This past weekend, Sen. Elizabeth Warren received top billing as the convention’s keynote speaker. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi earned rounds of applause from committee and caucus meetings. And, of course, the convention buzz focused on the U.S. Senate showdown between Attorney General Kamala Harris and Rep. Loretta Sanchez.

But, below the surface, there was a clear frustration from some delegates that women aren’t equally represented in Democratic politics. That’s why as Speaker of the Assembly Toni Atkins and Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon were speaking to the women’s caucus, Janet Cook was outside the meeting, dutifully passing out stickers for her organization, Close the Gap.

“Women are only 26 percent of the California Legislature,” said Cook, a Close the Gap CA recruiter for the East Bay. “We think that sucks.”

Close the Gap’s Mission: 16 for ’16

To Close the Gap, the organization is recruiting Democratic women to run for office, then offering early training to those progressive candidates on how to run an effective campaign. After several years of working towards its mission, the group has updated its website and refined its pitch to a concise game plan: 16 for ’16. That’s recruiting 16 strong women candidates for 16 targeted seats in the 2016 legislative election.

The group proudly boasts that they’ve already found nine women for those targeted races – with a large number of women of color.

“At a time when Latinos are the largest and fastest growing demographic in California, Latina women are one of the least represented groups in the state Legislature, currently at five out of 120,” points out a joint campaign brochure for three Democratic women candidates running next year in two of the targeted seats.

Close the Gap selected its 16 targeted races by looking first and foremost at open seats, which they see as opportunities. According to an election analysis by the Center for American Women and Politics, there’s a big gap in the success rate for women picking up open seats compared to knocking out incumbents.

In 2012 races for the House of Representatives, women ran for 26 open seats, winning 15 campaigns for an overall 57 percent success rate. Compare that to the 74 open seats where women ran against incumbents, winning just 4 races or five percent.

State Assembly pays women less; fewer in top staff positions

Part of the challenge in recruiting women to run for state office is that candidates often rise through the ranks as legislative staff. Yet, as a CalWatchdog.com investigation revealed in 2013, the state Capitol remains a good old boys’ club.

Women who work for the California State Assembly face a glass ceiling, substantial pay inequities and limits to their career advancement. Female employees are paid less than their male counterparts, are less likely to serve in leadership roles and remain stuck in secretarial positions, our 2013 analysis of legislative payroll data found.

Since that analysis, a Democratic woman has taken over the speaker’s office, yet little’s changed. Earlier this year, a review by the Sacramento Bee found pay inequities persist in the state Legislature.  Those gender biases, Cook believes, are best solved by electing more women to office.

“We just keep at it,” she said. “It’s not a short process. I’ve been working at it a long time, and I’ll continue to work at it.”

Open Legislative Seats in 2016

In 2016, more than two dozen seats of the state Legislature will be vacant. The 16 seats that are being targeted by Close the GAP CA are noted below with an asterisk (*).

State Assembly

• AD 6 Beth Gaines
• AD 12 Kristin Olsen
• AD 14 Susan Bonilla*
• AD 16 Catharine Baker*
• AD 24 Richard Gordon*
• AD 27 Nora Campos*
• AD 30 Luis Alejo*
• AD 31 Henry Perea*
• AD 34 Shannon Grove
• AD 35 Katcho Achadjian*
• AD 37 Das Williams*
• AD 40 Marc Steinorth*
• AD 43 Mike Gatto*
• AD 48 Roger Hernandez *
• AD 68 Donald Wagner
• AD 71 Brian Jones
• AD 76 Rocky Chavez
• AD 78 Toni Atkins*

State Senate

• SD 3 Lois Wolk*
• SD 7 Vacant*
• SD 9 Loni Hancock*
• SD 11 Mark Leno*
• SD 25 Carol Liu*
• SD 27 Fran Pavley*
• SD 29 Bob Huff
• SD 35 Isadore Hall, III*

“The California Coastal Commission can now fine property owners who illegally block public access to beaches, putting new teeth into a 38-year-old environmental law, under a budget trailer bill that Gov. Jerry Brown signed Friday.

“The commission’s new power could affect landowners all up and down California’s coast … .

“Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, had carried a bill last year to empower the commission, but it fell a few votes short of passage when some fellow Democrats got cold feet at the last minute. She finally succeeded Friday by slipping the bill through as part of the $108 billion state budget package.”

As is always the case on these issues, the PLF provided crucial context:

“Damien Schiff, a principal attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, said landowners will now bear the burden of suing the commission if they feel a fine is improper.

“‘A lot of property owners would say the potential downside risk — the value of the penalties and the costs of litigating — could be so high that, even if that property owner was 100 percent certain that he’s right on the law, it wouldn’t be worth it to him,’ Schiff said, calling the new law ‘a significant game-changer.’ …

“Atkins called those fears ‘as of yet unfounded, and unreasonable. … I don’t think the Coastal Commission will overreach.'”

Who cares what happened in 2006? This is 2014!

This is a classic example of what people mean when they say term limits wipes out institutional memory. Anyone who’s been following state politics for more than the six years Atkins has been in the Assembly knows “overreach” is what the Coastal Commission does.

The agency was founded by a guy who literally didn’t believe in private property rights and who enjoyed mystical babbling about the needs of Gaia — an enviro religion dressed up with scientific terminology. Peter Douglas’ radicalism has animated the agency ever since. I wrote about the sort of governance that results from this mind-set in a 2006 Union-Tribune editorial:

“Consider the case of San Luis Obispo engineer Dennis Schneider, who hoped to build his dream home on a cliff above the ocean in a remote area north of Cayucos. Incredibly by normal cognitive standards, typically by Coastal Commission standards, the agency blocked his plans on the grounds that the home would be such an aesthetic affront to passing kayakers, boaters and surfers that it would violate their rights. We are not making this up.” 

Douglas resigned as Coastal Commission executive director in 2011 and died a year later, so the upper reaches of the agency remain jammed with holdovers from his long reign. We can expect these zealous bureaucrats to go overboard with their new powers.

It’s what Peter wants. It’s what Gaia (sigh-a) needs.