The Democrats Completely Control Sacramento-- So Why Is It Such A Cesspool Of Corruption?

If the old maxim is true that absolute power corrupts absolutely, then California Democrats have a very real problem. As the power and legitimacy of the GOP has waned, Democrats have seized control of a supermajority in the state, with both hands. With their power now left unchecked by a viable opposition party, the party politics of the left have drifted into corruption, led by party power players like Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and Christy Smith, an unaccomplished freshman legislator running for the CA-25 seat abandoned by Katie Hill, as well as a wide cadre of party apparatchiks.

Their goal has been to put their thumbs on the scales of primary elections across the state in order to elect moderate back benchers who will maintain the status quo and not rock the boat for party leadership. The internal party bias has been especially hard on the progressive wing of the party, where the California Democratic party routinely tries to pick the winners of primary races.

The Young Turks recently reported one such story of unethical influence into races that are supposed to be democratic in nature. The story featured Eric Ohlsen who is running for State Assembly in District 36, the Antelope Valley district that is contained within the boundaries of CA-25. According to Ohlsen, he was told at a meeting with Christy Smith that the decision had already been made behind the scenes to support his opponent, Jonathan Ervin, so Ohlsen should just try again in a few years. She also took umbrage with his messaging to get big money out of politics and fight corruption. Ohlsen had said in a speech-- up top-- at the California Democratic Convention, "Democrats have a supermajority in Sacramento and they keep telling us that we need to learn how to compromise. We’re not compromising with Republicans to pass legislation, we’re compromising with industry because they’re donors." Regarding that anti-corruption stance, Ohlsen said, "Christy told me that my anti-corruption messaging was 'personally offensive' to her." Which is probably a good self-assessment because both Smith and Rendon had pushed Ervin from behind the scenes and made sure that opposing candidates did not get any endorsements, which gave Ervin a $121 thousand advantage over everyone else in his race.

Ohlsen confirmed in a follow up interview that during his meeting with Smith, she had noted that both herself and Rendon had endorsed Jonathan Ervin before any primary races had even begun, effectively removing any democracy from the Democratic Primary.

Rendon has a long track record of using his influence with the unions and special interest groups to deny funding and endorsements to any candidates that he does not hand pick. His position as Speaker of the House in the State Assembly gives him leverage over groups that may potentially offer endorsements to candidates. By offering to reduce access to legislators, Rendon can control or eliminate the flow of money to candidates that he does not approve of. Encouraging his membership in the Assembly to direct funds at particular candidates is another tactic that Rendon has used to starve out competition from progressive candidates, and favor ones, like Ervin, who will act as an empty vessel for his agenda.

Threats of the denial of funding have also been used against other progressive candidates such as those who support Cenk Unger. Alaina Brooks, SEIU delegate for California's 36th Assembly District, executive board member for Local 2015, made it very clear to the Ohlsen camp that if he continued to support his fellow progressive candidate that his political future would be in jeopardy.

"The amount of pushback that we have gotten is surprising to me," Ohlsen said, "Nearly every Democrat in Sacramento ran on talking points to get money out of politics, but as soon as you ask, 'that sounds great, so where is your bill?' they start working like crazy behind the scenes to block you from competing." With a supermajority of Democratic votes in the California Legislature, passing any anticorruption measures would be a simple task, the problem is that the measures would need the support of people who have spent their careers benefiting from the money in politics.

This is the reason why many states have enacted publicly funded elections, which limit the ability of party elites and special interests to pick and choose the winners of elections before they have even began. It is a proposition that has been supported on the national level by several Presidential candidates including Tom Steyer, who said, "I think the point about publicly funded campaigns means that if you are running, the public will fund a campaign that’s at least comparable to what anyone’s going to spend on their campaign," Steyer told reporters. "And that’s actually I think the easiest way to go about this and the proper way."

Also on the national level, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has faced many of the same problems by bucking the party establishment. She rose to prominence by defeating Joseph Crowley, a corporate Democrat who portrayed himself as being a progressive liberal while simultaneously taking money from Goldman Sachs, Facebook, Google, BlackRock, amongst others. AOC has continued to garner criticism from her own Democratic colleagues for holding House Democrat’s feet to the fire regarding financial corruption within the party.

The GOP lost their position as a viable opposition party in the state, but by quashing the voices of opposition within their own ranks, Democrats could undo any gains they have been given. The activities of Rendon and Smith to put their thumbs on the scales of party elections could create a culture of corruption that will bring down their own house. Matt Stoller summed the problem up nicely in a 2019 column for the Washington Post, "For too long, disagreements in the Democratic Party have been kept behind closed doors, and the result was the protection of powerful financial interests. It is time to start talking about this dynamic, so that voters can make a democratic choice about what kind of politics they actually want to build. That, in the end, is why it’s called the Democratic Party."

Will California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon Be Recalled For Betraying His Constituents?

Like Trump, a liar and manipulator

A couple years ago, I was driving out to City of Hope in Duarte and was able to listen to a whole segment on KPCC, an interview with in-coming Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon. He spoke very eloquently and forcefully about environmental abuses and dangerous industrial and commercial pollution in working class residential communities. It was very inspiring and I immediately called-- all excited-- then-candidate for Congress Nanette Barragan. An environmental champion who, as a small town mayor had taken on Big Oil and won a battle to prevent offshore drilling, Nanette was running against the single most corrupt member of the state legislature, Isadore Hall, a guy notorious for taking money from Big Oil and voting for their interests in Sacramento. Nanette was the underdog in the race-- by far-- and I figured an influential figure like Rendon could give her campaign a much-needed boost.

When I told her, excitedly, about Rendon's interview, she laughed. "He's backing Hall," she told me. I was gobsmacked. I had never heard a more persuasive argument for the premise of Nanette's entire campaign than what Rendon had just said. In recent days, all of California has learned that what Anthony Rendon says and what Anthony Rendon does are entirely unrelated. Anthony Rendon-- at the behest of Jerry Brown, another hypocrite-- killed the Medicare-for-All bill that the state Senate had passed.

Many voters are now leary of any promises from Democratic politicians. And they should be. Over the weekend, the L.A. Times noted that enraged activists are doing what's necessary to recall Rendon. It can't happen fast enough-- not just to Rendon but to all political betrayers of their constituents everywhere in America. Reporter Melanie Mason:

When Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) halted a measure to establish single-payer healthcare in California, the bill's most dedicated backers immediately called for him to be removed from office.

Now, more than a month later, single-payer advocates have taken the first formal step to follow through on their threat, giving Rendon's office this week notice of intent to circulate a recall petition.

Rendon's move to stop the single-payer bill-- which he called "woefully incomplete," noting it passed the state Senate without a method to pay for it-- was the catalyst for the outcry.

"If we recall the Assembly speaker, maybe someone else [will be] willing to push this bill, to get it out of the rules committee and send it to the Assembly to get a vote on it," said Jessica Covarrubias, a proponent of the effort. "Maybe that will help everyone get healthcare."

Covarrubias, a 27-year-old law student from South Gate, described the recall campaign as "literally a grassroots effort." She first learned of the recall campaign when single-payer activists, incensed by Rendon's action, launched a door-knocking drive to inform voters in his district.

The notice, which proponents mailed on Tuesday and was received by Rendon's office Friday, was signed by 60 people; at least 40 signatures must be deemed valid, belonging to registered voters of his Southeast Los Angeles County district. It was filed by Stephen Elzie, an Irvine-based USC law professor who is acting as an attorney for the effort.

...The recall effort faces tough odds. As the powerful Assembly speaker, Rendon has been a robust fundraiser, ending 2016 with more than $1.2 million in the bank. Other labor groups, including unions representing construction workers and grocery clerks, publicly sided with the speaker's decision to shelve the single-payer bill and could serve as as a well-financed cavalry should Rendon face a heated campaign to oust him.

Still, this week's step forward in the recall effort underscores how activist anger over Rendon's decision continues to simmer weeks after the measure, SB 562, was blocked.

Last week, the California Nurses Assn., which sponsored the legislation, paid for two mailers to be sent in Rendon's district, assailing his move as "holding healthcare hostage" and "protecting politicians, not people's healthcare." Both mailers encouraged recipients to call or visit Rendon's office to voice their displeasure, although the flyers stopped short of calling for a recall.

Michael Lighty, policy director for the nurses' group, said the union was not involved with the recall effort, focusing instead on pressuring Rendon to let the single-payer bill move forward.

Does The Most Corrupt Man In Congress Really Support Medicare-For-All?

The Republicans in each house of Congress have voted literally dozens and dozens of times over the past 7 years to repeal the Affordable Care Act, a top priority of an avaricious donor class that doesn't like the idea of helping to pay for poor peoples' healthcare. In all those years the Republicans were voting in lockstep to repeal, there was either a Democratic-controlled Senate to stop it or a Democrat in the White House to veto it. Now the Republicans control the Senate, the House and the White House. So where's the repeal? Reality is a bitch! The repeal is the most massively unpopular bill in living memory. Something between 12% and 20% of Americans approve of it. Bush's TARP Wall Street bankster bailout was more popular with American voters than TrumpCare. Republican legislators can't deal with it and are panic-stricken. Ha, ha, ha?

Let's look a little closer to home-- right here in blue, blue California where the Governor is a Democrat and both the state Senate and the state Assembly have massive Democratic majorities. Both houses of the legislature passed single payer legislation-- TWICE-- in the past-- when there was a Republican governor to veto it-- and now...

Tuesday, Lydia O'Neal and David Sirota, reporting for the International Business Times, points to similarities that Republicans in Congress and Democratic in Sacramento face in regard to healthcare. "Democrats,' they wrote, "are facing allegations from progressive leaders that after a decade of promising to create a single-payer health care system, the party is now succumbing to the kind of corporate fealty that national party leaders routinely ascribe to Republicans" and the scumbag and traitor to all things American who has managed to slip into the White House.

As many Democrats enthusiastically promoted single-payer to Golden State voters, the party indeed engineered a complete takeover of the state’s government, giving them unprecedented legislative supermajority power to enact the legislation-- even over a governor’s veto. Yet, as health care industry money flooded into the coffers of the Democratic Party’s candidates for California office, Brown has turned negative about the idea, and late last month, California Democratic Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon halted a single-payer bill in its tracks, preventing it from being voted on by his Democratic supermajority before the legislature’s self-imposed July 14th deadline.

Amid calls for Democratic unity in the Trump era, the party’s move in a deep blue state to block a health care initiative it previously supported has prompted labor movement protests-- and promises of primary campaigns or recall efforts to unseat recalcitrant Democrats. More broadly, eight years after Barack Obama mounted a populist presidential campaign and then did not prosecute any major Wall Street executives, the episode has resurrected progressives’ allegations that while Democrats may talk a good game, they are not nearly as committed to bold action as their rhetoric suggests.

“Talk about fake news-- this is fake politics: stick it to the Republican governor but we’re going to leave dear old Jerry untouched so he doesn’t have to veto this bill,” said Democrat Gloria Romero, a former California Senate Majority Leader who helped pass the single-payer bills in 2006 and 2008. “Probably most of these Assembly members ran for office supporting single payer healthcare. But now that what they ran around promising the people actually has a chance of passage, they don’t dare do what they promised. This kind of thing undermines any integrity from the Democratic Party that is supposed to stand up for the little guy. It creates a disconnect and a distrust.”

In an era that has seen voters enthusiastically respond to populist crusades in both parties, Brown and Rendon have offered technocratic arguments. Both have raised questions about how the most recent single-payer bill, SB 562, would be financed in California, where one previously passed ballot measure constrains the state budget and another requires a set percentage of the budget to be devoted to education.

...[A]n International Business Times review of campaign finance data found that in the intervening years, health insurers and pharmaceutical companies substantially boosted their donations to California Democratic candidates in gubernatorial election years.

In all, donors from the health services sector and major health insurers gave more than $16 million to Democratic candidates and the California Democratic Party in the 2014 election cycle-- almost double what donors from those industries gave in the 2006 election, according to data from the National Institute on Money In State Politics. Donors from those sectors collectively donated more than $3 million to Brown and Rendon since 2010.

In light of that history, longtime single-payer proponents argue that this is a watershed moment for Democrats in advance of the 2018 election. They assert that the California fight will demonstrate whether or not Democrats in the Trump era are willing to use the power they still retain at the state level to defy their major corporate donors and enact the policies they tell voters they support.

“We’ve been talking about this forever,” said Jamie Court, the president of Consumer Watchdog, which has supported the legislation. “When there’s a Republican in charge, Democrats take action,” he said, and with ostensibly pro-single-payer Brown replacing Schwarzenegger, “now it’s time to put up or shut up.”

“It’s a litmus test for whether progressive Democratic politicians can talk the talk and walk the walk,” Court told IBT. “This is about the soul of the Democratic Party as much as it’s about health care.”

Kia Hamadanchy, a former Sherrod Brown staffer, currently running for the House seat Trump's pet congresswoman in Orange County, Mimi Walters, holds told us that "Top to bottom the Democratic Party is in the worst shape its been since right before the Great Depression. Whether its Congress, state legislatures, city councils, or school boards we've continued to lose across the board and across the country time and time again. Donald Trump does not become President of the United States without a massive institutional failure by the Democratic Party. Whatever we've been doing its clear that its not working and we need a complete rebuild from the ground up, with a focus on what we actually stand for and who we actually represent. And as a party how can we possibly win the argument and actually convince people to come along with us if we're constantly running away from ourselves and don't strongly stand behind progressive policy, whether its single payer or whether its anything else."

Dotty Nygard is the progressive nurse running for the blue-trending Central Valley seat held by 100% Trump backer Jeff Denham. She supported Bernie in the primary and is running on similar policies and values now. She told us that "one thing is clear: we need more union members, women, and people of color elected to Congress. These underrepresented groups can better relate to the struggles working families face every day, and as representatives they are more likely to recognize the insanity of winding the income inequality divide amongst Americans, both through messaging and actions. Democrats are supposed to represent the people-- fight for the people-- and lift them up... Leadership cannot idly stand by while only those with money are elected into positions of power within a system that champions money over grassroots support. As Democrats, we must proactively fund, endorse, and otherwise work to elect working-class folks if we want the public to engage in politics again."

So who's the most corrupt man in Congress and what's he got to do with all this? Yes, time to talk about Queens County machine boss, Joe Crowley, a Wall Street scumbag and "former" chairman of the corporately owned and operated New Dems who Pelosi and Hoyer have selected as the next leader of the House Democrats. Crowley has never had a contested election. He was given his seat by a legalistic trick/inside job pulled off by the last Queens machine boss, Tom Manton, as he suddenly resigned from Congress and handed off the prize to his sleaze bag protégée, Crowley.

Progressives have been trying to pass Medicare-For-All since Truman was president. This year, when John Conyers introduced the latest version-- H.R. 676-- in a situation where Trump is president and McConnell and Ryan decide what gets voted on in Congress-- there were 51 original co-sponsors, basically all fervent progressives like Partial Jayapal (D-WA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Katherine Clark (D-MA), Keith Ellison (D-MN), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Ted Lieu (D-CA), Mark Pocan (D-WI), Jose Serrano (D-NY), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), Judy Chu (D-CA), Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Matt Cartwright (D-PA). That was on January 24. As the months rolled on more progressives read the bill and signed on as well-- like Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Alan Lowenthal (D-CA) in February, Mike Capuano (D-MA) and Karen Bass (D-CA) and Nanette Barragan (D-CA) in March. By April, even conservative Democrats from the Republican wing of the party started smelling the roses and signing on as co-sponsors, even slimy characters like Gene Green (TX), Lou Correa (Blue Dog-CA), Darren Soto (New Dem-FL), Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN), Vicente Gonzalez (Blue Dog-TX), and then on May 5-- soon after a progressive primary opponent, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez jumped into the primary against him, Crowley signed on as a co-sponsor too. What a joke! No one in Congress thinks Crowley supports single payer, Medicare-for-All or anything else remotely progressive beyond what he needs to work on his personal goals wrapped up in naked careerism and grotesque opportunism. But Crowley's signal was quickly picked up up conservative New Dem Adam Schiff who has Dianne Feinstein's Senate seat dictating every decision he makes. Maybe this is the kind of sausage-making it's going to take to finally get this passed. Or maybe opportunists like Crowley and Schiff will betray America as easily as Rendon and Jerry Brown betrayed California.



Let's go back to Lydia O'Neal and David Sirota for a moment. They pointed out that Rendon's Democratic and corporate allies lauded him "for blocking the single payer legislation, even after fellow Democrats had previously passed it."

“I think Speaker Rendon gets a lot of credit for protecting his members from a very stupid idea and making them all politically vulnerable for something that’s not going to happen anyway,” political consultant David Townsend, who works for Democrats and insurance companies, told the Sacramento Bee.

Assembly Democrats have set July 14th as the deadline for policy committees to consider legislation this year, and CNA is continuing to stage protests demanding lawmakers allow the bill to be debated.

Whether or not it advances this year, the legislation faces persistent questions about Proposition 98, which mandates a set percentage of spending on education, and the so-called “Gann limit,” which limits overall state spending. A senate analysis of the bill asserted that those measures “would prevent the legislature from creating the single-payer system envisioned in the bill without voter approval” of exemptions.

Rendon’s move, though, has effectively prevented lawmakers from voting the legislation onto the ballot. Kuehl, meanwhile, rejected suggestions that lawmakers could not find creative ways to work within existing constitutional limits.

“That theory won’t fly,” she told IBT, asserting that there is likely breathing room within the Gann limit. She said after a decade of debate over single-payer, lawmakers should be able to come up with ways to deal with Proposition 98.

“I don’t think it would actually be a problem,” said Kuehl, who is now a Los Angeles County Supervisor. “You would craft it so that it would not be part of the state budget. It would create a separate state health plan.”

As for the political dynamics, Kuehl compared the Democrats’ refusal to pass a long-supported health care policy to Republicans repeatedly voting to repeal Obamacare but now having trouble passing a replacement bill under their own party’s president.

“It’s much more realistic when you’re faced with having something happen or not happen,” she said.

Fabian Nunez, a Democrat who served as Assembly Speaker when Kuehl’s SB 840 first passed both houses, said he believes single-payer simply is not feasible at the state level.

“You could do some things at the state level to improve the quality of care, but you need the cooperation of the federal government,” he said. “The only way to do single-payer well is at the federal level.”

Nunez’s position exemplifies the Democratic Party’s shift on the issue now that it has full legislative power. As Assembly speaker in 2006, he supported the California single-payer bill.

Some single-payer proponents in California say that after multiple attempts to pass a bill, Democrats themselves have become the major obstacle-- and the only way to get the party to restore its credibility and act on its promises is through threats of revenge at the ballot box.

“There have to be electoral consequences for these Democrats,” said Michael Lighty of the California Nurses Association. “The whole basis of their politics is pro-industry, pro-Wall Street. Those folks are driven by their donor agenda and not by popular demand. There just in general has to be a greater grassroots surge to hold these elected officials accountable.”

Primarying Anthony Rendon is an absolute must. Drafting state Senate president Kevin de León to run for Feinstein's seat-- and not Adam Schiff-- is just as important. This is California, not Mississippi and if we let the establishment, primarily Democratic careerists, get away with this kind of crap here, they will be emboldened to rub our faces in shit for eternity. And nationally... Crowley is a DEAD end for Democrats. Contrast his incoherence on healthcare policy with what Ro Khanna, who represents the Silicon Valley and parts of the East Bay, (see tweets above) told me today:

"When Republicans mislead voters into thinking that a single payer health care system costs $32 trillion, Democrats must point out that our current system already costs $49 trillion. A single payer system would actually save Americans $17 trillion. A single-payer system reduces administrative costs and will lower drug prices and hospital costs through bargaining. Ultimately, a single payer system would help reduce our deficit and ease the burden on both businesses and middle class families.

"For decades, the GOP has made economic arguments regarding health care and Democrats have made moral arguments. But we shouldn't be afraid to make the economic case. Expanding health care through single payer isn't just the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do. Let's not let the GOP get away with fake math, Democrats must point out that a single payer system is fiscally responsible."

Ro Khanna sounds like a credible leader, unlike Joe Crowley, who sounds like what he is: and opportunist and a careerist hack who will sell out the grassroots as easily as he yawns when a staffer tries explaining policy to him.

We've been mentioning that two of our old progressive friends, Mary Ellern Balchunis and Daylen Leach, are both running-- in a crowded field-- for the Democratic nomination to take on Ryan rubber stamp Pat Meehan in PA-07. But there's another excellent progressive in that race too, Paul Perry, a former Obama staffer and a school teacher. I was talking with him yesterday and mentioned that "It's deeply ironic that the DCCC released a series of stickers encouraging voters to 'look at the other guys' when our party would actually be best served by taking a good, hard look in the mirror and changing the cast of characters that we see in it. If we are to learn anything from this last election cycle, it's that Americans are hungry for a new generation of leaders to step up and take tough stances that deliver progress for Americans, like single-payer healthcare and tuition-free college. These are ideas whose time has come and we need the next class of progressive leaders to pave the way for this badly-needed change that most Americans favor by wide margins." Paul Perry knows something about messaging too. Just take a look at this incredible video:



Remind you at all of how Randy Bryce introduced himself? I have no double we're going too be hearing more from Paul as this cycle heats up.

Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon Tosses California TrumpCare Victims Overboard

Remember how the first version of TrumpCare in the House wasn’t quite good enough for the far right savages in the Republican caucus? So they called in Freedom Caucus lunatic Mark Meadows to work with spineless south Jersey multimillionaire Tom MacArthur and they came up with a far worse and more deadly version that the radical right could-- and did-- get behind. That same process is playing out in the Senate now. You have the off-the-cliff extremists like Ted Cruz, Ron Johnson and Mike Lee threatening to tank the bill if it doesn’t kill more people than the bill already worse than the House version will kill. And your have jellyfish Republicans like Rob Portman, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Dean Heller whining that the bill is already too extreme but… ready to make a deal with Cruz, who’s father was implicated in the assassination of JFK, as you know-- just ask the obese orange baboon who took a moment out from obsessing about his role as Putin’s cockholster to tweet some nonsense over the weekend about Obamacare being dead. In any case, soon after Pence was summoned into the Koch presence Friday, Koch operative Tim Phillips, went publicly bonkers that TrumpCare 3.0 isn’t “conservative” enough, describing it as an “immoral… slight nip and tuck” in the far right’s war against healthcare for working families. “This Senate bill needs to get better,” drooled the well-paid fascist Koch mouthpiece. “It has to get better.” By “better,” they want to see higher projections for likely annual deaths, thousands apparently not sufficient to sate their bloodlust.



In line with Trump’s bogus claim-- terrorism, pure and simple-- that Obamacare is dead, The Hill reported yesterday that “One of the primary arguments from Republicans for repealing ObamaCare is that the healthcare law is ‘collapsing.’ But experts warn that the GOP’s legislation might destabilize insurance markets even more over time” and drive premiums through the roof.

The Senate’s ObamaCare repeal bill, released Thursday, would abolish ObamaCare’s mandate for people to have insurance, but it would still bar insurers from denying people coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Experts warn that arrangement would allow people to wait until they get sick to buy insurance coverage, likely driving up premiums.

  On top of that, the GOP bill cuts back on ObamaCare’s tax credits, providing less financial assistance to help people afford a plan. So in addition to the lack of an enforcement “stick” to get healthy people to enroll, there would also be less of a “carrot,” in the form of financial assistance.

This combination could lead to more insurers pulling out of the market or spiking premiums, experts say, exactly the problems under ObamaCare that Republicans have talked about solving.

“A combination of repealing the individual mandate and diminishing premium subsidies would tend to destabilize the market,” said Larry Levitt, a healthcare expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Rodney Whitlock, a former Republican congressional staffer now a healthcare consultant, wrote on Twitter that the lack of a mandate combined with lower financial assistance “is pretty much the definition of a death spiral.”

The GOP seems to have rigged the bill to trigger a real collapse of the healthcare system to kick it in 2022, so after Trump or Pence theoretically wins the White House. So we were all waiting for California to offer the alternative, right? The state Senate passed a single payer bill and the state Assembly has a massive super-majority so… no brainer, right? Wrong. Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, who often pretends to be a progressive-- I realized he wasn’t when he endorsed uber-corrupt conservative Isadore Hall over progressive reformer Nanette Barragan last year-- killed the bill for at least a year by locking it up in the Rules Committee, claiming SB 562 is “woefully incomplete.” The L.A. Times explained what Rendon had done, aside from committing career suicide:

Liar? Coward? Both?

Rendon announced late Friday afternoon that the bill, SB 562 by state Sens. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) and Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), would not advance to a policy hearing in his house, dampening the measure’s prospect for swift passage this year.

“SB 562 was sent to the Assembly woefully incomplete,” Rendon said in a statement. “Even senators who voted for SB 562 noted there are potentially fatal flaws in the bill, including the fact it does not address many serious issues, such as financing, delivery of care, cost controls, or the realities of needed action by the Trump Administration and voters to make SB 562 a genuine piece of legislation.”

Rendon took pains to note that his action does not kill the bill entirely-- because it is the first year of a two-year session, it could be revived next year.

But the move is nonetheless a major setback for legislation that has electrified the Democratic party’s progressive flank.

The California Nurses Assn., the bill's sponsors and the state's most vocal advocates for single-payer, blasted Rendon's decision as "cowardly."

"Acting in secret in the interests of the profiteering insurance companies late Friday afternoon abandons all those people already threatened by Congress and the Trump administration," Deborah Burger, the union's co-president, said in a statement.

Burger continued: "The people of California are counting on the Legislature to protect them now, not sometime next year, and as polls have shown Californians support this proposal by a wide majority. A solution to this health care emergency could be at hand; Speaker Rendon is standing in opposition."

In a joint statement, Lara and Atkins, the measure's authors, said they were "disappointed the robust debate about healthcare for all that started in the California Senate will not continue in the Assembly this year."

"This issue is not going away," they added.

Gov. Jerry Brown, who had signaled wariness about the proposal's costs, said in a statement that Rendon "made the case that there’s clearly more work to do before anyone is in a position to vote on revamping California’s healthcare system."

"I recognize the tremendous excitement behind the measure, but basic and fundamental questions remain unanswered," Brown said.

Many Democrats are embarrassed. Ro Khanna spoke up first, tweeting that Rendon should reconsider his decision. But he wasn’t the only one. Newly elected Democratic Party chairman, Eric Bauman, a former nurse, who is committed to single payer, has been politically close to Rendon. But that didn’t stop him from blasting him in a statement to the media:

"Today’s announcement that the Assembly will not be moving forward on single-payer, Medicare-for-All healthcare for California at this time is an unambiguous disappointment for all of us who believe that healthcare is a right for every Californian. We understand that SB 562 is a work in progress, but we believe it should keep moving forward, especially in light of the widespread suffering that will occur if Trump and Congressional Republicans succeed in passing their cold-blooded, morally bankrupt so-called healthcare legislation.

I call upon our Legislative Leaders to work together to find appropriate and acceptable solutions to enable SB 562 to advance as soon as possible.

Hundreds of thousands of people in California stand to lose their health insurance if Trumpcare 3.0 is signed into law. Countless Democrats passionately believe that Medicare-for-all healthcare is a bedrock principle of the Democratic Party, and I stand with them. Our message to our Legislative Leaders is clear: SB 562 must be given the chance to succeed.”

UPDATE: All Fingers Point To The Governor

Today’s bullshitter was yesteryear’s visionary, as you can see in the 1992 video clip below. But, alas, Jerry Brown seems to have changed his mind-- and Anthony Rendon’s mind. Will he now take the whole California Democratic Party down with him? Imagine him shrieking menacingly at Kevin De Leon: "Don't you dare let that bill hit my desk," with KDL stomping out of his office, unphased, not blinking, muttering, "Let the 562 veto be his legacy." He passed it through the Senate… and then Rendon blinked-- just as the details of the TrumpCare tax giveaway were hitting.

Do Politician-To-Politician Endorsements Mean Anything?

Yesterday we ran a post about how usually-progressive Sherrod Brown endorsed Hillary instead of Bernie as well as other conservative shitheads (Patrick Murphy and Ted Strickland for example). And by now you've probably read how progressive poseur Bill de Blasio finished the serpentine negotiations that finally, this morning, led to a Hillary endorsement as well (on, of all places, anti-Hillary headquarters, MSNBC's Morning Joe).

At the same time 5 other senators-- Tim Kaine (D-VA), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Chris Murphy (D-CT)-- two of whom, like Brown, have progressive records-- Schatz and Whitehouse endorsed Patrick Murphy for the open Rubio seat in Florida. None of these guys served with Murphy in the House and I doubt any of them did any due diligence at all or know anything about him-- "ex"-Republican, New Dem, 100% Wall Street-pawn, atrocious anti-working family voting record, anti-environment, etc.-- other than the line of malarkey Schumer and Tester fed them. Disappointing, especially from the most progressive of the lot, Brian Schatz who just got finished with a bitter primary with one of Murphy's New Dem colleagues, the detestable Colleen Hanabusa, who is terrible, but not nearly as terrible as Murphy. In his endorsement statement, Schatz proclaimed that "In Congress, Patrick has demonstrated his commitment to the middle class by consistently advocating for Medicare and Social Security and fights for sound policies that will grow the middle class. Floridians are lucky to have a candidate for Senate as hardworking as Patrick, and I look forward to having another Murphy in the Senate in 2017."

I sent Schatz this video, a demonstration about Murphy advocating for Medicare and Social Security-- or at least for cutting back on them:



Structural changes to programs like Medicare and Social Security-- the same language Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell use, is Republic-Speak for gutting the two most popular government programs in history, something that rich Republicans-- like Murphy-- have always hated. Probably just as important to Schatz-- a committed climate change hawk (like Heinrich)-- would have been Murphy's persistent support for the Keystone XL Pipeline. He joined the Republicans to vote for it 7 times.

Bear with me while I repeat some smart advice I got from Pennsylvania Congressman Matt Cartwright about politician-to-politician endorsements. "What matters is your message, and making sure you have the means to get it out there. Those kinds of endorsements worked 40 or 50 or 100 years ago; I think we are at a point now where a candidate's collecting endorsements of other politicians at best is a waste of time, and at worst is actually counterproductive. It's definitely a waste of time, because nowadays in high-profile races information on candidates is so readily and directly available that voters don't depend on party bosses and ward-heelers to tell them who to vote for. It can even be counterproductive, because the politicians bestowing their endorsements may in fact be individually or collectively despised. In my own experience with a hotly contested primary contest, I was a complete political neophyte in my first election; my opponent was a 20-year incumbent congressman. You could count my endorsements from elected officials and local party committees on one hand; my opponent's list of endorsements was gargantuan. I just focused on raising enough money to get my message out. Since I was able to do that, I did get my message out. Since the voters liked my message more than the other guy's, nobody paid any attention to all those other politicians' endorsements, and I won... by a lot."

That said, the reason I even started writing about endorsements today-- before I knew about Schatz and the others backing Murphy-- was because of a new column by Seth Masket in Pacific Standard, What's in an endorsement?, that a friend in Sacramento sent me after he read my post about California Assembly Speaker-designate Anthony Rendon, an environmental champion, endorsing Isadore Hall, a corrupt and hackish pawn of Big Oil, over fellow environmental champion Nanette Barragán. What Masket is asking in his column is if an endorsement actually moves votes. He concludes that-- at least in California's dysfunctional jungle primary system-- it does.

There actually isn't a lot of agreement on just what endorsements do for a candidate. The most influential book on this topic, the Party Decides, notably doesn't make the argument that endorsements necessarily cause primary voters to vote a certain way. Rather, it treats endorsements as the most visible indicator of the way party insiders are leaning.

If party insiders-- defined broadly as officeholders, major donors, activists, interest groups, and others-- want a particular candidate to become its presidential nominee, there's a lot they can do to make that happen. They can provide money and expertise, defend the candidate when she is criticized, bend rules to provide ballot and debate access, etc. More importantly, they can spread the word among active primary voters and caucus goers that this is our candidate. This is why the insiders' choice tends to win. But a lot of this activity doesn't occur in the open and is very hard to measure. Endorsements provide a pretty clear image of which way the insiders are leaning, even if it misses some activity.

Yet there's evidence from other scholarship that endorsements by themselves actually do move votes. In some recent research I did with Thad Kousser, Eric McGhee, and Scott Lucas, we looked at recent statehouse and congressional elections in California under the state's new "top-two" primary system. The state parties have become very active in recent elections by issuing endorsements in primaries, as they are rightly worried about the prospects of losing control of their nominations. Those formal party endorsements are printed in the state ballot booklet that goes out to voters before the primary.

We found that the Democratic Party's endorsement actually moved votes in the primary election. The party's imprimatur seemed to provide a candidate with a boost of around 10 percentage points. The size of the boost varied importantly with context. As we found in an experiment, the Democratic endorsement worked better for traditional liberal Democratic candidates than it did for more moderate, business-oriented ones. So there are limits to what a voter will accept from an endorsement-- you can't necessarily convince a voter to support a candidate who is antithetical to her party's longstanding goals.

...In the real world, of course, endorsements rarely operate in isolation. The preponderance of party endorsements leaning one way tends to re-assure donors, who give more to that candidate. Good campaign consultants notice those signals, too, and provide their expertise to the candidate. You may never bother to find out which state legislative candidate has the bulk of party endorsements behind her. But if you see her name on hundreds of billboards during your drive to and from work, if you hear her name frequently on the radio, if you get mailers with her name on them talking about an issue you care about, chances are that will have some kind of effect on you, even if it's a pretty subtle or even unconscious one. And endorsements could have made that all happen.

And speaking of transactional hacks, there are many observers of Florida politics who are certain ethically-challenged Congressman Alcee Hastings sold his endorsement to Patrick Murphy's parents, as many people do. The third candidate in the race, Pam Keith, has publicly accused Alcee of doing just that. The Sunshine State News published this letter Hastings sent Keith early this month:

click on the letter for some mildly interesting reading

Yesterday Schumer was able to orchestrate 5 uninformed senators to all endorse his Wall Street lackey candidate at the same time. There are probably as many people in Florida-- perhaps more-- who resent Schumer's interference as who are swayed by it. As for donors being swayed... Grayson, like Bernie Sanders, gets most of his campaign funding from small donors who agree with his politics. Murphy, like Schumer, gets almost all of his campaign funds from wealthy special interests who are investing in a corrupt, transactional conservative. If you'd like to help the corrupt, transactional conservative out of the Senate, please consider contributing to Grayson here.

Courage Campaign Exposes The Rot In California's Democratic Party

Nanette Barragán and HUD Secretary Julián Castro talking about bringing federal resources to California

The other day I heard KPCC interviewing California's new Assembly Speaker, Anthony Rendon. He sounded great, especially on the environment.

KPCC: Please tell us about your district. It’s strung together by the 710 Freeway. There's a refinery and an aircraft parts manufacturer not far from your office.

Rendon: We still have one of the few steel plants left. In addition to the manufacturing presence that we have here, we are also bisected by the 710, the 105 and the 91 freeways. The Alameda Corridor project goes by the district as well. We are exceptionally close to the Port of Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles. So a lot of the attendant environmental problems related to the proximity to all those things very much impacts the district, and the residents of the district.

KPCC: You've made your mark as an environmentalist. What took you there?

Rendon: I ran a series of nonprofit organizations here in the district that I now represent. We found that a lot of the problems that we had, whether they were problems relating to health or even problems relating to learning and education, were linked to the environment. Some problems relating to groundwater contamination, a tremendous amount of problems relating to asthma and air pollution. So those types of environmental problems led to problems that I had to address as a nonprofit executive director.

KPCC: When you went into the Assembly, did you come with an environmental agenda in mind? What this something you wanted to tackle having already worked in this area?

Rendon: Yes, certainly. Environmental issues, environmental justice were things I was interested in. But I also spent about 15 years in early-childhood education, so that was important. I think what is important is the intersection between all these issues, and how they all relate.

KPCC: The perception of the environmental movement in Southern California has typically been that it's more of a Westside movement, typically white, based in places like Santa Monica. You’ve done some bridging of the two. Can you tell us about that?

Rendon: I like to think of myself as a bridge between a lot of the Westside environmental organizations and the Eastside or Southeast Los Angeles County environmental justice folks, and environmental justice groups.

What's interesting about that perception is that if you look at public opinion polls, for example, the recent PPIC (Public Policy Institute of California) poll on climate change, you find that communities of color are more concerned about these issues that the general public is, statistically speaking. So there is a disconnect between the formal environmental organizations and the communities on the Eastside. But the people themselves on the Eastside are very much affected by these issues, and very much concerned about that.

I got so excited I wanted to call him immediately and talk to him about Nanette Barragán, the progressive, pro-environment congressional candidate in his part of town (and a Blue America endorsee). But then I checked to see if he had already endorsed her anti-environmental opponent, California's most corrupt legislator, Isadore Hall. They served together, so Rendon endorsed the guy who is likely to do the most harm--as he already has-- on the issues Rendon says he cares about most.

Yesterday the Courage Campaign sent out an e-mail that mentions neither Rendon, Hall nor Barragán, but that goes a long way towards explaining this kind of bizarre endorsement. "The world, they wrote, "was hoping California would set a new global standard with bold action to reduce carbon emissions and fight climate change. But in one fell swoop, Big Oil-- backed by its corporate Democratic cronies-- forced California Senate Pro Tem Kevin de Leon to gut his historic bill and remove its call for a 50 percent reduction of our petroleum use by 2030." We covered this in a couple of posts in August and September. The Courage campaign was even clearer:

The other two parts of Senate Bill 350-- a 50 percent increase in our investment in clean energy and a 50 percent increase in buildings’ energy efficiency-- made it through thanks to the activism of Courage Campaign members. However, we cannot claim this as a full victory until we hold the morally bankrupt, corporate Democrats accountable for blocking the policies necessary to protect our children from the most catastrophic effects of climate change.

If we expose the corporate Democrats for ALL their constituents to see, we will change their selfish political calculations and pass this critically important legislation next summer. If we don't, nothing will change.

SB 350 had a wide range of support from elected officials such as President Barack Obama; top scientists including Nobel Prize winner Mario Molina; celebrities like Mark Ruffalo, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Halle Berry; and notable businesses including The North Face. A representative from the United Nations even visited Sacramento to support California's climate change bills!

Despite the outpouring of support, a group of twenty renegade Assemblymembers calling themselves “moderate” Democrats, led by Assemblymember Henry Perea (D-Fresno), held the bill hostage. The Sacramento Bee explains, “the definition of moderate has less to do with wavering on social issues and more to do with owing one’s elections to campaign spending by big business interests including oil.”

The pressure from Big Oil and the group of "moderate" Democrats worked. Speaker of the Assembly Toni Atkins delayed the vote on SB 350 until it was gutted-- “an indecision [that] gave the bill’s opponents the cover of not having to cast votes that would have defined [moderate Democrats] as siding with the oil industry."

Even more outrageous, after the defeat on the Assembly floor, R.L. Miller, Chair of the CA Democratic Party’s Environmental Caucus, caught a Chevron lobbyist writing thank a you note to a Democrat who voted against the bill.

...But the biggest and most problematic twist from all of this is that many of these Democrats represent progressive districts-- some of the most polluted areas in our state-- and districts with constituents most impacted by climate change. The asthma rate in Fresno, Assemblymember Henry Perea's district, is 38% higher than the state average.

Prior to the vote, when we simply asked Assemblymember Perea to see if he would stand up to Big Oil to protect the health and well-being of his constituents-- Assemblymember Perea blocked us on Twitter! 

For years, Big Oil has dominated the political dialogue in California. While this certainly isn’t news, there is a growing trend of Democrats voting in favor of corporate interests over the people they represent.

For example, since 2011, Assemblymember Adam Gray (D-Merced) has received over $160,000 in contributions from Big Oil.

As the Sacramento Bee revealed, "One of Gray’s amendments was, word for word, the same as what [his corporate donor] proposed.”

And corporate Democrats not only get their campaign donations from Big Oil, but they raise “twice as much from alcohol and tobacco interests [when compared to] other Assembly Democrats.”

Anthony Rendon is NOT one of those kinds of Democrats. But by endorsing state Senator Isadore Hall, who certainly is, he is betraying everything he stands for and believes in. It makes me as sick to my stomach as the environmental catastrophes he fights against and Hall fights for. If you're in a fighting mood, you can help Nanette Barragán beat Hall here.