Woohoo! Jerry did it! Jerry McNerney has managed to become the most un-progressive Democrat of the entire California congressional delegation. For those keeping score at home, Jerry’s 82.45 was about a half point lower than the next CA Dem, Jim Costa, that progressive stalwart, at 82.97. And for all the talk of Harman changing her ways, she’s still worse than even Joe Baca, almost 7 points worse from a very safe Dem seat.

For all of you CA-45 fans, “moderate” Mary Bono came in with a stellar 4.42 Chips are Down score. So, for all the bluster of the SCHIP vote, she’s still dancing the same jig as the rest of her party.

On thing must be said, the Speaker has done an excellent job at preserving unity amongst the caucus. Whether that means she’s being too incremental and/or ineffective, or just laying down the law is the big question. The reason her approval rating, and the Congress in general, is down has a whole lot to do with the fact that little has changed on the Iraq front. So, would it be better to have a speaker who is more willing to take risks? Perhaps, but the impediment of the president always lingers over her head, veto pen in hand. So, whether the unity is really there, is an open question. Full data over the flip.

(I was working on a similar post, but I’ll still post my own, with all CA data and some other miscellany. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

The problem with most scorecards is that they are written by lobbyists concerned with always getting the votes of potential supporters. Thus, there is an equal weighting while in the real world not all votes are equal. In fact, regardless of everything else, some votes are dealbreakers and when they show up on scorecards as one of 12 votes or something, it looks silly. However, Progressive Punch has a new “when the chips are down” scorecard. After the flip is the ratings of CA’s congressional delegation, in descending order.

Senate:

92.86 Boxer, Barbara
90.45 Feinstein, Dianne

House:

100.00 Pelosi, Nancy
98.43 Sánchez, Linda T.
97.49 Capps, Lois
97.18 Lee, Barbara
96.43 Richardson, Laura
96.24 Solis, Hilda L.
95.92 Woolsey, Lynn C.
95.91 Filner, Bob
95.30 Matsui, Doris O.
95.19 Becerra, Xavier
94.98 Farr, Sam
94.67 Honda, Michael M.
94.65 Lofgren, Zoe
94.03 Roybal-Allard, Lucille
93.42 Napolitano, Grace F.
93.42 Thompson, Mike
93.38 Eshoo, Anna G.
93.31 Waters, Maxine
93.20 Miller, George
93.10 Davis, Susan A.
93.10 Tauscher, Ellen O.
92.79 Sherman, Brad
92.45 Schiff, Adam B.
92.38 Berman, Howard L.
91.80 Watson, Diane E.
90.51 Lantos, Tom
90.28 Baca, Joe
90.19 Sanchez, Loretta
89.49 Waxman, Henry A.
87.74 Stark, Fortney Pete
84.86 Cardoza, Dennis A.
83.86 Harman, Jane
82.97 Costa, Jim
82.45 McNerney, Jerry

I’m guessing that at tonight’s Calitics’ Actblue Celebrations there will be a lot of discussion about the votes to condemn MoveOn. The CA delegation split 50-50 in the senate and 16 yea and 17 nay in the house — wedged successfully by the GOP in half. After the flip is the scorecard.

Senate
Yea
Diane Feinstein

Nay
Barbara Boxer

House
Yea
Joe Baca (CA-43)
Dennis Cardoza (CA-18)
Jim Costa (CA-20)
Susan Davis (CA-53)
Anna Eshoo (CA-14)
Sam Farr (CA-17)
Jane Harman (CA-36)
Tom Lantos (CA-12)
Jerry McNerney (CA-11)
Grace Napolitano (CA-38)
Laura Richardson (CA-37)
Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-34)
Loretta Sanchez (CA-47)
Adam Schiff (CA-29)
Ellen Tauscher (CA-10)
Mike Thompson (CA-1)

Nay
Xavier Becerra (CA-31)
Howard Berman (CA-28)
Lois Capps (CA-23)
Bob Filner (CA-51)
Mike Honda (CA-15)
Barbara Lee (CA-9)
Zoe Lofgren (CA-16)
Doris Matsui (CA-5)
George Miller (CA-7)
Linda Sanchez (CA-39)
Brad Sherman (CA-27)
Hilda Solis (CA-32)
Pete Stark (CA-13)
Maxine Waters (CA-35)
Diane Watson (CA-33)
Henry Waxman (CA-30)
Lynn Woolsey (CA-6)

…who just signed on to a letter to the President vowing not to appropriate any more money to the Iraq debacle for anything other than a fully funded withdrawal.  Kudos to these 12:

Lynn Woolsey
Barbara Lee
Maxine Waters
Ellen Tauscher
Diane Watson
Bob Filner
Hilda Solis
Grace Napolitano
Linda Sanchez
Mike Honda
Pete Stark
Lois Capps

Reward good behavior.  Letter on the flip.

Dear Mr. President:

We are writing to inform you that we will only support appropriating additional funds for U.S. military operations in Iraq during Fiscal Year 2008 and beyond for the protection and safe redeployment of all our troops out of Iraq before you leave office.

More than 3,600 of our brave soldiers have died in Iraq. More than 26,000 have been seriously wounded. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed or injured in the hostilities and more than 4 million have been displaced from their homes. Furthermore, this conflict has degenerated into a sectarian civil war and U.S. taxpayers have paid more than $500 billion, despite assurances that you and your key advisors gave our nation at the time you ordered the invasion in March, 2003 that this military intervention would cost far less and be paid from Iraqi oil revenues.

We agree with a clear and growing majority of the American people who are opposed to continued, open-ended U.S. military operations in Iraq, and believe it is unwise and unacceptable for you to continue to unilaterally impose these staggering costs and the soaring debt on Americans currently and for generations to come.

Sincerely,

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (CA); Rep. Barbara Lee (CA); Rep. Maxine Waters (CA); Rep. Ellen Tauscher (CA); Rep. Rush Holt (NJ); Rep. Maurice Hinchey (NY); Rep. Diane Watson (CA); Rep. Ed Pastor (AZ); Rep. Barney Frank (MA); Rep. Danny Davis (IL); Rep. John Conyers (MI); Rep. John Hall (NY); Rep. Bob Filner (CA); Rep. Nydia Velazquez (NY); Rep. Bobby Rush (IL); Rep. Charles Rangel (NY); Rep. Ed Towns (NY); Rep. Paul Hodes (NH); Rep. William Lacy Clay (MO); Rep. Earl Blumenauer (OR); Rep. Albert Wynn (MD); Rep. Bill Delahunt (MA); Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC); Rep. G. K. Butterfield (NC); Rep. Hilda Solis (CA); Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY); Rep. Jerrold Nadler (NY); Rep. Michael Honda (CA); Rep. Steve Cohen (TN); Rep. Phil Hare (IL); Rep. Grace Flores Napolitano (CA); Rep. Alcee Hastings (FL); Rep. James McGovern (MA); Rep. Marcy Kaptur (OH); Rep. Jan Schakowsky (IL); Rep. Julia Carson (IN); Rep. Linda Sanchez (CA); Rep. Raul Grijalva (AZ); Rep. John Olver (MA); Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (TX); Rep. Jim McDermott (WA); Rep. Ed Markey (MA); Rep. Chaka Fattah (PA); Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (NJ); Rep. Rubin Hinojosa (TX); Rep. Pete Stark (CA); Rep. Bobby Scott (VA); Rep. Jim Moran (VA); Rep. Betty McCollum (MN); Rep. Jim Oberstar (MN); Rep. Diana DeGette (CO); Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA); Rep. Artur Davis (AL); Rep. Hank Johnson (GA); Rep. Donald Payne (NJ); Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (MO); Rep. John Lewis (GA); Rep. Yvette Clarke (NY); Rep. Neil Abercrombie (HI); Rep. Gwen Moore (WI); Rep. Keith Ellison (MN); Rep. Tammy Baldwin (WI); Rep. Donna Christensen (USVI); Rep. David Scott (GA); Rep. Luis Gutierrez (IL); Lois Capps (CA); Steve Rothman (NJ); Elijah Cummings (MD); and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX).

I wrote an op-ed piece for the Capitol Weekly. It goes into the importance of the primary process, and why primary challenges are a good thing.  Rather than summarizing myself, I encourage you to read it. While I’m talking about the Capitol Weekly, I’ll go ahead and highly recommend that everybody should be checking out their site every Thursday.  It’s got great coverage of all the Sacto stuff without all of the MSM BS.

I also posted the piece in the extended.

Nothing has excited so many Californians like the idea of a February primary. Seemingly everybody wants this to happen for some reason or another. But, in the end, the only thing that all the political wrangling on the date of the primary really has shown us is that we need real reform for the primary process ASAP.

With all the talk of the February primary, I wouldn’t blame you if you just turn the page. But wait, hear me out: I’m here to discuss local primaries.

One of the arguments for the February primary that I’ve seen is that we have just become the nation’s ATM. I would argue that this isn’t solely due to the date of our primary, but also that we have few contested elections. In many California districts, the primary is the de facto election. If you want to challenge your legislator or representative, you have to do it from within the party. Until California’s apportionment process is revamped, the primary is the only outlet for change in California.

The primary, since its inception, has been a source of conflict; it creates intraparty disagreement visible to the voters, frustration for incumbents and perhaps too much power for activists. But for whatever reasons that critics protest its use, it is hard to deny that the local primary is democracy in its rawest form. Hilda Solis was able to successfully challenge Congressman Matthew Martinez by being a better campaigner and having a more effective grassroots organization.
Capitol
For a more recent example, see the once mighty Sen. Joe Lieberman, who was forced to leave his party because he was hopelessly out of touch with his base. Lieberman was able to use a quirk in state election law to run as an independent, but that loophole is not available to California elected officials.
Effective primaries should be forces of change in more than just name only; they should realign the interests of the representative with their constituents.

While some primary challenges are due to term limits, see Joe Nation, or political ambition, see Barack Obama, other challenges arise out of serious gripes with the representative in question. Illinois politics offers an interesting contrast with one primary challenge that crystallized an issue in the minds of voters, and one challenge that failed to gain any traction at all. Former Sen. Moseley-Braun defeated a Sen. Alan Dixon with a campaign that highlighted Dixon’s vote to confirm Justice Clarence Thomas. Sen. Barack Obama’s first federal race was an ill-fated and ill-conceived primary challenge to Rep. Bobby Rush.

Here in California, in 1970, Joe Cohelan was slow to criticize the pretext for and the prosecution of the Viet Nam War. Ron Dellums challenged him over this issue, and eventually become a stalwart in the Congress by more accurately representing his progressive district. It should hardly be surprising that similar pressures upon incumbents are arising out of the disaster in Iraq.

Primaries should not be feared. Rather, we should embrace the notion that our democracy is fluid. Voters should be presented with options on the ballot. If the incumbent has satisfied the voters and adequately represents the interests of the district, he or she will win. However, no legislator should assume that they are entitled to their seat simply because they have won in the past. When given a better choice, voters may opt for the candidate who believes as they do.
Some have argued that the party label should be a shield and that we should ignore malfeasance or the candidate’s position on the “issue of the cycle.”

However, it demeans our democracy to say that challengers get but one shot within the party process and then there shall be no more discussion. It cuts off the conversation before we even have a track record from which to judge. The argument goes that we should overlook issues of personal and philosophical disagreement to conserve resources. I agree that resources are critical, but are they so critical that we abandon our values? Or are values so fungible in the modern political economy that we will trade them for 30 pieces of silver?

In American democracy, we are only guaranteed a few opportunities to truly speak our mind, and for most Californians, that is exclusively through the ballot box. If we only have meaningless general elections, and our primaries are uncontested, do we really live in a democracy at all?

Brian Leubitz is publisher and editor of Calitics.com, an online source of news, opinion and political discussion.

(Cross-posted from The Courage Campaign)

On Friday, the US House of Representatives debated Bush's Iraq escalation plan before voting 246-182 in favor of a non-binding resolution opposing escalation. During that debate, many members of Congress made impressive, impassioned speeches. I'd like to spotlight one here, that of Congresswoman Hilda Solis of CA's 32nd district (h/t dKos).

In her statement, Solis reminds us of the local toll this war has taken:

In the district that I represent, the 32nd in California, we've lost 13 sons to combat…This includes Lance Cpl Francisco Martinez from the city of Duarte in the San Gabriel Valley who bravely served our country despite not being a US citizen…While latinos make up 12% of the US population, they make up 17% of the servicemen and women in combat in Iraq and 11% of those have already been killed.

More excerpts and video of Congresswoman Solis’s speech over the flip. Also, see Speaker Pelosi’s YouTube channel for much much more…

Rep. Solis also goes on to demonstrate what supporting the troops really means:

We need a policy and a plan to put the welfare of our servicemen and women first so they can come home, rejoin their families and receive the care they deserve. Including culturally competent care, mental healthcare for veterans, housing and education.

She ends by stating that she will support the troops by opposing escalation:

I support our troops and the war on terror. Unfortunately the war in Iraq is not the war on terror. I'll continue to support and protect our sons and daughters who are serving as these young men have served us so well. I will do so by voting for this resolution and supporting their redeployment.

Thank you, Congresswoman for valiantly representing so many of us here in California, not just those in your district. Your words and passion do us all proud.

Watch the whole speech below: