Candidates for the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) have reported fundraising numbers for the period ending March 17th – and the need for reform is evident.  Unlike other local races in the City (where contributions are capped at $500), there are no limits for giving to a DCCC candidate.  Scott Wiener, Debra Walker and Rafael Mandelman are running simultaneous races for DCCC in June and Supervisor in November – and all three have exploited this obvious loophole.  Other candidates have raised huge sums – with the Firefighters Union giving $10,000 to each of its members running.  Nowhere else in California must candidates for DCCC raise this money – for a job that pays nothing, and whose only power is making Democratic Party endorsements.  Most counties elect their DCCC by Supervisor district (rather than Assembly District), which may be a good start.  But what’s really needed are campaign contribution limits – and it’s unclear which entity could do that.  With the upcoming State Party Convention in Los Angeles this weekend, now is an ideal time to be talking about such reform.

Candidates for the San Francisco DCCC – which governs the local Democratic Party – are not covered or regulated by local campaign finance law.  They are merely subject to state law, so like any other political campaign committee are required to file with the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC.)  And besides that, the rules are pretty loose.

While all candidates for local public office – Supervisor, School Board, even Mayor – can only take $500 per donor, there are no contribution limits in DCCC races.  With the state requiring June candidates to report what they raised between January 1st and March 17th, the most recent filing reports for DCCC show a system that has gone out of control.

Candidates for Supervisor Use DCCC Loophole

The DCCC gets to make Party endorsements for local office – such as the S.F. Board of Supervisors – and its current control by progressives played a decisive role as to why they swept the Board elections in 2008.  So it’s no surprise that candidates running for Supervisor – on both sides of the spectrum – are making simultaneous runs for DCCC.  

Candidates running for both DCCC and Supervisor use separate campaign accounts – but let’s get real.  Money raised and spent for DCCC elevates their profile among voters in a District, so they can get elected Supervisor five months later.  And those wishing to give over the $500 limit can just funnel money to their DCCC account – a soft money conduit.

Back in February, I reported that Scott Wiener took two donations from strip clubs for his DCCC campaign – in amounts of $5,000 and $10,000, well in excess of what they could give to his Supervisor campaign.

With the June election in a few weeks, it’s no surprise that the three candidates running simultaneous campaigns – Wiener in District 8, Debra Walker in District 6 and Rafael Mandelman in District 8 – raised more this quarter in their DCCC account (a job with no government power that pays nothing) than their account for Supervisor.  Wiener raised $8,000 for Supervisor – and $12,000 for DCCC.  Walker raised $4,000 for Supervisor and $9,354 for DCCC.  Mandelman: $3,900 for Supervisor and $7,140 for DCCC.

And again, we see each candidate taking large checks for their DCCC account that would not be legal if made to their Supervisor campaign.  Scott Wiener did not get more money from strip clubs, but he took $2,000 from the Plumbers Union.  Smaller donations for Wiener in this period came largely from corporate lawyers, deputy city attorneys, bankers and realtors.

Writer Jennifer Viegas gave $500 to Debra Walker’s Supervisor campaign (i.e., the legal maximum), then gave her DCCC campaign $4,000.  Other Walker donations for this period include the President of Cresleigh Development, California Nurses Association, Albert Urrutia of the construction firm Santos & Urrutia and Tom Ammiano’s Assembly campaign account.

Rafael Mandelman also got money from Tom Ammiano – to both of his accounts, $500 for the DCCC campaign and $500 for his Supervisor race.  Other donations he got in this period came from the California Nurses, Carole Migden and $2,500 from Pinnacle Properties.

Problem Not Limited to Supervisor Candidates

While candidates who run simultaneous campaigns opens up the greatest risk of abuse, there is no shortage of other candidates taking advantage of no contribution limits for DCCC.  Mike Sullivan, who chairs the anti-progressive Plan C, raised $28,500 in the past three months.  A third of his money came from donations of $1,000 or more – including a $1,500 check from BOMA, the commercial real estate political group.

But it gets even more blatant when you look at the firefighter candidates.  As I wrote in March, the Firefighters Union is taking an active interest in the DCCC elections – two of their members are running.  Keith Baraka has collected $11,000 – one thousand of that came from himself, while the other $10,000 was a single check from the Firefighters PAC.  Dan Dunnigan raised $10,000 – with 100% of that money coming from their PAC.

Problem Unique to San Francisco

Of course, none of this is new to anyone who follows San Francisco politics.  DCCC elections are always competitive here – whereas in other counties, the drama is getting enough candidates on the ballot so the Lyndon LaRouche people don’t win by default. But I had always assumed it was because in a city like San Francisco, politics is a sport.

So I called Dante Atkins, a friend and fellow Calitics blogger who serves on the Los Angeles County DCCC – to ask if elections are just as crazy down there.  They’re not – San Francisco is unique among California’s 58 counties where you must raise thousands of dollars to win a seat on the Central Committee.  And there are a few reasons why.

L.A. County’s DCCC has over 200 people – whereas San Francisco only has 24 elected members.  So buying one seat on the Central Committee can’t buy a lot of influence for the Party’s endorsement.  But what’s interesting is how they choose to elect members.

San Francisco elects its DCCC by State Assembly District – in a County that only has two.  In other words, half the DCCC is from the East Side – and the other half from the West Side.  Running for DCCC in San Francisco means campaigning in half the city.

That’s unusual, as most counties elect their DCCC by Supervisor district.  Los Angeles chose to do it by Assembly District – because they only have 5 Supervisor districts, and 26 Assembly districts.  But in San Francisco, it makes a lot more sense to elect a DCCC among 11 Supervisor districts – where a smaller electorate makes money less important.

If we want the DCCC to be a “farm team” for future San Francisco Supervisors, it makes sense to do this change.  Electing three per district, for example, would help include more voices.  All that needs to be done is for the San Francisco DCCC to amend its charter.

But Campaign Finance Reform is What’s Really Needed

While changing the way DCCC members are elected is intriguing, what’s really needed is to better regulate campaign finance.  If we have a $500 contribution limit for other local campaigns in San Francisco, it’s time to bring DCCC campaigns under the same rules.

But it’s unclear to me how we could make that change.  Could the City amend its Ethics Ordinance to bring DCCC campaigns into the fold?  DCCC positions are not exactly “local office” – as it’s really an arm of the California Democratic Party.  Passing state legislation might be necessary, or amending the rules and by-laws of the State Party.

This weekend, the California Democratic Party will hold its annual Convention in Los Angeles.  I’ll be attending as a delegate, as I normally do every year.  As this problem appears unique to San Francisco, I hope Democrats from across the state will join me in supporting campaign contribution limits for DCCC candidates.  It’s the right thing to do.

Paul Hogarth is the Managing Editor of Beyond Chron, San Francisco’s Alternative Online Daily, where this piece was first published.

Interesting piece up on Huff Po now:  Power Struggle: Inside The Battle For The Soul Of The Democratic Party 

Excerpt:

Since 1995, members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus have collectively given $6.3 million directly to members of the Blue Dog and New Democrat coalitions, according to an analysis by the Huffington Post of data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. That’s not an overwhelming sum when the average winning campaign nowadays costs more than $1 million, but it represents one-sixth of all giving from one faction within the party to another. It doesn’t include the millions that progressives have given to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — rank-and-file members are supposed to cough up $150,000 every two years (though many miss that mark), committee chairmen $250,000 and up. The DCCC turns around and funnels that money to conservative Democrats in close races. Add to that the millions spent by organized labor and outside groups such as MoveOn.org, and it’s clear that progressive donors have become major financial benefactors of the conservative Democrats who battled to undermine their agenda. “That tension exists a lot,” George Miller says about the party’s demand that progressives fund their intramural rivals. “That tension exists a lot. And it’s real.”

….

The money flows almost entirely in one direction: The conservative coalitions have given progressives less than $600,000. While Blue Dogs and New Democrats have each given their fellow travelers $2.4 million in the past 15 years, members of the much larger progressive caucus have helped each other to the tune of just $1.3 million.

Progressives have received very little return on their investment when it comes to important votes. The 34 Democrats who voted against the health care reform bill in March have collectively received $2.1 million from progressive members. More than half of that sum came in the past five years.

The costofwar.com shows the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are rapidly approaching $1 Trillion. 

That number right there is the biggest drag on our progressive hopes. 

We won’t get the real change we seek until we elect more progressives to Congress.

Re the CDP endorsement fight in between Jane Harman and Marcy Winograd:

California CD 36 (Harman) is deep blue. Democratic registration leads Republican by 18 percent. No Republican is going to win that seat. Why not support a Democrat who will stand strong for women, work toward improving healthcare AND support the rest of the CDP platform? Why should the California Democratic Party give its endorsement to a half-a-dem like Harman?

The CDP endorsement process is deliberately complex. It allows for second chances and political manuevering. The Party endorsement is a valuable commodity and deserves to require a series of trials to earn it. 

A question I have is this: I wonder if any electeds from the rest of the State handed some of their appointed slots to Harman for her local endorsement? I know my Assemblywoman up here in Berkeley gave some of her delegates to Karen Bass. I don’t like that part of the process, but that’s what we have. 

I think it’s appropriate there’s a path to to let the Convention as a whole make a final determination after all the inner manueverings for hotly contested races are done. It is indeed a statewide prize to be fought over. From past experience, I know delegates don’t overrule local endorsement votes lightly.

I think it’s a fair fight.

With over 650 people turning out, Mark DeSaulnier (*State Senator-Concord-Dem) set a new record for mass support at a Crab Fest in Contra Costa County.  The list of attendees included the County’s top political people including both Congressmen: Miller and Garamendi, Tom Torlakason (Assembly-Dem only 48 hours from a heart stint operation), 3 of the Board of Supervisors, The County Election Clerk, more than a dozen City Council folks from 5 different cities and county, district and state Democratic Party officials as well as union and business leaders throughout the area.

  The crowd gave DeSaulnier a standing ovation when he declared that what happened in Massachusetts will not happen here and further that ‘we will never, never, never give up on America.’

(There’s an Act Blue page soliciting funds to take a poll on the Lakoff Initiative)

You may have seen me live-tweeting the events last night at SEIU Local 721 in LA, where Professor George Lakoff and the folks behind CA Majority Rule met with around 200 activists, union members, elected officials, legislative candidates, representatives from Speaker Bass’ office, and more, to talk about the just-released proposed November 2010 initiative on majority rule.  If you read through both the live tweets and Dante Atkins’ notes on the meeting, I think you get a picture of a potential split inside the California Democratic Party, one that could have major implications for all elections next year.

It should be noted that CDP Vice-Chair Eric Bauman was there to offer support.  He gave a typical stump speech and said very plainly that “the reason you’re here tonight is the solution” to the problems that grip the state, problems he laid out very carefully and completely.  He was honest in saying that any Democrat who opposes this kind of measure will be told that “vertebra are available for installation… I think the chiropractor’s lobby can help us with that.”  He made clear that we don’t have a spending problem, “we have a common sense problem,” and he pushed everyone in the room to work toward a real solution.

But Professor Lakoff’s speech seemed to capture the dynamic between the grassroots and the establishment much better.  Lakoff opened by talking about the origins of the initiative that he filed yesterday:

I got into this last spring when Lonnie Hancock invited me to speak to a group of State Senators.  And I said, what’s the problem, you’re the majority!  And they said they don’t have any power.  And they explained the whole 2/3rds rule, and how the leadership has to work with them because we want to lose as little as possible.

And I asked, why aren’t you in every assembly district explaining this problem?  It’s about schools, healthcare, everything, and there’s no answer.  I went back and said that there’s something really wrong.  Its name is democracy […] Which is more Democratic?  Majority rule, or minority rule?  You knew the answer from the 3rd grade on.  Even Republicans know the answer but they don’t like to.  We know there will be a blowback if we try to change things, but the hardest blowback is coming from our side.  The reason that Loni Hancock invited me was that there was a  poll done by a progressive organization, and it asked the wrong question.

This is my business.  Studying language and the framing behind language.  If someone presented you with the poll question: would you rather have more taxes and higher services, or fewer taxes and less services.  Obviously, it went with the latter.  And the legislature concluded that they shouldn’t put anything about taxes on the 2010 ballot.  Why do they think that?  Because they think that polls are objective, and that language just floats out there.  They’re wrong.  Language is not neutral.  There’s a truth here that that language hides.  It’s the truth that we don’t have Democracy in this state.  We have minority rule.

In response, because nobody else would do so, Lakoff’s initiative reads: “All Legislative actions on revenue and budget must be determined by majority vote.”  It’s tweetable and it’s fairly simple to understand.  It’s framed as a democratic action to return the state to democratic rule.  And it appeals very much to those interested in preserving democracy.

Which is the consensus opinion inside the Democratic Party.  We know this because, back in July, the state party passed a resolution calling for majority rule for budget and revenue.  And it didn’t pass with contentious debate – it passed unanimously.  One of the very few people to speak out against it was the Party Chair, John Burton.  But the rank and file supported it utterly.

It was something of a reversal for Burton, who when he was trying to get the votes of those rank and file supported a majority vote position.  Now he’s seen some polls and decided to take half a bite out of the apple.  Lakoff described his exceedingly short meeting with Burton last night.

Burton wouldn’t talk to me for more than a minute.  He just said that he saw the polls, and it said 55% on budget and nothing on taxes.  How many of you were at the state convention?  You voted on a resolution about this.  How did that resolution come before you?  The resolutions committee.  And that was the point.  We got the resolutions committee to do it and got a standing ovation.  The rank and file Democrats know it’s the right thing to do and they have to tell their leaders.  So how do you change this?  You have to have a poll, but you have to have pressure.  The major donors have to call Burton and say, if you want any money from me, you get behind this.  And he has to hear that from donor after donor and organization after organization.  We have to win in our own party first.  I think John Burton is a good person, same with Bass and Steinberg.  It’s the good people that we have to win over first.

Later, a woman from AFSCME asserted that Willie Pelote was willing to give $1 million dollars to a majority vote campaign until Burton called him and told him to forget it.

You can argue about what the most effective approach is to deal with California’s budget dysfunction.  We’ve been doing that all week.  You could say that leaders must prepare the ground by tying things Californians want to revenue, and tell the story of Republicans thwarting the popular will.  You can say that we need to throw out the Constitution and move straight to a convention.  But what becomes incredibly clear is that there is a groundswell of support inside the party for a simple move to restore democracy to the state, and if the establishment in Sacramento rejects that, in particular John Burton, the subsequent outrage will have a major impact on grassroots support for all Democratic candidates next year.  There’s just no question about this.  The grassroots already feels disrespected and abused by the leadership.  They got Hillary Crosby into a statewide officer position based on just this kind of frustration.  They feel that one of the richest economies in the world is run like a third-world country, and they know that they will never change that when procedural rules force Democrats into a defensive crouch, where they see their role as losing as little as possible.  This split will grow and branch out into statewide officer races, legislative races, etc.  The grassroots workhorses won’t be very inclined to work so hard for a Party that disrespects them and fails to act in their stated interests.  Not to mention the fact that everyone knows that, while we wait another Friedman Unit until the electorate figures out the problem on their own, people will suffer from budget cuts, people will go bankrupt, and people will die.

The CA Majority Rule team has a multi-pronged strategy.  One, they are raising money for this poll, to try and prove that a properly framed set of questions will elicit the desired results.  Two, they will put Speaker’s Bureaus together in every district in California with people who can talk about majority rule and restoring democracy, complete with real-world examples of the fruit of the state’s dysfunction.  Three, they will seek to pass endorsements of the one-line majority rule initiative in every Democratic club and county committee in California.  There’s an executive board meeting coming up in November where this will probably come to a crescendo, too.

The real story of the Lakoff initiative is a story about rank and file Democrats wanting their leaders to follow their will.  You can argue about tactics or strategy or approach, but that’s what it boils down to.  And the party leadership had better take heed.

When I was at the aforementioned CDP training in Ventura over the weekend, the attendees were asked by a show of hands how they found out about the training: friends, emails, their local club, County Committees, etc.  Lastly was…the CDP website.  And the only hand that went up was mine.  Instant political geek cred right there.

So when I checked the CDP website recently again and saw this item, it made me a little curious.  It’s innocuous enough: establishing a set of guidelines on the part of the Rules Committee for the Legislative Action and Equal Opportunity committee (henceforth (LAEO).

I asked sources (an honest blogger doesn’t reveal sources, so don’t ask) what this may be about, since it isn’t something that happens all that often regarding these committees–and I got more than I bargained for.

See it below the fold.

This is complicated, but the bottom line is that it comes down to some people being upset that the LAEO Committee was recommending an endorsement of a bill on which the CDP hadn’t officially taken a position through its platform or resolutions committees.  And who’s upset?  John Hanna of the Resolutions Committee (who, as a Calitician, is more than welcome to weigh in here).  This is from an email I have obtained that John Hanna sent to members of the Resolutions Committee:

One of the things Inola and I would do is to look out after the Resolutions Committee’s jurisdiction. We were always sensitive not to step on various other committee’s toes. So when I saw our Chair send out an email blast about the Democratic Party’s position on Afghanistan troop withdrawal, I scratched my head because I thought we had tabled our Afghanistan resolution as a Party unity measure.  I remember the Chair of the progressive Caucus asking us to do that. Turns out the Legislative Action Committee recommended endorsement of a bill  (HR 2404) that covered the issue and it was adopted by the E-Board.  Neither the Platform nor a prior resolution had addressed this issue.

…

The immediate issue that prompts my request was the Legislative Action Committee’s recommendation to the Executive Board to pass legislation that called for an exit strategy for the United States armed forces currently in Afghanistan. The Platform is silent on the Afghanistan conflict and the Resolutions Committee has tabled — at the request of the head of the progressive Caucus — a comprehensive resolution on Afghanistan. As such there was no policy for the Legislative Action Committee to evaluate legislation coming before it.

We have two public policy committees — Platform and Resolutions. Both committees have vigorous processes to vet policy proposals and rules that require a good measure of fairness and due process.  The Resolutions Committee keeps track of prior positions so as to avoid inconsistent results or duplication.  Adding another committee to make policy recommendations to the E-Board or Convention could easily result in inconsistent positions, conflict, and a tendency for some writers of resolutions that may have a legislative component to “forum shop” or even try to get to the floor from both committees, resulting in a potential of contradictory recommendations. That is what happened in this case, and I submit this will be the modus operandi in the future.

First things first, I don’t think John Hanna’s recall of the events surrounding the tabling of the resolution on Afghanistan is fitting.  I was not at the most recent Executive Board, but I am pretty well tied in to the Progressive Caucus and its goings-on, and based on everything I heard, the resolution was tabled at the behest of Progressive Caucus Chair Karen Bernal because the Resolutions Committee had done a wholesale gut-and-amend to the resolution, and Bernal did not want to create any conflict for Chairman Burton’s first Executive Board session.  Again, I wasn’t there, but that’s what I heard.

So what is John Hanna proposing?  Quite simply, to make the LAEO Committee subservient to other policy committees in the CDP:

To expedite that process, the Legislative Action Committee could develop — with the advise and consent of the Rules Committee — procedural rules that require the proponent of a legislative change to cite the particular platform section or resolution that sets forth the policy the legislation seeks to support. If there is no policy than the legislation would need to go to Platform or Resolutions for a policy write-up and possible return to the Legislative Action Committee.

This proposal to make the LAEO Committee subservient to the two policy committees stands in direct conflict with the Standing Rules that the LAEO has operated under since November of 2007, which I quote in part:

LAEO shall be guided by, but not limited to, the following when making recommendations on legislation:

1) Timeliness of the legislation.

2) Positions taken by the DNC, DNC Committees, DSCC, CDP resolutions and/or platform committees, and/or positions taken by CDP Caucuses that may conflict with or adhere to issues related to the legislative request.

3) Status of legislation in the CA State Legislature, U.S. Congress or other appropriate legislative body.

4) Impact DSCC may have on outcome of legislation.

5) Historical principles of the DNC and DSCC and communities it represents.

6) Factors that may affect potential substantive changes to legislation, such as whether legislation requires 2/3 majority to pass legislative body.

7) Constitutionality.

I can’t read John Hanna’s mind.  I don’t know if he was thinking this needed to happen a long time ago, or if the position specifically taken by the LAEO Committee on Afghanistan prompted this type of action.  But if you’re going to make LAEO entirely subservient to the Policy Committees, you may as well strip the “LA” element out of it–after all, it no longer has its own voice on which legislation it’s going to support, especially if John Hanna’s proposal that the LAEO Committee find the specific resolution or platform point that supports the bill is adopted.  In that case, you may as well form a separate Equal Opportunity Committee and make a Legislative Subcommittee that is comprised of people from Platform and Resolutions who can be the most familiar with current and former resolutions, as well as the impending Platform document to be ratified by the CDP during off-years.

Either let LAEO keep its independence and allow the full body or E-Board to vote on the recommendations, or kill it and make it officially subservient.  But don’t keep it as a supposedly independent committee and force it to play follow the leader.

The average reader on this site would know that many of our editors haven’t exactly seen eye-to-eye with CDP leadership in recent years on…well…just about anything.  Political strategy, resource allocation, technology, volunteer mobilization–you name it, we’ve complained about it.

But it seems like things are changing, and nobody could be happier than I.

I happened to be at the CDP Learn to Win training this past Sunday in Ventura (another new program I’m happy the CDP is doing–more on this in a future post) when I received an email from one of my favorite bloggers who influences a lot of my thinking on political issues and strategy–Mark Kleiman at Same Facts.  The email detailed the occurrence that I detailed Sunday evening, where Rep. Walley Herger in CD-2 praised as a “great American” a nutcase who described himself as a proud right-wing terrorist.

I showed the email and the details to Shawnda at the CDP, who was in attendance at the training (hooray for Blackberry).  For the record, it’s really too bad that there’s no good video of this incident.  This is why it’s imperative that no matter what district you’re in, it’s always good to have a video camera trained on your local Republican–you never know when you’re going to catch your own Macaca moment.

And no more than a couple of days later, the CDP has an action plan ready to go soliciting small-dollar contributions to fund an advertisement:

Members of Congress around the country have been holding town hall events in their districts this August, and some of them have gotten pretty heated. But nothing like this.

The Mt. Shasta News reports that at a recent town hall in Redding, Republican Rep. Wally Herger went out of his way to praise a man who stood up and identified himself as “a proud right-wing terrorist,” calling him “a great American.”

Yes, you heard me right: Rep. Herger, a Republican Congressman from California, publicly praised a self-described right-wing terrorist. That’s outrageous.

Contribute $25 or more today – and help us buy an ad in the Mt. Shasta News demanding that Republican Rep. Herger apologize and repudiate right-wing terrorism!

The email gets better, because it lays it out on the line–directly listing all the incidents of right-wing terrorism that have occurred since Obama’s election, associating Wally Herger with these incidents, and calling for him to issue a public apology.

Me?  I’m all about keeping this incident in the news.  And I’m glad the CDP is asking for citizen action about this outrage, along with the small-dollar contributions.

X-posted at Progressive Sundae

The special election to replace Ellen Tauscher in CA-10 is taking an ugly turn. The CDP has announced that its endorsement caucus will take place on August 1, and I’m already having flashbacks to Migden-Leno and the 2008 CDP convention.

You see, even though major flaws in the endorsement process were exposed over a year ago, nothing has changed; nor is there, at least to date, any apparent desire on the part of the CDP to address a situation where powerful outsiders are invited to skew the outcome of endorsements in local races.

I’ll do my best to explain it all on the flip…

First a brief lesson in how the endorsement process works in a special election. The chair of the party picks a caucus date and location, and all the members of the California DSCC (Democratic State Central Committee) who live within the district meet and cast their votes. In order to win the endorsement of the CDP, a candidate must receive 60% of the votes cast by these local party members.

So what is the DSCC and how do you become a member of it? Well, statewide, the DSCC is comprised of about 2800 people. Approximately one-third of them are elected by County Central Committees every two years; approximately one-third of them are elected through the ADEMs every two years; approximately one-third of them are appointed by elected officials (or nominees) and serve at their pleasure.

So the Central Committee and AD delegates serve for fixed two-year terms, but the people appointed by the electeds can be changed purely at the whim of their elected. And, as it turns out, there is no requirement in the CDP bylaws that the electeds select their appointees from within the district they represent.

So now that the endorsement caucus has been set for August 1, we can start to examine who will be showing up to vote that day. There will be members elected to the DSCC through the Central Committees of Alameda, Contra Costa, Sacramento, and Solano Counties — but only the ones who physically reside in CA-10. So, for instance, if you’re a DSCC member elected by the Solano Central Committee and you live in Fairfield (CA-10), you can attend the caucus; but if you’re a DSCC member elected by the Solano Central Committee and you live in Vacaville (CA-07), no dice. Same thing goes for the AD delegates. But it’s an entirely different story for the appointees of the electeds.

At least in theory, every Democratic state officer, Senator, Congressmember, State Senator, and Assemblymember in the entire state could dismiss their current appointees and replace them with people who live within CA-10 and are therefore qualified to vote in the caucus. And that’s a lot of appointees. The CDP Bylaws (PDF, Art. II, Sect. 2, beginning on P. 2) spell out how the appointees are allotted:

• State Officers — 6 delegates each
• US Senators — 6 delegates each
• US Congressmembers — 5 delegates each
• State Senators — 6 delegates each
• State Assemblymembers — 5 delegates each

(And those nominees who ran for the offices listed above but did not win their election are allowed to appoint ½ the number of delegates as their elected counterparts — either 3 or 2, depending on the office).

So what’s happening in CA-10 right now? Well, reports have surfaced that the campaigns are pulling out all the stops to get electeds to replace their appointees with CA-10 residents.

So, several of the CD10 Democratic candidates’ campaign teams have in the past couple of weeks lobbied elected officials from up and down the state and asked them to appoint as their delegates folks who live in the 10th District and support their respective candidates.

As a result, the number of delegates in the 10th District has expanded to as many as 300, sources say. Reports put state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier in the delegate count lead over Lt. Governor John Garamendi and Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan.

Well, that makes sense. A cursory look at the endorsements listed on the major candidates’ websites shows the following:

• Joan Buchanan:  Not listing her endorsements at this time.
• John Garamendi:  Five Congressmembers and one Assemblymember, for a total of 30 potential appointees.
• Mark DeSaulnier:  One state officer, four Congressmembers, eleven State Senators, and eight Assemblymembers, for a total of 142 potential appointees.

Now, we currently have no way of determining whether the electeds who have endorsed are backing up their endorsements by appointing CA-10 residents (or, for that matter, whether electeds who have not formally endorsed are doing likewise). But just speculating, based on the raw numbers, it would look like Mark DeSaulnier is going to be the big winner of this sweepstakes. After all, he has a lot of friends from having served recently in both the Assembly and the Senate, and he has a major Congressional cheerleader in Rep. George Miller.

Indeed, if that 300 number is accurate, there’s already more stacking taking place than occurred even in the Migden-Leno conflagration of 2008. It’s exactly this kind of raw power play that turns loyal local Democrats who have been plugging away on behalf of their candidate into cynics who end up walking away from Democratic politics. And I’m saying this as someone who definitely leans toward supporting the beneficiary of this cronyism.

Here’s the thing. Whether they find the practice acceptable or repugnant, all campaigns are going to play the hand they’re dealt. And when the CDP bylaws offer candidates the opportunity to exploit the delegate selection process, they have to take it; frankly, they can do no less.

But, you know what? It doesn’t have to be that way. We now have a CDP chair who campaigned on the issue of reform. John Burton has been giving a lot of lip service to “grassroots activists”; yet here is a perfect example where the local stakeholders are being pushed aside by the electeds who are stacking the deck against them. If Burton really intends to walk the talk, he might want to start by taking action to amend the bylaws so that electeds are required to appoint their delegates from within their district.

It may be too late for CA-10, but this kind of rigged endorsement process should never be allowed to happen again.