CSEA members and my fellow union staffer Dale and I walked precincts in Coachella this morning for Manuel Perez, Assemblyman for the 80th AD. As always with this campaign, we were in good company:

Isadore Hall, Assemblyman for the 52nd District, brought five volunteers with him for precinct walking and carne asada.  More from Isadore Hall, CA52AD, on the flip.

Crossposted from dKos

I’ll get better at this videography thing, I promise:

Assemblyman Hall, continued:

We had LIUNA, United Domestic Workers, Coachella Valley Teachers Association, CSEA and more.  This campaign has so many of the same people we had last time, and Manuel Perez’s grassroots/social justice focus is the same.  The difference is now he is on the inside, with a track record.  

(While the issues within the State Capitol are important, we also need to work on rebuilding a sustainable economy for the future. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

According to Miguel Figueroa, the Executive Director of the Calexico New River Committee (the sponsors of AB 1079), “Despite decades of resolutions, studies and promises, our city has not received the sustained leadership and support from California that we need to solve this problem. We commend Assemblyman Perez for making New River clean-up a priority in his first term in office…”

Perez is doing what he said he’d do for the region no one has served up to now- clean up the New River, the biggest environmental and public health disaster in the 80th since the 1940s.  Though Senator Ducheny made progress in 2005, it took Perez to get the full coalition together and the federal funds released.

The Desert Sun, true to form, tucks the credit for this “unprecedented attention” and the “reversal of years of neglect” into the second page:

The California-Mexico Border Relations Council in coming weeks will host a public hearing in Imperial County to get residents’ feedback. The relatively new organization, made up of key state secretaries, is tasked with identifying major border issues.

Assemblyman V. Manuel Pérez, a Coachella Democrat who secured the state funding and is organizing the coming visits, has authored a bill giving the border council authority to coordinate a restoration plan with locals and oversee the necessary environmental studies.

(btw, If this had been a Benoit or Nestande Republican success, we’d have seen their names in the first line, plus photo.  No liberal media here.)  

Next action on this bill is scheduled for August 27, 2009.  Perez’s first bill to make it into law was AB 1555 – broadband development in rural areas.  That helps in Imperial County, too, where unemployment tops 25%.

Yes, I’d like him to do all of this and be as far in front on the budget as Nancy Skinner. But reclaiming a healthful environment along the New River is transformative stuff, too. The people who live along the New River have an Assemblymember, finally.

Perez will face a well funded challenger in all likelihood.  Can a Republican challenger can peel this constituency off with attacks on Manuel’s support for the gay community and women’s healthcare rights?  Jeandron tried last year and failed.  The New River is toxic to the touch, and dooms the whole region to poverty.  If Perez can turn that around, he’ll have done more than every Republican combined since the 1940s.

(great ground report from the campaign of my favorite soon-to-be Assemblyman. – promoted by David Dayen)

Large majorities of Perez’s ID’d voters have already voted.  The majority of  VBM and PAV are Democrats this time around.  We’ve expanded the universe to make full use of our powerhouse squad of union brothers and sisters on the job today.

Jeandron dropped some particularly sleazy attack mailers yesterday, but California Medical Association mailed a fold out poster IE for Manuel that’s just beautiful, as you can see above.  As the man says, it’s a movimiento, a social justice movement, not just a campaign.

I’m here in Coachella with CSEA.   SEIU is also walking and poll watching, as is LIUNA, United Domestic Workers, CTA.  The enthusiasm in Imperial County is unprecedented – that’s where Manuel started his day.  He’s working his way from volunteer site to site from Calexico to Palm Springs today.  He’ll vote at Coachella City Hall at 3pm, and join Assembly Speaker Karen Bass at the Democratic HQ at 6pm for a rally, then on to Democratic Party at the Agua Caliente, then back to Coachella HQ to get the final numbers.

Two bands, and much food by then.  Updates as I can.  

A couple of days ago I wrote a diary entitled Stay for Change.  I am encouraging Californians to stay in the state.  Walk precincts and make calls here in California.  And despite all the text messages and emails you get, please we need you here!

We need you here to defeat Prop 8, so that we retain marriage equality and we aren’t stuck with a second class citizenship. We need you here at home, so that we can defeat Proposition 4 to preserve the safety of our teens and choice in California. We need you here to help kick start the greatest public works project in a generation with California’s High Speed Rail project (Prop 1A).

And we need you here to elect More And Better Democrats.  Across California we are fighting for a reasonable budget. A budget that doesn’t get defined by the race to the bottom Republicans. To do that, we need 2/3 majorities in both the Senate and the Assembly.  Admittedly that will be tough, perhaps even impossible in the Senate. But the closer we get to 2/3, the easier it is to pass a reasonable budget. In the Senate, Hannah-Beth Jackson (19th) is our best shot to pick up a seat. In the Assembly we have some great candidates. You’ll find two, Alyson Huber (AD-10) and Manuel Perez (AD-80) on The Calitics ActBlue Page.

But while the need for money is omnipresent, we need boots on the ground.  So, Stay for Change so that California can be the first state to stand up for equality. Stay for Change. Let’s tell the Republicans that they can’t just cut and cut and cut into the heart of our budget, and expect to find a solution.

This is California. We have the people right here in this state to defeat these terrible props, and accomplish our goals.  But we need some progressives to stay here in California.

So, if you would like to travel, I have provided a list of exotic locales where you can help some great candidates right here in California.  And if you would like to help right at home, well there are offices for No on Prop 8 across the state. You can find events to protect teen safety by defeating Prop 4 right here.

Stay for Change, and click here for contact info for lots of candidates.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Republican Gary Jeandron’s gone negative on Manuel Perez again, airing a radio/TV ad that accuses Manuel of being for higher taxes, higher fees, we can’t afford Manuel Perez – primal scream, clutch the pearls, etc.  The usual GOP disingenuous hysteria.

The Perez campaign has responded:

Now, it’s not that Perez thinks that the Grover Norquist pledge is a good thing, he just notes that Jeandron is running on the usual GOP gimmick, while failing to meet the gimmick’s standards.

UPDATE – I had this diary all wrong before, I referred to the wrong attack ad. Now it makes sense.

ActBlue here.