Bill sent to interim study as lack of votes became apparent

by Brian Leubitz

With the recent negative coverage from the movie Blackfish, activists from across the nation were looking to the Assembly today. The orca hearings in Sacramento got a lot of press coverage, but the bill will not move forward this year:

In a move that effectively kills the legislative effort for the year, the legislation aimed at ending SeaWorld’s killer whale shows was sent to interim hearings. The author agreed to the committee chair’s request when it became clear that the votes were not there to move the bill. The action spares legislators and SeaWorld the uncertainty that a simple defeat of the bill in committee would have brought since bills sent to interim cannot be reconsidered. Presumably, hearings will be held after the close of the legislative session that could shape the debate in 2015.(IVN / Shawn M. Griffiths)

As you might expect, SeaWorld was very, very opposed to the bill and brought out all the stops. Their argument is fairly well laid out in this Fox5 video, but the short version is that the whales are better off performing because that is the most stimulating part of their day. That question will get some more study this year as the bill is likely to come up again. On the eve of the hearings, activists delivered over a million signatures in support of the measure, and the attention is unlikely to totally recede anytime soon.

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

With 100% of precincts reporting, the race for the 50th Assembly District ended with an upset, with community organizer Torie Osborn ending up in third place, and the Democratic Mayor of Santa Monica, Richard Bloom and Democratic Assemblywoman Betsy Butler surviving the June primary – only to face each other again in November.

Butler squeaked into first place by only 102 votes.

Her boss, Assembly Speaker John Perez, spent over a million dollars to get Butler those votes. But while he was busy waging a war against Torie Osborn in AD50, he lost the war for AD66, and ultimately the 2/3rds majority Democrats desperately needed to break Republican obstruction in Sacramento.

Let me explain.

The Democratic candidate in AD66, Al Muratsuchi, came in first against his Republican opponents and will face off against millionaire Republican Craig Huey in the fall. But while good news for Democrats in the short-run, the numbers look dismal for Muratsuchi in November.

With 100% of precincts reporting,Muratsuchi garnered 22,000 votes while his Republican opponents Huey and Nathan Mintz combined received nearly 33,000 votes. Mintz will certainly endorse Huey, so expect Republican voters to fall in line for the general election.

That’s a hell of an enthusiasm gap to overcome.

Muratsuchi received virturally no support from Sacramento even as Perez publicly  declared the Santa Monica/West Hollywood race his top priority, securing the California Democratic Party endorsement for Butler at the February convention, then directing or pressuring Assembly members, Sacramento unions, and PACS to dump over a million dollars into the safe blue seat.

What that means in real-world terms is that while Sacramento squandered it’s resources in AD50, there was nothing left over to help South Bay activists register voters or build any infrastructure to get out the vote. It’s a deficit that, even if corrected now, will haunt the district through the fall.

What remains to be seen is if Perez will bother to correct that deficit at all. In fact, it’s far more likely he will continue this destructive pattern into the general election.

Victory in November isn’t assured for Butler. By all accounts, she proved to be a terrible campaigner in the AD50 race, relying almost entirely on Sacramento’s largess to get her through the June primary. It’s anyone’s guess as to how she will do against Bloom, who has the advantage of real – not manufactured – incumbency in the district.

As Sacramento contemplates even more draconian cuts to education, healthcare, social services and environmental protection, the legacy of these two races will be a stunning indictment of Assembly Speaker John Perez’s lack of leadership.