Last night, U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken in California ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional in a case called Dragovich v. U.S. Department of the Treasury. The Clinton-appointed federal judge found that DOMA violates the Constitution’s equal protections clause due to the fact that, along with a provision of the state’s tax law, it limits same-sex couples and domestic partners from fully participating in the California Public Employees Retirement System. This marks the first federal court decision on DOMA since President Obama announced his endorsement of same-sex marriage on May 9. Two other judges and a bankruptcy court have similarly ruled DOMA unconstitutional.
You’re unlikely to hear a peep about this on Fox “News” (unless they happen to have me on), but the California Secretary of State’s Election Fraud Division is now reportedly investigating a firmed hired by the Sacramento County Republican Party said to have submitted thousands of fraudulent voter registration forms.
According to a report today from Sacramento ABC affiliate News10 [see video posted below], a private, for-profit firm calling itself Momentum Political Services, hired by the local Republican Party “to boost GOP registration ranks in key battleground communities” has turned in more than 3,100 hundred invalid voter registration cards during their recent drive.
Voter registration forms have allegedly been turned in with fake addresses, voter names that don’t exist, duplicate Social Security numbers, and party affiliations that seem to have been changed “by someone” to Republican. The head of the firm has admitted she has hired workers with criminal backgrounds, as found via Craigslist.
The charges of serial voter registration fraud sound very similar to those leveled in 2008 against another outfit hired by the California State GOP to register Republican voters before that year’s Presidential election. In that case, the head of the firm was arrested, and eventually pleaded guilty to voter registration charges himself.
In 2006, another firm hired by the CA Republican Party turned in thousands of registration forms with fake names and an error rate as high as 60 percent. And in 2004, a firm hired by the GOP was investigated in a number of states for shredding Democratic voter registrations and tossing them into dumpsters. Despite those allegations, the same folks were later hired by the McCain/Palin campaign in 2008 to run voter registration drives before the Presidential election.
Of course, you probably haven’t heard of any of those stories, even while you’ve heard plenty about a handful of ACORN workers —- no actual ACORN officials, mind you, and they were never hired by the Democratic Party, and never led to a fraudulent vote —- turning in fraudulent registration forms in past years.
ACORN! ACORN! ACORN!
Paul Wellstone talked about representing and fighting for what he called the democratic wing of the Democratic Party and I would like to fight for the progressive wing of our social movements in Congress.
Several days ago I posted about how the California GOP was contesting Mexican-American Jose Hernandez’s name on the ballot for U.S. Congress because he listed “astronaut” on the line for his occupation - and Hernandez is a ‘retired astronaut’, not a currently working astronaut.
Good to see that Hernandez and common sense won this round
…Judge Lloyd Connelly disagreed, saying that Hernandez is an astronaut for “more than the time spent riding a rocket,” according to the Times.
The GOP is still whining about it:
“Allowing a candidate out of nowhere to use the profession of ‘astronaut’ when he hasn’t served in that profession recently, is akin to allowing someone to use a title of ‘sailor’ when they no longer own or operate a ship,” spokeswoman Jennifer Kerns said in a statement.
Guess they thought he should simply put “retired” or “migrant worker” on the ballot.
Congratulations and best of luck, Jose!
California State Assemblyman and San Diego mayoral candidate Nathan Fletcher, seen as one of the California Republican Party’s most promising future possibilities for statewide office, announced today he’s abandoning the GOP and “partisan politics” to become an independent.
The defection of Fletcher, who served in the Marine Corps for more than a decade and is an Iraq war veteran as well as a spouse of a prominent GOP activist — Mindy Tucker Fletcher, the former campaign spokeswoman for George W. Bush — is an ominous sign for the state Republican Party.
A law firm with ties to the California GOP is deeply bothered to see Mexican-American Jose Hernandez’s name on the ballot for U.S. Congress (that is not the joke yet, but we could probably just stop there, ha ha) because he has listed himself as “astronaut” on the line for his occupation. Hernandez, the son of migrant Mexican laborers, is a recently retired astronaut, a fact the law firm pointed out in a lawsuit filed last week. This means that Hernandez is CHEATING, by describing himself according to his career accomplishments over the span of more than say, the last week. May the Republicans suggest a more rule-abiding generalized occupational description such as “Brown person” instead?
Seriously?
What a fun trend this could be, minorities having to go to court for permission to publicly associate with their life’s work! There’s some job creation for you: Hernandez says on his Facebook page that it will cost $20,000 to hire lawyers to defeat the lawsuit.
… [T]he California Democratic Party has released a statement promising to assist in defeating North Carolina’s anti-gay ballot measure Amendment One, which will go to the voters on May 8. …
This is pretty wildly unprecedented for one state party to involve itself in another state’s legislation. And it is a credit to President Obama’s power of persuasion that his campaign released a very specific letter of condemnation.
Undeterred by documentary evidence and repeated judicial rejection, a group of conspiracy theorists who say President Obama was born in Africa have sued the California secretary of state to demand that she verify the eligibility of all presidential candidates before putting them on the November ballot.
Minor party politicians and voters aligned with the so-called birthers filed the lawsuit in Sacramento County Superior Court, noting that their action was on the advice of a federal appeals court ruling last year that they bring their suspicions about Obama’s eligibility to a court’s attention during an election, not after it.
The lawsuit filed by Republican primary write-in candidate John Albert Dummett Jr., Markham Robinson of the American Independent Party of California and five others also alludes to “questions concerning the eligibility” of Mitt Romney to vie for the role of commander in chief. The birthers’ lawyer, Gary Kreep of Ramona, said Wednesday that his clients wanted the issue of Romney’s eligibility raised because of his parents’ long residency in Mexico.[…]
Kreep, who heads a group calling itself the United States Justice Foundation, was also the attorney who brought the 2009 suit against Obama by the Rev. Wiley S. Drake, a Buena Park minister who once called on his First Southern Baptist Church flock to pray for Obama’s death.
The California Democratic party believes we can win this, and is all-in to make this victory happen in 2012. Karen Ocamb at LGBTPOV quotes the statement of California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton:
California Democrats proudly support President Obama for taking a stand against a divisive ballot amendment that seeks to codify discrimination against same-sex couples into North Carolina’s constitution.
As Democrats across the nation make plans to gather in Charlotte, North Carolina for the 2012 Democratic National Convention, it’s imperative that we send a clear and united message against all such efforts that seek to divide Americans and enshrine discrimination. California Democrats stand ready to help and we will soon be in touch with ways that Democrats here can start getting the word out to voters in North Carolina about the need to defeat Amendment One.
Supporters of California’s Proposition 8 law banning same-sex couples from marrying waited until the very last day to file a motion with the Ninth Circuit to appeal their case, effectively delaying a possible trip to the Supreme Court. Today, anti-marriage equality activists will request that the 2-1 decision again affirming Prop 8 is unconstitutional be heard en banc, before an eleven-member panel of Ninth Circuit judges — the Ninth Circuit Chief Judge, and 10 other randomly selected judges.
The Ninth Circuit does have the right to refuse to hear the case, should a majority of its judges agree that another attempt to turnover Judge Vaughn Walker‘s ruling is unnecessary or unwarranted.
Shuttered California state parks may be vulnerable to vandalism: Above, Kevin Forrester, a superintendent with the California Department of Parks and Recreation, walks inside Mitchell Caverns at Providence Mountains State Recreation Area. Since the remote park’s closure, intruders have cut fences, kicked doors off of hinges and shattered windows and display cases at the visitors center. Critics say it might be a harbinger of what’s to come when 70 more state parks are closed because of budget cuts.
Photo credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times
Sickening. Citizens are going to have to stand guard or risk losing irreplaceable bits of our public heritage.
Supporters of California’s Proposition 8 law banning same-sex couples from marrying waited until the very last day to file a motion with the Ninth Circuit to appeal their case, effectively delaying a possible trip to the Supreme Court. Today, anti-marriage equality activists will request that the 2-1 decision again affirming Prop 8 is unconstitutional be heard en banc, before an eleven-member panel of Ninth Circuit judges — the Ninth Circuit Chief Judge, and 10 other randomly selected judges.
The Ninth Circuit does have the right to refuse to hear the case, should a majority of its judges agree that another attempt to turnover Judge Vaughn Walker‘s ruling is unnecessary or unwarranted.
The failure to pass single payer in California is a dose of reality for the movement. Although a 2009 New York Times/CBS survey confirms that 65 percent of Americans support a single-payer health care system, political and institutional support is lagging. Historically, labor’s support has been essential to the passage of any progressive social legislation, and that is even more important in the continuing face-off with the corporate health insurance behemoths.
“It will take a mighty grassroots movement to prevail over this concentrated corporate power and win health care for all,” said Mark Dudzic of Labor Campaign for Single Payer in a message to activists, adding that delegates from 28 unions, non-profits and grassroots organizations met in Portland two weeks ago to launch a new coalition to win universal health care in Oregon.
“Rather than starting off with a developed piece of legislation that would rely on the good will of the Democratic legislative caucus to advance, they have determined to focus first on grassroots community organizing and outreach,” he said, following the Vermont model.
