Tim Herdt over at the VC Star’s 95 Percent Accurate* is a veritable fountain of information today.  This time he brings us news about our favorite new state senator, “Phony” Tony Strickland.  As readers may recall, Tony Strickland ran a bogus campaign claiming to be an alternative energy entrepreneur though his alternative energy company has yet to secure a contract, and his voting record has been a boon to oil companies and other polluting industries who richly rewarded him with a major infusion of campaign contributions.

But according to Tim Herdt, Strickland may actually be persuaded to honor at least a few of his environmental campaign promises, in order to lend real credence to what had been essentially dishonest fabrications concerning his views on environmental issues based on his record:

New Ventura County Sen. Tony Strickland, who ran this fall as a “renewable energy businessman” promising to promote the development of alternative energy, has taken the first step to show that he meant what he said.

Strickland told me last month that he does not agree with the provision in his fellow legislative Republicans’ budget proposal that calls for a delay in implementing California’s landmark global warming law. That regulations to implement that law, AB 32, call for aggressive steps to promote alternative energy, including a requirement that utilities purchase a third of their electrical power from renewable sources such as solar and wind energy.

Furthermore, Strickland said he intends to soon introduce a package of clean-energy legislation.

Sounds good, but several caveats spring to mind:

1) Promises made by Strickland to a media figure like Herdt may well turn out to be as unreliable as most of the other claims Phony Tony has made over the years.

2) His promises to oppose his fellow Republicans on environmental issues in the Senate mean little if he knows that said environmental initiatives will be blockaded by his other Republican allies.  If Strickland knows that these bills and addenda will be blocked by others, his support means little; in fact, his “support” would only serve to give him cover while still maintaining his preferred anti-environmental policy aims.  We will know Strickland is serious if he makes real attempts to persuade his Republican allies to alter their votes.

3) Strickland’s promise to introduce a “package of clean-energy legislation” is worse than meaningless if his bill is merely a watered-down version of a stronger Democratic bill.  Claiming to support popular Democratic policies by offering a weaker version of a Democratic bill is a tried and true Republican tactic.

4) Supporting clean energy bills that provide aid for renewable energy development mean little if they do not come at the expense of the current establishment of corporate polluters.  It is easy for a Republican to recommend spending money or creating incentives on windmills or solar panels; it is far harder to take the just as necessary steps of disincentivizing the use of pollutants.

5) California is in a major budget crunch, and has numerous other problems besides.  Even if Strickland has come to a true conversion on energy issues (which has yet to be seen), his retrograde Republican views on all other aspects of state business make him a bad fit for the district, and unacceptable for California as it struggles to regain its footing after the fiasco of Enron’s energy deregulation, Schwarzenegger’s mismanagement of the state at the Executive level, and the intransigence of the extremist Republicans in the statehouse.

In any case, the fact that Strickland is at least paying lip service–phony or no–to support of alternative energy is a small victory for progressive causes in itself.

Cross-posted at Ventura County Democrats

Cross-posted at Ventura County Democrats

Fresh off winning by a sliver of a percentage point by pretending to be an “independent” with “green” credentials, Tony Strickland is already causing trouble.  In a move that will surprise absolutely no one but the moderate voters unfortunate enough to get suckered by Strickland’s con artistry, Strickland is already carrying water for his friends in the extremist Republican Yacht Party.

As California attempts to cut spending and raise revenues to avert a fiscal disaster, Tony “Independent Green” Strickland is standing once again to the right of his own Republican governor in insisting that the perfectly legal and eminently reasonable Democratic budget plan is somehow unconstitutional.  It matters little to Tony Strickland if California falls into the sea, economically speaking, so long as his corporate friends in the oil industry are taken care of.

From the VC Star:

The Constitution allows fees to be implemented by a majority vote and also allows lawmakers to pass tax measures that are revenue neutral with a simple majority. Democrats asserted their plan met both of those tests.

Anti-tax groups, with the support of GOP lawmakers, had vowed to challenge the plan in court had it been enacted.

Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Moorpark, said the Democratic plan “circumvents the Constitution and the will of the people. I think they know it’s unconstitutional. If they really thought this could be done, it would have been done a long time ago.”

Despite the concerns of other Republicans, Schwarzenegger said he would have signed the Democratic bills had they included the economic stimulus provisions he is demanding.

In the end, both Schwarzenegger and Strickland are opposed the Democratic budget solution, but for different reasons.  Our own Pedro Nava is on point as usual about the ramifications of failure to pass this badly needed budget:

“If he doesn’t sign it, he needs to explain to the people of California about the 200,000 construction jobs that will be lost,” said Nava, whose district includes Ventura and much of Oxnard. “He needs to explain to the 200,000 people out of jobs why he doesn’t think he got enough of what he wanted.”   [snip]

“I am bewildered that Republicans fail to recognize the urgency,” he said. “This is like your house is on fire and you’re trying to put it out and the Republicans are objecting because you’re not using the right hose.”

For Republicans like Strickland, however, the entire point is to allow the house to burn down.  When you’re part of an extremist party interested only in draining the swamp and making government so small it can drown in a bathtub, bankrupting the State isn’t a bug–it’s a feature.  A feature explicitly designed to destroy progressive advances across the state.

And all this being done by a Yacht Party (with Tony Strickland as one of its premier captains) incapable coming close to majorities in either the State Senate or Assembly, and only capable of electing a governor by nominating a movie star in the wake of a trumped up recall election.

(I’ll be on the Bay Area’s Green 960 tonight with Angie Coiro to talk about the budget mess. I should be on around 7:15. You can stream live here. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

After a few failed attempts at a vote on the most recent majority vote package, the Governor is threatening a veto if he doesn’t get some “stimulus.” By way of explaining what the Governor’s words really mean, please just replace the word “stimulus” with “screw California’s workers.”  After all, it’s not like Schwarzenegger thinks we can give some sort of tax break or anything, no he’s talking about cutting overtime to employees, allowing shorter breaks, and generally taking a machete to worker’s rights in this state.  So, you know, we’ll be “stimulated.”

Both houses of the Legislature attempted to get a vote done last night, but that was pushed back to this morning:

Both houses of the Legislature were to convene this evening to vote on a new Democratic budget plan that raises taxes without two-thirds votes but the sessions were delayed as legislative leaders negotiated for a signature from Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Schwarzenegger reportedly was demanding concessions from Democrats on regulatory and labor laws that business groups have been demanding – changes that the Democrats’ allies in labor and environmental groups strongly oppose. (SacBee 12/17/08

This really is a strange situation, the Governor knows that he has a bit of leverage on this with the Legislative Republicans out of the picture, so he’s back to his right-wingish self. Attacking labor and quietly expanding the Chamber of Commerce’s stranglehold over the Horseshoe, he really is getting a knack for this. And yet, the situation is such that negotiation on these terms is mandatory, despite the fact that Arnold’s ridiculous “Car Tax” BS caused all of this.  Shock Doctrine anyone?

Meanwhile, Tony Strickland, showing his true stripes, has got the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer’s, and other assorted rightwingers all ready for a lawsuit against the proposed deal. If you happen to be in the Capitol, check out their presser this morning at 10 in Room 4203. If this gets a signature, we will surely see a lawsuit about 3 seconds afterwards. And no amount of Arnold cozying up to Jon Coupal on Prop 11 will avoid that.

UPDATE: Shane Goldmacher is reporting that Speaker Bass thinks the Governor will sign the bill as revised.  The bill includes some, but not all, of the Governor’s “stimulus” ideas.

The protracted count is finally over, and it appears that Hannah-Beth Jackson’s outsize effort to defeat Phony Tony Strickland has come up just short.  With only a few hundred ballots left to count, Strickland currently maintains a 903 vote lead out of 414,587 ballots cast.  That margin is .2%: well within the margin necessary for a mandatory recount request by the Jackson campaign.  Unfortunately, as the pro-Strickland blog Policy Report correctly notes, such a recount effort would almost certainly be insufficient to net Hannah-Beth the votes she would need to overtake Strickland’s lead, even were the final votes to close the gap to 700 or 800:

According to some experts, a recount of all 400,000+ ballots might yield a variance of 150 votes in one direction or the other at great cost.  Gaining 800 votes in an election of this size is next to impossible.

Hannah-Beth has done the gracious thing and conceded the race:

With the latest totals showing Strickland hanging on to the lead by a little over 900 votes, Jackson said a victory was not mathematically possible.

“I’m disappointed, but I think that it’s pretty clear at this point in time, we’re not going to be able to catch up,” she said.

Strickland is due to be sworn in Monday in Sacramento. He will represent voters in most of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties as well as the northwest corner of Los Angeles County, including Santa Clarita and Stevenson Ranch.

The outcome has been in doubt since the Nov. 4 election, but by Wednesday both candidates agreed that Strickland had won.

Congratulations to Hannah-Beth Jackson and all her volunteers, supporters and staff who ran a courageous campaign against a less than honorable opponent, giving it everything they had to deliver quality representation to the people in SD-19.

This marks the end of two long and arduous races eked out by narrow margins in Ventura County by both Tony and Audra Strickland, who will be attempting to consolidate their power base.  Unfortunately for them, however, their electoral future does not look bright.  It was Ventura County that gave Strickland his victory, but that result is a relic of a Ventura whose demographics and electoral distribution are rapidly changing.   By 2012, there is little doubt that Ventura’s Democratic Majority will deliver a majority of votes for the Democrat.  As I said before, there are three chief reasons for this:

The first is that Ventura County flipped from red to blue earlier this year in terms of voter registrations–and those numbers have shifted even farther in our direction since. This is not just due to discontent with Bush and the Obama Effect: emigres from Los Angeles are swelling Ventura County’s ranks as more and more Angelenos come to appreciate this oft-overlooked area’s natural advantages. The path to victory for Republicans like Tony Strickland is only going to get steeper from here.

Second, Obama’s first term will likely end up going smoothly with good approval ratings, or very poorly with low approval ratings. Given the precarious, sour and moody state of the nation, we’re unlikely to see an apathetic, middling result. As a consequence, the next presidential election is unlikely to be a close contest one way or another. Our poor experiences in California this year will likely have taught us that we need to Stay for Change–especially if a Democratic Governor is elected in 2010, putting GOP legislators as the biggest remaining obstacle to real change in California.

But Tony’s third and biggest problem is that as an incumbent he will have 4-year voting record in the State Senate. Tony’s campaign this year was built entirely on lies; so much so, in fact, that I can say with all sincerity that he ran the most dishonest campaign I’ve personally had the misfortune of seeing up close. He will no longer be able to run as an “independent”, as all his yard signs and mailers deceitfully claimed. He will no longer be able to claim “green” credentials by posing as an alternative energy entrepreneur. He will simply be the incumbent: the Republican incumbent, and with a track record to boot.

So assuming that demography is destiny and the remaining ballots sort themselves out as poorly as we expect, it’s not the end of the road, but merely the beginning. The Stricklands will have earned themselves 2 to 4 years of respite through dishonest campaigning. More Democratic voters, increased intensity, and an unequivocal track record will see them on their way out of Sacramento in a few short years.

But we can’t do it without your help.  Today we begin Strickland Watch: it will be our duty to shadow every move and every vote Tony and Audra Strickland make in Sacramento.  So far, the Stricklands have made their careers by pretending to be something other than the hard right, corporate sockpuppets they are.  The only antidote to such poison is sunlight and exposure, and a full accounting of every single vote and dollar taken by each of them over the course of the next two to four years.

For his part, Tony Strickland is mouthing the right words:

“We need to definitely do whatever we can to reach across party lines to fix the problems of the state,” he said.

Unfortunately, we’ve heard this from Strickland before.  How he and his wife actually vote is another matter.  If their history is any indication, their bipartisan rhetoric will be belied by a hardline ideological stance.  Democrats in Ventura County-myself included–did an inadequate job of informing  our friends, neighbors and community of the Stricklands’ extremist record.  It’s up to us to make sure that doesn’t happen again, and to deliver to Ventura County the competent, progressive representation it has long deserved and been waiting for.

Also at Ventura County Democrats

(good part about this is that we’re under the mandatory recount window of .5% right now. – promoted by Dante Atkins (hekebolos))

There’s good news and bad news, and then some possibly good news again, and then some possibly bad news again.  The good news: latest vote counts have cut Strickland’s lead in half, down to just under 1,300 votes.  The bad news: the votes out of Santa Barbara County, Jackson’s strongest base, are pretty much all counted.  It’s all up to the provisionals coming out of Ventura County now; if they trend Strickland as the rest of Ventura’s votes have–or even just 50-50–Strickland will eke this one out.

The possibly good news: provisional ballots are usually new voters, and those are quite likely new Democratic voters who might be expected to trend our way contra the overall County trend.  The possibly bad news: those new Democratic voters often have a tendency to vote for the top of the ticket only, failing to vote for Democrats downballot.

What will end up happening?  It’s anybody’s guess.  The VC Star has more:

Elections officials in Ventura County began processing provisional ballots this week but are not expected to release the first results from those ballots until Monday.

In votes tallied thus far, Strickland has about a 5 percentage lead in the Ventura County portion of the district. Jackson would have to at least reverse that advantage among provisional ballots – perhaps unlikely, but something political observers say is possible given that many such ballots are cast by newly registered voters, who this year were predominantly Democrats.

With 401,864 votes now tabulated, Strickland leads by about one-third of a percentage point.

Looks like we’re in a for ride.  As painful as the wait is, though, it’s good to know that the democratic process is being respected.  Better to get the right result with a wait, than the wrong result too quickly.

(sometimes, close recount elections don’t go our way. – promoted by Dante Atkins (hekebolos))

It is with a heavy heart that I report the news that things aren’t looking good in the Jackson-Strickland race in SD-19.  Strickland has retaken a lead in the provisional and absentee counts that he is unlikely to relinquish barring a small miracle, as favorable Santa Barbara County is nearly entirely counted, leaving pro-Strickland Ventura County and the pro-Strickland sliver of L.A. County to probably pad his lead.  The Santa Barbara Independent has more:

Tony Strickland surged to a 1,560 vote lead over Hannah-Beth Jackson Wednesday, on the strength of newly counted ballots in Ventura County. Santa Barbara county’s registrar also reported counting new ballots, which favored the Democrat, but not by nearly enough to make up for the Republican’s strength in Ventura.

It is the first significant lead for either candidate in the closely-contested 19th state senate district since Election Day, and puts Strickland in a commanding position, as counting continues in three counties with portions of the sprawling district.

The overall tally now stands at:

Strickland 187,631 (50.20)

Jackson 186,071 (49.79)

A 1,560 vote lead normally wouldn’t be insurmountable with well over 50,000 votes left to count.  Unfortunately, most of those voters are likely to accrue in Strickland’s favor:

About 1,000 vote by mail ballots remain to be counted in Santa Barbara County, the only place where she has run ahead of Strickland, in addition to about 6,000 provisional ballots; the latter are likely to favor Jackson, as many of them are believed to have been cast by late-registering UCSB students.

However, Strickland is winning handily in Ventura County, which has about 40,000 absentees and 15,000 provisionals outstanding; he has also run well ahead of Jackson in the small part of the district that is in L.A. County. There, the registrar has about 225,000 more vote by mail ballots to count, but only a small number of them are in the 19th district.

Make no mistake about it: this is a tough loss to take if all goes as it appears.  For me, it’s even tougher than Prop 8, and not just because I live in the district.  With Prop 8, there was a sense that we lost due to complacency and poor messaging; with Hannah-Beth, we made our best case and put everything we could into the fight, given the simultaneous urgency of a national election.  The idea that extremist Phony Tony Strickland will be my State Senator for the next four years is literally sickening to me.

But there is some good news for the future that should worry both of the execrable Stricklands.  Red Zone candidate Ferial Masry ran a surprisingly close race against Audra Strickland in the 37th Assembly district representing parts of Ventura and L.A. counties, coming within 3 points of victory in that tough district (and this despite numerous disadvantages in funding, candidate support and perceived “Americanness”).  There is no reason to believe that we cannot build on this success by holding Audra accountable for her votes.

As for Tony?  He’s got three big problems.  The first is that Ventura County flipped from red to blue earlier this year in terms of voter registrations–and those numbers have shifted even farther in our direction since.  This is not just due to discontent with Bush and the Obama Effect: emigres from Los Angeles are swelling Ventura County’s ranks as more and more Angelenos come to appreciate this oft-overlooked area’s natural advantages.  The path to victory for Republicans like Tony Strickland is only going to get steeper from here.

Second, Obama’s first term will likely end up going smoothly with good approval ratings, or very poorly with low approval ratings.  Given the precarious, sour  and moody state of the nation, we’re unlikely to see an apathetic, middling result.  As a consequence, the next presidential election is unlikely to be a close contest one way or another.  Our poor experiences in California this year will likely have taught us that we need to Stay for Change–especially if a Democratic Governor is elected in  2010, putting GOP legislators as the biggest remaining obstacle to real change in California.

But Tony’s third and biggest problem is that as an incumbent he will have 4-year voting record in the State Senate.  Tony’s campaign this year was built entirely on lies; so much so, in fact, that I can say with all sincerity that he ran the most dishonest campaign I’ve personally had the misfortune of seeing up close.  He will no longer be able to run as an “independent”, as all his yard signs and mailers deceitfully claimed.  He will no longer be able to claim “green” credentials by posing as an alternative energy entrepreneur.  He will simply be the incumbent: the Republican incumbent, and with a track record to boot.

So assuming that demography is destiny and the remaining ballots sort themselves out as poorly as we expect, it’s not the end of the road, but merely the beginning.  The Stricklands will have earned themselves 2 to 4 years of respite through dishonest campaigning.  More Democratic voters, increased intensity, and an unequivocal track record will see them on their way out of Sacramento in a few short years.

(This is a big fight, but there are others across the state. Stay for Change! – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Over 14,000 new voters registered this year at UC Santa Barbara and Hannah-Beth Jackson came to rally them to support her today. Hannah-Beth Jackson is running for California State Senate against 6 million dollars worth of lies. That’s how much her opponent Tony Strickland is spending to try to win this Senate seat. Hannah Beth reminded students today of her commitment to education and the environment. The student vote is important in this race because Hannah-Beth Jackson’s opponent is running defamatory ads against Hannah-Beth as well as trying to convince voters that he is an environmentalist.  It makes you wonder, can six million dollars really convince voters that he is an environmentalist, when in reality Tony Strickland voted against every pro-environment bill every introduced into the Assembly?

Bettina Duval is the founder of CALIFORNIA LIST, a network to elect Democratic women to California state government.

Hannah-Beth speaks to supporters at UCSB

Sen. President Pro-Tempore Elect Darrell Steinberg and Sen. Sheila Keuhl

Me and Hannah-Beth

Senators Keuhl, Steinberg and me

Hannah-Beth with my son Bennett

At the volunteer table

There were two major debates held this month between Independent Green Republican Tony Strickland and Hannah-Beth Jackson: the first was put on by the right-wing Ventura County Chamber of Commerce on Oct. 3rd at Ventura College, and the second by the significantly more friendly Ventura County League of Women Voters on Oct. 10th at Cal Lutheran in Oxnard.

Both debates were supposed to have been shown live on local CAPS-TV here in Ventura County (and I was going to liveblog them), but were for technical reasons not broadcast or streamed live at the time.  The debates have finally been put in the can to air repeatedly here in Ventura County regularly until election day.  Fortunately, we live in the Internet age, and CAPS-TV has done us the service (finally!) of putting the debates on their website.

They’ve been encoded as WMV files, and thus cannot be embedded here.  If you’re interested in watching, please click on the following links:

Ventura Chamber of Commerce, Oct. 3rd

Ventura County League of Women Voters, Oct. 10th

I haven’t heard anything earth-shattering so far in listening to the debates, but I highly recommend that anyone interested in the race listen and highlight anything newsworthy they may see now that the debates are finally available to all.

In the meantime, I’ll have a photodiary up within a few days about canvassing this last Sunday for Hannah-Beth in Thousand Oaks.  Pretty good results, and there’s good reason to feel confident about this race.