Building Infrastructure on Local Issues

Guest-blogging at the Cafe San Diego blog today is Murtaza Baxamusa, senior planner, Center on Policy Initiatives. It's a relatively brief, bullet-point rundown of ways in which San Diego has been fiscally irresponsible with its development deals over the past 10 years or so. It's by no means an exhaustive list and it by no means covers everything that's wrong with the given examples (Qualcomm Stadium, College Grove Wal-Mart, Navy Broadway Complex). The real kicker- the part that has implications to everything we do here and everywhere else online- comes right at the end:

The last example illustrates how our officials are sold on the idea that any development benefits the community. Seldom does anyone sit down with a calculator and fill in the costs and benefits columns. The CEO of the downtown redevelopment agency, Nancy Graham, recently told reporters: "We don't get into the financial analysis, and neither does the city."

Yesterday, Francine Busby sent out an email wondering aloud whether San Diego could become "A Democratic Powerhouse". It recounted a recent meeting in which

Party Chairman, Jess Durfee laid out strategic plans to increase and mobilize Democratic voters and elect Democrats who will work for high quality education, energy independence, affordable housing, access to healthcare and other progressive priorities.

All of those, without a doubt, are important tent issues with national, state and local implications. And while I might be unfairly critical, it sounds a lot like what sank Busby in her congressional race. Big, national, non-specific ideas without providing me any inkling of what it would look like day-to-day in my life. San Diego as a Democratic area isn't as crazy as it sounds. There are four congressional districts, 2 Democratic, 2 Republican. The 50th is competitive, which tips the scorecard 2-1-1 if we're talking about demographic makeup. But that also means that the county Democratic party isn't fighting too many tough Congressional races. The County party is going to be involved exclusively in GOTV for state elections because, at least in the near future, that's all the SD Democratic Party will be asked to do from state-level campaigns. So what will it do locally? Assembly, State Senate, City Council, Mayor and offices on down the line need to be strongly contested and/or defended, but when will the party actually take up the cause of accountability?

This is a tricky line for a party to tread. Turning on the people you got elected to be representatives of YOUR party is tough to say the least. But if the Democratic Party isn't the party of accountability, then what else can it be that will ultimately matter? If it isn't the party providing the mechanism to actually get good things done, then as all these young people awake to politics and want to get involved, why would they use the party?

There are lots of reasons why public and party officials would overlook important aspects of this stuff, ranging from the well-meaning to the nefarious. Maybe they have bad advice, or just a flawed perspective on the situation. Maybe they just don't have time to read through everything, and have to delegate to a staffer who misses the boat. Maybe they're looking forward to another nice campaign check from the beneficiaries of their actions. Maybe it's a healthy dose of condescending contempt for the general population. Either way, it's becoming increasingly obvious that the more pressure is placed on government officials, the more responsive they end up being. That applies whether it's blog posts, MoveOn petitions, letters to your Congressperson, organizing primary challenges, or anything in between. The end result is that our government is held mroe responsible and forced to be more responsive.

Now, the stuff in Baxamusa's blog post isn't sexy. It's not exciting, and it isn't the stuff that mass movements are made of. But it's the day-to-day stuff that adds up to quality of life. And it's not that difficult to change. It can be difficult to find an audience for local and state issues at times, but you don't need Obama's million Facebook friends to make a big impact. For the hundreds or thousands of calls that might be required to get noticed on a national issue, I'd imagine getting five or ten people in one day to express an opinion on a San Diego development project would knock the city council right out of their collective socks. It's all a matter of degrees.

Not all places are like San Diego, where the general levels of political awareness and involvement are pretty low. It's not a tough bar to clear if you want to get involved and make an impact. But even in places where civic participation is already a big part of the game, infrastructure gets built by local issues. We chide our candidates to campaign on local issues, because that's what resonates. But too often we forget the implications of such an outlook.

If we want a 50-State Strategy, a 58-County Strategy, generally a party that reflects the people it aspires to represent, local issues ARE the infrastructure. A party that's involved all day, every day is the party who's there to push these issues, because the party that can mobilize people and support their efforts to demand accountability and responsibility from their local government is the party that has the system in place when the national elections come around.

We talk often about changing the party. Not wholesale, not violently or radically (crashingly?), but making it stronger by making it more able to use the power available to it. Right now, too often, our local governments just aren't getting the job done. It's not a partisan problem (members of both parties have shown the ability to be bad at their jobs), but a Democratic Party that is not just progressive, not just people-powered, but people-oriented, can provide the support for people to demand better. And when it comes down to it, that's what I want from my party and it's what I've found more of in blogging: I want my demands to be loud enough to be heard.

Wilkes, Foggo Plead Not Guilty

Answering charges of conspiracy, money laundering, defrauding the public of the honest services of a public official, and in Wilkes' case, bribing a public official, both Brent Wilkes and Kyle "Dusty" Foggo entered pleas of not guilty today.

Both men were free on bond ($2 million for Wilkes, $200,000 for Foggo), and Wilkes' attorney said

that after 18 months of an "unrelenting campaign of leaks," that he and his client were looking forward to answering formal charges.

"We do welcome the opportunity now to be in the courtroom," he said.

Wilkes is up against gifts to Duke Cunningham as well as Foggo and, one would assume, more folks as time goes on.  "The gifts included cash, vacations, computers, meals, tickets to a Super Bowl game and prostitutes" to Cunningham and "gifts, expensive dinners and trips" and the promise of a job to Foggo.

Both men face up to 20 years in prison.  The government is looking for more than $12 million in restitution.

With US Attorney Carol Lam leaving her post tomorrow, still more great news from an unfortunately short term rooting out white collar crime and political corruption.  Here's hoping her legacy at the US Attorney's office will carry on after her departure.

Don't Fence Me...Out

The Save Our Heritage Organization on Friday filed suit in U.S. District Court "challenging the constitutionality of a federal waiver that cleared the way to build a controversial 3.5-mile border fence between San Diego and Tijuana."  While the fence has been challenged on environmental grounds in the past, now it's being challenged to protect the "natural, cultural, and historic resources" of the area.
As one of the plaintiffs explains, "We're no longer challenging the environmental impact statement, because there isn't one," Briggs said. "Now we're just saying you need to follow the law."

The Department of Homeland Security has exercised waivers to avoid federally mandated environmental reports and other impact assessments in building border fences and other security measures.  In this case, what's being challenged is the last link in the 14-mile fence between San Diego and Tijuana that's been gradually coming online since 1994.  While arrests of illegal immigrants have dropped by more than 75% in the decade since the project began, experts and border patrol say that the immigrants have simply moved to Arizona.  Arizona, of course, is not California's problem.

I'm pretty middle of the road when it comes to immigration policy, but one issue that I brought up with people last summer on this subject is that we never seem to have the real discussion.  This isn't really about just enforcing laws.  This isn't really about protecting American jobs.  This is about the depressingly pervasive idea that other cultures lack inherent value.

This can be seen all over the place if you look for it.  For example, some people want English as the official language.  Partly out of some misplaced patriotism, but also because they don't want to deal with people speaking other languages.  It upsets the comfort zone.  People want their comfortable little bubble where things don't get upset and everything is controllable.  And to some degree that's perfectly reasonable.  But that's no way to really live life.  Back in August, I wrote

I want a country that's curious and excited about the myriad ways that people encounter life.  I don't want a country that's so arrogant about its culture that it gets complacent and watches its place in history end.  I want people to look forward to Spanish classes because it opens doors rather than fear complications to an overly-simplified world.

This border fence is an immigration issue, a security issue, an economic issue, a foreign policy issue.  But it's also about how this country relates to the world.  We need open doors because without them, we lose touch with how the world works.  We become George Bush obliviously and/or stubbornly sitting in the White House waiting for his plan to work after the whole world knows it's failed.  It's not a road I want to go down, and hopefully this lawsuit can help slow things down for at least a couple months.

Not an 'Only Mayor' Form of Government

On Monday, the San Diego City Council voted 5-3 to require the mayor (at the moment, the increasingly autocratic Jerry Sanders) to get City Council approval before making cuts to the budget which would affect the level of service provided to residents.

Councilwoman (and two-time almost mayor) Donna Frye laid into Mayor Sanders, reminding people "'It wasn't because there was too much public process' that the city got into its current financial problems, ... 'It was because there was too little public input.'"

Jerry Sanders, for his part, is a bit nonplussed about the whole sharing of power thing, and demonstrated that he isn't above claiming to be the only useful elected official or throwing around allegations of impropriety as long as it never turns out that the recipient is rubber and he is, in fact, glue:

I will ask voters a relatively straightforward question: Which do you prefer, a mayor intent on implementing reforms and maximizing tax dollars, or a city government that fights reforms and is controlled by special interests?

For a bit of context, San Diego has Proposition F on the books, also known as the "strong mayor" prop. This was passed in 2004 in response to the pension funding crisis, and mostly because Jerry Sanders came in promising to fix everyone's problems if everyone would just stay out of his way. With ethics scandals, the pension crisis, and the resignation of Mayor Dick Murphy, people were happy to give up 70 years of the mayor as more of a manager. So Jerry Sanders got his way, and is, as a result, pretty used to getting his way since.

But now, even those who voted against this measure aren't too pleased with how things are working out. Two of the 'no' votes came from Council President Scott Peters and Councilman Kevin Faulconer, who like the idea but not the specific measure. "'One of the things Prop. F did create was a strong-mayor form of government, not an 'only-mayor' form of government,' Peters said."

Now, this is going to likely end up being a protracted and ugly fight. Sanders won't sign this legislation, and the 5-3 vote isn't enough to override him. If the City Council were to override, the mayor has already started talking about putting it on the ballot if he doesn't get his way. On the other hand, if Peters and Faulconer get language that they like, there would be seven votes in favor of dialing back mayoral power.

Sanders, for his part, is rolling out all sorts of straight-from-the-home-office scare tactics, admonishing those who would deign to have an actual public process that the fire department wouldn't be able to respond to big fires without council approval, because service would be impacted too greatly. Quite frankly, if that's the best he's got, I look forward to him talking about more. Lots more. In the meantime, at least the city council is starting to stand up for functional, participatory government.

Update: I almost forgot, hat tip to the Center on Policy Initiatives for reminding me in their email that I wanted to write about this.

A Little Voter Registration With Your Diploma

A new proposal from Assembyman Joe Coto (D-San Jose) would require high school students to register to vote in order to receive their diplomas. The Secretary of State says that roughly 30% of elgible voters in California aren't registered, and the article relates speculation (without numbers, natch) that this gap is larger among younger voters.

Republicans, in their kneejerk, disenfranchising way, have already begun to blast the proposal, claiming that it's politically motivated since young people tend to vote for Democrats. They've also put forth the lame objection that just getting people registered doesn't mean they'll actually vote, so why bother, fretting that "Voting is a right, not a requirement" (Anthony Adams, R-Monrovia).

Anyone who's ever gotten me wound up about voter registration and participation (oddly, not that many. weird...) knows that I'm a hardass about registering people. If you can sign them up for a draft that doesn't exist, you can sign them up to vote if they feel like it. The whole idea that this in any slight way is a problem for the people being registered is absurd, and it's the saddest level of transparency for Republicans to object to this obligatory invitation into the civic process.

And while we're on the subject, how about a little bit more contradiction from the Right on this one? On the one hand, this doesn't actually get anyone to vote, so why bother. On the other hand, this will work to turn out new Democrats, so it's a partisan power grab. In other words, "Hey, you wanna hang out this weekend? No? Well I never liked you anyways. Jerk."

This was covered briefly on NPR earlier, though I can't find a link, and that report cited voter registration experts who said young voters often are discouraged from registering by missed deadlines and a complex process. They also suggested that as major push towards registering young people would expand Latino participation by leaps and bounds.

A recent Gallup poll of the continental United States found that only 7 states had more Republicans than Democrats by self identification. SEVEN. It isn't even a matter of convincing people we're right at this point (maybe it will be again soon, but whatever, that's another bridge), cause we've done that. It's a matter of convincing them that they can and should show up.

So I know, there are no whores, no sex scandals, no evil corporate Blue Dogs. But while Republicans across the country continue to make it more and more difficult for people to vote, California has an opportunity to lead the way in removing a major roadblock. Nobody has to vote, but shouldn't we make sure everyone can?