Is The Situation In San Diego Salvageable For Progressives? A Guest Post By John Brooks

When dedicated southern California progressive icon, Bob Filner, decided not to seek reelection to Congress and try for the San Diego mayor's job instead, Sacramento Democrats, eager to get hideously conservative and corrupt Insurance Industry shill Sen. Juan Vargas out of their hair, largely backed Vargas' bid for the House seat. They don't seem to care that they would be responsible for sending one of the worst possible Democrats in California politics to take part in an important legislative process. As Filner himself pointed out a few years ago:

"While Juan has not yet been convicted of a crime, virtually everyone closest to him has been found guilty of something. Juan's former Chief-of Staff and handpicked successor on the San Diego City Council is now a convicted felon. Another of Juan's political cronies made millions off the poorest people in National City as a slumlord and recently, Juan's chief campaign consultant was convicted of a felony for misusing public money... If Juan truly didn't have any knowledge of the crimes his close associates have committed then he may well be the most clueless man in America."

We asked John Brooks, who is offering a real alternative to the sleazy corporate pay-for-play politics Vargas represents, to tell us more about himself and why he's decided on this almost quixotic endeavor. Please take a look and consider if you'd like to help John beat back the cynicism and corruption of the corrupt Democratic Party machine in a district where whomever gets elected is likely to have a job for life.

Why I am running for Congress

-by John Brooks

Public and community service is a tradition in my family. My father was a Korean War Veteran and when he returned home he became an Oakland Police Officer. I come from a family of Veterans and Union Workers. I was taught from an early age to take pride in community service. My grandfather was a card carrying NAACP member from the early 1950s and worked as a Union Welder. I was raised to serve and support the community, which is why I am running for office now.

I have always served my country proudly. I spent 30 years in the United States Department of the Interior, retiring as a Special Agent. I worked both nationally and internationally to protect wildlife from trafficking and extinction. After 9/11, I volunteered to serve as an Air Marshall so that I could do my part and help people feel safe flying again.

In Congressional District 51, chronic unemployment runs rampant while our children are being denied the basic education needed to be successful. While career politicians are busy arguing over their own personal interests, we are ignored.

I grew up in Oakland during the '60s and '70s and I can tell you right now I had more opportunity back then, with all that was going on, than children have today in this District.

A majority of students in the 51st District are underserved Latino and low income students who face big disparities in school and future outcomes. San Diego and Imperial Counties have some of the lowest test scores and biggest achievement gaps in California; which means we are failing a majority of our students. This isn’t a “teacher” or a “being poor” problem, this is a leadership problem.

My opponents are the same Elected Officials who have been representing the 51st Congressional District in one seat or another for the last 15 years. Maybe their experience is the problem.

I am not running for Congress to play “politics.” I am running to give the people of the 51st District responsive representation and the opportunities they deserve.

Education

Improving the economy and creating jobs starts with fixing Education and making it priority number one from day one. NCLB must be ended. Teachers must be given the proper pay, support and in-career training to further their craft of teaching our children. This will help us attract the best teachers and retain them. Schools should be transformed into community centers. Year after year voters have approved bond measures that fix, maintain, and build new schools and yet most of the community has never stepped foot in these buildings. Schools need to be open all day and night offering classes to adults and senior citizens.

Education is the focus of my campaign. California’s education system is in trouble and 51st Congressional District is in crisis. The achievement gap is crippling the futures of South San Diego and Imperial County. A majority of students in the 51st District fall into achievement gap groups such as Latino and Low Income. San Diego and Imperial Counties have some of the worst achievement gap test scores in California; which means we are failing a majority of our students.

One of the major indicators in achievement gap groups is that the parents have not gone to college and large percentages have not finished High School. Involving parents and creating opportunities for career training and adult education in the schools at night gives the children a model of participation and importance that they begin to emulate. Bring in the idea that while the adults are in class that children can take elective courses such as art and music, or further support classes; it begins to close the gap. Also add in transitional education and senior classes for the elderly you have engaged the entire community.

These schools have phenomenal resources built in to be community service centers where we can also create programs like preventive health care clinics, nutritional education and exercise classes. These programs have the added benefit of also putting teachers back to work.

Another area of major importance will be to institute Financial and Civic literacy programs for children and adults. Poverty is cyclical for a reason. An engaged and educated community is an empowered community that votes more often and engages in local and national discussions.

Vargas Coronation By Democrats Points To Doom For Working Families

California Democrats can't come up with something better than this dreck... for Congress?

On Monday evening, perhaps you all saw our teaser on the coronation of State Senator Vargas to replace Bob Filner a longtime champion of progressive causes. Filner who has faced Vargas countless times in primaries once described his possible successor:

"While Juan has not yet been convicted of a crime, virtually everyone closest to him has been found guilty of something. Juan's former Chief-of Staff and handpicked successor on the San Diego City Council is now a convicted felon. Another of Juan's political cronies made millions off the poorest people in National City as a slumlord and recently, Juan's chief campaign consultant was convicted of a felony for misusing public money... If Juan truly didn't have any knowledge of the crimes his close associates have committed then he may well be the most clueless man in America."

Filber is referring to “StripperGate” where Vargas’s former Chief of Staff was convicted of taking bribes from a Strip club owner. Inzunza had this to say after first being convicted:

"I believe that what I did was all within the law," he continued. "It was all within the political structure that we have here in San Diego, here in California and here in the United States of America."

Frickin' Filner

When Congressman Filner was asked about the possibility of longtime foe Vargas taking his seat recently, you can see the reality set in on Filner’s face. While he appears apologetic to the people of the 51st District, maybe he is just scared of Juan’s campaign staff’s hands on approach to campaigning, which he witnessed firsthand. Watch:



Either way we are faced with possibly sending California's worst DINO in history to Congress. Let’s take a quick look at how this Vargasauras Rex was hatched and nurtured on the teat of Insurance companies.

Vargas accused of buying Vice-Chair seat

Fellow former Assembly member Canciamilla implied that he lost his prominent position on a legislative committee because he did not contribute as much money to the California Democratic Party. While Vargas refuted this point, the facts do evidence a conspicuously large contribution to the party, followed by a freshmen being appointed Vice-Chair of a major committee.

“…countered Assemblyman Juan Vargas of Chula Vista, a fellow moderate caucus member who won a chairmanship, of the Insurance Committee, despite his politics…Vargas…contributed in excess of $230,000 to the party and its candidates.”

–Contra Costa Times, November 8, 2005

I am sure that is exactly what the hard working tax paying citizens had in mind when they made donations to his campaign. What’s it called when someone makes a donation to one candidate and that candidate gives it to another candidate?

Just plain Juan

As Vargas was finishing his Assembly term in office, he swore he would not seek an insurance position in the third house. “In April, Vargas was asked whether he would take an insurance job if he lost the election. “I'm not going into insurance or finance,” he told the San Diego Union-Tribune. ‘I'm just not interested.’”

However, following his tenure, Vargas immediately accepted a position as the new Vice-President of California External Affairs for Safeco. “During his campaign for Congress, Juan Vargas was harshly criticized for accepting $335,000 in campaign contributions from insurers and frequently taking their side while chairman of the Assembly Insurance Committee.“

Juan’s response? “I'm really excited about the job. It's a great opportunity for me and the community.” Yeah, especially the community.

Insured to Fail

"While he was chairman he often sided with the industry and now we know why," Heller said. "He saw a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The revolving door between industry and government, it couldn’t get any more efficient and insidious than this."

In three campaigns for the Assembly and an unsuccessful run this year for Congress, Vargas received more than $354,000 in donations from various insurance companies and industry groups, including $9,700 from Safeco, according to campaign finance reports. In a press release posted on its Web site, Safeco said Vargas would lead the company’s public policy strategy in California and serve as a liaison with California state officials, community leaders and other businesses and associations.

In a spin that would make most vomit in their mouth, Vargas' Wikipedia page (obviously written by a staff member) describes his job like this: “After serving in the State Assembly until 2006, Juan took a job with a home, auto and small business insurance company and was tasked with creating jobs and outreach in diverse San Diego Communities as part of the company's diversity initiative.”

This sounds familiar, Insurance Industry goon turned job creator.

Get the fuck out

Must be what Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg is thinking. This isn't the first time people in state government backed a reprehensible candidate for a job in DC just to get them out of the state. Why else would he give a junior State Senator, who no longer lives in his district, and is running for Congress a budget to hire 13 14 staff members?

Thanks Darrell for passing the buck, you couldn’t just tough it out another two years?

With Juan’s 2010 Senate campaign still in the hole for over $375,000.00 I guess there wasn’t anything left to take. I wonder how Vargas will retire all that debt?

Insert place holder here

To keep up the charade of this being an election the Democratic Party propped up perennial rubber stamp Denise Ducheny against Vargas, and then quickly took her out at the knees.

Denise doesn’t mind, she still gets to fundraise for the campaign and that tends to work out well for her husband. They tried to bill her as the “progressive” in the race, you know the kind of progressive that takes money from the NRA, Big Tobacco, Indian Gaming and screws over union workers. Oh and then for good measure hits up Big Tobacco again after she is out of office for another $12,000.00.

Where did they find this such a progressive candidate? Well she was keeping herself busy working 14 days a year…

“One of the frequently targeted panels is the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, which pays $128,109 annually to review challenges. The board met 14 times in 2010, mostly starting at 10:30 a.m. The minutes of the meetings do not report adjournment times. All five positions are held by former lawmakers..."

It can’t be that bad, can it?

“It’s one of the choicest plums at the fruit stand,” said Steve Maviglio, former Gov. Gray Davis’ press secretary, now a Democratic consultant and, thanks to Davis, a member of the board for one year. “It’s a job that requires really no experience in the field, pays well and you can do it from the comfort of the home office.”

“The earth is the earth as a peasant sees it, the world is the world as a duchess sees it, and anyway a duchess would be nothing if the earth was not there as the peasant sees it.”--Gertrude Stein

You may recall Duchess Ducheny from when she earned the highly coveted “Triple Crown Award” for finishing first in spending among State Senate Members.

“Regarding the legislative year ending November 30, 2009, Ducheny spent more than any other legislator on office budgets, salaries, and miscellaneous expenditures.

#1 in total office budget ($1,274,117)

#1 in total Staff salaries & benefits ($1,108,429)

#1(tied) in the Per Diem payments ($38,042).

During this time, Ducheny was also the Chair of the Senate Budget Committee, which had the highest operational budget.

The separate budget for her Senate Budget Committee’s operation was another $1,508,442, and that ranked-- WAIT FOR IT-- # 1 among the 23 state Senate standing committees!

Her Per Diem came to an average of $173 a day, factoring in the days the legislature was partially active. Many of those days included half days where attendance was all the participation required.”

Hey California was only in debt $42 Billion in 2009 what’s another $173 dollars a day for lunch?

Calling John Brooks

Our country is pretty much fucked with the prospect of Vargas and Ducheny being the top two vote getters in the primary. But with the new open primary system here in Cali I am holding out hope. There seems to be another candidate in the race that could have an impact. From what I understand he is walking the district every day talking to voters but isn’t getting any coverage. From the looks of it he is taking this seriously, but seems to be taking his sweet ass time getting his website up. He has an ActBlue page. When I reached out to him, I got an interesting quote back about his top issue.

"The path to rebuilding prosperity and pride in the 51st district is created through Education. We must involve and empower everyone in our family from the youngest to the oldest giving them the tools to succeed. Community involved Education will create more Jobs now and provide the opportunities for our children to become the architects and engineers needed to build our future."

You can check him out further at to Brooksforcongress.org.

There Are More Progressives Running For Congress In California

Of course we've been all over Norman Solomon's campaign to replace the retiring Lynn Woolsey and Dr. Lee Rogers' campaign down in the L.A. area to take out arch-reactionary and warmonger Buck McKeon. Both are on our Blue America page and both are major DWT priorities. But there are other races worth watching and we'll be covering them too. One, which we've written about before, Is Mark Takano's race in the new 41st CD, a heavily Democratic district in Riverside-- and that one is starting to look like a sure-shot. The other, in the heavily Democratic 51st is a 3-way primary, with one progressive, John Brooks, and it looks more like a long-shot.

Under the new lines, Obama would have won the 41st with something like a 20% margin. The problem in the district is that the progressive, Mark Takano, is up against a conservative Republican, John Tavaglione, beloved by developers, business interests, fat-cat Republicans and... both corrupt Republican zombie Ken Calvert, who used to represent the area, and the conservative Democratic mayor of Riverside, Ron Loveridge. Early last October we asked Mark, who is openly gay, to tell us what he thought about the Occupy/99% Movement. He brought it right to his county's residents:

To date no one has been prosecuted for the outright fraud that has precipitated so much economic suffering. In fact, the very financial institutions who caused the economic mess were actually bailed out by the government. Ordinary citizens and homeowners were for the most part hung out to dry.

The home mortgage crisis wrecked Riverside County's economy. Home foreclosures are high, many in my community who are hanging on to their homes have upside down mortgages, and many construction workers are unemployed. The official unemployment rate here is 15%. Are they to blame for not reading the fine print on the mortgage instruments sold to them? In some cases yes, but in many cases mortgage lenders deceived them. I cannot believe the Republicans in the Senate refuse to confirm an effective leader at the new Consumer Protection Agency whose mission is to protect citizens from this sort of fraud in the future. I am running for Congress in the new 41st Congressional District that covers highly impacted cities of Riverside, Moreno Valley, Perris, and Jurupa Valley. I will fight for effective consumer protection when I get to Congress. I will fight for banker accountability.

Last week the L.A. Times handicapped the race-- and pretty much called it for Takano. It's a new day in the Inland Empire.

The Inland Empire was heralded as California's new conservative frontier -- the "new Orange County"-- just 10 years ago. But political districts have been remade. Weed-covered fields have metamorphosed into Spanish-tile suburbs packed with new voters.

In the district Tavaglione is eyeing, Democrats hold the edge in registration, symptomatic of the GOP's slide countywide... Democrats have a shot at winning at least three congressional seats in Riverside and San Bernardino counties this year, after holding just one since the Vietnam War ended. And they could pick up enough state Senate seats in the Inland Empire to help put an iron grip-- the rare and coveted two-thirds majority-- on Sacramento's upper house.

In 2002, the majority of registered voters in both counties were Republican. Democrats now claim a slim majority in San Bernardino County. In Riverside County, the GOP's 13-point registration advantage has dwindled to 4.7 points over the last decade.

...Riverside County voters have not elected a Democrat to Congress since liberal Rep. George Brown's district was gerrymandered into San Bernardino County after the 1990 census. Brown had been the only Democratic congressman in either county since 1972 until he died in office in 1999 and [Blue Dog Joe] Baca won his seat.

Democrat Mark Takano is trying to break that streak. Takano is a teacher and Riverside Community College trustee who narrowly lost to Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) in 1992 and 1994, even though the district they ran in was solidly Republican and included a conservative chunk of Orange County.

Takano says his campaign will be about creating jobs in a county still ailing with 12.5% unemployment. "The No. 1 focus is on unemployment," he said. "Republicans in the House have not been focused on what's best for America... including creating jobs."

Tavaglione, his Republican opponent, finds himself in the unfamiliar realm of a partisan dog fight. He's been elected to the county Board of Supervisors five times, all in nonpartisan elections.

The race in the 51st CD is very different-- no Republicans play there, at least not seriously. The new lines make it a 68% Latino district and Obama would have taken it with 65%, Jerry Brown with 58%. It's been represented by Bob Filner, a staunch progressive, but he's running for mayor for some unfathomable reason-- and he's made a deal with his nemesis, Juan Vargas, who was going to primary him for the House seat but is now supporting him for the mayoralty. Because of there are no serious Republicans involved, the conservative/Big Business interests are financing Vargas, a very corrupt, homophobic, pro-Business Dem, and the most reactionary insurance industry tool in the state legislature. Sacramento Democrats-- including the labor unions-- are so eager to get Vargas out of the state (he refused to vote for the single payer bill in January... which lost by 2 votes) that they're heavily backing his congressional race! Sounds shocking, right? You don't sit in the meetings I do with these union bureaucrats; some of 'em are as bad as any hacks from the other side of the aisle and have as little to do with working men and women as any Republican does. Anyway, Vargas-- who, if he gets into Congress, will be one of the most corrupt and conservative Democrats to ever serve in that body-- is the heavy favorite. And his best known challenger, Denise Ducheny, is almost as bad as he is! So I was really relieved a few days ago when I found out about John Brooks who claims he was inspired by the Occupy Movement to run. We'll be looking more closely at this one in the coming weeks.

Standing/Fighting

Yesterday we took a quick look at a little noticed bill the House passed overwhelmingly. Every Republican and all but 13 Democrats voted for H.R.22. Here's a tweet from a nincompoop from Riverside County, Ken Calvert celebrating the passage:


Well, you'd expect someone like Calvert to be perfectly content to be able to offer less accountability and fewer services to his constituents. He's a Republican; he hates people. But almost every Democrat voted for it too and not just the Heath Shulers and Dan Borens-- real Democrats, from the leadership to nearly the whole Congressional Progressive Caucus. The only NO votes were Gary Ackerman (D-NY), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), John Conyers (D-MI), Keith Ellison (D-MN), Bob Filner (D-CA), Mike Honda (D-CA), Jesse Jackson (D-IL), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Jim Moran (D-VA), Donald Payne (D-NJ), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Edolphus Towns (D-NY), and Lynn Woolsey (D-CA). Even as progressive a champion as Raul Grijalva, just re-elected co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, voted for it, dismissing it as a "symbolic non-issue."

But something about it stuck in my craw. It was their symbolic non-issue. Why should our side validate it? Because he's a fighter and because he has a reputation as an outspoken straight-shooter I called San Diego area Congressman Bob Filner, one of the 13 NO votes, to ask him to explain his thinking on this one. He must have been in a real mood; did he ever let loose! "This is why we're losing elections," he said. "My colleagues are drink the kool-aid... We're operating out of fear." And he was just getting warmed up. What he told me is that he needs to be in touch with his constituents more, not less, to do an adequate job representing them. "We have serious oversight responsibilities," he continued, suggesting the Republicans are more than happy to see them go by the wayside. "If they were serious about cutting into the deficit, they would start thinking about Afghanistan, not these kinds of cuts which in a thousand years won't make a dent on the deficit."

He said so many of his colleagues are afraid of teabaggers that they're making foolish, even craven decisions. I could feel his frustration through the phone and it reminded me of an OpEd I read Thursday in the L.A. Times, 'Tea partyers' should be natural allies of those fighting in Congress for campaign finance reform. It get to the heart of a debate over whether the tea partiers are a legitimate populist movement "focused on citizen participation or an unofficial subsidiary of the Republican Party. If the first characterization is accurate, tea partyers will support campaign reform. After all, if the goal is participation by informed citizens, why not expose the special interests behind political messages?" It's doubtful anyone who saw the power of Fox and the cash flowing from billionaire Tea Party financiers like the Koch Bros. is unsure about the answer to that question. If Democrats don't stand up and fight back, they're going to be rolled over.