Assembly Speaker John Perez

After a day of headache-induced number-crunching I hoped I’d have better news to report today, but it appears Speaker Perez and Sacramento Democrats are still prioritizing the reelection of safe incumbents over achieving a two-thirds super majority in the California Assembly

Democrats currently enjoy a majority in both the Assembly and the State Senate, but would have to pick up at least two more seats in each chamber to achieve the super-majority needed to pass revenue increases over the objections of an obstructionist Republican minority.

Yet campaign finance reports reveal that Speaker Perez, Sacramento Democratic lawmakers and state and county Democratic campaign committees have spent nearly half a million dollars more defending two safe democratic seats this election cycle than they have in defending a Los Angeles coastal district against a possible Tea Party takeover.

In the 10th Assembly District (Marin, D+35) Sacramento Democrats donated $925K to Mike Allen, an incumbent Assembly member who moved into the  open district when his existing district was carved up and  reapportioned. Mr. Allen’s opponent is Marc Levine, a fellow Democrat.

In the 50th Assembly district (Santa Monica, D+33), Sacramento Democrats donated $601K to Assemblywoman Betsy Butler, who moved north to the Democratic stronghold after redistricting meant she’d have to run in the new, more conservative 66th Assembly district (Torrance, D+3). Like Allen, Butler is running against Democratic challenger (Santa Monica Mayor, Richard Bloom).

In the South Bay, Torrance School Board member Al Muratsuchi became the Democratic candidate for AD66 after Betsy Butler left the district.  Election experts consider the race highly competitive for Republicans, giving them the best opportunity in two decades to pick up a seat in that area.

Before the June primary, few Sacramento Democrats, including both John Perez and Betsy Butler had made any financial contributions to Muratsuchi, forcing the candidate to loan his campaign $45,000 to defend the new South Bay Assembly seat against two Tea Party candidates, Nathan Mintz, who ran and lost a close race against Butler in 2010, and Craig Huey, who ran an unsuccessful $500,000 self-financed congressional campaign against Janice Hahn last year.

After the June primary however, Sacramento finally began investing in Muratsuchi’s campaign, donating $967K to help defeat opponent Craig Huey. Clearly, a huge improvement, but will it be enough? The most recent campaign finance reports show Muratsuchi and Huey are almost dead even in the amount of cash they have on hand.

Eric Bauman, Vice-Chair of the California Democratic Party, says the AD66 race is the party’s “number one” priority. And if you compare these three races in isolation, that statement is correct.

The bigger problem, however, is Perez and Sacramento Democrats aren’t making a two-thirds majority their “number one” priority at all. Not when they’re spending $500K more on two absolutely safe Democratic seats than they are to defend a competitive swing-district seat that could fall under Republican control.

UPDATE

Sacramento responds via Twitter. Steve Maviglio is a Democratic political consultant for John Perez,  former Deputy Chief of Staff to Speakers Karen Bass and Fabian Nunez, and former press secretary to Gov. Gray Davis.

@venice4change U should really ask the Dem candidates in hot Assembly races if the speaker is “doing enuf”. Your blog is dead wrong.

– Steven Maviglio (@stevenmaviglio) October 25, 2012

@venice4change Nobody–and I mean nobody–believes 2/3 vote in Assembly is in play. Think b4 u write.

– Steven Maviglio (@stevenmaviglio) October 25, 2012

@venice4change I’m guessing you think Obama could win Alabama 2 if he had a fully funded campaign #planetreality

– Steven Maviglio (@stevenmaviglio) October 25, 2012

Back in February, I reported how Dem leadership in Sacramento apparently just wasn’t all that into winning a 2/3rds majority this year.

Turns out 4 months later, not much has changed.

To review, thanks to redistricting and a new “open primary” system, Democrats have a realistic shot in 2012 at picking up the two seats in the Assembly needed to achieve a 2/3rds Democratic super-majority and overcome obstruction from Republicans. Without that super-majority, things will continue to deteriorate in Sacramento, with Democrats forced to make draconian cuts to education and the social safety net instead of finding ways to raise revenue to balance the California budget.

“California voter approval of the Democratic-controlled legislature slinks along between 9 and 20 percent in recent Los Angeles Times and Field polls,” writes former state Senator Tom Hayden in the Nation magazine. “Despite Democratic majorities in both houses and control of all statewide offices, the Democratic Party seems chronically unable to deliver the minimum that voters want from their government: results. College tuitions keep rising, and college doors keep closing. School funding keeps declining. Wetlands and redwoods keep disappearing. Billions spent on mass transit do not reduce congestion and air pollution. To a disillusioned majority, all the Sacramento fights appear to be about slowing the rate of California’s decline”

Yet Democratic leadership and PACs donated over a million dollars to two “incumbent” Assembly members running in super-safe Democratic districts while virtually ignoring other seats in swing districts (source ca.sos.gov)

Mike Allen in AD10 (+35 democratic voter registration) and Betsy Butler in AD50(+33 democratic) together received 5x more money than Al Muratsuchi – a non-incumbent Democrat running in AD66 (+3 democratic) against two better-known and well-funded Republicans.

He has received no money from the California State Democratic Party, while Allen and Butler combined have received over a $100K.

Eric Bauman, Vice Chair of the California Democratic Party, believes it’s a non-issue.

“Let’s not get caught up in misunderstanding or distorting the challenge. Muratsuchi’s race is a November race, not a June race – rest assured he’ll be fully resourced in the general election.”

Rick Jacobs, founder of the California Courage Campaign, disagreed, raising concerns that throwing resources at safe Democratic seats would damage the CDP’s credibility with grassroots activists.

“So then comes the question as to why, given priorities statewide, the leadership raises and spends hundreds of thousands of dollars in AD 50. How does that inspire people to work hard and raise money for 2/3?”

Susie Shannon who serves on the Executive Board of the CDP Progressive Caucus was similarly incredulous. “How do they expect to raise money from the grassroots in the future if they are just going to whittle it away on safe Democatic seats? Any way you slice it, the (money) spent on the Butler primary could have been saved for the Marutsuchi general election to defeat the Republican candidate, or any number of more productive endeavors. I would rather see this money going to overtime pay for the overworked CDP staffers.”

The question now is what happens after June 5th if “incumbent” Assembly democrats Butler and Allen end up running against “non-incumbent” Democrats in November instead of Republicans.

Will Democratic candidates facing Republicans in other districts be, as Bauman promises, “fully resourced”? Or will Butler and Allen continue to take the lion’s share of Sacramento’s and the CDP’s pie?

“I would venture many thousands will be spent to support the candidates endorsed by the CDP,  and that includes Butler and Allen,” said Bauman.

“The CDP and (Speaker John Perez’s) priorities should be to make sure we have 2/3 majority so we could actually accomplish some important things like generating revenue, ” said Agi Kessler, a delegate to the California Democratic Party and chair of the Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley.

Concerned that party leadership would waste money on Democrat-on-Democrat races throughout the state, Kessler and other democratic party activists circulated a petition at the CDP convention asking Assembly Speaker Perez to prioritize winning a legislative super-majority when allocating limited resources. They submitted nearly 300 signatures from fellow delegates.

“As of today we’ve received no response from the Speaker or anyone in his office”, said Kessler.  

Democratic activists hoping for big gains in the California legislature this year were dealt a serious blow after campaign finance reports released last Thursday raised troubling questions about Assembly Speaker John Perez’s strategic priorities and the California Democratic Party’s ability to achieve a two-thirds majority in the State Senate and Assembly.

Democrats would have to pick up at least two more seats in each chamber to achieve the super-majority needed to pass revenue increases over the objections of a Republican minority.

Yet campaign finance reports reveal that Speaker Perez, Sacramento Democratic lawmakers and PACs donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to safe Democratic Assembly districts while virtually ignoring new “swing” districts or defending others against possible Republican pickups.

In the 10th Assembly District (Marin, D+35) Sacramento Democrats gave  $80,600 to Mike Allen, an incumbent Assemblymember who moved into the open district when his existing district was carved up and  reapportioned. This, even though Mr. Allen is running against two other Democratic candidates and no Republican opposition.

In the 50th Assembly district (Santa Monica, D+33), Perez and Sacramento Democrats donated $88,750 to Assemblywoman Betsy Butler, who moved north to the Democratic stronghold after redistricting meant she’d have to run in the new, more conservative 66th Assembly district (Torrance, D+3). Butler is running against Democratic candidates Torie Osborn and Richard Bloom, both long-time residents of the district. The lone Republican in the race, Brad Torgen, is not considered a viable candidate.

Records also show that most of these donations were given to Allen and Butler during a three-week period last December, and that many Democratic Assemblymembers who donated did not give money to any other Assembly campaigns. The timing suggests a coordinated and conscious effort from leadership to funnel money to these candidates at the expense of other candidates running in more competitive districts.

But as Butler and Allen enjoy the largess of their colleagues in Sacramento while running in districts so safe a Democratic corpse could win,  two other candidates running in swing districts which could potentially lead to Democratic super-majorities enjoy no such protection.

In the South Bay, Torrance School Board member Al Muratsuchi became the Democratic candidate for AD66 after Betsy Butler left the district.  Election experts consider the race highly competitive for Republicans, giving them the best opportunity in two decades to pick up a seat in that area.

However, not a single Sacramento Democrat, including both John Perez and Betsy Butler have yet to make any financial contributions to his campaign. 

Even Democratic State Senator Ted Lieu, whose district overlaps much of AD66, gave $1,000 to Butler, but nothing so far to Muratsuchi.

Additionally, while PACs – including the Professional Engineers in California  Government, the State Building & Construction Trades Council and  the California State Council of Laborers – gave over $300,000 to Butler  and Allen, many of them presumably at Perez’s direction, Muratsuchi received only $11,900 in PAC money, including $1,000 from the California League of Conservation Voters –  $6,800 less than they gave to Betsy Butler.

Sacramento’s indifference means Muratsuchi has had to loan his campaign $45,000 to defend the new South Bay Assembly seat against two Tea Party candidates, Nathan Mintz, who ran and lost a close race against Butler in 2010, and Craig Huey, who ran an unsuccessful $500,000 self-financed congressional campaign against Janice Hahn last year.

In the Central Valley, where termed-out Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani is running for Senate District 5 (Stockton, D+4), only one Sacramento lawmaker, fellow Democratic Assemblymember Kevin De Leon, contributed to Galgiani’s campaign.

Galgiani has $140,000 in cash on hand while her two Republican opponents, Assemblymember Bill Berryhill and former County Supervisor Leroy Ornellas, each have twice that amount.

Galgiani represents much of the district now and is considered a popular moderate. AroundTheCapitol.com reports the race is “likely the bellwether Senate district for 2012….Galgiani came out as gay to the Stockton Record on November 1, and will be running in a district that voted 64% in favor of prohibiting same-sex marriages.”

If elected, Galgiani would be the first openly gay legislator elected from a Central Valley district.

Taken in their entirety, campaign finance records, along with reports of political maneuvering, clearly and consistently demonstrate Speaker Perez and Sacramento Democrats are prioritizing the reelection of “incumbent” Assemblymembers in safe, Democratic districts over obtaining a two-thirds majority in the legislature in 2012.

Political insiders will claim this just isn’t true, that Sacramento’s strategy will change after the June primaries, focusing less on incumbents and more on flipping swing districts.

However, even if accurate, considering California’s new top-two election rules, it’s a deeply flawed strategy.

In the case of both AD66 and SD05, there’s no guarantee Muratrsuchi and Galgiani will survive a June primary and make it to November. And even if they do, their well-funded opponents will have already had a six-month head start to rip the Democrats to shreds with negative mailers and media spots.

When the California Citizens Redistricting Commission upended the political landscape in 2012,   it opened up a unique opportunity for Democrats, but only if we have the foresight and political will to take advantage of that opportunity. Now is the time to stop paying lip service about achieving a two-thirds legislative majority and actually do something about it.

Until that happens, we’re just kidding ourselves that we can fix what’s really wrong with California. The best we can hope for is triage.

As our convention convenes this weekend in San Diego, I hope the delegates, activists, candidates and politicians assembled will take a hard, cold look at how the political landscape is shifting beneath our feet.

These issues are more important than any single election or candidate, they go to the very heart of what it means to be a Democrat in California in 2012.

UPDATE:

State Senator Ted Lieu responds:

 

Re: My $1000 contribution to Betsy Butler’s committee. As you know, I have not endorsed in the race. The contribution was made in April 2011, months before the first draft of Assembly maps were released, and months before Betsy Butler announced where she was running. In early fall, my Ted Lieu for Senate 2011 committee was frozen due to the Kinde Durkee case.

   Regarding AD 66, when the Kinde Durkee legal proceedings are resolved, I will contribute to Al Muratsuchi’s campaign. I endorsed him early and am helping him in a variety of other ways.