South Bay Congressman looks to shore up long-term viability of the system

By Brian Leubitz

Don’t know if you’ve heard, but Rep. Mike Honda is in something of a dogfight to keep his seat in Congress. Ro Khanna is putting up a strong and well-funded challenge, and both are looking for ways to separate themselves. Not sure that calling for the end of the $113,700 payroll tax cap will actually divide the two, but it at least got some news coverage from the race

South Bay Rep. Mike Honda Wednesday called on Congress – and his Democratic challenger, Ro Khanna – to protect and expand Social Security benefits for seniors, saying it was time to “scrap the cap” on payroll taxes. …

“I have yet to hear a good explanation of why that cap should exist,” Honda said, adding that lifting the cap will not only ensure the program’s solvency, and help pay for expanded benefits but also maintain the safety net for seniors, the disabled, and children who rely on the program for financial security.(Carla Marinucci / SFGate)

Now, this has been a pretty consistent idea floating around in progressive circles, and has been included in many Democratic Social Security plans. It certainly isn’t new, but at the same time, it is an idea worth repeating. It would stabilize the Social Security trust fund for years to come, but Republicans have no intention of really considering it. But maybe with a bit of luck it could come up in the post-Boehner era.

Photo credit: Congressman Mike Honda with Star Trek’s George Takei. from Flickr

LG breaks ranks with Democratic Leaders

by Brian Leubitz

In a move that boosts the campaign of CA-17 Democratic challenger Ro Khanna and simultaneously promotes his Citizenville book, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom endorsed Ro Khanna.

I’m proud to support Ro. I know he will govern from a place of courage and authenticity. He has many innovative ideas to grow California’s economy and to apply technology to make government better for all his constituents. (h/t Josh Richman)

Most of the Democratic establishment, including Khanna’s former boss, President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and many members of the state Congressional delegation, has already endorsed Rep. Mike Honda. But this endorsement gets some attention for the former SF Mayor and may be able to push the former Commerce dept. official’s fledgling campaign off the ground.  

Former Obama official looks to challenge longtime Congressman

by Brian Leubitz

One of the positive aspects of term limits is that some of the more personal, intraparty battles are avoided. But you don’t have that with Congress, and Congress has been Ro Khanna’s target for a while now. Khanna, an intellectual property attorney, was a deputy assistant secretary of Commerce in the first Obama administration. Apparently he didn’t want to wait to take a crack at the 17th District.

Khanna will announce his candidacy Tuesday. The race offers the Bay Area — long known for glacial turnover among entrenched House Democrats — its second consecutive high-profile dogfight picked by a young upstart. This time, there’s the added dimension of two Asian-American Democrats facing off in the continental United States’ first Asian-American majority district.(Josh Richman/BANG)

Two big points here. First, this is a vastly different campaign because of Top-2. Top-2 opens the race up to Republicans, making their voice far more important in the heavily Democratic district. Khanna actually ran in a partisan primary in 2004 against Tom Lantos (and lost badly). The question is now how he hopes to play this new system. Now, both will be good on the major social issues, but Khanna must define himself

The other thing is that this race is really quite different than Eric Swalwell defeating Pete Stark last year. Sure, it was the same kind of challenge of a “young upstart” versus a long-time Congressman. But, while Stark had his share of supporters, he also had a few detractors. On the other hand, it is hard to find anybody who will say a bad thing about Mike Honda. He hasn’t created any enemies, and is still a pretty effective Congressman.

But perhaps the lesson to be learned from Swalwell’s win is that you can’t be patient. If you wrote up a list two years ago of potential replacements for Stark upon retirement, Swalwell would not have been very high. But by being proactive and using Top-2, he now has the power of incumbency over anybody else looking to take him on. (And there surely will be somebody to take him on.) Maybe Khanna thought this was actually his best shot, and that patience wasn’t really a virtue in this circumstance.

However you look at it, Khanna has built a pretty impressive campaign team, full of some big name strategists from the Obama campaign, including Obama 2008 field director Jeremy Bird and well-known California pollster David Binder. Bird already did an event for Khanna (the picture to the right came from that event’s Flickr set.)Honda, for his part, has a big list of endorsements including Democratic Leader Pelosi and President Obama.  

Looks like voters in the South Bay can expect a full blitz for their votes over the next eighteen months.