California Primary-- A Week From Tomorrow... Down Ballot Endorsements

The 2 best bets in California next week: Lee Rogers & Norman Solomon

We've been talking a lot about next Tuesday's heroic efforts in Wisconsin to recall the one-percent's governor. How classic that DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz dragged her ass for months and refused to help Tom Barrett while GOP front groups amassed tens of millions of dollars for Walker! It reminded me of how Wasserman Schultz sandbagged and sabotaged the south Florida congressional races when she was head of the DCCC's odious Red-to-Blue program so that her Republican buddies Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers would be reelected (a requirement of the Fanjul family, Wasserman Schultz's financiers at Big Sugar). And we've talked a lot about how, for progressives, next week is like a national Super Tuesday, with crucial congressional races in Montana, New Mexico and California. Blue America-backed candidates Franke Wilmer, Eric Griego, Norman Solomon and Lee Rogers all face a day of reckoning.

Traditionally we also offer suggestions on down-ballot races here in L.A., especially in my own Los Feliz area. Looking at the Official Sample Ballot, I come to terms with the fact that there are no alternatives to Barack Obama. There's no John Wolfe protest candidate here. You either embrace Obama or you leave the Democratic presidential slot blank. If you get a Republican ballot, you can vote against Romney by casting a ballot for Buddy Roemer, whose #1 issue is getting corporate money out of politics. Gary Johnson is on the Libertarian line. Rocky Anderson is running as the Peace and Freedom Party candidate and Roseanne Barr is the Green Party candidate. The presidential race is not part of the California jungle primary so you can only vote for the candidate in your own party.

On the other hand, there are two dozen candidates for the U.S. Senate seat occupied by 78 year old Dianne Feinstein. Really... 24 candidates. Six of them are Democrats and 14 are Republican, including clinically insane Orly Taitz, who the GOP deserves as their candidate (and who, because of this new crackpot jungle primary that kicks in next week, we can all vote for if we want to further embarrass the Republicans). Another avenue for protest against Feinstein would be to vote for consumer advocate Mike Strimling.

Then comes Congress. The newly redistricted 28th CD, finds one of the most progressive constituencies in America-- which includes Hollywood, West Hollywood, Silverlake, Los Feliz and Atwater-- represented by a conservative, anti-gay warmonger, Adam Schiff, a member of Congress' two most right-wing Democratic caucuses, the Blue Dogs and the New Dems. Unfortunately, this year there is no serious opposition to Schiff; that will change in 2014. There are 3 other Democrats on the ballot. I spoke with Jonathan Kalbfeld, a software engineer, and he's an appropriate enough protest candidate for me. I'll be voting for him next week. There are 52 other California House races. The ones that offer significant and realistic opportunities to make Congress more progressive include the following:

CA-2: Norman Solomon
CA-25: Lee Rogers
CA-26: Julia Brownley
CA-39: Jay Chen
CA-41: Mark Takano
CA-51: John Brooks
CA-52: Lori Saldaña

In their fulsome endorsement of Lee Rogers, the Sierra Club laid out the case for why this race is so crucial to Californians, despite the DCCC's disinterest.

“The 25th Congressional District represents many serious environmental issues, from protection of the Santa Clarita River, to the cleanup of two toxic sites, but stopping the 56 million ton sand and gravel CEMEX mine adjacent to the City of Santa Clarita is priority number one on the list, due to its immediacy. The Sierra Club supports candidates who will be responsible stewards of our environment, and Dr. Lee Rogers has shown his commitment to our community by making the Cemex mine one of his top issues. He has vowed to work with the City of Santa Clarita, Cemex, the Sierra Club, and the federal government to find a solution to stop the mining immediately if elected. This was a major consideration in our endorsement of Dr. Rogers. He is exactly the kind of leader we need in Washington DC to protect our families and the environment."

In the Berman-Sherman race (CA-30) neither is my idea of a good progressive but Sherman is less objectionable than Berman and he sometimes votes as a progressive on economic issues. Friends of mine on the House Financial Services Committee tell me he was a dependable progressive. I know Berman as a warmonger and an outrageous whore for the RIAA. He's actually running an ad on L.A. TV bragging about his support for SOPA.

The DCCC has failed to oppose Boehner, failed to oppose Cantor and failed to oppose the #3 Republican leader as well. There is no Democrat running against Kevin McCarthy, which will free him up to campaign against Democrats across the country with alacrity-- and to spend the $3,476,987 warchest corporate America has lavished on him against progressives. Thanks for nothing, Steve Israel! (Even the Teabaggers had the brains to run someone against him!)

The corrupt corporate-whore caucus in Congress-- the New Dems-- has endorsed in three California races and a New Dems endorsement should always serve as-- at least-- a warning that the candidate is fatally flawed. Their California endorsements are for Juan Vargas, who has a long record of corruption already and is a perfect fit for the New Dems, as well as for Scott Peters and Ami Bera each of whom has attempted to reach out to grassroots Democrats. (Current New Dem incumbents in the California delegation are Loretta Sanchez, Adam Schiff, Laura Richardson, Susan Davis, Karen Bass and Lois Capps.)

OK, now what we traditionally call the down-ballot races. Let's start with the state Senate. I'm in the 25th CD and Carol Liu, chair of the Senate Budget Committee, is my state senator. She used to be the assemblywoman from part of this district and she hasn't done anything that recommends terminating her career. The only state Senate race Blue America has endorsed in so far is for Fran Pavley (SD-27), although other worthy candidates include Hannah-Beth Jackson (SD-19), Bill Monning (SD-17), Greg Diamond (SD-29) and Paul Butterfield (SD-35).

I'm in the 43rd Assembly District and there's no Democratic opposition to incumbent Mike Gatto, a former Brad Sherman staffer who has made a good name for himself since taking office in a special election less than two years ago. The other Assembly race worth getting involved with is on the West Side of L.A. where there's a three-way race among Democrats in the 50th AD. Torie Osborn is the best of the three.

I also want to mention that the 66th AD (Torrance) is a swing district and one of the most important Assembly races this year-- at least one of the most important for those who would like to see the Democrats capture a 2/3s majority. (And not everyone thinks the California Democratic Party is among them, since if they do capture a 2/3s majority, they might actually have to put up or shut up.) Obama beat McCain here 47.7 to 47.1 and Whitman edged Jerry Brown by 2 points. Radical teabagger Craig Huey, who ran against Janice Hahn for Congress, is the likely Republican nominee and after Betsy Butler decided to run in the 50th, the only Democrat in the race is Torrance School Board member Al Muratsuchi. It's important to defeat Huey and to help Muratsuchi give the Democrats the Assembly super-majority they need to stop GOP obstructionism-- whether they want it or not.

In the district Attorney race, the villain is right-wing front-runner Carmen Trutanich and the best choice among the 6 candidates is Danette Meyers.

There are 6 non-partisan Superior Court judgeships up for votes, 3 of which have no incumbents. Here are endorsements for 5 of the races:
Office #3: Craig Gold
Office # 38: Lynn Olson (incumbent)
Office #65: Shannon Knight
Office #78: James Otto (incumbent)
Office #114: Eric Harmon

All the big ballot initiatives will be voted on in November except these two statewide propositions, both of which are worth voting YES on: 28, which Modifies Term Limits in a more reasonable way and 29, a tobacco tax (a dollar a pack) for cancer research. The deceitful opposition is, obviously, being financed by Big Tobacco. There are also two L.A. County measures on the ballot, both of which merit support. Measure H is to continue the Hotel Occupancy Tax and L continues the Landfill Tax. They're both no-brainers and there's no downside for voters on either-- unless you stay in L.A., hotels a lot or if you're a landfill operator.