The two gambling measures, Propositions 26 and 27, during the first week of October, spent $441 million on each side. That’s nearly double the previous record of $226 million in 2020. It will likely prove to be all for naught, as polls show Californians aren’t favoring either measure. Lost in the fight over the two measures is the fact that both represent an expansion of Native American gaming. The two propositions on the November ballot do this by legalizing sports gambling on Native American reservations both in person and online.
As it stands, the California Constitution and state law limit gambling in the state such as sports betting, roulette and games with dice. However, it allows some gambling — in the form of the state lottery, cardrooms, horse race betting and tribal casinos.
Main Differences Prop. 26 changes the California Constitution and state law to allow California’s privately operated race tracks and tribal casinos to offer sports betting. But it bans bets on certain sports, like high school games and games in which college teams participate.
Proponents assert that the initiative contains provisions to enforce state gambling laws and prevent illegal activity. This is stated in reference to “cardroom casinos” and house-backed card games like those in Nevada. However, opponents noted that licensed cardrooms in California can operate legally so long as those operating them didn’t take a percentage of the winnings and the community in which they operated approved of them. The measure, opponents argue, only expands the tribal casinos’ hold on gaming at the expense of municipalities whose budgets rely on cardroom tax revenue.
Also, the regulatory changes prompted by Prop. 26 would initiate an expansion of California’s Private Attorneys General Act. This would allow anyone — including tribal casinos — to sue cardrooms they believe are breaking the law if the Attorney General either fails to bring charges within 90 days or chooses to dismiss the charges without prejudice.
Proposition 27 would legalize online sports betting outside of tribal lands, for anyone over the age of 21. It requires tribes and gambling companies offering online sports betting to ensure payments to the state for specific purposes: first to support state regulatory costs and the remainder to address homelessness and a mental health support account for permanent and interim housing (85%) and nonparticipating tribes (15%) for a tribal economic development account, established by the initiative to provide funds to Native American tribes for expanding tribal government, public health, education, infrastructure and economic development.
The proposition would create a new unit within the California Department of Justice to regulate online sports-betting and investigate illegal sports-betting activities. The amendment would take effect on Jan. 1, 2023.
The proposition also changes the California Constitution and state law to allow sports-betting over the internet and mobile devices. The initiative would see California join 30 other states in allowing bets on athletic events such as football games and non-athletic events like award shows and video game competitions. However, bans will remain on bets on other events such as high school games and municipal elections.
Prop. 27 requires various sports betting payments to go to the state. Tribes and gambling companies with sports-betting licenses must pay 10% of bets made each month to the state, after expenses. These payments would go into a new California Online Sports Betting Trust Fund or COSBTF. COSBTF revenues would first be required to go toward state regulatory costs. The rest would be used for addressing homelessness and gambling addiction programs and for tribes that are not involved in online sports betting.
Those in support of Prop. 27 say this initiative will provide “hundreds of millions” of dollars in permanent solutions to homelessness, mental health and addiction in California. Yet, its opponents say that Prop. 27 caps revenues for homeless programs at “pennies on the dollar” of what online gambling corporations will make. Opponents claim Prop. 27 contains a “promotional bets” loophole. They contend, states that allow this same loophole have seen revenues fall well below what was promised.
Why is this an issue now? Sports betting is an issue now because the U.S. Supreme Court, in a pair of decisions in 2018, struck down a 1992 court decision that outlawed sports betting nationwide with the exception of four states. Long considered a kissing cousin in sin with alcohol and organized crime, gambling has been a target.
The other issue complicating sports betting in California is that tribal groups and cardrooms are opposed to one another. Based on their compacts with the state, tribes assert that cardrooms’ operations are in violation of the tribes’ exclusivity over gambling in the state. Indeed, tribes do have exclusivity over house-banked games, and cardrooms have avoided the issue by theoretically offering only player-banked games. This has led to ongoing litigation between the two groups.
In a 2019 case, three tribal operators sued the state and Gov. Gavin Newsom for failing to prevent card rooms’ offering house-banked games. They argued that this was a violation of the gaming compacts between the state and the tribes, but also the state constitution, which grants exclusivity to the tribes through an amendment approved by voters in 2000.
Further, California is home to some of the most beautiful and historical horse racing tracks in America. Owners of these tracks are powerful stakeholders who do not want to be left behind if an influx of new revenue is going to become available.
Tim McOsker’s official position on community issues isn’t the problem. His relationship to the monied and the politically connected is. Some consider this to be his strength as a candidate for Los Angeles City Council District 15 representative, but a growing number of people like his opponent Danielle Sandoval, consider this a deficit and a potential source of conflicts of interest or loyalty.
Corruption at city hall isn’t always about the dishonest and/or illegal behavior of powerful electeds and other influential people. Or even the inducement to do wrong by unethical and/or unlawful means such as bribery. Corruption at city hall is the departure from the original intent and correct purpose of city hall, which is to serve the citizens of Los Angeles, not the monied elites.
But there are many examples that show that any place where power and influence gather, it is bound to subvert or corrupt decisions made in government at the expense of everyday Angelenos who don’t have money, power and influence to affect their communities.
The history of corruption at LA City Hall goes back more than a century to the Owens Valley water scandal (remember the film Chinatown) and the reforms from the Progressive era that diversified political power in a reformed city charter.
Over the past four decades, Tim McOsker has worked with three of the most prominent and politically connected law firms in the city, firms that have grown to become some of the most prominent [powerful] firms in the country with clientele that range from industry titans and city governments, to Hollywood moguls and music industry scions.
Because of this experience, he is likely one of the most informed and brightest individuals in the room when it comes to policy and leveraging resources to benefit everyday citizens of the 15th District. By that same token, everyday citizens should be concerned about whether their voices will be heard over the clamor of individuals and business entities that have worked with McOsker over the past 35 years vying for his attention and favor if he’s elected.
At the Oct. 5 community forum at San Pedro’s Warren Chapel CME Church, residents who don’t live in San Pedro got a chance to see this at work. Topics ranged from encouraging better relationships between the community and Los Angeles Police Department’s Harbor Division while holding officers accountable in excessive force incidents; from ensuring a collaborative approach to economic development plans to safeguarding communities from oil and gas operations to housing the unhoused without chasing them from one community to the next.
There’s very little daylight between Danielle Sandoval and McOsker in their policy positions. But what stood out during the Oct. 5 candidates’ forum was the depth and specificity of McOsker’s thoughts on development in Watts and arguably the rest of the 15th District.
McOsker spoke of utilizing a tool called the Enhanced Infrastructure District to use tax-increment financing (echoing the ways the defunct Community Redevelopment Agency financed local developments) for new development projects. When Gov. Jerry Brown dissolved local community redevelopment agencies in 2011-12, the city was forced to act on its remaining 19 redevelopment projects before time ran out on properties from North Hollywood to San Pedro. The governor appointed a three-member governor board that included McOsker back when he was still employed by Mayer Brown LLP. It was during the time the Watts Cultural Crescent was made a part of the city’s 50 Parks Initiative — an initiative with the goal of bringing parks to densely populated neighborhoods and communities lacking open space and recreational services.
This was supposed to be the fulfillment of a 55-year dream — the development of an arts-driven community gathering place with the potential to raise property values on par with any budding arts community. The confluence of two factors changed the trajectory of the Watts Cultural Crescent: the need for more housing to stem the tide of rising homelessness and the ending of the CRA which would spell the end of a pot of money to address the issue.
In December 2014, city staff determined that the planned Watts Historic Train Station Visitors Center was instead an opportunity for a transit-oriented mixed-use housing development — a density housing plan stakeholders and residents didn’t ask for. The crescent-shaped swath of land was zoned for public facilities and open space as late as 2017. By 2018, the crescent was a part of the $2.8 million Thomas Safran and Associates deal for a 213-unit senior housing project.
This is important because the Watts Labor Community Action Committee, a nonprofit founded just before the Watts Rebellion in 1965, and formed a development corporation and built a 64-unit housing complex for the formerly incarcerated and the unhoused.
“Sixty-four families live in that complex,” Timothy Watkins, the head of the WLCAC, said in an interview with Random Lengths News last year. “We’ve renovated about 300 units of other property that we already owned to refresh and renew those living conditions and we’ve got close to another 400 units that we’re planning to renovate for ourselves and others,” he said.
The WLCAC wasn’t even in consideration for developing a part of the Watts Crescent. Thomas Safran and Associates, however, is a donor to McOsker’s campaign alongside a few employees of the development firm.
Watkins said they planned to build 2,000 units in Watts on land already owned by the WLCAC. But they’ve been waiting for the right timing. With the development rush that’s occurring all over the city, Watkins believes now is the time to execute the organization’s development dreams.
In the case of the WLCAC, it wasn’t as if no one knew Watkins and his nonprofit organization. It’s just that nonprofit organizations like WLCAC and others aren’t in the pockets of electeds the way developers such as AEG, LINC Housing, or Bold Communities are. Sandoval dinged McOsker for taking oil money, but McOsker denied it and then challenged her to provide evidence that said otherwise.
Maybe McOsker can be forgiven for not realizing Phillips 66 and Vopak are some of the nearly 1,800 donors as of Oct. 10 to his campaign.
If his donor list were organized by city or zip code, the majority would hover around the Port of Los Angeles. Clearly, the corporate power structure of the Port of LA is backing McOsker over Sandoval and this has local environmentalists uneasy.
Sandoval, for her part, doesn’t need to be as knowledgeable and come to the table with the same level of expertise as McOsker. What she did need to do was remind voters that as a woman of color with working-class roots, her origin story is more like the majority of the 15th District.
Throughout the two-hour forum, Sandoval referenced her story as a teenage single mother who had to figure things out after her child’s father was murdered.
Indeed, one of the first questions posed to the candidates was in regard to the violent LAPD detention of a Harbor City teen last month after filming another arrest. That it happened at an LAPD-sponsored Summer Night Lights event intended to bring the department and community members closer together shocked community members. At the forum, the question was asked: What would you do to support holding Harbor Division accountable when there are excessive force issues on community members?
McOsker gave a good answer. He noted that Summer Night Lights is designed to create safe spaces for kids and that that incident was the exact opposite of what we try to promote at events like Summer Night Lights. McOsker went on to note that in cases of excessive force, he would call it out and look to make sure that the incidents are fully investigated and that the department and officers are held accountable for acts that are illegal.
However, Sandoval called out the hypocrisy of politicians who on the one-hand claim they would call for accountability in abuse cases but then raise defund the police fears when actual transparency and reforms are called for.
Sandoval did this by demanding an apology from McOsker for spreading rumors that she wanted to defund the police. She called the rumors irresponsible and an example of fear-mongering in our communities.
McOsker for his part didn’t deny the accusation, but said in reply that his campaign relies on public information and that each candidate has a record and a history of serving our communities.
“So it is relevant to make sure we rely upon our votes, records or actions by each one of us. So I will stick with the truth and verifiable information for anything I may say during my campaign,” he said.
Later, the question was posed to the candidates; what would they do to ensure African Americans get some of the contracts connected to the port and other economic hubs throughout the district?
McOsker said he would ensure that there’s verifiable local hiring with any project or development in the district and prevent situations where companies agree to local hiring but do another [thing] later in the development process. He also said his administration will not move forward with city projects unless there’s real inclusion of African American and Latino owned companies and women, veterans and disabled persons owned companies “to make sure that we are bringing equity to the goal.”
But Sandoval, with a quick jab, retorted, “Great answer. But I don’t understand how that can happen when you’re beholden to a lot of developers who are gentrifying our communities and taking away small businesses,” reminding the audience, (who by the way were largely African American and Latino), of McOsker’s relationships, connections and monies to which McOsker is likely beholden.
By the end of the candidate forum, it became clear that this race was about whose voices will be heard the loudest in the next council person’s office; which candidate can be trusted to protect the interests of the entire district.
McOsker still has a campaign war chest that is more than ten times the size of Sandoval’s. Since the LA Times wage theft allegations from Sandoval’s former employees, the San Pedro Chamber has been mounting a fierce campaign to wring from her the endorsements she has. We have also heard reports that the San Pedro Chamber has been bullying chamber members to remove Sandoval posters from their windows.
Sandoval’s candidacy comes with baggage. Particularly the wage theft allegations as reported in the Los Angeles Times during her short stint as a restaurateur eight years ago. To be clear, the problem with McOsker candidacy isn’t that he’s not qualified enough or doesn’t have the skill sets and relationships. It’s clear that he does. The problem is that in the 113-year history of this district, the only voices that counted were those connected to money and power, whether connected to downtown Los Angeles or the Port of Los Angeles.
Facing existential environmental threats, California is “the canary in the coal mine”
San Pedro will soon be host to an important documentary on the problems with California’s watershed areas and how to fix them, California’s Watershed Healing. A special screening will be held at 4 p.m. Oct. 15 at the Warner Grand Theatre in downtown San Pedro. Audiences will be enlightened about the conditions of Southern California’s forests and watersheds and how to heal them.
The National Integrated Drought Information System or NDIS reports that 99.76% of California is experiencing moderate exceptional drought and 43.2% of California is in extreme to exceptional drought. NIDIS is a multi-agency partnership that coordinates drought monitoring, forecasting, planning and information at national, state, and local levels across the country.
In the midst of this ongoing shortage of water, activist, director and executive producer Jim Thebaut’s latest documentary goes beyond reporting the dark, dangerous state of the world’s environment to, rather, focus on reasonable solutions.
Thebaut is the president and founder of The Chronicles Group. The international nonprofit prides itself on “tak(ing) an aggressive, issue-and-solution-based approach to documenting these wide-ranging and urgent challenges humankind is facing.”
This latest work is the sequel to Thebaut’s documentary, Beyond The Brink California’s Watershed, which aired on PBS It explained watersheds, their vital importance and the serious environmental problems they are facing.
Thebault says this about California’s Watershed Healing:
“Water Utilities and the Sanitation District within the LA region have recognized the reality that imported water from Northern California and the Colorado River will soon be unavailable. (The reasons transcend drought, climate crisis, population growth and lack of adequate infrastructure and regional planning).
“[This] screening encompasses the Sanitation District, WRD, Metropolitan Water District, LADWP, West Basin and other Southern California utilities collaborating to implement water reuse with the objective of complete water independence.
“It’s a unique, historical, and a great, inspirational story.”
Water utility companies rarely step up and sponsor events like this screening and discussion that Thebaut and his colleagues have arranged. That is a testament to how important this documentary is to all Southern Californians.
California’s Watershed Healing has garnered praise from a number of sources. Daniel Keppen, executive director of the Family Farm Alliance, said, “…overall, I think this is excellent, and it’s right in line with what our position has been on the need to restore our forests so they can function the way they once used to, particularly regarding water supply yield … Great content, and awesome imagery.”
Watershed healing is an important national security issue. Former secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano says, “It’s climate security, water security, food security … ensuring that those things are adequately taken into account and planned for is an unmet challenge, I would say, in the United States.”
“My approach to doing documentaries is to take the audience to some place they’ve never been before, and educate and inform them,” said Thebaut, whose public speaking engagements have included the United Nations and the United States Congress.
The Chronicles Group is the result of Thebaut’s understanding the need for world policy for human sustainability. Thebaut is an Army Veteran and has earned two bachelor’s degrees and a masters. He created and produced his first documentary, A Tale of Two Cities, while studying at the University of Washington. The documentary compared and contrasted Southern California to the Puget Sound region. The goal was to keep Seattle from repeating the ecological mistakes made in Orange County and the San Fernando Valley.
As a pioneer during the ’70s, Thebaut created the first programmatic environmental statement in the U.S. His findings regarding proposed nuclear power plants near Seattle resulted in the withdrawal from the proposal. Through public education projects, documentaries, and commercial films, he has made an impact in helping bring awareness to issues such as illegal toxic waste dumping and toxicity of the human race, among other things.
Thebaut persists in his drive to inform the world and initiate positive movement where his work continues to shape holistic global sustainability policies.
It’s time for Southern Californians to get informed about what their water utilities are doing to protect them from inevitable shortages of water. Attend Oct. 15, for a screening of California’s Watershed Healing and to hear a discussion by local water agencies on drought-proofing California’s water future.
Time: 4 p.m., Oct. 15 Cost: Free Details: https://tinyurl.com/Ca-Watershed-Healing and www.drought.gov Venue: Warner Grand Theatre, 478 W. 6th St., San Pedro
Number one is not associated with the dramatic. However, in the case of redistricting, the once-a-decade process of redrawing election lines to more fairly distribute power, the one seat lost by California led to a map that required many districts to be shuffled around to compensate. Generally speaking, when a district is added, there is an obvious area where population growth is pronounced, which has been the case for most of California’s history, right until the state hit its peak population in 2019. So when it came time for the 2020 census, it was found that the state’s population had not grown by more than 1% since 2004. This led to losing a house seat in Congress, because while California’s population growth was flat, the population growth in other states, such as Texas, continues to gallop ahead. San Pedro and the rest of the Dominguez/Los Angeles Harbor Area in the 44th congressional district remained mostly the same. Conversely, in Long Beach, the fallout of this is seen firsthand. What had been the partial constituencies of three congressional district seats 47, 38 and 40, were redrawn to be includedin the newly formed 42nd District seat.
Looking into the history of the seat, before now it was all the way in Riverside County, being the seat of towns like Corona, Murrieta, and Lake Elsinore. Largely rural, it was the rare safely conservative seat in California, held consistently by conservative Gary Miller, followed by Kevin Calvert, since 2002. Now safely nestled into Long Beach, it seems all but certain that soon-to-be former mayor Robert Garcia will be taking the spot. He nearly won the primary outright, missing it by 0.4%. His opponent, Republican John Briscoe, a member of the Ocean View Board of Education, is behind 20 points and has only failed to draw new supporters from the Democrat (and one Green party candidate).
Seat 47 shares the most geographic overlap with new seat 42, the former holder being Rep. Alan Lowenthal. In terms of actual people, come November it will be the constituents of Lowenthal who will largely now be represented by Robert Garcia. Worry not for the Lowenthals, however, as they’re a comfortable little political dynasty in their own right. Alan and ex-wife Bonnie (who ran against a non-incumbent Garcia for Long Beach mayor in 2014) both retired from politics in favor of our current assemblyman, Patrick O’Donnell in assembly seat 70. Instead, the pair are helping to ensure the rise of their son, Josh Lowenthal, who boasts a well-funded campaign, running in nearby assembly seat 69 in Anaheim. Power begets power, name recognition begets name recognition, and so whenever you start to scratch the surface of politics in America, you find for every big-name political dynasty you get tens of smaller ones, your Hahns, Bontas, Webers, etc. These then get backed by wealth dynasties, Gettys, Fischers, Pritzkers, etc. Plenty of dynasties of course do a little bit of both, resulting in politics having similar names popping up over and over, despite the idea that we are a meritocratic democracy.
With an easy path to victory, Garcia will almost certainly be headed to Capitol Hill come November. His record is that of the marginal progressive that is becoming ever more common in California politics. Pro-union, pro-queer rights, an advocate for universal healthcare and for halting climate change, but always simply content to work at bettering the margins, never adopting a plan that will rock the boat or require a major shift in behavior by anyone, neither those in the margins or those in power. Garcia and politicians like him, see Pete Buttigieg, and Gavin Newsom, seem to be the mainstream Democrat answer to more hardline young progressives such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Cori Bush. The question of the next few election cycles will be if that is enough. As wealth inequality continues to go up, will working in the margins and not fundamentally upsetting those in power be enough to retain the consent of those you represent? If not, there may be a real race in seat 42 in years to come.
Democracy itself is on the ballot this November: 299 election deniers are on the ballot—more than half of all Republicans running for congressional and state offices, according to an exhaustive investigation by the Washington Post. Some, like Jim Marchant of Nevada, are running to be Secretary of State, where they could block the will of the voters in 2024, just as Trump wanted in 2020.
“If get all of our Secretaries of State elected around the country like this, we take our country back,” Marchant said, standing next to Trump at a rally on October 8.
But the House of Representatives may be even more crucial, for that’s where real solutions can be forged if Democrats can defy historical trends and keep their majority — and it’s where Republicans have already promised to impeach Joe Biden just for beating Donald Trump if they do not. A handful of Southern California races could be crucial in determining who controls Congress — problem-solving Democrats or mischief-making Republicans.
So meet Will Rollins, Christy Smith, and Jay Chen running to unseat Republicans in three of the tightest races. Rollins is running explicitly against extremism and disinformation, Smith is running on reproductive freedom, and Chen, who’s focused on consensus-based policies his opponent has abandoned, was just targeted with a photoshopped red-baiting ad. He pushed back hard, but what comes next is anyone’s guess.
From left to right: Christy Smith, Jay Chen and Will Rollins, all Democratic candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives. Photos courtesy of their respective campaign websites
Stopping Extremism “My campaign is about stopping extremism,” Rollins told Random Lengths. “We need a legal framework to end profit-driven lies and division, so Americans can start to agree on basic facts again.”
Rollins is running for Congress in the Inland Empire against 15-term election-denier Ken Calvert, but his website’s front page video ad starts with a shot of him in front of the Vincent Thomas Bridge, putting the fight to save American democracy right on our front doorstep.
“I want to tell you a story,” Rollins says, in the video shot last year. “Last March the U.S. Navy sent a ship called the Mercy here to the Port of Los Angeles. The Mercy is a massive floating hospital and it was here to help if our ICUs became overrun with COVID cases.”
Just days after the Mercy docked, a train engineer attempted to derail his train toward the Mercy because he thought it was part of a government conspiracy.
“As a national security and terrorism prosecutor, I worked on that case,” Rollins explains. 9/11 is what first motivated him, “But today some of our biggest threats are right here at home,” and that train engineer is just one example. “This is a systemic problem…. But we can stop it,” he argues, going on to spell out how. And once we can agree on basic facts again, “there is a lot of work that we need to do together.”
It’s a relatively straightforward argument for a serious problem-solving approach that seems well-suited to a swing district electorate.
The Power of Branding But that’s not how such elections are won according to political analyst Rachel Bitecofer, who was the first to accurately predict the size of the Democrats’ blue wave in 2018, based in part on a theory of “negative partisanship” that warned of similarly likely red wave this year. As she explained on The Last Word in 2019, after my Salon interview drew attention to her:
Under my model, Democrats win the White House in 2020, and then in 2022, they’re going to have a very tough electoral cycle because turnout for Democrats will go back to normal. And because Democrats have a poor electoral strategy, they’re going to compound that problem, probably by not appealing to Democrats to get them to the polls.
To address that problem, Bitecofer switched from academic polling analysis to forming her own super PAC, StrikePac, to run the sorts of ads that Democrats needed to win. Her premise was simple, she told me in June 2021:
The GOP doesn’t really run anything except a marketing/branding op and it’s predominantly a branding offensive against the left. They don’t spend a lot of time on their own brand, but they do spend a lot of time in their messaging on discounting, discrediting, and debasing our brand.
One of the first ads she released, “Fuse,” focused directly on Trump’s threat to democracy. Its purpose was also simple. “It’s flipping that GOP tactic over to our side,” she explained. “It’s attacking the Republicans to make a conversation about their anti-democratic power grab.”
Roe Reversal Changes Landscape Bitecofer has had some success in influencing others, but not nearly enough to counter the 2022 red wave she saw coming. But then “The Roe reversal happened,” she told me last week. “It triggered a negative partisanship emotion on the left side, the in-party’s side of the electorate, because it taps right into fear, threat and hate, and it’s visceral,” she said. “If there had been no policies in America that made abortion illegal, it might’ve been a little bit different,” but because of all the laws on the books that kicked in right away, and some headline-grabbing cases, “It has allowed Democrats to capture or catch up that deficit of enthusiasm.”
Smith, who lost by just 333 votes in 2020, was already laser-focused on reproductive freedom. In an ad released last December, she said, “I will be damned if I nearly died having both of [my daughters], only to have them see the day where they would become second-class citizens, where their rights to their own health care, freedom, and reproductive choice is decided by people who see this as a political narrative, more about control than freedom.”
“Garcia’s proposal would outlaw abortion in every state even in cases of rape incest or health of the mother, an ad released in mid-September points out. “He even voted against keeping birth control legal.”
Issue Ownership While abortion has played a key role in shifting campaign dynamics, polls still show that the economy remains an even higher concern—and that Republicans hold an advantage, despite a generations-long record of better economic performance under Democratic presidents—a point hammered home in another Strike PAC ad, using sports imagery to illustrate their superior performance on economic growth, job creation, and even the stock market.
This disconnect reflects what political scientists call “issue ownership,” Bitecofer explains. “If you ask these average normal Americans, ‘What do you think of when we say, Republican?’ They’re going to say ‘low taxes and the economy.’ That’s the Republican Party’s brand. And for Democrats, it’s healthcare and education.” And because of that, for decades Democrats haven’t wanted to talk about the economy. Which is a huge problem on two counts, she says. First, “The economy is always going to be the number one issue,” except briefly after 9/11, “and you can’t cede ownership of the most important issue.” And second, “We haven’t fought, we haven’t made our case that actually, no, the economy is better under Democrats.” This failure to fight puts Democrats at a disadvantage, when Republicans are the ones who ought to be, she notes: “They voted against the Inflation Reduction Act [IRA], they have absolutely zero plan to deal with inflation,” yet Democrats as a party—with too few exceptions—aren’t driving this point home.”
Jay Chen to some extent has, which the LA Times took note of when they endorsed him. His opponent, Michelle Steele, “would not even support bipartisan pro-business legislation, including the infrastructure bill and the CHIPS Act that provides federal funding to help make the U.S. semiconductor industry more competitive with industries in China and other countries,” they wrote.
Not only would Chen have supported those bills, he has positions on infrastructure, education, small business and healthcare that are all consensus-oriented, reflecting his background as a community college trustee, former school board member, and Navy Reserve officer. At a recent community forum, he said, “One of the things I value most about my service in the military is the fact that we don’t discuss politics or party. We work together to accomplish the mission, and we need more of that that in Washington DC right now.
Dirty Tricks Steele didn’t attend that forum—she’s repeatedly avoided engaging in person with high-information voters, while toxically targeting the less engaged, repeating a dirty trick she used to win election in 2020: sending an unfounded mailer, in Vietnamese, to “Little Saigon,” the largest concentration of Vietnamese Americans in the country, accusing her Democratic opponent of ties to Communist China. It worked against Harvey Rouda in 2020, but her hamfisted followup against Chen drew swift condemnations. She portrayed Chen in a classroom holding Karl Marx’s “The Communist Manifesto,” alongside images of communist figures Mao Zedong, Vladimir Lenin and Ho Chi Minh, with “Jay Chen invited China into our children’s classroom” is written in Vietnamese on the chalkboard.
Another flying accused him of “working for China” and claimed his “campaign was bankrolled by a donor in communist China,” a reference to his brother, an American citizen working as an investment banker in Hong Kong in 2012, when he supported an Chen in an earlier run for Congress.
Misrepresenting Chen’s brother as a sinister communist Chinese donor tells you all you need to know about Steel’s campaign. But just to be clear, the ‘China in classrooms’ charge refers to Chinese language classes, indirectly funded in part by the Chinese government, as part of program begun by the Bush Admnistration in 2006. Hundreds of such classes were funded across the US at the time Chen voted to approve them.
Chen defended himself by pointing to his grandmother’s escape from communist China and his status as a “Naval Reserve officer with top-secret security clearance,” backed up by other Asian-American Democrats with similar credentials.
But Republicans have been making this same sort of baseless accusation since Richard Nixon first ran for Congress in 1946, so it remains to be seen if it works. National defense, the economy, and crime are all “daddy party” brand issues that play in Republican’s favor, regardless of the facts, unless Democrats push back in ways they’ve habitually avoided. This cycle, attacks on Democrats over crime have been fueled by a dramatic spike in coverage by Fox News.
But here again, Democrats are much stronger than they realize. Not only are current crime rates well below where they were pre-Obama, a pair of reports earlier this found that red state murder rates were much higher than blue states and that Democratic-run cities spend more on police and employ more of them than Republican cities do. Specifically, the “The Red City Defund Police Problem” report found that:
The 25 largest Democrat-run cities employ 75% more police officers than the 25 largest Republican-run cities, on a per capita basis.
The 25 largest Democrat-run cities spend 38% more on policing than the 25 largest Republican-run cities, on a per capita basis.
This shouldn’t be surprising. It is, after all, Trump-supporting Republicans who assaulted the Capitol on January 6, injuring 140 police officers. Trump himself saw nothing wrong with that assault and he’s still the dominant force inside the GOP. Which is Bitecofer thinks its great that he’s been dominating the news since the FBI search turned up thousands of stolen documents in his Mar-A-Lago office, more than 100 of which were classified.
“He has created, legally, a situation where the new cycle can’t help but be about him constantly,” Bitecofer said. “And here’s the thing: that’s good for us.” Though its unfortunate it disrupted Democrats’ opportunity to promote the Inflation Reduction Act, it’s a trade she would gladly take.
A Brand Ambassador There’s another candidate I I haven’t mentioned: Katie Porter. “If Katie Porter was running in all these California districts then I would be very confident we could hold 218 [a majority] in the House,” Bitecofer said. “She’s what I call a brand ambassador,” meaning “ Katie understands the best goal for her in a district like she faced was to make the brand popular.”
She’s done that, in part, by very specifically picking fights with special interests who harm her constituents, in ways that ordinary citizens find easy to understand.
The challenge for Democrats is that they’ve got to do both—draw a sharp line about what they’re against, while bringing together as many people as possible to find common ground. This is how Rollins sees it: First, he says, “If we truly care about our democracy – if we truly care about something as fundamental as the freedom to choose our leaders – we cannot stop fighting against the far-right forces and broken information system that are encouraging more extremism and attacks.” It’s a systemic problem, he argues: “Extremists, Big Tech and media outlets are profiting from spreading division based on lies, even as they erode our democracy and make it easier for adversaries like China and Russia to exploit us. We need to end this cycle of division-for-profit by updating our laws to break down information bubbles and propaganda networks, to require transparency in advertising, and to create a modern Fairness Doctrine that protects the public’s right to be informed.”
But then, “When we can cut through the noise and agree on the basic facts, we all – Democrats, Republicans and Independents – have more in common than what divides us,” he argues. “At this crucial moment in our history, America needs to elect a new generation of leaders with specific plans that will put an end to the toxic divisions that threaten our democracy and prevent us from solving problems together. I aim to be one of those leaders.”
I thought that it was just San Pedro that had reverted to a form of cultural Balkanization when I attended the Dalmatian American Club fish luncheon a few weeks back. The room was divided by followers of either Tim McOsker or Danielle Sandoval, both competing to replace Joe Buscaino to represent LA City Council District 15. There was a cold serving of veiled hostility in the room that could be tasted along with the mostaccioli and exquisite salmon. Social snubbing and snide remarks reminded me of the “mean girls” from high school. Except these were supposed to be the adults in the room.
This factionalism only became more pronounced when the Sandoval campaign was exposed in the Los Angeles Times for an eight- year-old wage dispute claim that came out just two months before the election. It appears someone has been doing their opposition research and leaked it just in time. My skepticism is heightened.
In the following days, I was lobbied by people who normally don’t ever call me, asking me to change my endorsement of Sandoval. Like Elise Swanson, the executive director of the San Pedro Chamber of Commerce who wrote, “As the leading voice for small business in San Pedro, we are asking you to take a hard look at the candidates in this race before you vote.”
As a longtime member of this organization and a former board member, I can’t recall this chamber or any chamber of commerce standing up for worker rights. Ever!
And then came the verbal attacks against this newspaper: “You’re dividing the community.” To which I replied, “to the contrary.” What we have promoted so far is a competitive race. I’ve witnessed this community become as engaged in this race since Janice Hahn first ran for office more than 20 years ago. When I founded this newspaper, I promised this community a democratic horse race rather than a coronation by the power elites of San Pedro who have for decades exercised overarching control of CD15 politics and politicians.
Looking back at more than 50 years of council races, there hasn’t been one council rep that wasn’t from San Pedro. The worst ones have been those who claim they were born and raised here, as if their place of birth was a qualification for office in and of itself.
The bad behavior of this tribalism has even filtered out from the McOsker campaign by his supporters who have threatened businesses that posted Sandoval signs with threats of boycotts of their business or worse. This is such juvenile bad politics that is so anti-free speech that I am left with just anger and disrespect for those who participate in it. Political campaigns should be the most protected form of speech in America and I’ll defend that form of freedom, no matter who you are supporting — except the hate speech coming from Nury Martinez or Steve Bannon who, by the way, showed up in Torrance recently to give a keynote speech to the Globalist Puppet Masters conference Oct. 2.
I mean really, the most despised MAGA conspirator shows up in our area and there is hardly a peep out of the people who are screaming the loudest about a Latina running for office because what? An unresolved, eight-year-old wage claim, or is it that she’s not a part of the Pedro power structure?
Not unlike the upheaval in LA City Hall over the leaked racial slurs, the real issue was not the words but the intent of racial gerrymandering of districts. Not that I dismiss the impact of words. But if you live anywhere in LA, you’ve heard them. There’s at least one derogatory word for each of the 140 nationalities who live here. This leak exposed a serious kind of tribalism on the citywide stage that goes beyond prejudice, but is truly racist. And it exposed the most damaging hypocrisy of some of the city hall elites — Nury Martinez is a victim of her own prejudices. And she endorsed McOsker too.
The resulting uprising against her, Kevin de León, Gil Cedillo and Ron Herrera of the LA County Federation of Labor was quick if unexpected, but had they been MAGA Republicans they would have had no shame.
The curious part of all of this is how quickly or deeply this sense of tribalism has become in an era of populist MAGA hostilities and a nation facing autocratic insurrection — the only way that American democracy, even in Los Angeles, will be defeated is by its own failure to live up to and defend its creed of liberty and justice for all. And that includes people on opposing sides not denigrating themselves with the use of hate speech and bullying threats.
On October 22, the City of Carson and various organizations will join the entire community in honoring the life’s work and legacy of Larry Itliong – a Filipino American labor leader and organizer.
The day’s event will be held at Veterans Park in Carson. Youth winners, elementary through high school, of the Larry Itliong Essay and Poster Contest, will also be announced during the event.
The day will culminate with a dinner at 6 p.m. to honor the labor awardees. Attorney General Rob Bonta is set to deliver an inspirational message. As a former assembly member, Bonta authored Assembly Bill 7 in 2015 that designated Oct. 25 to commemorate Larry Itliong. AB 7 also encouraged public schools to teach about Itliong’s life and contributions to California.
One of two Larry Itliong Labor Awardees is Gloria Caoile, a founding member of the Asian Pacific American Women Leadership Institute. She was also a founding member of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance and has served on the boards of several civil rights groups including the Filipino American Civil Rights Advocates and the National Federation of Filipino American Associations.
The labor organization receiving the Larry Itliong Awards is the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance or APALA, AFL-CIO. APALA is the only national organization of Asian American and Pacific Islander or AAPI workers. APALA works to defend and advocate for the civil and human rights of AAPIs, immigrants and all people of color, and continues to develop ties within international labor organizations, especially in the Asia-Pacific Rim.
The Founders Award is being presented to former council member Elito M. Santarina. In 2010, Santarina introduced the resolution to the Carson City Council to establish a day to honor Filipino American labor leader Larry Itliong. Santarina was determined to spread awareness of the man whose contributions to the farm worker movement and the eventual creation of the United Farm Workers, which have long been overshadowed. The resolution that ultimately passed established Oct.25 as Larry Itliong Day. In 2018, Larry Itliong Day was declared as a holiday in the City of Carson.
Carson became the first U.S. city to recognize Oct. 25, Itliong’s birthday, as Larry Itliong Day. Four years later, former California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill requiring the governor to annually proclaim October 25 as Larry Itliong Day.
“The City of Carson is the first city to recognize the contributions of labor union leader Larry Itliong. We are proud to have this annual event and proud to have been instrumental in the movement to get Assembly Bill 7 passed in Sacramento recognizing October 25th as Larry Itliong Day throughout California,” said City of Carson Mayor Lula Davis-Holmes.
In 1965, Larry Itliong led the successful “Great Delano Grape Strike” to protest the low wages and miserable working conditions. In 1966, he led the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee and merged with the National Farm Workers Association led by Cesar Chavez to form the United Farm Workers union.
In 1970, Larry Itliong founded and became the president of the Filipino American Political Association or FAPA, the first national political Filipino American organization and a crucial alliance between Filipino professionals with 30 active chapters throughout the United States.
‘Stronger Together in CommUNITY and Heroism’ theme was inspired by Larry Itliong’s leadership with the Delano Grape Strike of 1965. What he did to start the farm labor movement in this country is a great example of standing up for what’s right, using your voice, coming together in unison to facilitate positive change.
Time: 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. Cost: Free Details: For more information about the Larry Itliong event, please call (310) 847-3570. Venue: Veterans Park, 22400 Moneta Ave., Carson
SACRAMENTO— Building on the administration’s roadmap with California community colleges and compacts with the University of California and California State University, Gov. Gavin Newsom Sept. 30 announced the signing of legislation to boost graduation and transfer rates and offer debt cancellation at community colleges.
The bills signed today will:
Ensure that students attending California community colleges enroll directly into transfer-level math and English courses, if their program requires it or they are seeking to transfer.
Expand supervised tutoring offered for foundational skills and transfer-level courses.
Offer debt cancellation to encourage students to re-enroll and enroll at community colleges, building on budget appropriations.
SAN PEDRO — Assemblymember Mike A. Gipson, CA-64th District, officially delivered a check for$6.7 million to the National Museum Of The Surface Navy at Battleship IOWA to build the Freedom of the Seas park pavilion.
Click here to view the check presentation ceremony in its entirety:
The event was hosted by Battleship IOWA board of trustees chairman Bruce DD Mac Rae and featured speeches from Sen. Steven Bradford, San Pedro Chamber of Commerce CEO Elise Swanson, Port of Los Angeles senior communications director Arley Baker and LAUSD board member Tanya Franklin-Ortiz.
LONG BEACH — To advance its zero-emissions goals, the Port of Long Beach has joined the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems or ARCHES, a public-private partnership formed to help capture newly available federal funding to assist in developing a robust renewable hydrogen market in California.
The partnership was celebrated Oct. 6 during a launch event at the port administration building attended by officials from the port, City of Long Beach, the governor’s office of business and economic development, the University of California office of the president, labor organizations, Renewables 100, and state and local officials.
ARCHES will serve as the lead applicant for California’s bid to win funding for a hydrogen hub under the U.S. Department of Energy’s Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs or H2Hubs program. Funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the H2Hubs program will be one of the largest investments in the history of the Department of Energy.
