In an unanticipated flip flop (this one in particular, not the flipping in general) this past weekend while in San Diego addressing the National Council of La Raza, John McCain signaled his unequivocal support for the DREAM Act:

Q: “Will you support humanity all across the world and support The DREAM Act that we are trying to pass?”

A: “Yes. Yes, but I will also enforce the existing laws. That’s why we must secure the border…”

McCain was a sponsor of the DREAM Act in 2003, 2005 and 2007, but NOW in 2007:

McCain Skipped Vote On DREAM Act But Said He Would Have Voted Against Bill That He Co-Sponsored. “Last week, McCain skipped a Senate vote on immigration legislation called the DREAM Act – Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors. He then said he would have voted against the bill, even though he was a co-sponsor.” [Myrtle Beach Sun-News, 11/2/07 ]

This is remarkable on its face and is a clear attempt to pull Latino voters to McCain and make California competitive, but it doesn’t exactly jive with the spin that was being pushed around yesterday after Obama’s luncheon speech.

The real absurdity of McCain’s strategy, at least with regard to reaching Latino voters in California, was on full display Sunday following Obama’s La Raza speech, and it basically boiled down to telling Latinos that the elected Latinos throughout the state are failures. Hector Barajas, Director of Communications for the California GOP ticked off the list of Democratic boogeymen: Antonio Villaraigosa, Fabian Nunez, Gil Cedillo. Not just three of the most visible Latino politicians in the state, but ones that are noteworthy for championing Latino causes. Heck, Cedillo sponsored the DREAM Act that McCain now supports.

The boiled down version of the McCain line: Latinos have elected Latino officials who champion Latino causes and issues, but those Latinos are specifically what’s wrong with politics and run counter to the actual, McCain version of Latino interests. With all the big talk about how serious this campaign is about California and how the Latino vote is ripe for the taking, if overt insults make up the strategy then it’s no surprise that Obama is blowing out McCain in California.

Nevertheless, there are two possible silver linings here. The obvious one that we’ve been talking about for a long time is that if California can be a time and money suck for the McCain campaign, super. Please come and try. The second seems less likely given the ineptitude of McCain’s Latino outreach, but if this maybe inspires the DNC, CDP and/or the Obama campaign in some combination to increase focus on Latino targeting, messaging and outreach, I certainly wouldn’t mind.

In the meantime, maybe McCain can expand this strategy to all Americans and tell them that the majority that they elected in 2006 doesn’t represent their interests by default. Oh wait…

I’m gonna forget too many people so I’ll start with apologies for that. Juls and Brian are moderating a great turnout and people continue to filter in even halfway through. We’ve had Charlie Brown, Debbie Cook, Steve Young and Russ Warner join us to talk about their campaigns. Calitics regular soyinkafan is opening a lot of ears and eyes about Manuel Perez’s campaign in the 80th district (where he’s up big). Not only is the room full of familiar names from DailyKos (thereisnospoon, malacandra, shayera, hekebolos, highacidity, msrpotus), but we’ve got representatives from a wide range of progressive allies: ACLU, SEIU-UHW West, ActBlue, Blue State Digital, United Farm Workers the list goes on. The infrastructure available and the interest focused on netroots action and activism.

Dave Johnson just reminded everyone about another friend of Calitics and California good governance Hannah-Beth Jackson, running in Senate district 19 against the no good Tony Strickland. Updates to come.

[Update] Suzanne Savage from SoCal ACLU raises upcoming proposition fights which brings up the responsibility that a lot of us who obsess about politics need to take more seriously. It’s not always the sexiest stuff, but our friends, co-workers and relatives will be turning to us as the “political” ones for advice on this. This is one place where we can definitely have a huge impact because people are highly open to suggestion when the ballot gets crowded with dry and confusing propositions. Educate yourself so you can help educate others.

[Update] Reps from UHW just gave a great rundown of upcoming labor fights. I won’t even try to do it justice in real time here, but their website is a great resource as will be diaries on Calitics that will be coming soon. Dave Dayen is on to the California brain drain, which I can attest to just today in my struggles to convince “national” Californians to attend this very caucus.

[Update] Representative from UFW gave a moving and troubling account of the impact of the heat on farmworkers who are dying and ending up in the hospital. They’re campaigning and hoping for any attention and support. You can get involved at their website. A little (or a lot) of love for the amazing unstoppable force Martha Gamez.

[Update] Eden James, being the trouble maker that he is, threw open a discussion of the 2010 gubernatorial primary. Candidates reeled off include Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom, Bill Lockyer, Jack O’Connell, John Garamendi, Antonio Villaraigosa, Loretta Sanchez, Dave mentioned drafting Hilda Solis. Support for Newsom and Brown, though not necessarily enthusiastic support.

[Update] Talk about governor turns to working against Prop 13, the 2/3 rule and other process problems. And now on to assembly campaigns that can help us get to 2/3 and on to broader discussion of how to find candidates who understand netroots and grassroots power. Ways to insist on respect, build bridges between natural allies and change the quality of of campaigning. How to wield unifying and constructive rhetoric.

[Update] We’re wrapping up now with some talk about voter registration and fostering activism, specifically in relation to the Obama movement. What strikes me most about this caucus is the wide range of great people all in a room who otherwise don’t tend to communicate in this manner. Emails and the occasional conference call really can’t replicate this sort of setting for fostering discussion and new ideas. And for me personally, it reminds me of at least a dozen people, orgs, and blogs that I need to be reconnecting with and/or paying more attention to. Seeing everybody together like this really reignites my passion for the possibilities in California. Hopefully I’m not the only one.

Now that we’re done hopefully somebody’ll log on and comment…

Full disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign

There’s a lot of talk this year about more and better Democrats. Generally the “and better” part means primary campaigns and being selective in the candidates that we support with time, money and cyber ink. The other side of that is holding our representatives accountable in ways outside the ballot box, because sometimes we can’t just wait for re-election to get responsive representation; too much happens. It’s not always easy to find effective ways to get attention and movement, but passion and creativity can be combined into a potent mix.

Last week Senator Dianne Feinstein voted to give away our 4th Amendment privacy protections and grant retroactive immunity to the telecom companies who may have been illegally complicit in domestic spying on U.S. citizens. It was hardly the first time that Sen. Feinstein has given us reason for serious concern. Once before, her support of previous iterations of FISA legislation, Judge Leslie Southwick and now-Attorney General Mukasey inspired us to insist she pay attention to Californians. We asked you whether it was time to pursue censure again, and more than 12,000 of you responded with a clear message.

Rick Jacobs sent an email this morning running through the results, explaining where we go from here, and asking you to help:

The results are in.

Over 12,000 Californians voted on one of the most important questions we have ever asked our community: whether or not the Courage Campaign should re-launch a censure resolution against Senator Dianne Feinstein at the next meeting of the California Democratic Party.

And here’s the answer:

95.4 percent (11,524 people) voted YES.

4.6 percent (556 people) voted NO.

The consensus of our Courage Campaign community is crystal clear: we should push to censure the Senator.

And, driven by your mandate to take action, that is exactly what we’re going to do. From her FISA votes supporting telecom immunity to her shocking swing votes confirming Bush nominees Michael Mukasey and Leslie Southwick, enough is enough.

For this people-powered “Censure the Senator” movement to succeed, we need your support before the California Democratic Party (CDP) executive board meets again. To hold Sen. Feinstein accountable, it will take money to organize people. It’s as simple as that.

If you support pushing to censure the Senator, please contribute $20, $50, $100 or more now to launch our campaign for change within the Democratic Party immediately. If just 500 people contribute $10 (or more) ASAP, we can hire a grassroots organizer and get started now:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/CensureMovement

For far too long, we’ve watched as congressional Democrats — the party in power — have failed to hold President Bush accountable for torture, war and warrantless wiretapping. 95.4% of our members and supporters say that it’s got to stop. As Annie from San Francisco wrote to us, in voting YES to censure:

We have to (censure Sen. Feinstein). It’s hard to have to call out our politicians on so many issues and votes, but they keep disappointing us over and over again. We can’t let these votes go unprotested.

That’s what a “censure” is — a protest. As Wikipedia describes it, censure is “a procedure for publicly reprimanding a public official for inappropriate behavior.”

Other than voting in an election, a public censure is also our only recourse as citizens to express our condemnation of Sen. Feinstein’s votes last week to grant retroactive immunity to the Bush Administration and telecom companies for spying on Americans.

With Sen. Feinstein’s double failure on FISA, it’s time to take this accountability movement to the next level. Please contribute $20, $50, $100 — or whatever you can afford — to launch our campaign for change within the Democratic Party immediately:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/CensureMovement

Last year, Sen. Feinstein was also the crucial swing vote on the Judiciary Committee to confirm two extremist Bush appointments — a torture-condoning Attorney General and a racist judge (Michael Mukasey and Leslie Southwick).

Those two Judiciary Committee swing votes mobilized 35,039 Californians — in just one week — to co-sign a censure resolution supported by the Courage Campaign, MoveOn, Progressive Democrats of America and 38 Democratic Clubs across California.

A few days later, at the Executive Board meeting of the California Democratic Party, both the Women’s Caucus and Progressive Caucus passed the censure resolution — an unprecedented and historic action inside the party. Unfortunately, the resolution got bottled up in the Resolutions Committee and was ultimately voted down.

If we’re going to build a movement in California for accountability inside the Democratic Party, it starts by taking on Dianne Feinstein. Can you contribute $20, $50, $100 or more to launch our “Censure the Senator” campaign before the CDP meets again?

http://www.couragecampaign.org/CensureMovement

Thank you for doing everything in your power to make 2008 a new era for progressive politics in California.

Rick Jacobs

Chair

P.S.  Frankly, a censure resolution is merely a piece of paper unless there’s a people-powered movement behind it. That’s why your contribution to our “Censure the Senator” campaign will be an investment in changing the Democratic Party in California and across the country.

It’s up to you. Please contribute what you can — even $20, the price of a movie, popcorn and a soda — and then forward this email to your friends:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/CensureMovement

Disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign

“A Heavy Heart.” That was the subject of the email I received today from Senator Chris Dodd. After fighting tooth and nail for many months, with a coalition cobbled together on the fly, brought together by a fundamental drive to protect the Constitution, the Senate was finally able to force through a new FISA bill including retroactive immunity for telecom companies.

It’s been an educational road for netroots activists in particular and Democratic activists in general. Developing effective methods of demanding and receiving accountability from out elected officials is still a work in progress. But in a number of very encouraging ways, the FISA fight over these many months has helped uncover what ideas held promise and afforded the chance to refine them. We may not have won this one, but we sure as hell made it a lot harder along the way.

A number of Democrats abandoned the Fourth Amendment to vote for immunity, including Senator Dianne Feinstein. It’s been a relatively tough year for the Constitution when Feinstein’s been faced with challenging votes, and this sadly was no exception. But it’s important to hear Senator Dodd’s words today:

…let us stand tall, knowing that by working together we were able to make wiretapping and retroactive immunity part of the national discourse these last number of months.

We came together – all of you, Senator Feingold, bloggers like Jane Hamsher and Glenn Greenwald, organizations like the EFF and ACLU, and untold hundreds of thousands of Americans who simply wanted to make sure that this one, last insult did not happen with ease.

I’m sorry we weren’t successful.

And so Rick Jacobs put the accountability challenge to Courage Campaign supporters today via email. What are we going to do about it? His email is on the flip.

“If we do not change course and stand up for our Constitution, for what is best in America, for what we know is right and just, then history will most certainly decide that that it was those of us in this body who bare equal responsibility for the President’s decisions — for it was us who looked the other way, time and time again.”

   — Senator Christopher Dodd, July 8, 2008, on the Senate floor during debate on yesterday’s re-authorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Yesterday, Senator Dianne Feinstein failed Californians. Again.

The big question is: What are you going to do about it?

In 2007, Sen. Feinstein failed us by providing the deciding Judiciary Committee swing votes that paved the way for the appointments of Michael Mukasey, President Bush’s torture-condoning nominee for Attorney General, and Leslie Southwick, a racist and homophobic judge.

And now, she has failed us on the Constitution itself, concealing a crime perpetrated by the Bush Administration and telecom companies against the American people.

Despite thousands of calls from concerned citizens, virtually shutting down her phone lines for the last week, Sen. Feinstein failed to vote for the pivotal Dodd/Feingold amendment to the re-authorization of FISA that would have denied retroactive immunity to telecom companies for illegally wiretapping the phones of Americans. Sen. Feinstein then voted for the FISA bill itself, effectively pardoning George W. Bush.

We’ve tried everything to get Sen. Feinstein’s attention. Phone calls. Emails. Faxes. Petitions. Protests. Smoke signals. We even launched an online petition supporting a proposed California Democratic Party censure resolution of Sen. Feinstein last November that spread like wildfire across the grassroots, with 35,039 Californians signing on in support.

The censure movement also catalyzed national media attention, fueled by endorsements from MoveOn.org, Progressive Democrats of America, the California Democratic Party Women’s Caucus and Progressive Caucus, as well as 38 chartered Democratic Clubs across California.

A number of people have asked if the Courage Campaign would support holding Senator Feinstein accountable for caving on warrantless wiretapping by re-launching the censure resolution inside the California Democratic Party. It’s an important question but, frankly, a censure resolution is merely a piece of paper unless there’s a people-powered movement behind it.

That’s why we’re putting this decision in your hands today. If grassroots and netroots activists across California support a new censure resolution of Senator Feinstein, we will launch a censure campaign leading up to the California Democratic Party’s next Executive Board meeting.

You have the power. Should we re-launch the censure resolution holding Sen. Feinstein accountable for her failures on FISA as well as her swing votes last year in favor of appointing Michael Mukasey and Leslie Southwick? Or should we drop the censure?

It’s up to you. Please vote now “for” or “against” censuring Sen. Feinstein. And ask your friends to vote by forwarding this message to them. One person, one vote. DEADLINE: Tuesday, 5 p.m.:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/CensureVote

California’s other Senator, Barbara Boxer, stood strong against retroactive immunity for telecoms and the Bush Administration, voting the right way twice — against the FISA bill and for the Dodd/Feingold amendment. She also had this to say on the floor of the Senate:

“The Bush warrantless surveillance program did not have the consent of the governed, and it was certainly not just.

Truth is the centerpiece of justice. The immunity provision in this bill effectively sweeps the warrantless program under the carpet, along with the rights and civil liberties of those whom we are sworn to protect — the American people.

The immunity provision hides the truth from the American people. They deserve better from us.”

We appreciate the courage and conviction of Barbara Boxer. On issue after issue, she is a shining light representing our progressive state.

Which is why it is all the more galling that Senator Feinstein, representing the same deep blue state, continues to give political cover to a President who views the Constitution as a disposable document.

As Californians, we do deserve better. That’s why we’re placing this important decision in your hands. Should we hold Sen. Feinstein accountable by using a process for public censure provided by the California Democratic Party? Please click here to vote “for” or “against” censuring the Senator. And please ask your friends to vote as well. DEADLINE: Tuesday, 5 p.m.:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/CensureVote

You are at ground zero in this decision. While this vote will not reverse what happened yesterday on FISA, that doesn’t mean we can’t use the process provided by the California Democratic Party to express, as the previous censure resolution stated, the “disappointment at, and censure of, Senator Feinstein for ignoring Democratic principles and falling so far below the standard of what we expect of our elected officials.”

No matter whether you support censure or not, please vote and ask your friends and family to vote by forwarding this message to them. To make this a people-powered decision, we need as many people as possible to participate.

Thank you for holding our elected officials accountable and making 2008 a new era for progressive politics in California.

Rick Jacobs

Chair

P.S. If Senator Feinstein cares about nothing else, she cares about her legacy. At this moment, whether she knows it or not, Senator Feinstein’s place in history has been soiled by a decision that she will likely later regret, if only because it may have catalyzed concerned Californians to hold her accountable.

Your decision could be crucial to holding Sen. Feinstein’s accountable now and defining her legacy later. Please vote now and forward this message to your friends before 5 p.m. on Tuesday:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/CensureVote

Two weeks ago, the House of Representatives passed Paid Parental Leave for Federal Employees. Women’s Policy Inc. explains that “the bill would allow federal employees to be paid for four of the twelve weeks of parental leave to which they are entitled under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) (P.L. 103-3). The legislation also would permit federal employees to use up to eight weeks of accrued sick leave for parental leave.”

It seems like a pretty good piece of legislation, and even if you have some reservations about the particular legislation, the principle of supporting new parents is certainly tough to argue with. Unless of course you’re Rep. Darrell Issa, in which case you’re completely insane and terrified of the coming scourge of out-of-control foster parenting:

“[L]et’s look at this from a practical standpoint. You are running a federal department. You have somebody who you need, and every single year, as often happens, they take on a new foster child that they keep for three to five years and they have, let’s say, three foster children. That means that individual will be gone on paid leave over and above their vacation, over and above their 13 days of sick leave a year, they are going to be gone four weeks every year, conceivably for a full 20 years.

A relatively brief perusal of foster care statistics reveals that only 46% of foster care placement is to a non-relative foster family home in the first place. It’s hard to believe that those nearly 237,000 foster children, when distributed throughout the entire national network of foster families drawn from 300 million Americans, is a terrible danger to the 7 million non-contractor federal employees from the same year as the foster care statistics.

But apparently our federal bureaucracy is overrun by lurking foster parents poised to strike now that they can spend their entire federal careers taking in foster children in order to get out of work. I’m the son of federal bureaucrats of varying level and description, and I find it hard to believe that going into work is so awful that you’d plot some nefarious foster parent plan for your entire adult life expressly to game the government.

Of course, Darrell Issa is the guy who thinks that 9/11 victims are just trying to bilk the government for a quick buck. And if Halliburton wants another Iraq contract ($15 billion in reported profits last year) or someone suggests eliminating tax breaks for oil companies, Issa’s happy to shell out the bucks. Or if it’s earmarks for pork that’ll help him get re-elected, he’ll throw down more than $100 million in federal dollars.

But the foster parent menace! It threatens us all. Sorry Darrell, but not everyone hates government as much as you do.