The CA-37th Special Election
The cast of characters includes 18 candidates, none of whom should reach 50% of the ballots cast, even in a district that had only a 6% turn-out for its last special election (a school board seat), and three (or four if you count the PDA) factions or figures contesting for control over which two candidates will be in the run-off.
Maxine Waters, in the adjacent CA-35th, is pushing Assemblywoman Laura Richardson, who was elected to the Assembly to fill the seat held previosuly held by State Senator Jenny Oropeza.
Richardson's final mailing landed on the 22nd and reads (in large font) "Oropeza Chose her Own Interests Over Our Kids By Going Missing for 137 Days" and contains this gem "she was absent for 137 days and missed many critical votes on issues affecting the health and safety of California's children".
Oropeza was being treated for liver cancer. Richardson hasn't offered to die or resign if she contracts an illness that causes her to miss some votes that the Democratic majority in the California Assembly wouldn't need unless eight members of the majority suddenly forgot their party affiliation and started speaking in tounges. Ditto for the US House, where 31 Democrats would have to vaporize for Richarson's physical presence to make a whit of difference, and the outlook for the '08 cycle would suggest that Richardson would need to be spiking a large volume of koolaide with cyanide to be the vote that made a difference.
Richardson is being supported by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which is categorically opposed to California entering gaming compacts that allow labor contracts with Indian preference language to exist -- and it wasn't so long ago that Blacks, Hispanics or Women weren't good enough for Federation of Labor affiliated unions to admit or protect.
Diane Watson, in the adjacent CA-33rd, is pushing the daughter of the deceased Congresswoman, Valerie McDonald, who is running on the Southern Baptist / American Taliban platform of virulent hostility towards those who fornicate for reasons other than reproduction. This plays well in the Cults but she passed on a debate at the NAACP Carson-Torrance Branch, where people tend to take civil rights seriously. She claimed she was in D.C., fundraising.
The Morongo Band of Mission Indians have made in independent expenditure of $219,000 for a GOTV push for Jenny Oropeza to counter the endorsement and contributions the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor gave Richardson. Oropeza has voted for gaming compacts, and Richardson won't.
I hope Jenny Oropeza does well. The PDA effort seems misdirected to me, as their candidate won't make the run-off, and the choice is between really bad candidates running as saviours of the (Black) community, in secular and cultist costume, and a decent (Hispanic) candidate who isn't owned by a kind of unionism that has chosen to eliminate Indian hiring preference language from hospitality industry labor contracts where the employer is ... a Tribal corporation that exists by virtue of a Tribal Government.
My family has been in Long Beach, Harbor City, San Pedro, etc. since the 1880s, so I sort of care if we finally have a Hispanic representing a district that was majority or plurality Hispanic until the demographic changes of the Great Depression and Second World War, and is now plurality, tending towards majority Hispanic again.
Comments
What an irresponsible posting!
Show one shred of evidence or one quote for your irresponsible and baseless statement: "the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which is categorically opposed to California entering gaming compacts that allow labor contracts with Indian preference language to exist."
The real question in the compacts is whether Californians working in tribal casinos will have a real right to organize, as they do under compacts ratified in 2004. The compacts pending eliminated these rights and that's why labor is opposing them.
Your twisting of these facts is shameful.
Posted by: Cal | June 26, 2007 06:20 PM
Please read Acorn time for more background, and if you want to provide a framework of your own, please do so. If you need help, try Nathan Newman's blog.
If you want to argue San Manuel Band of Serrano Mission Indians vs National Labor Relations Board then I'll be happy to accomodate you.
In the meantime, got any quotes from anyone at the County Federation of Labor in favor of Indian preference, or Tribal jurisdiction, or collaborating to create a (pan) Tribal labor law? I won't call you names if you don't, but if you don't, you should have a rational why you, or rather thay, don't.
Meanwhile, either Maxine et cie pick up a seat, or they don't, and the polls are just closing in Long Beach.
Posted by: ebw | June 26, 2007 09:38 PM
You argue by red herrings! What does NLRB v. San Manuel have to do with Indian preference? Nothing! In that case, the NLRB ruled that it would take jurisdiction when that Tribe illegally aided a union.
You are the one making the baseless charge about labor's motivations for opposing the compact amendments for a handful of southern California tribes. Predictably, instead of backing up your ridiculous claim, you come up with something else that's not relevant.
Good luck in your blog effort.
Posted by: Cal | June 27, 2007 09:24 PM
I didn't think of it as a red herring, for most of the past decade practitioners who do Federal Indian Law (for tribes) have been concerned with the basic position of organized labor on the jurisdictional issue. Indian preference, or any substantive policy difference, has to originate from a jurisdictional distinction, and, from an Indian perspective, tends uncomfortably towards Rice vs Cayetano.
Since you don't think I'm making an honest critique of some unions (in Maine, all the unions supported the original Penobscot, and the follow-on Passamaquoddy and second Penobscot efforts to get Maine to allow those tribal entities to develop casinos -- without precondition) we're really not going to get anywhere.
Robertson got 37% of an 11% turnout, which is reasonably good and enough to win once. Oropeza got 33%, with almost $400k in independent expenditures for GOTV, which is really, really poor return on investment, and the Morongo Band's political director really should be asking how they failed to be sufficiently effective with that much money in a low turn out contest.
So the bottom line is the set of interests you identify as unconditionally good won, and the set of interests you identify as something less didn't. I've no idea if Oropeza and/or the Morongo Band will recompete the race in 12 months, but I hope they do, and of course I hope they are more effective, as you must hope for the converse.
And good luck to you with ... whatever it is you do.
Posted by: ebw | June 27, 2007 10:07 PM