Whoops.

The newest member of Congress could be among the most adversely affected by new political maps currently being considered by the state’s redistricting commission.

Democratic Congresswoman-elect Janice Hahn of San Pedro could find herself in a new district that runs along the coast from the South Bay to Malibu, and stretching inland to grab parts of West Los Angeles and Beverly Hills. Much of that district is currently represented by Rep. Henry Waxman. The other option for Hahn is a Long Beach district that has none of her South Bay political base and also includes two other Democratic incumbents — Reps. Linda Sanchez and Laura Richardson.

Democratic consultant Paul Mitchell, who has been actively monitoring the redistricting process, says Hahn could be “in serious trouble.”

“She’s losing the seat that she just won,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell says that under new working maps released by the commission this week, the number of Latino seats in Los Angeles is likely to increase, while one of the basin’s three African American congressional seats could disappear.

Here’s what happened: The California Citizen’s Redistricting Commission just released a third version of their “visioning” maps for Congressional and State Assembly Districts. And as indicated above, these new maps are radically different from anything we’ve seen before.

There are three different proposed versions of CA-36. Depending on which option you chose, our newly-elected Congresswoman Janice Hahn could end up sharing her district with Henry Waxman, or she could even end up outside the district. All of the options include everything from Malibu to Rancho Palos Verdes, while cutting the Beach Cities – Redondo, Manhattan, Hermosa and Torrance – in half just west of the 405 freeway.

Click here to see version One.

Click here to see version Two.

Click here to see version Three.

To see more detailed congressional maps, go to this link, type in your home address, then go to the “Select District” pull-down menu, and select “congress la opt1, opt2, or opt3”

The new Assembly districts in Southern California aren’t much better. My Assembly district, AD53, is now partially divided into three separate districts, with Venice as the nexus. Which means that Venice – 1 square mile wide – could potentially be represented by THREE different Assembly members.

To see the new Assembly map, Go to this link, type in your home address, then go to the “Select District” pull-down menu, and select “assembly la opt1”

So now what? The final district maps are slated to be released July 28, according to a press release, and adopted by the commission on Aug. 15. So you still have time to make your voice heard.

The Commission needs to hear from you. Send an email to [email protected] and let them know what you think.

Be sure to put down where you live so they know you’re a constituent.

How about that CA-36 election?

Racist videos, demands, counter demands, FEC complaints, massive fundraising off of said video, a weird “sexting” scandal involving Hahn’s former chief of staff, more negative mailers than I can shake a stick at, and now this:

Janice Hahn is apparently no longer a Democrat.

According to the ad above, Janice Hahn is “a local City Council Woman who has never held partisan office.”

Let’s review for a second, shall we? Just two months ago, when Hahn was competing for the official CA Dem Party endorsement, her campaign caused quite a stir when it called into question a competing candidate’s party loyalty, saying,

I was born a Democrat, I was raised a Democrat, and when I am elected to Congress, I will never forget that I’m a Democrat,” said Councilwoman Janice Hahn. “I grew up learning early on about Democratic values-my dad, former Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenny Hahn taught me about civil rights, equality, and the importance of the middle class. When I go to Congress I pledge to stand up for these Democratic values and be a fighter for the people of the 36th Congressional District.”

Hahn’s new persona isn’t just limited to TV advertising either. More over the flip.

One of the first things her campaign did was change her ballot description from “LA City Councilwoman” to “Local City Councilwoman”, hoping to erase any negative associations and connections with the City of Los Angeles.

And in mailers sent out from the LA County Federation of Labor this week, there’s this:

So this is clearly a strategy on Hahn’s part to pivot away from her partisan image and depict the candidate in such a way that she’ll appeal to independent and swing voters.

Now this might be a good strategy in a general election where you’re dealing with less informed voters and have time to rebrand yourself, but that’s not the election we’re in now.

This election is a low turnout down and dirty sprint to the finish, where both candidates have to fire up a committed base of informed, partisan voters and drag them to the polls.  The last thing you want to do is run away from the partisan voters who brung you to the dance in the first place.

Craig Huey certainly isn’t running away from his base. They’re fired up and ready to go, recruiting Tea Party volunteers from as far away as San Diego to come canvass for the candidate.

And Huey isn’t at all shy about using Hahn’s numerous (and valid IMHO) attacks against him to both fire up his own voters and depress Hahn’s potential Democratic base. This week an IE from the “Friends of Huey For Congress” sent out a flyer calling into question Hahn’s honesty by dredging up the attacks her campaign made against Debra Bowen in the final days of the primary, even going as far as quoting Bowen’s campaign manager, as well as I post I put up on Daily Kos during the primary.

Now anyone reading my blog or the posts about the CA-36 race I’ve written here knows I’m not the biggest fan of Janice Hahn, but I also don’t want my district handed over to a Tea-bagger. I hope somebody, anybody from Hahn’s campaign will read this and come to their senses.

In an election where turnout could go as low as 10-15%, where the electorate is suffering from some serious voter fatigue, and many others have no idea there even is an election, firing up the base is everything.

In Hahn’s case, the base are committed Democrats who want a committed Democrat to fight for them in congress. By now presenting herself to voters as a “local City Council Woman who has never held partisan office”, she’s basically signaling to the base she’s yet another wishy-washy DINO Congress-critter who may or may not uphold the values they hold dear. Better than a Teabagger, sure, but not by much.

And that, dear friends, can be a recipe for disaster. I guess we’ll know for sure in two weeks.

What you’re about to read won’t be an exercise in sour grapes.

The candidate I supported, Debra Bowen, lost fair and square to a better-funded candidate with far more institutional support and a well thought-out strategic path to victory.  

Janice Hahn is unequivocally our best choice now to represent us in CA-36.  

Her competitor, Tea Party Republican Craig Huey, is a nasty piece of work. Fortunately for us, Janice Hahn and our union allies have the resources to make sure he won’t get elected in 2011.  

However, 2012, after CA-36 is redistricted, might be a different story altogether.  That’s why I’m writing this final piece on the election.

To better understand what might happen in 2012, I first need to tell you how we got here, and how Janice Hahn’s strategic choices, coupled with Marcy Winograd’s ego, may have created a perfect storm in which to bring a previously unknown Tea Party candidate to national prominence.

Splitting the Vote

Back in February, when Bowen announced she’d compete with Hahn to replace Jane Harman as our congress member, Hahn’s number one priority was to get Marcy Winograd in the race. Not only did Winograd have significant name recognition after running two unsuccessful campaigns against Jane Harman, her base of support drew from the same pool of voters Bowen would need to win – progressives who lived north of LAX.

So Hahn’s campaign used a story that appeared in the Jewish Journal, “Harman’s departure: what does it mean for Jews?” to manufactured a narrative of concern for the district’s Jewish community about Jane Harman’s potential replacement in congress.  I say manufactured, because the article itself expressed no such concerns, concluding,  

Harman’s departure may mean one less Jewish player in the game, but the impact of that loss on Jewish influence will likely be negligible. While the landscape for Jewish politics in the next two years includes fewer safe districts for Jewish elected officials, the community can be assured of holding sway on numerous fronts as its high level of civic involvement continues to stand out in the city and region.

But that hardly mattered to Hahn, who just needed an excuse to create a wedge between Winograd and Bowen.  

Using the article as a launching pad, Hahn’s campaign demanded that Debra Bowen sign on to a pro-Israel “pledge” genetically designed to ram a red-hot poker through Winograd’s eye. The pledge called out Winograd by name, sited some of her harshest rhetoric against Israel, and concluded with this quote from Henry Waxman,  

“In Marcy Winograd’s foreign policy, Israel would cease to exist. In Marcy Winograd’s vision, Jews would be at the mercy of those who do not respect democracy or human rights.”

At that moment Bowen had a choice to make; ignore Hahn, (and risk creating an issue with the district’s Jewish community) create her own statement of support for Israel minus the Winograd-bait, or sign on to Hahn’s pledge.

Bowen chose to sign on to Hahn’s pledge. And walked right into the buzzsaw that is Marcy Winograd’s ego.  

Two days later, Winograd, who had previously told key supporters she wouldn’t run, told those same supporters she was furious that Hahn and Bowen had tried to “silence dissent in the 36th district”, and asked them to withhold endorsements from Bowen.  Four days after that, Winograd announced she would run, specifically citing the Hahn/Bowen pledge as the reason.  

Let Loose The Dogs Of War

Hahn’s strategy worked better than she could have hoped. Despite no institutional support, anemic fundraising, and polls showing she’d be lucky to get even 6% of the vote, Winograd nevertheless ran the most aggressive campaign she could given the circumstances. Even better, Winograd and her supporters barely mentioned Hahn, but attacked Debra Bowen, Winograd’s closest competitor, relentlessly.  

One “passionate” and prolific Winograd surrogate wrote scathing posts on progressive listserves and blogs questioning Bowen’s progressive credentials, others accused her of being a closet Republican and (bizarrely) a Jane Harman clone. A paid Winograd campaign staffer, Peter Thottam, wrote a widely distributed and unsourced hit piece on Bowen, accusing her of trading votes in exchange for Enron campaign contributions  while she served in the State Senate.

In effect, Winograd’s campaign became the opposition research farm-team for Hahn, who used their attacks in her own campaign, even using Thottam’s hit piece verbatim in one of her attack mailers against Bowen.  

Republicans? What Republicans?

While Hahn, Bowen, and Winograd duked it out on the Democratic side, a previously unknown evangelical millionaire named Craig Huey from Rollings Hills Estates was quietly consolidating the Republican vote.  

Huey, who made his fortune in direct marketing, poured half a million dollars of his own money into the campaign, giving him more resources than any other candidate in the race.  

The money allowed him to blanket the district with more than just lawn signs – with it he bought cable TV and radio time,  and ran a targeted mailing campaign which rivaled Janice Hahn’s.

Backed by prominent Republicans Dana Rohrabacher, Tom McClintock, and former Assemblyman Chuck Devore, in the final few weeks leading up to election day Huey simply overwhelmed the anemic and underfunded campaigns of his closest Republican competitors, Mike Gin, the gay, moderate, pro-choice mayor of Redondo Beach, and Redondo Beach City Attorney Mike Webb.  

Yet right up until election day, the media largely ignored Huey – even as they fell all over themselves to cover stunt candidate Dan Adler, who’s entire campaign consisted of a series of bizarre YouTube videos staring himself and campaign manager/actor Sean Astin (Adler got a grand total of 355 votes)

But not everyone was ignoring Craig Huey. In fact, Janice Hahn and her campaign were paying very close intention.

The Best Opponent Money Can Buy

A couple of weeks before election day, Hahn’s campaign reportedly ran a tracking poll which showed Huey surging in the polls and consolidating Republican support.

However, Bowen’s aggressive, state-of-the-art field campaign (1,100 volunteers, 350,000 phone calls, 15,000 doors canvassed) still kept Bowen solidly in second place and Huey out of the runoff.

So Hahn, who believed Huey would be a far easier candidate to beat in the runoff than Bowen, chose her moment.

Five days before election day, Hahn invested heavily in a multi-pronged direct mail attack. A series of negative campaign pieces targeting Bowen arrived in voter’s mailboxes – one mailer appeared to support Winograd’s campaign, another hit Bowen for old campaign contributions, and yet another used attacks from the Winograd campaign staffer who accused Bowen of selling her votes to Enron.

In part, that mailer read, “Some people went to jail for this. Debra Bowen wants to go to Washington.”  

The tone and deceptive nature of the mailers stunned Bowen and Hahn supporters alike. Bill Brand, a Redondo Beach City Councilman who endorsed Hahn in the race, told supporters in a GOTV email he “wasn’t happy with the last minute negative pieces.”  With a runoff still to come, many activists in the district were dismayed Hahn had gone so negative so early against the well-liked Secretary of State.  

But Hahn’s strategy worked. Bowen’s support lagged in the final few days, even as Huey’s surged. In the end, Huey beat Bowen by 750 votes in an election where only 18% of eligible voters bothered to cast a ballot.

Hahn was clearly happy with the result, telling the Daily Breeze,  

“I would rather run against him than Debra Bowen. I think the choice for voters is more clear.”

Winograd, who had received 41% of the vote when she ran against Jane Harman in 2010, barely received 9% of the vote this time around.  

Ironically, it was more than enough to ensure that Janice Hahn, who claimed to be Jane Harman’s hand-picked successor would be the district’s next representative in Congress.

Be Careful For What You Wish For

Without a doubt, Janice Hahn will be our next Congresswoman in CA-36.  

But that victory has, and will, come at a price.  

Nearly a week after defeating Bowen in a bitterly contested race, Hahn has shown little interest in mending fences with her activist supporters. Bowen herself declined to endorse Hahn, citing a long-standing policy as Secretary of State. So I don’t see this rift healing any time soon. To be frank, it really doesn’t have to, the specter of a Tea Party Republican taking the seat is motivation enough for most people. And as I said at the beginning of this piece, Hahn has more than enough resources and institutional support to beat back a challenge from Craig Huey regardless (although unions will have to commit resources to defend this seat in a way they wouldn’t have had to if pro-union Debra Bowen had been in the runoff).

But Hahn’s margin of victory probably won’t be a landslide. In 2010, Assemblywoman Betsy Butler – whose district covers most of CA-36 – had an uncomfortably close call with Tea Party candidate Nathan Mintz. In a district that has 18% more registered Democrats than Republicans, Mintz took 43% of the vote.  

In that race, over a 100,000 voters cast a ballot. The May 17th special election had only about half that turnout, and the runoff in July will likely be even worse. So barring any unforeseen scandals involving farm animals, Craig Huey has a good chance of building on Mintz’s success. Not enough to win certainly, but enough to get everyone’s attention.

But the real problem isn’t this year and this election. It’s next year, when CA-36 becomes significantly different, and potentially much more conservative, after redistricting.  

From what I’ve heard and read, CA-36 is probably going to lose everything north of  LAX, and potentially gain back Palos Verdes. Palos Verdes, connected to an Orange County district by a block-wide strip in Long Beach and a narrow strip of San Pedro, is profoundly gerrymandered. Those Republicans have to go somewhere.

If this happens, it would significantly cut into Democrat’s voter registration advantage, and create a district that more closely resembles the one in which Janice Hahn previously ran for congress in 1998.  

Hahn lost that race, to Republican Steve Kuykendall, 47% to 49%.

Janice Hahn got the opponent she wanted. But by helping to advance Huey into the runoff, Hahn has elevated him from an unknown evangelical advertising consultant to a national figure in the Tea Party movement. The media isn’t ignoring Craig Huey anymore. He has two months to build up his name recognition and base of support. And when he loses in July, he can turn right around and start stumping for the June 2012 primary race in a district likely to be far more receptive to his message.

Janice Hahn will be our next representative in Congress. She has indeed won that  battle.  

But in doing so, she may have put herself in a position to lose the war.

by Marta Evry

When Jane Harman resigned from Congress earlier this year, voters were quickly presented with a daunting choice, as candidates from all over the political spectrum entered the race to replace her.

But for many of us, the choice was clear – we needed someone with conviction, who was principled and not beholden to special interests.  We needed Debra Bowen.

And over the last couple of months, I’ve seen something remarkable, something I haven’t seen since the Obama campaign. Hundreds of volunteers taking time out of their busy lives to phone bank and canvass week after week for Debra. These aren’t paid contractors or City Hall insiders making a political calculus, these are our friends and neighbors taking an ownership stake in Debra’s campaign and an ownership stake in their community’s future.

In a week when you needed a Purell bodysuit just to open your mailbox, this kind of real, authentic grassroots support is an inspiration.

So instead of telling you yet again why I support Debra Bowen, I thought I’d turn the floor over to them.

Meet my friends and neighbors who will be supporting Debra on Tuesday.

Debra Bowen has the intelligence, the passion and the integrity to not only be a strong advocate for our district in Washington, but to be a national leader for the Democratic Party. I know she will work tirelessly to defend the environment and bring green jobs to our district, because she always has. We are home to several of the largest US Aerospace/Defense contractors (Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon). Debra knows that resolving our problems will require sound, balance approaches based in facts and data so that everyone in our community participates in an economic recovery. That’s why, on May 17th, I’ll be voting for Debra Bowen for Congress.

– Tony Salvaggio (aeorospace engineer) Manhattan Beach, CA  

I have known Debra personally since the mid 1980s.  She has proven herself to be forthright, honest and a damned hard worker for us, her constituents, when she represented us as Assembly member and then in the State Senate.  She will do the same in the US Congress.  There are many stories that could be told to support my statement.  I want to keep this story short.  Sufficient to say that I gave more money than I could afford to her campaign and I would follow her lead to the moon.

– Challis McPherson (retired), Venice, CA

Debra Bowen was the first Democrat I ever voted for after switching parties in 1992. She has always been a strong advocate for LGBT rights, before it was the popular thing, and as a gay man that is very important to me. But the main reason I support her is because she is one of the very few politicians that truly have the political courage to take a position on an issue and have the conviction to vote accordingly. I know she will not be influenced by polls and special interests that throw money around and expect favors! The best example of this courage is how she handled the voting machine crisis in CA when she first became SOS. Even though the state had already spent $45 million on voting machines, she had the courage to stand up and say these Diebold voting machines are vunerable to fraud and decertfied them. For this she has earned my respect and vote!

– Varo Asorian (small business owner), Torrance, CA

As Secretary of State she has proved herself to be a sensible, no nonsense progressive who had clear and achievable goals, stuck to them and got them done. I have been continually impressed with Debra’s commitment to improve government transparency and access. After 14 years in the California legislature, she has the legislative experience and knowledge to navigate congressional politics successfully.  She will work on behalf of our district with thoughtfulness and compassion, but also with a keen understanding of how to move legislation forward to achieve success.

– Kim Drobny (community organizer), Mar Vista, CA

As an educator, I have been a teacher, principal, district administrator, and director of a statewide early literacy project.  I am also a parent of a student who attended public schools from K-16.  Debra Bowen has led efforts to create smaller class size in K-12 schools and also supported our community college and state university systems. I am so grateful that Debra Bowen understands the importance of public education for our future, supports parent involvement, and most importantly, understands the importance for teachers and principals to be trained to provide the best education.

– Dianne Wallace (educator), Manhattan Beach, CA

From her very first campaign, that being for the State Assembly in 1992, Debra had environmental credentials before anyone else was even bothering. Besides living an earth-friendly lifestyle herself, she had already been offering her legal services pro-bono to “Heal the Bay.”  For the 19-years she has held elected office, I have always known that I could trust her to sponsor and support cutting-edge environmental legislation and to be there for her constituents when a solar project or other earth-friendly measure called for her support.  

– Dency Nelson (Sierra Club member), Hermosa Beach, CA

As a transportation advocate, it’s very clear to me that Debra Bowen is the person for the job.  You need someone who recognizes that war spending is an problem, and represents tremendous diversion of our nation’s resources away from constructive uses that we’re in dire need of – like building real sustainable and function transportation.  You need someone with an eye for policy details, who can delve into the nitty gritty and come back with victory.  And you need someone who can work against their short term political interests to gain long term victories that better all of us.  Bowen is all of those, and outrageously experienced to boot.

– Alex Thompson (president, Bikeside LA) Del Rey, CA

I am voting for Debra Bowen for Congress because she is very smart, a proven thinker and problem solver, self proclaimed “policy wonk and techie” whom I trust most  to serve our district as a US Representative during very difficult times. I have worked with Bowen and our neighbors to prevent a massive Century City sized development in Venice and to keep the local emergency hospital open.  As Secretary of State, she prevented possible wide-spead voter fraud in CA by banning insecure voting machines. I was honored to be present when she was presented with  the “Profiles in Courage” Award at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston by Senator Ted and Caroline Kennedy and I will be even proudere to have her represent me in Congress.

– Linda Lucks (neighborhood council president), Venice, CA

Note by Brian:  People, stopping tossing out Troll ratings for comments that you simply disagree with.  There are other ratings to use for comments, and frankly, the ratings should be used as a grading on quality and sincerity of the post, not on whether you agree with it.  So, I’ll be uprating a few comments, but please, think before you rate.

Repeating a pattern of going negative hard and fast in close elections, Janice Hahn went on the attack today with a 4-page negative campaign mailer against her leading opponent, Secretary of State Debra Bowen.

The mailer starts out with the word WARNING bolded in yellow against a black background, then goes on to say, “Beware of Debra Bowen’s Negative Campaign! Unable to find anything positive to say and desperate to win at all costs, Debra Bowen has been falsely attacking Janice Hahn and Marcy Winograd!”

The mailer then goes on “remind” voters that Bowen was “a lifelong Republican until she changed registration before she ran for office”, and lists a number contributions Bowen received in 1998 and 2000 from energy and health insurance companies. Hahn also goes out of her way to portray Winograd favorably in a contrast and compare section in the midsection of the piece.

Those are the basics. Now let’s deconstruct this a bit.

First of all, this mailer isn’t an independent expenditure from an outside group, it comes directly from the Hahn campaign, which means Janice Hahn not only knows about the mailer, she had to approve the content.

Secondly, it’s highly misleading in some respects, and plainly false in others. Here’s why.

It’s just flat out weird that Hahn would claim Bowen was running a negative campaign against her and Winograd. Of the five campaign mailers I’ve received from Bowen’s campaign so far, two featured Bowen’s “Profile in Courage” award for her work as Secretary of State, one featured her endorsement by the Sierra Club, and two highlighted her 14 years of experience representing most of CA-36 in the CA state legislature.  None even mentioned Hahn or Winograd. In debates and forums where all three candidates have appeared, Bowen rarely mentions either candidate by name. 

There are only two times I can think of when Bowen ever came close to going negative (on Hahn, not Winograd). The first time was at the CA-36 endorsement meeting in April, when Bowen pointed out Hahn had endorsed Republican candidates – this after Hahn dinged Bowen for not being “a life long Democrat” (a charge Hahn repeats in her attack mailer).  The second time was last Sunday during a Daily Kos interview, when Bowen was asked to compare and contrast her campaign contributions with that of her opponents. Bowen’s campaign manager and press person have made similar statements highlighting Hahn’s contributions from LA City Hall lobbyists, contributions the LA Weekly pointed out would actually be illegal if Hahn were running for LA City Council and not Congress.

But when it comes to Winograd, the only Democrat in this campaign to go negative on the candidate was Janice Hahn, who slammed Winograd in a letter urging Bowen to sign on to a pledge supporting Israel. In the letter, Hahn quoted Henry Waxman who said “In Marcy Winograd’s vision, Jews would be at the mercy of those who do not respect democracy or human rights.”

So what’s really going on here?  

From the very beginning, it was clear to Hahn (and anyone else paying attention to the demographics of this race), that it was in Hahn’s best interest to rope Winograd into running. A Winograd candidacy would be more likely to pull support away from Bowen than it would Hahn, who is generally perceived to be Jane Harman’s hand-picked choice to succeed her.

So Hahn issued a pro-Israel pledge, cornered Bowen into signing on to it, Winograd took the bait, and the rest is history. Since then, Winograd’s most active supporters on the internet have consistently targeted Bowen in the primary, but not Hahn, since they see Bowen as Winograd’s main competition. So by falsely claiming Bowen is running a negative campaign against Winograd, Hahn is doing what she can to fan those flames even more.

Hahn’s mailer also tries very hard to imply that Bowen’s congressional race is significantly funded by contributions from energy and health insurance companies. But if you look really, really hard you can see a disclaimer in teeny, tiny letters at the bottom of the mailer, revealing the contributions came from races 13 and 11 years ago.

Disclaimer or no, the information as presented is profoundly misleading – not a single person I talked to who had seen the mailer understood the contributions in question were from another race until I pointed out the fact.

A press release signed by Sheila Khuel,Fran Pavely, Assembly member Betsy Butler and a number of environmental leaders in the district slammed Hahn for the deceptive mailer,

We recall that you introduced Measure O establishing an oil extraction tax; after that, you received $24,000 from oil and gas companies, including Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, Conoco Phillips, Tesoro and Warren E & P. Was that the reason you ultimately changed your mind and voted against placing the measure on the ballot? Perhaps because, as the Los Angeles Times has reported, about half of your money comes from “lobbyists, developers, and others doing business with the city”, the person that “we can’t trust” to do the right thing, isn’t Debra Bowen, but Janice Hahn?

We urge you to stop your deception immediately as a matter of principle.

As the press release points out, Hahn’s tactic is likely an attempt to neutralize the recent spate of stories that have appeared here, in the LA Weekly, and the LA Times, listing over $300,000 in contributions and independent expenditures Hahn has received this year, in this race from LA City Hall lobbyists and developers, the nuclear industry, oil companies, medical malpractice insurance PACs, and rent control opponents.

But will it work?

It didn’t work for Hahn last year when she went negative during the Lt. Governor primary race against Gavin Newsom. Largely because Newsom  – who beat Hahn 55% to 33% – had been in the public eye long enough that voters had mostly made up their minds about his persona. When Hahn tried to paint a picture of Newsom that went against what voters already had in their heads, it just didn’t stick.

I think that’s likely to be the case with Bowen.

Let’s start with Hahn’s assertion that that Bowen was “a lifelong Republican until she changed registration before she ran for office”. Well, that’s not likely to stick because, A) It’s horrible grammar, B) Bowen became a Democrat is 1984, 8 years before she would run for public office and, B) because Bowen has an 19-year record of elected public service as a pro-choice, pro-civil liberties, anti-oil drilling environmentalist Democrat behind her.

As an assembly member, then later as a state senator, Bowen was famous for keeping lobbyists at arm’s length. When Bowen was still a freshman in the state assembly, the LA Times took notice,

Bowen also is trying to keep some distance from lobbyists. On her office door is a sign that says she accepts no gifts–and she has been known to send staff members running down the hall to return gifts as simple as a single flower. She sees lobbyists as an information resource, but is wary of them. “The scariest thing for freshmen,” she said, “is figuring out whom you can rely on, whose analysis you can trust, because you can’t do everything yourself.”

When Enron ripped California off for billions, Bowen didn’t hesitate to go after them as chair of the Senate Energy Committee, pressing for criminal charges against Enron executives who refused to cooperate with the committee’s investigations.

And, most famously, as Secretary of State, Bowen defied both Deibold and the entire California political establishment when she decertified $45 million worth of flawed voting machines.

In other words, the picture most voters have in their heads of Bowen isn’t the one Hahn is trying to paint for them.

Conversely, Hahn also has a track record in the public eye. And it’s one that’s easy to associate with the dysfunction of LA City Hall and it’s insular, lobbyist culture.

In fact – whether it was withdrawing her support for Measure O, an oil extraction tax one of her campaign contributors, Warren Resources (and other big oil companies based in her district) opposed, agreeing to act as an impartial mediator for yacht-builder Gambol Industries in their dispute with the Port of LA without first disclosing she had received $12,000 in campaign contributions from the company, or helping to nullify a $600 million LAX food concession contract, to the benefit of a client of lobbyist Ek & Ek, a firm which has donated tens of thousands to Hahn’s campaigns in the past, and most recently $13,000 to her congressional campaign – Janice Hahn is the candidate with a demonstrable record of acting in the interests of her campaign contributors.

But so what? Asked the LA Weekly in a recent story about Ek & Ek and their relationship with Hahn,

Hahn….has previously said that such relationships don’t influence her decision making.

“If I don’t know by now that the public depends on me to review all of the information before me and make the best decision for the city of Los Angeles, then I shouldn’t be in this job,” she told the L.A. Times last fall.

She might as well have been quoting Jesse Unruh, the late Assembly speaker, who famously said, “If you can’t take their money, drink their booze, eat their food, screw their women and vote against them, you don’t belong here.”

Of course, the key element is “voting against them.” Hahn hasn’t done much of that lately.

That paints a pretty clear picture. Wether or not it paints the same picture of Janice Hahn that voters in CA-36 may already have in their heads remains to be seen.

 

The last week of a campaign, as our mailbox fills to overflowing with glossy brochures extolling the virtues of competing candidates, we often find ourselves donning black, rending our garments, and contemplating the death of a million innocent trees.

The campaign to replace Jane Harman in CA-36 is no different.

Spread out on my coffee table right now are a couple of mailers from Debra Bowen, one from Marcy Winograd that a volunteer stuffed under our welcome mat, one from Mike Gin, and even one from Tea Party candidate Craig Huey.  However, none of these candidates holds a candle to Janice Hahn and her supporters, who sent out a thirteenth full-color mailer today.

According to the FEC, Hahn leads all candidates but Craig Huey in cash-on-hand (money left in the bank after expenses), and that’s enabled her to fund this juggernaut-in-wood-pulp with over $300,000 in donations and independent expenditures from business interests and lobbyists connected with LA City Hall, real estate developers,the nuclear industry,health insurance PACs, and even rent control opponents.

Combing though the latest FEC reports, I found a number of interesting nuggets, but one recent donation worth noting in particular was from Tim Larkin, CEO of Warren Resources.

Why this donation? Because Warren Resources, a New York City-based oil company with considerable ties to the Wilmington and Harbor area oil fields, was a vocal critic of Measure O,the oil extraction tax Hahn opposed putting on the ballot after initially supporting it.  In the end, Hahn was the only LA City council member to vote against bringing the measure to voters, saying at the time,”I’ve reconsidered this and I have heard from various business groups who do feel like this might be the wrong climate to put this on the ballot.”

In addition,  The Cooperative of American Physicians IE Committee, a PAC which represents medical malpractice insurers, has upped it’s investment in Janice Hahn to over $75,000. A year ago, this same PAC  partnered with oil, tobacco and other special interests to go after 53D Assemblymember Betsy Butler in the June 2010 primary. 

Butler has endorsed Debra Bowen in this congressional race.

According to FEC reports, Janice Hahn is the only candidate so far to benefit from independent expenditures.

It’s likely to get worse before it gets better. I’ve heard rumors CAPC is planning to send out a negative hit-piece  against Bowen this week, just as they did Butler, and that Hahn will be taking a page out of the Meg Whitman campaign, sending out yet another 20-30 page full-color brochure to voters for the general election.

But hey, there’s good news too. According to the Sierra Club (who’ve endorsed Debra Bowen), it turns out all those mailers are recyclable.

One day after LA Councilwoman Janice Hahn told an audience in Venice that “Campaign decisions should not be happening in American’s boardrooms. We need far tighter curbs on corporate campaign expenditures.” the LA Times is reporting that The Cooperative of American Physicians IE Committee, a PAC which represents medical malpractice insurers, has spent $50,000 on mailers to support her in the CA-36 race.

A California physicians insurance group has spent more than $50,000 on two political mailers to support a candidate in next month’s crowded special congressional election, federal records showed Thursday.

In documents filed with the Federal Election Commission, the Cooperative of American Physicians said it spent $51,092 on a mail campaign advocating the election of Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn. Hahn is one of 16 candidates on the May 17 ballot to replace former Democratic Rep. Jane Harman of Venice.

The physicians group is apparently the first to make a so-called independent expenditure in the 36th Congressional District race. Groups are allowed to spend unlimited amounts to support or oppose a candidate so long as they do not coordinate with the candidate’s own campaign.

Hahn so far has led the pack in fundraising, outpacing even Secretary of State Debra Bowen, believed to be her strongest competitor for the seat.  About half of Hahn’s contributions appear to come from lobbyists, developers and others doing business with the city. The next campaign finance reports are due at the FEC on May 5.

Frankly, I think the LA Times is being conservative in their estimate. Dig a little deeper into the numbers, and you’ll find that over 70% of Hahn’s donations comes from LA City Hall contractors, lobbyists, the nuclear industry and rent control opponents. A year ago, this same PAC  partnered with oil, tobacco and other special interests to go after 53D Assemblymember Betsy Butler in the June 2010 primary.

From the L.A. Times, May 20, 2010

A coalition of oil interests, insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms and other business interests has poured at least $480,000 into a mail and television campaign to oppose one of the eight Democrats competing in the June 8 primary for an open Venice/South Bay Assembly seat……

“Groups funded by the Civil Justice Assn. of California and two medical malpractice insurance organizations have spent the money to defeat Betsy Butler, a former fundraiser for two major environmental groups and the Consumer Attorneys of California……

John H. Sullivan, president of the association, which seeks to cut the numbers of “excessive and unwarranted” lawsuits, said his organization objects to candidates whose campaigns “have been heavily supported by plaintiffs’ lawyers. In our experience, [they], if elected, do not show much independence when it comes to matters affecting litigation.”……

The association, which has spent more than $180,000 to oppose Butler, lists among its 56 board members Altria (parent company of Philip Morris USA), Anthem Blue Cross, Apple Computer Inc., BP,the California Apartment Assn., ExxonMobil Corp., GlaxoSmithKline, Southern California Edison and State Farm Insurance Cos.

Two other committees involved in the campaign against Butler represent medical malpractice insurance interests: California Allied for Patient Protection (which has spent $148,522) and the Cooperative of American Physicians (which has spent $150,000).

So far, no outside groups have reported independent expenditure campaigns for other candidates in the CA-36 race.

An internal poll released by the Bowen campaign shows the candidate tied with Councilwoman Janice Hahn in the CA-36 primary. Marcy Winograd – who received 41% of the vote against Jane Harman in the 2010 primary race – is only polling at 6%, putting her in 4th place behind Republican Mike Gin.

The Feldman Group conducted the poll among 451 registered likely voters in California Congressional District 36 from April 4-7, 2011. The sample consisted of 401 registered likely voters and an oversample of 50 DTS voters. The margin of error for a sample of 401 is ± 4.9%.

In an initial match-up between all of the declared candidates, Bowen and Hahn are tied at 20 percent each, with the closest candidate, Mike Gin, at 8 percent.  Marcy Winograd, another  Democrat in the race, receives only 6 percent support. Twenty-four percent of the electorate remains undecided.  Bowen dominates in the Beach Cities and Venice with a double digit lead  over both Hahn and Winograd, and leads in all geographic regions except the Harbor area..  

In a run-off matchup between Bowen and Hahn, Bowen (40 percent) pulls ahead of Hahn (36 percent) without any messaging.  Sixteen (16) percent are currently undecided.  While Hahn may have an advantage of name recognition in the district it is not translating into an advantage in votes, perhaps because her unfavorable rating is double that of Bowen.  

Democrats continue to hold an advantage in this district. Voters in the district are more  likely to prefer a Democrat (41 percent), and 29 percent say they would prefer a Republican with another 27 percent say that the candidates party doesn’t really matter. Bowen shows her strength over Hahn among Decline-to-State voters, receiving 47 percent of the vote.  

Bowen’s lead over Hahn grows even after voters are informed about key endorsers for  each candidate (including Feinstein, Lieu, Nakano, Firefighters and others for Hahn) and positive arguments being used by the respective campaigns.  

With a July 12th runoff virtually assured, a couple of points jump out at me. At 24% in the primary and %16 in the general election, the number of undecideds in this race will be a huge factor. Hahn has high name recognition, but she also has relatively high negatives – twice that of Bowen – and Hahn’s endorsements don’t seem to have had much effect on her polling.

Hahn’s campaign manager pushed back with an impressive bit of verbal gymnastics,

“We’re stunned that Bowen would release a poll that shows 80% of the voters she represented for 14 years rejecting her.” said campaign manager, Dave Jacobson.

Forgetting the fact Jacobson apparently can’t do math (24% of voters are undecided about anyone yet),  did he really mean to highlight Bowen has already represented most of CA-36 for 14 years, and that an equal number of Hahn’s current constituents have rejected the LA City Councilwoman?