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Please help to keep this poor man on the straight and narrow!
Last month, we pointed you towards Phillip Chen’s ad for new staff members, with the admonition that if you applied for the position you should not tell them that you heard about it on Orange Juice Blog. This time, we’re introducing a new position, with the admonition that you should really really definitely not tell them that you read about it on Orange Juice Blog!
The advertised position, you see, is from Assemblyman Tom Daly, sometimes know around these parts as “the Whitest Man in Orange County” (an appellation applied solely because he, as the sole white candidate in the race, nabbed the right to represent the state’s most Latino legislative district. Hey, wonder why Latino turnout in Central County sucked until this year? Here’s your guy!)
The hiring will be for a top policy aide. We’d love to see one of our readers grab onto it, because Daly is … malleable, and a smart and decent person might help to malleate him. Daly had the tied-for-worst Democratic voting record of any Assembly Democrat in the most recent term — which might arguably be considered admirable by some moderates if it represented independent thought rather than responsiveness to conservative and self-serving donors. Daly initially made it into the Legislature based on HUGE independent expenditures from “JOBS PAC,” a creature of Chevron, Philip Morris, and some other rapacious conservative interests that exists mainly to knock left-leaning Democrats out of the running. The illustration above comes from his 2012 primary race against Julio Perez, in which Jose Solorio recruited Michele Martinez to be an unwitting guided missile against Perez to keep him from making the Top Two runoff. (Perez barely lost that primary battle to ambulatory herpes blister Joe “JoJo” Moreno — who has never been wanted by voters but keeps on coming back.)
OJB will keep confidential any leak of information (questions, comments, doodles, grunting noises) during the interview process for this position that bears on whether Daly is looking for someone who is eager to betray the generally held interests of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, including its anti-corruption tenets. Our saying this, of course, makes it harder for him and his staff to pull off that sort of thing in blessed secrecy — but hey, that’s the price of the First Amendment! Might as well use it while we still have it!
Here’s the ad that they’ve posted:
Assemblymember Tom Daly is seeking a qualified individual to provide high-level policy analysis and policy development in his capitol office. Under the direction of the Assemblymember and his chief of staff (COS), this individual will help the Assemblymember pursue his objectives on housing, transportation, parks and other infrastructure policy. Working with the COS and legislative director, this individual will staff bills, review bill coauthoring opportunities, and meet with constituents, legislative advocates, other legislative offices, and with representatives of the Brown Administration. He/she will also analyze legislation authored by other Members, and offer policy analysis on other issues areas as assigned. Candidates must have the ability to manage multiple projects, thrive under deadlines, and work well in a team environment. Salary dependent upon experience. To apply, email resume and brief statement of interest to the Assemblymember’s chief of staff, Rodney Wilson, at Rodney.Wilson@asm.ca.gov.
(Note: I’ve heard some decent things about Rodney Wilson, so this criticism doesn’t extend to him. No, he is not an Orange Juice Blog agent. Really. We are being serious here.)
Note that there is a significant possibility that this position has defeated Anaheim City Councilmember Jordan Brandman’s name on it. (Yes, it would supposedly be based in Sacramento, which would frankly be a good move for Brandman, but my guess is that these days the actual work location for such a position may be negotiable.)
Brandman has been the District Director for Asmb. Ian Calderon in and around Whitter — but if Calderon has looked at the tea leaves surrounding Brandman’s defeat, and decided that his continued presence in the office ill suits Calderon’s heroic efforts to distance himself from the illegal activities of his uncles, then this is exactly the sort of position that you might expect Brandman to receive. The pay is likely decent, the location is good (if he’s in the district office), and the lack of publicly discernible responsibility for work product is fantastic! (Daly got burned, of course, when he hired Brandman as a staff aide to essentially meet with and charm local large donors, then gave him a parting gift of $24,000 in public money to write a report that was first long-delayed and then largely swiped from Wikipedia. That wound remains open, of course –but such a hire would attract a whole lot of new flies. Don’t worry, it probably won’t happen — I’m not that lucky.)
It’s unfortunate that those of us in the progressive and anti-corruption wing of the local Democratic Party have to engage in this sort of tomfoolery (pun not intended) in order to push Daly — who, again, represents the most Latino state legislative district in California! — a little bit closer to being a decent legislator, but that’s just life in OC. One does wonder, though, if any Latino Democrat will run against him in 2018. (At worst, it might take a lot of money away from Chevron and Philip Morris!) We’ll just see how this appointment goes!
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