{"id":14642,"date":"2012-10-25T17:47:03","date_gmt":"2012-10-25T17:47:03","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-10-25T19:48:12","modified_gmt":"2012-10-25T19:48:12","slug":"speaker-john-perez-still-prioritizing-incumbents-over-reaching-a-23rds-marjority-in-the-assembly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2012\/10\/25\/speaker-john-perez-still-prioritizing-incumbents-over-reaching-a-23rds-marjority-in-the-assembly\/","title":{"rendered":"Speaker John Perez Still Prioritizing Incumbents Over Reaching A 2\/3rds Marjority In The Assembly"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Assembly Speaker John Perez<\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

After a day of headache-induced number-crunching I hoped I’d have better news to report today, but it appears Speaker Perez and Sacramento Democrats are still <\/i>prioritizing the reelection of safe incumbents over achieving a two-thirds super majority in the California Assembly<\/p>\n

Democrats currently enjoy a majority in both the Assembly and the State Senate, but would have to pick up at least two more seats in each chamber to achieve the super-majority needed to pass revenue increases over the objections of an obstructionist Republican minority. <\/p>\n

Yet campaign finance reports reveal that Speaker Perez, Sacramento Democratic lawmakers and state and county Democratic campaign committees have spent nearly half a million dollars more defending two safe democratic seats this election cycle than they have in defending a Los Angeles coastal district against a possible Tea Party takeover.<\/p>\n

In the 10th Assembly District <\/a>(Marin, D+35) Sacramento Democrats donated $925K to Mike Allen<\/a>, an incumbent Assembly member who moved into the  open district when his existing district was carved up and  reapportioned. Mr. Allen’s opponent is Marc Levine, a fellow Democrat.<\/p>\n

In the 50th Assembly district<\/a> (Santa Monica, D+33), Sacramento Democrats donated $601K to Assemblywoman Betsy Butler<\/a>, who moved north<\/a> to the Democratic stronghold after redistricting meant she’d have to run in the new, more conservative 66th Assembly district<\/a> (Torrance, D+3). Like Allen, Butler is running against Democratic challenger (Santa Monica Mayor, Richard Bloom).<\/p>\n

In the South Bay, Torrance School Board member Al Muratsuchi<\/a> became the Democratic candidate for AD66 after Betsy Butler left the district.  Election experts consider the race highly competitive for Republicans<\/a>, giving them the best opportunity in two decades to pick up a seat in that area. <\/p>\n

Before the June primary, few Sacramento Democrats, including both John Perez and Betsy Butler had made any financial contributions to Muratsuchi<\/a>, forcing the candidate to loan his campaign $45,000<\/a> to defend the new South Bay Assembly seat against two Tea Party candidates, Nathan Mintz, who ran and lost a close race against Butler in 2010<\/a>, and Craig Huey<\/a>, who ran an unsuccessful $500,000 self-financed congressional campaign<\/a> against Janice Hahn last year.<\/p>\n

After the June primary however, Sacramento finally began investing in Muratsuchi’s campaign, donating $967K to help defeat opponent Craig Huey. Clearly, a huge improvement, but will it be enough? The most recent campaign finance reports show Muratsuchi and Huey are almost dead even in the amount of cash they have on hand.<\/a><\/p>\n

Eric Bauman, Vice-Chair of the California Democratic Party, says the AD66 race is the party’s “number one” priority. And if you compare these three races in isolation, that statement is correct.<\/p>\n

The bigger problem, however, is Perez and Sacramento Democrats aren’t making a two-thirds majority <\/i>their “number one” priority at all. Not when they’re spending $500K more on two absolutely safe Democratic seats than they are to defend a competitive swing-district seat that could fall under Republican control. <\/p>\n

UPDATE<\/b><\/p>\n

Sacramento responds via Twitter. Steve Maviglio is a Democratic political consultant for John Perez,  former Deputy Chief of Staff to Speakers Karen Bass and Fabian Nunez, and former press secretary to Gov. Gray Davis.<\/p>\n

\n
@venice4change<\/a> U should really ask the Dem candidates in hot Assembly races if the speaker is “doing enuf”. Your blog is dead wrong.<\/p>\n

– Steven Maviglio (@stevenmaviglio) October 25, 2012<\/a> <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
@venice4change<\/a> Nobody–and I mean nobody–believes 2\/3 vote in Assembly is in play. Think b4 u write.<\/p>\n

– Steven Maviglio (@stevenmaviglio) October 25, 2012<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
@venice4change<\/a> I’m guessing you think Obama could win Alabama 2 if he had a fully funded campaign #planetreality<\/a><\/p>\n

– Steven Maviglio (@stevenmaviglio) October 25, 2012<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Assembly Speaker John Perez<\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

After a day of headache-induced number-crunching I hoped I’d have better news to report today, but it appears Speaker Perez and Sacramento Democrats are still <\/i>prioritizing the reelection of safe incumbents over achieving a two-thirds super majority in the California Assembly<\/p>\n

Democrats currently enjoy a majority in both the Assembly and the State Senate, but would have to pick up at least two more seats in each chamber to achieve the super-majority needed to pass revenue increases over the objections of an obstructionist Republican minority. <\/p>\n

Yet campaign finance reports reveal that Speaker Perez, Sacramento Democratic lawmakers and state and county Democratic campaign committees have spent nearly half a million dollars more defending two safe democratic seats this election cycle than they have in defending a Los Angeles coastal district against a possible Tea Party takeover.<\/p>\n

In the 10th Assembly District <\/a>(Marin, D+35) Sacramento Democrats donated $925K to Mike Allen<\/a>, an incumbent Assembly member who moved into the  open district when his existing district was carved up and  reapportioned. Mr. Allen’s opponent is Marc Levine, a fellow Democrat.<\/p>\n

In the 50th Assembly district<\/a> (Santa Monica, D+33), Sacramento Democrats donated $601K to Assemblywoman Betsy Butler<\/a>, who moved north<\/a> to the Democratic stronghold after redistricting meant she’d have to run in the new, more conservative 66th Assembly district<\/a> (Torrance, D+3). Like Allen, Butler is running against Democratic challenger (Santa Monica Mayor, Richard Bloom).<\/p>\n

In the South Bay, Torrance School Board member Al Muratsuchi<\/a> became the Democratic candidate for AD66 after Betsy Butler left the district.  Election experts consider the race highly competitive for Republicans<\/a>, giving them the best opportunity in two decades to pick up a seat in that area. <\/p>\n

Before the June primary, few Sacramento Democrats, including both John Perez and Betsy Butler had made any financial contributions to Muratsuchi<\/a>, forcing the candidate to loan his campaign $45,000<\/a> to defend the new South Bay Assembly seat against two Tea Party candidates, Nathan Mintz, who ran and lost a close race against Butler in 2010<\/a>, and Craig Huey<\/a>, who ran an unsuccessful $500,000 self-financed congressional campaign<\/a> against Janice Hahn last year.<\/p>\n

After the June primary however, Sacramento finally began investing in Muratsuchi’s campaign, donating $967K to help defeat opponent Craig Huey. Clearly, a huge improvement, but will it be enough? The most recent campaign finance reports show Muratsuchi and Huey are almost dead even in the amount of cash they have on hand.<\/a><\/p>\n

Eric Bauman, Vice-Chair of the California Democratic Party, says the AD66 race is the party’s “number one” priority. And if you compare these three races in isolation, that statement is correct.<\/p>\n

The bigger problem, however, is Perez and Sacramento Democrats aren’t making a two-thirds majority <\/i>their “number one” priority at all. Not when they’re spending $500K more on two absolutely safe Democratic seats than they are to defend a competitive swing-district seat that could fall under Republican control. <\/p>\n

UPDATE<\/b><\/p>\n

Sacramento responds via Twitter. Steve Maviglio is a Democratic political consultant for John Perez,  former Deputy Chief of Staff to Speakers Karen Bass and Fabian Nunez, and former press secretary to Gov. Gray Davis.<\/p>\n

\n
@venice4change<\/a> U should really ask the Dem candidates in hot Assembly races if the speaker is “doing enuf”. Your blog is dead wrong.<\/p>\n

– Steven Maviglio (@stevenmaviglio) October 25, 2012<\/a> <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
@venice4change<\/a> Nobody–and I mean nobody–believes 2\/3 vote in Assembly is in play. Think b4 u write.<\/p>\n

– Steven Maviglio (@stevenmaviglio) October 25, 2012<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
@venice4change<\/a> I’m guessing you think Obama could win Alabama 2 if he had a fully funded campaign #planetreality<\/a><\/p>\n

– Steven Maviglio (@stevenmaviglio) October 25, 2012<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"author":5849,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[10394,10360,10393,10390,9973,752,519,5713,10391,10538],"class_list":["post-14642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-10394","tag-10360","tag-10393","tag-10390","tag-9973","tag-752","tag-519","tag-5713","tag-10391","tag-10538"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-3Oa","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5849"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14642\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}