Brad Blog was all over it yesterday as Susan Davis (CA-53) sought to add an amendment to Rush Holt’s Election Reform Bill that would ban all DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) voting machines. The bill finished the day still in committee, so feel free to make some calls today urging support of the amendment.  Target members of the Rules Committee to make sure it gets attached, and (to echo the call from BradBlog) let your own representative know they should insist on a DRE ban before voting for the bill.  BradBlog also notes that the amendment has been endorsed by MoveOn, Verified Voting and VoteTrustUSA.

Davis’ office told BradBlog that the amendment was relying on Leadership and the Rules Committee allowing it.  I think you’ve all met Nancy Pelosi already, you know where to find her.  Louise Slaughter chairs the committee, and California members are Democrats Doris Matsui and Dennis Cardoza, and Republican David Dreier who serves as the ranking minority member of the committee.  Leverage galore Californians.

For sure, much respect to Susan Davis for stepping up on this issue.  Debra Bowen has deservedly gotten a lot of attention in California for spearheading an overhaul of the voting system, but now another Californian is kicking things up a notch at the national level.

Davis has been consistently good when it comes to protecting the integrity of elections.  In March she introduced the Mail-In Ballot Tracking Act requiring states to provide, via phone and internet, tracking capabilities for mail-in ballots.  She’s also been pushing the Universal Right to Vote by Mail Act for several years.  The bill would amend the Help America Vote Act by requiring all states to provide the option of vote-by-mail to everyone regardless of circumstance in federal elections.

All over California and the blogosphere we’ve been whipping up opposition to the Dirty Tricks Initiative, but there are many challenges to fair elections.  There’s a chance for real reform to get shoved into the Holt Bill, so let’s hope for movement and see if we can’t help it along.  And when you’re done, don’t forget to give Susan Davis props for standing up for democracy.

Remember when Susan Davis’ amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill passed the House Armed Services Committee? Remember that this is the amendment that ensures that the Transportation Corridor Agencies (TCA), Orange County’s toll road authority, complies with state environmental laws, which means that a toll road can’t be built through San Onofre State Beach to Trestles? Remember that the bill moved on to the US Senate after it passed the House?

Well, we have a new problem. One of our own Senators, Dianne Feinstein, is undecided on adding something like the Davis Amendment to the Senate’s Defense Authorization Bill. I guess she’s not sure yet whether California state environmental law is important enough to be enforced. Follow me after the flip to find out what YOU can do to ensure that Senator Feinstein votes to enforce the law, protect our coast, and respect the integrity of our parks…

So what can YOU do to convince Senator Dianne Feinstein to save Trestles and urge TCA to extend the 241 toll road legally? Why not send the Senator an email? Why not send a fax to the Washington, DC, office at (202) 228-3954? Why not contact one of Feinstein’s state offices? Let Senator Feinstein know how you feel about preserving the integrity of our parks, and how important saving this unique coastal park truly is.

So what can you say if you send an email or fax? How about saying something like this…

Dear Senator Feinstein:

Please join us in supporting the addition of language to the Senate Defense Authorization Bill that repeals riders designed to exempt the Foothill-South toll road extension through San Onofre State Beach from state and federal law.

In addition, we urge you to repeal the additional rider that authorizes the Marine Corps to grant an easement for the Foothill South Toll Road that permanently encroaches into Camp Pendleton and compromises their mission.

The proposed Foothill South Toll Road is one of the most environmentally destructive projects in California and sets a dangerous precedent for the intrusion into state park lands well beyond Orange County.

At minimum, this project should have to comply with all the same laws as any other similar project – just like those reviewed at the local level every week. Allowing the federal government to override the Coastal Act sets a disastrous precedent, the Marine Corps should use its own professional judgment in how best to safeguard Camp Pendleton from encroachment, without pressure from Congress one way or the other.

Please support Representatives Davis and Sanchez in their efforts to ensure that the Foothill-South Toll Road complies with all laws of the United States and the State of California. In addition, we hope you will go a step further and remove the riders that currently create unprecedented legal exemptions for the construction of the Toll Road through Camp Pendleton.

Thank you for your past support for California’s unparalleled natural resources, and for your willingness to carefully consider the impacts of the Foothill-South Toll Road on our Southern California coastline.

Sincerely,
Your Name Here

Or this, if you’d rather not be so loquacious…

Dear Senator Feinstein:

I am a supporter of the Susan Davis amendment to the Senate Defense Authorization Bill, which repeals the legal exemptions for the 241 toll road extension through San Onofre State Park. I’m writing to ask you to vote in favor of this amendment, and also to vote to remove the riders that give the Transportation Corridors Agency so many legal exemptions for construction of this road.

I believe the builders of the toll roads should follow the same laws that everyone else follows and should not be granted special rights or privileges.

Thank you very much for considering this issue, and for your outstanding and long service to our state and nation.

Sincerely,
Your Name Here

Now you don’t have to write something like this or the longer letter. Just use these as ideas for whatever you’d like to say to Senator Feinstein about supporting the Davis Amendment. Just allow these to inspire you to make her heartfelt sentiments about Trestles and our state parks known to the Senator.

Susan Davis and Loretta Sanchez did what needed to be done in the House to save Trestles and our state parks. So now, it’s up to the Senate. And right now, Dianne Feinstein can make the difference between preserving one of our most popular state parks for generations to come and setting a dangerous precedent for state and federal environmental laws to be ignored if they get in the way of a new highway and/or toll road and/or residential development. Dianne Feinstein can make a difference in the Senate this week, and she needs to know that we want her to make that difference.

But first, we need to make a difference. I need to make this difference, and so do YOU. I plan to write to Senator Feinstein about including the Davis Amendment in the Senate’s Defense Authorization Bill. Would you like to do the same? Do you care about keeping our parks open for us to enjoy for many years to come? If so, then please ask Senator Feinstein to support including the Davis Amendment in the Senate’s bill.

Senator Feinstein can make a difference for the better this week, but first we need to make that difference to urge her to do the same. : )

As noted by me first here and then here last night, I’m very disappointed in Susan Davis’ vote yesterday.  She has a strong record of opposition to this war, which makes this vote all the more frustrating.  I’d be much more willing to work on moving forward if it weren’t for her justification of her vote:

WASHINGTON – Congresswoman Susan Davis released the following statement on her vote to continue funding current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the coming few months.

“As someone who voted against going to war and supported a timeline for bringing home the troops, there is no doubt in my mind that we must end this war.  The reality is opposing this bill would not end the war.

“Cutting off war funding today will not only impact the troops in the field, many of whom are from San Diego, but will also impact military families at home as President Bush would take funding from other sources to fund his war.

“I look forward to supporting measures that will end the war and will not put our troops at risk.”

I’m sorry Rep. Davis, but I do not accept your premise.  I do not accept the notion that this bill would leave troops undersupplied because 1. they already are, 2. there’s a lot of money in the Defense budget already and 3. this isn’t the last bill you can send to the President.

But most of all, I don’t accept the fundamental defeatism here.  Susan Davis has just said, in so many words, that no matter what Congress does, Bush cannot be stopped.  She has just conceded the complete impotence of Congress.  Well you know what?  Do your job.  The President’s approval rating is reaching all-time lows, 76% of the country thinks the war is at least going “somewhat badly” and Americans keep dying faster and faster in Iraq.  Do your job.

Bush and his policies are not inevitable.  He is not an irresistable force any more than you are an immovable object (and clearly, you aren’t).  If he won’t sign this, then he’s abandoning HIS troops (in addition to being The Decider, he’s also the Commander in Chief, remember?).  If he takes the money from somewhere else, stop him.  If he tries to accuse Democrats of failing the troops, ask why his previous funding requests were too low to provide for the troops.  Ask why he doesn’t want veterans to receive benefits.  Ask why he doesn’t think troops should be fully combat-ready before being deployed.  Ask him how patriotic THAT sounds.  But DON’T GIVE IN.

Don’t presume that you can’t beat him.  The entire country wants you to beat him. They’ll give you every opportunity to beat him.  Every political wind that’s blowing in this country, from Left, Right and Center is desperately trying to run out the clock and escape the debacle of this administration.  We did the best we could in 2006- majorities in the House and Senate and a clear mandate for change.  We want you to get tough.  We want you to be angry.  We want you to be obstructionist.  Why? Because when you cut this President the slightest bit of slack, he takes a mile and flat out kills people with it.  Saying that Bush would just find some other way to beat you is pathetic.

You aren’t in office to throw up your hands and run out the clock.  Your job is to stop the violent deaths of American soldiers.  You say you want to support a measure that “will not put our troops at risk” but lemme go ahead and ask the obvious question: In what world does a fully-funded, open-ended deployment of our troops to occupy a hostile country with substandard equipment, preparation, support, civilian leadership and veteran’s services not “put our troops at risk?”  And if you think that, of ALL PEOPLE, George W. Bush is too skilled a political tactician to be overcome when everyone and their mother wants him stopped, you need a new line of work.

I don’t doubt Susan Davis’ desire to end the war.  Her record is strong on the issue, and has been from the beginning and I give full credit where it’s due.  But if she, like apparently many other Democrats, is afraid to tangle with Bush, what more is there?  To go way, WAY back to Olbermann’s ESPN days, we’ve got a Congress who’s looked at Bush and decided that you can’t stop him, you can only hope to contain him.

Well I call bullshit on that.  Do your job.  Stop him.

({This is Part 9 of my special report on the proposed extension of the 241 Toll Road to San Onofre State Beach (aka Trestles). If you’d like, you can find the other stories in the “Speeding Our Way to Trestles” series here. As the debate heats up over Trestles and the 241, I’d like to go in depth and examine all the issues involved… And I’d love for you to come along for the ride as we explore what can be done to relieve traffic in South Orange County AND Save Trestles Beach. Enjoy! : ) } – promoted by atdleft)

Oh, my! Will Washington now enter the fracas that is the proposed Foothill-South 241 Extension to Trestles? Look at what I just saw in today’s OC Register:

A proposed toll road through parkland that has become Orange County’s most explosive environmental controversy could be jeopardized – and perhaps even killed – if a small amendment added to a defense authorization bill is approved today.

The Foothill South toll road, which would bisect San Onofre State Beach park and cut through highly sensitive natural habitat, has pitted environmental activists against residents who say the road is vital to prevent south county gridlock as populations rise.

Rep. Susan Davis, D-San Diego, who is sponsoring the amendment, believes she has the votes to repeal a 1999 law that authorized the military to grant the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency the right to build a road on 340 acres of parkland.

Authorization from the Navy is necessary before the toll road, which must clear a variety of other regulatory hurdles, can be built.

So can this mean the end of Foothill-South? Follow me after the flip for more…

The House Armed Services Committee will likely be voting on the Fiscal Year 2008 Defense Authorization bill, and Rep. Susan Davis is hoping that her amendment is included in that bill.

“She’s heard from constituents in the district who enjoy the parks and the beaches and have a lot of concerns about the process,” said Aaron Hunter, Davis’ press secretary.

In essence, the amendments would revoke congressional authorization for the military to convey building rights to the toll road agency. It would also erase previous legislation intended to insulate the toll road from state and federal laws that could prevent its construction.

Activists who were aware of Davis’ effort Tuesday said they did not believe her amendment would kill the toll road project but would simply create a “level playing field,” forcing the agency to obey the same laws as other road builders.

“This abuse must stop,” said James Birkelund, a staff attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council in Santa Monica. “The agency should comply with federal and state laws.”

Davis’ staff said her action wouldn’t prohibit construction of the road. It would “just have to follow the same rules and regulations that all other state projects do,” Hunter said.

But apparently, TCA is not happy with this. They are convinced that Davis is conspiring to kill the toll road. And they are livid!

“It takes away from the Navy the ability to grant us an easement,” said Rob Thornton, an attorney who often represents the tollway agency. “I think it would kill the road in this location. The state obtained the lease with the understanding that the Navy reserved the ability to approve the construction of roads.” […]

“What she’s trying to do is kill the road,” said Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona. “The millions and millions of dollars that have been spent on environmental studies to advance this would be for naught.”

Well, why did all that money have to be spent in the first place? All Calvert had to do was have one of his staffers read the Coastal Act. It would have been much cheaper, and they could have determined immediately that the proposed path of Foothill-South violates California state law.

And again, isn’t it obvious that the proposed path of this toll road would drive us to complete environmental catastrophe? It would alter the sediment flow of San Mateo Creek, thereby destroying the world-famous waves of Trestles. It would destroy the habitat of at least seven endangered species, including the California gnatcatcher, the Southern California Steelhead Trout, and the Arroyo toad. Their humble abode would be gone if TCA were to have its way. And oh yes, wouldn’t this violate a certain federal Endangered Species Act?

All Susan Davis wants to do is ensure that TCA is following the letter of the law when it comes to this Foothill-South 241 Extension. Why would they feel so threatened by this? Oh yeah, that’s why.