Calif. G.O.P.’s Dirty Tricks
October 22, 2007
Asian Domestic Violence Spotlighted at the State Capitol: The Assembly Special Committee on Domestic Violence held an Oct. 2 hearing with Committee Chairwoman Fiona Ma, whose campaign against domestic violence began when she was a San Francisco County supervisor. Featured speakers included actress, author and survivor Robin Givens and Mrs. California 2007 Tracie Stafford, a fourth generation victim of spousal abuse.
While domestic violence is a known and well-identified problem in other ethnic communities, the fact that it is a significant problem in the Asian Pacific Islander community came as a surprise to many attending the hearing, including some of the legislators sitting on the committee. Sacramento attorney Alice Wong and local physician Dr. Jennifer Choy co-chair the Prism Project, a nonprofit program under Sacramento’s CAPITOL Foundation. The Prism Project is attempting to bring awareness and early intervention to the API community in Sacramento to hopefully reduce and eliminate this growing problem that already exists at alarming levels in other communities. The compelling testimony by Wong and Choy helped shatter the myth that domestic violence does not exist in the API communities, and pointed to the unique cultural and linguistic problems that make it difficult to address this problem within the community.
The Power Grab: California Democrats were ready to go to battle with California Republicans, who started introducing a ballot measure that would change the way California’s jackpot 55 electoral votes are distributed to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote statewide. California’s “winner take all” system is the norm in the U.S. with the exception of two states, Maine and Nebraska, which have just four and five electoral votes respectively.
Republicans proposed changing California’s distribution of electoral votes by congressional district, instead of statewide popular vote.
If passed, the Democratic presidential candidate could potentially lose between 19 and 22 electoral votes. Even more dangerous, the number of electoral votes the Republican candidate could receive may ultimately help win the presidential election.
But as the initiative came under closer scrutiny, Bob Herbert of the New York Times revealed in his article “G.O.P.’s Dirty Tricks Again” that the law firm involved with this initiative on behalf of the state Republican Party has also been linked to a political committee largely funded by Bob Perry, who contributed million of dollars to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
Remember the dirty tricks of this deceptive campaign that proved to be so damaging to the John Kerry campaign?
Then last week, the press reported that a $175,000 contribution to help qualify this initiative was made by a Rudy Giuliani supporter. Governor Schwarzenegger himself refused to endorse the proposal: “In principle, I don’t like to change the rules in the middle of the game.”
These revelations now have some heavyweight Republican donors backing away from the initiative. Capitol pundits are predicting the initiative is all but dead.
But the ferocity of the Democrats preparing to fight this initiative still remains high, just in case the Republicans continue to pursue this effort in the future.
Up in the Air: The 2008 election was anticipated to help set a record for the growth of the Asian Legislative Caucus. While the caucus will be losing termed-out members Alan Nakanishi and Shirley Horton, there are a number of contenders waiting in the wings, including Wilma Chan and Carol Liu running for the state Senate and Christopher Cabaldon, Mariko Yamada, Paul Fong, Arlie Ricasa seeking Assembly seats, to name a few.
The initiative to change term limits will allow incumbents slated to term out in 2008 to extend their terms.
The chances of this initiative passing looked slim, but the wording is quite clever and implies that this is an anti-legislature move to shorten the terms of the elected members, which will happen in the long term. In reality, in the short term, it will allow the existing leadership and members to retain their seats for additional terms.
Confusing? You bet, and that’s the whole point of the campaign message of the “change term limits” initiative.
The war chest supporting this “change term limits” initiative is made possible by the efforts of the existing leadership of the legislature. The opposition, which opposes any changes in the current term limit statute, will have a difficult time defeating this initiative without adequate funds. With a 50-50 chance of the term limit initiative passing, it makes it difficult for current 2008 candidates to continue their campaigns, as many contributors are taking a wait and posture to see if this initiative passes. But if the initiative fails, these candidates need to be ready on all fronts.
Comments
Got something to say?