by Marta Evry

When Jane Harman resigned from Congress earlier this year, voters were quickly presented with a daunting choice, as candidates from all over the political spectrum entered the race to replace her.

But for many of us, the choice was clear – we needed someone with conviction, who was principled and not beholden to special interests.  We needed Debra Bowen.

And over the last couple of months, I’ve seen something remarkable, something I haven’t seen since the Obama campaign. Hundreds of volunteers taking time out of their busy lives to phone bank and canvass week after week for Debra. These aren’t paid contractors or City Hall insiders making a political calculus, these are our friends and neighbors taking an ownership stake in Debra’s campaign and an ownership stake in their community’s future.

In a week when you needed a Purell bodysuit just to open your mailbox, this kind of real, authentic grassroots support is an inspiration.

So instead of telling you yet again why I support Debra Bowen, I thought I’d turn the floor over to them.

Meet my friends and neighbors who will be supporting Debra on Tuesday.

Debra Bowen has the intelligence, the passion and the integrity to not only be a strong advocate for our district in Washington, but to be a national leader for the Democratic Party. I know she will work tirelessly to defend the environment and bring green jobs to our district, because she always has. We are home to several of the largest US Aerospace/Defense contractors (Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon). Debra knows that resolving our problems will require sound, balance approaches based in facts and data so that everyone in our community participates in an economic recovery. That’s why, on May 17th, I’ll be voting for Debra Bowen for Congress.

– Tony Salvaggio (aeorospace engineer) Manhattan Beach, CA  

I have known Debra personally since the mid 1980s.  She has proven herself to be forthright, honest and a damned hard worker for us, her constituents, when she represented us as Assembly member and then in the State Senate.  She will do the same in the US Congress.  There are many stories that could be told to support my statement.  I want to keep this story short.  Sufficient to say that I gave more money than I could afford to her campaign and I would follow her lead to the moon.

– Challis McPherson (retired), Venice, CA

Debra Bowen was the first Democrat I ever voted for after switching parties in 1992. She has always been a strong advocate for LGBT rights, before it was the popular thing, and as a gay man that is very important to me. But the main reason I support her is because she is one of the very few politicians that truly have the political courage to take a position on an issue and have the conviction to vote accordingly. I know she will not be influenced by polls and special interests that throw money around and expect favors! The best example of this courage is how she handled the voting machine crisis in CA when she first became SOS. Even though the state had already spent $45 million on voting machines, she had the courage to stand up and say these Diebold voting machines are vunerable to fraud and decertfied them. For this she has earned my respect and vote!

– Varo Asorian (small business owner), Torrance, CA

As Secretary of State she has proved herself to be a sensible, no nonsense progressive who had clear and achievable goals, stuck to them and got them done. I have been continually impressed with Debra’s commitment to improve government transparency and access. After 14 years in the California legislature, she has the legislative experience and knowledge to navigate congressional politics successfully.  She will work on behalf of our district with thoughtfulness and compassion, but also with a keen understanding of how to move legislation forward to achieve success.

– Kim Drobny (community organizer), Mar Vista, CA

As an educator, I have been a teacher, principal, district administrator, and director of a statewide early literacy project.  I am also a parent of a student who attended public schools from K-16.  Debra Bowen has led efforts to create smaller class size in K-12 schools and also supported our community college and state university systems. I am so grateful that Debra Bowen understands the importance of public education for our future, supports parent involvement, and most importantly, understands the importance for teachers and principals to be trained to provide the best education.

– Dianne Wallace (educator), Manhattan Beach, CA

From her very first campaign, that being for the State Assembly in 1992, Debra had environmental credentials before anyone else was even bothering. Besides living an earth-friendly lifestyle herself, she had already been offering her legal services pro-bono to “Heal the Bay.”  For the 19-years she has held elected office, I have always known that I could trust her to sponsor and support cutting-edge environmental legislation and to be there for her constituents when a solar project or other earth-friendly measure called for her support.  

– Dency Nelson (Sierra Club member), Hermosa Beach, CA

As a transportation advocate, it’s very clear to me that Debra Bowen is the person for the job.  You need someone who recognizes that war spending is an problem, and represents tremendous diversion of our nation’s resources away from constructive uses that we’re in dire need of – like building real sustainable and function transportation.  You need someone with an eye for policy details, who can delve into the nitty gritty and come back with victory.  And you need someone who can work against their short term political interests to gain long term victories that better all of us.  Bowen is all of those, and outrageously experienced to boot.

– Alex Thompson (president, Bikeside LA) Del Rey, CA

I am voting for Debra Bowen for Congress because she is very smart, a proven thinker and problem solver, self proclaimed “policy wonk and techie” whom I trust most  to serve our district as a US Representative during very difficult times. I have worked with Bowen and our neighbors to prevent a massive Century City sized development in Venice and to keep the local emergency hospital open.  As Secretary of State, she prevented possible wide-spead voter fraud in CA by banning insecure voting machines. I was honored to be present when she was presented with  the “Profiles in Courage” Award at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston by Senator Ted and Caroline Kennedy and I will be even proudere to have her represent me in Congress.

– Linda Lucks (neighborhood council president), Venice, CA

Note by Brian:  People, stopping tossing out Troll ratings for comments that you simply disagree with.  There are other ratings to use for comments, and frankly, the ratings should be used as a grading on quality and sincerity of the post, not on whether you agree with it.  So, I’ll be uprating a few comments, but please, think before you rate.

Repeating a pattern of going negative hard and fast in close elections, Janice Hahn went on the attack today with a 4-page negative campaign mailer against her leading opponent, Secretary of State Debra Bowen.

The mailer starts out with the word WARNING bolded in yellow against a black background, then goes on to say, “Beware of Debra Bowen’s Negative Campaign! Unable to find anything positive to say and desperate to win at all costs, Debra Bowen has been falsely attacking Janice Hahn and Marcy Winograd!”

The mailer then goes on “remind” voters that Bowen was “a lifelong Republican until she changed registration before she ran for office”, and lists a number contributions Bowen received in 1998 and 2000 from energy and health insurance companies. Hahn also goes out of her way to portray Winograd favorably in a contrast and compare section in the midsection of the piece.

Those are the basics. Now let’s deconstruct this a bit.

First of all, this mailer isn’t an independent expenditure from an outside group, it comes directly from the Hahn campaign, which means Janice Hahn not only knows about the mailer, she had to approve the content.

Secondly, it’s highly misleading in some respects, and plainly false in others. Here’s why.

It’s just flat out weird that Hahn would claim Bowen was running a negative campaign against her and Winograd. Of the five campaign mailers I’ve received from Bowen’s campaign so far, two featured Bowen’s “Profile in Courage” award for her work as Secretary of State, one featured her endorsement by the Sierra Club, and two highlighted her 14 years of experience representing most of CA-36 in the CA state legislature.  None even mentioned Hahn or Winograd. In debates and forums where all three candidates have appeared, Bowen rarely mentions either candidate by name. 

There are only two times I can think of when Bowen ever came close to going negative (on Hahn, not Winograd). The first time was at the CA-36 endorsement meeting in April, when Bowen pointed out Hahn had endorsed Republican candidates – this after Hahn dinged Bowen for not being “a life long Democrat” (a charge Hahn repeats in her attack mailer).  The second time was last Sunday during a Daily Kos interview, when Bowen was asked to compare and contrast her campaign contributions with that of her opponents. Bowen’s campaign manager and press person have made similar statements highlighting Hahn’s contributions from LA City Hall lobbyists, contributions the LA Weekly pointed out would actually be illegal if Hahn were running for LA City Council and not Congress.

But when it comes to Winograd, the only Democrat in this campaign to go negative on the candidate was Janice Hahn, who slammed Winograd in a letter urging Bowen to sign on to a pledge supporting Israel. In the letter, Hahn quoted Henry Waxman who said “In Marcy Winograd’s vision, Jews would be at the mercy of those who do not respect democracy or human rights.”

So what’s really going on here?  

From the very beginning, it was clear to Hahn (and anyone else paying attention to the demographics of this race), that it was in Hahn’s best interest to rope Winograd into running. A Winograd candidacy would be more likely to pull support away from Bowen than it would Hahn, who is generally perceived to be Jane Harman’s hand-picked choice to succeed her.

So Hahn issued a pro-Israel pledge, cornered Bowen into signing on to it, Winograd took the bait, and the rest is history. Since then, Winograd’s most active supporters on the internet have consistently targeted Bowen in the primary, but not Hahn, since they see Bowen as Winograd’s main competition. So by falsely claiming Bowen is running a negative campaign against Winograd, Hahn is doing what she can to fan those flames even more.

Hahn’s mailer also tries very hard to imply that Bowen’s congressional race is significantly funded by contributions from energy and health insurance companies. But if you look really, really hard you can see a disclaimer in teeny, tiny letters at the bottom of the mailer, revealing the contributions came from races 13 and 11 years ago.

Disclaimer or no, the information as presented is profoundly misleading – not a single person I talked to who had seen the mailer understood the contributions in question were from another race until I pointed out the fact.

A press release signed by Sheila Khuel,Fran Pavely, Assembly member Betsy Butler and a number of environmental leaders in the district slammed Hahn for the deceptive mailer,

We recall that you introduced Measure O establishing an oil extraction tax; after that, you received $24,000 from oil and gas companies, including Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, Conoco Phillips, Tesoro and Warren E & P. Was that the reason you ultimately changed your mind and voted against placing the measure on the ballot? Perhaps because, as the Los Angeles Times has reported, about half of your money comes from “lobbyists, developers, and others doing business with the city”, the person that “we can’t trust” to do the right thing, isn’t Debra Bowen, but Janice Hahn?

We urge you to stop your deception immediately as a matter of principle.

As the press release points out, Hahn’s tactic is likely an attempt to neutralize the recent spate of stories that have appeared here, in the LA Weekly, and the LA Times, listing over $300,000 in contributions and independent expenditures Hahn has received this year, in this race from LA City Hall lobbyists and developers, the nuclear industry, oil companies, medical malpractice insurance PACs, and rent control opponents.

But will it work?

It didn’t work for Hahn last year when she went negative during the Lt. Governor primary race against Gavin Newsom. Largely because Newsom  – who beat Hahn 55% to 33% – had been in the public eye long enough that voters had mostly made up their minds about his persona. When Hahn tried to paint a picture of Newsom that went against what voters already had in their heads, it just didn’t stick.

As an assembly member, then later as a state senator, Bowen was famous for keeping lobbyists at arm’s length. When Bowen was still a freshman in the state assembly, the LA Times took notice,

Bowen also is trying to keep some distance from lobbyists. On her office door is a sign that says she accepts no gifts–and she has been known to send staff members running down the hall to return gifts as simple as a single flower. She sees lobbyists as an information resource, but is wary of them. “The scariest thing for freshmen,” she said, “is figuring out whom you can rely on, whose analysis you can trust, because you can’t do everything yourself.”

When Enron ripped California off for billions, Bowen didn’t hesitate to go after them as chair of the Senate Energy Committee, pressing for criminal charges against Enron executives who refused to cooperate with the committee’s investigations.

And, most famously, as Secretary of State, Bowen defied both Deibold and the entire California political establishment when she decertified $45 million worth of flawed voting machines.

In other words, the picture most voters have in their heads of Bowen isn’t the one Hahn is trying to paint for them.

Conversely, Hahn also has a track record in the public eye. And it’s one that’s easy to associate with the dysfunction of LA City Hall and it’s insular, lobbyist culture.

In fact – whether it was withdrawing her support for Measure O, an oil extraction tax one of her campaign contributors, Warren Resources (and other big oil companies based in her district) opposed, agreeing to act as an impartial mediator for yacht-builder Gambol Industries in their dispute with the Port of LA without first disclosing she had received $12,000 in campaign contributions from the company, or helping to nullify a $600 million LAX food concession contract, to the benefit of a client of lobbyist Ek & Ek, a firm which has donated tens of thousands to Hahn’s campaigns in the past, and most recently $13,000 to her congressional campaign – Janice Hahn is the candidate with a demonstrable record of acting in the interests of her campaign contributors.

But so what? Asked the LA Weekly in a recent story about Ek & Ek and their relationship with Hahn,

The last week of a campaign, as our mailbox fills to overflowing with glossy brochures extolling the virtues of competing candidates, we often find ourselves donning black, rending our garments, and contemplating the death of a million innocent trees.

The campaign to replace Jane Harman in CA-36 is no different.

Spread out on my coffee table right now are a couple of mailers from Debra Bowen, one from Marcy Winograd that a volunteer stuffed under our welcome mat, one from Mike Gin, and even one from Tea Party candidate Craig Huey.  However, none of these candidates holds a candle to Janice Hahn and her supporters, who sent out a thirteenth full-color mailer today.

According to the FEC, Hahn leads all candidates but Craig Huey in cash-on-hand (money left in the bank after expenses), and that’s enabled her to fund this juggernaut-in-wood-pulp with over $300,000 in donations and independent expenditures from business interests and lobbyists connected with LA City Hall, real estate developers,the nuclear industry,health insurance PACs, and even rent control opponents.

Combing though the latest FEC reports, I found a number of interesting nuggets, but one recent donation worth noting in particular was from Tim Larkin, CEO of Warren Resources.

Why this donation? Because Warren Resources, a New York City-based oil company with considerable ties to the Wilmington and Harbor area oil fields, was a vocal critic of Measure O,the oil extraction tax Hahn opposed putting on the ballot after initially supporting it.  In the end, Hahn was the only LA City council member to vote against bringing the measure to voters, saying at the time,”I’ve reconsidered this and I have heard from various business groups who do feel like this might be the wrong climate to put this on the ballot.”

In addition,  The Cooperative of American Physicians IE Committee, a PAC which represents medical malpractice insurers, has upped it’s investment in Janice Hahn to over $75,000. A year ago, this same PAC  partnered with oil, tobacco and other special interests to go after 53D Assemblymember Betsy Butler in the June 2010 primary. 

Butler has endorsed Debra Bowen in this congressional race.

According to FEC reports, Janice Hahn is the only candidate so far to benefit from independent expenditures.

It’s likely to get worse before it gets better. I’ve heard rumors CAPC is planning to send out a negative hit-piece  against Bowen this week, just as they did Butler, and that Hahn will be taking a page out of the Meg Whitman campaign, sending out yet another 20-30 page full-color brochure to voters for the general election.

But hey, there’s good news too. According to the Sierra Club (who’ve endorsed Debra Bowen), it turns out all those mailers are recyclable.

I proudly stand with Veterans For Peace-LA in signing the organization’s Declaration to defund the Iraq/Afghanistan wars, except to bring our troops home safely.  To keep our troops in harm’s way, to spend 2 – billion dollars a week on these occupations is a war on America’s middle class.   We have money for bombs, but not for books – as 5,000 teachers in Los Angeles receive lay – off notices and community colleges close their summer school programs.

I ask my opponents Janice Hahn and Debra Bowen to reconsider their decision not to sign the Declaration. Congress has the power of the purse, which it exercised  to finally end the Vietnam War after an estimated 60,000 American soldiers and millions of Vietnamese lost their lives.

Let’s not wait for the death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan to climb any higher. This week Veterans For Peace-LA carried coffins in downtown Los Angeles as the number of U.S. soldiers lost in Iraq/Afghanistan reached 6,000.  

We do not know how many Iraqis or Afghan troops and civilians have died because the Pentagon does not keep a record.

We must protect our troops.  Bring them home.  Spread this Declaration throughout the land – and ask every congressional candidate to sign it.

Marcy Winograd

Congressional Candidate, CA-36

“We, the under signed congressional candidates (CA 36), sign this declaration vowing to vote against Iraq and Afghanistan supplemental war funding, except for funding to bring our troops home safely.  We, the undersigned congressional candidates, do not wish to put our troops in harm’s way. To fund the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and occupations is to continue to endanger our troops. ”

Here’s a link to a video of Verterans for Peace of Los Angeles asking CA-36 Congressional candidates to sign the delaration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

Please watch it.

PEACE




Marcy Winograd

Democratic Candidate CA-36 Congressional District


 

One day after LA Councilwoman Janice Hahn told an audience in Venice that “Campaign decisions should not be happening in American’s boardrooms. We need far tighter curbs on corporate campaign expenditures.” the LA Times is reporting that The Cooperative of American Physicians IE Committee, a PAC which represents medical malpractice insurers, has spent $50,000 on mailers to support her in the CA-36 race.

A California physicians insurance group has spent more than $50,000 on two political mailers to support a candidate in next month’s crowded special congressional election, federal records showed Thursday.

In documents filed with the Federal Election Commission, the Cooperative of American Physicians said it spent $51,092 on a mail campaign advocating the election of Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn. Hahn is one of 16 candidates on the May 17 ballot to replace former Democratic Rep. Jane Harman of Venice.

The physicians group is apparently the first to make a so-called independent expenditure in the 36th Congressional District race. Groups are allowed to spend unlimited amounts to support or oppose a candidate so long as they do not coordinate with the candidate’s own campaign.

Hahn so far has led the pack in fundraising, outpacing even Secretary of State Debra Bowen, believed to be her strongest competitor for the seat.  About half of Hahn’s contributions appear to come from lobbyists, developers and others doing business with the city. The next campaign finance reports are due at the FEC on May 5.

Frankly, I think the LA Times is being conservative in their estimate. Dig a little deeper into the numbers, and you’ll find that over 70% of Hahn’s donations comes from LA City Hall contractors, lobbyists, the nuclear industry and rent control opponents. A year ago, this same PAC  partnered with oil, tobacco and other special interests to go after 53D Assemblymember Betsy Butler in the June 2010 primary.

From the L.A. Times, May 20, 2010

A coalition of oil interests, insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms and other business interests has poured at least $480,000 into a mail and television campaign to oppose one of the eight Democrats competing in the June 8 primary for an open Venice/South Bay Assembly seat……

“Groups funded by the Civil Justice Assn. of California and two medical malpractice insurance organizations have spent the money to defeat Betsy Butler, a former fundraiser for two major environmental groups and the Consumer Attorneys of California……

John H. Sullivan, president of the association, which seeks to cut the numbers of “excessive and unwarranted” lawsuits, said his organization objects to candidates whose campaigns “have been heavily supported by plaintiffs’ lawyers. In our experience, [they], if elected, do not show much independence when it comes to matters affecting litigation.”……

The association, which has spent more than $180,000 to oppose Butler, lists among its 56 board members Altria (parent company of Philip Morris USA), Anthem Blue Cross, Apple Computer Inc., BP,the California Apartment Assn., ExxonMobil Corp., GlaxoSmithKline, Southern California Edison and State Farm Insurance Cos.

Two other committees involved in the campaign against Butler represent medical malpractice insurance interests: California Allied for Patient Protection (which has spent $148,522) and the Cooperative of American Physicians (which has spent $150,000).

So far, no outside groups have reported independent expenditure campaigns for other candidates in the CA-36 race.

An internal poll released by the Bowen campaign shows the candidate tied with Councilwoman Janice Hahn in the CA-36 primary. Marcy Winograd – who received 41% of the vote against Jane Harman in the 2010 primary race – is only polling at 6%, putting her in 4th place behind Republican Mike Gin.

The Feldman Group conducted the poll among 451 registered likely voters in California Congressional District 36 from April 4-7, 2011. The sample consisted of 401 registered likely voters and an oversample of 50 DTS voters. The margin of error for a sample of 401 is ± 4.9%.

In an initial match-up between all of the declared candidates, Bowen and Hahn are tied at 20 percent each, with the closest candidate, Mike Gin, at 8 percent.  Marcy Winograd, another  Democrat in the race, receives only 6 percent support. Twenty-four percent of the electorate remains undecided.  Bowen dominates in the Beach Cities and Venice with a double digit lead  over both Hahn and Winograd, and leads in all geographic regions except the Harbor area..  

In a run-off matchup between Bowen and Hahn, Bowen (40 percent) pulls ahead of Hahn (36 percent) without any messaging.  Sixteen (16) percent are currently undecided.  While Hahn may have an advantage of name recognition in the district it is not translating into an advantage in votes, perhaps because her unfavorable rating is double that of Bowen.  

Democrats continue to hold an advantage in this district. Voters in the district are more  likely to prefer a Democrat (41 percent), and 29 percent say they would prefer a Republican with another 27 percent say that the candidates party doesn’t really matter. Bowen shows her strength over Hahn among Decline-to-State voters, receiving 47 percent of the vote.  

Bowen’s lead over Hahn grows even after voters are informed about key endorsers for  each candidate (including Feinstein, Lieu, Nakano, Firefighters and others for Hahn) and positive arguments being used by the respective campaigns.  

With a July 12th runoff virtually assured, a couple of points jump out at me. At 24% in the primary and %16 in the general election, the number of undecideds in this race will be a huge factor. Hahn has high name recognition, but she also has relatively high negatives – twice that of Bowen – and Hahn’s endorsements don’t seem to have had much effect on her polling.

Hahn’s campaign manager pushed back with an impressive bit of verbal gymnastics,

“We’re stunned that Bowen would release a poll that shows 80% of the voters she represented for 14 years rejecting her.” said campaign manager, Dave Jacobson.

Forgetting the fact Jacobson apparently can’t do math (24% of voters are undecided about anyone yet),  did he really mean to highlight Bowen has already represented most of CA-36 for 14 years, and that an equal number of Hahn’s current constituents have rejected the LA City Councilwoman?

From the LA Times:

Bolstering their status as the presumed frontrunners in the crowded special election for a South Bay-based congressional seat, Democrats Janice Hahn and Debra Bowen have outdistanced their rivals in campaign contributions, reports filed with the Federal Election Commission showed Friday.

By the March 31 close of the reporting period, Hahn had raised $274,443 and spent $103,177, while Bowen had collected $195,224 and spent $102,227. Bowen, who is California’s secretary of state, and Hahn, a Los Angeles councilwoman, are vying to succeed former Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) in a district drawn to favor Democrats, who hold a nearly 18-point registration edge.

But Republican Craig Huey, owner of an advertising firm, had more cash at his disposal than Bowen and came close to matching Hahn’s money by lending his own campaign $250,000, according to his FEC report. He spent $155,695 and reported raising $1,727 in contributions from others.

While fundraising numbers as a metric of potential success are unreliable (Meg Whitman anyone?) and are an incomplete and constantly moving target (Debra Bowen raised an additional 40K just outside the reporting period thanks to a drive sponsored by Howard Dean), they can still provide insight into a campaign’s strengths, weaknesses, priorities, and how influential power brokers perceive a candidate’s potential value.

One meme I hear in the press a lot is that the race between Hahn and Bowen boils down between Hahn’s “beer-track” blue-collar union support versus Bowen’s more affluent “wine-track” coastal support.

But if the latest fundraising figures are any indication, Hahn’s support is more like “LA City Hall/Veuve Clicquot-track”

Besides the union and PAC support that can be expected from her endorsement list, Hahn’s donors include high-powerd Los Angeles developers Eli Broad and Rick Caruso, who donated $2,500 a piece.

Edison International, which owns a 78.2% stake in the San Onofre nuclear power plant, donated a whopping 10K

The National Apartment Association PAC, an association which lobbies against rent control, donated $2,500. NAAPAC’s local affiliate, the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, seemed especially proud  of it’s fight against “socialized housing”

Rent control in Los Angeles surfaced following Armistice Day on November 11, 1918. One of the earliest successes of AAGLA was defeating this early rent control attempt. But rent control reappeared in World War II. Tenant activists and federal officials wanted to keep the wartime controls in effect, but our organization fought to end rent regulation and helped build the massive expansion of rental housing that occurred in the post war era.

An attempt at “socialized housing” occurred in the 1970s when Chavez Ravine was a political war zone over whether or not to build $110 million worth of low-income high-rise rentals of the type sprouting up across the nation. The result was a nationwide glut of instant slums.

As amusing as AAGL’s position on rent control might be, the “money” donation – literally and figuratively – comes from the high-powered LA City Hall lobbying firm of Ek & Ek, whose president and employees donated $8,000 to Hahn’s congressional campaign.

Ek & Ek is of special interest both because of their deep connections to Hahn and because of their involvement in last year’s controversial “food fight” over a highly lucrative LAX concessions contract.

It seemed an obvious idea: Bring in new concessionaires to improve the food and shopping at Los Angeles International Airport, giving a distinctive L.A. flair to a drab facility that receives often-dismal ratings from passengers.

Five months after the contract was supposed to be approved, however, another distinctive L.A. feature has taken over – the tangled politics of City Hall. Like past plans to modernize the airport, the effort to overhaul the concessions has slowed to a crawl……

For many of the restaurant and store owners who had hoped to move into the airport, the delay has been frustrating. “We are mostly small, locally run businesses, and it’s just impossible to plan because this thing is just in limbo,” said Richard Karno, owner of Groundwork Coffee Co., which is part of one winning bid package. “It seems like it’s coming down to who has the bigger, badder lobbyist.”…...

Karno’s Groundworks, along with a number of local LA eateries, had won a competitive bid to take over the $600 million contract, but were stymied after HMS Host, the existing concessionaire and losing bidder, appealed the award to the LA City Council.

HMS Host is a major client of lobbyist Ek & Ek.

The firm, Ek & Ek is based in San Pedro, where Hahn lives, and its principals are close friends of the councilwoman. Hahn raised $36,750 from Ek & Ek and its clients during her recent unsuccessful campaign for lieutenant governor. She has gone on vacation at least four times with the firm’s vice president, Esther Ek, traveling to such destinations as Hawaii and New Mexico……

From the LA Weekly:

The city of Los Angeles has fairly strict campaign-finance regulations. Lobbyists are banned from contributing to city campaigns, and contributions to council members are capped at $500.

But when Councilwoman Janice Hahn announced her candidacy for lieutenant governor last fall, a gaping loophole was created that Host and other bidders wasted little time walking through. Nothing barred the companies from contributing to her statewide campaign, even though she still sits on the City Council.

Hahn is well positioned to influence the case. She serves on the Board of Referred Powers, which is to hear Host’s protests this month. She also chairs the Trade, Commerce and Tourism Committee, also expected to review the contract before it goes to the full council.

Last fall, Hahn’s campaign for lieutenant governor received $6,500 – the legal maximum – from Host, along with $1,000 from Host’s minority-owned partner, Concessions Management Services.

Because there is no ban on lobbyist contributions to state campaigns, she could also take money from Host’s lobbyists. John and Esther Ek, of the San Pedro lobbying firm Ek & Ek, each contributed the maximum amount. The law firm Sheppard Mullin, which also represents Host, gave another $1,000.

Hahn also received money from other bidders and their lobbyists. In total, at least $40,000 of her contributions for lieutenant governor can be tied to LAX concessions businesses or their lobbyists.

From 2009-2010 Hahn amassed nearly $55,000 in donations from companies involved in the LAX concession fight, more than any other politician at City Hall. Despite receiving contributions from some of the interested parties, Hahn never recused herself from voting.

Last fall Hahn – along with a majority of the Board of Referred Powers – voted in favor of Ek & Ek’s client. They ordered that the winning LAX contract package, which included Venice’s Groundworks Coffee, be thrown out and rebid. Separately, the airport commission moved to consider contracts for terminals not considered in the original, controversial package.

In a related move, the airport commission on Monday was presented with a list of six concession companies that will likely submit proposals for the next round of retail and dining contracts spanning Terminals 1, 2, 3, 6 and the Tom Bradley International Terminal.

A call for proposals could go out within a month, airport officials said.

Interested companies include Los Angeles Caruso Affiliated, which is owned by developer Rick Caruso, who announced earlier this year that he is looking to expand his retail empire to airports across the country, including LAX. Caruso oversaw construction of The Grove outdoor shopping mall in Los Angels and the Americana at Brand in Glendale.

Yes, boys and girls, that Rick Caruso, the developer who just donated $2,500 to Hahn’s congressional campaign.

My own councilman, Bill Rosendahl, summed up the City Hall/lobbyist merry-go-round better than I ever could. Last summer, upset that a meeting to decided the fate of Groundwork’s LAX contract would be postponed yet again, he almost quit the board.

“I know one thing. This room is full of lobbyists, and they’re out there with lots of grins and smiles,” he said. “I’m nothing but frustrated by the backchannel crap that’s going on.”

(full disclosure, I have endorsed Debra Bowen for CA36 on my website: www.venice4change.com)

Janice Hahn says she’s all about jobs.

Jobs are the first thing you read about on her website, (“ I’m running for Congress to create new jobs.“) It’s in nearly every campaign press release, (“I will be a fighter for workers!“) And it’s the first thing she talks about on the campaign trail, “If the subject is jobs, I don’t know anybody who has a track record as I do of creating good jobs.“, Hahn told a gathering of moms in Mar Vista.

Yet in January – two days after attending President Obama’s State of the Union speech as Jane Harman’s guest –  Hahn abruptly withdrew her support for a shipyard at the Port of Los Angeles that only 20 months before she’d touted would deliver a thousand “well-paying clean energy jobs, renewed economic activity, and a new standard for environmental stewardship.”

Public records available online and news reports published at the time tells us what happened in those intervening 20 months. It’s a complicated tale, featuring an ambitious termed-out LA City councilwoman, conflicting agendas between the Port of Los Angeles and the shipbuilder, Gambol Industries, intramural union warfare, maxed-out, suspiciously-timed campaign donations, accusations of influence peddling, and nearly two years worth of squandered goodwill.

At  the end of April, 2009, thousands of party faithful gathered in Sacramento for the annual California Democratic Party convention. The mood was high after coming off an historic November win, Brown and Newsom were still duking it out for Governor, and no Democratic candidate had yet thrown their hat in the ring to go up against Republican Abe Maldonado for Lt. Governor.

In a Sacramento hotel bar, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn openly contemplated being that candidate. Only a month before she’d won a landslide victory for her third and final term on the LA City Council, but she was already thinking about the future.

That weekend, according to a delegate present during the conversation, she apparently decided running for Lt. Governor was her best option.

A month later, Hahn wades into an ongoing dispute between two competing interests in her district –  yacht builder Gambol Industries and the Port of Los Angeles.

At issue was a $50 million shipbuilding facility Gambol hoped to build at the port. The problem? They wanted to build the facility precisely where the Port of Los Angeles planned to dump 3 million cubic yards of contaminated soil for their long-planned Main Channel Deepening Project (MCDP).

The project, which appeared dead just days ago, was tossed a lifeline by Los Angeles City Council members who ordered port officials to reconsider their April 29 rejection of the bid by Long Beach-based Gambol Industries.

(Port of Los Angeles) staff had argued the planned facility was unlikely to succeed financially and would cause unreasonable delays in a long-planned channel deepening project.

In the weeks since, supporters led by San Pedro-area Councilwoman Janice Hahn had urged the port to strive for a compromise with Gambol.

“Before we simply give up on this shipyard and the potential for good jobs and a steady revenue source, we need to make sure we’ve really studied the options,” Hahn said.

The intervention was risky for Hahn – accommodating Gambol was hardly a high priority for the Port of Los Angeles. Even though a shipbuilding facility would diversify the area’s economy – something Hahn’s constituents were very much in favor of – harbor officials contested whether Gambol’s project was even economically viable, or could deliver on the thousand jobs it promised.

According to the Port of LA’s executive director, there were also considerable concerns Gambol’s plans would throw a monkey-wrench in the entire Main Channel Deepening Project.

Port officials fear that allowing Gambol Industries to rebuild the shipyard would put years of complicated negotiations in jeopardy….

After reviewing 13 potential sites to dump the sediment, port officials chose the Southwest Marine terminal site, which was already contaminated from its use as a shipyard. They decided that the boat slips were the best place to “entomb” the toxic material….

“This is a huge undertaking because we try to match our dredging and land filling operations,” said Geraldine Knatz, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles. “There are a lot of interrelationships among the various projects. I think a lot of people really didn’t understand that.”

Construction on the $370 million MCDP had already ground to a halt once while the Port negotiated a location for the contaminated soil. Trying to find yet another place for all that toxic waste could have jeopardized thousands of short-term jobs, derailment cost hundreds future long term jobs.

But if the risks for Hahn were enormous, so were the rewards. If she could somehow broker an agreement with both parties, she could bring a thousand new jobs to the port and lay claim to revitalizing a flagging shipbuilding industry. It would be a tremendous public relations coup as she launched her run for Lt. Governor.

That summer, under pressure from Hahn and threat of a lawsuit from Gambol, the Port of Los Angeles agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding” (or MOU for short) brokered by the councilwoman.

The Port entered into exclusive negotiations with the shipbuilder. As part of the agreement, if both parties were unable to come to an understanding within the next few months, Hahn herself would act as an impartial mediator.

That’s when things got interesting.

• On August 5th, five weeks after Hahn announced the MOU, Robert Stein, the president of Gambol Industries, donated $500  to Hahn’s officeholder account.

• On September 29th, the law firm of Jeffer, Mangels, Butler and Marmaro, the law firm representing Gambol Industries, made a $5,000 donation to Hahn’s Lt.Governor campaign

• A week later, on October 5th, Robert Stein also made a donation to Hahn’s campaign, this time for $6,500, the legal limit.

All in, Gambol Industries and it’s lawyers made a total of $12,000 in contributions to Janice Hahn after the MOU was signed.

By February of 2010, however, things were going nowhere with Gambol and the Port of Los Angeles. So on February 4th, both parties announced they would enter into mediation. The mediator, as specified in the MOU, would be Janice Hahn.

The ongoing dispute over whether to allow a ship-building business to open at a pair of unused slips at the Port of Los Angeles is expected to move into mediation this month, officials said Thursday….

Long Beach-based Gambol Industries has tried for several months to open a $50 million shipyard at old Southwest Marine site, but the company’s latest proposal does not appear to pass muster with port officials.

As a result, the matter will now be mediated by Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who has been a proponent for Gambol. Additionally, the city’s administrative office will examine Gambol’s proposal to determine if the business would fit in with the port.

There was only one problem. A week later, the media found out Hahn had a conflict.  $12,000 worth of conflict.

“I don’t think it’s a conflict,” Hahn said initially when reached by telephone Wednesday.

“I’ve been asked to not talk to the press about this,” she said. “The city attorney advised me to not discuss anything about this.”

Now, stop and think about this for a minute. If you or I were a candidate that had received $12,000 from a company and were then asked to mediate a dispute involving that company, we would probably feel obligated to disclose that fact, if not recuse ourselves completely.

Janice Hahn apparently felt no such obligation, not even after LA City Attorney Carmen Trutanich warned Hahn the donations raised a red flag. In fact, it wasn’t until the media blew the lid off the arraignment that Hahn suddenly got an attack of common sense.

Several hours after she was contacted by the Daily Breeze, Hahn called a reporter to say she had decided to recuse herself from the mediation, adding that since a committee she chairs oversees the matter it would give a perception of bias.

“I’d been thinking about it since last week when the city attorney instructed me before I went into a committee meeting that he had concerns,” she said late Wednesday.

After talking to the newspaper, she said, “I thought about it again — and thought it was best if I stepped down as mediator.”

Hahn said she does not plan to return the campaign contributions.

“I think I could have been neutral,” she said, “but I wouldn’t want to jeopardize both sides being able to reach a compromise, so I’m stepping down.”

While the situation would not have been illegal, it did raise questions about Hahn’s ability to serve as a neutral mediator between Gambol and the Port of Los Angeles, according to Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies in West Los Angeles.

“If the people at Gambol never previously gave her contributions, then the question is why are they giving her money now?” Stern said. “They aren’t going to be wasting money on somebody who isn’t helping them.”

After the revelation and Hahn’s recusal, negotiations between Gambol and The Port of LA began to unravel. The International Longshore and Warehouse union jumped on the news, claiming Hahn was jeopardizing the Main Channel dredging project and “acting on behalf of her campaign contributor Gambol Industries.”

Meanwhile, the June primary for Lt. Governor came and went. Rival Gavin Newsom, who joined the race that winter, beat Hahn 55% to 33%.

In August, Gambol Industries filed conflict of interest charges against the LA Board of Harbor Commissioners, the deciding body in the dispute.

As its options are just about to run out, a company wanting to build a $50 million shipyard at the Port of Los Angeles has leveled conflict-of-interest allegations, officials said Tuesday.

Executives with Long Beach-based Gambol Industries claim the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners should not be allowed to decide the shipyard’s fate due to alleged conflicts by two board members and the fact that the commission president’s term has expired.

The move comes just as the harbor commission was expected on Thursday to decide whether to cut off exclusive negotiations with Gambol Industries based on findings that the company’s proposed shipyard is not commercially viable and would likely delay the port’s Main Channel deepening project…..

Stein alleged that Harbor Commissioner Joseph Radisich, a former international vice president for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, may be prejudiced against the shipyard.

The union representing the port’s dockworkers has expressed concerns that Gambol’s shipyard could delay the Main Channel deepening project, which will eventually make room for larger cargo ships visiting port terminals.

Ironically (or not, depending on your level of cynicism) Gambol’s attorneys demanded the dispute be sent to the Board of Referred Powers, a panel of five LA City Council members – including, you guessed it –Janice Hahn.

 This irony was not lost on the media.

Hahn declined to comment on the conflict-of-interest allegations raised by Gambol.

Additionally, Hahn did not return a phone call and a series of e-mail messages inquiring whether she would recuse herself from the Board of Referred Powers and what role, if any, she has played in the port’s ongoing negotiations with Gambol Industries.

Stein abruptly hung up on a reporter when asked about any potential conflicts with Hahn, who has publicly advocated in favor of Gambol’s proposed shipyard.

As expected, the Harbor Commission finally sunk Gambol’s shipbuilding project in December, terminating the exclusive agreement brokered by Hahn, and allowing the Port of LA to proceed unhindered with the Main Channel Dredging Project.

In early January of this year, backed by the Orange County/Los Angeles Building and Construction Trades Councils, Hahn brought Gambol’s project to the LA City Council in a last ditch effort to save it.

But then a funny thing happened on the way to the council vote. On January 25th, Hahn attended President Obama’s State of the Union speech in Washington D.C. as Jane Harman’s guest.

Hahn told Roll Call during an interview at a local sushi restaurant that Harman had asked her that week about her future political plans and whether she would ever be interested in running for Harman’s 36th district seat.

“I said, ‘Of course it would be wonderful to be in Congress, but you’re not going anywhere.’ And so she just nodded,” Hahn said between sips of hot tea.

Two days later, Hahn withdrew support for the project she’d championed for almost two years. 

The Gambol project, unpopular with the rest of the City Council, tainted by accusations of conflicts of interest, and opposed by powerful unions she’d need in a potential run for Congress, suddenly became a risk Janice Hahn was no longer willing to take.

Hahn’s about-face came after myriad warnings that the port’s Main Channel dredging project would be delayed up to three years if Long Beach-based Gambol Industries were allowed to build a $50 million shipyard at the shuttered Southwest Marine site on Terminal Island.

Hahn acted alone in her recommendation after a lengthy council committee hearing. Councilmen Bill Rosendahl and Tom LaBonge, who also sit on the three-member Trade, Commerce and Tourism Committee, were absent……

Gambol has paid $780,771 to lobbyists, according to the most recent records posted on the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission’s online database…..

The issue had divided opinions between groups that normally cooperate with each other.

The Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce this week urged Hahn to give up on Gambol’s proposal, while the San Pedro Chamber of Commerce supported the shipyard.

The Los Angeles/Orange County Building and Construction Trades said Gambol’s plan would lead to construction and shipbuilding jobs.

At the same time, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union warned that delays to the dredging project would negatively affect dockworker jobs.

The deal with Gambol Industries was dead. The LA Weekly summed it up this way.

If Hahn could have pulled it off, it would indeed have been good for her constituents and good for her. (In addition to all the economic benefits, a successful shipyard would have been a source of campaign cash for years to come.) But when the Port of L.A. indicated it couldn’t be done without threatening the dredging project, Hahn didn’t back off. At that point it became a contest of wills between Hahn and the port.

Hahn brought the issue to the council not so much to win on the substance — even if the council had agreed with her, the port could have deliberated the proposal to death —  but to make a point. Ultimately, the rest of the council opted to side with the port and bring the whole thing to an end.

“This is a sad day,” said Ben Reznik, Gambol’s chief lobbyist. “You had two years to make this work, and you’ve blown it. You blew it… Who is really running this show?”

At today’s meeting, speakers who have fought against Hahn on the shipyard plan lined up to praise her commitment to the Harbor area and to jobs. Rudy Svorinich, a former councilman, laid it on the thickest, saying that Hahn had “moved from councilwoman to stateswoman.”

At that point, a longshoreman leaned over and whispered, “From chicken to turkey.”

Twelve days later, on February 7th, Congresswoman Jane Harman announced she was resigning her seat for California’s 36th Congressional District. Within hours, Janice Hahn announced she would run to replace her. Her website was up by noon, a team of political consultants in place by the end of the day.

Within weeks, the LA/OC Building & Construction Trades Council, ILWU, and the San Pedro Chamber of Commerce – groups previously at odds over the Gambol project – all endorsed Janice Hahn for Congress.

In the end, no laws were broken, no shipyard was built, and none of the promised jobs were created. The Main Channel Dredging Project went on as planned, termed-out LA City Councilwoman Janice Hahn did not become Lt. Governor of California, Gambol Industries received nothing but unwanted media attention for their $12,000 investment in her, and many of Hahn’s constituents were left wondering about their councilwoman’s judgement.

Janice Hahn says she’s all about jobs. In this case, she was.

Her own.

(full disclosure, I have endorsed Debra Bowen for CA36 on my website: www.venice4change.com)

I have a confession to make: I am not a lifelong Democrat. I did not wear a “Tiny Democrat” onesie while my dad marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. My mom did not take me to CR groups. Admittedly, I think it would have been pretty fascinating to be that kid…but I wasn’t.

Instead, I grew up in a conservative, Midwestern Catholic family, and I was instilled with a deep commitment to the ideas of family, faith, and freedom. My dad was the first generation in his family to go to college, and my mom was a homemaker who welcomed us home from school and made dinner every night. My faith shaped my commitment to treat others as I would want to be treated, and to be of service to those who are oppressed and in most need. My grandfathers served in WWII, and my uncles served in Vietnam and Korea, so I developed great respect for the service and sacrifice so many generations have made for my American freedoms.

Naturally, when I was 18 and had the chance to register to vote in my first election, I chose the Party that professed a commitment to family values, God, and service to one’s country. I joined the College Club for that Party and actively participated, as I believed it was my duty to be civically engaged. I was tired of hearing how young people didn’t care, and I felt morally obligated to help people understand why voting was so important, particularly in that election.

As a Political Science and Gender Studies double-major, however, I received quite an education. I learned much more about my Party – that they did not stand by their stated commitment to education, to our aging population, or to our Christian mission to “help the least among us.” I learned that they were, in fact, the most likely Party to advocate against the interests of low- and middle-income Americans; that they were selective in the families they valued; and that they were quite interested in preventing the advancement and equality of women in society. I learned that I was wrong about my Party – utterly and completely wrong.

So I changed my registration and became a Democrat. I felt an even greater responsibility to work hard and make sure people did not make the same mistake I had once made. I vowed that I would continue to work for all the values I had always held – protecting our environment, our working class, our seniors and ALL of our families; ensuring access to quality education and affordable health care; empowering women, gender minorities, and our youth.

For some people, however, this isn’t enough. Recently, I ran in an election where my Democratic opponents suggested that my former Party affiliation spoke louder than my years of activism and accomplishment on a variety of progressive issues. I was expecting the attack; after all, when one runs for public office one has to assume that opponents will eagerly dredge up the past. But I found remarkable how many registered Democrats – and even some leaders within the Party – placed more value on my political indiscretion as an 18-year-old college freshman than on the decade-long promotion of progressive ideals that followed it.

These same attacks are being made against California Secretary of State Debra Bowen in her race for Congress, and against other non-lifelong Democrats like us, who work hard every day to advance the values of our Party. Even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton experienced a Democratic conversion in college: she was President of the College Republicans at Wellesley, and yet we do not place asterisks next to her accomplishments as First Lady, Senator, or Secretary of State because she registered with another Party decades ago. While we certainly value those who have made a lifetime commitment to the Party, the successful leadership of non-lifelong Democrats demonstrates that we are a Party committed to progress and that we believe change truly is possible.

When we effectively advocate for our issues, and we help people understand why they need to support Democratic values, we must welcome the converted as much as those baptized by the Party at birth. The Democratic Party is best served when we support people who are willing to do the work and fight for progressive values, regardless of when they joined. We cannot brand new Democrats with a political scarlet letter, thus engaging in the destructive politics of our opponents. We must set the example that political party conversion to becoming a Democrat is to be celebrated, much like the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Today, I take ownership of my Party affiliation and the values I represent as a member of it. As a Democrat, I value that we are “a big tent,” welcoming to a diverse group of people who care about including and empowering those who have been disenfranchised. And I will work hard to make that tent as big as possible, so we can include all those who want to call the Democratic Party their home.