Blue America Welcomes Alan Lowenthal

Alan Lowenthal will be the last official Blue America endorsement of 2012. As a state legislator, Alan has been an unabashed, unapologetic and very effective progressive from Long Beach. He's widely acknowledged to be one of the best California state senators when it comes to moving progressive ideas out of the realm of wishing and hoping and ion the realm of solid policy achievement. If he can do half of what he's accomplished in Sacramento, in Washington, the whole country will be better off.

This week there was a brouhaha in his race because the confused Republican running against him told an audience filled with Fox News global warming deniers that he doesn't believe in Climate Change and that we can't do anything about it anyway and they should just recycle. Even the right-wing newspaper that always endorses Republicans was shocked. Alan's whole career has been based on doing something about it!

At the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, Alan drafted legislation which capped emissions and reduced airborne particulates by over 75%. Now, the two ports are the cleanest and greenest ports in the nation and a model for clean ports all over the world. That's called doing something about it.

Is Alan too principled and too wedded to progressive solutions to be able to work with Republicans? Well, maybe not Bachmann and Akin but Senator Lowenthal has been one of the most effective legislators in California history in bringing both sides together for the sake of ordinary families. He authored legislation which increased student success and graduation rates at all 113 of California’s Community Colleges, and linked the educational community in Long Beach by aligning common core standards from kindergarten to college. This was done with overwhelming bipartisan support. And as a founding member of the Bipartisan Caucus in the State Assembly, Alan also took the lead in authoring the legislation needed to create a new redistricting process which was more representative of the needs of the people, not the political self-interest of the politicians; the end result being the independent Citizen Redistricting Commission.

It's important to remember that his opponent, who is being heavily backed by Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan, will never stray from right-wing dogma. Gary Delong will always walk in lock-step vote for the Party and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He is lying to Democrats, Independents, and progressives throughout the district about being a “new breed” of Republican, and trying to paint Alan's stellar legislative career as the worst thing to ever happen to this state-- blaming him for trying to ban styrofoam, passing AB 32 (California’s climate change plan), and choosing to save funding for schools and public safety instead of cutting them completely.

In officially endorsing Alan, Blue America joins the Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Bill Clinton, the American Federation of Teachers, MoveOn.org and DailyKos. Please consider helping upgrade Congress by supporting Alan Lowenthal for a swing district that spans Long Beach and parts of Orange County. He's joining us for a live chat at Crooks and Liars today at 11am (PT).