Another Slimy "Ex" Republican In California Caught Lying, Pretending To Be A Democrat

Fake Democrat Butner and actual Democrat Campa-Najjar

Under normal circumstances, no one would be looking at as red a district as CA-50 (inland San Diego County) as flippable-- even in a wave election cycle. The PVI is R+11. Obama lost it both times (59-40% and 60-38%) and Trump thumped Hillary 54.6% to 39.6%. But Duncan Hunter is about to be indicted for stealing campaign cash and a Democrat has a chance to beat him. The progressive in the race, Ammar Campa-Najjar, was endorsed by the state Democratic Party. He's raised the most money in the race as well (as of the March31, FEC reporting deadline):

• Ammar Campa-Najjar (D)- $707,571
• Duncan Hunter (R)- $666,074
• Josh Butner (D)- $594,695
• Shamus Sayed (R)- $253,179

Campa-Najjar also has the most cash on hand. So why is the DCCC and the establishment leaning towards Butner? Is it because they're racists? That could be part of it. Is it because Butner is conservative, just like DCCC operatives Kyle Layman and Jason Bresler? Partially. But most of all, it's because Butner is an "ex"-Republican. The DCCC loves "ex"-Republicans. (They endorsed another one yesterday, Gil Cisneros in Orange County.)

Ryan Grim was the first to report that Butner was not just a Republican pretending to be a Democrat, but that he lied about it as well. Butner, wrote Grim "certified certified to the California Secretary of State in his election filings that he has been an independent-- known there as 'no party preference'-- since 2008. His filing shows he registered as a Democrat in 2016, four months before he announced his bid for Congress. But state voting records obtained by The Intercept from the Registrar of Voters contradict those filings, showing that he was a registered Republican at least through the 2010 election. Butner did not vote in any elections, either primary or general, between 2010 and 2016, when he ran for the school board. But the records show that at some point between 2010 and 2012, he switched his voter registration status from Republican to 'no party preference.'" And he refused to discuss the revelations with Grim.

He voted in the Republican primary in 2008. He's never voted in a Democratic primary until 2016 when he registered as a Democrat for the first time.

Butner was recruited to run in California’s 50th Congressional District by the Democratic leaders, yet his progressive opponent, Ammar Campa-Najjar, has won the endorsement of the state Democratic Party and the bulk of the activist groups in the district.

Elsewhere around the country, the Democrat leadership’s zeal for veterans to run for office has led them to back other former Republicans. In Texas’s 21st Congressional District, Joseph Kopser was previously registered as a Republican, having grown up in a conservative family. In Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, the party’s chosen candidate, Elaine Luria, voted for her own Republican opponent not once, but twice. Gil Cisneros, a candidate in California’s 39th District, is a Navy veteran and former Republican who had registered as a Democrat in 2015, after three years as an independent. He was named on Wednesday to the DCCC’s Red-to-Blue program, tantamount to an endorsement. Butner came under fire earlier in the campaign for insisted that military service should be a prerequisite for a run for Congress.

The shifting party loyalties are a mirror image, in some ways, of the debate over the party status of independent Bernie Sanders, who became a Democrat to run in the party’s 2016 presidential primary, and subsequently switching back to independent status after losing the nomination. He has been heavily criticized by Democratic partisans for refusing to wear the party label, but argues that he is able to to bring more people into the broad Democratic fold by appealing to voters disaffected by partisan politics. That may or may not be right, but at least it’s a rationale-- and Sanders has never hidden his lack of affiliation.

Butner has said that “local Democrats” recruited him to run for Congress, and his candidacy has been flogged by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Though the party committee has not explicitly endorsed him, the DCCC’s chair, New Mexico Rep. Ben Ray Luján, gave Butner a $1,000 campaign contribution as early as June 2017 through his Turquoise PAC. Butner also cashed early checks from the New Democrat Coalition PAC and Serve America PAC.

New Democrat does not refer to candidates who are new to the Democratic Party, as Butner is, but is rather a coalition of Democrats with close ties to Wall Street. The Serve America PAC is run by Rep. Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat and veteran with national political ambitions. His PAC gave more than $1 million in the first quarter of 2018 to Democratic veterans, many running on business-friendly platforms, including a total of more than $80,000 to Butner, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.