Here is some linky goodness:

• Alan Keyes, who kind of plays the Washington Generals to Barack Obama’s Harlem Globetrotters, has filed suit in Superior Court in Sacramento to stop California from awarding its electoral votes to Obama because he doesn’t fulfill the necessary citizenship requirements.  Discussion item: Keyes used to have a talk show on MSNBC.

• Assemblyman Mike Davis has filed as a candidate in the special election to replace State Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas, who is now an LA County Supervisor.  Assemblyman Curren Price is also rumored to be seeking the seat, but he hasn’t filed yet.

• One of the most interesting news items from this weekend’s Join The Impact rallies was the coming out of comedian Wanda Sykes at an event in Las Vegas.  Sykes, who was married to her partner last month, had this to say:

“Everybody that knows me personally they know I’m gay,” she continued. “But that’s the way people should be able to live their lives.”

The motivation behind the revelation: the Nov. 4 passage of a same-sex marriage ban in California that has taken the nation by storm.

Sykes said the ban (also known as California’s Proposition 8) made her feel like she was “attacked.”

“Now, I gotta get in their face,” she said. “I’m proud to be a woman. I’m proud to be a black woman, and I’m proud to be gay.”

• President-Elect Obama is raising money for the victims of the SoCal Fires on his website. The BarackObama.com landing page is now a message that links back to the Governor’s California Volunteers Page.

• Jackie Speier remembers her Jonestown nightmare. It is 30 years ago today that Congressman Leo Ryan was killed in Guyana.

• In the close races yet to be decided in California, the news remains not so great.  Hannah-Beth Jackson and Alyson Huber are now behind by more than the .5% needed for a partial recount.  Charlie Brown is within 622 votes of Tom McClintock but there aren’t a lot of ballots left in his stronghold of Nevada County. Interestingly, both Brown and McClintock showed up for the freshman orientation.

I was only able to attend the Saturday session of this weekend’s e-board meeting, under the strange and foreboding Anaheim skies – the fire in Chino Hills nearby blotted out the sun during the midday, you could actually stare right into it – but there were some interesting happenings:

• The Progressive Caucus meeting featured a debate between two candidates for party controller, Eric Bradley (the incumbent) and progressive challenger Hillary Crosby.  It was good of both of them to come to the caucus and express their views, but Bradley’s contentions (some would call them alibis) for why the party didn’t do quite as well in downballot races this year were kind of preposterous.  First, he claimed that money moved into some races late because nobody knew Barack Obama would do as well as he did.  This is insulting on a variety of levels.  First of all, Obama was leading by as much as 28 points in some polls as far back as June, and was never seriously threatened in any polling.  Second of all, I don’t see how it matters, in terms of who you spend money on, how a race that is out of your control is faring.  The next thing that Bradley said, echoing something I hear a lot at these CDP meetings, is that we cannot disclose information to the membership of the party on financing because “we cannot let the Republicans know what we’re doing.”  We might as well let them know, considering that hiding the information hasn’t brought us much good.  Also, the entirety of the information that Crosby and progressives like her are seeking is a) already readily available in FPPC and FEC reports and b) sought AFTER THE FACT so we can make intelligent decisions about what worked and what didn’t.  There is a bias toward secrecy there that is quite disconcerting.

• In the general session, there was a continued set of numbers given to prove that the CDP did everything it could to win downballot races.  Art Torres mentioned 1 million live GOTV calls and $12.5 million spent.  These are all nice numbers (although Obama’s California campaign made 1 million calls a day in the week leading up to the election), but if the results are essentially nothing, recapturing seats that were gerrymandered to benefit Democrats to begin with, then the question of effectiveness must be asked.  We had a very good session about that with a group of committed activists who ran phonebank operations and local headquarters and state campaigns, and the information was very illuminating.  First of all, we have got to end the practice of being one of the only two states in the country not using the DNC Voter File and VAN software.  The data is supposedly better in the current set we use, but that can be bought out and integrated into the VAN.  I heard about numerous problems with the statewide Neighbor-to-Neighbor tool that made it essentially useless.  

Second, there needs to be more empowerment at the local level.  The stories I heard from the organizers at DP-SFV (the Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley) on how they funded their headquarters and made the best use of volunteer time, for example, was great.  In the last week, however, the folks running the campaigns from Sacramento got very top-down in their approach and made all kinds of mistakes that the locals had to fix.  It discouraged volunteers and organizers at the local level.

Finally, there has to be off-cycle organizing so that prospective volunteers are brought up with a culture of impacting their own communities instead of driving off to Nevada every four years.  This includes finding and capturing the local groups who worked so tirelessly for Obama this year.  They need to have it explained and drilled into them why staying local and effecting change inside California is so important.  And organizers need to be paid year-round to help bring that about.  Finally, they need to be in EVERY county, not just the populous ones or the most contested ones, to impact those statewide races for 2010.  For his part, Chairman Torres said he is committed to finding organizers and capitalizing on all the energy we see now, and I think we need to hold him to that.

• The above steps make a good criteria for the next party chair, and that race was the buzz of the session.  Right now we have three candidates: Eric Bauman, chair of the LA County Democratic Party; Alex Rooker, current first Vice-Chair; and the legendary John Burton, former State Senate leader and Congressman.  At first I figured that Burton would have locked up so many endorsements from legislators who he’s known forever that this might not be much of a race; however, Rooker won the endorsement of the CDP Labor Caucus, which is very significant (if not totally surprising, as Rooker has longstanding ties to labor).  I don’t know if you’re aware of who pays for campaigns in California, but the labor community could have a lot to say about who’s the next state party chair.  In addition, a tough three-way fight with two candidates from the North and one from the South could give the Southern California candidate an advantage. (CORRECTION: Rooker is from LA County, which would give the advantage to the northern candidate)

I’m inviting all of the candidates to visit us at Calitics and offer their vision of where they want to take the party.

The rumors are true.  Dan Lungren is going to mount a leadership challenge to John Boehner, with a vote expected this week.

Brilliant.  It’s fitting that the Republicans could pick as a leader a guy who couldn’t get 50% in his own district.  Bill Durston, already slated to run in 2010, could become a very important figure for the next two years.

People are still filing out of what I imagine to be very congested spaces and rallies across the country, but I thought I’d go around the Web and find some reports.

AP:

Gay rights supporters waving rainbow colors marched, chanted and danced in cities coast to coast Saturday to protest the California vote that banned gay marriage there and urge supporters not to quit the fight for the right to wed.

Many cast it as a civil rights issue.

Crowds gathered near public buildings in small communities and major cities including New York, San Francisco and Chicago to vent their frustrations, celebrate gay relationships and renew calls for change.

“Civil marriages are a civil right, and we’re going to keep fighting until we get the rights we deserve as American citizens,” Karen Amico said in Philadelphia, holding up a sign reading “Don’t Spread H8”.

“We are the American family, we live next door to you, we teach your children, we take care of your elderly,” said Heather Baker a special education teacher from Boston who addressed the crowd at Boston’s City Hall Plaza. “We need equal rights across the country.”

Here’s a diary on the NYC event from Daily Kos diarist bria:

Democracy is not a one-shot deal.  People can’t just vote every 4 years (or 2, or more often) and think that the work is done.  We still need to make our voices heard, to hold our elected officials responsible, to advocate for the causes we believe in.  Very rarely do we see a direct and immediate change from any act of public assembly or civil disobedience, but each of us is still one.  And the more of us there are, the harder we are to ignore.

Greater public awareness + greater media coverage = greater political awareness = a better shot at change that matters.

Great pictures in that one.

Daily Kos diarist jpmassar from San Francisco:

It was a beautiful sunny morning as thousands of people converged on Civic Center Square (just across the street from where Obama rallied the Bay Area twice, more than a year ago now).

One of the most stirring speeches was given by an African American Baptist preacher, a man who was introduced as having been taught by Martin Luther King.  His ringing oratory, as evinced by the title of this diary, brought the crowd to its highest pitch of enthusiasm; I could imagine being at a rally in the 60’s and hearing King exhort his  followers for civil rights.  (Sorry, I did not get his name).

Apparently Mark Leno and Carole Migden spoke at the SF rally.

The LA Times:

In Los Angeles, protesters clustered shoulder to shoulder near City Hall before setting off on a downtown march, chanting and carrying rainbow-colored flags and signs bearing messages such as “No More Mr. Nice Gay” and “No on Hate.” […]

The Los Angeles Police Department estimated that 40,000 people would attend the march, which officials expected to be peaceful.

Across the state, the rallies took on a carnival-like atmosphere in heat-wave conditions.

The Houston Press, Houston, TX:

Hundreds of people gathered on the steps of Houston City Hall this afternoon to protest the passing of Proposition 8, California’s constitutional amendment taking away the right to marry for same-sex couples. Along with the passing of other anti-gay measures across the nation, Prop. 8 made November 4 a day of mixed emotions for many of the progressives in attendance, who say they went to bed ecstatic about the election of Barack Obama but woke up the next morning to find out not everything had changed for the better.

San Diego U-T:

SAN DIEGO – A crowd estimated at 10,000 by police and 15,000 by organizers marched downtown Saturday to protest the passage of Proposition 8, with one arrest of a counter-protester reported during the otherwise peaceful event.

A man identified by police as a member of the anti-illegal immigration group San Diego Minutemen was arrested about 12:30 p.m. at Sixth Avenue and Ash Street following a fight, said San Diego police Capt. C.J. Ball.

500 in Santa Cruz.  “Several hundred” in Portland.  And more in Indianapolis.  And St. Paul, MN.  200 in Fargo, ND.  And Greensboro, NC.

Today feels like a movement.  Can’t wait to see the on-site reports.

I’m headed down to the e-board meeting, but I wanted to again mention the Join the Impact rallies in support of marriage equality today, in over 300 cities in all 50 states.  Organizers expect over 1 million people to attend nationwide.  Stay with Calitics all day, we’ll have site reports from at least 7 locations across the state and the country – San Diego, Los Angeles, Ventura, San Francisco, Sacramento, Chicago, IL, and Albuquerque, NM.  Hopefully we’ll have pictures and video from some of those events as well.

If you’re going to a JTI event, write up a diary and we’ll post it on the front page.  To find an event in your area, check the wiki.

UPDATE by Brian: We’ll be getting some updates later on today, but I thought this photo from the SF rally was worthy of sharing.

As TINS posted yesterday, Hannah-Beth Jackson has now fallen behind in the latest count of her race in SD-19, and according to local reports the remaining votes to be counted are mainly in Strickland-friendly areas.  This one looks grim.  At this hour Strickland leads by 1,560 votes, and it’s actually outside of the 1/2 of 1% required for a partial recount.

Hannah-Beth Jackson (Dem)  186,071    49.7%

Tony Strickland (Rep)              187,631    50.3%

The other two races we’re monitoring are actually in better shape than Hannah-Beth’s.  In AD-10, the latest numbers from the Secretary of State show Jack Sieglock leading Alyson Huber by just 506 votes.

Alyson L. Huber (Dem)     80,507    46.4%

Jack Sieglock (Rep)           81,013    46.8%

This is currently inside recount territory.  According to Randy Bayne, the remaining ballots left to count are mainly in Sacramento and San Joaquin Counties.  The ballot count is done in Amador County and mostly done in El Dorado County.  With some luck, the Sacramento County ballots will swing for Huber; she beat Sieglock 52-41 there.  Sieglock won San Joaquin County 51-42.

In CA-04, Charlie Brown is within 569 votes of Tom McClintock.

Charlie Brown (Dem)     168,378    49.9%

Tom McClintock (Rep)  168,947    50.1%

The question is how many ballots are left in Nevada County, where Brown won big.  According to the unprocessed ballot report, there are still 10,000 left up there, but I think that’s outdated information.  It’s probably more like 5,000, if not less.  Still, we are well within the .5% required for a partial recount.  So that’s where that’s likely to be headed regardless of what happens with the final numbers.

Again, counts and recounts cost money, so if you can chip in a couple bucks for these Democrats at the Calitics ActBlue page, I’m sure they’d be grateful.

UPDATE: I just learned that Hannah-Beth Jackson had to evacuate her house today, owing to the Montecito fire.  Hopefully everything will work out OK.

So we haven’t had a great deal of time to throw this together, and we aren’t entirely sure of who would be willing to participate.  So here’s what we’re going to do: anyone who would like to discuss what went well and what went not-so-well in the 2008 election cycle, and what could be improved for the future, at this weekend’s CDP executive board meeting, should meet after the general session outside the hall at 12:00.  At that point, we’ll have a better understanding of how many people we will having participating, and we’ll find a place to congregate.

Feel free to email me about this: david-dot-dayen-at-gmail-dot-com.  Hope to see some of you tomorrow in Anaheim.

In addition, I wanted to again highlight Join The Impact, a series of marches and protests against Prop. 8 tomorrow, throughout the country.  You can find your protest location here.  Unfortunately, lots of us at Calitics, including Robert, Brian, Dante and myself, will be at the e-board meeting tomorrow.  However, through the wonders of Soapblox, we can front-page your stories from events all over the state and the nation.  So please, if you’re attending any of the marches, please post a diary and tell us about it.  We should have coverage from at least Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Diego and Albuquerque, NM, already, but it would be great to have a panoply of voices.

That’s if you believe Tim Fernholz, who talked to a couple people in the know.

2. At least two people who would know (blind quotes suck but that’s the way of the world) don’t expect the Waxman challenge to Dingell at the Energy committee to get anywhere, in part because the last two classes of new representatives are more conservative on the whole than other members and will support the incumbent. The leadership hopes that it won’t come to a vote, because Waxman, who is more closely identified with Pelosi (who isn’t taking a position on the challenge) will drop out when he realizes he doesn’t have the votes.

I want to push back on the idea that the most recent classes of Reps. are all conservative, because while that is ossified conventional wisdom inside the Beltway it’s simply not true.  Alan Grayson is not conservative.  Tom Perriello is not conservative.  Larry Kissell is not conservative.  In fact, in this cycle the four Democrats who lost Congressional elections were all deeply conservative – Tim Mahoney, Nick Lampson, Don Cazayoux and Nancy Boyda.  

This isn’t totally about right-left, it’s about those in the status quo who want to protect the seniority system in the event that they stick around Congress look enough to secure a plum post.  That’s why you have liberals in the Congressional Black Caucus like John Lewis pushing for Dingell to stay in his chairmanship.  Dingell is trying to sucker new members by saying he is good on health care, but of course that’s not totally true.

But Dingell is good on health care.  Well, by good, I mean he has pushed ‘single-payer’ for literally decades, while preventing action on drug prices and appointing most of the members of the Energy and Commerce Committee that killed Clinton’s health care plan, because they were reliable pro-auto industry votes on other issues Dingell prioritized (there aren’t a lot of single payer pro-polluting members out there).  But health care is all Dingell has, so he’s emphasizing his willingness to work on health care with Obama in return for keeping his chairmanship of the enormously powerful Energy and Commerce Committee.

With the Senate appearing to take the lead on health care anyway, and Waxman just as solid on the issue, this is an irrelevant argument.  What should be far more central to the debate is this:

The California economy loses about $28 billion annually due to premature deaths and illnesses linked to ozone and particulates spewed from hundreds of locations in the South Coast and San Joaquin air basins, according to findings released Wednesday by a Cal State Fullerton research team.

Most of those costs, about $25 billion, are connected to roughly 3,000 smog-related deaths each year, but additional factors include work and school absences, emergency room visits, and asthma attacks and other respiratory illnesses, said team leader Jane Hall, a professor of economics and co-director of the university’s Institute for Economics and Environment Studies.

The decades of shameless defense of a heavily polluting auto industry should be grounds for Dingell’s resignation, not just for booting him from this key committee (especially because it’s resulted in the car companies being broke and looking for a government handout).  But it’s awful hard to impact an insider caucus battle with anything resembling reason.

However, we must keep trying.  Call Congress and tell them you’d rather have someone concerned about catastrophic climate change in charge of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, instead of someone who uses it as a pretext to keep his failing auto industry executive buddies happy.