As many of you know, I am running for CDP delegate in the 43rd AD. It encompasses parts of Glendale, Burbank, Silverlake, Los Feliz, etc. so please, if you are a registered Democrat in that area, please come out to vote for us, THE PROGRESSIVE SLATE, on Sunday at 2pm here:

IATSE Local 80
2520 W. Olive Ave. , Burbank

Besides promoting my candidacy (and that of my slate), I also wanted to alert people to a competing slate that is running candidates in several districts. They’re calling themselves the “Progressive Action Coalition” and have a platform suspiciously similar to ours. In addition, they poached two members of our slate just today, 2 days prior to the elections.

I know some people running on the PAC slates and like them personally and certainly we see eye to eye politically (perhaps some even read this blog…) but I just want voters to be aware of the difference between the two since the new PAC slate is clearly trying to confuse people and undermine us. THE PROGRESSIVE SLATE is the only one endorsed by Progressive Democrats of America, SoCal Grassroots, and the Progressive Caucus of the CA Democratic Party. On Sunday, we intend to promote our slate in our literature and in our speeches by stressing that we are the one and only PROGRESSIVE SLATE and I recommend everyone running on THE PROGRESSIVE SLATE in their district do the same. 

More on THE PROGRESSIVE SLATE over the flip…

PROGRESSIVE SLATE FOR CDP DELEGATE

Progressive Delegates advocate for the following causes:

* We believe that all Citizens are entitled to equal rights and equal treatment under the law, and that no one shall be denied these rights because of gender, race, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, or religion.

* We believe in the separation of Church and State.

* We believe in lifting all people above the poverty line, including the sick, the disabled, the hungry, the elderly, and the unemployed.

* We believe that pre-emptive war is wrong and that this country should seek solutions to international threats through diplomatic channels and the United Nations.

* We believe that every Citizen is entitled to quality health care & that single payer universal health insurance is a right not a privilege.

* We believe that the environment is a trust and that we are responsible for preserving it for future generations.

* We believe in the public school system and that every child should have an opportunity for free, quality education in a safe environment.

* We believe that the death penalty is wrong.

* We believe, above all, in the Constitution of the United States and in the right of the People to self-government.

In addition, Progressive delegates are committed to action on the following five priorities:

1. End the Iraq Occupation Immediately per the Progressive Caucus Plan (to find the plan, click here)

2. Clean Money

3. Single Payer Healthcare

4. Poverty Elimination

5. Investigations Toward Impeachment 

This Thursday, January 11, from 4-5pm, The Courage Campaign will convene our second public conference call, this time to discuss healthcare reform and the wider 2007 agenda in the wake of Arnold’s speech yesterday outlining his healthcare reform plan and his state of the state tonight. (And please join us for our LiveBlog of the state of the state starting at 5:05pm tonight.)

Like last time, we have some exciting guests lined up to speak to us and take our questions on the call:

Assemblywoman Karen Bass (CA-47), majority leader of the assembly and a reliable progressive, will be on the call to talk about the Democrats’ plans for 2007 and to give her take on the state of the state.

Sal Roselli, President of the SEIU State Council of California and President of SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West will share his thoughts on Arnold’s healthcare proposal and what SEIU’s plans are to make sure we get some real reform.

Matt Stoller of MyDD will speak to us as well to give us a wider context and no doubt discuss how the blogosphere can frame and really have an impact on the California healthcare debate and ensure we pursue a progressive agenda in this era of “post-partisanship.”

Again, the call is this Thursday at 4pm. To join, please RSVP to [email protected] to get the dial-in details. Also, feel free to e-mail her your questions for our guests as well. Hope you can make it but if not, the call will be archived on the blog pretty soon after the call concludes.

Whether you believe Reuters:

Guards battled for four hours to subdue some 800 rioting inmates…

 

or The LA Times:

As many as 1,000 inmates rioted for 90 minutes Saturday…

one thing is for certain:

there was one mother of a riot in the California Institution for Men in Chino yesterday. 

More over the flip…

It appears the fighting began between two inmates in the exercise yard, then spread to more large scale hand to hand fighting in one barracks, which then expanded to four other barracks. The guards subdued the prisoners using pepper spray and tear gas as well as hard foam bullets and batons. Despite the scale of the riot, we are reassured:

“The facility was never at risk of being taken over,” said Lt. Mark Hargrove, the prison spokesman.

So, just how major was this riot?

Reuters calls it…

one of the state’s largest such uprisings in years

The LA Times gives us some perspective:

The riot appeared to be the largest at the prison in recent years. In September 2005, a fight erupted between 270 black and Latino inmates, leaving one critically injured.

As for injuries yesterday:

Fifty-one inmates were treated for moderate to serious injuries, including one with stab wounds and head trauma, a prison spokesman said…[Of those,] twenty-seven inmates were taken to hospitals.

The articles are less clear on what caused the riot. Reuters offers this nugget:

Gang conflicts are often the cause of fights within California’s prisons, and corrections facilities are often starkly divided along racial lines by the inmates themselves. Officials are investigating the cause of the latest riot, Hidalgo said.

The LA Times concurs:

Hargrove said investigators had not determined the cause of Saturday’s melee.

I could a hazard a guess:

Chino is designed to hold 3,160 prisoners, less than half the [6,400 inmates currently] housed there.

Today, the prison is still in lockdown, they will not be accepting any new prisoners until an investigation into the riot has been completed. Oh, and this will surely be helpful:

“We’re looking at transferring approximately 36 inmates because of unacceptable housing situations,” [a prison spokesman] said.

The prison crisis just got worse. The governor has offered some solutions, most of which are longterm, but so far, it’s been just words. It’s clear we need some immediate action, which will require everyone in Sacramento to unite on this; that means you too Prison Guard Union.

(Cross-posted from The California Courage Campaign)

The Public Policy Institute of California released its post-election poll of California general election voters this week and the results seem to point to yet another reason Schwarzenegger didn't get swept away in the Democratic wave this year: voters really like the way the governor and the Democrats in the legislature played nice this year.

George Skelton breaks it down:

The poll showed that 53% of voters — including majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents — approve of the way the Legislature and governor "are working together in making public policy." Only 36% disapprove.

For more on this and some promising signs that voters will support some common sense ballot initiative reforms, join me over the flip.

To give  you a sense of how far Schwarzenegger has come since his smackdown last year, in 2005 the numbers were 14% approve and 76% disapprove.

A similar dynamic exists among the job approval numbers.

Schwarzenegger's job performance now is approved by 60% of voters, compared to 39% a year ago. The Legislature's approval still is a relatively low 36%, but it's way up from 20%.

No wonder Arnold has annointed himself the poster boy of bi-partisan moderation.

Far more surprising than these numbers were the results regarding the initiative process.

A majority of voters, 52%, have confidence in the legislature to make policy in Sacramento. Interestingly, the exact same percentage has confidence in California voters to set policy at the ballot box via voter referendums. An odd statistic, don't you think, since in election after election voters reject most initiatives and in fact are quite content to set no policy at all.

Yet a solid 69% of voters are either very or somewhat satisfied with the way the initiative process works. That's not to say they don't think there's room for reform, however. The "somewhat satisfied" folks are a full half of the electorate and likely fuel the 67% desire for some change to the initiative process (35% want major reforms, 32% want just minor reforms.) That's good news for those of us who seek an overhaul.

In addition, voters signal their ability to separate their opinion of the initiative process in general, which they like, from their perception of  the initiatives on this year's ballot specifically, which they did not.

• 63% of voters feel the wording of the ballot initiatives was "too complicated and confusing."  
• 60% felt 13 initiatives was too many (by contrast, in 2005 only 41% felt 8 initiatives was too many.)
• 78% of voters felt that too much money was spent by initiative campaigns, especially on 86 & 87.

As for what reforms voters would support:

• 80% of voters would support a period of time devoted to the initiative sponsor and the legislature meeting to try to come to a compromise.
• 84% support "increasing public disclosure of funding sources of signature gathering and initiative campaigns."

This tells me that voters don't want to scrap the initiative process, they like having a say. But they see that the process needs to be reformed and they provide a blueprint for some real common sense reforms that can improve the process. The question is, will they approve them in the form of an inititive to reform the initiative process or will they yet again shoot another decent one down at the ballot box?

(Cross-posted from The California Courage Campaign)

by Elliott D. Petty

This evening 500 hotel workers, community members and faith leaders will participate in a candlelight procession along Century Boulevard near Los Angeles International Airport, beginning at the home of Margarita Uriostegui, a Radisson hotel worker who tragically died two days after the historic September 28^th civil disobedience and in whose memory the fast is dedicated.

Eighteen hotel workers will be engaging in a seven-day water-only fast from December 6^th to December 12^th.  These brave workers have chosen to go without food for a week to continue their struggle for a living wage and to honor the memory of Margarita Uriostegui, their late co-worker who symbolizes their struggle to earn the right to receive fair pay for their hard work.

Show them you support them by signing OUR PETITION today.

More over the flip…

Hotel workers on Century Boulevard work full time, sometimes more than one job, yet many of them are still living in poverty. As a result of the civil disobedience, the Los Angeles City Council passed a living wage ordinance for Century Boulevard hotel workers as a first step in lifting these workers out of poverty; the legislation was signed into law by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on November 27^th.

The Century Boulevard hotels and other business groups are now seeking to repeal the law through a ballot referendum, jeopardizing the living wages of these workers and their hopes to provide a better life for their families.

Century Boulevard hotel workers earn 20% less than their counterparts in downtown L.A., and the nearby communities of Lennox, Inglewood and Hawthorne, where a large number of these workers live, suffer high rates of poverty, crime and overcrowding. One in four residents in these communities lives below the federal poverty line, a measure of extreme poverty, while more than 40% of children come from poor households. Median household income is 25% lower than in L.A. County as a whole.

Read more about the fast and how we can help secure the dream of a decent standard of living for each and every hotel worker HERE.

Fasters will sleep in front of the hotels every night as they endure hunger, thirst and cold weather to make their statement for a living wage for them and their families. 

Its not too late.

Sign the Courage Campaign petition today and it will be hand-delivered to the fasters this Saturday, December 9^th.

Last week, The Courage Campaign sent out an e-mail announcing a screening of Robert Greenwald's Iraq For Sale. The screening was to be held in Culver City on Wednesday, would be hosted by Rep. Jane Harman (CA-36) and feature a Q&A panel that included Harman and our chair, Rick Jacobs, who is also a co-executive producer of the film. Moments after it went out I got an instant message from a friend:

Is Jane Harman part of the Courage Campaign?

I responded:

Not really. We're spreading the word about the screening because Rick's on the panel.

Pause.

Good.

The hostility that came through the IM screen was palpable and he is hardly alone in his contempt. After all, as ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Harman oversaw the severe intelligence failure that led to the invasion of Iraq.

More over the flip…

Glenn Greenwald reminds us of some of her more egregious past statements:

"There's a strong intelligence case that Iraq has not destroyed its weapons of mass destruction and is building the capability to use them," said Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House intelligence committee. "There's a growing al Qaeda presence in Iraq, and I think the case can be made that there is a growing affiliation" between Baghdad and terrorist groups.

Not only that, she was right there alongside her Republican colleagues in support of Bush's warrantless wiretapping program:

Some key Democrats even defend it. Says California's Jane Harman, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee: "I believe the program is essential to U.S. national security and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities."

So it's no wonder that one of Nancy Pelosi's first decisions as Speaker-elect was to pass up Harman for chairmanship of the Intelligence Committee. It was announced today that her pick is Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas.

In the Q&A after the film, Harman was evasive on the question of whether she would win the chairmanship:

That's a decision of speaker-elect Pelosi. She'll be announcing her decision shortly.

But there was something in her face…you could tell she already knew the bad news. You could tell she was pained by her past decisions and actually wanted to make them right, and not just because Marcy Winograd's primary challenge may be fiercer next time around; it wasn't all about self-preservation. Harman was using this screening to confront her constituents face to face, to try to make amends. Considering the hostility that was present in that room that night, rivaling that of my friend's, it struck me as pretty brave actually.

After Harman half-addressed the issue of the chairmanship, the local assemblyman moderating the Q&A suggested that we "move on" and indeed tried to switch topics but the audience would have none of it, one gentleman in particular.

How can we move on, we have 140,000 of our kids over there, almost 3,000 have died. You expect their families to just move on!?

Harman looked pained. She spoke:

Look, the intelligence was wrong. I was wrong.

The gentleman, clearly moved by rage, no grand public speaker he, went on:

I knew the intelligence was cooked. I knew there was not reason to go to war. How did I know that and you didn't!?

Harman responded.

Well, my husband agreed with you. I was wrong, you were right. Congratulations.

Now on paper, that may look snarky but the way she delivered it, somehow it wasn't. It was sincere, not that the guy was looking for congratulations, but her apology, her admission that she was wrong and the humilty with which she admitted he was right seemed to go a long way to ease the tension in the room and to heal some of the anger toward Harman.

In addition to apologizing, Harman expressed her commitment to not making the same mistakes again.

I don't buy the intelligence on Iran and no one is going to be able to convince the Congress otherwise, as long as I'm there.

She also acknowledged she was wrong on the warrantless wiretapping program.

The world has changed since 9/11. That doesn't mean we have to change. Our challenge is to keep true to ourselves. It is our challenge to protect our citizens without abridging our laws and constitution. That may mean new laws consistent with our constitution and values.

And…

I will work to force the White House to bring the warrantless wiretapping program under FISA. If the government can't prove cause, then they can't listen. Period.

And as talk returned to the topic of Iraq For Sale, Harman called for accountability.

I agree about accountability and transparency in Congress…Democrats have been shut out from our oversight role for six years on party-line votes.

As for the specific issue the film raises about the Bush administration's privatization of the war in Iraq:

Congress can and should outlaw sole-source contracting; and criminal liabillity for the private contractors is not off the table at this point.

Ironically, of course, Pelosi's passing over of Harman for chair of the Intelligence committee was the first sign that she is serious about holding members of Congress accountable for their votes and actions too; Democrats as well as Republicans. I don't know that Harman had that in mind, necessarily, however.

At the end of the Q&A session, having heard a repentant Congresswoman Harman, Rick Jacobs captured the feel of the room in his closing remarks:

Yes, mistakes have been made and I appreciate what I'm hearing Congresswoman Harman say about accountability. Voters had their chance to hold her accountable in June and again in November and they chose to re-elect her overwhelmingly.

It was a more eloquent way of saying "move on" and it came at a point when the room was ready to hear it. Even Harman's most vocal detractor seemed on board.

It was really a pretty fascinating thing to witness, this mea culpa from a Congresswoman, clearly an attempt at redemption. And what's even more fascinating is the language she used: "accountability," "values," "oversight."

Sound familiar?

As someone said at an election protection event earlier this year as they introduced Marcy Winograd, Harman's people-powered primary challenger:

Winograd kept Jane Harman honest.

And so did we. And in the process we made her a better member of Congress, just in time to actually make a difference in the majority.

So after witnessing Harman squirm as she faced those she actually works for face to face, I came to realize that maybe a Congressman Harman put through the ringer, made to account for her decisions and made to face her constituents would ultimately be a positive. Sure it would be great to have Congresswoman Winograd added to the Progressive Caucus as opposed to Harman's membership in the New Democrat Coalition, but here we have an avowed moderate speaking to progressives using the language of progressives. Because she's seen what happens if she doesn't.

That's where our power lies.