Two days ago, I wrote a brief diary about a potential quid pro quo between Supervisor and DCCC Chair-elect Aaron Peskin and Assemblywoman Fiona Ma. Word was out that the moderate Ma was considering voting to elect Peskin to the Chair position. This sparked an urgent email from Plan C. It was also rumored to have happened in exchange for Peskin’s support for legislation that would benefit the business interest of her boyfriend, Patrick Koch. What I did know two days ago was the existence of a column by Matier and Ross that connected the dots at the end of last month.

Link

State Assemblywoman Fiona Ma appears to have a very special interest in some special-interest legislation making the rounds both in Sacramento and in her hometown of San Francisco.

At issue: legislation custom-tailored to give an outfit called Current Grid LLC a leg up in the emerging $5 billion energy-saving industry in California.

Current Grid is an affiliate of the Current Group of Maryland, whose investors include Google, Goldman Sachs & Co. and Hearst Corp., which owns The Chronicle. Current Grid sells so-called smart meters – sophisticated electric meters for homes and businesses that allow utility companies to instantly monitor power usage rather than relying on traditional meter readers. The devices also let customers monitor their usage to help reduce wasteful consumption.

The president of Current Grid is Patrick Koch, a Washington lobbyist whose brother is married to President Bush’s sister and who has an interesting romantic connection of his own – the Democratic assemblywoman.

When the two showed up together at a recent Washington reception for new California Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, the party’s emcee – Billy Tauzin, an ex-congressman from Louisiana who now lobbies for pharmaceutical companies – introduced Ma as Koch’s girlfriend, according to people who were there.

Ma and Koch were also seen together at the Inn at Spanish Bay in Pebble Beach last month, attending the Speaker’s Cup annual golf tournament.

Whatever their personal relationship – and neither was returning calls to comment – Ma is apparently eager to promote Koch’s business interests.

Ma first attempted to push through components of state energy legislation that would have benefited Koch’s company, however, it was amended to be “technology neutral” and gave no one the advantage. Not one to give up so easily, she took her beau’s cause to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

As Current Grid’s prospects faded in Sacramento, Ma and Koch turned their attention to San Francisco, where Ma was soon pushing the firm’s smart-meter technology to Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier.

“Fiona put me in contact with the (Current Grid) people,” Alioto-Pier said. “They came into the office, and he (Koch) gave me this shtick – here’s what it does, this is what it’s all about.”

A few weeks ago, Alioto-Pier introduced legislation to require Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to bring the technology to San Francisco. At the time, she wasn’t aware of Ma and Koch’s relationship – something she learned about only recently from a member of her staff.

But she had heard complaints from PG&E about her bill and lately had signaled that she intended to tinker with it, including perhaps requiring that the meter supplier first pass muster with the state Public Utilities Commission.

Koch, in turn, complained to Alioto-Pier’s office that she was being manipulated by PG&E.

Two weeks ago, without consulting Alioto-Pier, Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin submitted a proposition for the November ballot – backed by three fellow supervisors, and listing Ma Chief of Staff Bill Barnes as a sponsor – that would require PG&E to use the kind of system Koch is selling.

And now we fast-forward to last night’s vote at the DCCC. Susan Leal, a woman who has every legitimate reason to support Peskin, sat in on behalf of Ma and cast a deciding vote in favor of the Board president. My opinion on this? I don’t really have one except to say that there are no “moderates” or “progressives” in San Francisco, just a series of shifting alliances based on convenience and expediency. Peskin is  and always will be an effective legislator and only did a little dirty work to tidy up the deal. However, as Bevan Dufty said in the report, Ma will probably, and should, take a hit for so vigorously pushing legislation that specifically benefits her boyfriend at both the state and local level and should be scrutinized every bit as much as outgoing senator Carole Migden.

Or, more accurately, he’d be completely comfortable in it. After all, he understood how to make Chicago politics work for him, so I’m sure he’d be able to fight in the trenches in San Francisco. But as Obama tries to push our national body politic out of the gutter, some in San Francisco are working their darndest to make sure our local politics stays there.  All this is a bit ironic because many of these same people were vocal and outspoken supporters of Obama. Unfortunately, getting Democrats to work collaboratively, as opposed to combatively, even in a one-party town, can be like herding cats. But that need not lead to the abandonment of a sense of civility.

San Francisco politics, like the politics of many big cities across the country, is something of a bloodsport. Fine, but civility needn’t be tossed out as well.

During the campaign for the June 3 election, we saw some nasty stuff. We had Chris Daly putting Carole Migden on the deceptive faux-“Guardian” Slate. We had some nasty campaigning in pretty much every race, come to think of it. And, in the end, much of what defines San Francisco has been boiled down to one, or two depending on how you look at it, personalities.

But the personalities of Gavin Newsom (and Chris Daly) should not get in the way of a simple fact: Scott Wiener has done a tremendous job as DCCC chair in building the party infrastructure. He may not be the very most progressive, the furthest to the left. In fact, I don’t go out on much of a limb when I say that I am to his left on a few issues here and there.  But when the rubber hits the road, Scott Wiener has worked for progressive causes in the city and state. And he has been incredibly competent at the job for which he is seeking re-election.

Follow me over the flip…

In this city, it frequently seems that you are either pro-Newsom or you are against him. It’s not really a healthy environment. And, to be honest, both Newsom and Supervisor Chris Daly are partially to blame for the venomous atmosphere. But every step of the way, Daly has played an instrumental role in provoking the mayor and polarizing this city, so much so that Sup. Peskin had to step in as budget chair for Daly.

Supervisor Daly was an early and vocal supporter of Senator Obama (while Newsom was the same for Clinton). During the run up to Feb 5, you would frequently find him hanging outside the Obama SF office, typically trying to gather signatures for POWER’s housing initiative that became the ill-fated Prop F on the June 3 ballot. However, the difference between the rhetoric of Obama’s message of unity and hope could not be any more different from the rhetoric of Chris Daly. I won’t go into much depth on Daly’s antics, but suffice it to say that he could be far more effective without being so confrontational and brutish. If you want more information, just do some google searching, you’ll find it.

Which brings me to the hope that the message that Sen. Obama brings.  Chris Daly is a tremendous progressive, but he is a top-down progressive. While Obama can occasionaly be less than optimal (see FISA), he has built a very strong people-powered campaign.  With Daly it’s either his way, or, well, “he’ll take you out”.

Here I am referring back to the SF DCCC Chair race. Chris Daly wants to control the Chair, and the DCCC generally to elect progressives. Great, but we don’t need to destroy the party to do that. I’ll let Steve Jones detail what happens when it’s not his way:

But Daly drew the line and issued an ultimatum: “Every one of you who votes for Scott Wiener, I’m going to try to take you out. I’m going to make it my business.”

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Finally, Daly started to berate Peskin, telling him, “Get your shit together for six months.”

Now that’s the hope Sen. Obama speaks of, huh? I am reminded of something former Democratic Congresswoman and current Green Party presidential Candidate said at a Green Party Candidate forum here in San Francisco: “I have never seen anything like I have seen in the Green Party! I have to ask my constituents, people who support me, to come and join this? I want to be proud of what I’ve asked them to join, so please, come together.”

I’m going to now say something that I never thought I would ever say: Can we just take the advice on organization and cooperation from Cynthia McKinney? Let’s get our shit together. I can’t think of a better way to do that here in SF than re-electing Scott Wiener as Chair of the DCCC. He has done a tremendous job of bringing on a full-time organizer, registering voters, and getting voters actively involved. Those are the goals of the DCCC, and those are the metrics we should be looking at. By those metrics, Scott deserves re-election.

This is a premature, possibly morbid diary, but should we start thing about a future without Nancy Pelosi? Sooner or later, we Democrats will have a bad election. That is just a fact of American history. We also know that speakers who lose their gavels due to scandal or election losses do not last much longer in Congress, the risk of holding such a lofty post. When that day comes (hopefully no time soon), San Francisco will have a Congressional vacancy for the first time since 1987. The City’s Central Democratic Committee has a very strong “wait your turn” attitude and the Burton Machine still lives, BUT no one is going to want to wait another 20+ for the seat to be open again, so the question is: Who will run when Madame Speaker retires? Here is my short list of possibilities.

1. District Attorney Kamala Harris is young, popular, dynamic and well connected to the Willie Brown machine (get you minds out of the gutter). She has done a good job of keeping her name in the press and face in front of the camera and she is everywhere a group of Democrats are meeting. She would also carry on the tradition of having a female represent the district.

2. Mayor Gavin Newsom may prefer to represent more than 500,000 people at a time, but he has not put enough distance between himself and Tourkgate to run for statewide office. He is still very young and a few effective terms in Congress would allow him to build more national contacts and let memories fade. California has term limits for governor so he can afford to wait it out or even succeed Barbara Boxer in 2016.

3. Assemblyman Mark Leno is a popular figure in San Francisco, likely going to the State Senate next year and a good bet to become the first openly gay Congressman from San Francisco. He’s been effective in Sacramento and there is no reason to believe he would not be effective in Washington.

4. Supervisor Tom Ammiano will likely be elected to the Assembly next year, but his personality rubs a lot of people the wrong way.

5. Board President Aaron Peskin and Supervisor are ambitious, but can they appeal to the city at large?

6. Assemblywoman Fiona Ma is strongly connected to the Burton Machine. Could she become the City’s first Asian-American Rep.? Leland Yee? My gut tells me Phil Ting has a better shot.

Any names you want to share?