Those are people in the proposed Progressive leadership team; it’s some speakers at today’s meeting.
Here’s what’s happening today in a fancy, expensive ballroom in a lustrous Downtown Los Angeles hotel: members of the Progressive Caucus (of which I am one) will select its news leadership team (of which I am not). Progressive Caucus Members had expected to be able to vote remotely (as permitted by caucus and CDP Bylaws), were a few days ago informed that are being required to show up in person to vote — regardless of where the live in the state — to fend off an attempted takeover of this principled and hard-headed caucus in favor of a slate of candidates handpicked by leadership to turn the caucus into a more obedient and less critical corner of the party.
About those politicians standing with the current Progressive Caucus leadership and style (which include both Barbara Lee and Katie Porter), outgoing Chair Amar Shergill wrote:
The courageous progressive leaders in the graphic at the top of this email are standing with us because they know that the Progressive Caucus is the conscience of the California Democratic Party and the only place where we truly hold our Party accountable when we fail to adhere to Democratic values. This special purpose of our Caucus cannot be served by those that want unity at any cost or those that build alliances with fossil fuel corporations at the expense of communities of color on the frontlines. Many people call themselves progressive, but very few are willing to hold the line in the face of political pressure and even to their own political detriment.
The members of the Troublemaker Slate are not in this fight to get personal accolades or to move up the political ladder. They are fighting because they believe in a better future for all of us. I am the father of three great kids and I am in this fight because I fear they may inherit a nation and planet worse off than the one my generation inherited. The Troublemaker Slate is doing everything they can to make a real difference for future generations and I endorse every one of them.
Why are the people in CDP leadership pissed at the progressives in the Progressive Caucus? Here’s an example of something written by outgoing Caucus Chair Shergill wrote last year:
RESPONSES TO CAUCUS ADVOCACY TO REMOVE DELEGATES THAT ENDORSE REPUBLICANS
(from left to right Rep Torres, GOP Hagman, Sen. McGuire, Asm. Wood, GOP Howards, OC Rep. Correa, OC GOP Sheriff Barnes)
And here’s Shergill’s more extensive explanation of what happened — which no doubt make it to the officers:
| CDP abandons courage and embraces hypocrisy by refusing to take action against Delegates that endorse Republicans. In a truly shocking move by CDP Officers, the Party has decided to ignore its own values and Bylaws in order to protect California Democrats who are publicly supporting Republicans against their fellow Dems. In response to the Progressive Caucus filing charges against several California Democrats who are supporting Republicans in races across the state, the Party has chosen to hide behind unwritten Bylaws in order to block a hearing and dismiss all Statements of Charges, protecting Democrats working with Republicans to defeat Democrats. Our accountability campaign against GOP-endorsing Democratic elected officials could have been resolved a lot of different ways, but fabricating new Bylaws in order to protect Republicans was definitely not on our list of possible outcomes. We would have preferred that Party leadership have conversations with the GOP-endorsers and suggest they rescind their endorsements but Party leadership clearly went a different direction. The Party will say that this was the wrong forum and that their hands are tied but this belies all of the other avenues available to the Party to address this matter. By dismissing these charges while not pursuing any alternative course of action, the Party has chosen to approve, endorse, and even further encourage Democrats who are supporting white nationalist, fascist platforms. Teenage girls – children – are currently being tracked down and arrested for seeking reproductive healthcare. Democracy is under threat by white nationalists and religious fascists. These are the core policy ideals that Republican candidates stand for – and the Party is pretending it has no voice or platform to advocate from. Therefore, we immediately call upon Party leadership to denounce each Democratic endorsement of a Republican in the November 2022 election. The Democrats on the ballot deserve to be supported by their State Party, not opposed by a GOP-Dem cabal. If the Party truly does disapprove of these actions, it is an easy ask. The choice is theirs. The power is theirs. The responsibility is theirs. See the links below for the Party’s decision letter and the response letter from the Progressive Caucus: 8/10/22 Caucus response to CDP Dismissal of Statement of Charges 8/10/22 CDP Dismissal of Charges 8/08/22 Caucus Statement of Charges #2 7/25/22 Sacramento Bee reporting 7/20/22 Caucus Statement of Charges #1 |
 |
In other words, Shergill went right at them and told the inconvenient truth. He wrote again about the situation at hand:
| A MESSAGE FROM CAUCUS CHAIR AMAR SHERGILL Let’s be clear. The Party regularly permits Caucuses to have remote meetings and to vote remotely but there is, of course, a preference for in-person meetings. Here’s what the CADem Bylaws say, “It is the express preference of This Committee that meetings should, when possible, be held in person…” An in-person meeting with remote voting clearly falls within this provision. Dozens of online Caucus meetings have been held and remote votes cast under this Bylaw provision without any objection from the Party or even any significant discussion about it. Some Caucuses are meeting online to elect Officers for this Convention. The Party is even using online voting for its Officer election. The reason that the Progressive Caucus is not being permitted to use remote voting is because the Party fears the organized voice of our members. If you would like to have your voice heard, please attend the Convention in person to vote. The future of the Caucus as the moral conscience of the Party is at stake. |
[Edited to add: It may seem ironic to people for me to be joining a call for exclusion of state party delegates who endorsed Republicans, given that I was kicked out of party leadership for … endorsing a Republican, Todd Spitzer, for DA. Let me explain the differences. That was a race in which I had supported a Democrat, Brett Murdoch, in the primary — whose candidacy failed in part because another candidate, Lenore Albert, came in later to split the Democratic vote, In other words, I did not support a Republican against a Democrat, but against someone whom I considered a worse Republican Tony Rackauckas, who I had reason to believe would eventually hand over the job to yet another even worse Repulican, Huntington Beach City Attorney Mike E. Gates, who was far young than Spitzer. But the more significant reason was that CDP had no authority for that race! (They justified their move by, essentially, saying that I was on double-secret probation and that their lack of jurisdiction in the race didn’t matter.) The worse injustice was done to Norma Alcala, who was kicked out at the same time for supporting a Republican who switched parties after her endorsement, and she retracted the endorsement when she found out about it. So there was precedent (including the later expulsion of Chris Duvali) for taking this sort of action. The party leaders’ response was that these people are ex officio members as opposed to regular members, so they can’t be expelled. (Although the first person expelled from the DSCC, San Diego County (and Nazi) Tom Metzger, was also an ex officio.) Maybe so, but they have the ability to take away their vote at conventions, prevent them from sending an alternate, and most importantly prevent them from appointing other delegates to the Democratic State Central Committee. Of course hey would not punish them that way because appointed delegates from these Republican-stooges will almost always favor the party leadership — and will not criticize them for selling out to corporate interests.]
(OK, enough about me.)
Now I know that this blog is read by many people who hate progressives as well as those who support them (or in the case of non-Democrats, despise the corrupt party leadership more than the Bernie/AOC faction under attack here.) That’s why I’ve held off on publishing this post until it’s (likely) too late for our “Correa Caucus” them to make it into Downtown LA to add to the packing of the crowd. (Some writings by corporate Dems who can’t shut up, like Jorge Gavino), suggest that that sort of organizing has already been done. But we won’t know until later!)
Here’s a partial schedule of what’s going on tonight:
| Caucus Election Is Now IN-PERSON ONLY A Message from our Election Supervisor, Sudi Farokhnia The Party has reversed the Caucus decision to utilize remote voting. The meeting and election will proceed on the following approximate timeline: 5:30pm Welcome 5:34pm Guest Speakers 6:02pm Election introduction 6:06pm Voting begins |
| CANDIDATES: Chair: Fatima Iqbal-Zubair, Shannon Ross Bay Area Vice-Chair: Adrianna Zhang, Cherelle Jackson, Mel Shuen Mallory Central Vice-Chair: Denise El Amin, Neel Sannappa Southern Vice-Chair: Jacob Haik, Katie Chan, Kayla Asato, Maricela de Rivera Membership Officer: Vinnie Bacon Northern Vice-Chair: Hatzune Aguilar, Helene Rouvier Communications and Media Officer: Jenny Lynn, Victor Ibarra Parliamentarian: Anissa Raja, Emma Jensen Treasurer: Eric Warmoth, Irene Huerta Secretary: Lauren Bier, Mickey Chavez Additional information provided by the candidates is available at this link, including candidate statements. Please click through to get to know the candidates and their values. |
| All right, but who’s on which slate? You can almost always tell by who showed up to the Candidate Forum — and who didn’t. |
| MINUTES OF THE MEMBERS’ FORUM: On May 13, Caucus At-Large Officer Tonya Love hosted an engaging and informative Candidate Forum for the Caucus Officer Election. Video is at this link with candidates appearing in the following order: Chair: Fatima Iqbal Zubair, (Shannon Ross did not attend or send a surrogate) Vice Chair Northern California: Helene Rouvier, (Hatzune Aguilar did not attend or send a surrogate) Vice Chair Bay Area: Mel Mallory, Adrianna Zhang [Zhang is the only candidate who showed up, is not on either slate], (Cherelle Jackson did not attend or send a surrogate) Vice Chair Central California: note: troublemaker caucus supports Sannappa, but not clear he showed Vice Chair Southern California: Katie Chan, Kayla Asato, (Maricela de Rivera and Jacob Haik did not attend or send a surrogate) Secretary: Lauren Bier, (Mickey Chavez did not attend or send a surrogate) Treasurer: Eric Warmoth (via surrogate Fatima Iqbal Zubair), (Irene Huerta did not attend or send a surrogate) Communications Officer: Jenny Lynn (via surrogate Emma Jenson), (Victor Ibarra did not attend or send a surrogate) Parliamentarian: Emma Jensen, (Anissa Raja did not attend or send a surrogate) |
But enough about the audacious troublemaking of outgoing Chair Amar Shergill! What is his proposed successor Fatima Iqbal Zumair all about? Here is her statement about the pusillanimous Party Leaders’ charge that the Progressive Caucus has been “divisive”:
| A Message from Progressive Caucus Chair Candidate Fatima Iqbal-Zubair |
| “It may be true as Martin Luther King Jr. once said, that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. What is equally true, however, is that most of the time we have to forcibly bend it with our own hands.” – Thomas Linzey, Executive Director, Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. As Chair of the Caucus, I will advocate for the California Democratic Party to be unequivocally united for justice, not in words, but in action. Only if we do this, can we be best equipped to fight against threats to our democracy and rights in far-right corners of our own state, and across the nation. This is why…it is not divisive, when California has some of the worst pollution in the nation, to demand cutting our Party’s ties to oil money and holding Democrats who take oil money accountable; it is not divisive, when the percentage of American workers who are members of a union fell by 10 points in the last two decades to an all time low, to demand holding billionaires and corporations accountable for paying their fair share; it is not divisive when we call out Democrats who don’t believe healthcare should be a human right, when hundreds of thousands people in our state don’t have any health coverage; it is not divisive when we call out corporate funded Democrats for stalling progress in the legislature when, in the richest state in the nation, we still have the largest income and wealth inequality gap; it is not divisive when we demand the California Democratic Party stop taking law enforcement money and be accountable to systems of care and investment in vulnerable communities; it is not divisive to hold accountable Democrats who choose to value profits over people, voting against working class people and BIPOC communities;and It is not divisive when we hold delegates accountable to their track record and votes in the California Democratic Party. None of these things are divisive; instead it is being honest and accountable to the most vulnerable in our state, above anything else. Holding the California Democratic Party accountable to values of justice makes our party stronger– not weaker. It makes us true to what we say we stand for. It ensures our party works for us, not the select few. As a teacher who continues to fight for her first generation students in South LA, As a mother to who advocated for her special needs son to have a public school experience that ensures he will thrive, As an immigrant who believes that every immigrant -regardless of status- deserves to lead a life of dignity, As a resident of a district with the largest refinery on the West Coast, one of the largest oil fields, and some of the worst systemic racism. As an environmental advocate in Sacramento who pushes for transformative climate policy,As a former candidate who challenged a Democratic incumbent whose record did not match the needs of our working class community, I have always been on the side of people over profits. Even when it was not popular or easy, even when I was told to step aside, even when it was extremely difficult, I’ve always courageously stepped in to fight for justice.And this is what our slate stands for. We are not afraid to take on the tough fights to make our party work for every single one of us. We believe that delay in action is denial of justice. We are not okay with another life lost, simply because we were too afraid to act now. If you vote for us, we will continue to have a Progressive Caucus that will courageously and compassionately lead the charge to defeat Republicans, and build coalitions for justice for women’s and reproductive rights, for the LGBTQIA+ community, for immigrants, for environmental justice, for housing as a human right, and more. Solidarity to the people always, Fatima |
I’ll be liveblogging the event as best I can, though I expect to miss the speakers due to traffic and parking. The corporate Democrats, though, may only have to walk down from their hotel suites without inconvenience — largely, I suspect, paid for by their donors! While their are some other caucuses that are largely progressive — Environmental, Women’s, LGBT, various Ethnic, and Labor Caucuses, for example — the Progressive Caucus is the only one with a broad portfolio of all political issues, both inside the CDP and its constituents parts and in the broader political world.
That makes it a thorn in the side of CDP’s largely bought-off and bossed leadership. We’ll see if they succeed, tonight, in pulling the pointy end off of that thorn and discarding it.
So what happened Greg? You said you were gonna be there?
There was little to liveblog by the time I arrived. But I will have some to report over the next hour or so. I can tell you that the turnout was huge and the vote count wasn’t completed last night and will conclude tonight. OC progressive Democrat Sudi Farokhnia, whose advocacy on Iranian women’s issues I’ve written about here, is leading the vote counting effort — and has been looking for volunteers for tonight to monitor the count!
*Reverent Memorial Day to all. This is the time when all of us should understand that
Politicians get us into various wars that take human life. They take the lives of innocent
civilians, drafted soldiers and cause needless destruction of property with disasterous results to our Global environment. War is the lowest form of human conduct and all of us should remember the millions that are maimed, that have loved ones killed or injured forever. For all of us Veterans that made it back without physical harm…..God bless us all and all of those we knew before our service and after. For those that perished due to Politician decisions throughout the ages……remembering their memory is our history!.
Same to you guys, Winships. But the open thread is over THAT-a-way.
*Chairman Vern,
Yeah, we saw that, but it didn’t look too inviting….with all that lawyer talk!
Open means open, Winships, we mean it!
By the way I heard today from Danett at Los Amigos that things ended up going WELL for progressives. Update from Greg?
*Things have been going well for Progressives because the dumbass
Supreme Court issued the Dobbs Decision and made every woman in America at risk for losing all their rights…. We wouldn’t be surprised if
the SCOTUS overturns the 19th Amendment and takes voting rights away from all women forever. Meanwhile, Joe’s employment numbers just keep going up…….excellent.
Well, all of that is good for Democrats in general, not just progressives. All Democrats are pro-choice.
Dan has sumptin to say about your trip.
The irony is thick and rich.
First, the complaint against Lou is the same as the complaint against Greg (which was wrong, though I can’t speak to the double-secret probation). Lou endorsed Barnes who is about as bad of a Republican as T-Rack (i.e., bad, but not Spitzer-level bad). But no one ran against Barnes!
Second, Amar is terrible–likely violated the FPPA and should be prosecuted, as he created a separate PAC claiming to be controlled by the Progressive Caucus, and raised a lot of money using the Progressive Caucuses name. Form a PAC, if you want. But don’t lie about it and mislead donors that it’s part of the CDP.
Third, the hypocrisy. Amar tried calling a special meeting of the state E-Board to be held at the Laney College Football field in Fall 2021, to try to get some measure heard by the E-Board about oil/gas money, that was already under consideration (when he could not figure out how to appeal the ruling of the Chair at the prior E-Board meeting). Then he and the Progressive Caucus complained to no end when Party Chair used his authority to turn the meeting into a virtual E-Board meeting because there was a COVID surge at the time (Delta? Omicron? I forget which). Their plan was clear. Call the meeting in the East Bay, where they would have the most support for their measure, and hope that people who didn’t care about their nonsense, and people from less liberal bastions of the state, would not come. The measure failed by a 2-1 vote. By the way, it poured in Oakland like crazy, and the Laney College football field was flooded that day.
I don’t know who won. I hope the new Caucus Leadership is not corrupt like the old leadership, which had the Caucus halfway to decertification.
Lee, we are talking about Lou endorsing Barnes in 18, not 22. A fine Democrat, Duke Nguyen, was running against Barnes in 18.
And Barnes was running on a platform of keeping ICE in OC jails and deporting more low-level immigrant offenders. It was outrageous to me that Correa, who likes to say “immigration is my NUMBER ONE, NUMBER TWO, AND NUMBER THREE issue,” would endorse a pro-deportation sheriff who was in a close race against a decent Democrat. (Tom Daly also endorsed Barnes that year.)
So what could I do except write a song in Spanish about how Lou and Tom are bad on immigration? It was ever since then that Lou won’t talk to me and calls me “the New Rocco,” LOL.
That’s a perfectly fair point.
It’s also a perfectly old point. And it was not what the Progressive Caucus was complaining about. They were literally complaining about the 2022 endorsement after the 2022 primary (where Barnes had won re-election).
If they wanted to condemn/expel/whatever Lou for that, they should have done it in 2018. Or at least 2019. Or maybe 2020 before he was endorsed for re-election. But after he was endorsed for re-election, re-elected, and endorsed again, this looks silly. (I think there was some censure made in ~ 2018 for this; not that it necessarily means anything, but it was there.)
Lee, last week on NPR I heard Elsa Chang grilling some poor Democratic Congressmember about the debt ceiling, repeatedly asking him why the Democrats didn’t get rid of the debt ceiling while that had the majority in both houses the two years before this.
He struggled gamely, but he wasn’t able or willing to give the real answer: Democrats did not have a working majority in at least the Senate last year and possibly not in the House, because we had at least two Senators, Manchin and Sinema, who were perfectly willing — for the sake of “the center,” although really for the sake of being able to pull stunts like Manchin just pulled with getting his pipeline into the final bill — to block reforms that would get in their way.
What does that have to do with CDP? Well, would you agree that just because Trump was not removed from office over the January 6 insurrection it doesn’t mean that a new Congress could not go after him, if he were somehow elected along with new majority in Congress that would want to see him properly punished? (There’s no double jeopardy for impeachment; it’s not a criminal proceeding.)
You may say that that’s the rule, but it really isn’t. Just because, thanks to Rusty and his Baumun-fueled Chair-election stealing team, CDP refused to punish Correa because they didn’t have the will or the numbers back in 2019 doesn’t mean that he’s somehow permanently free of consequences. That’s the sort of “rule” that pundits like to proclaim is true, but there is nothing necessary about it. And it’s just the sort of thing that makes the public turn up its collective nose at politicians and political organizations.
Correa deserves to have his face rubbed in his support for Don Barnes over a well-qualified Democrat every day of his life. If you believe in accountability — and I should probably underline the “if,” though I give you the benefit of the doubt there — then you would not make the “get out of consequences card” so easy to obtain and deploy. So accountability didn’t happen in 2019, or 2021, or 2023? No matter: if you believe in accountability, you keep trying, because in those previous years the judge and jury were not interest in justice, and that may someday change.
In the previous cycle, Lou endorsed Barnes when he was running against a perfectly good Democrat, Duke Nguyen. (IIRC, the DPOC didn’t even endorse Duke — or if they did they didn’t they didn’t prioritize it at all. And the returns showed that that was a winnable race.) Supporting Duke was another reason why I supported Spitzer: Racky and Barnes were essentially running as a team, and to help Duke I wanted to give him the advantage of running on a de facto slate with Spitzer. The party did everything it could to squash that — and that has a lot to do with how our county electeds guided party policy.
We’re just going to disagree about whether Barnes and Racky are better than Spitzer. Spitzer is more political, which can be good (more likely to be goosed into responsiveness) and bad (the sort of red-baiting crap he pulled in the last election. Barnes and Racky have been a quintessential part of the permanent Republican control over our county’s public safety. I’ll take the lone wolf over the pack anytime, especially when the lone wolf has a propensity to chew off his own foot.
I don’t know about the PAC issues you raise. If there’s something to be complained about, go ahead and complain. But “Progressive Caucus” is a somewhat generic term by now; did he say that the PAC was controlled by the CDP’s Progressive Caucus? I’m not even sure where he made the claims that you say he made, but I presume that you have receipts.
In the last two paragraphs, you compare trying to game the system to hold a special E-Board meeting someplace where Amar should have known would be raining because he has precognitive powers, with an attempt to stack the leadership of one of the few caucuses that will stand up to the leadership. If you don’t start your argument with the concession that the CDP leadership has lied, cheated, and stolen to remain in power, it’s hard to take seriously your accusations of corruption within the Caucus. If the Progressive Caucus ever does get decertified, it’s far less likely that the Caucus would have done anything seriously wrong than that the CDP leadership grabbed onto a chance to quiet the only real oppositional voice within the party — although the CDP’s Environmental, Racial/Ethnic, and Gender caucuses can mix it up on occasion. In any state less lopsided than California, this kind of stranglehold leadership would have the party losing elections hand over iron fist.
Debating who is worse, Spitzer or T-Rack is a debate that can drive you mad. I voted for T-Rack because I figured he would retire/die before Spitzer, and that Spitzer is more cunning and able to hold the office. But on the merits, there was no good choice in 2018 (except Murdock, as we agreed).
The PAC issues were raised and the Progressive Caucus was put on probation for an extended period. There’s no question about the facts–they copped to it. It’s simply that the party spared de-certification, which should be considered an act of grace since it merited de-certification (and probably criminal prosecution). Instead it is used as evidence of trying to sack opposition leaders, which is just bizarre. But attitudes like that will make people remember–better to just meet out the full measure of justice than the half measure.
As for the meeting, the hypocrisy is that Amar tried to get a terrible in-person meeting arranged, and then complained that it was moved to virtual for good cause. He now complains that an in-person meeting (which was required for every other caucus) was unfair. Just hypocritical nonsense. As for the location and rain–no, the point is an outdoor meeting in the Bay Area in October is a bad idea and anyone with half a brain knows that–Amar included. It was never an appropriate venue; it was pure show.
Progressive caucus stayed in progressive hands last Saturday. The Troublemakers won 70-30 on the worst performing races after huge turnouts with over 1000 people voting in the 300 seat capacity room. People from across the state heard about the Troublemaker slate and turned out to vote in the most contested caucus in the entire convention. Many people showed up to vote for the slate and then left, sometimes not attending anything else at the convention.
The inside run of show was kinda a mess in my opinion due to the high vote volume, lack of crowd moderation, and overall excitement and emotional tension in the room. Things got a little heated for the other slate and they challenged most of the ballots (leading to a HEAVILY prolonged counting process), and some of the opposition slate shed some tears in the room itself. Also was the last minute change from a 2 minute speech to a 1 minute speech time, causing extra chaos.
Because many people were showing up to vote and immediately leaving (often after waiting hours in the line to get in and cast a ballot), not many people were listening to candidate speeches or to elected official speeches, causing a bit of a ruckus there too.
Not sure what else anyone would like to know about, but progressive caucus stays in progressive hands!!! Even some of the State Party elections went against Rusty’s wishes!!
Kayla, thank very much for this. That vote margin was incredible.
The only thing I’ll add is this: when I got there, towards the end of voting, a CDP worker came up to me and asked me if I wanted to verify my voter registration. I told her that there was no need; I knew that I was registered to vote. I think she came by on her own a second time and I gave her the same answer. The third time, she came along with a fellow CDP worker — and they asked me if I had proof with me that was registered to vote. I’ll paraphrase what happened next:
I went and checked the secretary of state’s office — luckily, I had my driver’s license number, which you need to verify your voter registration and the Secretary of State’s office, and luckily this didn’t happen during the period a few months ago where I lost my wallet — and was able to verify. I took a screenshot and then starting asking people in line if they had proof of registration on them. A bunch of them said no. I was worried that, when they had been contacted by the CDP workers, people might have given up and left.
I was wearing my bright fuchsia t-shirt from the Kimberly Ellis election. I went down the line giving a speech, telling people that if they were being denied the change to vote because they could not prove that they were eligible, they should find me and I would help them look up their records.
When I finally got to the registration table, they had the equipment ready to look people up. Great, no problem — but then why didn’t they tell people (and I’m not blaming the people who went out asking people to verify, but rather the people who dispatched them) how to look things up on the Secretary of State’s site themselves? Why risk discouraging people from voting by letting them think that they had violating the voting rules?
I don’t know, but I suspect that discouraging people — and the last in line were disproportionately likely to be Troublemaker State supporters — from voting was the point. And if it turns out not to be, I’m sorry to say that unfortunately the CDP’s track record in election fairness has been so bad that they do not deserve any benefit of the doubt.
I just learned (after a comment in our trash desperately pimping Chumley led me to check LibOC) that Dan wrote a comment about me, which I can’t rebut there, so I’ll do it here:
“[Edited to add: It may seem ironic to people for me to be joining a call for exclusion of state party delegates who endorsed Republicans, given that I was kicked out of party leadership for … endorsing a Republican, Todd Spitzer, for DA. Let me explain the differences. That was a race in which I had supported a Democrat, Brett Murdoch, in the primary — whose candidacy failed in part because another candidate, Lenore Albert, came in later to split the Democratic vote, In other words, I did not support a Republican against a Democrat, but against someone whom I considered a worse Republican Tony Rackauckas, who I had reason to believe would eventually hand over the job to yet another even worse Repulican, Huntington Beach City Attorney Mike E. Gates, who was far young than Spitzer. But the more significant reason was that CDP had no authority for that race! (They justified their move by, essentially, saying that I was on double-secret probation and that their lack of jurisdiction in the race didn’t matter.)”
I was a member of the Executive Committee in 2018. The state party had no jurisdiction over county elections. They didn’t care. There was no clear county bylaw prohibiting this either, in a non-partisan race without a Democrat in the runoff — and I ended up being ousted only because the Chair changes the margin needed for removal from what was in the Bylaws from 2/3 to majority and the Secretary misreported Jeff Letourneau’s abstention as a vote for removal.
What Lenore did when she entered the race was to make it impossible for Murdock to get funding, because his pitch was based on being the sole Democrat in the race. Without funds, he did much more poorly than he would have with them. My opinion is that she knew what she was doing and did it intentionally to ingratiate herself with Rackauckas, who had lots of somewhat lucrative positions to dole out — but as she would no doubt point out I can’t prove it.
Of course it did: Bauman was involved — and he and his mafia — suddenly decided that they didn’t have any power to regulate clubs..
This is the first I’ve heard of this supposedly being related to my being “verbally abusive to other delegates” and I’d be interested in knowing where this occurs in any CDP document. I don’t recall getting a written explanation, just an oral statement that I was on probation so I shouldn’t have done this. As I recall, they gave me something like 3 minutes to defend myself against vague charges and Dan and Lenore spent as much of that time possible filibustering.
Perhaps that stroke was worse than we all thought; go back and edit those typos Vern.
Nice attack on a disability! Chumley is where the milk of human kindness and decency goes to curdle.