The California progressive movement’s summer of discontent continues, with anger still on display over the abrupt withdrawal of a single-payer health care bill and over the May election of a party insider as California Democratic chairman.

This week, the Associated Press reported that progressives remain interested in pursuing a recall campaign against Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, (pictured) for his decision to kill Senate Bill 562, the Healthy California Act. Los Angeles activist Steve Elzie is a lead organizer.

The California Nurses Association last month paid for two mailers to be sent to constituents in Rendon’s Los Angeles County district blasting him for “holding health care hostage” and “protecting politicians, not people’s health care.” The mailers urged constituents to complain to Rendon’s offices over the decision, but did not advocate a recall.

That decision may reflect that CNA President RoseAnn DeMoro – who initially led the criticism of Rendon – has realized how difficult it would be to ultimately remove him from office.

Obtaining the 20,000-plus signatures needed to trigger a recall election might not be much of a problem, given that single-payer champion Bernie Sanders got 44 percent and 48 percent of the vote in the June 2016 Democratic presidential primary in California’s 38th and 47th Congressional Districts, respectively. The districts cover much of Rendon’s 63rd Assembly District district which includes parts or all of Commerce, Bell, Lynwood, Paramount and Lakewood.

But Rendon has gotten at least 69 percent of the vote in his three Assembly bids. He also has more than $1.2 million in his campaign war chest and has the support of other influential unions, meaning ready access to more donations and help campaigning.

Rendon killed SB562 because he said it failed to adequately identify how it would pay its $400 billion in annual costs to provide health care to every Californian.

‘Berniecrat’ still won’t accept loss in party chair vote

The other flap pitting the party establishment against “Berniecrats” also flared this week when Bay Area political organizer Kimberly Ellis launched a new salvo over her narrow loss for state party chairman to Eric Bauman, a nurse who has long been a fixture in Los Angeles County Democratic politics and was deputy to the last state chair, former Congressman John Burton.

At May’s state Democratic convention in Sacramento, Bauman held off a late surge from the lesser-known Ellis to win 51 percent to 49 percent. Ellis immediately challenged what she said were election irregularities, leading to a July recount in which 47 of about 3,000 ballots were thrown out but Bauman’s margin of victory was unchanged.

Ellis and her fellow Sanders’ supporters, however, still don’t accept the results.

On Tuesday, she called on the California Democratic Party to accept binding arbitration to determine who really won the May election. She hinted it was the only way the party could head off a lawsuit that she suggested last month was forthcoming if she were unhappy with how party officials handled her appeal, which continues this month with a hearing of the Democratic Party credentialing committee.

California Democratic Party spokesman Mike Roth said the party would stick to its rules, which don’t provide for arbitration.

“Ms. Ellis is now deep in her own end zone and throwing a desperate Hail Mary pass in hopes of changing the outcome of an election that she lost fair and square,” Roth said.

But Ellis’ “Vote for Kimberly” website remains unchanged and continues to feature sharp – if indirect – criticisms of Bauman for allegedly close ties to corporate interests.

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.”

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.”

She says the California Democratic Party needs to be a national leader on issues. She said its elected officials aren’t totally representative of the party’s diversity. She said many prospective voters would rather Decline To State a party preference than become Democrats. She said the party “needs a revolution.”

Launch of Campaign

Kimberly Ellis, center, is pictured with husband James Fuller, left, and a supporter at her campaign launch event in San Francisco, Wednesday.

On Wednesday night she officially launched her campaign for state party chair in 2017 to succeed John Burton — and since Democrats have a tight grip on the state government and state politics, this race is kind of a big deal.

“This is about cultivating and grooming the next generation of political leadership that comes from California,” Ellis said to the crowd of about 200 friends, family and supporters. “And making sure … those people have the progressive values that Democrats have for fairness and equality.”

Ellis is the executive director of Emerge California, an organization that identifies, trains and encourages Democratic women to run for elected office. Many graduates of the program were in attendance Wednesday night, including Oakland’s mayor, Libby Schaaf.

The party chair helps raise money, recruit candidates, strategize in elections and serve, along with elected public officials, as a face of the party. And she’d rather focus on building the party than being a legislator herself.

Rise of Decline To State

“If we don’t take a minute to stop and step back and really look at what is going on with this Demographic shift — it isn’t just young folks between 18 and 24, it’s women and people of color who are registering as Declined To State than as Democrats — we are going to lose California,” Ellis told CalWatchdog.

Over recent years, the state has seen a rise in registered voters not stating a party preference. While Republican registration numbers have been declining for a while, Democrats have a much smaller and slower decrease. Since 2009, Democrats in the state have slipped from 44.5 percent to 43.2 of registered voters, while “decline to state” has risen about 3.6 percentage points.

Ask around about who Kimberly Ellis is and you’ll likely encounter her biggest hurdle: that outside the bay area, particularly in Southern California, she’s relatively unknown. And she’s running against Eric Bauman, who is not only well known, but has had a substantial head start in securing delegate support.

Bauman has been Los Angeles Party Chair for seven terms — where Democratic voter registration as a percentage of the electorate has slipped at a similar rate as statewide, but the total number of Democratic voters in L.A. has increased as opposed to statewide — and has been 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.

Bauman announced his candidacy in December, and on Wednesday Politico reported that Bauman had “pledged support and endorsements from more than 550 official state Democratic Party delegates,” which is apparently more than one-third of the support necessary to win.

But the election is not for another year and Ellis is undeterred by the Politico data point, saying she plans on going to every county to speak with delegates to make her case.

“I’m not worried about numbers right now,” Ellis said. “Numbers can change.”