This post was written by Asm. Hector De La Torre (D-South Gate) and is being promoted pursuant to our policy to bump post from candidates and electeds.

Democratic Party activists have complained to me for years about the Party’s finances.  Alex Rooker and Eric Bradley have also been concerned, and shared  their frustration with me.

If we agree there is a problem, then we need a solution.  That is why I decided to introduce a Resolution at the upcoming Democratic Party Convention and asked Alex and Eric to join as co-sponsors:  to fix our Party so we can get more Democrats elected!

But we can’t do it alone.  This common sense CDP finance reform resolution is the beginning of coming together for reform.  I strongly believe that when delegates come together in support of this resolution, it will send a loud message for positive change throughout the Party.

The companion measure to our resolution is a bylaw amendment that will block cash payments to politicians’ campaign accounts (especially those that are termed-out).  I am confident that broad delegate support will build momentum to make this long-overdue change happen–to stop spending that does not meet our main goal of electing more Democrats at the federal, state, and local level and supporting worthy ballot measures.

I encourage every delegate, and every Democrat, to visit our website: www.LetsFixCDP.com and sign up for our reform effort.  As we saw in November, we can accomplish amazing things when we unite for change as Democrats.

Presented without comment, you’ll find her letter over the flip.

Throughout my campaign for State Party Chair I have been focused on the need to build this Party out of the activists and volunteers that make it great. I want to implement a statewide strategy that recognizes the importance of growing our grassroots and expanding into the red areas where we need to make up ground in the coming years.

When former Senate Pro Tem John Burton entered the race for Chair I was not willing to step aside because I felt that my supporters and I had a vision for the Party that was too important. Over the past few weeks I have been watching the Burton campaign closely. I have been talking to members of the party leadership that are supporting his campaign and paying close attention to his remarks and written statements. The consistency of his message and the sincerity he displays have convinced me that he has come to share our goals and understands the needs that we face as an organization.

I have reached out to my friends in the Labor Community to discuss a unified ticket for Party Leadership. I have also discussed this with the Senate Pro Tem and Legislative leadership of both houses. As a result of these conversations I have decided to exit the race for chair and will bring several key endorsements into the race for Vice Chair.

Our state and Party face huge challenges and I feel we cannot afford to have a divisive Party Chair campaign. Our Party deserves a unified leadership to the build on the current organization and enthusiasm of 2008, take us through the election of a Democratic Governor and the re-election of Senator Barbara Boxer in 2010, the redistricting process in 2011 and a tumultuous election year in 2012.

I want to thank all of my grassroots supporters and Party leaders that have helped and advised me during this campaign. I encourage them to join me in a unified ticket for our Party leadership and will seek their help in building the CDP in our shared vision.

I look forward to electing my slates and hundreds of hard working Democratic activists this coming weekend and working with the lifeblood of this Party to reach our shared goals in the coming years.

Sincerely,

Alex Rooker

1st Vice-Chair

California Democratic Party

I was only able to attend the Saturday session of this weekend’s e-board meeting, under the strange and foreboding Anaheim skies – the fire in Chino Hills nearby blotted out the sun during the midday, you could actually stare right into it – but there were some interesting happenings:

• The Progressive Caucus meeting featured a debate between two candidates for party controller, Eric Bradley (the incumbent) and progressive challenger Hillary Crosby.  It was good of both of them to come to the caucus and express their views, but Bradley’s contentions (some would call them alibis) for why the party didn’t do quite as well in downballot races this year were kind of preposterous.  First, he claimed that money moved into some races late because nobody knew Barack Obama would do as well as he did.  This is insulting on a variety of levels.  First of all, Obama was leading by as much as 28 points in some polls as far back as June, and was never seriously threatened in any polling.  Second of all, I don’t see how it matters, in terms of who you spend money on, how a race that is out of your control is faring.  The next thing that Bradley said, echoing something I hear a lot at these CDP meetings, is that we cannot disclose information to the membership of the party on financing because “we cannot let the Republicans know what we’re doing.”  We might as well let them know, considering that hiding the information hasn’t brought us much good.  Also, the entirety of the information that Crosby and progressives like her are seeking is a) already readily available in FPPC and FEC reports and b) sought AFTER THE FACT so we can make intelligent decisions about what worked and what didn’t.  There is a bias toward secrecy there that is quite disconcerting.

• In the general session, there was a continued set of numbers given to prove that the CDP did everything it could to win downballot races.  Art Torres mentioned 1 million live GOTV calls and $12.5 million spent.  These are all nice numbers (although Obama’s California campaign made 1 million calls a day in the week leading up to the election), but if the results are essentially nothing, recapturing seats that were gerrymandered to benefit Democrats to begin with, then the question of effectiveness must be asked.  We had a very good session about that with a group of committed activists who ran phonebank operations and local headquarters and state campaigns, and the information was very illuminating.  First of all, we have got to end the practice of being one of the only two states in the country not using the DNC Voter File and VAN software.  The data is supposedly better in the current set we use, but that can be bought out and integrated into the VAN.  I heard about numerous problems with the statewide Neighbor-to-Neighbor tool that made it essentially useless.  

Second, there needs to be more empowerment at the local level.  The stories I heard from the organizers at DP-SFV (the Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley) on how they funded their headquarters and made the best use of volunteer time, for example, was great.  In the last week, however, the folks running the campaigns from Sacramento got very top-down in their approach and made all kinds of mistakes that the locals had to fix.  It discouraged volunteers and organizers at the local level.

Finally, there has to be off-cycle organizing so that prospective volunteers are brought up with a culture of impacting their own communities instead of driving off to Nevada every four years.  This includes finding and capturing the local groups who worked so tirelessly for Obama this year.  They need to have it explained and drilled into them why staying local and effecting change inside California is so important.  And organizers need to be paid year-round to help bring that about.  Finally, they need to be in EVERY county, not just the populous ones or the most contested ones, to impact those statewide races for 2010.  For his part, Chairman Torres said he is committed to finding organizers and capitalizing on all the energy we see now, and I think we need to hold him to that.

• The above steps make a good criteria for the next party chair, and that race was the buzz of the session.  Right now we have three candidates: Eric Bauman, chair of the LA County Democratic Party; Alex Rooker, current first Vice-Chair; and the legendary John Burton, former State Senate leader and Congressman.  At first I figured that Burton would have locked up so many endorsements from legislators who he’s known forever that this might not be much of a race; however, Rooker won the endorsement of the CDP Labor Caucus, which is very significant (if not totally surprising, as Rooker has longstanding ties to labor).  I don’t know if you’re aware of who pays for campaigns in California, but the labor community could have a lot to say about who’s the next state party chair.  In addition, a tough three-way fight with two candidates from the North and one from the South could give the Southern California candidate an advantage. (CORRECTION: Rooker is from LA County, which would give the advantage to the northern candidate)

I’m inviting all of the candidates to visit us at Calitics and offer their vision of where they want to take the party.

(Full disclosure: I endorse the candidacy of Brian Leubitz for CDP Vice-Chair)

We have a rather crowded field of candidates for CDP chair already, what with Senator John Burton, First Vice-Chair Alex Rooker, LACDP Chair Eric Bauman, and San Diego-area Congressional Candidate Francine Busby having declared their candidacies more than six months before delegates will cast their votes.

Still, I found it interesting that among the daily deluge of candidate fundraising letters I get in the mail every day was a endorsement request letter from Alex Rooker’s campaign for CDP chair.

Now, it’s certainly good for candidates for any office to get their name out there early among the electorate (I presume I received the letter because I’m on the master list of DSCC delegates).  But there are a couple of strange things.

As much as I care about making the CDP more progressive, I am currently focused on getting Barack Obama and all of our excellent downticket candidates elected, as well as passing prop 1A and defeating props 4 and 8.  I would presume that many other delegates who receive this letter would feel the exact same way.

But that’s not the only thing–I also find it interesting that I’m getting this letter when there’s absolutely no guarantee that I’ll have a chance to vote in the election.  The electorate for the 2009 CDP chair has not yet been determined, and there will undoubtedly be substantial turnover from both the AD caucus side and the appointed side.  Speaking for me personally, the 42nd AD brings out a lot of Democrats to its caucus and is very competitive.  So while there’s a good chance that many of this year’s delegates will be re-elected, it seems like such a mass mailer may have limited effect until next year, when all we have to worry about are municipal and party elections, and when the full electorate for the CDP chairmanship has been determined.

I will say, however, that Alex has developed an impressive endorsement list, which includes the names of a few members of Congress and a couple dozen state legislators.