“It just seems to me it is improper. It reduces confidence in government and also particularly the Party. I think the Party is going to have a tough time with all this publicity raising money from the smaller donors.”

-Bob Stern, President, Center for Governmental Studies on KCRW last night talking about the California Democratic Party wasting $450,000 on Senator Don Perata’s criminal defense fund. CDP flack Roger Salazar refused to go on at the same time as Stern and Rick Jacobs to debate the scandal.

Yesterday, David Dayen explained Why The Perata/CDP Scandal Threatens The Budget Fight. Yet that isn’t the only casualty from the culture in Sacramento that has put the California Democratic Party in crisis.

TPM Election Central is reporting on the target list for $34 million in DCCC reserved TV time this fall. Of the 31 races targeted, zero are in California.

Which brings me back to last night’s ill-timed fundraiser with Speaker Karen Bass. The actblue page to RSVP for the account said the money was going to support the California State Democratic Committee – Federal Account. Great idea, Madame Speaker Bass helping Madame Speaker Nancy Pelosi pick up more seats and be able to overcome the Blue Dog Caucus siding with the GOP to obstruct Pelosi’s leadership.

With California unable to count on DCCC ad money against any of the very vulnerable Republican Representatives, it is clear California Democrats need to plan to win on our own. Which is why yesterday’s LA Times editorial on the CDP wasting money on Don Perata is so counterproductive. We need the resources to win on our own and we need small dollar donors to get there. Yet the actions of the CDP discourage small dollar donations. The results are clear, including last night, the CDP has only raised $6,630 ALL CYCLE in federal money on actblue. To put in perspective, San Diego County Democrats have raised more than 20 times that much federal money on actblue — from more than 30 times as many small dollar contributions.

It could be another landslide year, but it probably will be yet another year when Democratic Congressional challengers don’t get the support they could and should count on from the CDP. In fact, when taking into account outstanding debt, the CDP Federal Account had less than $300,000 as of the end of May. And Democratic state senate challengers have already seen $450,000 wasted on not helping elect Hannah-Beth Jackson and Lois Wolk. We can trust in the CDP if the goal is to seize defeat from the jaws of victory (which it might be, Perata already called uncle on two state senate races so far this year). Or we can reform and begin fighting to beat Republicans instead of coddle the Democratic Party establishment. The first step is accountability. Again, Senator Don Perata needs to give back the $450,000 and Art Torres should step down as CDP Chair for wasting $4,450,000 not electing Democrats this fall.

Every political insider in the state woke up this morning, opened the Sacramento Bee and read:

Perata aid angers some Dems

$250,000 to help with his legal bills should go to 2008 races, they say.

The California Democratic Party’s decision to spend another $250,000 on Senate leader Don Perata’s legal bills has angered some party activists, who say the money would be better spent electing Democrats this year.

The Oakland Democrat has racked up nearly $2 million in fees fending off an ongoing FBI corruption investigation in the last four years. With the latest donation, made July 1, the party has now given a total of $450,000 to help cover Perata’s legal bills.

“The California Democratic Party is in business to defeat Republicans and elect Democrats,” said Rick Jacobs, co-founder of the Courage Campaign, a left-leaning online activist group. “It’s not really to keep corrupt politicians out of jail.”

Steve Cummings, vice president of the Democratic Club of Ventura County, said that while he had not personally formed an opinion, “People are going to be livid.”

Democratic activists who want to take advantage of what could be another tidal wave year should be livid to see the CDP waste money like this. Wasting money on an impotent lame duck who should have passed the batton to Darrell Steinberg long ago instead of electing Democrats is plain stupid. There is no excuse. Art Torres should resign in shame. With this latest scandal, on top of the $4,000,000 he wasted on Fabian Nunez, it is abundantly clear that Torres has no intention of doing his job.

Tomorrow, Speaker Karen Bass is hosting a small dollar fundraiser for the CDP. How can Speaker Bass honestly ask Democratic activists to go to Actblue and make a two figure donation when the CDP is writing six and seven figure checks that have nothing to do with electing Democrats? Chair Torres is embarrassing Speaker Bass with this crap and putting her in an awful position thanks to legal crisis created by the clear appearance of impropriety by Senator Don Perata.

At the heart of the crisis rolling the CDP is money. While DNC Chair Howard Dean and Democratic Party presidential nominee Barack Obama have crossed the bridge to the 21st century and inspired small dollar donors to build people-powered political operations, the CDP is actually going backwards and Chair Torres is running things worse than when he was first anointed by then President Bill Clinton a decade ago. Chair Torres is either unable or unwilling to lead the CDP in this direction. As such, he has no business being Chair and should resign immediately.

When I hear the name “Art Torres” I have a sour taste in my mouth. My first thought is how far the $4,450,000 he has wasted could have gone to register and organize Democrats. Think how far that could have gone towards actually helping Charlie Brown this cycle, or Debbie Cook or Russ Warner or any of the great challengers who should be receiving strong support from the Party. If we lose Proposition 8 and California codifies discrimination into the state constitution, I’m going to think how far that money could have gone towards registering and turning out Democrats. Think how many organizers could be hired and trained with such a large sum.

The California Democratic Party is lost and the first step to set a new course is to admit that the CDP is FUBAR with Art Torres at the helm. Chair Torres needs to step down, preferably before he shames Speaker Bass at tomorrow night’s small dollar fundraiser. For as long as he stays, it makes no sense for small donors to contribute and every Democrat on the ballot this fall in a tight race is at an extreme disadvantage. It is time for reform, for progress. It is time to start winning.

[UPDATE by Dave] – Might as well add this here – the FISA Amendments Act passed today, and Sen. Feinstein voted for cloture, for the final bill, and against stripping out immunity.  Art Torres told us all that last year, she “led the fight” to stop telecom immunity in the United States Senate.  Draw your own conslusions.

It had to happen.  The Reps have opened an internet fund-raising site.  The scary part is that Keith A. Davis of Huckaby Davis Lisker (who previously worked for Bush-Cheney ’04) is the Treasurer.  I am cross posting from my DailyKos diary.

In 2006, 22 federal races were won or lost by less than 2 percent. In 2002 and 2004, just seven races total were won or lost by less than 2 percent. We’re no longer winning and losing races with wide margins. One reason Democrats won the House and Senate majorities is because sites like ACTBLUE allowed Democrats to raise funds across the country and raise resources get our message out.

The Republicans are now entering the field with Slatecard.com PAC that operates SlateCard.com,
acting as a “conduit” for Republican contributors to federal races.

Acknowledging that Democrats are far ahead of Republicans in converting their online presence to off-line support, SlateCard.com states,

It is our hope that Slatecard will level the playing field for Republican candidates and causes by providing an innovative platform for use by the Right kind of activists.

SlateCard uses several innovations that ActBlue should implement. 

First is the innovation of “issue badges.” Currently, on any candidate’s website or on a site like ActBlue, once a user inputs their credit card information and clicks submit the process is over.

Not so on Slatecard. On Slatecard, when a contribution has successfully processed the user is then taken to an issue badges page where the user can choose one of 26 issues that they believe the candidate represents well. For example, a few popular issue badges are “Faith & Values,” “2nd Amendment Rights,” Secure Our Borders,” and “Stop Hillary.” Once we’ve amassed enough data, we’re going to give activists the ability to search for candidates they might support based on the issues. But we’re not letting candidates choose the issues, instead the issues are selected by the community that supports that candidate. In other words, we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to make a qualified-Wiki of candidates where issue-based voters can support candidates regardless of geography.

The second innovation is to provide a “Connect” section on every candidates profile where the candidate can add links to social networking sites like facebook, myspace, youtube, flickr, linkedin and other outlets.

The third innovation is what the page calls “Snacktivism.” The Reps track every action on the site (Who knew the Reps would do such a thing) by registering the site  The Ticker. It is in effect a score card of visits to pages and shows interest beyond just donations. 

There is also a blog page and other features that ActBlue could effectively implement.

I want to take the time to cross-post this week’s entry here as two California groups made the list. I’ll try to do that each week in any state with a community blog if they have candidates on that week’s list as a service to the larger blogging community. It should not be construed as an endorsement by me or ActBlue in any way. That said, read on!

A new blog series that I’m starting up at the ActBlue Blog is a weekly activity report (to be posted each Monday). In it, we’ll look to feature the most active campaigns and fundraising pages at ActBlue for the prior week. It’s a scaled down version of our Monthly or Quarterly activity reports but if something neat or creative sticks out we’ll try to highlight it.

Total Contributions last week: $226,262.30
Total Donors: 1794
Avg. Contribution size: $128.33

Here are the Top 5 Recipients on ActBlue last week by number of donors.

Here are the Top 5 Candidate Recipients on ActBlue last week by total amount raised.

Here are the Top 5 ActBlue Fundraising Pages last week by number of donors.

Today ActBlue marks its 3rd Anniversary. Seriously, 3 years? I know- time flies.

Back in 2004, our founders Matt DeBergalis and Benjamin Rahn thought they could build something that would change Democratic fundraising- making it, well, more democratic. The two of them, living off of savings and limited investment, set out to build a platform that would end up changing our Party. Working out of their homes, they built the first generation of ActBlue.

This innovative, secure, and groundbreaking way to give money to Democrats was launched in June of 2004 before the end of the fundraising quarter. The earliest adopters, the blogosphere, helped push $250,000 into federal campaigns that summer. Printing $1 million in checks out of Matt’s living room by the end of 2004 was an accomplishment for the start-up. ActBlue caught the eye of Democratic campaigns, organizations, and establishment investors and it was time to grow.

And grow ActBlue did. You can see it for yourself in the numbers.

Total Raised for Democrats through ActBlue: $24,167,741

# of fundraising pages on ActBlue: 4,204

# of people contacted in just 3 weeks via ActBlue’s new Spread the Word tool: 3,751

# of active entities in ActBlue’s directory: 3,739 (will grow towards 10,000 this cycle)

# of candidates and committees receiving funds to date: 1,725

# of states where ActBlue is active for state level activity: 23 (soon to be 24)

# of people behind the ActBlue curtain: 6

# of months until ActBlue outgrows its 600 sq foot office: 1
  (that’s over $40,000/sq.ft. of productivity!)

There a lot of talk about investing in lasting infrastructure for the Democratic Party. ActBlue returns over $20 in aid for Democratic candidates for every $1 in investment. We have more ideas under the hood than you can shake a stick at, limited not by our creativity, but by time and investment.

ActBlue is an investment in our Party. ActBlue is an investment in a Democratic future.

So, in honor of our 3rd Anniversary, will you invest in ActBlue?

http://www.actblue.com/page/investinactblue

With your help, the future will be more than just bright- it will be Blue.

So I offer a toast: the undiscovered country . . . the future. Here’s to turning 3.

(bumped- – promoted by dday)

I have exciting news about our Calitics end-of-the-quarter fundraiser.  As you all know, we’re starting a tradition of holding a bar event every three months at the end of the quarter to raise money at our ActBlue page for progressive California candidates.  There’s an event in San Francisco and an event in Santa Monica.  And boy, have we snagged a great co-host: the talk of the blogosphere, fresh off her powerful and brilliant speech at the Take Back America Conference, Santa Monica’s own… Digby!

Details on the flip:

The proprietress of Hullabaloo has graciously accepted our invitation to co-host the event.  Here’s what you do:

Drop a few shekels in the Calitics Act Blue page for great progressive candidates like Jerry McNerney, Charlie Brown, Mark Leno (state Senate candidate), or the Calitics CaliPAC, our new state and federal PAC that we set up to help fund progressive infrastructure and build a progressive majority. (we’re on the honor system, folks, but please give if you can)

Then, join us Wednesday night for our end-of-the-quarter celebration (in association with Drinking Liberally Westside Los Angeles), and meet the lady who crashed Google Video’s servers this week!

Details:

The Cock & Bull
2947 Lincoln Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90405
Wednesday, June 27  7:00pm-whenever

This should be a heck of a lot of fun, a way to help some good candidates, and a great opportunity to thank Digby for her tireless work exposing the massive fraud that’s been perpetrated on this nation, and being one of the most tranchant, insightful, and unyielding voices in the blogosphere.  We are fortunate to have her in this movement, and we’re ecstatic that she’ll be able to join us Wednesday night.

Won’t you join us as well?

(Related: We Are All Digby Now)

OK, everyone reading this knows we need better collaboration. Here are a couple quick steps:

1. The Grassroots county committees need to get on ActBlue. This is an easy way for local parties to raise solid money online. San Diego and San Fernando Valley are already leading the way. Then, come here and tell us how it is working so other counties can learn.
2. The netroots need to explain the netroots to the establishment. I highly recommend this video. In conjunction, help local Central Committees get on Actblue and help the politicians come here.
3. The elected officials need to come around for a conversation.

I want more discussion on unity, please offer ideas in the comments, but I think these three concepts are a good place to start.

This one might be bigger than winning the Democracy for America Grassroots All-Stars competition.  Matt Stoller just announced that Charlie Brown and Donna Edwards are the first two additions to the Daily Kos/MyDD/Swing State Project Act Blue page for the 2008 cycle called Blue Majority.  The same page brought $101,504 into Rep. Jerry McNerney’s coffers last cycle.  Note that Jerry also won the DfA Grassroots All-Star competition last year on his second attempt to unseat a corrupt Republican in Northern California.  Hopefully we will have the same ending with this race in the 4th CD.

Charlie has put a lot of time into cultivating his netroots support and he is getting some great returns.  This is the plum cherry of all the ActBlue pages.  We have a great relationship with Charlie and his team here at Calitics and this should be the hub of information that will turn into stories over at Daily Kos, thus driving his fundraising.

I would expect an announcement post profiling Charlie Brown over at Daily Kos some time today or tomorrow, as is tradition.  This is fantastic news.

From the comments a note from Charlie and the campaign:

Charlie asked me to pass along our thanks to everyone at Calitics for your support, your very kind words, and all 128 of those posts!!!

You all are living proof that change starts with everyone getting involved, and staying involved, every day…that’s certainly what has brought us this far, and it is what will carry us over the top in the next election.

Thank you once again from everyone at Team Brown.

-Todd w/Charlie Brown for Congress

(This is a great way to use the great technological tools we have to make county parties and grassroots groups more efficient. I’ll be getting more into this subject in an upcoming post. – promoted by dday)

Since 2004, ActBlue has helped Democrats raise over $22 million in online contributions.  We are a Political Action Committee, not a business, so our motivation is getting Democrats elected instead of padding profit margins.  We know how much of a hassle accepting credit card donations on the Internet can be, and we want to help.

One of the areas that ActBlue can help in is with your local County Democratic Party. Click here to see those already set up for California and check the comments for more info.

If your local county party or committee is in one of the 22 states where ActBlue is already active (minus some clean-elections states like Arizona), you can have all the ActBlue fundraising tools utilized by top tier House and Senate campaigns at the disposal of your county party.  Several county parties are already using those tools to achieve success!

In Oregon, the Yamhill County Democratic Party uses ActBlue to accept monthly recurring contributions:

http://www.actblue.com/page/ycd_presidents_circle

Instead of soliciting your membership for a one-time donation, recurring contributions allow you to ask them for $10 a month (or more) for the next year.  This helps you budget and helps your members by spreading out their contribution over an entire year.

The San Diego County Democratic Party used ActBlue to accept RSVPs and payments for their annual fundraising dinner:

http://www.actblue.com/page/rd

Using ActBlue for event management allows you to see your rsvps in real time (no waiting for a check in the mail!).  Online invitations help circulate event details while collecting contributions. Contributor data in spreadsheet form provides you with an instant guest list and useful template for nametags and thank you notes.

The Democratic Party of San Fernando Valley used ActBlue earlier this year to collect registration costs for their General Assembly meeting.

http://www.actblue.com/page/dpsfvregistration

So how cost effective is this for local parties?  There is no setup fee, no maintenance fee, no check fee, no check re-issue fee and no customer service fees.  We deduct a processing fee of around 3.95% which covers what we are charged by our credit card processor.  This fee comes out of your contributions so there are never any bills to pay.

Every Monday we mail checks to all campaigns and committees that received contributions through ActBlue during the past week.  All of the information about the individual contributors is available online and can be imported to your existing campaign finance software.

You can see that there are a number of ways that County Parties can use ActBlue. In the most basic sense, parties can use ActBlue to process their general donations and ease their reporting burden. At any time they can take advantage of these more creative and advanced options to enhance their fundraising, none of which even requires a county party to have a website!

This is just another way we are hoping to make ActBlue useful to you in building a more Democratic America. Please contact us at [email protected] to discuss how we can help your county party. We’ll be happy to get you started!