(I am proud to be doing netroots outreach for Judy Chu for Congress but I am speaking personally here, not on behalf of the campaign)

Election day is upon us here in California and in addition to the statewide ballot initiatives (I’m voting NO on 1A-F, more on why HERE and HERE), the 32nd district of California (East Los Angeles stretching east to Covina) is going to the polls to choose a new member of Congress to replace former Congresswoman Hilda Solis.

Polls have been open since 7am and close tonight at 8pm. If you haven’t voted and are not sure about your voting location, go HERE. If you have further questions, call (800) 345-VOTE or check out SOS Debra Bowen’s voter guide.

Usually on election day, I’d write a post analyzing the state of the race from the ground. Instead, for that coverage I’m going to refer you to Calitics whose coverage has been consistently excellent (check out Dante Atkins’s last two updates HERE and HERE as well as David Dayen’s HERE and HERE.) Instead, what I’d like to do in this post is write my own personal reflections on the campaign and the candidate I’ve been proud to work for throughout this brief special election.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been very proud to work for Judy Chu’s campaign in CA-32. When I took the job, I thought I’d be working for a good solid Democrat and I was right. Judy is a strong progressive and isn’t afraid to say it. She is passionate about universal healthcare, the Employee Free Choice Act and building a green economy to put people back to work. Ultimately, it’s become reall clear to me that not only will Judy make CA-32 proud representing them in Washington, DC but she truly is the best candidate in the field to carry on Hilda Solis’s legacy in Congress. Also, I was always impressed with how fearless Judy was about interacting with the blogosphere. She actually got that if she really wanted to get her substantive message out, she was going to need to go around the mainstream media filter and that’s precisely what we did. On top of all of this, though, what I’ve learned over the past few weeks about Judy is that while I am happy to be working for a candidate for congress with whom I agree on issues, more importantly, I feel really fortunate to be working for someone I really believe will be one of those better Democrats we keep talking about. I know Judy will be more than simply a reliable vote, she will be a progressive champion in Congress and if she wins today, I will always be proud to have contributed in some small way to her getting there.

One of the great things about Judy is that she is that rare elected official who has not lost touch with her progressive grassroots values. After 23 years of being in elected office, Judy’s priorities are still rooted firmly in the grassroots of the 32nd district. I witnessed this first hand at a candidates forum a few weeks ago, which was hosted by 5 local Democratic clubs; Judy was still a member of three of them. She was interacting with the members of the clubs as though they were her friends she hasn’t seen in a while, because that’s precisely what they were. And this is exactly how she treats everyone working for her, whether volunteer or paid staffer. Whenever I’m at HQ, if Judy’s not on the phones speaking to voters, she’s mingling with the volunteers, speaking to them as peers, thanking them for their hard work because she knows from decades of hard grassroots organizing that that’s where the race will be won or lost. And you can tell by the enthusiasm of the young volunteers for the work they’re doing to get Judy elected that their admiration for her is just as strong.

Judy treats people the same way she’s run her campaign, with integrity and respect, and I think it speaks volumes about the sort of representative she will be in Washington. As the Calitics editorial board wrote in their Anyone but Gil Cedillo anti-endorsement in the race:

…we do believe that, at some level, how you campaign does dictate how you govern.

Indeed.

But first thing’s first: before she can get to Washington, Judy has to win tonight. With 7 hours left before polls close, here’s what you can still do:

• If you live in the 32nd district, please vote for Judy Chu.
• If you know people in that district, urge them to get to the polls to support Judy whether by email, phone call, Twitter or Facebook status update.
• If you are on Twitter, you can follow my updates throughout the day @toddbeeton and follow and add to the #ca32 tag.
• Even more important, if you have some free time today to do some incredibly important GOTV work for Judy, please call the office at 626-430-3601 or just show up at 4153 North Maine Ave., Baldwin Park, CA 91706.

Thanks for helping send a real progressive champion to Washington.

(I’m doing blogging and blog outreach for Eric Garcetti’s re-election campaign)

Results were just updated at the LA City Clerk’s website. Some highlights:

CD-13 (93% reporting):

Eric Garcetti 72.08

Gary Slossberg 27.92

Mayor (89.6% reporting):

Antonio Villaraigosa 55.73

Walter Moore 25.89

Gordon Turner 6.56

Prop B (Solar Initiative – 89.6% reporting):

Yes 49.97

No 50.03

The 5th Council district race, to replace Jack Weiss, is ridiculously close. Weiss looks likely to go to a runoff for City Attorney. More as it comes in.

[UPDATE] Just to clarify, per The LA Times, the above results are only from vote-by-mail. Still waiting for in-person results to come in.

[UPDATE] Results updated as of 10:12pm. With the addition of a fraction of all in-person ballots cast, both Villaraigosa and Measure B have had net increases on 1%. If Villaraigosa can’t win 60% in L.A., this flirtation with running for governor may not be long for this world.

[UPDATE] As more in-person ballots get counted, Villaraigosa and Prop B keep gaining steam. All props at the moment are ahead. We’re looking at run-offs in the City Attorney race and City Council 5 where Paul Koretz and David Vahedi are currently leading a tight field. All mail-in ballots and just 14.82% of in-person ballots have been counted.

[UPDATE] Updated again as of 12am.

[UPDATE] Update by Dante as of 12:36am: interesting turns with 76% reporting.  Measure B is in peril, as it is only leading by a hair at this point: 50.2% to 49.8%, a difference of less than 700 votes.

Meanwhile, Vahedi has actually pulled ahead of Koretz in CD5 by 50 votes, but the only thing that matters for is bragging rights, as those two are far head of the rest of the field.

The closest race right now is LAUSD 6 between Pugliese and Martinez, where Pugliese has a 9-vote lead as of last posting.  Martinez has been gaining ground all night, and appears to have won a solid majority of election-day voters.

[UPDATE] by Dante at 1:00am: The bunch of ballots between 76% and 89% must have had a conservative tilt, as Measure B has now fallen behind for the first time tonight, by 100 votes.  Meanwhile, Measure E, which would allow individual councilmembers to offer tax incentives and which was opposed by many progressive voter guides, has pulled to a noticeable 4% lead for the first time tonight.  One other race has flipped as well: Nury Martinez has taken the lead in LAUSD 6 by 175 votes, or .8%.

(I’m doing blog outreach for Eric Garcetti’s re-election campaign)

As Dave noted below, estimates put turnout in Los Angeles today at a sad 15%.

Though city officials were skittish about making predictions on voter turnout, Fernando J. Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University who is also a lobbyist, said he expected 15% of voters to show up. In the 5th council district, it could jump to as high as 30%, he said, because of the interest in the wide-open council race, the city attorney’s race and a school board race there.

The 5th council district is made up of the progressive communities of West LA, the Fairfax district and Westwood (home to UCLA) as well as some not so progressive sections of the San Fernando Valley including Encino and Sherman Oaks. On balance though, if one district is going to have a disproportionate impact on the citywide races and props, you could do worse than the 5th. Clearly the single largest determining factor in the low turnout today is the lack of a competitive race at the top of the ticket. Antonio Villaraigosa is expected to sail through to a second term as Mayor.

We’ve been asking folks to chime in with their election day experiences over at Eric’s blog and on Facebook and it will come as no surprise to hear “ghost town”, “had the place to myself” and “fast and easy” were among the descriptors used. Some of the election day on the ground reports over the flip.

Polls close at 8pm. Eric will be doing GOTV until then and then will head over to his election night party at Avalon in Hollywood (details here.) I’ll be tweeting live from the party and if I have access, look for updates at Eric’s blog as well.

[UPDATE]Results will come in here.

More…

Some on the ground reports from Angelenos:

I voted at the Golden Gate Retirement Hotel on Lockwood (CD13). Parking was difficult- didn’t trust the fact that schoolyard restrictions (No Parking 7am-5pm) would be lifted. The poll worker could barely speak English and could not alphabetize. It was 10 am, they were just installing the counter machine and sadly, mine was the first vote recorded.

Although most elderly voters vote absentee in the future I would recommend polling places without stairs. Still, I take pride in voting and never take it for granted.

Voting at Elysian Heights Elementary went very smooth. In and out in minutes. All polls were filled when I entered, but there was no waiting.

Voted this morning in Valley Glen – it was just me and the poll workers when I was there at 11am, but they said the turnout today has been good. No trouble at all getting the provisional ballot I needed (I’m new to that neighborhood after being a CD13 girl, and haven’t re-registered yet).

I went to vote over on Melrose and Berendo about an hour ago. It had horrible street parking and it was pretty dead in there. No one else was in there voting other than me. The poll worker said I was around the 50th voter.

I voted today in West Hollywood. There was some confusion as to where my polling place was as I have just moved. The polling volunteers were extremely helpful in providing me with a provisional ballot.

I saw 10 others voting while I was there at 8:30AM. The West Hollywood election is rather interesting and I’d be surprised if there wasn’t decent turnout today.

I went around 3pm today. There was 1 other person voting. I was in and out in about 5 min. Trying to encourage more people to vote. Most of my friends didn’t even know voting was happening today.

I voted at 9am at Allesandro Elementary-there were only a handful of people at the poll. There was a larger crowd waiting to leave than there were waiting to vote cause the ballot receptacle (don’t know what it’s called) had a paper jam. Or ballot jam rather. After a few minutes I just handed my ballot over to one of the workers so I could get to work. They were about to call the city when I left, I hope they fixed it….

Really slow at Mayberry Elementary School at 11:30. People at the yoga studio didn’t seem to know there were elections today…Also, alot of changes in polling places and people saying they never got anything in the mail about the election in general.

Too fast, too easy-even though we got displaced from the Silver Lake Recreation Center to St. Teresa’s. Where are all the voters?

I voted on Larchmont and it was a ghost-town-esque situation at the polling spot. You could see the tumbleweeds, and the pollsters (polling people? poll masters?) were just a little too grateful to see me. Kind of a bummer.

Also at MyDD

Today, all over the country, Join The Impact organized rallies to protest the passage of Proposition 8. We in California saw Prop 8 awaken a sleeping giant as thousands of people gathered, seemingly spontaneously, all over the state in the wake of the news that it had passed. It was an amazing sight but little did we know that that truly was just the beginning. A national people-powered marriage equality movement seems to have sprouted up virtually overnight.

As I’m in here in the Chicago suburbs for a friend’s wedding (no, I wasn’t invited by Barack…) I went into town to check out the Chicago Join The Impact protest at Federal Plaza. The Facebook event had more than 3200 RSVPs and there had to be twice that many people there today. At one point, I heard an announcement that the police were extending the area where people were permitted to stand; this place was bursting at the seams.

It was an extremely moving event because it was clear that I was witnessing nothing less than the birth of our generation’s civil rights movement. Sign after sign said it all: “gay rights are civil rights.” As a Californian too, it was fascinating to see so many people in Illinois rise up against what my fellow citizens did on November 4th. Someone was even holding a No on Prop 8 sign re-jiggered to read “Vote No On Pro-H8.” There was a distinct “We are all Californians now” vibe to the whole thing but I think also that this national movement might not have sprung up if it had been any other state. People think of California not only as a bastion of liberalism but also as a bellwether for the rest of the country. They see gay marriage go down in California, for many, it is a sign that it could mean the end of gay marriage everywhere else, before it’s even begun.

The passion in the voices of the speakers was moving as well. One of the organizers of the event stood up and expressed great frustration with Illinois Democrats at not having passed a marriage equality bill, not even a civil unions bill. “There is no state bluer than Illinois! There is no excuse!” I expect we’ll see pressure all over the country for state legislatures to pass marriage equality legislation and if we don’t, we should. He also acknowledged the importance that this movement not end today, which is a really important point. “We’re not just blowing off steam here today, as good as that feels. This needs to continue!” In Chicago, the next action will be next Saturday outside the Century Theatre in Evanston, IL to protest the fact that Cinemark CEO Alan Stock donated $10,000 to Prop 8. Considering the intensity on display at the protest today, I suspect Stock is going to deeply regret that donation.

One man stood up and confessed that despite being a gay man, he wasn’t really on board with gay marriage until recently. What did it for him: Keith Olbermann’s special comment the other night. Another activist read from a well-written script and at a certain point was like “OK, I have to put this down. It’s a beautiful speech but I have to speak to you from my heart” and he went on to speak personally and passionately about his refusal to allow his country to treat him as a second class citizen. “Not anymore! Not anymore!”

All over downtown Chicago there were banners on lampposts congratulating “Chicago’s own Barack Obama” and it seemed rather appropriate that this protest should be surrounded by these banners. As Barack has said throughout his campaign for the presidency, “this is not about me, this is about you…change can only come if you demand it…change doesn’t come from the top down, it comes from the bottom up.” President-elect Obama may not be in favor of marriage equality as a policy, but the spirit of our first community organizer president was there at Federal Plaza today.

This has only just begun…

A couple weeks ago I headed down to The Home Depot Center in Carson, CA to hang with the wingnuts at the Sarah Palin super rally. The Courage Campaign, with the help of its members, paid for a plane to fly around overhead during the speech trailing a sign that read “Sarah Palin – Thanks, But No Thanks! No on Prop 4.” Our goal was to connect the latest right-wing attempt to pass a “parental notification” law via the ballot initiative process with Sarah Palin’s extremist anti-choice views. And let me tell you, every single person I spoke to at that rally was walking talking evidence of that connection. They are pumped about voting for Palin as well as Propositions 4 & 8 and they will be coming out in droves leading up to and on November 4th.

One of our goals in going to the Palin rally was to make sure people don’t get lulled into a false sense of complacency about the election, so we produced a short web video to show you just how ubiquitous our banner was at that rally as well as to demonstrate just how wingnutty our fellow Californians can be and how motivated they are. One guy I spoke to in particular had some choice words about liberals — you’ll see him at the end of the video — and issued what I take as a challenge to us all. You gotta see it to believe it.

Watch it below:

Let’s make sure we prove him wrong and let all of our friends and family know how crucial it is to vote against Prop 4 and 8. Spread the word HERE.

(disclaimer: I am proud to work for the Courage Campaign)

(Cross-posted from BushRubberStamp.com)

We all know David Dreier is a Bush rubber stamp who has voted with George W. Bush 93.6% of the time. But what about that other 6.4%? We don’t talk about it much because, well, there isn’t that much to talk about.

But credit where credit is due, there is one important issue where Dreier has differed from Bush: The Federal Marriage Amendment.

The FMA, if passed (and ratified), would have limited marriage nationwide to between a man and a woman and it would have prevented courts from granting same sex couples certain rights that married couples enjoy. When it came up for a vote in 2004 and 2006, Dreier voted against it both times and the reasoning he gave for opposing it was simple.

According to Wikipedia:

He explained his opposition to the amendment by stating that he felt the Constitution was not the appropriate tool for restricting rights.

Well, now we have a similar initiative on the ballot in California in the form of Proposition 8, except this time, if Prop 8 passes, it wouldn’t just amend the California constitution to restrict rights, it would amend the California constitution to eliminate the rights that people are exercising every day.

Yet David Dreier has been silent…and his silence is deafening.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has stated publicly that he opposes Prop 8. John McCain has said he supports it. David Dreier’s constituents deserve to know where he stands.

That’s why the Courage Campaign has launched a petition demanding that David Dreier come out against Proposition 8.

Dear Rep. David Dreier,

We, the undersigned, urge you to come out against Proposition 8, which would “eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry” the person they love in California.

You have voted the right way in the past, so we think it’s time for you come out against Prop 8 today. Please join us in taking the following pledge:

I pledge to vote No on Prop 8, a statewide ballot initiative that, if passed, “eliminates the right of same sex couples to marry.”

Gay and lesbian couples deserve the same fundamental freedoms that all Californians enjoy. I pledge to vote No on any constitutional change that stands in the way of equality for all.

Following the lead of Governor Schwarzenegger and other Republicans, we urge you to vote No on Prop 8. Thank you for your consideration of this fundamentally important issue to Californians.

People who publicly oppose gay marriage, whether Republican or Democrat, like to say “it should be left up to the states.” Well, this year it is up to the state, our state. This year, all Californians get to decide if we are going to lead the nation on marriage equality or if we’re going to eliminate that right for same sex couples, so many of whom have been happily exercising that right since June.

It’s time for Congressman Dreier to lead and come out against Proposition 8.

Sign our petition urging him to do so today.

(disclosure: I am proud to work for the Courage Campaign)

I’m heading down to Carson this morning to see the mavericky magic happen. Sarah Palin will be holding a “Road to Victory Rally” at The Home Depot Center with “Your California Ticket.” Yeah, good luck with that.

The Courage Campaign banner blaring the message “Sarah Palin, Thanks But No Thanks: ‘No’ On Prop 4!” will be flying overhead (it’s an open air event) from around 12:30pm through the duration of the event. Can’t wait to see people’s reactions. If you haven’t yet, you can help out with the cost of our aerial welcome message to Sarah Palin HERE.

While there, I’ll be stopping by the pro-Obama protest and the California Democratic Party’s giant screen of questions for Palin. Not surprisingly, it’s being freeped, apparently one submission ended with “Reps rule, Dems drool!” You can submit your own HERE. As I’m not convinced I’ll even get into the media area, let alone have wireless at the event, I’ll be documenting the atrocities at the Courage Campaign Twitter page — if you’re not following yet, you should be! I’ll also be sending pictures to my mobile blog HERE.

And as a bonus, another mavericky picture from when I went to pick up my ticket in the extended entry.

(disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign)

Here is the stream of the CDP’s ask Palin a question screen outside of the event.

(cross-posted from BushRubberStamp.com)

Today, for the second time this week, David Dreier voted YES on the House version of the bailout bill. While many smart people on both sides of the aisle might disagree on the merits of this bill and the urgency of doing something now even if it’s bad, it’s worth exploring why Dreier supported this bill.

David Dreier will tell you that he hates the position we find ourselves in. He’ll tell you that he supported this bill “reluctantly” and today on the House floor he even called the bill a “necessary evil.”

But here are a few things Dreier won’t tell you:

• David Dreier received $254,000 in donations from the finance sector this cycle and $590,000 two years ago. Both times, this amount has represented more than two and a half times the donations he received from any other industry.
• The American Bankers Association was the top donor to David Dreier’s American Success PAC this cycle.
• David Dreier continues to vote against bills that would have curbed this crisis. In May of 2008, Dreier voted with Bush against measures designed to impose “increased oversight and regulation of housing-related government sponsored entities.” Sound familiar?

More…

So let’s get this straight. David Dreier takes hundreds of thousands of dollars from the people who got us into this mess, votes to obstruct government regulation of their industry and when they get in trouble he votes to give them a $700 billion taxpayer bailout?

Sure looks like they got their money’s worth.

Open Secrets explored the connection between House members’ votes on the first version of the bill on Monday and the level of donations they received from the financial sector:

Members of the House of Representatives who supported bailing out the financial sector with $700 billion in taxpayer money have received 51 percent more in campaign contributions from the finance, insurance and real estate sector in their congressional careers than those who opposed the emergency legislation, the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics calculated following the 228-205 vote on Monday that defeated the House bill. […]

The 65 Republicans who backed the bill have collected $1,078,533 from the finance sector in their careers and an average of $185,461 toward this election. The 133 Republicans who led the opposition to the bailout have collected, on average, $705,297 over their careers in Congress and $150,381 in this election cycle alone. That translates into a difference of about 23 percent in this cycle and 53 percent over time.

Since Open Secrets has been keeping track of donations in 1998, David Dreier has received more than $2 million from the finance sector, more than $800,000 of which was from the last 4 years alone.

Clearly, George W. Bush isn’t the only one whose agenda David Dreier rubber stamps in Congress.

(cross-posted at BushRubberStamp.com)

David Dreier pretends to be a champion of renewable energies and a crusader for cheaper gas prices but the truth is, on the question of how best to use energy to reduce carbon emissions to reverse the effects of global warming, Dreier is, yet again, nothing but a Bush rubber stamp.

Nowhere on either his congressional or his re-election website does Dreier even mention the phrase “global warming” or “climate change” but what he does advertise, right there on the front page of his house.gov website, is an award he is oh so proud to have received: “The Friend of the American Motorist” Award. If it sounds Bushian — a la “Clean Skies” or “Healthy Forests” — it is. Just look who gave him the award:

Congressman Dreier’s award is based on AFP’s “Freedom from Foreign Oil” scorecard which ranks lawmakers based on a composite score of eight roll call votes and co-sponsorship of three initiatives that would positively or negatively impact gas and energy prices.  For more information, visit www.americansforprosperity.org.

Surprise! Americans For Prosperity, in the guise of a small government advocacy organization, is really just a front group for big oil.

More…

AFP is chaired by David Koch, billionaire owner of Koch Industries, which wikipedia describes as

a conglomerate with major oil and gas holdings that is the largest privately held company in the United States.

It follows then that, as a close inspection of their scorecard makes clear, AFP would reward members of congress for voting as follows:

– FOR opening ANWR to oil exploration

– AGAINST repealing tax breaks for oil companies

– AGAINST tax subsidies and incentives for alternative energies

– AGAINST holding oil companies accountable for price gouging at the pump

– AGAINST a cap and trade system for reducing carbon emissions

David Dreier earned a 100% from the AFP and, for that, received this “award” which is essentially just a cloak of political cover for members of congress who actually vote AGAINST the interests of the every day Americans concerned about the health of our planet AND the cost of gas at the pump.

Once again, Dreier pretending to be something he’s not.

But what makes Dreier’s acceptance of this award particularly gauling is that AFP doesn’t even hide its true feelings on global warming. They are proud global warming deniers, traveling the country in a hot air balloon to decry the “global warming alarmists.”

Climate alarmists have bombarded citizens with apocalyptic scenarios and pressured them into environmental political correctness.  It’s time to tell the other side of the story.

Americans for Prosperity is working hard to bring you the missing half of the global warming debate.  What will the impacts of reactionary legislation be for you, your family and our economy?

Join us at an event near you to learn more about climate alarmism and the looming Big Government “solutions.”

Umm, as a wise man once and often says: “the debate is over.”

But does David Dreier know it or does he, just like his buddies George W. Bush and Americans For Prosperity, think the jury is still out? Let’s see. Will he renounce AFP and send back the award? Tell him to Deny the Deniers by signing our petition:

Dear Rep. David Dreier,

We, the undersigned, urge you to renounce the “Friend of the American Motorist” award you received from Americans For Prosperity.

Americans For Prosperity is a group that supports the interests of big oil and denies the effects of global warming. You claim to be a moderate and a champion of renewable energies yet you accept this award from a group that calls anyone who seeks to reduce carbon emissions a “global warming alarmist.”

If you are truly on the side of the American motorist, you will renounce this right wing group and reject the award they gave you.

We urge you to Deny the Deniers today.

We’ll be delivering the petition to him next week. If you’d like to exert additional pressure, call his office at (909) 575-6226.

I am proud to work for the Courage Campaign.