In case anyone was concerned that the wave of Republican discontent sweeping the nation was in danger of reaching every corner, witness San Diego, California.  In an excellent rundown of the problems with San Diego’s current Charter Review Committee, Progressive San Diego’s Tommie Watson assures us that insider, closed-door governance is hardly out of style in America’s Finest City:

Mayor Sander’s Charter Review Committee may give the appearance of being open to public opinion and dialogue; but it is a thinly veiled attempt by the same “good old boys” who have helped create the mess in this city to maintain their power. Everything about this committee — from poorly publicized meetings and forums, to the time they are held (Friday mornings), to Chairman John Davies edict (that only a total of 20 minutes of public non-agenda comment will be allowed at each meeting) — has helped keep the public out of this process.

And so I have to ask- Whatever happened to the Mayor’s pledge of open government?

What does the committee have to fear from public input?  What happened in the past three years that (as noted by Watson) Jerry Sanders has gone from cosigning the argument against a strong mayor government to using it to remove the public from the business of determining how their city should be run?  More to the point, how can Jerry Sanders seriously argue that he should use his strong-mayor powers to appoint a committee to determine if the office should retain its power?

Because Watson does such a great job of hitting all the relevant points, I’m just going to be riffing on his piece as I catalog everything that’s wrong with this arrangement (so please read the whole thing).  But I will say this:  Jerry Sanders has consistently put himself in opposition to the average citizen of San Diego.  Whether it’s support of neighborhood-destroying Superstores, whether it’s a resistance to funding homeless shelters, library services and cost-of-living pay raises for public servants, or it’s disproportionately targeting residents over businesses for higher utility prices or it’s his “just keep building” economic development plan, he’s just not interested in open and responsive government that serves the people.

This shouldn’t be an unfamiliar refrain.  Republicans have operated for years under the premise that the less people know, and the more convinced they can be of their own tenuous position in the world, the easier they are to control.  It doesn’t have to be this way.  Economic development can be targeting higher wages instead of higher corporate profits.  City services can be seen as an investment in a more capable workforce instead of a drain on resources.  Communities can be planned around businesses that build neighborhoods instead of simply extract profits.  Quite frankly, San Diego can be much more than a tourist destination.  But not without a government that feels its people are an asset and invites them to contribute.  Not without a government who actually wants its citizens to succeed.

A coalition of progressive San Diego organizations is working towards a “progressive platform” for San Diego that (hopefully) brings this all together and shows this community what else is out there.

A federal appeals panel yesterday heard arguments regarding the power of executive branch federal prosecutors to declare judicial branch court records as classified.  At issue for the three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is the case of Duke Cunningham co-conspirator Thomas Kontogiannis who has pled guilty to laundering bribes heading from defense contractors to Duke Cunningham (R-Tucson Federal Correctional Institution). So what are federal prosecutors after?

In trying to keep the information about the plea secret, government lawyers invoked a law dealing with the handling of classified information. At least one transcript of a hearing was stamped “classified” by the government – a move that was criticized by U.S. District Judge Larry Burns, who is presiding over the case and initially agreed to the secret proceedings.

Burns moved to lift the seal in June. Prosecutors, however, objected and took the case to the appellate court. Their reasons for secrecy are unknown because the objections were filed under seal.

So let’s connect the dots.

The federal attorney’s want to keep court records under wraps.  They’ve gone so far as to request the court to seal the legal filings of the San Diego Union-Tribune seeking access to information.  What are they really asking?  They’re asking that the public trust them because the government just can’t allow things into the public domain.  This is San Diego.  Where, if you’re on public assistance, you’re presumed guilty until proven innocent.  Where the US Attorney was fired by her politically motivated superiors for pursuing federal corruption in this very case.  This is the Justice Department run by Alberto Gonzales who is either mind-blowingly incompetent or has completely politicized the Justice Department to the point that every federal prosecution has to be presumed to have partisan motivations.

Further, in the immediate wake of the FISA vote, federal prosecutors are saying that the executive branch should be unconditionally trusted to safeguard the public interest.  Warrants, checks and balances, and the right of the public to know what the government is doing- according to these federal prosecutors- should just be wholesale ceded to the executive branch of the government.  Yeah right.

What do they have to hide?  Duke Cunningham’s laundry list of bribes received has been fully documented.  So just like the FISA assertation that the government can’t fill out warrant applications, one is forced to ask- in a case full of prominent Republicans, the pursuit of which has already claimed Carol Lam- just what does the fully-partisan Justice Department have to hide?  There’s no longer any question as to the internal policy of the Justice Department and AG Alberto Gonzales, so what’s left is whether the 9th Circuit will roll over on the Constitution and let the executive branch dictate the fundamental operation of the judicial branch.  More simply: Will the judicial branch defend itself from attack?  Will it demand independence?  We’ll see.

In response to the potential “logistical nightmare” of counting ballots by hand in February’s primary election, San Diego county is starting a huge push for absentee voting.  Reported today in the Union-Tribune, San Diego County’s registrar of voters will send out postcards to more than 1 million voters pushing the absentee option, hoping to offset the number of paper ballots cast on election day.  This, of course, is in response to Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s ruling that only one touch screen machine per polling place would be allowed following her extensive study of potential security problems.

While San Diego has a particular love affair with Diebold which sets it apart from many other parts of the state (Diebold is, by contract, required to replace any decertified machines), it seems unlikely that it will be only San Diego that makes this sort of push for absentee voting.  So what does this mean?

It means that absentee ballots would start being mailed to a huge portion of California on January 7.  What is the significance of January 7? It’s exactly one week before the current date of the Iowa Caucus and the beginning of the primary voting season.  In 2004’s presidential primary, 34.31% of votes were absentee, and in 2006 that number in the primary jumped to 46.9%.  So if California sees a major jump in the number of absentee voters from 2006 and 2004 numbers, it could set California up as, in practical terms, the first state voting.

This is hardly a given.  Chris Bowers has a series of posts predicting that Iowa and New Hampshire could move into the end of 2007, in which case much of the traditional buzz from their events would remain influential.  But if not, early candidate impressions in California completely change the delegate math.  Almost 6.7 million ballots were cast absentee in 2004’s primary, and simply a jump to 50% would mean that 9.75 million people voted absentee, largely without the influence of Iowa and New Hampshire performance (also, by the way, more than twice the combined populations of Iowa and New Hampshire).  That’s a huge swing.  And so where are California’s Democrats trending?  According to pollster, pretty strongly and consistently towards Hillary Clinton.

About a month ago on Calitics, Julia Rosen asked “Where is Obama’s California Campaign?  In light of the early reactions to Secretary of State Bowen’s decertification, the question may more specifically be, what’s the absentee strategy?  If Californians are voting in mid-January, all previous bets are off and maybe the state actually gets all that presidential love and attention it’s been lusting after.  The impact on the conventional wisdom and the cable news won’t be immediate because these votes won’t enter the public consciousness until February 5 along with all of the votes cast at the polls.  So Iowa, New Hampshire, and all pre-national primary states will still get the attention and the glory.  But if the biggest prize has already been awarded, February 5th becomes much less about hype and much more about the early action.  And depending on how it manifests itself, it’s probably not such a bad thing to have people vote on the candidates and not the media hype out of Iowa and New Hampshire.

I missed a random ten because of YearlyKos and now it’s Julia’s birthday. So in light of both of those things, a super-deluxe musical open thread with linked videos for all and one of your very own on the flip.

Teddybears w/ Iggy Pop – Punkrocker
St. Vincent – Paris is Burning
Sea Wolf – You’re a Wolf
The Blow – Parenthesis
Rufus Wainwright – Going to a Town
Fionn Regan – Put A Penny in the Slot
Forro in the Dark w/ David Byrne – Asa Branca
Mark Ronson w/ Lily Allen – Oh My God
Matt and Kim – Yea Yeah
Datarock – Fa Fa Fa

Johnny Boy – You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes

“…and you get what you deserve”

Cross-posted here, here, and here.

BENAWU posted another of his great Congressional race tracker updates yesterday, announcing that 317 out of 435 House races have confirmed candidates (or presumed returning incumbents).  But despite this early success, in California there are only confirmed challengers for 10 out of 19 sitting Republicans.  Only Texas has more unfilled races right now, and it’s friggin Texas.  As BENAWU notes, all of these districts had challengers in 2006, so some level of infrastructure exists for a challenge.  Now many of these districts are going to be tough sledding for any Democrat thanks to redistricting in 2002, but anyone who’s been paying attention the last few years knows that the Republican party is potentially vulnerable almost anywhere.  The goal of filling every race proved its worth last year with surprising success in supposedly safe districts across the country.  Just ask Jerry McNerney or Nancy Boyda or Jim Webb for starters.

The advantages of competing everywhere have been well established and I won’t get long-winded about them here.  Being well positioned for an unexpected scandal, building the party by presenting an honest version of the platform, keeping incumbents (and their money) tied to the home district, supporting up and down ticket races, the reasons stretch on and on.  Certainly in California there’s a lot of reason to be concerned with keeping incumbents at home.  Seven of the incumbents have a combined net cash on hand of $2,511,924 already, the 8th (Darrell Issa is worth as much as $677 million) is one of the richest members of Congress, and the 9th will be, well…Duncan Hunter’s son.  So keeping their focus narrow is going to be key to efforts throughout the state and country.  The Race Tracker is a great resource, but it requires that the rest of us do the legwork.  So to make sure that California covers every district this year, I’m asking for volunteers to take one of the nine remaining districts and chase it down, investigate, babysit, prod, browbeat, and just generally keep track of efforts to get a candidate.  I don’t want us to wake up a year from now and realize that we forgot a district, and in the process I think it’s an excellent opportunity to get to know the state a bit better.  These districts stretch from Oregon to Mexico and encompass urban, suburban, rural areas.  You don’t have to live in the district to adopt it, but being nearby or knowing someone might help.  Some of these might be really easy- there might be a candidate next week.  Others might be heavy on the labor and light on the love.  Quite frankly, I don’t know; but I should.  So here’s a rundown of the districts who need some attention, and to get the ball rolling, I’m willing to take either CA-49 or CA-52, depending on what people’s interest level might be in one or the other.  Any takers for the remaining districts?

CA-02: Rep. Wally Herger has held this seat stretching from Yuba City to Oregon since 1988.  Republicans have a 45/33 registration advantage and Bush received 62% in 2004.  But Herger didn’t much outperform Bush and Bush isn’t nearly as popular anywhere as he was in 2004.  It’s not Dem country, but Herger is especially bad.

CA-03: Rep. Dan Lungren was elected to this seat which wraps around Sacramento and runs to Nevada in 2004 but has been in Congress before.  When serving Southern California in the 1980s, he was one of Newt Gingrich’s favorite minions.  He’s since done two terms as California’s Attorney General and lost the governor’s race in 1998.  This seat, in various incarnations, spent 36 years in Democratic hands before going Republican in 1998’s election and while it’s been redrawn to be more favorable to Republicans, neither Bush nor Lungren was able to crack 60% in their last respective elections in this R+7 district.

CA-19: Rep. George Radanovich holds down this Central California district including Oakdale and Kerman.  Challenger T.J. Cox raised almost $700,000 last year, and Radanovich is currently sitting on only $123,000.  This has been declared an impossible district for Democrats (it’s one of the most Republican in the state), but Radanovich had to stay home more than usual last year, and that’s better for all of us.

CA-21: Rep. Devin Nunes was elected to Congress in 2002 before he turned 30 years old and is the only representative this new district to the West and South of Fresno has ever had.  He was barely phased by last year’s wave election, getting his lowest percentage ever, but still claiming 67%.  But that’s still the right direction, and the work of reclamation begins by showing up.

CA-22: Rep. Kevin McCarthy has the honor of representing the reddest California district since last year. It covers the inland portions of San Luis Obispo and the suburbs around Bakersfield, reaching all the way to the 395.  Sharon Beery ran here last year but found no fundraising traction.  This one may be the biggest windmill the state has to tilt at, but McCarthy cruised past $1 million in fundraising to take the open seat and is already closing in on a half million on hand.  We don’t want that money propping up Republicans elsewhere if at all possible.

CA-25: Rep. Buck McKeon grabbed this crazy-huge district in 1992 (Santa Clarita to Barstow to the Nevada border and stretching almost all the way to Lake Tahoe.  John Kerry didn’t fare too well here, but Barbara Boxer got more than 45% back in 2004. With Republicans even less popular and McKeon remaining just as conservative (PP score of 3.77%), there’s room for a Democrat to find a sympathetic ear or two.  McKeon had no problem fundraising himself out of any trouble last year, let’s make sure he’s forced to keep it up.

CA-45: Rep. Mary Bono is vulnerable.  Her Palm Springs and Moreno Valley district is just barely Republican and she’s managed to stay in her seat by creating a veneer of moderation to disguise her Bush-enabling record.  Barbara Boxer snagged just under 50% of the vote here in 2004 and Bush didn’t find a receptive audience last year.  2006 challenger David Roth found the monetary support but didn’t strike the right chord to take advantage of voters open to Democratic persuasion.  Time to find someone to strike that chord.

CA-49: Rep. Darrell Issa is a tough nut to crack after buying this Camp Pendleton, Oceanside and Temecula district in 2000.  He’s absurdly rich and got that way through a number of alleged shady dealings.  You may not know it, but you know him as the voice of Viper car alarm’s “Step back, you’re too close to the vehicle.” You may also know him as a major force behind the recall of California Gov. Gray Davis or as instrumental in the firing of US Attorney Carol Lam (who took down Duke Cunningham among others).  That’s been in the news recently hasn’t it?  But in addition to the buckets of money, it’s a solidly Republican district that’s consistently refused to embrace Democrats from Kerry to Boxer to Issa challengers.  At the very least though, it’s vitally important that we get someone in front of microphone in the district to point out loudly that the rule of law is NOT up for partisan discussion.

CA-52: Rep. Duncan Hunter is retiring from this East County San Diego seat that he’s held since 1980(!) whether he gets the presidential nomination or not.  His son (also Duncan Hunter) is the presumptive Republican on the ballot, and as an Iraq veteran will be tough to beat.  But there are glimmers of hope for Democratic ideas starting to percolate up from the local level, and Blackwater West is nearby (though out of district) and has a big fan in the elder Hunter.  Not a bad way to start a debate.