Some Calitics readers will be familiar with The League of Young Voters (formerly known as “The League of Pissed Off Voters”) from the phenomenal work of their chapters in San Francisco and the Inland Empire.  Here in California, the League’s work mobilizing activists to knock on doors in Nevada for the 2004 presidential election and walk precincts in their own neighborhoods in the 2005 state special election was nothing short of heroic.  No less impressive are the accomplishments of League chapters in Maine, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Ohio and Wisconsin.

The League is looking for a new Executive Director.  If you have the chops to lead an enormously energetic organization doing hardcore political work, or know someone else who does, read beneath the fold for a job description.

Send resume and cover letter to:
Email:  edsearch at indyvoter dot org

Executive Director, League of Young Voters/League of Young Voters Education Fund

The Opportunity:

The League of Young Voters/League of Young Voters Fund (LYV/LYVEF) is seeking a unique, qualified individual to lead these organizations in all aspects of program and development, as we head into 2008 and beyond. This is a demanding position in an innovative, exciting, fast-moving national organization that engages young people under 35 in political action, issue campaigns, and community organizing. 

About the League of Young Voters and League of Young Voter Education Fund:

The League of Young Voters Education Fund and the League of Young Voters are national organizations that support young people to build power to create solutions in their own communities.  Our integrated youth civic engagement model combines best practices from electoral, community, campus and cultural organizing with sophisticated voter engagement techniques.  We engage young people who have been shut out of the political process, train them to be sophisticated organizers on their own issues, and build multi-racial, multi-issue alliances.  We believe that our permanent campaign approach (year round, long-term, locally-driven) is key to building the trust, skills and power necessary to not only increase young voter turnout in the short term, but to leverage long-term change and form a generation of engaged and active young leaders.

*The League of Young Voters Education Fund (LYVEF) is a non-profit, 501(c)3 non-profit organization engaging young people under 35 in the democratic process through voter education, trainings, leadership development, and by providing support to existing youth, cultural and student organizations to include voter organizing in their work.  For more information:

http://www.youngvote…

*The League of Young Voters (LYV) is a political, 501(c)4 advocacy organization for young people under 35 to build a progressive governing majority in our lifetime.  We develop leaders and build political power to create public policies which reflect our core values:  family, community, inclusion, freedom, equality, sustainable jobs and peace.  We lobby at the local, state and national level to hold elected officials accountable to our agenda.  For more information: 

http://www.indyvoter…

LYVEF/LYV have national staff working in Brooklyn and San Francisco and offices in Brooklyn, NY;  San Francisco, CA;  Milwaukee, WI;  Pittsburgh, PA;  Albuquerque, NM;  Portland, ME.  Location of the ED is flexible.  Efficacy with virtual office is necessary.

The ideal candidate will have:

-Organizational leadership experience, which may include but not be limited to any of the following:

o Leading a team in a major organizing campaign
o Managing employees in a business or non-profit environment
o Working with a diverse staff and Board of Directors

-Experience in one or more of the following fields:

o Labor, community or youth organizing
o Electoral field campaigns
o Legislative or policy experience
o Other relevant experience in a progressive organization

-Experience managing fiscal budgets:

o Planning and analysis
o Fundraising
o Reporting

Responsibilities:

-Articulate and facilitate the implementation of LYV & LYVEF’s vision, mission, core values, and primary strategies, both internally and externally.
-Hiring, managing and evaluating staff and contractors.
-Establishing and fostering an effective organizational culture and systems that help achieve organizational goals. 
-Overseeing, with the oversight of the Board, fundraising of the budget and ensuring financial, legal, and ethical responsibility within the organization.
-Overseeing the development of programs and alliances that reflect the organizations’ core goals, culture and strategies.

Reporting Relationships:

The Executive Director will report to the Fund’s Board of Directors.  Direct reports will include administrative and program staff, independent consultants and contractors. 

Salary:

Commensurate with experience.

To apply:

Please email resume, cover letter, three references, and salary history to  edsearch at indyvoter dot org with “EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR” in the subject line.  No phone calls, faxes, or personal correspondence will be considered or accepted.  The last date to submit a resume is Friday, August 10th, Close-Of-Business, Pacific Standard Time.

LYV and LYVEF are equal opportunity employers.  We do not discriminate in employment against persons based on color, race, religion, age, ability, gender, familial status, sexual orientation, national origin, veteran or marital status. People of all genders, backgrounds, orientations, and senses of humor are encouraged to apply.

AsianWeek’s idiotic editors have managed to put Asian-Americans like myself in an awkward position not entirely unlike that of American Muslims after 9-11.  Do we go out of our way to condemn the egregious behavior of a handful of knuckleheads who happen to share our phenotype to prove to the world that we’re not all like that?  Or does the very act of doing so only serve to dignify the absurd suspicion that maybe this guy represents people other than himself?  And moreover, do we, as co-ethnics, shoulder some unique responsibility to even have to worry about this garbage?

In case you’re unfamiliar, I’m talking about the column by some jackass named Kenneth Eng entitled “Why I Hate Blacks” that includes such gems as this:

“Contrary to media depictions, I would argue that blacks are weak-willed.  They are the only race that has been enslaved for 300 years.  It’s unbelievable that it took them that long to fight back.”

San Francisco’s AsianWeek newspaper ran the column, which to me is a much more perplexing fact than that there’s someone out there stupid enough to harbor these beliefs.  The editors are now tripping over themselves to apologize, but they have yet to explain how the hell whoever reviewed this piece thought it fit for the presses.  Even before Eng submitted his tour de stupidite, you’d think that after his earlier column, “Proof That Whites Inherently Hate Us,” someone at AsianWeek would have gotten a clue.

Anyway, I’m leaning toward the condemnation option, though it rankles me that I should even have to be stuck in this quandary of some other doofus’ creation.  If you’re leaning that direction too, here’s a blog that just came to my attention:

http://dontspeakfor….

It’s got a petition.

Merry Christmas, Fresno!  Juan Arambula’s decision not to run for re-election in 2008 is good news for working families in his district and throughout the state.

Despite the (D) attached to his name, Arambula has been a consistent opponent to workers fighting to make Fresno a pro-labor town.  When union public school teachers backed school board candidates who fought to put more resources into the classroom, Arambula attacked them, claiming — strangely — that they were failing to put children first.  In a debate on a right-wing radio talk show, Arambula asserted that school board candidates should not support workers when they join together to form a union. 

Nor has Arambula been an ally to the party’s efforts to build an enduring progressive majority in California.  Rather than using campaign funds to defeat vulnerable Republican candidates like Bonnie Garcia, Arambula put his anti-worker agenda first, and diverted those funds to support anti-union Fresno school board candidates who wanted to increase administrative spending at the expense of classroom spending.

His legislative record has been equally regressive.  He abstained from voting on a bill to ensure safe staffing in California hospitals, and he was one of three key votes against Mark Leno’s bill for marriage equality.

This November, Fresno voters rejected four Arambula-supported anti-worker candidates for school board, and elected pro-teacher candidates instead.  Fresno working families deserve a representative in the Assembly, as well, who speaks for them.  They may not need to wait long.

This just in: Montanez and Fuentes are out in L.A. CD7, leaving the seat to Alarcon.

That is, former AD39 Assemblymember Cindy Montanez and Felipe Fuentes, former Chief of Staff to former Los Angeles City Councilman (and now SD20 Senator) Alex Padilla, have cleared the field in the ’07 special election for Padilla’s vacated council seat in CD7.  That leaves former SD20 Senator (and former CD7 Councilman — he’s back!) Richard Alarcon the last man standing (with the exception of longshot Monica Rodriguez, former aide to Mayor Riordan, but that contest is over before it’s even begun).

For the full, epic, convoluted history, refer to my earlier diary.

As I reported a few stories down on this page, the L.A. Times and the L.A. Weekly each publicly flogged Alarcon for making this bid.  But hey, it worked.  And for the record, Alarcon has a long, proud history of standing with working families, so the district will be well-served by their new (former) Councilman.

Best of luck to Cindy and Felipe, wherever they go next.  Perhaps to duke it out in AD39?  Let’s hope not.

This weekend, the L.A. Times took aim at Assemblymember Richard Alarcon for his allegedly opportunistic bid for L.A. City Council. The L.A. Weekly already had its turn a few weeks ago.  Daily News, what say you?

Meanwhile, just a few exits down the 5 South from Alarcon’s Northeast Valley Assembly district, Nicole Richie got busted this morning for swallowing Vicodin, smoking pot and driving eastbound on the westbound lanes of the 134 in Burbank.

Of each, we ask: tragedy or farce?

Senator Richard Alarcon, who just won the 39th Assembly seat without contest two weeks ago, has made official his entry into the fight to represent L.A.’s District 7 in next year’s special election.  Alarcon will be duking it out with Felipe Fuentes and, presumably, Cindy Montanez (who has announced but not yet filed).

Let’s review the drama.

Once upon a time in the nineties, both Cindy Montanez and Alex Padilla enjoyed the mentorship of Richard Alarcon, a political fixture of the Northeast San Fernando Valley.

That was before Alarcon encouraged his wife to run against Padilla for the City Council seat Alarcon had vacated in order to move on to the Senate.  Padilla, who had managed the ’98 campaign that had delivered Alarcon his new Senate seat, was, understandably, peeved.

Padilla went on to win his City Council seat, and Alarcon went on to enjoy his two terms in the Senate.  Montanez, meanwhile, represented much of the same Northeast Valley constituency as Padilla and Alarcon in her role as Assemblymember for the 39th district.

Things looked cozy in the San Fernando Valley for a time, but term limits have a way of turning even the most carefully crafted political detente upside down.

Alarcon and Montanez made a pact to trade seats in 2006, when both would be termed out of their respective legislative chambers.  Logical enough, but what then of Alex Padilla?  With Villaraigosa — not exactly a chum of Padilla’s — running the city, marinating in City Council for the indefinite future was an unlikely prospect for a rising star like Alex.

Padilla disrupted the Alarcon-Montanez arrangement, by running for Alarcon’s soon-to-be-vacated Senate seat.  Then he disrupted it further, by winning.

On the evening of the June primary election when she conceded her defeat, Montanez, suddenly faced with a dearth of elective options, announced her intention to run for Padilla’s vacated Council seat.

Circumstances might have settled nicely at this point, with Padilla in the Senate, Alarcon in the Assembly, and Montanez a shoo-in for the Council, and with term limits in Sacramento years away.  But after such a nasty primary tangle for SD20, there was absolutely no love any longer lost between Padilla and Montanez, and Padilla was not about to stay neutral in any contest to succeed him.  Padilla’s Chief of Staff in the Council, Felipe Fuentes, filed papers for the upcoming special election.  The race was looking to be a match-up of Fuentes versus Montanez for the City Council seat vacated by Padilla and once occupied by Richard Alarcon.

But that wasn’t quite interesting enough.  Speculation abounded that Alarcon was not exactly satisfied with his fate for the next six years in the Assembly, and that his eyes were wandering in the direction of City Hall.  The question of what is so much more appealing about representing Council District 7, a seat Alarcon had already occupied in the ’90s, than Assembly District 39, will make for good political chatterboxing.  Regardless of his motivations, it’s now official: City Council District 7 will be the next clusterfucked battlefront in a long-standing and ever-more-complex squabble in the Valley among like-minded Democrats who once wore the same stripes.

And now there’s a brand new tidbit for political speculation: with the possibility of Alarcon going back to City Council, who’s starting to size up AD39?

Assemblymember Lloyd Levine, who currently represents the 40th Assembly district in the western San Fernando Valley, has made it official: he’ll be running for Senate in the 23rd (West L.A., Santa Monica, West San Fernando Valley, southwest Ventura County).  This is the seat currently held by Senator Sheila Keuhl, who will be termed out in ’08.

Levine’s Chief of Staff, Stuart Waldman, has already announced his candidacy for his boss’ vacated seat in the 40th.

Correa is now up by 821 votes.  This goose is cooked.

Billy Wimsatt, a major innovator in youth voter mobilization, just published these thoughts in Mother Jones magazine.  Well worth reading.

http://www.motherjon…