As noted yesterday in the Capitol Alert, Merced County DA Larry Morse has said he will not be a candidate to replace Denham in the June recall election. That would seem to leave Monterey County Supervisor and former member of the Assembly Simón Salinas as the most likely candidate, although he has not yet made any official statements to that effect.
Meanwhile Denham’s aggressive defense against the recall has shifted toward questioning the paid signature gatherers – charging that some were from out of state, in violation of CA law, and that most were not from SD-12 – another error. In an interesting maneuver, the Denham campaign went to the very same Larry Morse to ask for an investigation of these charges. Morse refused, but I wonder if that played a role in his decision to not run against Denham in the recall.
Regardless of whether Morse or someone else investigates the matter, it’s a little odd that the Dems would leave so many bread crumbs for the Denham folks. It appears that the majority of the petition-gatherers were not from Denham’s 12th District, as they needed to be. The Denham folks also note that other listed as paid signature-gatherers registered at non-existent addresses or hotels. Add this to the tapes of gatherers telling voters that they’re from Detroit or somesuch and it seems like there’s enough evidence to hang your hat on…
…now of course in California you cannot tape someone without their acceptance, so those tapes would be illegal, too.
Regardless of whether or not the charges have merit, this is a good strategy for Denham to delegitimize the recall in the minds of SD-12 voters.
So Dan Walters needs our help in grasping why this project is so necessary to California’s future.
After describing some of the very real issues with the overall funding plan, he devotes the second half of his column to an attack on high speed rail:
The most romantic bullet train vision is the lightning-fast trip from downtown Los Angeles to downtown San Francisco. But how many people really want to make that trip each day, and would it represent a marked improvement over the very frequent air travel now available?
I can anecdotally provide him with about two dozen names of CDP convention attendees who expressed the desire for a high speed train to connect San José to their homes in SoCal. But we can answer this charge much better by explaining why HSR will be not just an attractive – but necessary – transportation option.
First, attractiveness. I dealt with that last week when discussing the 5% increase in Acela market share on the Northeast Corridor. Acela isn’t even a true high speed rail system – ours would provide double the speed of Acela. LA-SF is one of the busiest air corridors in the country, and if a flawed high speedish train can take nearly half the market share from airlines in the Northeast, that suggests it’ll work here too.
Second, necessity. Walters assumes that present conditions will last for some time to come. But nowhere in his column are the words peak oil mentioned. Nor does he discuss soaring gas prices. Both will make it difficult and unattractive to continue flying between the two halves of our state, causing either supply disruption or fare increases beyond the ability of most Californians to pay. Walters may not believe in peak oil, even though it is a fact. But the constant rise in oil prices is going to have to eliminate cheap fares sooner or later.
The High-Speed Rail Commission’s environmental impact reports contain some underlying air travel projections that are very difficult to swallow. It would have us believe that air travel demand between Northern and Southern California would nearly double between 2000 and 2010.
That flies in the face of actual airport traffic figures and seems to conflict with another commission projection that in the absence of building the bullet train, air travel times would increase only fractionally between 2000 and 2020.
This passage essentially says nothing. Demand may well have increased, but traffic figures have not met demand. Airports are congested – witness LAX or OAK on a weekend. Most California airports lack the capacity to add slots – Orange County is limited to 14 gates, LAX expansion has languished for three decades, SFO and OAK physically cannot expand any further into the bay. If peak oil is not real, then that means our population really will continue to expand – and without new terminals and runways, and in the absence of airplane innovation (most airplane R&D goes to fuel economy, as supersonic transport appears to be a dead concept) air travel times cannot physically increase.
How about auto travel? The commission projects that driving from Los Angeles to San Francisco, seven hours in 1999, would take eight hours by 2020. But as anyone who makes long-distance drives through the state knows, Interstate 5 is very lightly used now, at least outside urban areas.
This is wrong on two points. First, Interstate 5 is NOT lightly used outside urban areas. Certainly not in the San Joaquin Valley. It is a very heavily used artery. I have on several occasions been stuck in traffic jams in the middle of nowhere in Fresno County on I-5, and on several occasions found it took nine hours to drive from OC to Berkeley.
Second, those urban areas continue to expand. When new development pops up further north on I-5 near Castaic, or in the Tracy area, that adds congestion that a long-distance commuter will encounter on their drive between LA and SF. There never used to be a regular traffic jam on 580 in Livermore, but it’s a fact of life now. One used to be able to drive through the Santa Clarita area on the way to LA without encountering much traffic, but that is now difficult.
California’s traffic congestion is an urban condition, and the most likely patrons of high-speed rail wouldn’t be long-distance travelers but commuters – a poor use of expensive, sophisticated technology.
Again, this is simply not true. Interstate 15 between SoCal and Vegas is another example of a non-urban interstate that regularly sees massive traffic jams. And Walters’ argument that most users would be commuters is itself flawed – either because it is flat wrong (ridership on Amtrak California’s intercity trains has been steadily rising for years now) or because it doesn’t take into account the attractiveness of a quicker commute.
That explains why the most ardent support for bullet train service is to be found in the Central Valley, which is poorly served by airlines and whose main artery, Highway 99, is highly congested with auto and truck traffic.
Bullet trains would make commuting to and from places like Fresno, Modesto and Bakersfield easier. But wouldn’t that merely encourage the sort of sprawl that we are supposed to be discouraging?
Sprawl is a product of land use laws and cheap oil. We’re already losing the cheap oil, which itself is going to stop most sprawl in its tracks. As to land use practices, why should HSR be responsible for the lack of good smart growth planning in the Central Valley? The state ought to step in and subject all local land use planning decisions to AB 32 guidelines on carbon emissions, and localities need to improve farmland protection and infill development rules no matter what HSR’s fate is.
Walters argued that:
even the most ardent advocates have yet to present a persuasive, fact-grounded rationale for spending so much borrowed money on an entirely new transportation system.
The Long Beach Democrat has introduced a bill that would scrap statutes allowing teachers and other public employees to be fired for being members of the Communist Party.
The measure, scheduled to be considered Wednesday by the Senate Education Committee, also would drop a requirement that representatives of organizations seeking to use school facilities sign a form stating they do not have communist affiliations.
Lowenthal said the measure would drop old laws that were adopted at the height of the Red Scare following World War II and that have been found unconstitutional by the courts.
“Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the threat between us and communism just isn’t there…,” he said in an interview. “They are not a danger to our liberty, and the courts have uniformly said that.”
It’s been nearly 20 years since Communism ceased to be a threat to the United States, and 60 years since the height of the Red Scare that produced the current version of the oath. It has absolutely no value or relevance to the present day, and even in the 1950s was really just a tool to remove politically incorrect educators from the UC system, as well as a political opportunity for Earl Warren’s reelection bid.
Even a member of the Yacht Party, Chuck DeVore, agrees with this – last year he proposed eliminating the anti-communist language from the oath, only to replace it with language allowing the firing of teachers who “support terrorist groups.” That last part is very slippery language indeed, as both “support” and “terrorist group” are so vague and undefined as to be a threat to civil liberties (and besides, there are numerous federal laws dealing with the matter).
Still, most California wingnuts are apoplectic at the very idea of rolling back their beloved McCarthyism:
But some conservative groups and bloggers have sharply criticized the measure, contending it would lead to the indoctrination of students.
“Less than 20 years after the fall of the communist Soviet Union, California lawmakers are eager to once again begin advancing a political ideology responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people,” Karen England, executive director of Capitol Resource Family Impact, said in a statement.
“Instead of promoting communism in our schools, lawmakers should be focused on actually teaching students to read, write and think for themselves.”
Right, because there are just SO many Communist teachers out there just waiting to turn their innocent young students into cadres for Raul Castro and Hu Jintao. But then again, if these wingnuts want to make these kinds of silly arguments, who am I to stop them? The more they expose themselves as so radical that they’ve lost touch with reality, the less Californians will listen to their ideas.
So kudos to Sen. Lowenthal for wanting to restore some sanity to state employment. As to groups like Capitol Resource Family Impact, don’t you have some more pressing concerns?
Some reflections now that I’m back home on the shores of the Monterey Bay:
– The Leno-Migden fight certainly reached a dramatic climax today, and the result was stunning. After the vote was finalized Eden James argued that it was a representation of the power of the grassroots within the party, and I think that analysis is absolutely right. Migden had pulled out all the stops and leaned on every party official she could find to get this endorsement, but the rank and file delegates overwhelmingly refused to go along. I wish I could have stuck around to interview some of these delegates and get a sense of why they voted as they did. If anyone did ask those questions, or if we have any delegates here who wish to discuss the vote, please weigh in with a comment.
– Migden’s failed endorsement is also further evidence, along with the rescinded AD-40 endorsement and the split over Prop 93 earlier in the year, to a huge divide between the party grassroots and the Sacramento leadership in particular. Senate Democrats and their staffers had worked hard over the weekend to get a Migden endorsement and the delegates would not go along with it. To their credit, Speaker Núñez and his office have been reaching out more to the netroots, and a lot of the delegates are eagerly awaiting Karen Bass’ speakership, so this divide may not be difficult to bridge. The Senate seems to have more work to do on this, and Darrell Steinberg’s ascension to the leadership might well bring some welcome change.
– Speaking of the new speaker, Karen Bass is a rising star within the party – and someone who already has a lot of support from the delegates. She got a rapturous welcome at the Progressive Caucus Friday night, and her name was on many lips all weekend long. Her endorsement of and speech for Mark Leno today right before the vote may well have played a decisive role in denying Migden the party endorsement, which would be an interesting sign of how much respect she is already being given by party members. It’s a shame that her term will be so short, but it may be a transformative two years.
– I also sense growing disapproval of the party making an endorsement in contested primaries. Nobody I talked to could remember the last time even one endorsement was pulled from the consent calendar and overturned by delegates, not to mention two – and there were a few other instances where the district endorsement caucuses overturned the pre-endorsement vote (such as in AD-80). The Progressive Caucus was exploring a motion to reduce incumbents’ advantages in the voting process, and a lot of delegates I talked to felt that the party shouldn’t be endorsing at all. Look for this issue to take a higher profile in the coming months and years.
– Overall I am left wondering whether the party convention is a good use of time and resources. Delegates seemed bored with most of the speeches and few paid attention to the party business. If endorsements were done away with, there wouldn’t have been much going on at all, aside from the caucus meetings, which were popular and well-attended. That suggests to me that the party should explore ways to use the convention to spur activism and training – to help catalyze political action.
– On a personal level it was great to hang out with the California blogosphere, whether I’d met you before, hadn’t seen you in a few years (like Dante Atkins) or met you for the first time (like Lucas). I want to give a special shout-out to the unsung but important and valuable Caliticians, such as soyinkafan and Caligirl, who were very active and engaged at the convention and helped bring some of those stories to your attention here; and to friends of Calitics such as Frank Russo and Dave Johnson. Matt Lockshin, Penny Denenberg, and Crystal Strait were all excellent hosts who helped make this first-time attendee feel welcome and supported.
The CDP convention this year is hosting an innovative “Immigration Town Hall” consisting of a panel of pollsters, academics who specialize in immigration, and activists. It’s just now gotten underway so it’s not clear how this will develop.
But the first panelist, from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, seems to be an anachronism from 2006. His slides claim that there are potentially big downsides for Democrats from the immigration issue, and that Dems should refrain from promising “non-emergency benefits” to the undocumented, for example driver’s licenses.
Nowhere does this pollster mention perhaps the most important polling data of all – the fact that Republicans have consistently and totally failed to win at the polls on immigration. It is declining in significance and importance as an issue, as the worsening economic crisis shows Americans that immigration as a political issue is, and always was, a diversion.
Former (and future?) governor and current Attorney General Jerry Brown was waxing nostalgic about his days in the governor’s mansion, driving the famous blue Plymouth (“it lasted 240,000 miles without an engine overhaul – now that was sustainability”), and suing Ronald Reagan over the governor’s mansion.
But the core of his speech dealt with our climate crisis. Brown emphasized his administration’s earlier efforts to encourage smart growth, urban density, walking, even trains. And he called for renewed action on this today. He conceptualized it as “elegant density” – get people out of their cars, build more walkable communities served by trains and other forms of mass transit, powered by solar energy, to not just deal with global warming, but to encourage a more sustainable California.
During the 1970s, Brown had tried to promote a similar agenda. He appointed a trains advocate as the head of Caltrans, promoted a solar energy program, and cut off funds for freeway construction projects, and establishing the Office of Planning and Research. He even promoted an ambitious Urban Strategy for California emphasizing density and limiting sprawl.
Prop 13’s passage ended much of this as state government was starved of funds. But Prop 13 was about more than low taxes. It was the reaction of the lovers of suburban sprawl, of the 1950s model of California, against Brown’s more forward-thinking model. As recently as 2001 arch-conservative Tom McClintock danced on the grave of Brown’s sustainability strategy calling it:
a radical and retrograde ideology into California public policy that quite abruptly and permanently changed the state.
That radical ideology has been the central tenet of governance in California through four successive gubernatorial administrations, Democratic and Republican, to the present day. It was described by Jerry Brown as “the era of limits,” punctuated by such new-age nonsense as the mantra, “small is beautiful.” Suburban “sprawl” would be replaced with a new “urban strategy.”
Republicans continue to make these arguments. They are bent on preserving the failed 1950s model of urban life at all costs. By doing so they have become a party of aristocracy. “Elegant density” isn’t just an environmental and climate strategy – it’s also necessary for the survival of California’s working and middle classes in the 21st century. Republicans will fight against this, and so it is very good to hear Jerry Brown mounting a full-throated defense of sustainable living.
The rest of his speech is pure red meat – bashing the Bush Administration and its EPA (“those idiots”), denouncing them for the mortgage crisis, and calling for the repeal of NCLB. If he does have the governor’s office in mind in 2010, this kind of playing to the base would make him an even more formidable opponent in the Democratic primary.
In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, California believed it could solve its economic crisis by deporting 2 million Mexican and Mexican American residents – including many US-born citizens. It did absolutely nothing to ameliorate the Depression – you cannot exclude your way to prosperity – but nevertheless the deportations went on throughout the decade.
The Assembly Republicans, better known as the Yacht Party, appear to be heading down the same failed path. They have come up with the foolish idea that the budget crisis can be balanced by attacking immigrants:
Assembly Republicans this week promoted nearly two dozen bills they said would reduce the “negative impact” that illegal immigrants have on the state budget and border security. The proposals range from requiring individuals to show proof of citizenship when receiving state-funded benefits to repealing a law enabling undocumented students to pay in-state college tuition….
Assembly Republicans on Tuesday said illegal immigrants cost the state $9 billion annually, citing a Federation for American Immigration Reform study released in 2004. The group estimated that California spends an estimated $7.7 billion alone on education for undocumented students.
a 2004 Social Security Administration analysis cited a $7 billion surplus in social security contributions as a result of payments from the undocumented, and a study by the Texas state comptroller in December 2006 reported the absence of an estimated 1.4 million undocumented in Texas would result in a loss to gross state product of over $17 billion. No similar analysis has been conducted in California whose undocumented population is similar in size to Texas.
Arnold, for his part, actually got it right in replying to this:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called it a “big mistake” Wednesday to blame illegal immigrants for the state’s looming $8 billion budget gap, just as Republican lawmakers have proposed a rollback of benefits for illegal immigrants to save money….
“There is, you know, always a time like this where you start pointing the finger at various different elements of what creates the budget mess, and, you know, some may point the finger at illegal immigrants,” Schwarzenegger said. “I can guarantee you, I have been now four years in office in Sacramento, I don’t think that illegal immigration has created the mess that we are in.”
Of course, Arnold himself bears most of the responsibility here. And his approach to the budget has been to blame the Legislature and obscure the fact that his actions are what caused this crisis – from the reckless elimination of $6.1 billion in VLF money to the borrowing to close the last deficit to his destructive 10% across the board cuts, this crisis is Arnold’s and Arnold’s alone.
As the recent PPIC numbers show, immigrant bashing has quickly lost its political luster. Fewer and fewer Californians are falling for the Yacht Party’s scapegoating efforts.
California’s future depends on immigration. The trolls in the newspaper and blog comments may not agree, but they are in the minority and unwilling to face reality. The only way to solve our budget crisis is to solve the structural revenue shortfall, and most Californians now agree.
The Yacht Party merely puts itself further and further out on a limb and out of step with public opinion each time they propose solutions that benefit the wealthy few at the expense of everyone else. It’s not entirely clear to me how bipartisan solutions are going to work when one of the parties has gone off the deep end like this.
Just over a month ago, on a $2 budget, David Dayen created A Message from the California Yachting Association and unveiled it here at Calitics, mocking the California Republican Party’s transformation into the Yacht Party. It was an instant smash.
That ad inspired the Courage Campaign to create another Yacht Party ad, this one taking it to the floor of the Legislature and defining the Republicans as the party that protects tax loopholes while watching schools and health care collapse:
Last week’s fundraising campaign was so successful – bringing in over $11,000 in just a few days – that we’ve been able to get this ad onto Sacramento cable TV Wednesday night, on CNN, MSNBC, The Daily Show and the Colbert Report.
Perhaps just as significantly, the successful campaign has brought in new allies on the Yacht Party project. If Courage Campaign can raise $5,000 in the next 48 hours, both Speaker Fabian Núñez and SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West have promised to each match that with $5,000 of their own. That would enable another ad buy not just in Sacramento, but in the home districts of some of the most obstinate Republicans.
This is a significant pledge. It represents the coming together of the netroots, of organized labor, and one of the most powerful Democratic politicians in our state in a shared effort to take the fight to the Republicans, and help stop their efforts to destroy our public services just so rich folks can get a tax break.
I’ve been in the netroots a long time, and have been an observer of California politics for even longer. And I’ve always hoped that such coalitions could be built – progressive coalitions to take back our state from the radicals who have governed it into the ground. These groups haven’t always seen eye to eye, but they also recognize the importance of the budget fight, and the need for common action.
Even if you don’t donate – though I hope you will – I think it’s worth reflecting on just how significant a moment this is.
Over the flip is the fundraising email we sent out to Courage Campaign members today. And pay attention to the “P.S.” at the end – if you like these Yacht Party ads, perhaps you can help us create the next one.
Wow. We’ve got some wonderful news for you.
On Thursday, we asked you to help us raise $10,000 by noon today to get our 30-second “Yacht Party” TV ad on the air in Sacramento, taking the budget fight to head-in-the-sand Republicans in Sacramento. With California facing a massive $16 billion deficit and teachers being laid off by the thousands, Republicans are supporting a shocking tax loophole for, get this: yacht purchases.
Californians have had enough. That’s why our TV ad compelled 335 donors to raise $11,023 combined on ActBlue and our web site, surpassing our first goal. Now, because of your generosity, we just bought time on Sacramento cable to air “Yacht Party” this Wednesday on CNN, MSNBC, the Daily Show and Colbert Report — an action that has attracted media attention across California.
The good news gets even better:
Your people-powered response to our re-framing of the Republicans has inspired our good friends — United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez — to get on board.
What will it mean for our community to meet this $5,000 match by SEIU-UHW and Speaker Núñez? It means extending our ad buy in Sacramento to Thursday AND expanding it to air the ad in specific districts where California Republican “Yacht Party” Assembly members are most vulnerable.
It also means moving one step closer to making 2008 a new era for progressive politics in California. It’s so exciting to see progressives working together in common cause, from the netroots and the Courage Campaign to our friends in organized labor and the Assembly.
If you can help us make this $5,000 match, we can make history. Together.
Will you take 30 seconds to watch “Yacht Party” and then contribute $25, $50, $75, $100, $150 or more on ActBlue to match Speaker Nunez and SEIU-UHW’s challenge before Thursday’s deadline?
We can’t afford to close this disastrous deficit with devastating cuts. Common sense dictates that California bring in new revenue by ending these unbelievable tax loopholes for the rich. The sooner you take action either by contributing or forwarding this message to your friends, the sooner we can pressure the Republicans to stop destroying our social safety net.
Together, we helped kill the GOP’s electoral college “dirty trick,” count the “double bubble” votes in Los Angeles County, and block Blackwater’s base on the California border. And now, SEIU-UHW and Speaker Núñez are joining you to re-frame the Republicans and end this appalling yacht tax loophole for the super-wealthy.
With 30 seconds of your time and a few dollars, we can change the conversation inside Sacramento, help fix our gaping $16 billion state budget deficit, and rebuild the California dream.
Please watch “Yacht Party” and help us make the $5,000 match before Thursday:
And yes, thank you again for making this amazing news possible.
Rick Jacobs
Chair
P.S. Do you own a yacht? Or do you know someone who does? This campaign has gone so well, we want to film another “Yacht Party” TV ad. But this time we need an actual yacht, not just an animated version. If you know someone, preferably in Southern California, who wouldn’t mind having the Courage Campaign film a commercial on their yacht, please email us at “[email protected]”. Thanks!
Hot on the heels of the record $350,000 fine levied against Sen. Migden, the Fair Political Practices Commission is now suing her for $9 million “for her consistent and deliberate failure to follow California’s campaign laws.”
The commission’s filings indicated that Migden’s actions hid the true nature of her campaign accounts from state regulators, potential opponents, the media and the public generally. She failed to report a number of large transactions entirely, while reporting other large transactions which simply never occurred.
“For years, Senator Migden has been deceiving the voters of California by filing inaccurate campaign statements, fabricating the elimination of committees and concealing campaign funds,” said FPPC Chairman Ross Johnson. “The sophisticated and pervasive pattern of deception by her various controlled committees has been ongoing for more than five years.”
Earlier this month, Migden was fined $350,000 by the commission and admitted to 89 violations of the Political Reform Act. During the months-long investigation that resulted in that record fine, the enforcement division also uncovered multiple illegal transfers of approximately $1 million of surplus campaign funds that occurred over several years and were funneled through multiple committee accounts controlled by the senator. Additionally, the investigation found the filing of untrue campaign statements and a pattern of concealment through consistent misreporting of campaign information.
The commission maintains that nearly $1 million in Migden’s 2000 Assembly re-election committee became surplus by operation of law when she left the lower house in December of 2002 and are not legally available for her to use in her current Senate re-election campaign. The surplus funds law has been on the books for nearly 30 years; however, Migden sued the FPPC arguing she should be allowed to use $647,000 of those funds that remain.
This is a countersuit to the Migden lawsuit noted in the last paragraph. Obviously this isn’t good news for her, coming on the heels of that already-substantial fine. And this is going to make what was an uphill campaign that much more difficult for her to win.
Plug In America, an electric car advocacy group, has been organizing a campaign around this week’s California Air Resources Board (CARB) meeting, where the board will vote on a proposal to reduce the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) yearly requirement for automakers to just 150 through at least 2015. Currently the requirement is 25,000 ZEVs for the years 2012-2014.
Gov. Schwarzenegger, you showed true leadership when you signed the nation’s first global warming law. You showed true leadership with your vow to “turn back the clock on pollution” through your Million Solar Roofs Plan, an initiative that is the equivalent of taking one million gasoline cars off the road.
Now, how about putting one million electric cars on the road?
Please continue to lead our state by asking the California Air Resources Board to strengthen their staff proposal and get more electric cars on the road.
As you prepare to take delivery of your electric Tesla, we ask you to support a stronger Zero Emission Vehicle Program that will help us all turn back the clock on pollution.
I especially like the reference to Arnold’s order of a Tesla Roadster – their 2008 model is completely sold out and a waiting list is already in place for the 2009 models. This despite the car’s base price of $98,000. Given the success of cars like the Toyota Prius it stands to reason that there is a broad market for ZEV cars in California, even among those who can’t afford a hundred thousand dollar car. If it’s good enough for Arnold, surely it’s good enough for Californians.
CARB has long taken the lead in forcing automakers to improve mileage and emissions standards. Now, as the state works to implement its AB 32 goals, CARB needs to take a strong stand and drag these reluctant automakers into the 21st century. For their own good.
Plug In America is holding a rally in front of the CARB offices, tomorrow (Wednesday) morning at 10:30, ahead of Thursday’s CARB meeting. And on their website they’ve got contact info for both the governor and CARB.
Let’s hope that their activism is a success. It is long past time for this state to get serious about ZEV transportation.
