass up.  I’ve written previously about the race for Los Angeles City Council District 2 here because it has statewide implications: if Paul Krekorian wins, we will have a vacancy in AD-43.  So it does matter, and since it is my hometown and I’m somewhat enmeshed here, I’ve been following the race.  And there’s something very interesting afoot.

For any of this to be interesting or relevant, I want you to review two brief snippets of election-related ordinances from the Los Angeles Campaign Finance Ordinance:

No candidate for City Council who files a statement of acceptance of matching

funds, nor any controlled committee of such candidate, shall make qualified

campaign expenditures above the following amounts: $330,000 per primary

election and $275,000 per general election.

And even more importantly:

If a candidate who declines to accept matching funds makes qualified campaign expenditures in excess of the expenditure ceiling, or if an independent expenditure committee or committees in the aggregate spend more than $50,000 in the case of a City

Council race, $100,000 in the case of an election for City Attorney or Controller, or

$200,000 in the case of an election for Mayor, in support of or in opposition to any such candidate, the applicable expenditure ceiling shall no longer be binding on any candidate running for the same office.

That’s the applicable law.  There’s a $330,000 spending cap for City Council races–unless one or more IE’s comes in and busts it by spending a total of at least $50,000 on the race–either for or against any candidate.  So that basically means that if a candidate is up against the spending limit, all that candidate needs to do is quietly arrange for an independent expenditure of a certain amount, and then…voila!  Spend away.

Which is exactly what it seems Chris Essel’s campaign has done.  It seems intentional and coordinated, too.  True, the evidence is entirely circumstantial–but when you add the evidence all up, there’s only one logical conclusion.  Follow me below the fold for more.

Let me begin by stating that Chris Essel’s campaign accepted matching taxpayer funds from the City, subjecting her campaign to the $330,000 spending limit.  There are a couple of other things to know too–first, that the special primary election was September 22nd; and second, the spending limit in the special general election goes down to $275,000 for those with matching funds who make it to the runoff.  Why am I telling you this?  Well, you’ll find out soon enough.

So now that you’re familiar with all this, I’d like you to take a look Chris Essel’s next-to-last campaign spending report of the general election.  The end-of-period for the filing is September 16–six days before the general election–and look at how much the report show her campaign as having spent to-date: $321,464.57.  Now, I can do arithmetic.  That means that legally, the Essel campaign would, under normal circumstances, have only been able to spend a paltry $8,433.43 the entire last week of the campaign–which is basically when you need the money most.

Essel’s only hope at being able to finance the campaign for the last week of the election? Hoping that someone did an independent expenditure campaign that made the total IE expenses for the election total $50,000, which would bust the cap for all candidates.  But what would be the chances of that happening?

Very good, apparently, if you’re Chris Essel.  Now take a look at this: it’s the spending report of independent expenditures for Chris Essel’s campaign.  And miraculously, on the 16th of September, there is an IE of $32,500 from the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, based in DC.  Even more miraculously, this IE–spent on a cable buy (and much more on this later)–just so happens to be just enough to push the Essel campaign over the $50,000 threshold required to bust the salary cap and allow it to spend an unlimited amount of money through election day on the 22nd.  (Technically, the $12,000 or so of IE’s spent on behalf of Tamar Galatzan’s campaign also counts toward the $50,000 threshold, but because of the circumstances behind the reporting deadlines, there would have been no way to know how much had been spent.)

Now, one might think that it’s no surprise that a union–even if it’s a DC one and not a Los Angeles local–would go to bat for its endorsed candidate.  Until, of course, you take a look at the FEC data for exactly what the Allied Painters have contributed to.  Follow that link through, and you’ll see that the union’s IE’s have been on behalf of mostly Presidential candidates, as well as Kendrick Meek and Ciro Rodriguez–both federal candidates–and that you can scroll through that entire list without finding a single IE or cash contribution to a municipal candidate.

So, as things stand right now given all the unusual circumstances and convenient coincidences, I’d have to be born yesterday to even get started believing that this expenditure wasn’t knowingly done to bust the cap and allow the Essel campaign to receive taxpayer campaign cash and not be subject to the limits anyway.  But it gets even worse.

I linked to the script of the ad earlier.  Here’s the video on Youtube.  Now, I decided to go a step further here.  I got a contact in the cable industry to tell me where the ad money went.  Here’s something fascinating: the ads were placed, as you’d expect, in the cable regions encompassing Council District 2: the East San Fernando Valley and South San Fernando Valley regions.  Now, as it is, that’s horribly inefficient, especially for the South San Fernando region, which stretches for a couple dozen miles outside CD2 all the way to Calabasas on its Western boundary.  But even worse?  The ad was also placed in two regions entirely outside Los Angeles:  The regions encompassing the cities of Glendale (a Charter cable zone) and Santa Clarita (Time Warner, like the SFV regions).  For those of you that really care, you can see the map of the cable zones.  I want to repeat something here: there is no overlap between those two regions and the Council District in question.  So if they decided to put the ad there, it was because they were intentionally wasting money just to achieve a certain target amount.  And then, of course, there’s the issue of what stations they put them on.  Normally, you put political ads on political/news stations.  You don’t do what these guys did and put them on Court TV and Lifetime, which is where these apparently went.

So…we’ve already got a lot of evidence that the entire reason for this IE was just to bust the cap and allow the Essel campaign to spend unlimited cash.  Now, I don’t know what the City’s ethics division would think about that.  But I do think that they’d look very askance at it if they knew that it was being done with prior knowledge of the campaign.  And there’s plenty of evidence for that too.

First, let’s take into account the fact that Chris Essel was still raising money at maximum contribution fundraisers during this critical time.  All you need to do is look through the full list of communications reports provided by the City Ethics commission to see that there were fundraising events that had to have been in the planning stages before the Painters’ union dropped their IE, even though at that time, there would have been no legal way for the Essel campaign to spend all the money they were raising–unless they knew that the Painters were about to make their play.  After all, if you’re distributing invites for fundraisers where the asking price is $500 (maximum contribution for City Council candidates), and as of the 16th you’ve only got $8,500 you can legally spend…you’re doing something wrong.

So at this point, you’re stuck with two options.  Either the Essel campaign was unknowingly raising gobs money they couldn’t legally spend and got miraculously bailed out at exactly the right time by a union that has absolutely no history playing in Los Angeles politics that put up exactly the right amount of money on a completely ineffective cable buy with an ad produced by a company that has no reputation for political ads…or there’s something fishy going on here.

Something I haven’t mentioned–but it’s particularly ironic in this context–is that the ad in question prominently features City Controller Wendy Greuel, who is responsible for ensuring that the City’s taxpayers are treated fairly, doing a voiceover discussing Chris Essel’s ethics.  It would indeed have a certain ironic twist if Controller Greuel were being used to basically defraud taxpayers out of the $100,000 in matching funds that they contributed to Essel’s campaign.

But now comes a piece of evidence that–at least in my mind–proves the case.  Per the independent expenditure reports, the $32,500 cable buy that busted the cap was made on 9/16.  Disclosure was made about the buy on 9/17.  So that means that the campaign would have been informed only on 9/17 that the cap had been busted and they would be allowed to spend more money.  And now let’s look at the Essel campaign’s spending report for that time period.

Quite coincidentally, a payment was made on 9/17 to Burnside and Associates, Chris Essel’s paid field ops consulting firm, followed the next day by $50,000 to Shallman (Essel’s mail consultant) and another $8,000 to Burnside.  Now, while the $50,000 the very next day to Shallman may stand out, it’s actually the most within the realm of plausible deniability because once the cap had been busted, the Essel campaign may well have put out money in a hurry to fund a last-minute mail piece.  It’s the payments to Burnside, by contrast, that are problematic.

Burnside is a field consultant.  Unlike her chief opponents in the primary, Essel had to rely on paid field for canvassing operations.  Keep in mind how much money the Essel campaign would have been legally allowed to spend from 9/16 to 9/22 without the cap being busted: a shade under $8,500.  Meanwhile, based on the payments made on 9/17 and 9/18 referenced above, the Essel campaign apparently owed Burnside $21,250.  So again, you’re left with two options here: either the Essel campaign knew not only that the cap was going to be busted, but knew exactly when it was going to be busted, OR the Essel campaign had–whoops!–spent so much money that it would have been unable to pay the bills for the paid field operation it was depending on in the last week of the campaign.  Keep in mind, of course, that all of these financial reports are public–which makes you wonder if Burnside was concerned at all that the Essel campaign was spending the type of money that would leave it unable to actually pay their field consultant.

And speaking of Burnside, there’s something else odd going on here that’s tangentially related.  I sorted the Essel campaign’s expenditure list to reflect all the payments to her consulting firm.  Let’s add them up, shall we?

$58,855.90.  For a field operation in a City Council district.  Now, my evidence for this is entirely circumstantial, but I know people who were active in the primary campaigns of both of Essel’s main opponents (Tamar Galatzan and Paul Krekorian).  They all told me that Essel’s field campaign was only active in the last 7-10 days of the campaign.  So either the Essel team paid for what has to be the most paid field week I’ve ever seen, or they’re paying for something else too in that total.  Not sure what.

I’ve contacted the City Ethics Commission–not about this specific case, but about the applicable law in general.  And I’ve been told that if indeed the supposed independent expenditure was coordinated with the campaign–and all the evidence suggests exactly that–then it would no longer be considered independent, and penalties could certainly apply.

I have a call in to the Essel campaign requesting to talk to somebody on the financial end of things about this, but haven’t heard back.  I did, however, get through to the Krekorian campaign to give them a brief overview of my findings.  A short time later, Eric Hacopian with the Krekorian campaign gave me this quote:

“Throughout this campaign, Chris Essel has shown a consistent disregard for the truth and now it is becoming clear that she also has no respect for the law.

“Apparently her lust for campaign funds is so great that she’s even willing to manipulate the system to rip off taxpayers to pay for her attack mailers.”

Now, maybe I’m entirely wrong and I’ve read all of this wrong, and this is standard practice for LA politics.  But the whole thing does seem kind of suspicious, no?  I’ll be doing my best to follow up on this to see what, if any, connections exist between the Allied Painters and Chris Essel’s campaign to see if there are further connections to be fleshed out here.  Be expecting more in the coming days about this issue.

The heart of Los Angeles is a square bounded by freeways–the 101 to the North, the 110 to the East, the 10 to the South, and the 405 to the West.  I live right in the middle of that square.  And I envision a day where I can get to Sacramento, San Francisco, or San Diego not by driving 20 minutes to the appropriate freeway and then several more hours on that freeway, but rather by stepping outside my front door, walking to the nearest subway station, and taking it to Union Station where I connect with the HSR line right downtown to my destination.

And while the high-speed rail authority is trying to make sure that the long half of the project gets completed while I’m still alive, the City of Los Angeles has been waiting for someone to show that type of initiative.  In November 2008, voters in Los Angeles County overwhelmingly passed Measure R, an additional half-cent sales tax levy to fund a wide variety of transportation projects, but especially a subway to the sea that will serve the Wilshire Corridor commuter lane for all those that live in the East and work in the West.

So what’s the problem?  It’s supposed to take 30 years.  According to the current schedule, I’ll be approaching my 60s by the time I would finally get a chance to hop on a subway here in midtown.  Who knows–maybe they’ll have invented personal teleportation technology by then.

Fortunately, Mayor Villaraigosa doesn’t think that’s acceptable:

The mayor today will unveil an ambitious but politically risky transportation plan that fast-tracks several high-profile rail projects to be completed within the next decade. That’s a big speed-up, because officials have generally been talking about completing them within 30 years.

Villaraigosa has made building more rail a priority of his administration, though he’s the first to admit it’s going to take more than speeches and good intentions to get it done.

“Yes, this is a stretch goal. Yes, this is going to be tough, but I think by now folks shouldn’t count me out,” Villaraigosa said in an interview. “The fact is that this is the most important thing that we can do to alleviate congestion and gridlock, to improve the quality of our air and to really vindicate the people’s will for the need to address transportation.”

Accelerating light rail projects in the City would be one of the best things we could do.  It would create jobs more quickly, it would alleviate traffic, and it would mitigate air pollution.  The problem?  We would need about $10 billion.  But I’ll tell you this much: if there’s a second round of stimulus coming, I can’t think of better ways to spend it than development of light rail in Los Angeles.  The timing is also good because construction costs are lower in bad economic times–if we wait until the economy improves, construction will become concomitantly more expensive.

Of course, I may be just a little biased.

On December 8th, voters in Los Angeles Council District 2, which encompasses a large swath of the San Fernando Valley from Studio City to Sunland, will get to make a choice on who they want to be their next Councilmember.  It’s not a choice they should take lightly, as whoever they choose will get to represent them on the Council for the next 14 years (three four-year terms, plus the ~2 years of the unexpired term for which this is a special election).  The race has statewide implications, of course, because should Krekorian win, it will require a series of special elections to replace him in the Assembly, and that will be darned interesting.

First, a little background.  This election is occurring because former Councilmember Wendy Greuel ran for City Controller and won, leaving the seat vacant.  Out of a myriad of candidates, the top two finishers  in the special primary were current Assemblymember from AD-43 Paul Krekorian, as well as Paramount studio executive turned community activist Chris Essel.  Both candidates are very well funded, though Essel has a distinct cash advantage at the moment.  Krekorian has the support of essentially the entire Democratic Party establishment and its affiliated groups, while Essel brings prominent personal endorsements to the table, as well as the LA Chamber of Commerce.  At this point, the race is expected to be a toss-up, and hinges on whether supporters of other primary candidates, especially Tamar Galatzan and Mary Benson, will show up to vote and for whom they will vote.  Turnout is expected to be primarily by absentee and really low.

So much for background.  I’ll introduce this by stating the obvious, as well as a fact.  Paul Krekorian is of Armenian heritage–the district he currently represents in the Assembly has the highest concentration of Armenians anywhere outside Armenia, and Council District 2 has the highest concentration of Armenians in the City of Los Angeles.  Ethnic politics being what it is–see Chu. vs. Cedillo in Congressional District 32–it goes without saying that Krekorian has basically the default backing of the Armenian community.  Which is why, if you’re the other candidate in an election that will have fantastically low turnout, you should go out of your way not to give your opponent’s base any motivation to vote against you.

Enter Chris Essel, stepping in it by attending a “meet-and-greet” with contributions optional held by a boardmember of a Turkish organization that denies the Armenian genocide:

Essel’s opponent in the Dec. 8 special election is an Armenian-American. And CD 2 has more Armenian-Americans than any other council district in Los Angeles.

On Saturday Oct. 17, Essel attended a Beverly Hills fundraiser hosted by a board member of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, a lobbying group that adamantly denies the Armenian genocide. Recognition of this genocide has been perhaps the single most important moral and political issue for Armenian-Americans, who are just as appalled by deniers as Jews are by those who refuse to acknowledge the horrors of Hitler’s Holocaust.

Also attending Essel’s fundraiser were Azerbaijani leaders, whose controversial campaign to get California lawmakers to condemn Armenia for past military actions was defeated by Krekorian earlier this year.

If you don’t know what the Armenian genocide is, or what the longstanding tension between Turkey and Armenia is about, please look it up, as it’s one of the most shameful episodes in human history that for some reason nobody ever discusses.

Now, I’m going to leave aside the obvious moral implications here and discuss the political aspects for a moment.  What the hell, Chris?  Seriously, I can’t think of a worse political move than giving the Armenian community a reason to turn out in larger numbers than they otherwise would have.  Because if the mere existence of the event itself weren’t bad enough, apparently the communities of Armenia’s political rivals felt like this event should become anti-Armenia open season day:

An article on the fundraiser was published two days ago in an Azerbaijani newspaper and appeared on a Turkish website that, among other things, also features videos about Armenia’s “So-Called Genocide.” The article on the fundraiser praises Essel and labels Krekorian’s views “immoral” and his actions as anti-Turkey.

If you think I’m kidding, here’s the website for the organization that the host is a prominent member of.  And here’s a scan of one of the invites to the event. I don’t know who’s advising Chris Essel politically, but I do know for certain that she has access to the same Political Data reports that I have access to.  And those reports say that the Armenian vote on the September 22nd primary was around 11.7% of the general population.  Now, that number is likely to be even higher during the special general, and if I were Chris Essel, I’d be spending a lot of my time making sure there aren’t any excuses for that number to be driven further up.  What I seriously want to know is who on Essel’s campaign decided that attending this event would be a good idea–because if Essel’s political team is that tone-deaf and inept, it makes me seriously question whether she would be capable of getting the advice and counsel that would be necessary to represent all of her constituents on the City Council.

It’s safe to say that the state of Maine is ground zero right now for the marriage equality movement.  On November 3, we have a chance to make history and put a rest to the talking point used by fans of discrimination that marriage equality has never won at the ballot box.  Caliticians are putting a decent investment into the fight in Maine, and our friends Julia Rosen and Paul Hogarth are on the ground in Maine working to make sure we win.

But there are two other fights as well.  They’ve received a little less attention, but they’re equally as important.  In Washington, equality supporters are fighting to approve Referendum 71, which will preserve domestic partnership benefits for LGBT couples.  And in Kalamazoo, MI, supporters of Ordinance 1856 are trying to ensure that the City Council’s twice-approved measure ensuring non-discrimination in housing and other areas survives a public referendum.

Below the fold, I have ripped and copied the HTML from the Courage Campaign’s 3-2-1 countdown for equality program.  If you want to support the program, just click the thermometer.  Everything you need to know to get involved in these fights will be right there.  We’d love to go 3 for 3 this November 3rd and push the message that the nationwide tide has turned in the fight for equal rights.

Washington:

Who we are: Approve Referendum 71 is the campaign to preserve domestic partnerships in Washington State. By voting to approve, voters retain the domestic partnership laws that were passed during this year’s legislative session, including using sick leave to care for a partner, adoption rights, insurance rights, and more.

What we need: We need phone bankers to get our supporters out to vote. Washington is an all mail-in ballot state, and we need to ensure our supporters put their ballots in the mail. Also, youth turnout is a critical component of our campaign, and youth turnout historically drops in off-year elections. So we need a lot of help to turn them out.

How you do it: Sign up here to make remote calls for Approve 71. We’ll then contact you for a training, and you can make GOTV calls.

Maine:

Who we are: The No On 1/Protect Maine Equality campaign is working to protect Maine’s recently-passed law legalizing marriage equality for same-sex couples. Our opponents have put the issue on the ballot for Nov 3, 2009. Because of Maine’s early voting election laws, people are already voting at the polls, so we need help immediately to turn out our side at the polls.

What we need: We need you to devote a few hours to Call for Equality. Call for Equality is a virtual phonebank set up so that you can call Maine voters wherever you are. Much of Maine is rural, where canvassing isn’t effective, so we need to reach these voters- along with other supporters- by phone. All you need is a phone and internet connection. No experience required! We’ll provide the training, and all you need is a a few hours to help get a win in Maine.

How you do it: Click here to sign up for a training and your shift. There are lots of times available for your convenience.

Kalamazoo, MI:

Who We Are: The Yes on Ordinance 1856 / One Kalamazoo campaign is working in Michigan to support the City Commission of Kalamazoo’s twice approved ordinance for housing, employment, and public accommodation protections for gay and transgender residents. Opponents forced a public referendum on the ordinance so dedicated local volunteers, led by former Stonewall Democrats Executive Director Jon Hoadley, are working to ensure voters say YES to fairness and equality and keep Ordinance 1856.  

Why The Urgency: In the final weeks, the opposition has gone all out with aggressive disinformation and misleading red herrings to try to defeat the ordinance. This includes signs that say “No to Discrimination” (even though voting No actually supports continued discrimination of GLBT residents), transphobic door hangers and fliers, and now radio ads that falsely suggest that criminal behavior will become legal when this simply isn’t true. The Yes on Ordinance 1856 supporters are better organized but many voters who want to vote for gay and transgender people are getting confused by the opposition.

How To Help:

1) Help the One Kalamazoo campaign raise a final $10,000 specifically dedicated to fight back against the lies on the local TV and radio airwaves and fully fund the campaign’s final field and GOTV efforts.  

Give here: http://www.actblue.com/page/3-2-1-countdown

2) If you live nearby and can physically volunteer in Kalamazoo sign up here. If you know anyone that lives in Kalamazoo, use the One Kalamazoo campaign’s online canvass tool to remind those voters that they need to vote on November 3rd and vote YES on Ordinance 1856 to support equality for gay and transgender people.

Contact voters: http://www.onekalamazoo.com/tellfriends2

On August 2, 2009, Westminster City Councilman Andy Quatch, a fundraiser for and political protege of Asm. Van Tran, an Orange County Republican who is challenging Loretta Sanchez for her Congressional Seat, crashed into an electrical pole and was detained on suspicion of DUI.

Apparently, this made the Assemblyman scared.  He had to come to the aid of his friend, even if it meant interrupting a police field sobriety test.  Check out the audio:

Asm. Tran claims to be Quatch’s attorney (don’t know if he actually is, but he uses it as a pretext to involve himself in the matter).  In case you can’t watch the video, here’s a transcript of the audio exchange between Tran and the presiding officer.  Tran tries to involve himself three times, and the officer eventually has to threaten Tran with arrest to get him to back off while the sobriety test is being interfered with:

Officer:  Yeah, can I help you?

Tran: Yeah, I’m with Andy.

Officer:  Okay, well, you’ll have to let them do their job right now.

Tran:  I’m his lawyer.

Officer:  He’s doing a field sobriety test right now, okay?  Can I ask you to stand back over here?

Tran:  (unintelligible)

Officer:  Sir?  You’re going to need to back up a little bit, okay?

Tran:  (unintelligible)

Officer:  Right now.  Please back up.

Tran:  Okay.  How far do you want me…?

Officer:  I want you back by that car over there.

Tran:  (unintelligible)

Officer:  Sir, I’ve asked you to back up over there.

Tran:  I’m his lawyer!

Officer:  I don’t care who you are.  I understand that, you need to back up over here.

Tran:  I’m not interfering.

Officer:  You are interfering.  I’m going to warn you, a field sobriety test officer, it’s very obvious.

Tran:  (unintelligible)

Officer:  You need to stand over there.  If you come back over here again, I’m going to have you arrested.  I’m not going to stand by this car.

Tran:  (unintelligible)

A couple of things to point out here.  First of all, if Tran is an attorney, he should know that he can certainly monitor an investigation with due cause involving a client, but he can’t interfere with it.  Secondly, though–and more importantly–this type of influence-peddling on behalf of someone who had just cut power to 300 local residents by crashing into a utility pole does not speak well about Asm. Tran’s character and what type of Congressman he would be.

You can see the take written up by Chris Prevatt at The Liberal OC for more info about the Van Tran vs. Loretta Sanchez race, and just how fast Van Tran’s star has fallen.

And incidentally–rumor has it that there’s an attractive Democratic candidate out there who will be running to fill Van Tran’s open seat.  I’m looking forward to bringing you more on that.

Rewind the clock back a couple of years.

There I was, in my apartment, getting dressed in a suit–rare for me back then.  I was excited–it was my first ever in-person meeting with a legislator to do some citizen lobbying for a piece of legislation.  I was going in to see Mike Feuer, who represents AD-42.  Mr. Feuer is a good progressive legislator, and I’m a big fan–so I was very excited.

I was going in to talk with him about some things I had been working on with the Energize America crowd at DailyKos–especially a feed-in tariff proposal.  I’m a big fan of feed-in tariff legislation, and even went so far as to get support for FIT written into the environmental plank of the CDP platform.

So what the heck does “feed-in tariff” mean, and why is it so important?  Well, I’ll actually let wikipedia answer, because it’s 100% accurate in this case:

A Feed-in Tariff (FiT, Feed-in Law, FiL, solar premium, Renewable Tariff[2] or renewable energy payments) is an incentive structure to encourage the adoption of renewable energy through government legislation. The regional or national electricity utilities are obligated to buy renewable electricity (electricity generated from renewable sources, such as solar thermal power, wind power, biomass, hydropower and geothermal power) at above-market rates set by the government.

So, what’s so good about feed-in tariff?  A few things.  First and foremost, it increases the incentive to produce renewable energy that is fed back into the power grid. by guaranteeing buyback, rather than just having the renewable production “spin the meter backwards.”  In turn, the increase in local production actually increases the efficiency of the grid because it means that less electricity needs to be transformed and conveyed through long-distance transmission lines.  And lastly, because the mandated purchase rates are fixed by the local utility commission, it becomes much easier for those without the means to finance solar systems independently to get bank loans for them because there is a fixed rate of return and guaranteed income from the unit.

Of course, in theory, theory is the same as practice, but in practice, it isn’t.  So, how has feed-in tariff legislation worked elsewhere so far?  Let’s take Germany as an example:

The secret of German success is the “feed-in tariff” (FIT). Anyone generating electricity from solar PV, wind or hydro gets a guaranteed payment of four times the market rate – currently about 35p pence a unit – for 20 years.

This reduces the payback time on such technologies to less than 10 years and offers a return on investment of 8-9%. The cost is spread by generating companies among all users and has added about one cent/kwh to the average bill, or an extra €1.50 (£1) a month.

The Germans introduced the FIT in 1999 and tweaked it in 2004, since which time things have gone mad. FITs have now been adopted in 19 EU countries, and 47 worldwide, but not in Britain. German renewables firms are now world beaters and the German economy has been strengthened, not weakened, by a rush into renewables.

Britain, by contrast, has a few installation companies mainly importing German equipment. At the recent Intersolar trade fair in Freiburg, the air was heady with talk of expansion, cutting-edge technologies and intense competition. And everyone says the reason is the FIT.

Which brings me to the point of all this.  The one problem with FIT legislation?  Someone has to pay for it–the taxpayers, the ratepayers, or the utilities.  And that, said Mr. Feuer, was the problem, though he seemed to feel it was a great idea and looked forward to meeting with me again when–or if–the fiscal crisis in California ever abated. Well, the fiscal crisis has done anything but abate, but at least we’ve got one-half of a feed-in tariff package passed in California:

California, one of the sunniest states in the nation, and one clearly ahead of the solar energy curve, has nonetheless lagged behind other states in terms of making solar a financial win for individuals who install solar systems.

All that changed on October 12 when California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed two solar energy bills into law.

The first is AB 920, sponsored by Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), which mandates that utility companies pay customers for an excess generation from their solar photovoltaic systems which they send back into the grid. Currently, 50,000 homes and businesses in California produce solar electricity. The law also applies to small wind.

The new law not only makes solar energy financially viable at the source, but encourages customers to conserve energy. Formerly, those who were producing solar electricity either had to use it all or give it back to the utilities for free at the end of a year.

Huffman’s legislation requires utilities to foot the bill, which is where it really belongs.  Now, I would have you note that AB920 isn’t quite feed-in tariff legislation just yet.  It may seem like it, but there’s a difference between guaranteed buyback (which is all AB920 is at this point) and FIT, which guarantees a buyback at above market value.  The buyback rate still has yet to be set by the Public Utilities Commission, so it’s possible that we may yet see a true FIT come out of this bill.  But guaranteed buyback is at least a step in the right direction.