By Andre Verdun

On November 19th, 2008 the California Supreme Court agreed to consider a legal challenge by several groups who are contesting the Constitutional validity of proposition 8 along with the legal status of same sex married couples that have entered into a legal marriage during the time same sex marriage was a recognized fundamental right.

Six of the seven Justices agreed to review the issue, at the urging of both the “Yes” and “No” on 8 campaigns, of whether or not Proposition 8 is an amendment to the California Constitution, as ProtectMarriage.com has insisted, or a revision to the Constitution as urged by the opponents Prop 8.
Joining in the argument that Prop 8 was an unconstitutional revision is, among others, the City and County of San Francisco, the City and County of Los Angeles, and 40 members of the California State Legislator who filed an amici brief (“friend of the court”) stating that Proposition 8 should be struck down as invalid because it usurped their power as a legislative body by bypassing their duty to vote on the Constitutional revision.

The campaign for No on Prop 8 sought the courts answer to this identical question in the weeks leading up to the election, but as expected, the Court denied review for lack of “justiceability”; that is, the case was not ripe for review.

The specific question before the court now is: Whether taking away a single fundamental right from a protected class of people is a revision to the California Constitution? This particular question has never been before the Supreme Court because the State of California has never sought before Proposition 8 to single out a classified group of people and change the Constitution to eviscerate a fundamental right.

While this specific question before the California Supreme Court is unique, the court has on 9 previous occasions ruled on the issue of “revision/amendment” analysis, of which in three cases the California Supreme Court overturned a Constitutional initiative as an illegal revision. Under Article XVIII of the California Constitution, an amendment is something that adds to the Constitution in a way that better carries out the purpose of the document within the lines of the original instrument, while a revision is something that changes the function or structure of the document or changes the basic governmental plan.

Therefore, the No on 8 campaign will argue that allowing the majority to simply vote away a fundamental right from a protected class of citizens changes directly the substantial entirety of the Constitution by not only altering the 5 provisions the Court said required them to grant same sex couples the fundamental right to marry in In Re: Marriage Cases, but also revises the entire “spirit” of the Constitution by stripping away the Courts duties to protect minority groups and protected citizens from discrimination against them by the Government and majority rule.

The Court will also determine the legal status of the marriages that took place before Proposition 8’s passage; however, because no brief has yet to be filed by either side as to the legal arguments for their respective side, one could only guess as to the legal arguments to be urged by either side. The “No on 8” group will likely argue that there are serous state and federal Constitutional issues with stripping away a vested liberty interest away from citizens without proper procedural due process of law, which requires formal proceedings before any liberty interest can be taken away. Also, the “No” campaign will argue that the marriage ban cannot be retroactive because there was no language in the Constitution that specifically applied it retroactively. The Yes Campaign will argue that the plain statement of Proposition 8 would require that no marriage, whether legal before to November 4th, 2008 or not, cannot be recognized as valid in the State of California.

All briefing is due by January 15th and the Court Press Secretary says that oral arguments could be held as early as March 2009.

The protracted count is finally over, and it appears that Hannah-Beth Jackson’s outsize effort to defeat Phony Tony Strickland has come up just short. With only a few hundred ballots left to count, Strickland currently maintains a 903 vote lead out of 414,587 ballots cast. That margin is .2%: well within the margin necessary for a mandatory recount request by the Jackson campaign. Unfortunately, as the pro-Strickland blog Policy Report correctly notes, such a recount effort would almost certainly be insufficient to net Hannah-Beth the votes she would need to overtake Strickland’s lead, even were the final votes to close the gap to 700 or 800:

According to some experts, a recount of all 400,000+ ballots might yield a variance of 150 votes in one direction or the other at great cost. Gaining 800 votes in an election of this size is next to impossible.

Hannah-Beth has done the gracious thing and conceded the race:

With the latest totals showing Strickland hanging on to the lead by a little over 900 votes, Jackson said a victory was not mathematically possible.

“I’m disappointed, but I think that it’s pretty clear at this point in time, we’re not going to be able to catch up,” she said.

Strickland is due to be sworn in Monday in Sacramento. He will represent voters in most of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties as well as the northwest corner of Los Angeles County, including Santa Clarita and Stevenson Ranch.

The outcome has been in doubt since the Nov. 4 election, but by Wednesday both candidates agreed that Strickland had won.

Congratulations to Hannah-Beth Jackson and all her volunteers, supporters and staff who ran a courageous campaign against a less than honorable opponent, giving it everything they had to deliver quality representation to the people in SD-19.

This marks the end of two long and arduous races eked out by narrow margins in Ventura County by both Tony and Audra Strickland, who will be attempting to consolidate their power base. Unfortunately for them, however, their electoral future does not look bright. It was Ventura County that gave Strickland his victory, but that result is a relic of a Ventura whose demographics and electoral distribution are rapidly changing. By 2012, there is little doubt that Ventura’s Democratic Majority will deliver a majority of votes for the Democrat. As I said before, there are three chief reasons for this:

The first is that Ventura County flipped from red to blue earlier this year in terms of voter registrations–and those numbers have shifted even farther in our direction since. This is not just due to discontent with Bush and the Obama Effect: emigres from Los Angeles are swelling Ventura County’s ranks as more and more Angelenos come to appreciate this oft-overlooked area’s natural advantages. The path to victory for Republicans like Tony Strickland is only going to get steeper from here.

Second, Obama’s first term will likely end up going smoothly with good approval ratings, or very poorly with low approval ratings. Given the precarious, sour and moody state of the nation, we’re unlikely to see an apathetic, middling result. As a consequence, the next presidential election is unlikely to be a close contest one way or another. Our poor experiences in California this year will likely have taught us that we need to Stay for Change–especially if a Democratic Governor is elected in 2010, putting GOP legislators as the biggest remaining obstacle to real change in California.

But Tony’s third and biggest problem is that as an incumbent he will have 4-year voting record in the State Senate. Tony’s campaign this year was built entirely on lies; so much so, in fact, that I can say with all sincerity that he ran the most dishonest campaign I’ve personally had the misfortune of seeing up close. He will no longer be able to run as an “independent”, as all his yard signs and mailers deceitfully claimed. He will no longer be able to claim “green” credentials by posing as an alternative energy entrepreneur. He will simply be the incumbent: the Republican incumbent, and with a track record to boot.

So assuming that demography is destiny and the remaining ballots sort themselves out as poorly as we expect, it’s not the end of the road, but merely the beginning. The Stricklands will have earned themselves 2 to 4 years of respite through dishonest campaigning. More Democratic voters, increased intensity, and an unequivocal track record will see them on their way out of Sacramento in a few short years.

But we can’t do it without your help. Today we begin Strickland Watch: it will be our duty to shadow every move and every vote Tony and Audra Strickland make in Sacramento. So far, the Stricklands have made their careers by pretending to be something other than the hard right, corporate sockpuppets they are. The only antidote to such poison is sunlight and exposure, and a full accounting of every single vote and dollar taken by each of them over the course of the next two to four years.

For his part, Tony Strickland is mouthing the right words:

“We need to definitely do whatever we can to reach across party lines to fix the problems of the state,” he said.

Unfortunately, we’ve heard this from Strickland before. How he and his wife actually vote is another matter. If their history is any indication, their bipartisan rhetoric will be belied by a hardline ideological stance. Democrats in Ventura County-myself included–did an inadequate job of informing our friends, neighbors and community of the Stricklands’ extremist record. It’s up to us to make sure that doesn’t happen again, and to deliver to Ventura County the competent, progressive representation it has long deserved and been waiting for.

Title: Ojai Valley Democratic Club Annual Holiday Party
Location: The Hitching Post Clubhouse 410 Church Road, Ojai
Description: (Guest parking is limited, so please park on Church Road)

RSVP to Pam Prince at 450 4209

We provide the turkey and ham-you bring the fixings!

Names beginning A-M something savory

N-Z something sweet.

This year we will again be collecting unwrapped toys for children at Prototypes and we ask guests to bring gifts of non-perishable food for Help of Ojai\’s Food Bank.

Our brief official program will consist of the election of Club officers for 2009 and presentation of the Volunteer of the Year award.
Start Time: 16:00
Date: 2008-12-13
End Time: 21:00

Title: Ventura Democratic Club Holiday Party
Location: Bella Vista at Promontory Point Recreation Building Address: 1724 Tanager St. Ventura, CA
Link out: Click here
Description: Please RSVP to
Anne Donlon at annelisedon@hotmail.com or Vern Novstrup at xnovstr@pacbell.net

All Democrats and Friends are invited
Last names A-L bring your favorite dessert to share
Last names M-Z bring your favorite appetizer or dish to share
(no red wine please – we promised the facility)

Directions:
from 101 fwy:
exit Victoria heading north (away from the beach)
turn right onto Avocet Drive (Ralph\’s shopping center)
go through to back left corner just past LA Fitness (on the right) and tanning salon (on the left)
park on the left
short walk up the hill to the Recreation Building

from 126 fwy:
exit Victoria heading south (toward the beach)
turn left on Ralston
turn right on Robin
turn right onto Tanager
(Reacreation Building on the left at corner of Tanager and Crossbill
turn right onto Crossbill
park in the lot at the bottom of the hill

Start Time: 18:30
Date: 2008-12-06
End Time: 22:00

There’s good news and bad news, and then some possibly good news again, and then some possibly bad news again. The good news: latest vote counts have cut Strickland’s lead in half, down to just under 1,300 votes. The bad news: the votes out of Santa Barbara County, Jackson’s strongest base, are pretty much all counted. It’s all up to the provisionals coming out of Ventura County now; if they trend Strickland as the rest of Ventura’s votes have–or even just 50-50–Strickland will eke this one out.

The possibly good news: provisional ballots are usually new voters, and those are quite likely new Democratic voters who might be expected to trend our way contra the overall County trend. The possibly bad news: those new Democratic voters often have a tendency to vote for the top of the ticket only, failing to vote for Democrats downballot.

What will end up happening? It’s anybody’s guess. The VC Star has more:

Elections officials in Ventura County began processing provisional ballots this week but are not expected to release the first results from those ballots until Monday.

In votes tallied thus far, Strickland has about a 5 percentage lead in the Ventura County portion of the district. Jackson would have to at least reverse that advantage among provisional ballots — perhaps unlikely, but something political observers say is possible given that many such ballots are cast by newly registered voters, who this year were predominantly Democrats.

With 401,864 votes now tabulated, Strickland leads by about one-third of a percentage point.

Looks like we’re in a for ride. As painful as the wait is, though, it’s good to know that the democratic process is being respected. Better to get the right result with a wait, than the wrong result too quickly.

Friends of Hannah-Beth Jackson
PO Box 92010
Santa Barbara, CA. 93190

Dear Friends,

It has been over two weeks since Election Day, and it is hard to believe that we still do not know the results of our State Senate race.

We have been receiving periodic updates from Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties, and as we suspected, the numbers have been fluctuating up and down. We’ve been waiting for the provisional ballots to be counted, which occurs only after the Vote By Mail ballots are counted by each county.

In Santa Barbara, they have gotten to that point. So yesterday we received the very first tally of provisional ballots from Santa Barbara County and along with it some very encouraging news. Santa Barbara counted over 2,000 of their provisional ballots and we won them by over 65% giving us an additional 735 votes.

This means that we have gained on Strickland’s lead and are now only trailing by 1,721 votes.

This deficit may seem like a lot but there are still over 3,000 provisional ballots in Santa Barbara to count and an estimated 14,000 provisional ballots in Ventura County, and these ballots should favor us.

The bottom line is we are still in the game here and have a good shot at winning. We always knew it was going to be a close race, and it will be close to the very end. We could very well see a little more up-and-down movement while LA and Ventura finish up their non-provisional vote count, so hang in there!

Thank you very much for all of your support and kind emails and phone calls. We all have to stay patient during this process. It’s important that the counties take the time they need to accurately count the ballots. And know that we have dozens of election monitors working with the counties to observe the counting of ballots to ensure that this happens.

We will keep you posted in the days ahead as we get updates. In the meantime, we appreciate your patience, and wish you all very Happy Thanksgiving Holiday.

Many thanks,
Sandra M. Sanchez
Campaign Manager

Prop 8 proponents threaten California judges. Read about it in today’s New York Times article “With Same-Sex Marriage, a Court Takes on the People’s Voice” by Jesse McKinley at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/us/21marriage.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

By Karin Quimby
Sunday, November 16, 2008

The vote on Proposition 8, which eliminated the civil right to marry for gay and lesbian couples in California, was a crushing, disgraceful vote. The moment I learned of the outcome, I felt like my home had fallen down on top of me. And atop my crumpled house and my shattered self sat self-righteous religious folks pleased that they had managed to crush me and my people. They have “saved” marriage for themselves, for the time being. They have confirmed that they are ignorant at best, or at worst, claim the authority to judge. They have contributed to what will one day be remembered as a shameful chapter in American history.

I wrote before the election that we need to talk to one another, to share our personal stories, to recognize how we are all human beings doing the best we can to live and love. I was heartened by the mothers and fathers of gay and lesbian children who showed up at our phone banks to share their stories with prospective voters. I was moved by the straight women and men who likewise volunteered because they want their children to grow up in a world where everyone is treated equally.

I have spent years consciously developing relationships with many people from many faiths to live out the call to love one another. I was, therefore, not prepared for the inhospitable venom that was spewed at me during the campaign and in the final vote, all in the name of “religious freedom.” When I heard “pervert” shouted at me, or listened to those on the phone tell me that God condemns homosexuals, such attacks felt very, very personal, while, at the same time, they were used to limit the civil rights of an entire group of people.

After this campaign, I now have to wonder who in my neighborhood, my workplace, my family, my church, my exercise class, or the grocery store line voted to eliminate my civil rights and on what basis they decided to do so? Were they afraid that their children would be taught that gays and lesbians have families and children and are human beings, too? Were they concerned that they would not be able to condemn homosexuals in their church? Or were they worried that heterosexual families are crumbling and need to blame it on someone other than themselves?

I have to wonder, do these people really not recognize my full personhood? Do they consider me an abomination? Do they think they are more deserving of civil rights than I am?

These are just some of the questions that I and my dear, wonderful friends and family are asking as we pick ourselves up off the floor and decide how to proceed, after this appalling public humiliation that dealt a crushing blow to our belief in the value of equality.

I know we have a lot of work to do to help people realize that gay and lesbian people are fully human — no better and no worse than heterosexuals — after centuries of religious teachings that would seem to tell us otherwise. That is why I am so grateful for the religious people in my life — evangelicals, Baptists, Mormons, Episcopalians, Catholics, Methodists, Lutherans, United Church of Christ, Unitarians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and many others who are spiritual, but not religious, and still others who want nothing to do with religion — all of whom truly, deeply, completely accept me and love me for who I am.

They are the ones who are helping us rebuild our fallen homes and who offer words of comfort to heal our hurt, battered selves. They walk with us and hold us up as we find our way through the wilderness of this “new America” that has voted to exclude us. I know the path will be long, and it certainly is painful, but, in the end, there will be reconciliation.

— Karin Quimby, Ph.D., of Ojai, is co-chairwoman of the No on Proposition 8 Campaign, Ventura County.

Yes, Ventura, there is a Progressive Left–and it came in force today for Join the Impact. It’s a common joke here that we live in “Ventucky“, though our situation less resembles that of the deep South and more that of a clinging outpost of Red, stuck between the swaths of Blue that are Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. We have the gag-worthy Gallegly as our representative, and even unprincipled liars like Tony Strickland somehow manage to attract over half the population here to vote for them. True, the demographics have been changing with voter registrations to match, but that has translated neither into electoral gains nor significant grassroots activity in the Democratic and progressive community–though that is changing due to the tireless efforts of people like our new VCDP Communications Director Brian Leshon.

But today a sea of Blue washed up on the Ventura shores in front of the Old San Buenaventura Mission to let Ventura and all of California know that yes, we do exist. And no, we’re not taking it lying down anymore. Unfortunately, the pictures here don’t do the crowd justice; an amateur photographer is emailing me some pics that I’ll be putting up as soon as I get them.

The Join the Impact protestors began our march at noon in front of the Mission, walking through downtown, over the 101 Freeway overpass and back again, before regrouping on both sides of the street in front of the mission, with overflow into Mission Park.

On the overpass…

I’ve been involved in many protests over the years, but I have to say without question that this was the most amazing, uplifting demonstration I’ve ever been a part of, for a few very important reasons:

• Focus. The bane of the progressive protest march over the last few decades has been the lack of attention to message unity. Markos Moulitsas discusses this problem at length in his book Crashing the Gate: activists such as those with A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition end up using the occasion to fight for causes ranging from freeing Mumia to impeaching Bush to end the wars in Iraq to acceptance of LGBT rights. Here, there was but one message and one focus, reinforced by the ubiquitous chant: “What do we want? Equal Rights! When do we want it? Now!”
• Diversity and Family-Friendliness. All too often the word “diversity” has been seen especially by those on the Right as a politically correct code word for the disproportionately vocal influence of one or more specific minorities. But for the actual crowd that attended, it might have been easy to dismiss this protest simply as the gay community venting its frustrations. On the contrary: the couples that had gathered skewed more hetero than same-sex, and many had brought their families and small children along with them. The visual impact of this phenomenon on the conservative and fence-sitting mind cannot be exaggerated. Add to this the multi-racial, truly rainbow aspect of the event, and it was not only a joy to behold, but a consternation to those who would insult this movement as merely a special interest, rather than a truly broad-based fight for equal Civil Rights.
• The Support of the Community. There were no counter-protesters anywhere in sight, and most of the cars that passed us were honking, even as their passengers rolled down their windows to flash a quick thumbs up or peace sign. Sure, there were a few nuts in pickup trucks screaming some gibberish about eternal damnation and displaying a hateful middle finger here and there (one of them was so consumed with rage that he very nearly rear-ended the car in front of him), but they were themselves a distinct minority. Downtown Ventura was truly supportive of our cause, and it felt truly righteous being a part of the next step for civil rights in America. As one baby boomer activist said,
  

  “Man, this really is just like the 60s. I haven’t seen a gathering with this kind of positive energy in a long, long time. It’s amazing to see.”

I couldn’t agree more. My girlfriend KK and I spent the final 45 minutes gathering signatures for the Courage Campaign’s Proposition 8 repeal. On that form was a checkbox asking if the signatory would like to volunteer for the cause. Nearly every single box was checked, and nearly every single zip code a Ventura resident. These people were not here just to vent for a day: they were here to be a part of something bigger for the long term.

It was a beautiful sight to behold, and gives me hope for the long term not only for the future of civil rights in America, but for the future of progressive politics here in “Ventucky” as well.

Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by the Tea Fire, and major thanks go out to all the firefighters and emergency personnel who have worked so diligently to protect our communities.  Special condolences go out to those in Montecito and elsewhere who have lost homes and loved ones as a result of this tragedy.

Yesterday Hannah-Beth Jackson reported on Facebook that she was forced to evacuate; we have heard reports that Bob Handy, Democratic Party Region 10 Director, has been evacuated as well.  We wish them and all those affected by this fire the quickest possible return to a sense of normalcy.