Jeremy Cohen, the Communications Director for Pleitez for Congress, sends along a comment to me about the negative mailer sent by Gil Cedillo’s campaign:

Emanuel is running for Congress because people here are being severely affected by the economic crisis.  It’s sad that the Cedillo campaign wants to surf Facebook while families are being kicked out of their home and people are losing their jobs.

We also think it’s unethical that his campaign would use the photos of these women for a political smear without any form of consent.  Many of them are highly educated professionals — teachers, non-profit directors, nurses — who would be horrified to find that their picture had been mailed to tens of thousands of voters.  Cedillo is not only smearing the name of Emanuel, but defaming dozens of women who have no involvement with the campaign.

Seems to me that Gil Cedillo probably did Pleitez a favor here.  As this story an the controversy around it grows, Pleitez has an opportunity to increase his name ID and deliver his message to more voters.  And Cedillo comes off looking really, really bad.

See also this comment.  Cedillo’s people knew exactly what they’re doing by using pictures of Pleitez with non-Latina women.

The League of Women Voters sponsored a forum in Baldwin Park last night for candidates in the May 19 special election to replace Hilda Solis in the Congress.  The two front-runners in the race, Gil Cedillo and Judy Chu, emphasized their strengths.

Cedillo said he has had about 80 of his bills signed into law and said he has worked with the governor to save 25,000 jobs. Chu told the audience that she was proud to have the endorsement “of everybody in the family” of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, who held the congressional seat until her cabinet appointment this year.

At the forum at Baldwin Park’s Julia McNeill Senior Center, many of the candidates agreed on some issues, including the need for immigration reform that provides a path to citizenship, eliminating tax loopholes for corporations using offshore accounts to shelter income and the need to reform education, especially regarding the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Calitician and Judy Chu netroots advisor Todd Beeton has more at his Twitter feed.

With two weeks to go, the signals I’m getting suggest that Gil Cedillo is nervous.  The massive unforced error of those negative Emanuel Pleitez mailers makes me believe that Cedillo fears Pleitez is capturing a good bit of the Hispanic vote.  The earlier negative mailers on Judy Chu showed a similar lack of substance (attacking someone for returning tax refunds OWED?).  Negative mailers don’t inspire turnout, they suppress it.  And the May 19 election will already feature low turnout.  Which magnifies the importance of GOTV, and with the Democratic Party and key labor groups having endorsed Chu, I would probably be throwing the kitchen sink at everybody in the race myself if I were Cedillo.

What I’d prefer to hear about, instead of who endorsed whom and such and such negative attack, are concerns of the local area.  El Monte is crashing.  The city made 60% of its tax revenue off of the auto dealerships that lined the city, and with the demise of the auto industry throwing auto sales off the cliff, revenue has shrunk.  Many cities with clusters of dealerships will soon face the same problem.  What can be done at the federal level to diversify the local economy, and shouldn’t the efforts to revive the economy in auto manufacturing states like Michigan extend to cities with a proliferation of car lots like El Monte?  If anyone from the campaigns is reading, maybe we can get an answer to that.

(This story has now been covered by The Hill. We have also posted a comment from the Pleitez campaign. Welcome to all the new readers! – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

(full disclosure: I serve as the the Political Director of the Los Angeles County Young Democrats, which overwhelmingly endorsed Gil Cedillo for the CA-32 Congressional seat.  In what follows, as well as anything else I write or have ever written about this race or any other issue, the opinions written here are strictly my own personal views, and do not reflect the official views of any organization I am involved with in any official capacity.)

The CA-32 race is getting personal.  Gil Cedillo’s campaign has already gotten some criticism for the use of unrelated headlines in a mailer against Judy Chu, and now Cedillo has gone negative against the other candidate in the race with a shot at viability: Emanuel Pleitez, the 26-year-old former employee of the Obama-Biden Treasury Department transition team.

Now before I continue with the mailer itself, which is the heart of this story, I should first point out the initial implications that I perceive about Cedillo’s campaign going negative on Pleitez: by my view, it’s not a good sign for the campaign.  If the campaign is spending money, energy and political capital in attacking someone who was supposed to be a minor candidate and who has raised about a quarter of the money that Cedillo’s campaign has, it would indicate that Cedillo’s team is afraid that Pleitez is drawing a larger share than expected of the demographic that Cedillo would need to beat Judy Chu, and I don’t view it as a positive sign for Cedillo’s campaign that it’s having to use negative mailers to shore up its other flank.

But let’s get to the mailer itself, which you can see front and back at these links:

Edit by Brian for space…see the flip.

link one

link two

link three

link four

The basic point the campaign is trying to make, of course, is that Emanuel is too wild and immature to run for Congress.  And Cedillo has a strong case to make based on his maturity and his extensive experience as a legislator.  And yes, there are a few wild photos from the bunch that the campaign selected.  But I’ll bet a lot of those are innocuous photos that were taken out of context.  For instance, a lot of the pictures on there are shots of Pleitez with various women, often not even in a party setting–obviously designed to convey the impression that Pleitez is a womanizer.

Well, here’s the problem.  I’m one of the least rowdy 26-year-olds I know.  And yet, if someone wanted to troll through the photos of me on Facebook to portray me as an immature womanizer party animal, it would certainly be possible.  I’ve been in a committed relationship for a 2 1/2 years now.  But still, there’s a picture there of me with one of my blogger friends, who happens to be a female my age.  There’s also one of me with a friend whom I’ve known since my freshman year of college when we were in UCLA’s Regents Scholar Society–also an attractive woman my age.  And yet, if you wanted to take those and other pictures out of context and claim that you’re “missing a lot of women” if you haven’t seen my Facebook page…well, I guess nothing prevents you–outside of a sense of honesty or decency, both of which seem to be missing in this case.  I imagine that a lot of this site’s readers are my friends on Facebook.  Why not have a blast and put together an attack mailer against me?

The text of the mailer is also relatively amusing–“even nerdy guys want to look cool”?  The hilarity of that is only exceeded by the Spanish translation of “nerdy”: socialmente ineptos.

I don’t know what Gil Cedillo was doing for entertainment when he was in his mid-twenties.  But what I do know is that whatever it was, it wasn’t documented through the use of digital cameras and social networking.  At the risk of sounding like Thomas Friedman, I was just talking with one of my students a couple of days ago about what impact social media would have on future elections from the “scandal” perspective–i.e., what if there were photos of any presidential candidate’s youthful indiscretions on Facebook?  It’s one thing to hear tell of it–it’s quite another to see the actual physical evidence.  And I suppose that question has been answered just a few days later.  And if you’re a young person contemplating a run for office, it should send just a little bit of a shiver down your spine.  Your elder opponents’ actions at your age–even if they’re just five or ten years older–aren’t a matter of public record.  But in the age of Facebook and Myspace, yours are–and no matter how innocent you may think your photos are, you need to think about the worst possible way they could be used against you–because that’s probably what’s going to happen.

Bottom line: the fact that Gil Cedillo’s campaign feels the need to use social media to commit character assassination on a lesser-known opponent is disheartening.  Gil Cedillo is a strong progressive legislator with a long career track record.  His campaign team consists of people I know who are dedicated to progressive causes.  And the negative mailers sent on the campaign’s behalf are, in my view, not worthy of Senator Cedillo or his campaign leaders.  This is really a low blow, and smacks of desperation to have to resort to this.

(Please welcome Senator Gil Cedillo, candidate for Congress in CA-32, to Calitics. – promoted by Dante Atkins (hekebolos))

President Barack Obama’s selection of Hilda Solis as Labor Secretary demonstrated his commitment to both labor rights and the progressive community.  As an early endorser of Barack Obama and one of the founders of Latinos for Obama, it is wonderful to see our President assemble such a diverse and talented cabinet.  Secretary Solis, who has dedicated her career to fighting for working class families, will be a vital asset to this historic Presidency.  

The selection of Hilda Solis as Labor Secretary has also created a vacancy in the 32nd Congressional District, and I would be honored to represent East Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley in Congress during this unique and historic time.  I am equally honored by the endorsements I have received from over 100 current and former elected officials, including Supervisor Gloria Molina, Senator Gloria Romero, Sheriff Lee Baca, and Former Assemblymember Ed Chavez.  

I have deep roots in the San Gabriel Valley and I have spent my entire career fighting for our community at a grass roots level.  As General Manager for SEIU Local 660 in the early 1990s, I fought to save thousands of jobs in the area by working to keep libraries and youth programs from closing and playing a central role in securing federal assistance to keep General Hospital open.  

Like President Obama, I understand firsthand that real change comes from working together and focusing on what unites us rather than on what divides us.  Upon being elected to the California State Legislature in 1998, I continued my fight to protect the interests of the most vulnerable members of our society and those that have no political voice. Throughout my career as both a member of the State Assembly and the State Senate, I have been one of California’s most forceful progressive advocates on issues regarding immigration reform, expansion of healthcare and improving public education.

While I am proud of my advocacy for immigrants, in particular my fight to allow the undocumented to obtain driver’s licenses, my work extends far beyond that.  As a product of the labor movement, I have worked tirelessly to elevate the stature of the labor movement and understand firsthand the importance of the right to organize.  As a member of the Legislature, I successfully passed a bill to require local governments to recognize unions based on card-check.  I also successfully passed legislation to stop contractors from using state taxpayer money to bust unions, and I proudly signed a pledge to support the Employee Free Choice Act.  In fact three bills that I successfully passed in the California Legislature were executive orders by President Obama in the early days of his Presidency.

I was an early supporter of President Obama because of his ability to energize people and inspire hope in the political process through the power of community organizing.  I am proud to have a tremendous groundswell of grass roots support for my campaign.  It will be an honor to take up this fight for the people of California’s 32th Congressional District and join President Obama in bringing about real change in Washington, D.C.  

I would be proud to have your support.  As a former community organizer, I understand first hand that campaigns are won on the ground, with support from thousands of committed volunteers.  If you have the time over the next 30 days, please click here to visit www.gilcedillo.com to volunteer or make a contribution to my campaign.  

The Special Primary Election is on May 19th and I would greatly appreciate your support.  

[updated to include Cedillo’s endorsements by LIUNA and UFW per David Dayen’s comment below.]

Man, I just can’t get enough of this CA-32 race.  You’ve got two Democratic heavyweights duking it out for a federal position that offers job security with no term limits.  Plus a bright, charismatic former Obama transition official who I think is younger than I am and not inclined to wait his turn.

It’s fascinating to me!  And that was before my neighborhood got dragged into this.

See, Judy Chu has been racking up her fair share of endorsements–most notably the unanimous CDP endorsement, as well as the recent announcements of an endorsement by Antonio Villaraigosa and, most recently, an email sent on Judy’s behalf by Emily’s LIST (really, no surprise there).  Cedillo, meanwhile, has gotten a few notables of his own, most recently LIUNA and UFW, as well as a nearly unanimous endorsement by the Los Angeles County Young Democrats (n.b. I am the Political Director of the aforementioned LACYD).  Well, Senator Cedillo’s team has decided to take that endorsement by Mayor Villaraigosa and turn that around on its head, using Measure R, a sales tax increase that was passed by Los Angeles County voters with a 2/3rds majority.

Now, for our NorCal friends who aren’t aware of this issue, Measure R was a somewhat controversial and complicated measure that was put before the voters of California in November.  It became somewhat of a big deal because the flagship project of Measure R, which was allowed to be placed on the county ballot by AB1213, sponsored by Mike Feuer (AD-42), was an extension to the sea of the Purple line subway along Wilshire Blvd., which is an expensive but sorely needed project in the mid-city, Century City, and, yes, the infamous Westside (I live half a block from the next stop in line to be built, and it means I could get downtown in 15 minutes, rather than 15 hours).

Well, that fact spurred outraged cries of racism and bias toward the County elite on the wealthy Westside, because more money was being spent per capita in that region than in the San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley or South L.A. (for some reason, population size, rather than availability of existing infrastructure or daily commuter population, were the only valid metrics).  And these communities were quite upset with Villaraigosa for being such an ardent supporter of AB1213 and Measure R, before a series of renegotiations about local reinvestment and a whole bunch of other issues.

With that background in mind, here is Cedillo’s camp responding to Villaraigosa’s endorsement of Chu:

“Voters, not endorsements, are going to decide the winner of California’s 32nd Congressional district.  And voters in this district know and respect Gil Cedillo’s record.

Los Angeles politicians like Antonio Villaraigosa actively tried to deny San Gabriel Valley residents their fair share of money from Proposition R – the transportation sales tax – to reduce traffic along the 10, 60 and 605 Freeways so they could build a subway on the Westside of L.A.

It was Gil Cedillo, Supervisor Gloria Molina and Senator Gloria Romero who stood up to Villaraigosa and the other L.A. politicians and said there would be no Proposition R unless the San Gabriel Valley got its fair share of the proceeds.  The efforts of Senator Cedillo and his allies were successful and thanks to them, there are 1.8 billion dollars allocated to local transportation projects that benefit San Gabriel Valley families.

Gil Cedillo is a proven leader who has taken on those big money special interests for years to help workers get better wages and benefits.  He took care of the people of the San Gabriel Valley when Antonio Villaraigosa and the L.A. powerbrokers wanted to take their tax dollars and literally send it down a hole under Wilshire Boulevard.

By standing beside Antonio Villaraigosa today, Judy Chu has shown that she will cozy up to the entrenched political interests, the C-E-Os and wealthy campaign contributors and take care of their interests in Congress instead of putting the hard working families of the San Gabriel Valley first.”

Fine.  I’m sure that message will play really well in the district.  And it’s a great release.  Hard-hitting.  Just the way I like it.  Except for the way it portrays…well…my neighborhood.

Honestly, I’m not a CEO and I, as well as everyone else who would use a subway extensively in this area, do my best to pay my rent every month.  I seriously think they could have played to the interests of the district while playing down the divisiveness just a tad.  That’s my hole down Wilshire Boulevard, thank you very much.

Since it referenced me, let me start by shouting out to fellow Calitician Lucas O’Connor, writing on the front page of MyDD:

Since approximately the morning after election day in November, Dave Dayen has been writing over at Calitics about the dramatic Congressional pick-up opportunities in California that were missed in the Obama wave. Specifically, Obama carried 42 of California’s 53 districts (I won’t even begin right now to get into the state leg breakdown which is also a debacle), including eight districts held by Republicans in Congress. Well all of a sudden this week, the whole world is waking up to the Dayen gospel.

Attention started building about two weeks ago when the DCCC announced it would target all eight of these Obama-Republican California districts. But an announcement of DCCC targeting hasn’t always meant a lot, so to really get going it took a new report from California Target Book finding in part:

Not only is the current statewide Republican registration of 31% a historic low, but for the first time there is not a single congressional, state senate or assembly district that has a majority Republican registration.

Apparently Bob Mulholland sent out a press release waking up to these facts last week.  Now, I’m not going to hate on Mulholland for finally getting with the program.  But let’s make ourselves clear – this was true in 2006 and 2008 as well, and yet the state party failed to capitalize, by their own admission.  So it’s going to take more than one press release to show a commitment.  Republicans have obviously become repellent to the broad majority of Californians, and they’re too busy trying to recall each other to notice.  It’s upsetting that we haven’t used this unpopularity in the past two election cycles, and I hope that the CDP can catch up with the curve.

They can start with effective recruitment.  John Garamendi, who spoke to Greg Lucas as if he’s still a gubernatorial candidate but who by all accounts will be running for Congress, ought to be pushed to run in the 3rd District, where he is the largest landowner and where there is currently no viable candidate to beat Dan Lungren in a district that is trending Democratic, instead of the 10th, where there are multiple viable candidates.  Recruitment is an often-unremarked-upon but crucial element to winning elections.

Speaking of which…

• CA-04: This CapAlert piece certainly makes it sound like Charlie Brown might challenge Tom McClintock once again.

At the Jefferson-Jackson dinner at the Blue Goose Fruit Shed in Loomis, Brown and his wife, Jan, were honored as photographs flashed of Brown and supporters during four years of campaigning. The production was accompanied by songs from Bruce Springsteen’s “No Surrender” to Neil Young’s “Long May You Run.”

And then Brown stirred huge cheers when he hinted he might have the stamina for one more try for Congress in 2010.

“We’ll see what happens over the next few months – and whether you’ll have the opportunity to get into any pictures again,” Brown said.

In an interview, Brown said he is still mulling his prospects. He said he expects to decide by this fall.

We’re big fans of Charlie here at Calitics, and should he run again we’ll stand with him.  McClintock would have the power of incumbency and a red-leaning district but the rumblings I’m hearing out of there signal that residents and local pols aren’t all that enthused by the new Congressman’s performance.

• CA-32: The LA Times weighs in with an overview of the 32nd race to replace Labor Secretary Hilda Solis set for May 19.  They list Judy Chu and Gil Cedillo as the front-runners (though Emanuel Pleitez is profiled) and suggest that the race is a harbinger of the changing, minority-majority face of Southern California politics.  They also mention the Betty Tom Chu controversy, as well as some allegations on the Cedillo side.

Judy Chu supporters suspect that Republican Betty Tom Chu, a Monterey Park councilwoman and a political opponent of Judy Chu, entered the race to confuse voters and harm the chances of her distant relative by marriage. Tom Chu said last week she did not have time to discuss her candidacy, but earlier told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune that she is running because she could not support any of the other candidates and wanted to offer voters an alternative.

Apparently motivated by concerns that the large number of Latino candidates in the race would split the vote in that group and give Judy Chu the edge, there also were signs of jockeying.

Democratic candidate Francisco Alonso, a former mayor of Monterey Park, and a campaign official for Democratic actor/filmmaker Stefan “Contreras” Lysenko each said Cedillo called them shortly before filing closed and urged them to drop out. A Cedillo spokesman said the state senator was merely inviting the others to “work together” with him and did not intend to discourage them from running.

Over the weekend, Cedillo won the endorsement of the LA County Young Democrats, while Chu garnered the endorsement of the state Democratic Party.

Impressive haul.  From the release:

El Monte, CA – State Senator Gil Cedillo today reported having raised $568,000 in the first quarter of 2009, with over $441,000 cash on hand.  Cedillo officially entered the race for the vacant 32nd Congressional District in late January, giving him just over two months to raise money prior to the first fundraising disclosure deadline.  The FEC quarter one deadline was on Tuesday, March 31st and the reports are made public today.

The Cedillo campaign has publicly stated an ambitious goal of raising $750,000 prior to the May 19th Special Primary Election.  The strong quarter one fundraising numbers mean the campaign has already raised 75% of the desired budget.

I’ll post Q1 numbers for other candidates as soon as I have them.

UPDATE with part of the release from Emmanuel Pleitez, who raised $152,777:

LOS ANGELES – Today the Emanuel Pleitez Campaign for Congress announced that it has raised $152,777 in campaign contributions through the first quarter of 2009. That surprisingly large figure, coupled with a ground force of 25 full-time volunteers engaged in technology, finance, communications and grassroots outreach efforts, places the 32nd District candidate squarely in the middle of a three-way race for the vacant Congressional seat.

“Our field and fundraising efforts have exceeded expectations, and we have proven that we are contenders in this race,” said Pleitez. “But the financial reports only tell part of the story of my campaign. We’ve got 25 full-time volunteers who are donating their time to this effort, and it’s impossible to calculate their value. Not only are they giving us their expertise, they’re also contributing their enthusiasm for the political process and their determination to bring new leadership to the 32nd District.

Not a bad haul for Emanuel, who is showing that he doesn’t consider himself an also-ran in this district and is in it to win.

Through a series of vacancies and some early action, California has suddenly become ground zero for Congressional elections.  Here’s the latest news on some of the races.

• CA-32: The special election for Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis’ seat will coincide with the statewide special election on May 19th.  The major candidates, Board of Equalization member Judy Chu, State Sen. Gil Cedillo and Obama transition official Emanuel Pleitez, actually met in a forum last week sponsored by the Southwest Voter Registration Project,  and the Latino Professional Network.  I didn’t learn about it until a press release popped up in my inbox from Cedillo’s press flack touting “Cedillo is Victorious in First Debate”.  Seeking a somewhat less biased opinion, I struggled to find a news report until coming across this in the Whittier Daily News.

Immigration issues dominated the agenda when three of the leading Democratic candidates to replace new Labor Secretary Hilda Solis met face to face for the first time at a forum Thursday night.

“Today I met with the president … I could have said anything … what I said was, ‘Mr. President, please stop the raids. Please stop the raids now,’ ” Cedillo said of a meeting with Barack Obama during the president’s town hall meeting in Los Angeles on Thursday.

Cedillo is known for repeatedly introducing legislation to allow undocumented immigrants to obtain drivers licenses, but he said that his legacy goes far beyond: “In 11 years of the legislature … I have written 80 bills signed by three governors. I have fought to defend immigrants, because I believe it is the right thing to do.”

Chu discussed being raised by an immigrant mother in South Central Los Angeles, fighting against an English- only movement in Monterey Park, and pushing legislation in Sacramento to protect outdoor migrant workers and require contracts negotiated in a certain language to be printed in that language.

“I support bills that will bring justice to immigrants. Many times immigrants do not have a voice in the political system, and it is up to us, who are in elected positions, to be able to speak up for them,” she said.

Pleitez, too, was born to an immigrant mother, who crossed the border from Mexico while pregnant with him. He said his childhood growing up at the “mercy of the generosity of the people of my community” in back rooms and back garages of neighbors created a debt that he owes to the district.

“I was able to move on to Stanford University, Goldman Sachs … but I will never forget … this debt that I have,” he said.

“I will leverage my youth to organize around the country … to really pass immigration reform.”

This was the last scheduled debate where every major candidate has committed to attend, and judging from the article, observers found little differentiation between the candidates on the issues.  Cedillo vowed not to vote for any health care system that didn’t include immigrants “regardless of immigration status,” but given the audience I would expect that kind of rigidity.  I hope there will be a wider range of issues discussed in a public way, and as I have in the past I invite all the candidates to share their views here on Calitics.  We should have at least one response in the coming weeks.  Meanwhile, PowerPAC, a new group targeted at youth of color which aided President Obama in California and across the nation last year, endorsed Gil Cedillo.  He also received the endorsement today of former Assemblyman Ed Chavez.

• CA-10: The field is still assembling after last week’s announcement that Ellen Tauscher will leave Congress to work on arms control policy in the State Department.  While Sen. Mark DeSaulnier has not formally announced, such an announcement is expected.  In the meantime, Adriel Hampton, a municipal investigator for the San Francisco City Attorney’s office, is among the first to formally announce.  Hampton clearly seeks to leverage social media and Web 2.0 (he has a Ning site, in addition to Facebook and Twitter) to create buzz for his outside-the-establishment campaign.  Hopefully he’ll pop up around here as well.  I’m not seeing a lot of substance behind the “hey kids, let’s put on a Government 2.0 show” announcement, but I’m sure that will come.  Perhaps others can fill in the missing pieces here. (Actually, Robert did, below.

Meanwhile, the Yacht Party still must believe that this seat holds the same demographics as it did when it was represented by a Republican in 1996, because they continue to trot out names to contest the seat.  Melanie Morgan is touting someone.  Yes, Spocko’s Melanie Morgan.

Conservative activist, author and former radio talk show host Melanie Morgan sent an e-mail yesterday saying she’s “squealing like a schoolgirl” to announce that Catherine Moy – executive director of the Move America Forward group of which Morgan is chairwoman; co-author with Morgan of “American Mourning;” and a Fairfield City Council member – will run in the special election to succeed Rep. Ellen Tauscher, assuming Tauscher is confirmed to a high-ranking State Department post.

“The conservative counter-insurgency has begun, and I’m going to do everything in my power to get Cat elected,” Morgan wrote. “Cat has terrific name recognition in the area, a devoted following and she is entirely capable of running this race and winning it – as a rock-solid conservative who has never voted to raise a single tax, and has a solid record on national defense working relentlessly with the largest pro-troops grassroots organization in the country.”

I don’t think Morgan knows what the word “counter-insurgency” means.  Will she be seeking out groups inside the district to reconcile differences and win hearts and minds with a movement of primary resistance?

Other Republican names are floating out there, but the one that brings a smile to my face is tom Del Beccaro, Vice Chairman of the Yacht Party and recent founder of a PAC dedicated to stopping the Fairness Doctrine, which has already been stopped by a full vote in the US Senate.

• CA-48: It takes two years to run for Congress at the least, if not multiple cycles.  So I appreciate Irvine City Councilwoman Beth Krom’s kickoff in CA-48 to unseat John Campbell, bringing 300 people to Shady Canyon for the affair.  Both Steve Young (the most recent candidate in the district) and Rep. Loretta Sanchez enthusiastically endorsed Krom’s candidacy, so expect the field to clear.  It’s quixotic, but we need more windmill-tilters taking back red districts.

Judy Chu followed Gil Cedillo’s campaign kick-off with a kickoff of her own, and friend of Calitics Todd Beeton was there.

Judy Chu’s event was held in a smaller venue than Cedillo’s and had fewer attendees but had a few things going for it that Cedillo didn’t. First was the visibility. Chu had bands of young people out on the street with signs cheering on Chu urging cars to honk in support. Also, while there was no member of congress on hand to tout Chu as Xavier Becerra did for Cedillo, Chu had a larger and more diverse group of local leaders speak on her behalf ranging from State Contoller John Chiang to Assemblymen Ed Hernandez and Mike Eng (Judy’s husband) to Hilda Solis’s sister Irma. While Cedillo spoke to a room full of primarily hispanic supporters (I’d say 90+%), the mix of Asian, hispanic and white faces there to support Judy and speak on her behalf was notable. While Cedillo is trying to tap into the majority hispanic population in the district (60% hispanic vs. 20% Asian), Judy Chu, having served on the Monterey Park City Council, in the Assembly and now on the Board of Equalization, already has a voting base in the district that spans all ethnic groups. Cedillo on the other hand has never represented any part of this district before.

Pretty interesting that Hilda Solis’ sister not only showed up, but announced that “my whole family supports Judy Chu.”  The new Secretary of Labor isn’t going to make an endorsement in this race, but that’s about as close as it gets.  And it’s important, especially when combined with the Cal Labor Federation endorsement.

There’s kind of a competition between who is the candidate of exclusion versus inclusion in this race.  Chu says that she’s the only one in the race from the district (that’s not true; Emanuel Pleitez was born there, and Baldwin Park USD Board member Blanca Rubio lives there as well), and that a carpetbagger shouldn’t be allowed to come in from out of town; Cedillo clearly is using his ethnic identity to make the point that the candidate should be representative of “our community.”  Both are exclusionary messages.

Meanwhile, Chu levied the first attack of the campaign by highlighting a Roll Call story about Cedillo doing a Washington fundraiser at the offices of the C2 Group, a lobbying firm in DC.  Their clients include Fannie Mae, Amgen, Comcast Corp., the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the American Beverage Association.  What’s more interesting about that fundraiser is that half a dozen Democratic Congressmembers are sponsoring it, including Rep. John Salazar (D-Colo.), chairman the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ political action committee.  Will Cedillo get substantial CHC funds for this race?

It would be good to know where these candidates stand on the issues of the day, and a political campaign is a great way to make that known.  There’s a special election in the state on the same day as the primary – how do Chu and Cedillo stand on Prop. 1A?  What about the AIG bonuses?  At some point, it would be good to see the race turn to actual issues instead of sniping and exclusionary politics.

On Sunday, I attended an event in at the home a gay couple named Curtis Chin and Jeff Kim at a loft in downtown Los Angeles which brought together Asian American LGBTs and their allies to support Judy Chu’s run for the 32nd Congressional District seat. The event was attended by the first LGBT person of color to be elected to the California Legislature, John Pérez who introduced the current member of the State Board of Equalization to the assembled crowd of about 75 attendees. Other people in attendance were Cary Davidson, Board President of Equality California, Vincent Wong and Andrew Ogilvie (Board Members of The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force), Marshall Wong and Doreena Wong (Board Co-Chairs of API Equality Los Angeles) and Rita Gonzalez (Board President of Bienestar).

When she spoke, Judy Chu gave a number of reasons why she expects to win the race, the first was Experience. She has been representing different portions of the 32nd district for 23 years, having been elected 9 different times in School Board, City Council, Assembly and state Board of Equalization races. The second reason was Money. She said that her goal was to raise $750,000 and has so far raised $425,000 and Governor Schwarzenegger has until Tuesday to announce when the Special Election will occur (which is likely to coincide with the statewide special election already set for Tuesday May 19th). The third was Endorsements, especially Labor. She has been endorsed by all three assemblymembers who represent portions of the 32nd Congressional District: (Chu’s husband)  Mike Eng (49th AD), Kevin de Leon (45th AD where MadProfessah lives and serves as an elected representative on the Democratic State Central Committee) and Ed Hernandez (57th AD).

In addition, she said that she has been endorsed by all 7 of the 7 police officers associations in the district as well as 75 elected officials who represent portions of the 32nd CD while “her opponent” has only 10 elected officials. In addition, Chu has been endorsed by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which has identified 40, 000 union households in the district. In a 15% turnout election, it probably takes less than 20,000 votes to win the Democratic primary, which is tantamount to winning the election in such a Democratic-leaning CD.

Chu never actually mentioned Gil Cedillo by name until she was asked by an audience member how many other people were running and then she explained that there are 5 other people running but characterized her and State Senator Cedillo as the two “major candidates” in the race. She invited people to her campaign kick-off event on Saturday March 14th.

The 32nd Congressional District contains 10 separate cities: El Monte, South El Monte, West Covina, Azusa, Covina, Rosemead, Baldwin Park, Monterey Park, Duarte and Irwindale. It is estimated to be 60% Latino and 20% Asian. However, it looks like ths CA-32 race is going to be hard-fought but not as racially divisive as the CA-37 race was in summer 2007 between African Americans (Laura Richardson) and Latinos (Jenny Oropeza) over the the late Juanita Millender McDonald’s seat that was won by Richardson.