By now, you’ve all probably received an e-mail from MoveOn asking us to call our Congressman to urge him or her to support the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Health and Iraq Accountability Act. I know PeteB2 has called. And earlier today I called my Congressman, Rep. Adam Schiff. This is what his office said:
Congressman Schiff voted for it in committee last week and intends to do the same on the floor this week.
Have you called? When you do, let MoveOn know the response HERE. And share it below in the comments.
I’ve also contacted Schiff’s press guy about posting here at Calitics. I’m particularly interested in his perspective on this issue, since he’s both a Blue Dog and on Appropriations. I suspect he may view us as too liberal for him but hopefully he’ll see that we don’t bite.
This past Saturday, 12,000 of my closest friends and I gathered in Oakland to see (or in some cases, just hear…) Barack Obama speak. It’s nice to see Senator Obama giving the public some face time while he swings through our state to do what we know every presidential candidate must: make a withdrawal from the ATM that is California.
After the rally the senator headed off to the Mark Hopkins Hotel in SF for a fundraiser but not before wowing the crowd in Oakland. As one would expect, Obama gave a variation on his stump speech in which he rails against cynicism and offers something different, what he calls the politics of hope. And judging by the crowd’s reaction, at least those who were close enough to see the senator, hope is much more than just a buzzword…the optimism in the air was palpable. It felt almost celebratory. As Frank wrote HERE, this phenomenon is real.
Over the flip, my take with video of most of his speech and some photos. I think I can safely say that Saturday will go down as my most memorable St. Patrick’s Day ever.
Here’s a picture of the folks in the bleachers behind the stage. I know they look relatively calm but don’t be fooled…it was merely the calm before the storm.
And now witness the storm:
As you can see, he was greeted like a rock star. Talk about energy. It was incredible.
After some small talk about his family, Senator Obama got into the meat of his speech and immediately framed his candidacy as something larger than himself:
We are here today because the country calls us. We are here today because history beckons us.
He uses the first person plural to especially good effect to communicate, essentially, “we are in this together.” He speaks mostly about the domestic challenges we face — listen to how the crowd reacts when he talks about the economy and who is benefitting most — but then ends the section strongly with criticism of the war. I think it’s interesting who his first target of criticism is:
We are in the midst of a war that should have never been authorized!
Message: unlike my opponents, I never would have authorized it.
It really is a pleasure to listen to Obama’s speeches. In this next section, witness how he skillfully segues from the war to a meeting with a wounded veteran and his family to a discussion of how Washington has lost its way and, by extension, why he’s running for president:
Politics is not a game. The decisions that are made in Washington are not sport. And the reason that we have not been able to meet the challenges that we face….is because at some level we have been so consumed by cynicism and pettyness in Washington that we no longer recognize what’s at stake, we no longer understand what’s going on in the lives of that veteran…
This time, the “we” he’s referring to seems to be his colleagues in Washington.
In the next section, he continues to rail against cynicism and offers his prescription:
It is time for us to step up and meet these challenges and create the sort of politics that’s not based on division, that’s not based on hatred, that’s not based on fear, but that’s based on hope. And that’s the sort of politics that we expect to create in this election. If we change our politics, then we will change the nation.
He goes on to address the matter of his experience. Here he brilliantly turns his supposed lack of experience into an asset, not a liability. Watch the whole thing, it’s great.
The highlight of this next section for me is when Senator Obama talks at length about healthcare and makes a promise. Listen to the crowd on this one.
We can…make sure that every single American has basic healthcare in fact I want to be held accountable for that!We can have universal healthcare by the end of the next president’s first term. By the end of MY FIRST TERM!
He moves on to the topic of energy, during which he gives it up for California. Notice his continued use of “we” with the repeated (to nice effect) refrain: “We know what to do.”
We know what to do. We know what to do with energy. And if we set up a system like California has boldly decided it’s gonna set up, so we are capping the emission of greenhouse gases, it can actually generate jobs and industry. There’s no reason why we can’t create entire new sectors of the economy.
As he prepares to wrap up, he brings his speech back around to Iraq and reminds us all where he stood when it counted.
I am proud of the fact that I opposed this war from the start and I stood up in 2002 and said that this is a bad idea, that this will cost us billions of dollars and thousands of lives and we don’t have a strategy for getting out.
Again, he runs against his opponents without overtly running against them.
Message: it’s about judgment, stupid.
He is perhaps at his best, though, when he talks about the troops and the responsibility we have to them when they come home. As passionate as his speech has been up to now, he reveals new heights of intensity when he says:
Don’t stand next to a flag and say you believe in supporting the troops when you forget them when they come home!
Nice.
He opens this final stretch of the speech with a statement that seems to crystallize the very essence of Obama’s candidacy:
We can do all of these things. But let me tell you this. I can’t do it on my own
He goes on to catalog the history of American progress, from the fight against British tyranny to the fight against slavery, to the fight to allow women to vote, to the fight for civil rights and for workers to unionize. It never happened from the top down, he says, rather the change has always come from the bottom up.
The enormous power of ordinary people…People have had the audacity, the boldness, to believe that something better is right around the bend, that something better is out on the horizon. That is how this country was built.
Which he then brings back, to rousing effect, to what he hopes to accomplish with his candidacy:
And so let me just say this today, Oakland, California, I can’t do this on my own. This campaign is a vehicle for you. It is a vehicle for your hopes, it’s a vehicle for your dreams. When a million voices join together, they can not be stopped!
Cue rapturous applause.
The thing about Obama and the reason he does seem to transcend party, race, religion, everything, is that he connects on a level that we’re not used to Democrats connecting on. Bill Clinton got you in the gut of course, but more recently we’re so used to getting laundry lists from candidates, it’s so refreshing to have a politician who appeals to something deeper in us and who gets that voting is not about making a rational decision based on facts, it’s about making a judgment call based on gut instinct. Obama is running on the idea that we should all vote for someone and something, not just against someone. And he’s also reminding us about the stakes of this election: the future of our country. It’s optimistic and yes it is audacious. But more than anything else, on some level it’s exactly what we need. I think the enormous crowds he gets wherever he goes are a testament to that, Oakland’s 12,000 strong not the least among them.
Once the speech was over, he worked the crowd a bit. Here are a few photos.
As we know, the presidential candidates like to swoop in to California for money and often swoop right out again without speaking to voters who can't afford the 4-figure price of admission. Well, now, thanks to the power of the Internet, we can all listen in on what goes on inside those fundraisers.
John McCain held a $1,000/plate event at the Hyatt Regency in Irvine, CA on Monday and who was there with videocamera in hand but right wing blogger Jon Fleischman (his You Tube channel.) Thanks to him for the insightful video.
In this first piece, McCain makes the case for his candidacy, not just as a candidate for president nationally, but as a candidate seeking California's support specifically. The most intriguing quote:
California must be in play if any Republican wants to be elected president of the United States of America.
Video and more over the flip…
And he's not just talking about winning the Republican nomination, he wants California's electoral votes in the general (notice how shamelessly he kisses California's ass…)
I believe that I can convince a majority of the people of this great state, of this incredibly great state, this HUGE state, that I am the best qualified to be the president of the United States
It's clear that McCain thinks he'd be of particular interest to California voters because he is from the west, Arizona. And as he says, somewhat laughably, it seems to me:
I understand water, I understand land.
But his point is clear — he's making his case by appealing to California's issues, exactly what we'd like all candidates to do. There's one big problem for ole' Johnny though: a little thing called Iraq.
In the next piece, McCain continues his war cheerleading and expresses frustration with having to return to Washington to, er, do his job (say it isn't so!) This line was particularly contempt-spewing:
I probably have to try to go back to the city of Satan in the next couple of days so we take up another resolution by the Democrats to somehow get us out of Iraq.
City of Satan, John, really? Well, he was among Orange County Republicans. The guy knows his audience.
But really, does anyone really think a Republican outside of the Arnold mold really has a shot in hell of winning California? After all, Schwarzenegger has made it abundantly clear where he stands on the war: diametrically opposed to John McCain.
I think a timeline is absolutely important because I think that the people in America don't want to see another Korean War or another Vietnam War where it's an open-ended thing. There should be a timeline.
Then again, McCain doesn't have to believe he can win California, he probably doesn't, he just has to make the money men in that room believe it, all the better to take their money and run. But I still can't help but smile at the premise of the case he's making, that to win the presidency any Republican is going to have to win California. To be true, that statement must presume that at the very least Ohio and Florida will go Dem next year. And while I'd like to believe that's true, it's sweet indeed to hear such desperation coming straight from the Republicans' mouths.
We here at ATM Watch will continue to track the candidates both in person and online as they come and go through our state in the coming year. ATDleft will be tracking Mitt Romney in Dana Point on Friday and I'm hoping to get up to Oakland on Saturday for Obama's rally. And if you have questions you'd like us to get to the candidates, feel free to submit them HERE.
It's our goal to make sure the candidates meet with every day California voters, not just the donors.
After all our phone calls, e-mails, and blog posts last summer and fall, Debra Bowen’s victory over Bruce McPherson really was one of the highlights of last November 7. Not only was Bowen’s election extremely important for our state but her victory was made all the sweeter by the fact that she is one of us, a progressive, a true netroots all-star who won statewide in California largely due to an activated base of grassroots supporters.
So The Courage Campaign is proud to feature Secretary of State Bowen on our third statewide conference call to talk directly to us, no longer as a candidate but as California’s Secretary of State.
Please join us this Thursday, March 15, at 4pm for a discussion during which Secretary Bowen will address the state of electronic voting today, the upcoming 2008 elections, the voter registration situation as well any questions you might have for her. RSVP HERE for dial-in details.
This is news? You mean some people actually thought “post-partisanship” was, like, real?
The conclusion of the article:
conditions are ripe for the kind of partisan clash that Schwarzenegger says is vanishing.
More…
As contemptuous as we are of Arnold’s “post-partisan” nonsense, the article casts Republicans as the biggest opponents of the governor’s invented style of fake governance:
Post-partisanship, said a rueful state Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) “is the process by which Arnold sits down with Democratic leaders and gets them to do exactly what they wanted to do all along.”
And…
“A lot of the large goals accomplished last year didn’t feel bipartisan to us,” said Michael Villines (R-Clovis), leader of the Assembly’s Republicans. “It just felt like we got steamrolled.”
Certainly, Republican support was scant among the three accomplishments the article cites as Arnold’s pillars of “post-partisanship”: “a multibillion-dollar public works project, a plan for cutting prescription drug prices and a program to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.”
But the state’s elected Democrats aren’t exactly doing a jig either.
Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland), who voted for the environmental bill last year, now says the market-based carbon-trading system the state adopted won’t do enough to curb global warming.
And…
On his recent trip to Washington, the governor met with the state’s congressional delegation to discuss ways to get more federal money for California and to urge members of both parties to work together…U.S. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) said the meeting yielded little in the way of concrete accomplishment; she described it as more cosmetic than substantive.
In other words, despite the fact that Schwarzenegger plans to tour the country over the next year touting the unifying nature of “post-partisanship,” the governor has actually managed to alienate both Democrats AND Republicans.
So I guess the MSM deserves kudos for noticing and reporting what we’ve known for a while: that “post-partisanship” is merely Arnold v.3.0, a role he’s playing based not on some core principle of above-the-partisan-fray governance, but rather on political calculation.
national political analysts said Schwarzenegger’s style could be tough to export. Few Republicans elected in classic “red” states see the need to accommodate Democrats in ways that Schwarzenegger has felt necessary in his “blue” state.
“If you’re in a solid red state, I don’t think you have to do that,” said G. Terry Madonna, a political science professor at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania.
The key words in those paragraphs: “need” and “have to.” “Post-partisanship” IS politics, reflecting the political reality that governors of one party who run a state dominated by the other party have known forever. It’s just that no one before has so brazenly claimed it as his own and felt the need to brag about it.
But then again Arnold is unique; he knows how beneficial it is to one’s career when a sequel does better than the original.
Here in California, we’re used to presidential candidates swooping in for fundraisers before taking off to Iowa or New Hampshire to engage with those states’ primary voters on our dime.
Well, now that our primary is moving up to February 5, 2008, things are changing, and as the candidates come and go, The Courage Campaign’s ATM Watch will be tracking them. It is our hope that in between fundraising stops, the candidates actually take some time to speak to California’s voters about California’s issues. And so far, no one is living up to this ideal more than John Edwards.
John Edwards came to California last Friday and stayed through Monday when he appeared at UCLA for the latest stop on his college tour. In between, in addition to a fundraiser or two, he spoke to Fresno farm workers, a Santa Monica Democratic club and Berkeley college students, none of which involved taking a withdrawal from the ATM that is California.
The fact that John Edwards is speaking to California voters whose attendance doesn't depend on a 4-figure donation is significant. It says that sure, he's coming here for money but he also cares about the issues regular California voters care about.
Here are some samples of news coverage of his events to give a sense of how John Edwards is embodying the way we'd like all candidates to treat California voters.
These workers are at the heart of why I want to be president of theited States," Edwards said, flanked by UFW President Arturo Rodriguez. "We need comprehensive immigration reform in this country, and that includes the ability of people to earn citizenship."
He's saying this in the heart of red California, mind you. In fact, at a nearby fundraiser earlier in the day:
Some guests also said they might attend receptions for Republican presidential hopefuls including former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Arizona Sen. John McCain, both of whom are expected to tour the valley."Most of us are Republicans, conservative folks," said co-host Joe Uremovic, a Fresno agricultural attorney.
Edwards continued to demonstrate his habit of speaking fearlessly and putting his money where his mouth is at his Berkeley rally on Sunday. Edwards doesn't just seek the support of labor, he earns it:
Edwards told the crowd that he appeared at the YWCA instead of on the UC Berkeley campus as a gesture of support for campus janitors in a labor dispute with the university. The janitors are members the powerful American Federation of State and County Municipal Employees.
“We are standing with these workers who are trying to get a decent wage and to be able to support their families,” Edwards said. “It is part of today’s march of justice and equality.”
And on the subject of the Democratic Party:
"I want to say something about my party," he said. "I'm so tired of incremental, careful caution. Where is our soul? Where is our soul? We are our most powerful when we speak from here" — he touched his heart — "and not from a poll."
Amen, Senator.
But perhaps the most moving testimony as to the impact Edwards's simply taking a few hours out of his schedule to speak to regular California voters came from the mouths of voters themselves:
“Being able to come here to see someone who is running for president was an amazing opportunity,” said sophomore Caroline Szymanska, a group leader for Cal Lobby Day
And…
"He came to listen to us, the farmworkers," said Angelina Zabala, a mother of six from Porterville. "I didn't think the candidates were going to take what we have to say into account but I see he wants to help. I'm thinking about voting for him."
Thank you, Senator, for proving that retail politics is possible in our unwieldy state and that our voters will, as Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez said prior to the vote to move the state primary up to February:
have an opportunity to look at the candidates square in the eye and say ‘where do you stand on the issues that I as a Californian care about?’
In addition to tracking the candidates, The Courage Campaign’s ATM Watch series will also be facilitating that conversation by collecting questions from voters and delivering them to the canididates.
As part of our Presidential Candidate ATM Watch series, I decided to try to follow Hillary Clinton while she was here in Los Angeles on Saturday. It was her first trip to our neck of the woods since announcing her candidacy for president and I figured what better way to track her than to go where she goes and capture whatever public appearances she makes on video. Will she actually address California's issues with California's voters? I had to find out.
I started out with very little to go on. All I knew were 2 vague pieces of information: 1. she was scheduled to appear at a "public event" with Mayor Villaraigosa in Los Angeles and 2. she would be attending a fundraiser in Laguna Beach at 11:45am. A google search gave me nothing. So I asked around. One of the tips I received was that Mayor Villaraigosa was going to be appearing at L.A. City Hall that morning to kick off Keep America Beautiful, a nationwide urban beautification project, as well as that of our local permutation Keep Los Angeles Beautiful. The event was to begin at 8am and while I had no confirmation that Hillary would attend, it seemed up her alley so I decided to operate under the assumption that she would be there.
So, I borrowed a video camera and set my alarm for 7am.
Follow me over the flip…
When I awoke Saturday morning, my first order of business was to google "Hillary Villaraigosa" again, the very same search that had resulted in nothing useful the previous evening. This morning, however, word had gone out: she would indeed be appearing at the mayor's side at city hall. Sweet!
I got in my car and headed off to the event.
I managed to park in a $6 lot nearby and made my way to city hall. It was sort of a ghost town, with only media and an army of young Keep America Beautiful volunteers gathered in front of a fence-like barricade at the base of the building's steps. Behind the barricade sat many empty chairs and a podium. It wasn't until 9am that there was any sign of life on "stage" but little did I know what a lineup was in store. As the launch of Keep America Beautiful, the event featured song and dance from green-friendly groups, children from local schools, as well as a call to action by Darryl Hannah, Ed Begley Jr. and "Recycle Man" (yep, we can get pretty surreal up here in L.A., ourselves…) Finally, as 10am approached, the mayor and the senator were introduced to the blaring trumpets of the All City marching band.
After a relatively brief (and enthusiastic) speech by the mayor to introduce the Keep America Beautiful campaign, Villaraigosa then turned to Hillary. What was interesting about the whole thing was how sort of lowkey her appearance was. Neither of them mentioned the fact that she is running for president and while that fact certainly goes without saying, I liked how there was a sort of silent acknowledgement that this event wasn't about her.
In her brief speech, which she literally seemed to give off the top of her head, Hillary focused on improving the environment; her message: it takes a village.
And while the speech could have been given anywhere, she did customize it to California:
California has led the way. California, through conservation and energy efficiency and laws that really make it clear that you want it done in the most efficient way. You want cars to continue to take people all over L.A. and California but you want to increase gas mileage. The rest of the country needs to follow the example that the state and city here have set and I intend to do all I can to try to make sure that's exactly what we do.
Umm, actually, Senator, we'd really prefer not to have to take our cars all over creation, it's just we have no other choice. But I digress…
The full video of her speech is here:
Once the speech ended, Hillary and Antonio posed for pictures, handed out some local environmental awards and finally sort of worked the crowd at the barricade. I went off to get some food and plan my next move. I knew that Hillary would be heading down to Laguna Beach next but I still didn't know where. Was it worth heading all the way down there (an hour's drive) only to come up empty handed? What the hell, I figured, if nothing else it would be an adventure.
I was on the road around 11am and had a fairly traffic-free ride. I had jotted down the general freeway instructions to Laguna but since I didn't know where exactly I was going, I had no real endpoint. So when I came upon the 73 toll road, I asked for directions into the heart of Laguna and figured I'd start there.
I first thought I might be on the right track when I came upon Rte 1, which ran along the ocean. I saw what looked like the driveway to a country club backed up with cars…hmm, I wondered, could that be it? I stopped at a drive-thru ice cream place and asked if they knew where Hillary would be for a fundraiser. They didn't but said I might want to check out the Patriots Day parade going on down the road a bit. It was as good a place to start as any.
I headed into the little downtown area and parked. There was no parade in sight so I figured I'd poke my head into a few stores and see what leads I could find. In the second store I entered, I met a man named Alex who seemed fairly confident that she was staying at "the hotel across from the Ritz" and that that was where the event would be: "…the tents are all set up and everything." Hmm, OK, at least it was something. He pointed me in the direction and as I drove down the 1, I called the Ritz and got the number for the nearby hotel, which I proceeded to call under the auspices of looking for directions to the hotel as I was running late to the fundraiser. Not surprisingly, the concierge informed me that "Hillary Clinton is not holding a fundraiser here."
Arggh. A dead end. Well, I figured I'd keep driving in the same direction and see what I could see. Suddenly on my right was a lineup of anti-war protesters. I slowed down as I drove by and honked my support. As I passed through an intersection, I saw two women adorned with STOP THE WAR paraphernalia, walking up the street. I pulled over and rolled down my window. "Do you guys know where Hillary is," I asked. Wouldn't you know it, one of them actually did and offered to write directions down for me in exchange for a ride to her house. I obliged.
Once armed with directions, I headed up to the private home where the fundraiser was being held. It was located in the area that locals call the "top of the world" as it was at the top of a huge hill, not surprisingly, in quite a wealthy neighborhood. Military Families Speak Out had planned a small protest there and I was happy to join them as they waited outside the home in hopes that perhaps Hillary would speak to them on her way out. Either way it would make good video.
Judge for yourself below. I was right about one thing…it was quite an adventure.
We'll continue to track the candidates as they travel to our fair state, the ATM of presidential campaigns. We're under no illusion that that practice will end, we'd just like them to speak to some ordinary voters while they're here and address California's issues, not just take our money and run off to Iowa.
So check in with us HERE for our ongoing adventures tracking the candidates and please join the conversation. Have a tip of where a candidate is going to be? Leave it in the comments or e-mail it to me at todd AT couragecampaign DOT org. And if you've gone to an event, we'd love to post your take on it here on the blog – with video of course if you have it!
Sorry this is late. It covers through Thursday, March 1.
Over the flip, Nunez disses Arnold, SB840 is re-introduced, An Inconvenient Truth wins, UC Davis food workers march and bloggers finally get our own category because, let’s face it, we are the story…
State Politics
Brad Parker at PDA has a must-read article about the DLC vs Progressive conflict within the Democratic Party at play here in CA. http://blog.pdamerica.org/?p=1002
Julia covers Nunez’s smackdown of Arnold and offers a bit of a smackdown of her own. Old habits die hard, I guess. http://workingcalifornians.com/blog/julia_rosen/2007/03/01/beggar_not_a_lecturer_needed
The Ojai Post has all you’d ever want to know about CSI: California (California Solar Initiative, silly) aka the million solar roofs bill. Oh, and by the way, happy birthday Ojai Post! < http://www.ojaipost.com/2007/02/the_new_california_solar_inita.shtml http://www.ojaipost.com/2007/02/happy_birthday_ojai_post.shtml
Listen to Jerry McNerney talk tough on Bush accountability http://weblog.jerrymcnerney.com/2007/02/kcbs_mcnerney_w.html
SFist has some disturbing news about some immigrant sweeps taking place in the Bay Area. San Mateo and SF may even create immigration sanctuaries. http://www.sfist.com/archives/2007/02/26/she_sells_sanctuary.php
Wu Ming has some great local coverage of the religious right’s picketing of the First Baptist Church in Davis and a UC Davis food worker’s march. http://surfputah.blogspot.com/2007/02/by-their-fruits-shall-ye-know-them.html http://surfputah.blogspot.com/2007/03/pictures-from-todays-ucd-food-service.html
LA County will get that transportation bond money after all. And so will many parts of the state. http://couragecampaign.org/entries/petition-to-widen-the-405-delivered/
Frank at CPR is raising some excellent questions about the criteria for blogger credentials to cover the state legislature. Bill Cavala argues that if the press corps controls access to legislators, the public should know to whom they’re beholden as well.
I really believe that people telling their personal stories are going to be key to winning the healthcare debate. California Notes has one woman’s story.
Last Sunday night, Al Gore’s movie won best documentary feature (there isn’t a category for film that saved the world, I guess.) Does this mean he’s running ?
http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=5379
The Ruth Group digs deeper into why the National Science Teachers Association denied free copies of An Inconvenient Truth for classrooms.
Karen Ocamb of In Magazine LA guest posts at Courage Campaign about the push back by researchers against the religious right’s distortions of science. http://couragecampaign.org/entries/rightwing-distortions/
Elliott brings us the results of an Immigration Policy Center poll that shows that as illegal immigration has risen, violent crime has plummetted. Cue mass right wing head explosion. http://couragecampaign.org/entries/new-report-debunks-myth-of-undocumented-immigrant-crime-wave/
Dump Doolittle and dday are covering the ouster of Carole Lam and the ongoing tribulations of the Gonzalez 7. http://solongjohn.blogspot.com/2007/03/subpoenas-issued-in-gonzales-seven.html http://d-day.blogspot.com/2007/03/iglesiasgate-wilson-and-domenici.html
Well, by the looks of a new CBS/NY Times poll, at least on the issue of healthcare, they sure seem to be. You thought the widespread support for universal healthcare among Californians was surprising, check out the results of this national poll. Yet another example of just how far ahead of Washington the American people are.
First, to get a sense of the mood of the poll's respondents, let's look at how they rate George Bush and the direction in which he's leading the country.
Bush Job Approval/Disapproval: 29/61%
Right track/Wrong track: 23/68%
Ouch. Now onto the subject of healthcare…
How is Bush handling the issue of healthcare specifically?
Approval/Disappoval: 24/60%
Remember, these are national numbers. Now let’s look at some more in depth questions asked by the poll.
One thing that's clear right off the bat is that people consider healthcare reform of paramount inportance. When asked
9. Which of these domestic policies is most important for the President and Congress to concentrate on right now: 1. reducing taxes, 2. making health insurance available to all Americans, 3. strengthening immigration laws, or 4. promoting traditional values?
55% of respondents answered healthcare.
But do they think government is the answer?
27. Do you think the federal government should guarantee health insurance for all Americans, or isn’t this the responsibility of the federal government?
Guarantee: 64%
Not responsibility: 27%
What's more, despite the fact that more respondents are satisfied with their own coverage (43%) than are dissatisfied (42%,) respondents are signaling in this poll that they would be willing to sacrifice so that all Americans were guaranteed healthcare coverage.
28. IF ANSWERED "SHOULD GUARANTEE", ASK: What if that meant that the cost of your own health insurance would go up? Then, do you think the federal government should guarantee health insurance for all Americans, or not?
Guarantee: 48%
Don't Guarantee: 11%
OK, but surely they're not willing to pay higher taxes…
31. Would you be willing or not willing to pay higher taxes so that all Americans have health insurance that they can't lose no matter what?
Willing: 60%
Not willing: 34
And even more specifically:
32. IF ANSWERED "WILLING" TO Q31, ASK: Would you be willing or not willing to pay $500 a year more in taxes so that all Americans have health insurance they can't lose, no matter what?
Willing: 49%
Not willing: 10%
Out of context these numbers would seem to send a clear message to Washington: that Americans, not just those in blue states or liberal voters, but most Americans want politicians to guarantee health insuraance to all citizens. But one thing the poll makes clear is that these numbers are actually quite similar to polling from the early 90s and we all know how that worked out. So despite what appears to be a clear mandate from the American people, movement on this issue is still going to require political will and courage. Fortunately, a lot has changed since 1993. For one thing, the progressive movement now has a support structure: US, and we won't let the rightwing scuttle the issue this time.
Progressives have been ready for universal healthcare for years and as with most other issues, the American people have caught up to us. Now it's just up to Washington…
Within 72 hours of Mayor Villaraigosa signing the living wage bill, we should see a law suit filed by business interests seeking to repeal it.
Well, Villaraigosa signed it into law on Tuesday and sure enough, a lawsuit was filed hot on its heels on Wednesday. Now it's Thursday and already the ordinance has been blocked, temporarily at least.
A Superior Court judge Wednesday temporarily blocked a new law extending the city's "living wage" to workers at LAX-area hotels from taking effect until May at the earliest.
The ruling, by Judge Dzintra Janavs, came in response to a challenge to the law filed Wednesday by seven of the dozen hotels that would be required to pay all workers a living wage — $10.64 per hour including health benefits — under the new law.
To understand why Judge Janavs ruled this way, let's look back to how we got here…
Late last year, the LA City Council passed a law mandating that LAX area hotels pay their nonunion workers a living wage.
The city's living wage ordinance, which was passed a decade ago, requires that workers at companies that contract with the city be paid wages and benefits equal to $10.64 per hour.
The new law for the first time expands that worker protection to businesses — a dozen Los Angeles International Airport-area hotels — that have no formal financial relationship with the city.
The area business community opposed the ordinance and sought to take it to voters in the form of a ballot referendum to repeal the measure. By December 29, they'd gathered enough signatures to put it on the ballot.
A broad business coalition united to spend more than $800,000 to collect more than 103,000 signatures to force the council to back down or put the measure on a ballot referendum.
On January 31, in order to avoid a costly battle, the City Council rescinded the law.
By reaching an agreement in principle with business and labor representatives to rescind and replace the law with new legislation, City Council members and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said they wanted to avoid a costly ballot fight…estimated at $15 million.
That new legislation passed the city council in mid-February and was immediately met with opposition from business leaders. From the LA Chamber of Commerce:
"The substitute ordinance is unacceptable to the business community," it said.
"The new law is not substantially different from the original ordinance – it unfairly mandates the wages of specific businesses that must pay employees and provides no long-term assurance that this unprecedented government control will be limited to these businesses."
Which brings us to where we are now: a blocked living wage ordinance. The lawsuit that was filed on Wednesday to block it argued that by replacing the original ordinance with one that essentially does the same thing,
the council effectively violated the constitutional right to referendum of those citizens who signed the petition.
And to that question
Janavs…said that the hotels had made a "sufficient showing" that they would prevail.
So now the law is blocked until they hold a hearing on May 11 to determine the ordinance's fate.
Temporary or not, this ruling is a win for the Chamber of Commerce and the LAX hotels. The city council acted in good faith by rescinding the original law, presumably believing that by doing so the business community would let the replacement law go into effect.
Not so.
It makes me wonder why the city council even agreed to rescind it in the first place. Yes the ballot referendum would be costly but at least then by May we'd have an answer, which would likely be support on the part of voters for the living wage law, if the Working Californians poll is any indication. Now we have no law and no ballot referendum, just 3 months of a court-mandated freeze.
This past Saturday, 12,000 of my closest friends and I gathered in Oakland to see (or in some cases, just hear…) Barack Obama speak. It’s nice to see Senator Obama giving the public some face time while he swings through our state to do what we know every presidential candidate must: make a withdrawal from the ATM that is California.
