The San Diego Board of Supervisors voted yesterday to attempt to bill the federal government for the supposed cost of undocumented immigrants.  In an exceptionally pathetic (even by normal standards) attempt to steal money and headlines without any underlying logic, the Board commissioned a report to examine only the negative economic impact of undocumented workers and ignore the economic benefits of taxes paid and goods and services purchased.  The kicker?  They want the bill to be paid with money that the undocumented immigrants paid into the Social Security system via taxes. Taxes of course were not included in the study.

The Board specifically voted to enlist the aid of immigration zealot and all around xenophobic crazy person Brian Bilbray (who is “eager” to work on this with the Supervisors) in getting legislation passed which would:

make it easier for local law enforcement officials to track illegal immigrants wanted for crimes;

change the Medicare Modernization Act to pay local hospitals $155 million for unpaid bills from illegal immigrants;

make the federal government pay local governments from the Social Security fund into which people pay but do not collect, often because they have worked using phony Social Security documents. Reports have estimated that illegal immigrants pay $7 billion in taxes into that fund each year.

Supervisor Bill Horn commented on the maneuver which echoes previous attempts to squeeze funding from the feds in 1994 and 2001, saying “I don’t want to just grandstand, I really want the money this time,” apparently confirming that the last two times they didn’t really want the money and were, in fact, just grandstanding.

There is a legitimate point to be made that the tax dollars generated by undocumented immigrants generally go to state or federal coffers and not to localities via property taxes while the outgoing money often flows from the local level.  But this is a completely backwards and shameful way to go about, let’s face it, really lame and overdone grandstanding.

The North County Times notes pokes further holes in the study by pointing out that “the study did not account for the costs of education or unpaid medical bills for illegal immigrants, although it used estimates from the Hospital Association of San Diego and Imperial Counties to come up with its figure of $155 million in unpaid medical care costs.”

Nor, from what I can gather, did the study delve into the degree to which local taxes mitigated the poorly-determined “cost” for citizens.  Hell, I don’t pay property taxes cause I can’t afford property.  But I pay many of the same state and federal taxes that undocumented workers would.  What’s the economic difference?

This was a pathetic attempt by the Board of Supervisors to validate their greed and anti-immigration hysteria, and they got a study that, by completely ignoring reality, gave them the answers they wanted.  Freed from the chains of a responsibility to logic or competent governance,  the Board is now going full bore after money and social divisiveness.  I’m looking forward to a governing body who spends less time casting blame and more time actually improving the community.

Cross posted at San Diego Politico

(Get your give on – promoted by Lucas O’Connor)

With the San Francisco and Los Angeles Quarterlies ready to kick off tomorrow (watch out LA, I’m coming), let’s take a pictoral tour through last week’s San Diego event.  Consider this an open thread, but focus on how great Calitics is :).

Some of the last revelers of the night (L to R: cmanaster, Ron Shepston, orangeclouds115, Major Danby, a very demonic looking Lucas O’Connor)

Future Congressman Nick Leibham (center, CA-50) and Ron Shepston (right, CA-42) talk shop with Greg Diamond/Major Danby.  Consider Rove nullified.

Mike Lumpkin (CA-52) talks strategy with Ira Lechner.  Dunc Jr. is not ready for this campaign.

Steve Filson chats with Leon Thompson, bringing some Bay-Area perspective to the locals.

Todd Gloria blogs and talks at the same time (with tface1000 lurking in the shadows).  Half of San Diego’s city council is turning over next year due to term limits, and he’s after one of the seats.

I get caught a bit rosy cheeked talking with Miriam Raftery and Leon Thompson.  I’m not drunk, I’m just drinking.

But best of all, surprise live music just for us!

Got a tip that sometime in the very near future, Francine Busby will be announcing her endorsement of Nick Leibham for the Democratic nomination in the 50th district.  The field has been slowly clearing for a while now, with Michael Wray opting against a run and John Lee Evans running for School Board.  Steve Schechter has also filed FEC paperwork to run in the district, but this endorsement would line up the one major recognizable Democratic face in the district behind Leibham.  Putting to rest any remaining speculation that she might run again, much of the drama is likely over in the primary, leaving now more than a year of Bilbray-hunting.  The district has a Partisan Voter Index of R+5, but Charlie Cook considers the district competitive more than 13 months out, rating it yesterday as Likely Republican in his new Competitive House Race Chart.

Cross posted from San Diego Politico

Getting ready to kick this thing off, but surprise news arrived just an hour ago in my inbox that I wanted to pass along.  In a completely unexpected move, Republican Mayor Jerry Sanders here in San Diego has announced that he will sign the resolution passed by the city council to file a friend of the court brief in support of full marraige equality.  His full statement on the flip, updates and comments to come from local activists throughout the night.

via email:

Earlier this afternoon, I announced that I will sign the resolution that the City Council passed yesterday directing the City Attorney to file a brief in support of gay marriage. My plan, as has been reported publicly, was to veto that resolution, so I feel like I owe all San Diegans an explanation for this change of heart.

During the campaign two years ago, I announced that I did not support gay marriage and instead supported civil unions and domestic partnerships. I have personally wrestled with that position ever since. My opinion on this issue has evolved significantly – as I think have the opinions of millions of Americans from all walks of life. In order to be consistent with the position I took during the mayoral election, I intended to veto the Council resolution. As late as yesterday afternoon, that was my position.

The arrival of the resolution – to sign or veto — in my office late last night forced me to reflect and search my soul for the right thing to do. I have decided to lead with my heart – to do what I think is right – and to take a stand on behalf of equality and social justice. The right thing for me to do is to sign this resolution.

For three decades, I have worked to bring enlightenment, justice and equality to all parts of our community. As I reflected on the choices that I had before me last night, I just could not bring myself to tell an entire group of people in our community that they were less important, less worthy and less deserving of the rights and responsibilities of marriage — than anyone else — simply because of their sexual orientation. A decision to veto this resolution would have been inconsistent with the values I have embraced over the past 30 years.

I do believe that times have changed. And with changing time, and new life experiences, come different opinions. I think that’s natural, and certainly it is true in my case. Two years ago, I believed that civil unions were a fair alternative. Those beliefs, in my case, have since changed.

The concept of a “separate but equal” institution is not something that I can support.

I acknowledge that not all members of our community will agree or perhaps even understand my decision today. All I can offer them is that I am trying to do what I believe is right.

I have close family members and friends who are members of the gay and lesbian community. These folks include my daughter Lisa and her partner, as well as members of my personal staff. I want for them the same thing that we all want for our loved ones — for each of them to find a mate whom they love deeply and who loves them back; someone with whom they can grow old together and share life’s wondrous adventures. And I want their relationships to be protected equally under the law. In the end, I could not look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships – their very lives – were any less meaningful than the marriage that I share with my wife Rana.

Thank you.

I have never been a fan of Jerry Sanders, but this is great on a number of levels.  Credit where it’s due.

“There’s a certain kind of equation that Democrats are doing,” Ducheny said. “Their concerns are that it’s Sanders and Francis and, gosh, is there anybody else?”

I first heard rumblings about this at San Diego Politico last week, and now VoiceOfSanDiego has dug into it with greater depth.  With Donna Frye demurring on another run for mayor of San Diego, Dems are looking at State Senator Denise Moreno Ducheny as a candidate for mayor next year.  She’s exciting a lot of Dems for being business-friendly in a cycle that may see Republicans split between current Mayor Jerry Sanders and 2004 candidate Steve Francis, who has become a consistent critic of Sanders.  Ducheny would have the added benefit of not being tainted by recent city-level scandals and has drawn the support of at least one high profile Democrat: City Attorney Mike Aguirre.

San Diego Democrats are facing a potentially golden electoral opportunity in 2008.  Dissatisfaction with Jerry Sanders from business Republicans has given Steve Francis a wedge with which to gain some traction on the right.  A divided Republican electorate combined with an increasingly unpopular Republican Party at the national level and the forgotten Democratic registration advantage presents a great chance for Democrats to take the mayor’s office.  The only problem so far has been figuring out who should run.  San Diego doesn’t have the deepest of benches after a generation of rising progressives was virtually wiped out by corruption and Target San Diego (pdf).  Much of the remaining Democrats in office are reliably liberal but also inextricably linked to dissatisfaction with local government over the past five years.

As the VoSD article notes, before Donna Frye, Democrats hadn’t made a serious run at the mayor’s office since 1992, and now find themselves back to starting with the opportunity and searching for a candidate.  Ducheny’s experience in Sacramento on budget matters make her particularly attractive to local Democrats in light of the city’s fiscal struggles, though there are concerns about the level of support that she would inspire from local labor, but given the thin bench after years of lackluster success at the nonpartisan level, any solution is likely to be imperfect.

Sen. Ducheny has expressed no particular hurry to make a decision in either direction, though the sooner the better by most estimations.  Jerry Sanders’ reelection campaign is set to kick off tomorrow.

U.S. Judge John Bates in the DC District Court ruled yesterday that Representatives Bilbray, Hunter and Issa must provide some of their official documents to a Jewish Veterans group who filed suit last year.  The veterans group is attempting to demonstrate that federal seizure of the land was designed to advance a religious goal.

The New York Sun runs through the decision:

Judge Bates said that by sponsoring a bill to federalize the cross, Messrs. Bilbray, Hunter, and Issa opened themselves up to the demand for records. “These members in particular had every reason to suspect that their words and deeds as the Act’s sponsors would be the subject of post-enactment scrutiny; they played a high-profile role in the federal government’s acquisition of a large Latin cross that had been the subject of extensive prior litigation, made numerous public statements, and boasted of their role in campaign literature,” the judge wrote. “This Court’s case-specific ruling allowing discovery from these three Members neither works an injustice to them nor opens a proverbial can of worms for legislators generally.” Judge Bates’s ruling was something of a split decision. He said the legislators were entitled to withhold records pertaining to “legislative acts” but had to disclose records about attempts they made to convince executive branch officials to seize the land by public domain. The judge also said records of contacts with local officials, citizens’ groups, and the press might constitute “political activities” that are not protected from subpoena.

The ruling could reveal interesting insights or may land with a dull thud once the surrendered documents are reviewed.  And while this is a case-specific ruling which does not directly carry precedent, it does mean that legislators in the future will not be able to count on the Speech and Debate clause as definite protection.

Cross posted at San Diego Politico

Bill Clinton is in San Diego tonight hosting a fundraiser and I won’t be there.  Can’t afford it. $500 to get in the door.  Unless I suddenly don’t need to pay rent next month, it ain’t gonna happen.  Maybe you’re like me, and you constantly wish that someone would hold a kickass fundraiser that you can afford?  Well now somebody is.  If you’re in driving distance of San Diego, we expect to see you at the Calitics Quarterly Fundraiser.

We’ve got office seekers and holders at the federal, state and local level.  We’ve got the beloved local blogger Terry Williams (terryfaceplace) and notoriously non-prolific blogging gadfly Lucas O’Connor.  We’ve got the San Diego Drinking Liberally crew led by founder Jesse Rubin, so you know it’ll be a party.  And most importantly, we have tireless, brilliant and criminally underappreciated activists from throughout the San Diego area.

We don’t have Slick Willie, but we have a chance for you to pitch in and have a great night for $20, $40, or whatever it is you can afford.  We don’t quibble over pennies.  What we’re after is the passion.  See you Wednesday.

The Merc is reporting on a new strategy from the CDP to disrupt signature-gathering for the Dirty Tricks Initiative:

“We’re asking volunteers and activists to be fraud busters,” Art Torres, chairman of the state Democratic Party, said in a telephone conference call, “to help stop Republicans from stealing the White House.”

Torres said he’s calling on party volunteers to help find the location of signature gatherers and post them on the state party’s Web site “so everybody can see where they are, and we can proceed to the locations to offer rebuttals or register Democratic voters at the same time.

“Our intention is not to harass, nor to engage, nor to debate people collecting signatures,” Torres added. “This is the first time I’ve authorized a ‘do not sign’ campaign, which we want to be not only non-violent but non-intrusive on anybody else’s First Amendment rights.”

If it is what he says it is, then fantastic.  When was the last time there was a debate in the public square over policy and politics?  But I can’t imagine that this actually plays out in the manner Art Torres envisions.  If this evolves into a significant network of volunteers statewide, there’s going to inevitably be inappropriate behavior and confrontation that results from passionate people disagreeing.  It’s already being described by Republicans, predictably, as harassment of signature gatherers and signers.

I applaud the energy, and I’m encouraged by the underlying goal of fighting this every step of the way, but I do wonder just how far California Democrats can carry the scorched earth strategy here without the eventual voter disenchantment coming back to bite Democratic efforts.

All that said…I’ll probably end up volunteering for it at some point.

Cross posted from San Diego Politico

That’s the headline from a new issue brief from the Center on Policy Initiatives here in San Diego.  A study of 2006 Census data released this week discovered that “about 53% of both renters and homebuyers in this county can’t afford their housing, according to federal standards.”  Those numbers according to CPI add up to more than 500,000 households countywide.

Perhaps coincidentally, FoxNews last night ran a story aimed at revealing the “human side” of the foreclosure crisis throughout the county.  The story ultimately focused on analysing all the mistakes people make on the way to foreclosure, conveniently blaming those who end up losing in all of this rather than getting particularly ruffled about predatory lending practices or subprime mortgages that have disproportionately hit Latinos and African-Americans with foreclosure (also touched on in the CPI report among other places).

More than half.  That’s not an ingredient for economic growth, improved test scores, higher health standards, public safety, or anything else generally considered desirable for a community.  The San Diego housing market is already in decline, with dozens if not hundreds of condos sitting vacant and unsold.  Where exactly is this county going and why are we in this handbasket?

Not wanting to miss out on the growing uproar over the Dirty Tricks Initiative plan, The Hill breaks down the plans of California’s Congressional Delegation to get involved.  Representative Darrell Issa sounded less than enthusiastic about members of the Republican delegation getting involved, saying “We barely mention them until they qualify…Usually they’re just talked about to get us to spend money.”

Democrats on the other hand sound ready to battle.  Rep. Waxman leads off:

“We’ll all be part of an effort to fight it,” Rep. Henry Waxman said of his fellow California Democrats. “We’ve been successful in beating back efforts in the past.”

And then Rep. Lofgren starts talking strategy:

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the state’s Democratic delegation, estimated that all California Democrats in Congress “are going to oppose it.”

She emphasized that the campaign is a long way away but said Democrats are taking the effort very seriously and plan to let their constituents know about its true intent: helping Republicans elect the next president.

On the flip, analysis and a Republican acknowledges reality, even in passing.

Obviously this is getting the attention it warrants straight to the top and Democrats (for once) sound ready to fight.  There’s more to this iniative than just ensuring it doesn’t pass.  There’s a real opportunity to beat it convincingly and, if framed properly, deal a direct blow to Republican electoral shenanigans.

California Congressional Democrats are talking the talk.  The issue is being framed as a naked partisan power grab, and the enthusiasm and lack of equivocation is an encouraging sign that maybe this one is such an easy one to hit out of the park that everyone’s going to line up to take a few swings.  This is likely not going to be an issue that will impact congressional races significantly, so it affords opportunities for members of both parties to score points with their base while getting national attention.

But one thing which becomes clear is that this fight will not lack for high-profile attention or money.  Safe districts and unopposed candidates have something to keep them busy and on the fundraising circuit, and the entire party is lining up to make sure that the rank and file of the party get their education and stay on the reservation with this one.

An interesting sidenote is the prospect of a united Congressional caucus.  This is an easy issue for everyone to be “locking arms along party lines” over.  As the media desperately pushes the “divided Democrats” storyline and the fervor rises for pressure on conservative Democrats, this offers an excellent opportunity to unite the party.

This clearly doesn’t have a smooth route to passing next year, even on the presumably low-turnout June ballot.  But it’s just threatening enough for everyone to tee off on it, and that’s a good start.  This is such an obvious illustration of everything that’s wrong with the Republican electoral playbook that every Democrat should be excited to get into the fray.  The netroots/grassroots partnership has quickly helped establish the way this issue should be talked about, and the template has plenty of power players ready to go.

But before writing off the entire Republican side of the Congressional aisle, I’ll leave you with a rare glimpse of reality from the Right:

Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.) said the initiative faces a “tough sell,” noting the ardent resistance from the Democratic establishment.

“Normally, unless it’s over 50 at the very beginning, it’s going to be hard to get it passed,” Lungren said.

This should be a fun one.