Huge news in the continued counting of Charlie Brown’s race against Tom McClintock. The latest round of counting has Brown within 329 votes as the provisionals, which tend to favor Democrats, get counted in the larger counties in the district.
Charlie Brown (Dem) 170,168 49.9%
Tom McClintock (Rep) 170,497 50.1%
There are still tens of thousands of votes left to count, and there’s a virtual assurance of at least a partial recount. Tom McClintock has been sending his list these smug reports of the day’s counting, telling them how everything’s looking great. I haven’t seen an update from him in a couple days. Probably because this is shaping up as a replay of the 2002 State Controller race, when the late provisionals put Steve Westly over the top in his race against… Tom McClintock.
Extended races like this cost money to maintain staff and pay lawyers. You can help Charlie out at the Calitics ActBlue page.
…meanwhile, Hannah-Beth Jackson is moving closer in SD-19. That race is down to 1,283 votes.
“We’re not claiming victory, but we just think it’s mathematically impossible for (Brown) to win,” said Bill George, spokesman for McClintock.
George said the thousands of Placer County votes tallied Friday stretched McClintock’s lead from barely 300 votes to 1,793, with only about 4,500 more votes to count in the nine-county district.
Brown spokesman Todd Stenhouse said Brown would not concede, noting that thousands more votes remain to be counted, most of which are provisional ballots that “have been breaking very, very strongly for Charlie.”
“We remain committed to the same goals that we’ve been committed to all along and that is that every vote is counted in this historic election,” Stenhouse said.
Here’s a great article about how California’s field operation helped Barack Obama win the Presidency. It hasn’t been much remarked-upon in the traditional media, but I was fairly involved in this operation and I’ve mentioned some of the details before.
The Obama campaign’s directive to the California operation was simple: keep up a presence but don’t spend money. Fewer than 20 paid staff members were hired in September (compared with 100s in battleground states), a handful of offices opened and a minuscule budget approved. So it may come as a surprise that the California team actually pulled off what can only be called a field operation coup: on election day, California volunteers got on their own phones and managed to make an astonishing 2 million calls into battleground states — a number that outstripped the calls made by all other Obama phone banks in all other states, combined. They called from coffee shops, from houses, from parks. They called from baby groups, from pajama parties, from book clubs. In the end, the state logged a total of 10 million calls between Obama’s nomination speech and his victory speech. It was a milestone achieved with very little drama, and one that is noteworthy not only because it is unprecedented, but because it nearly took the national campaign by surprise. How it was done may also provide some insight into what lies on the horizon, on the grassroots front, going forward.
10 MILLION calls. Consider also that 4 million of them were in the last week of the campaign, as Chicago realized what a gold mine of volunteering and activism they had in California. In addition, in the last couple weeks the campaign was using predictive dialers that increase the contact rate from 15-20% to around 90%. And that, of course, only includes the volunteers inside the state; hundreds if not thousands went out into the swing states to canvass and organize there.
Read the whole article for a real inside look at the process. There is no question that this could be scaled up to use inside California. The tools are already in the hands of the organizers. And what’s more, they were trained to be self-starters:
I have seen it reported that the campaign’s field success can be attributed to its vaunted email database of volunteers and donors. My experience tells me that would be inaccurate. While the campaign certainly generated heat by sending out mass emails, the real magic lay in the staff’s ability to carry out one of the earliest promises of Barack Obama himself — individual empowerment. Tapping key volunteers and asking them to reach out to their friends requires personal contact. Yes, that job was made infinitely easier by the advent of Facebook and email, and the campaigns remarkable use of its web site. However the real structure was not created by, nor can be reflected in, a database of names housed by a centralized campaign.
Yesterday, I heard that phone banks are forming in California to call voters in Georgia on behalf of Jim Martin, the Senate candidate who is in a tight run-off race there. I checked around, curious to see if the campaign was officially involved. The answer came back, no. Yet voter files are being sorted, lists are being cut, call sheets printed, data entered. Calls are being made. The idea that a muscle once flexed, can take on a life of its own has intriguing, almost science-fiction-like possibilities. Whether it signals something remarkable in the annals of grassroots politics, or is another false start, like my mother’s idea of ‘Home Headquarters’ in 1970, remains to be seen.
I’m part of one of these weekend phone banks for Jim Martin, tomorrow, in Venice. The details for that one are here. In addition, there are phone banks in Santa Monica all weekend. Contact Deirdre Lightfoot at dlightfulwon-at-gmail-dot-com for more information.
There is really no limit to how these organizers can be used in California – to gain a 2/3 majority, to push progressive ballot measures, to elect a new Democratic governor. It could change the face of California politics for a generation.
We figured that when Darrell Steinberg assumed the leadership post in the Senate, there would be less accommodation and more risk-taking from the Democratic caucus. Well, this potential deal floated in today’s LA Times would certainly fit that description.
State lawmakers began moving toward a deal this week to close California’s deficit with the help of steeper car fees that would cost many drivers hundreds of dollars annually, according to people involved in budget talks.
Under the plan, GOP lawmakers — most of whom have signed anti-tax pledges — would vote to triple the vehicle license fee that owners pay when they register their cars every year in exchange for a ballot measure that would impose rigid limits on future state spending. Motorists’ annual license fees would rise from 0.65% of the value of their vehicles to 2%. For a car or truck valued at $25,000, the increase would be $336.
The higher fees would generate $6 billion annually, helping to fill a budget gap that is projected to reach nearly $28 billion over the next year and a half.
The proposal is being championed by incoming state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento). Democrats and advocates for the poor have opposed strict state spending limits, saying they would cripple government services.
Steinberg may be gambling that voters would reject the limits, as they have in the past.
This would be a simple restoration of the VLF to the levels put in place by Pete Wilson (yes, Wilson; the increase, which was meant to occur during poor economic times, only triggered under Gray Davis). It is not a progressive version or a “feebate,” and it does not increase for higher emission-producing cars and trucks. So it’s not the best way to restore the VLF, in my view.
And the exchange, a ballot measure to restrict state spending, is a long-sought Yacht Party agenda item. I’m guessing it would be substantially similar to the version voted down in 2005. A spending cap is simply a way to ratchet down government and eliminate needed services which the public has said time and again they not only want, but are willing to pay for.
I understand Steinberg’s reasoning on two levels:
(1) It’s probably correct that Democrats and unions would fight like hell to stop a ballot measure with a spending cap. These are tough economic times, however, and they’re projected to continue in the near future, so cutting spending may look more attractive to voters.
(2) This would be a stake through the heart of Yacht Party rhetoric about taxes. You can see the effect of what this would do by just listening to talk radio:
Prospects for the plan, however, immediately began to dim after details were published on the Los Angeles Times website. Angry phone calls from constituents, advocacy groups and talk radio hosts prompted lawmakers to publicly distance themselves from the proposal.
I mean, this came out on the same day when Senate leader Dave Cogdill wrote an op-ed entitled Cut, Don’t Tax. And Arnold Schwarzenegger made cutting the VLF the signature piece of policy in his platform in the 2003 recall election. For him to reverse it just 5 years later would be humiliating.
Ultimately, Republicans are probably too spineless to agree to this – they’d fear primary elections in 2010, although directly after an election would probably be the best time to pull this off, with the most distance between now and the next election. But Democrats should think hard about this as well. Is it really worth having to fight a ballot measure that would cripple the state? It may well be, especially considering there’s probably no other way to raise needed revenue.
I guess Henry Waxman, a key ally to Nancy Pelosi, wouldn’t have made the move to unseat John Dingell if he didn’t count the votes.
Rep. Henry Waxman (Calif.) has ousted Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell (Mich.), as Democratic lawmakers voted 137-122 Thursday morning to hand the gavel of the powerhouse panel to its second-ranking member.
This, more than anything, could be the biggest change in the federal government in 2009 and beyond. Waxman’s Safe Climate Act sets the targets needed to mitigate the worst effects of global warming. It now becomes the working document in the House for anti-global warming legislation. And his constituency doesn’t include a major polluting industry.
From a policy standpoint, it’s a major progressive victory.
At Tuesday’s board meeting Superintendent Terry Brace explained the district will lose $3.5 million under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget plan.
If that passes, the district’s three percent reserve will be pushed to the limit to cover expenses. Brace said the aim will be to maintain educational programs first. After that, “we want to cut things and not people,” he said.
Kings County officials implemented a hiring freeze Tuesday as one of several measures to circumvent anticipated funding cuts from the state in the midst of a faltering economy. The county had already been on a limited or “soft” hiring freeze since July 1, the freeze affecting only positions that won’t affect the basic level of service. No reduction in staffing levels were being considered.
County Administrative Officer Larry Spikes says it’s a necessary measure to protect the county’s fiscal health in light of the worsening state budget crisis underscored last week by the governor’s call for a special session to close the deficit. Never before in California history has a governor called an “extraordinary session” so late in the year.
Efforts to close an $11.2 billion state budget deficit have shaken up the state’s Healthy Families program, which provides health care to about 13,300 children and pregnant women in Stanislaus County.
Next month, the state is preparing to freeze enrollment in the program, which provides medical, dental and vision care to children whose families earn too much to receive Medi-Cal but can’t afford private insurance. If the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board approves the proposal Dec. 17, families trying to enroll children will be placed on a waiting list at least until June 30.
This is what’s happening in this state, at precisely the wrong time. During an economic downturn, with the attendant job loss, people need more services, not less. It’s the perverse cycle of constrained state budgets with their balanced budget amendments that they need to cut back precisely when they should be expanding. In a downturn, government must be the spender of last resort, yet the state Constitution doesn’t allow it. And cutting the budget to get it in balance during this greatest fiscal crisis since the Great Depression would be an absolute disaster. And frankly, the Yacht Party isn’t going to agree to anything sensible.
It would be better for all involved if the entire Democratic caucus decamped from Sacramento to Washington and sat outside Nancy Pelosi’s office until a stimulus package with aid to state and local governments passed. Otherwise, the local stories are going to get worse and worse.
At Tuesday’s board meeting Superintendent Terry Brace explained the district will lose $3.5 million under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget plan.
If that passes, the district’s three percent reserve will be pushed to the limit to cover expenses. Brace said the aim will be to maintain educational programs first. After that, “we want to cut things and not people,” he said.
Kings County officials implemented a hiring freeze Tuesday as one of several measures to circumvent anticipated funding cuts from the state in the midst of a faltering economy. The county had already been on a limited or “soft” hiring freeze since July 1, the freeze affecting only positions that won’t affect the basic level of service. No reduction in staffing levels were being considered.
County Administrative Officer Larry Spikes says it’s a necessary measure to protect the county’s fiscal health in light of the worsening state budget crisis underscored last week by the governor’s call for a special session to close the deficit. Never before in California history has a governor called an “extraordinary session” so late in the year.
Efforts to close an $11.2 billion state budget deficit have shaken up the state’s Healthy Families program, which provides health care to about 13,300 children and pregnant women in Stanislaus County.
Next month, the state is preparing to freeze enrollment in the program, which provides medical, dental and vision care to children whose families earn too much to receive Medi-Cal but can’t afford private insurance. If the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board approves the proposal Dec. 17, families trying to enroll children will be placed on a waiting list at least until June 30.
This is what’s happening in this state, at precisely the wrong time. During an economic downturn, with the attendant job loss, people need more services, not less. It’s the perverse cycle of constrained state budgets with their balanced budget amendments that they need to cut back precisely when they should be expanding. In a downturn, government must be the spender of last resort, yet the state Constitution doesn’t allow it. And cutting the budget to get it in balance during this greatest fiscal crisis since the Great Depression would be an absolute disaster. And frankly, the Yacht Party isn’t going to agree to anything sensible.
It would be better for all involved if the entire Democratic caucus decamped from Sacramento to Washington and sat outside Nancy Pelosi’s office until a stimulus package with aid to state and local governments passed. Otherwise, the local stories are going to get worse and worse.
House Republicans apparently think that losing 50 seats over two cycles is change they can believe in, as they signed up John Boehner as Minority Leader for two more years, resisting a challenge from Dan Lungren.
While Randy Bayne considers this a bright spot for Bill Durston and his effort to beat Lungren in 2010, I have the opposite view. Being Minority Leader would have put a major target on Lungren’s back. Now he can slink back into quiet anonymity and not raise the ire of his constituency, which is rapidly growing more Democratic.
On another note, how can House Republicans possibly think that Boehner has done a good job these last two years to warrant a return engagement? Fortunately, that’s their problem.
…in other news about local Congresscritters, Barbara Lee is now the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Lynn Woolsey has retained her co-chair of the Progressive Caucus in the House, along with Arizona’s Raul Grijalva.
This is a very big deal. Henry Waxman has been nominated by the House’s Steering Committee to be the head of the House panel on Energy and Commerce, ahead of longtime chair John Dingell. The implications for such a change would be huge, but it’s not over yet.
The House Democratic Steering Committee has nominated Henry A. Waxman to be chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee next year – a stinging rebuke of the sitting chairman, John D. Dingell .
Waxman won a 25-22 vote over Dingell in a closed-door meeting Wednesday by the Steering panel. Because Dingell got more than 13 votes in the secret balloting, he can be nominated to run against Waxman at Thursday’s Democratic Caucus meeting, at which all of the Democrats elected to the 111th Congress are eligible to vote.
That means we have one day to whip our Congresspeople on this vote. Waxman, who wrote the Clean Air Act and who has an understanding of what is needed to be done on global warming and the post-carbon future, would make a great chairman, as opposed to the Dingellsaurus, who is still trying to protect the auto industry from moving into the 21st century, even as the verdict on their approach is defined by their trudging to Capitol Hill for a bailout. A majority of the caucus has signed a letter to Nancy Pelosi asking for greater efforts to combat climate change. Waxman at Energy is a key to that happening. We must eliminate this roadblock.
Marc Ambinder sets the scene (this was written before today’s vote)
Waxman wants the job for obvious reasons: the committee will be the most powerful in the new Congress, one that’ll deal with health care and energy legislation. (Ways and Means? Pleghghgh.) A lot of impatient liberal Democrats want to see Dingell go; he is too old, too blinkered in his thinking and too at odds with the party on energy, they say; just as many, it seems, want him to say, including some influential members of the leadership, even if for reasons of preserving the integrity of the seniority system.
Senior Democratic aides expect that the vote will go to the full caucus; all the loser of the steering committee vote has to do is present a letter with 35 House members. The full vote would be Thursday via secret ballot.
Lots of members of Congress put themselves in the position of someone like Dingell, who earned his chairmanship with seniority, and they don’t want to see him pushed out because they wouldn’t want it to happen to them. That’s the kind of institutional thinking that must be vanquished, as it restricts change. The enviro groups are backing away from this fight because they don’t want to feel Dingell’s wrath if he wins. There is nobody else left to step in but us. I was skeptical that House Democrats would be pushed in the direction of progress, but with Waxman’s former chief of staff, Phil Schiliro, in the Obama White House, some pressure may be coming down from the top. It’s in all of our interests to have Henry Waxman atop this committee.
Call Congress and tell them you want to see a committee chair with bold ideas on energy as the head of the Energy Committee. If you want some extra incentive, read the smugness of the Blue Dogs who are fighting for their roadblock:
Dingell’s supporters said they are not worried by the vote of the Steering panel, which they say is stocked with left-leaning members who do not represent the broader makeup of Democratic caucus.
“If you look at the makeup of that committee in terms of geography and political leanings, this is not the same dynamic as our whole caucus,” said Jim Matheson , D-Utah, who is part of a team working the phones for Dingell, D-Mich.
In particular, if your member is in the Congressional Black Caucus or the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, both of which are supporting Dingell, ask them if they want their constituents to breathe clean air in the future.
So the legislature has scheduled a weekend vote on a new budget plan for the special session. It could be that they will vote on Governor Schwarzenegger’s plan without modification. In fact, that’s almost certain, because Denise Ducheny, the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, is in India until next Wednesday, and unless she’s holding hearings in Mumbai, I don’t think she’ll be marking anything up.
So what exactly ARE they going to vote on?
The basic political dynamic that caused a record-long impasse over the state budget last summer – Republicans blocking any new taxes, and Democrats vowing to protect services from deep spending cuts – has not changed. Even so, Schwarzenegger is expected to gather with the Democratic and Republican leaders this morning, after more than three hours of talks on Monday.
“We’re committed to making a dent in this problem with this Legislature and not waiting until Dec. 1,” Darrell Steinberg, the incoming Democratic Senate leader, said after Monday’s negotiations. But asked if he knew what legislators would be voting on Sunday during the scheduled floor sessions, he said, “We definitely don’t know yet.”
The Governor seemed to suggest in this weekend’s interview with George Stephanopoulos that his proposal would be changed before the vote, but I don’t see how that would happen.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Yet, your critics say that this one-and-a-half- cent sales tax is the most regressive form of tax. It’s going to hit the people who are going through the toughest times right now the hardest.
SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, no one should be that worried about any of that, because remember, the way it works is that the governor puts up a proposal, and then the legislative leaders go and start debating over that and looking into it, if they maybe have a better idea or a different idea. So we have a very collaborative kind of approach to the whole thing. So they may come up with different type of taxes.
Get to work, Sen. Ducheny! Or maybe the hordes of lobbyists can come up with something.
Meanwhile, at this point, it seems like the best option for the state is to beg the Congress for aid. The stalemate with the Yacht Party is overwhelmingly likely to continue, and the numbers that California would need to survive are dwarfed by the handouts to banks and other industries. The Governor has been lobbying for support as well, and Speaker Pelosi appears to agree that some aid is needed. Without that help, we’re going to see cutbacks even worse than lowering future enrollment at CSU by 10,000 students. And sadly, it’s better at this point to seek help from Washington than Sacramento.
While this recent spate of wildfires have been put relatively under control today, the devastation is pretty severe. The number of houses destroyed in Yorba Linda shot up yesterday, the fire in Montecito claimed several dozen more homes, and the mobile home park in Sylmar is a near-total loss.
Even without getting back to his home, Mr. Grieb is fairly certain that all is lost.
He and his neighbors have seen aerial photos of the devastated development and, in stark black and white, a chalkboard at an evacuation center lists the homes, by lot numbers, that were spared. About 124 out of 600 homes are on the list, and Mr. Grieb’s home is not among them.
For the park’s residents, it was as if an entire village had vanished in the flames.
“I used to refer to it as our little Mayberry,” said Tracey Burns, 47. She and her partner, Wendy Dannenberg, 46, lived in Oakridge for 15 years. Ms. Burns’s parents lived nearby in a part of the complex that was spared by the fire.
“It was just a very nice community,” Ms. Burns said. “Someplace safe with a lot to offer from the pool to the tennis courts to bingo on Tuesday nights. It was a very nice way of living. People waved not because they had to but because they wanted to. We always took offense to people calling it a trailer park because you had a yard, a porch, a garage, a garden. It was a home, not a trailer.”
While some scientists are dismissing the idea that climate change has something to do with the increasing frequency of fires in the region, clearly the reduction of the snowpack in the Sierras, combined with the extended drought conditions, have extended the fire season to the point where it is year-round and unsustainable. And that is expecteed to only worsen in the future.
The current drought in the Southwest may simply be part of the normal cycle of wet and dry spells. But looking over the next century, Cayan said, regions with a Mediterranean climate such as Southern California are expected to get drier.
“I have to believe that is going to make us more vulnerable to some of these more intense fire episodes.”
While the relief efforts of the local communities are admirable, it’s simply not sustainable to have major parts of the region go up in smoke at regular intervals. We have barely enough money in the kitty to provide basic services, let alone a year-round fire season.
Through global warming, we have now fire season all year round. We used to have fire seasons only in the fall, but now the fire seasons start in February already, so this means that we have to really upgrade, have more resources, more fire engines, more manpower and all of this, which does cost extra money.
The scientists may want to be circumspect, but this is global boiling, a consequence of rising temperatures and a drier climate. And while myopic conservatives like Dan Walters don’t realize it, a massive shift to green technologies is essential for financial reasons as well as environmental ones. Fighting massive fires costs lots and lots of money that can be avoided if we reduce emissions and protect the planet. Backwards-looking folks like Walters always examine the up-front costs while paying no attention to the externalities. Burning the earth has severe monetary consequences, and on the flip side, creating greener ways to power our lives and transport our people is exportable technology that can make California a global economic leader.
Of course, it’s going to take more than one state, and fortunately we have a new President-elect who understands the need for immediate action. Not only is he raising money for relief organizations helping with the current wildfires, but today he made a surprise appearance at the Bi-Partisan Governors Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles, calling for “a new chapter of American leadership on climate change.” I’ve put the video and transcript below. We finally have leadership to heal the planet, which is as beneficial for California as it is for anywhere in the country.
Let me begin by thanking the bipartisan group of U.S. governors who convened this meeting.
Few challenges facing America – and the world – are more urgent than combating climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We’ve seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season.
Climate change and our dependence on foreign oil, if left unaddressed, will continue to weaken our economy and threaten our national security.
I know many of you are working to confront this challenge. In particular, I want to commend Governor Sebelius, Governor Doyle, Governor Crist, Governor Blagojevich and your host, Governor Schwarzenegger -all of you have shown true leadership in the fight to combat global warming. And we’ve also seen a number of businesses doing their part by investing in clean energy technologies.
But too often, Washington has failed to show the same kind of leadership. That will change when I take office. My presidency will mark a new chapter in America’s leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs in the process.
That will start with a federal cap and trade system. We will establish strong annual targets that set us on a course to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional 80% by 2050.
Further, we will invest $15 billion each year to catalyze private sector efforts to build a clean energy future. We will invest in solar power, wind power, and next generation biofuels. We will tap nuclear power, while making sure it’s safe. And we will develop clean coal technologies.
This investment will not only help us reduce our dependence on foreign oil, making the United States more secure. And it will not only help us bring about a clean energy future, saving our planet. It will also help us transform our industries and steer our country out of this economic crisis by generating five million new green jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced.
But the truth is, the United States cannot meet this challenge alone. Solving this problem will require all of us working together. I understand that your meeting is being attended by government officials from over a dozen countries, including the UK, Canada and Mexico, Brazil and Chile, Poland and Australia, India and Indonesia. And I look forward to working with all nations to meet this challenge in the coming years.
Let me also say a special word to the delegates from around the world who will gather at Poland next month: your work is vital to the planet. While I won’t be President at the time of your meeting and while the United States has only one President at a time, I’ve asked Members of Congress who are attending the conference as observers to report back to me on what they learn there.
And once I take office, you can be sure that the United States will once again engage vigorously in these negotiations, and help lead the world toward a new era of global cooperation on climate change.
Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all. Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high. The consequences, too serious.
Stopping climate change won’t be easy. It won’t happen overnight. But I promise you this: When I am President, any governor who’s willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House. Any company that’s willing to invest in clean energy will have an ally in Washington. And any nation that’s willing to join the cause of combating climate change will have an ally in the United States of America. Thank you.
