Kimberly Ellis

The tension between the progressive “Berniecrat” wing and the mainstream liberal wing of the California Democratic Party appears likely to resonate for years to come. That’s the clear takeaway from Bay Area political organizer’s Kimberly Ellis’ vow to keep contesting her narrow loss for state party chairman to Eric Bauman, a registered nurse who chairs the Los Angeles County Democratic Party and was deputy state chair before John Burton’s recent retirement as party leader.

At May’s state convention in Sacramento, Bauman won 51 percent to 49 percent over Ellis in what was initially expected to be a landslide win. He had the support of most top Democrats and had built up relationships with key party figures for decades. But Ellis rallied fellow Bernie Sanders’ supporters with her call to “redefine” the California Democratic Party as an ambitious agent of change.

After her defeat, Ellis immediately raised questions about illegal votes being counted and about election irregularities. Her concerns were borne out to some extent when a review by party officials found 355 suspect ballots – more than 11 percent of the nearly 3,000 ballots that were cast. But a weekend re-examination of the ballots and recount didn’t change the results. Forty-seven ballots were tossed – 25 for Bauman and 22 for Ellis.

Party leaders – only starting with Bauman – hoped that Ellis would drop her complaints and offer a unity message. Instead, the Richmond activist is pursuing another appeal with party officials and is considering a lawsuit while blasting the state’s Democratic establishment and maintaining her “Vote for Kimberly” website.

Ellis said her quest to push her party to embrace an aggressive version of progressive politics led her to continue her challenge. “To turn away now would be a betrayal to my own sense of integrity and ethics,” she said Monday, according to a Los Angeles Times report.

Difficult two months prompt Brown warning

Ellis’ renewed fight with the Democratic establishment comes in the wake of a roiling dispute over health care. In late June, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, drew the bitter ire of the California Nurses Association and Berniecrats when he pulled the plug on a single-payer health care bill that appeared headed for passage – and an eventual veto by Gov. Jerry Brown. Rendon called the bill “woefully incomplete” because it didn’t specify how the $400 billion annual cost of a single-payer system would be covered.

Off the record, many Democrats used more colorful language to rip the bill, which was partly based on the assumption that the Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress would give the state the equivalent of total federal spending on Californians’ health care to set up California-only single-payer. Defenders say it’s time Californians – and Americans – grasp that a broken health-care system needs replacing, not more tinkering.

The 2018 governor’s race is likely to be buffeted by the Berniecrats’ demands. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Treasurer John Chiang appear more interested in courting the progressives than former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

The national media has taken notice of the infighting in America’s largest state. On July 10, Politico declared a “civil war” was wracking California Democrats.

The article featured a warning from Brown: “Look, you can always go too far. Trump has obviously gone too far in one direction. It’s possible to go too far in the other direction.”

But it was also noteworthy for Rendon’s tart dismissal of his critics. He described the push for single-payer as “posturing,” not something that “can actually be implemented to help people.”

The high-profile coalition of supporters — which spans the partisan divide with powerful advocacy groups and influential members of both parties — is aiming for a vote in the Assembly next week to block law enforcement from circumventing strict state law by partnering with the federal government in a program called “equitable sharing.”

On the right, Republican consultant Mike Madrid and Shawn Steel, a former chairman of the California Republican Party, are urging Republican support while California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton is working with Democrats. 

It’s uncommon for Madrid, who specializes in Latino issues, to weigh in so heavily on policy issues inside the Capitol. But, as he told CalWatchdog, Senate Bill 443 is a “no-brainer” because it upholds the core Republican values of “not preying on the poor” and the right to due process, and, politically, it could make inroads in minority communities that have been disproportionately affected by the current civil asset forfeiture system.

“If you can’t do this, you don’t have a shot at expanding the base,” Madrid said of Republican lawmakers.

Madrid said Republican lawmakers who opposed the measure lacked a “political backbone” because they are “afraid of offending law enforcement,” which is a historically strong ally on the right. 

Madrid added that Assembly Republican Leader Chad Mayes has a “unique opportunity” to help the poor, which has been a central theme of the Yucca Valley Republican’s agenda since becoming leader in January.

A Mayes spokesperson on Monday told CalWatchdog he had not announced how he would proceed. Mayes voted against the measure in September.  

Those affected

A report issued this month by the ACLU of California showed 85 percent of proceeds from equitable sharing in California go to law enforcement agencies in communities with a majority of people of color.

The study also reported that the counties with higher per capita seizure rates have below average median household incomes and that the number of California law enforcement agencies participating in the equitable sharing program increased from 200 to 232 over the last two years.

Who cares? Isn’t it just drug dealers?

The program was designed to seize the assets of large criminal enterprises, toppling them in the process — which the law would still allow if SB443 were to pass. But as budgets were cut, law enforcement saw it as a viable revenue stream, and the claims of abuse started piling up.

One notable example was the attempted seizure of a $1.5 million building in Anaheim because the landlord rented space to a medical marijuana dispensary (which was legal in CA).

Another case involved Bob Alexander, who had $10,788 in cash that he was about to use to purchase a car for his daughter before the money was seized in Mendocino County because he had medical marijuana on him (along with the doctor’s recommendation for the marijuana, which was shown to police).

Alexander did get his money back eight months later. No charges were ever filed.

Current law

Current California law already bars the practice of seizing property without a conviction for assets valued at under $25,000, and requires “clear and convincing evidence” of a connection to a crime for assets exceeding $25,000 in value.

Law enforcement can get around that if the seizure is done in coordination with federal law enforcement and 20 percent of the proceeds are kicked up to the federal government. Yet there’s often not even an arrest because federal law doesn’t require it. Instead, there only needs to be suspicion that the property, not necessarily the person, is attached to some criminal activity.

People often get their property back after considerable time and frustration — but sometimes they don’t. So the bill, sponsored by Sen. Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, and Asm. David Hadley, R-Torrance, would close that loophole and require a conviction for seizure of assets of any amount. Proponents like Mitchell and others say the practice often violates the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.

Support builds

It’s not just Republicans whose support is being whipped. A large share of Assembly Democrats either voted against the measure or just didn’t vote, after nearly unanimous support in the Senate.

Burton — who as a member of the Legislature decades ago and authored the bill that established much of the state’s relatively strict civil asset forfeiture laws—- has been reaching out to Democrats.

“I am especially disheartened and disappointed to learn that the state reforms that I and your predecessors worked so hard to put in place have been cast aside by California law enforcement agencies in favor of less protective federal laws,” Burton wrote last week in a letter to Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount. Rendon voted in favor of the bill in September.

However, Republicans are in a tighter squeeze than Democrats, wedged between law enforcement and limited government intrusion. But the right-leaning Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association gave lawmakers political cover on Monday when it issued a letter of support, pointing to the sharp increase in seizures from the federally-supported equitable sharing program.

“(T)here is also no denying the fact that law enforcement is largely to blame for the situation that SB443 aims to fix,” wrote David Wolfe, legislative director for HJTA. “Rather than use the federal law selectively, they have overplayed their hand.”

Law enforcement’s position

Opponents of the bill argue that law enforcement doesn’t police for profit, and asset seizure is a vital tool used to cripple criminal organizations, partially by funding costly investigations. The California District Attorneys Association claimed the bill would “deny every law enforcement agency in California direct receipt of any forfeited assets.”

“California’s asset forfeiture law will be changed for the worse, and it will cripple the ability of law enforcement to forfeit assets from drug dealers when arrest and incarceration is an incomplete strategy for combating drug trafficking,” Sean Hoffman, CDAA’s director of legislation argued in a letter against SB443.

“Narcotics investigations are costly, and the California asset forfeiture law’s dedication of forfeiture proceeds to the seizing law enforcement agencies speaks to the serious resource needs involved when drug traffickers and their ill-gotten gains are pursued,” Hoffman added.

A CDAA spokesperson on Tuesday said the group was still opposed to the measure, but did not lobby against “inactive” bills, which SB443 is at the moment. 

Bauman was everywhere. He introduced past Assembly speakers at one party and hosted a karaoke party the next night. He spoke to many of the caucuses. He was even on the main stage during Vice President Joe Biden’s speech.

Photo credit: Todd Hoover and Bob Levine

Stickers and signs and shirts were everywhere, worn and displayed by supporters of the Los Angeles Democrat.

And yet his opponent, Kimberly Ellis, was seemingly nowhere to be found (her campaign did not respond to queries of her whereabouts).

Bauman told CalWatchdog that he has secured support from at least half of the number of delegates required to win the election, which will happen in 2017.

“There’s 15 months for this election to go,” said Bauman. “Many things could happen in the meantime. But when you look around, do you see the people wearing ‘Eric Bauman’ stickers and holding ‘Eric Bauman’ signs? What does that tell you?”

About the candidates

Bauman has been Los Angeles Party Chair for seven terms and a state vice chair since 2009. He’s been an advisor to many top officials, including the out-going Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, D-San Diego.

His competitor, Ellis, is a bay-area Democrat who runs Emerge California, an organization that identifies, trains and encourages Democratic women to run for elected office. Oakland’s mayor, Libby Schaaf, is one of the graduates.

Bauman told CalWatchdog that he had secured support from at least 800 delegates in his bid to replace John Burton, the outgoing chairman — and a cursory survey of delegates at the convention seemed to support that claim.

There are 3,200 delegates total — for context, 1,800 were registered for the convention. The chair will be elected by a majority of those voting, so the highest threshold the winner would need to meet is be 1601, meaning Bauman is around halfway there.

Party mechanics

At a campaign launch event earlier this month, Ellis outlined a platform of issues saying the party wasn’t progressive enough, the diversity in elected officials didn’t accurately represent the party’s diversity, and Democratic voter registration was slipping.

However, the primary function of party chair is to raise money, register voters and win elections. Ellis has proven to be effective in getting women elected to office through Emerge California. But Bauman has proven it as well, having won multiple political awards for his efforts, and evidenced by Democrats’ tight grip on Los Angeles County politics.

Many stories in the media this week highlighted the continued statewide rise in voters declining to state party affiliation. The trend is consistent in L.A. as well. But while Democrats’ share of the electorate in Los Angeles County is slipping, the total number of Democratic voters has increased compared to four years ago.

Bauman pointed out that his 800-plus delegate support comes from all of the different interest groups in the party — labor, environment, LGBT, various ethnicities (he even addressed the Latino caucus at the convention en Español). And he noted his access to a wide network of donors.

But even while describing why he was the best person for the job in an interview with CalWatchdog, he was complimentary of Ellis.

“She’s young and vibrant and exciting and has great ideas,” Bauman said. “I don’t argue that point. But I’ve been winning elections for 25 years.”

After less than two years in the state Assembly, the former San Diego labor organizer has established herself as the state’s leading advocate for workers.

Last year, Gonzalez successfully authored legislation to force companies – large and small – to provide paid sick leave to nearly all of their employees. This year, she’s urging Democrats to wade into a politically-sensitive fight over the state’s workers’ compensation system.

“People in Sacramento, given past fights, don’t want to touch workers’ comp,” Gonzalez told CalWatchdog.com in a recent interview.

Nevertheless, or perhaps because her Democratic colleagues have shied away from the issue, Gonzalez has taken on the challenge. At last weekend’s state Democratic convention, she persuaded her party to endorse her call to end gender bias in the state workers’ compensation system. In the process, Gonzalez could upset a landmark compromise that drove down rising workers’ comp costs.

Gender bias in workers’ compensation

Employers are required to purchase insurance to cover injuries sustained by their employees at the workplace. Regardless of who is at fault, injured workers are eligible to apply for benefits and receive compensation under the employer’s compensation insurance.

In cases of permanent disability, workers are evaluated on the extent of their injury. But, not all injuries can be isolated to one cause or incident. Consequently, claims must go through an apportionment process to determine how much of the injury is due to the job and how much is due to another factor or pre-existing condition.

Gonzalez contends that the apportionment process is unfair to women in permanent disability cases by providing a lower or no rating for pregnancy, menopause and breast cancer. By comparison, conditions that affect men, such as testicular and prostate cancer, receive a higher disability rating.

“With workers comp claims, women are deducted because they’re pregnant or menopausal,” Gonzalez pointed out. “The most egregious (case) is the way the workers’ comp system deals with breast cancer. A women’s breast cancer is rated 0 percent, unless she is of child-bearing age, then she gets 5 percent.”

AB305 changes ratings, apportionment in workers’ comp

To address the inequity, Gonzalez has authored Assembly Bill 305, which would prohibit pregnancy, menopause or osteoporosis from being used in the apportionment of permanent disability cases. It would also require that the impairment ratings for breast cancer be equivalent to prostate cancer.

“It’s time for our state to stop treating gender as a pre-existing condition and provide equal protection under the law for everyone with a workers’ compensation claim,” she said. “I’m pleased that Democrats as well as Republicans recognized the importance of ending discrimination against women on the job.”

Her colleagues in the state Assembly agreed and recently passed the bill on a 59-18 vote. She’s proud that seven Republican Assembly members joined Democrats in supporting the bill. Not a small achievement considering the big name opposition from a collection of business groups, including the Association of California Insurance Companies, California Chamber of Commerce, California Newspaper Publishers Association and the California Retailers Association.

Gonzalez: It’s worth the price

Ever since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s landmark reforms in the early 2000s, workers’ compensation has remained a political lightning rod. Lawmakers have largely been reluctant to make changes to the reforms that are credited with bringing down the costs of insurance.

That’s one reason why the California Democratic Party’s support could help keep lawmakers committed to the issue. The party resolution passed the general session on consent by acclimation.

“Governor Schwarzenegger’s changes and other discriminatory policies are deeply embedded into the workers’ compensation system, as evidenced by the facts that carpal tunnel syndrome – a disorder that disproportionately affects women – too often has a disability rating of 0 percent,” the party’s resolution states.

In 2012, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law some changes to the state workers’ compensation system to increase benefits and revise the factors for determining permanent disability. However, those changes were largely embraced by both parties because they were sold as reforms to keep costs in line. To her credit, Gonzalez has been willing to take the potential cost head on.

“Civil rights are inconvenient and costly,” she said. “Even if there is a very small cost, I think it’s important to uphold the civil rights of women. If we are going to talk about pay equity, then we need to talk about everything.”

It’s unclear how widespread the problem is. According to the legislative committee analysis, “Some supporters have asserted that ‘we see it every day’ while some opponents assert that the wrongs complained of simply do not occur in the workers’ compensation courts.”

The first-term Democratic Senator from Massachusetts earned a rousing applause and standing ovation from convention delegates as she blamed the country’s income inequality and decline of the middle class on Ronald Reagan and three decades of Republican economic policies.

“The epicenter of the political earthquake that shook America’s middle class to its core started right here in California — right here with your former Governor Ronald Reagan,” Warren said as convention delegates cheered her on. “For more than 30 years, starting with Ronald Reagan, the Republican leadership latched onto an idea it called trickle-down economics, and then they got to work.”

She continued, “They attacked wages, they attacked pensions, they attacked health care, they attacked unions, they attacked education, they attacked science, they attacked financial regulation.”

Democrats divided on economic policies

Warren’s speech to convention delegates was only one example of the growing divide between moderate, business-friendly Democrats and those considered to be the true champions of progressive causes. At this weekend’s convention, progressive speakers offered subtle quips and direct jabs at party members who have strayed from what they see as party orthodoxy.

President Obama, who is currently pushing for congressional approval of a Pacific Rim trade agreement, wasn’t immune from the criticism.

California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton, a hero of the progressive wing, used his introductory remarks at Saturday’s floor session to criticize the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership as just “another way of saying ‘take jobs away from American workers and send them overseas.'”

Considered the most significant free-trade agreement since the North American Free Trade Agreement signed in 1994, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, known simply as TPP, would reduce tariffs and other trade barriers among the United States and a dozen Pacific Rim countries, including Japan, Australia, Singapore and Malaysia.

“In San Francisco, we used to have a fairly sized garment industry, that’s gone — shipped overseas,” the former state Senator reminded delegates. “We had manufacturing companies, those jobs are gone.”

Burton lamented that new trade deals “help big business, and American workers get screwed and the business guys gets rich.” He also assured delegates that Warren was on their side in the economic split, calling her “the f-ing champion of the American people.”

Rep. Ami Bera targeted by labor

Organized labor made clear that even Democratic elected officials that currently represent swing districts would not be excluded from criticism over the trade deal. Outside of the Anaheim Convention Center, protesting workers held signs singling out Rep. Ami Bera, D-Elk Grove, for “railroading working families” with a free-trade agreement that they see as the “fast track to no work.”

“Ami Bera, you’re no good,” a lead protester chanted to the communal reply, “Treat the worker like you should.”

The second-term Congressman narrowly defeated former Rep. Doug Ose last November by less than 1 percent of the vote. He is considered one of the top targets for Congressional Republicans in 2016.

Bera’s trouble at the convention is the second time this month that he’s been in hot water related to the controversial trade agreement. Earlier this month, Bera admitted to plagiarizing an op-ed piece featured in the Sacramento Bee. Republicans wasted no time in capitalizing on that misstep.

“With more evidence of Ami Bera’s cut-and-paste public policy coming to light, the hardworking people in his district have every right to question Bera’s honesty and leadership,” Zach Hunter, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a statement released earlier this month. “With his history of plagiarism, how can 7th District families trust Ami Bera to shoot straight with them on important issues?”

Tom Steyer dragged into rift

Influential Democratic donor Tom Steyer could soon be dragged into the party’s rift over economic issues.

On Friday, the billionaire climate change activist urged Democrats to support his plan for a statewide ballot measure to impose an oil extraction tax. By Saturday afternoon, Steyer’s critics attacked his silence on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement and questioned his financial ties to the trade deal.

“Today CA Democratic Party Chair John Burton joined progressive leaders such as Senator Elizabeth Warren in opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership,” said Sabrina Lockhart, communications director for Californians for Energy Independence. “Tom Steyer, by far the party’s biggest donor, has not stated his position on the TPP, perhaps because he is still invested in Farallon, which stands to benefit from the TPP.”

She added, “This is odd given he is positioning himself as the party’s progressive, environmental leader, and criticisms from groups like the Sierra Club that the trade agreement is weak on the environment.”

A federal judge has struck down California’s prohibition on foie gras — more than a decade after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law the nation’s first ban on the culinary treat.

U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson ruled Wednesday that California’s ban on the product violated federal laws governing poultry products.

“This issue boils down to one question: whether a sales ban on products containing a constituent that was produced in a particular manner is an ‘ingredient requirement’ under the PPIA [Poultry Products Inspection Act],” Wilson wrote, referring to the federal law. “California cannot regulate foie gras products’ ingredients by creatively phrasing its law in terms of the manner in which those ingredients were produced.”

A French term meaning “fatty liver,” foie gras is most commonly produced by force-feeding ducks and geese to produce a specially fattened liver. In 2004, state lawmakers approved Senate Bill 1520, authored by then-State Sen. John Burton, D-San Francisco, which banned the production and sale in California.

Burton now is the chairman of the California Democratic Party.

Chefs, foodies rejoice at decision

Chefs didn’t waste any time putting foie gras back on their menus. Within hours of the ruling, according to the San Jose Mercury News, “David Bazirgan of Dirty Habit restaurant in San Francisco had concocted an all-foie gras $60 tasting menu of four courses, starting with oysters poached in foie gras fat and ending with an entree of aged rib-eye steak with seared foie gras and black truffle.”

The case, which was brought by the Association des Eleveurs de Canards et D’Oies du Quebec, Hudson Valley Foie Gras and Los Angeles-based Hot’s Restaurant Group, does not affect the state’s ban on the production of foie gras. Lifting the ban only allows serving foie gras, meaning it will have to be imported.

Although restaurants are allowed to resume serving the delicacy, animal rights groups are optimistic Attorney General Kamala Harris will appeal the decision to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

“The state clearly has the right to ban the sale of the products of animal cruelty, and we expect the 9th Circuit will uphold this law, as it did in the previous round of litigation,” Humane Society of the United States President Wayne Pacelle said in a statement released on the group’s website. “Force feeding is not an ‘ingredient’ of foie gras since foie gras can be produced without resorting to such cruel methods. We are asking the California Attorney General to appeal the ruling.”

PETA threatens restaurants

One animal rights group isn’t waiting for the courts to take further action. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals issued a threat to restaurants that intend to serve what it describes as “torture in a tin.”

“A line will be drawn in the sand outside any restaurant that goes back to serving this ‘torture in a tin’ and whoever crosses that line identifies with gluttony that cannot control itself even to the point of torturing animals,” the organization said in a statement. “Foie gras is French for fat liver, and Fathead is the American word for the shameless chefs who actually need a law to make them stop serving the bloated, near-bursting organ of a cruelly force-fed bird.”

PETA’s threats are nothing new. When California’s foie gras ban went into effect in 2012, after an eight-year implementation period, several restaurants circumvented the law by offering the item as a complementary side dish.

That led to a lawsuit filed by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals against Hot’s Kitchen for selling a burger that included, according to the Huffington Post’s description of the menu, “a complimentary [sic] side of foie gras.” PETA filed the lawsuit after unsuccessfully trying to persuade the Hermosa Beach Police Department to bust the restaurant.

“No restaurant can act outside the law by illegally selling the diseased livers of abused birds, and PETA will help make sure that this one doesn’t,” PETA general counsel Jeff Kerr said in 2012. “Serving a ‘complimentary [sic] side of foie gras’ is as cruel as it is unlawful.”

Even socialists questioned the ban — or at least, those in the product’s birthplace

Francois Hollande, the socialist president of France, offered to “bring as much [foie gras] as needed to authorities of the country [the United States]” to help convince Sacramento the ban was absurd.

“I think they will listen,” Hollande said in 2012. “We wish we could have more of it here in France, and sometimes cannot, due to lack of purchasing power — I wouldn’t want to deprive the Americans!”

Two months before Californians go to the polls to choose a governor, the state’s top elections official tearfully acknowledged Friday that she has been consumed by a “debilitating” depression that has often kept her away from the office.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who oversees statewide voting, told The Times that she has a history of depression and has moved out of the two-story country home she owns with her husband. She now resides in a trailer park on the outskirts of Sacramento. …

The secretary said she is receiving professional help, is comforted by support from friends and has not been hospitalized. She described her new living accommodations as a refuge, characterizing the mobile home park as one containing “extended-stay cottages.” …

Her trailer at Arden Acres has cracked windowsills, and some windows have cardboard behind the glass to block the sun. Behind it is a storage yard with a giant, rusting shipping container pressed against the other side of the fence. On Thursday, her state-issued Buick was parked outside, the back seats and front passenger seat full of cardboard boxes brimming with clothing and household goods.

Problems festered, never got solved

This may fully or partly explain her utter diffidence as secretary of state over the past seven and a half years. As the LAT story noted …

She has been criticized periodically for being distracted on the job, most recently during her 2010 reelection campaign. Republican challenger Damon Dunn noted then that the time it took her office to process business filings had more than tripled. (Bowen said a backlog was due to budget cuts.)

In addition, a project that now allows online voter registration was four years behind schedule. Bowen had said it takes time to find the right contractor.

Open-government advocates bashed her for failing to upgrade California’s online campaign finance reporting system, which is antiquated and unwieldy.

‘Embarrassing shortcomings and backlogs’

Her years of disinterest in trying to minimize business paperwork delays produced a harsh rebuke from the Sac Bee edit page in March 2013:

If Texas can process an application to form a limited liability company in five days, even less if the registration application is filed online, why does it take California six weeks? In California, home to Silicon Valley, the most sophisticated collection of high-tech companies in the world, why can’t the state process business filings online?

Why does a business owner in Los Angeles have to deliver papers to the secretary of state’s office in Sacramento to get expedited over-the-counter service? Why doesn’t the secretary of state have counter service in Los Angeles or Fresno or San Francisco?

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen blames state budget cuts for the many embarrassing shortcomings and backlogs in her office. Lack of money should not have been a problem. After all, the business portal side of Bowen’s office – the place where entrepreneurs seeking to form corporations or limited liability companies or partnerships file their paperwork – is entirely fee-based. It’s supposed to be self-supporting. The businesses pay for the cost of the operation.

In fact, California charges among the highest fees of any state in the nation for what appears to be perhaps the worst service, as a limited survey by The Bee’s Jon Ortiz suggests.

I sure didn’t see this coming. In 2006, I voted for Bowen over appointed Republican Secretary of State Bruce McPherson after being put off by McPherson’s hauteur and arrogance in an interview.

Mature, persistent leadership during energy crisis

It wasn’t just McPherson’s manner. I also was impressed by Bowen’s persistence, patience and maturity during the state’s bizarre 2000-01 energy crisis, the fiasco that so damaged then-Gov. Gray Davis that it paved the way for his 2003 recall. Bowen, a Redondo Beach Democrat, was chair of the state Senate’s Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee. In early 2000, after hearings by her committee, she warned that California’s faux energy dergulation bill of 1996 was going haywire.

But Davis was more interested in posturing and blaming utilities and power suppliers than acting decisively to address both soaring energy costs and supply limits that produced regional blackouts. He was such a dithering dolt that in December 2000, 75-year-old former Secretary of State Warren Christopher — an Edison board member — harangued him at a private meeting about needing to figure out the basics of public leadership.

Bowen played an important role in the cleanup, especially when she resisted attempts to rush through a flawed fix. As she noted, it was the rush to pass the faux deregulation bill in 1996 that created the mess.

I wasn’t just observing from afar. I was then a government and politics reporter for The Orange County Register, which sent me to Sacramento in late January and early Februrary 2001 to bolster our coverage as the crisis crested. In a Capitol dominated by a dilettante (Davis) and a wack job (Senate President John Burton), Bowen stood out.

Based on her performance in the Legislature, I never expected her to disappear after she got a promotion. But that’s pretty much what happened.

Missing-person report: SOS for the SoS

In May, when I met Pete Peterson, the brainy, impressive GOP reformer who hopes to succeed Bowen in November’s election, I told him how surprised I was that Bowen was such a fiasco in statewide office. I said someone should file a missing person report for the secretary of state.

Peterson laughed, and so did I. But I wouldn’t tell such a joke now. I hope Bowen gets the help she needs — and that California finally gets the great secretary of state that it needs and deserves.

Peterson could be that good. He’s already won a long list of endorsements from newspapers left and right. Don’t hold the LAT’s applause against him.

Although Democrats face two scandals involving members of the state Senate, the party is well positioned for the 2014 campaign cycle. The party controls every statewide office and both houses of the state Legislature. Overall, the party has an advantage in voter registration of 2.6 million more than Republicans.

Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to cruise to reelection and could once again sweep Democrats into all of the statewide constitutional offices. The Democratic advantage is strongest in campaign fundraising. As of the last reporting deadline, 10 Democrat campaign committees had a collective $40 million in cash on hand.

And those big fundraising warchests could be put to work for the state’s Democratic Party.

Those 10 Democratic campaign committees could easily collect a few hundred thousand dollars more per year, if they simply managed their money better. And, no, this hot tip isn’t another scheme from Kindee Durkee.

In March 2012, Durkee, a popular California campaign treasurer, pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $8 million from Democratic candidates, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Interest

Without dialing for dollars, Democrats could earn interest on their multi-million campaign war-chests. Under state campaign finance guidelines, campaign accounts can be invested in interest-bearing accounts. A few Democrats, such as State Treasurer Bill Lockyer, have figured this out. Last year, he earned a little more than $5,000 in interest.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, is the best financial planner when it comes to his campaign account. According to Roll Call, his congressional campaign committee earned $82,457 from investments in just the third quarter of 2013. Among those returns were $19,293 in dividends on investments with Merrill Lynch, and $63,164 on unrealized gains. In the second quarter, the committee earned $32,108. In the first quarter, the committee earned $37,541.

If California Democrats wanted a more liquid investment, they could still earn interest from high-yield online savings accounts. According to the personal finance experts at Nerd Wallet, several banks are currently offering 0.90% APY rates for online accounts. At that rate, Democrats could earn a cool $30,133 per month, or $361,605 per year in free money.

California Democrats’ war-chests:

California Democratic Party
Cash on Hand: $10,124,593.00
Interest Earned in 2013: $906.28
Potential Campaign Interest: $91,121.34

Jerry Brown
Current Office: Governor
Campaigning for 2014: Re-Election
Cash on Hand: $16,957,317.44
Interest Earned in 2013: $74.39
Potential Campaign Interest: $152,615.86

Gavin Newsom
Current Office: Lieutenant Governor
Campaigning for 2014: Re-Election
Cash on Hand: $1,703,596
Interest Earned in 2013: $2,529.01
Potential Campaign Interest: $15,332.36

Bill Lockyer
Current Office: State Treasurer
Campaigning for 2014: None
Cash on Hand: $2,109,731.00
Interest Earned in 2013: $5,020.32
Potential Campaign Interest: $18,987.58

Kamala Harris
Current Office: State Attorney General
Campaigning for 2014: Re-Election
Cash on Hand: $3,103,865.00
Interest Earned in 2013: $262.70
Potential Campaign Interest: $27,934.79

John Chiang
Current Office: State Controller
Campaigning for 2014: State Treasurer
Cash on Hand: $1,833,550
Interest Earned in 2013: $0.00
Potential Campaign Interest: $16,501.95

John Perez
Current Office: Speaker of the State Assembly
Campaigning for 2014: State Controller
Cash on Hand: $1,866,339
Interest Earned in 2013: $0.00
Potential Campaign Interest: $16,797.05

Betty Yee
Current Office: Board of Equalization
Campaigning for 2014: State Controller
Cash on Hand: $502,178
Interest Earned in 2013: $0.00
Potential Campaign Interest: $4,519.60

Dave Jones
Current Office: Insurance Commissioner
Campaigning for 2014: Re-Election
Cash on Hand: $1,420,677
Interest Earned in 2013: $74.39
Potential Campaign Interest: $12,786.09

Tom Torlakson
Current Office: Superintendent of Public Instruction
Campaigning for 2014: Re-Election
Cash on Hand: $556,561
Interest Earned in 2013: $415.36
Potential Campaign Interest: $5,009.05

Editor’s Note: This is Part Two of a two-part series. Part One is here.

April 23, 2013

By John Hrabe

In addition to her victorious campaign strategies in 2012, California Democrat Party officials recognize Democratic Party Executive Director Shawnda Westly’s critical role in the state operation. “She gets it done,” said John Hanna, the co-chairman of the California Democratic Party’s Resolutions Committee, who also praised her ability to build coalitions. “Westly has the ability to see all sides of an issue and bring various groups within the Democratic Party together.”

Her ability to bring together interest groups is a necessity in Democratic politics. “[S]ometime in the 1970s, the Democratic Party became basically an ‘interests’ party,” wrote Neal Gabler, a senior fellow at the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center, in the Los Angeles Times in 2010. “It stopped pressing government action as an overriding binding principle and began instead to appeal to individual interest groups: African Americans, Hispanics, women, labor, gays, youth and even Blue Dogs [moderate Democrats]. Anyone who hopes to make headway in the nominating process has to find a way to appeal to many if not all of them.”

Westly has built that credibility with Democratic interest groups through years in the campaign trenches. Before starting her own consulting firm in 2005, she worked for six years as the political director of the California Professional Firefighters.  Her consulting clients have included the Consumer Attorneys of California, No on 75 (the 2005 initiative banning mandatory union dues for political purposes), and numerous union-sponsored independent expenditures.

“When you are in a fight to protect consumers, families and working people, there is no one better to have at your side than Shawnda Westly,” said Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, who worked with Westly in 2006 on the campaign against the Sacramento Arena tax. “Her extraordinary talent, energy, and dedication were a big part of California Democrats’ success in 2012.”

Westly, unlike many professional political consultants, doesn’t often take public credit for her work. She declined to comment for this story, a pattern reflected in the minimal number of press reports referencing her name. Nonetheless, Democratic staff members describe her as the kind of person that treats everyone the same, no matter their rank or importance.

She also expects everyone to pitch in. When you attend a California Democrat Party Convention, you won’t “see a lot of people standing around on the sidelines,” a frustration Westly expressed as a 19-year-old volunteer at an Orange County beach clean-up.

Proms

No one at the 2013 Grant and Lincoln High School proms, held at the same time and place as this month’s Democratic Convention, would think twice about buying a single ticket, or a pair of tickets, for two people of the same sex. In the 1980s, that wasn’t the case for Edison High School in conservative Huntington Beach.

“When I tried to buy prom tickets, I learned the school was only selling tickets to couples, one boy and one girl,” Westly recalled of her days as an Orange County honors student and varsity tennis player in a 2012 Los Angeles Times opinion piece she wrote. “When the school administration denied us tickets just because we didn’t have male dates, it didn’t seem right.”

The student senate voted to uphold the school’s ban on singles and same-sex dates. Echoing today’s conservative talking points on gay marriage, the student body president told the Orange County Register that the rights of individuals weren’t being restricted. “We are not denying her the right to go.  She is entitled to go with a member of the opposite sex,” the student body president said, according to a 1987 Orange County Register account of the incident.

“It was a stunning lesson for a 16-year-old: If you step even slightly out of line with tradition and acceptable norms, you will be punished,” Westly wrote in 2012. “I saw firsthand that society doesn’t just promote its traditions; it does all it can to enforce them.”

Students circulated petitions to support the ban. Anti-stag posters lined school walls. “My choice to go to the prom without a traditional date made the whole experience memorable for an entirely different set of reasons,” she wrote 25 years later. “It made me suddenly an outcast and a radical, a bomb thrower in a green taffeta dress.”

Ultimately, the bomb thrower won. The school principal reversed the ban because “individual rights are more important than keeping tradition.”

Westly added, “Besides, if some traditions weren’t broken, women would still be in home economics instead of the Senate.”

Women in politics

After Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, the list of high-profile California Democrat women is relatively short. There’s Attorney General Kamala Harris, Board of Equalization Member Betty Yee and Assembly Majority Leader Toni Atkins. Women in politics, even progressive politics, continue to face an uphill fight for recognition.

Just ask Molly Munger, whose Proposition 38 tax increase lost big last November after the good-old-boys’ Democratic establishment, led by Gov. Jerry Brown and party Chairman John Burton, lobbied against Prop. 38 in favor of their own tax-increase initiative, Proposition 30, which passed. Also passing was Proposition 39, by her wealthy contributor counterpart Tom Steyer.

Women, according to some feminist authors, don’t always recognize the achievements of other women. Case in point, House Minority Leader Pelosi’s Saturday address to the 2013 California Democrat Party Convention.  Intentional or not, in her 13-minute speech to convention delegates that repeatedly praised Burton, Pelosi omitted any reference to Westly, who no doubt deserves some credit for the party’s remarkable successes in 2012.

“In the past, women in politics have rarely gotten the respect that their quality of work deserves,” said Kathy Tavoularis, a Republican consultant who served as the executive director of California’s delegation to the Republican National Convention. “But the future shows great signs of this changing — politics is catching up with the business world. Both major parties in California are now run by accomplished professional women.”

Other prominent women in politics describe Westly as “one of the biggest champions of women in Sacramento.”

“Politics can be a cut-throat industry, especially for women who don’t have the traditional avenues of entry and advancement enjoyed by their male counterparts,” said Jaime Huff, the political affairs manager for Southern California Edison. “Shawnda Westly understands this and has become one of the biggest champions of women in Sacramento.”

Huff added, “Her sincerity to the success of women is not lip service — she actively seeks to promote, encourage and mentor women in politics daily.”

Brownley was the only speaker at Democrats’ “Red-to-Blue” luncheon that thanked Westly for her role in the November victories. The first Democrat to represent Ventura County in 70 years, Brownley attributed credit to the party’s detail-oriented executive director.

Editor’s Note: This is Part One of a two-part series. Part two is here.

April 22, 2013

By John Hrabe

The second night of the 2013 state convention earlier this month, California Democrats shared the downtown convention center with two Sacramento-area high schools hosting their junior-senior proms. It was probably just a coincidence. However, there are parallels between the two celebrations.

Both gatherings represent the culmination of a year of hard work. The Democrats’ convention mantra, “We’re just getting started,” could easily describe high school seniors preparing for the next stage in their lives.

And there’s one final parallel: both parties are due in large part to the work of some talented organizers behind the scenes.

Unprecedented success

Democrats in California are basking in unprecedented successes.

In November, the party helped secure the reelection of President Barack Obama and Sen. Dianne Feinstein. It picked up its first supermajority in both houses of the state Legislature in more than a century. It added six freshmen from swing districts to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic caucus. All the while, passing Proposition 30, Gov. Jerry Brown’s $6 billion-dollar tax increase, and defeating Proposition 32, which would have weakened unions’ political funding.

You don’t have to ask Democrats who gets the credit. Throughout the convention, delegates wore “Viva Burton” buttons to acknowledge the work of the party’s chairman.

“On every issue, at every turn, John Burton has been a force for solutions for our most pressing challenges,” Pelosi said in a minute-long homage to Burton during her Saturday convention speech to delegates. “We thank him, and I thank all of you, for all that you did in 2012 and before that for making California true blue California. Let’s hear it for our great state Chairman John Burton.”

But Burton, a media favorite due to his expletive-laden antics, couldn’t have done it without his right-hand woman, the party’s executive director, Shawnda Westly (pictured on the right of the above photo).

“She is the engine to the operation,” said Rep. Julia Brownley, D-Oak Park, one of six congressional freshmen honored at the convention’s Saturday “Red to Blue” luncheon. “The party this year played a much larger role in congressional races than they have ever played before.”

That larger role in congressional races, according to Democrat campaign literature, included the party designing and printing 124 mail pieces, logging more than 3.7 million knocks and dials to reach voters, 50 party field staff hired to setup the infrastructure for “Get Out The Vote” programs, 5.1 million pieces of campaign mail in mailboxes, and 607 staff working party canvass programs.

Onslaught

Westly’s overpowering campaign onslaught wasn’t a stealth operation. In April 2012, she predicted the party would pick up seats, and even suggested the two-thirds super-majority was achievable. “We have a real chance to pick up a 2/3 majority in both the Senate and Assembly, CA will play a major role in the battle for the House — its [sic] not a question of if we will pick up seats, but of how many,” she wrote in an online election chat hosted by the Sacramento Bee. 

Much of the groundwork started a year prior. In an April 2011 piece for the influential progressive blog, Calitics, Westly described why Democrats’ success “was no happy accident.” Among Westly’s highlights: a 25 percent cut in the party’s monthly expenses, an online database for every county party, 12 training bootcamps around the state, a full-time bilingual communications director, and monthly organizing calls with statewide officials.

Westly’s confidence in 2012 was also due to the off-year ground work running voter registration programs targeted to minority voters in traditionally Republican strongholds. “Democrats in California spent the better part of 2011 expanding voter registration and increasing the likelihood that minority voters would turn out on election day,” she told the Bee in the 2012 live chat. “Between our It Gets Bluer Latino voter reg program and our Operation Game Changer program to convert poll voters to permanent vote by mail voters, we expect to continue to see gains for Democrats among these communities.”

Numbers

Numbers don’t lie. In the past eight years, Democrats’ efforts are best reflected in two counties that moved from Republican ground to contested territory. In 2004, Ventura County served as the home district of conservative stalwart Rep. Tom McClintock and maintained a nearly 3 percentage-point Republican registration advantage. By 2012, it had turned to a Democratic county by 2 percentage points. The registration changes in Riverside County are even more startling. Since 2004, Republicans have lost a voter registration percentage point every year, dropping from a 12 percentage-point GOP edge in 2004 to just a 4 percentage-point advantage in 2012.

And the trend line shows no improvement for Riverside County’s Republicans, thanks to the state’s new online voter registration program, which took effect in January 2012. Capitol Weekly reports that, in Riverside County, “Democrats out-registered Republicans online by 46 percent to 27 percent.”

State Republicans credit Westly with the Democrats’ remarkable voter registration gains.

“President Obama might have won Texas with her help — if Shawnda wasn’t preoccupied with picking up a supermajority here in California,” said Ken Lopez-Maddox, a Republican who represented Orange County in the state Assembly. “Westly has dedicated her life to improving the lives of others.  She is honest in her motives and provides an example to all of us of what can be when we believe in something greater than ourselves.”

Part 2 is on how Shawnda Westly gets things done.