The most remarkable quote of the week came from a backbencher Yacht Party Republican named Mark Wyland, commenting on the historically late state budget.  If the California Democratic Party had a locker room, this would be serious bulletin-board material:

Voters are unlikely to punish lawmakers for the budget delay in any substantive way on Nov. 4  unless it’s to pass a ballot measure that would change how political districts are drawn, said state Sen. Mark Wyland (R-Carlsbad).

“My experience with voters is that they really don’t care how long it takes to get a budget,” Wyland said, following his participation in a panel discussion at an event on reforming state government.

According to Wyland, prolonged budget stalemates like this year’s sometimes encourage voters to keep their incumbents. Because districts are usually heavily skewed in registration to one party or another, he said, sitting legislators are more likely to hear encouragement for their party’s ideological position than disfavor.

And voting against the party – in Wyland’s example, for tax raises or to reinstate the unpopular vehicle-license fee – is an invitation to face a primary challenge in the next election cycle, he said.

This is the calcified opinion from the Yacht Party, and why they’ll never be moved from their ideological perches.  They believe that they have more to fear from internal challenges on the grounds of insufficient fealty to failed conservative policies than from the consequences of those policies.  And there’s a lot of evidence on their side, although not as much as they think.  

But the most glaring point made in this statement is one of contempt.  It shows contempt for voters to act in the best interest of an ideology than in the best interest of the state.  It shows contempt for voters to hold the budget hostage, causing extreme hardship in the lives of state employees, community health centers, policemen and firefighters, and public schools,  and expect nobody to notice.  It shows contempt for voters to use the tyranny of the minority to advance a cause completely at odds with the prevailing opinion of the state.  Real people were affected and harmed by this budget, and all of us will be in the future as the bills of conservative borrow-and-spend economics and systematic destruction of government come due.

And the thing is, Wyland is relying on a failed model.  Demographic shifts and a reckoning of the failure of conservatism has made no district safe.  Indeed Californians can punish Yacht Party Republicans for their intransigence and obstructionism.  There are a number of races at the federal and state level where Democrats have more than a chance to unseat Republicans and turn seats blue.  In fact, with some luck and proper resources we can get very close to that 2/3 majority needed to pass budgets and fix the structural revenue deficit.  That’s where you come in.

The Calitics Editorial Board has identified five seats which strike a balance between winnable races and progressive leadership.  We’ve decided to start a major fundraising push for these five candidates between now and the end of the quarterly reporting requirement on September 30.  That gives us only a few days, but here’s the kicker – Calitics will match every donation made to these candidates up to $500 each, for a grand total of a $2,500 candidate match.  

Please visit our special Calitics Match ActBlue page and support any or all of these five great candidates:

Charlie Brown (CA-04): A recent Research 2000 poll showed Brown leading perennial candidate Tom McClintock 46-41 in this deep red district.  Brown, a retired Air Force Lt. Colonel, nearly defeated indicted Congressman John Doolittle in 2006 and has shown tremendous leadership on veteran’s issues and the FISA fight before even coming to Congress.  He’s a better Democrat we can all be proud of.

Debbie Cook (CA-46): Running in a tough district against certifiably crazy Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, Debbie Cook is running with an unabashedly progressive message.  The Mayor of Huntington Beach, Cook is an expert on peak oil and energy issues, and would instantly be one of the most knowledgeable voices in the Congress on how to move toward a post-carbon future.  She also believes in ending the Iraq occupation responsibly and achieving the goal of quality and affordable health care for all.

Hannah-Beth Jackson (SD-19): A former Assemblywoman and creator of Speak Out California, a blog and resource for Golden State progressives, Hannah-Beth Jackson has proven her progressive bona fides time and again.  Running in rapidly changing Ventura County against the former state director of the Club for Growth, Tony Strickland, Jackson can prove that even Tom McClintock’s old seat is not safe from the progressive wave.  She would lead in the State Senate on issues of economic justice and the environment.

Alyson Huber (AD-10): AD-10 is another district where the demographics are changing, and Alyson Huber is perfectly suited to take advantage of this and turn the seat blue.  Huber, an attorney and working mother, is focused on increasing access to health care and education for all Californians.  She would help tremendously in bringing us closer to that needed 2/3 majority.

Manuel Perez (AD-80): A transformative leader, Manuel Perez is ready to take that leadership to Sacramento.  Part of a growing group of Hispanic-Americans in the Coachella Valley who are leading a major progressive challenge to the typical politics of the region, Manuel has created community health clinics, served on the Coachella School Board as a trustee, taught classes, and organized his community to fight for change.  He is uniquely suited to take his varied experience and lead in the State Legislature.

The time is tight, but we need to make Mark Wyland and the Yacht Party Republicans he represents cry.  Please contribute to our Calitics Match fundraising effort before Tuesday!

(A backgrounder… – promoted by David Dayen)

As David Dayen noted on the frontpage, Hannah-Beth Jackson has a new ad on the air discussing her role in protecting schoolchildren from toxic pesticides; I live in downtown Ventura and have seen the aid on my TV several times already.  It’s an excellent piece of political communication, showing her bipartisan credentials in a race where both candidates are desperately vying for the middle ground, and illustrating the contrast between her concern for everyday families and Tony Strickland’s evident lack thereof.

But the ad, good as it is, doesn’t tell the whole story.  For a little background, let’s go way back in the time machine to the year 2000, when a group of children were blithely making their way onto school grounds for a day of classes at Mound Elementary School in Ventura, naively under the assumption that they could trust the air they breathe.  Because surely there must have been a law preventing toxic chemicals from being spewed into the air right next to a school, right?  Boy, were they wrong:

Ventura, CA  – As children were arriving to Mound Elementary School early this morning, a commonly used insecticide was applied to adjacent fields.  The chemical, Lorsban, drifted over the children and towards the school as they arrived for their classes.  Chlorpyrifos, the chemical name for Lorsban, is known to affect the nervous system by inhibiting an enzyme that is important to the transmission of nerve impulses.  The immediate affects of exposure include dizziness, headaches, nausea and other symptoms commonly associated with the common flu.

At this time, two children from Mound are confirmed as being sent home with symptoms of exposure to this pesticide.  In addition, some members of the staff have complained of headaches throughout the day, while five students from Balboa Elementary (a neighboring school) were confirmed as being sent home with symptoms of exposure.

“It is alarming to think, and now witness firsthand, that toxic chemicals can be applied next to a school when children are present.” said Richard Kirby, principal of Mound Elementary.  “This incident highlights the need for extraordinary precaution when using dangerous pesticides around schools.”

Members of Community and Children’s Advocates Against Pesticide Poisoning (CCAAPP) were alerted to this morning’s incident when a school official at Mound noticed the application taking place and saw the chemical wafting into the air.  School officials immediately contacted CCAAPP, who in turn called the County Agricultural Commissioner.

“CCAAPP has been working in the community to prevent this type of incident from taking place,” said Lynda Uvari, member of CCAAPP and parent of a Mound student.  “Unfortunately, these incidents continue to occur with no end in sight.”

No end in sight.  One parent of a Mound Elementary student recalls the incident in a passionate anti-Strickland piece from two days ago:

IT WAS A TYPICAL frantic morning at my house. My daughter, always a sleepyhead, was running late once again. We grabbed her backpack and dashed out the door to our car for the ride to Mound Elementary School in Ventura where she was a fifth grader.

Pulling up to the school we found our car enveloped by a thick fog which I had assumed was weather related. My daughter got out in the middle of it and waved goodbye. I drove home, pulled in the garage and noticed something very odd about my vehicle: it was completely covered in a sticky film.

Hours later I had a sick child holding a note from her principal.

What I had mistaken for fog was actually a cloud of Lorsban, a powerful pesticide which had been banned by the EPA for use in homes because of its neurological effects on children. The citrus operation next to the school had used a speed sprayer during school hours and sent a cloud over the campus. Dozens of children and adults were sickened that day. Testing showed it was all over playground equipment, outdoor eating areas and inside classrooms.

To our horror we discovered there was little we could do to prevent it from happening again to our children or anyone else’s. We needed help.

The farmer spraying the noxious chemical had not technically run afoul of the law, since the neurotoxin was not at that time on the “restricted” list of pesticides.  Thus, even lawsuits against the farmer in question (which were eventually successful) would have done and did do nothing to prevent further instances of toxic pesticides being sprayed next to schools during the time at which students would be in or near the school.

Something had to be done.  Fortunately, the parents of Mound Elementary students had an advocate in then-Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson, who immediately got to work on no-nonsense legislation correcting this unacceptable situation.

But it wasn’t that easy.  Despite having a Democratic governor and a Democratic legislature, the bill took a full two years to be considered and voted on.  At times, the bill seemed to be on life support, and was rescued from near death only by Hannah-Beth’s ability to marshal a broad coalition of support that wouldn’t let it go under:

“It was a team effort,” Jackson said of the two-year push to get her bill signed into law. “We all came together to do what was best for our children.”

Jackson announced the governor’s signature during a news conference at Mound Elementary School in east Ventura, where a pesticide drift occurred in the fall of 2000.

The incident prompted Jackson’s legislative effort, an endeavor she said appeared to be on life support at times, but was ultimately held together by a broad coalition of farming and environmental interests.

It took a heroic effort on Hannah-Beth’s part to make this no-brainer legislation a reality.  Tony Strickland, meanwhile, voted against the bill.  Yes, against the bill preventing toxic chemicals from being sprayed next to school grounds.  Sure, we all know that Strickland is a fraud, describing himself as a strong environmentalist while receiving a zero percent lifetime rating from the California League of Conservation Voters and voting 119 times out of 121 against environmental regulations during his six years in the Assembly.  We all know that Strickland is running a greenwashing campaign, posing as Vice-President of front company “Greenwave Solutions”, a company that apparently has no website despite being Strickland’s claim to environmentalist fame and justification for his preposterous ballot designation “Alternative Energy Executive“–despite not having put up even the basic front money his conservative friends did to create the facade:

Stricklands’s ballot designation is “Alternative Energy Executive”. Here’s what the Ventura County Star had to say about that: Strickland, “who has spent his entire adult life either working in the legislature or running for political office, has decided to present himself to voters this year wearing the mantle of a newfound vocation: ‘Alternative Energy Executive.'” To do so, he formed a new wave energy company with four political friends, but didn’t even put up the $5,000 the others had pledged to start the company”….

This putative Alternative Energy Executive voted against every alternative energy bill that came his way. He even voted against requirements for renewable energy generation (SB 1078-Byron Sher) that would have benefitted his own company.

But protecting schoolchildren from toxic chemicals isn’t an environmental issue.  It’s a human issue.  It’s an issue of basic decency.  Hannah-Beth Jackson used her credibility as not just an environmental advocate, but a decent human being to bring together farming and environmental interests to get this legislation passed, in spite of the almost unfathomable reticence of the Sacramento establishment.

Tony Strickland has no decency.  He voted against the bill apparently for no other reason than to oppose any and all laws that might constrain the “freedom” of certain farmers to poison children.  This “Renewable Energy Executive” voted not just against an environmental law: he voted against a basic law-and-order regulation designed to prevent the poisoning of children at school.

But what else should we expect from the Grand Old Party of Child Molesters?  

The most hotly anticipated State Senate election this year is in the 19th District covering Santa Barbara and Ventura County, between Democrat Hannah-Beth Jackson and Republican Tony Strickland.  Though the two are almost polar opposites, the chunk of the district in Santa Barbara, where residents have long memories about the 1969 oil spill, makes it impossible for Republicans to win with their “Drill Now” message on energy.  So Tony Strickland opted to run some ads that Al Gore might have run were he to be contesting in the district, highlighting renewable energy through wind, solar, algae, tidal and other forms.  This is completely at odds with Strickland’s doctrinaire Republican record, with votes against green building standards, minimum renewable energy standards, and even fuel-efficient tires.  Strickland has taken money from Big Oil and stood with global warming denialists in the recent past.  It’s incongruous for him to carry a pro-environment message.

So I hooked up with the Courage Campaign and the California League of Conservation Voters to put together a little video highlighting this incongruity.

What’s interesting is that the Courage Campaign’s Web tool invited those supporters who received their email blast to spread the word, and they were so successful, both online political reporters at the Ventura County Star, the region’s biggest newspaper, covered the video.  More important, the Jackson campaign has been energized to fight back against some of Strickland allies’ misleading ads on taxes, and in doing so buttresses the outside groups’ take about Strickland’s terrible environmental record.

So progressive groups are ensuring that Strickland gets away with nothing in this race, and in turn the Jackson campaign is fighting back as well and counter-punching swiftly and effectively.  This is a growing success story in the 19th.

As founder of the CALIFORNIA LIST I know all too well the importance of political positioning during an electoral cycle, especially when it comes to issues that matter to voters within your district.  And if a particular issue is a hot button to the majority of your voters, your record had better be aligned with that voting bloc if you hope to win. This is what separates the committed legislator from the calculated chameleons. Senate District 19 is community of long-standing environmental activists and GOP candidate Tony Strickland has apparently donned his coat of many colors in his senate bid against Hannah-Beth Jackson.

Lately Strickland has been wearing a green coat of paint listing himself on the ballot as “Alternative Energy Executive,” a title he dubiously earned a year ago when he co-founded GreenWave Energy Solutions.  That does sound nice!  After all, SD19 loves green and GreenWave Energy Solutions certainly conjures thoughts of eco-friendly energy solutions. So what is GreenWave and what has Strickland done in his tenure as co-founder, and more importantly, what has Strickland done for the environment before his eco-heroic rebirth?

Strickland is one of five partners of GreenWave who have each pledged to give $5000 of their own dollars to start the company – although he hasn’t paid his share yet. The company’s stated goal is to convert the force of the ocean waves off the California coastline into energy and they have applications in with the FEC to develop two projects to do so. However, all his website has about energy is the section titled “Reducing Our Dependence on Foreign Oil,” which reads:

“As Vice President of GreenWave Energy Solutions, a company created to harness the power of ocean waves, Tony Strickland is helping to invest in new, innovative, clean and renewable energy sources to help reduce our dependence on foreign oil and help jumpstart California’s economy.”

Unfortunately for Strickland, a thin coat of green paint won’t cover up the fact that he has a zero rating from the League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club. It won’t cover up the fact that he opposed a bill that requires utilities to use a higher percentage of alternative energy sources, choosing typical Republican “no-mandates” orthodoxy over the environment.  I’m sure it the voters in SD-19 are intelligent enough to discern who the real eco-friendly candidate is – Democrat Hannah-Beth Jackson and she has the record to prove it.

Jackson is committed to developing California’s green economy, protecting our air and water, preserving open space and our eco-diversity, and improving public health by working for a cleaner environment. Her record in the Assembly and as an activist on environmental issues is unparalleled. While serving in the California Assembly, Jackson chaired the two committees in the Assembly considered most critical to environmental policy:

         o 1999-2001. The Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee

         o 2002-2004. The Committee on Natural Resources

Jackson has also authored over 30 pieces of legislation designed to promote alternative energy sources, protect air and water quality, fight offshore oil drilling, reduce coastal pollution, preserve open space, protect against pesticides and toxics in our daily lives, and protect the Coastal Commission and the California coast against overdevelopment and pollution.

Jackson has received an early endorsement from the League of Conservation Voters for this election, and has received the endorsement of the Sierra Club in every election in which she’s been a candidate.  The choice is clear if you are looking for a committed environmental legislator — Tony Strickland just can’t measure up to Hannah-Beth Jackson.  To learn more about Jackson’s candidacy and other CALIFORNIA LIST supported candidates visit our website.