Look, maybe I’ve been a little too harsh on my state senator. He’s only been in office a few short months. I shouldn’t expect perfection from someone who has never held public office before. I certainly shouldn’t expect it when those in public office are about as far from perfect as one can get in this world. I realize that I need to be more positive in my discourse. Positivity brings more people to the table. It allows us to look at things in a different, more meaningful way. I want to be positive. I really do. So let’s take a look at Sen. Newman with brand new eyes.
One thing I can honestly say is that he is markedly different than most politicians in California. He says as much in the first line of the Issues section of his campaign website:
First and foremost, I am not a politician, nor do I ever intend to become one.
And right he is. He is not a politician. He’s just a man trying to make sense of the crazy world of California politics. He’s already taken his first major step to cement the fact that he’s not a politician. See, the vast majority of tax revenue in California comes from personal income taxes, and we here in California love taxing our rich to fill those coffers. We love it so much that we’ve voted repeatedly to raise the personal income tax on the rich in recent years. But we always seem to find ourselves in a bad way financially in the Golden State. Maybe we should try a different path. After all, isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result?
Enter Josh Newman. He has a different vision for California. If taxing the rich for all these years hasn’t solved our financial woes, why not try taxing the middle and working classes? Honestly, those freeloaders (myself included) have enjoyed a relatively tax-free life for too long. Everyone must pay his or her fair share. It’s now time for those lazy layabouts to contribute something to this state. And Josh Newman should know a thing or two about this. His District 29 is demonstrably middle class.
I assume this is why he threw his support behind California Senate Bill 1. The tax and fee increases in this bill will be a direct tax on those groups that have not been doing their part to feed the kitty. The bill (well, law, now that Gov. Brown has signed it) raises the gas excise tax on all of California’s 25.5 million drivers. Doing the quick math ($5.2 billion in estimated revenue / 25.5 million drivers), every driver in California can expect to pay around $204 more each year for the privilege of driving your vehicle on our roads. And a privilege it is. Don’t you forget it. This is California. You could be driving in, I don’t know, Oklahoma or something *shudder*. Now, that number might go up or down depending on how much you drive and how expensive your vehicle is, but rest assured California will get whatever revenue it needs from you by any means necessary. And really, an extra $200 per year? You can afford that. Don’t tell Josh Newman you can’t afford that. He knows when you’re lying.
I mean, who cares if you need to travel dozens of miles (or more) to and from work? It’s not Josh Newman’s fault you can’t afford a house or apartment closer to your job. He doesn’t set the home and rent prices in Orange County, so stop asking. What? You drive for a living? Look, Sen. Newman never told you to take that job. You need to stop blaming him for all of your poor life choices. The roads need to be fixed and this was the only way to do it. He did this for you. Remember that. His vote for SB1 was a vote in the interests of the people of District 29. It wasn’t a party line vote. One democrat voted against it! Not him, of course. It was someone else. Someone who doesn’t have your best interests in mind. Josh Newman is not some traditional democratic politician who follows orders just because Kevin de Leon and Jerry Brown tell him to. No no no. He’s a man of the people.
Given everything I’ve just laid out, I can’t, for the life of me, understand why anyone would want to organize a recall against Josh Newman. I mean, granted, he’s partially responsible for the biggest gas tax hike in California history, giving California the highest fuel prices in the country. And, I’ll admit, he had a hand in raising the vehicle registration fee. And I know that other politicians have been recalled for less. But that shouldn’t matter! He’s fulfilling every promise he made in the campaign. He’s being fiscally responsible. He’s not a politician. He’s working for us. Sensibly. Meticulously. We need more people like him in Sacramento, fighting for the rights of the middle and working classes. He is our advocate. Our voice!
Isn’t he?
I can’t speak for any other Democrats, let alone the DPOC, but I WILL say that the Orange Juice Blog has not made any arrangements with struggling San Diego talk radio host Carl DeMaio to promote a recall campaign against Sen. Newman, regardless of the amount of money it would allow him to suck into his campaign coffers (most of which he wouldn’t likely have to bother to spend this year) and the amazing organizational boost it would provide the Democratic Party in North and Northwest Orange County and Anaheim. (I’ll bet that Rep. Ed Royce, Asmb. Philip Chen, and Supe-wannabe Young Kim just LOVE this idea of letting the DCCC help us Dems organize this part of the county! SOOOOO MUCH UPSIDE!)
Thank you for your contribution, Sean! (Should we tag this post as “sarcasm” — or should we just presume that our perspicacious readers will “get it”?)
It’s DeMaio, former SD Councilman and failed Mayoral and Congressional candidate?
This DeMaio? http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Carl-DeMaio-Masturbation-Rumors-San-Diego-Congress-Campaign-Peters-278558061.html
Yeah, that’s the man, officer.
My recollection is the “public masturbation” rumors turned out to be, uh, jacked up.
I owe bringing up the Mayo-splurting rumor to Ling Ling, for all her Josh/underpants mailers.
You sure about that?
About what part of it?
I personally don’t want to see a recall effort because I will end up putting much more of my time and joyful effort into it than I should.
But I know how many people are showing up at local Democratic and Indivisible club meetings for whom this would give them some concrete purpose, so I’m not especially concerned about him losing.
You may think that it would be a low-turnout election if it happens — but it wouldn’t be, not on our end. It would be galvanizing — and as a candidate Josh knows how to fire up his campaign workers and make them feel good.
But be led into the br’er patch with us if you want. I’m sure that Carl DeMaio is only concerned about the welfare of the Republican Party here — and not his own show’s ratings or his political future.
(I do think that I would want to recall Philip Chen too at the same time, if it happened, though — and I don’t even particularly dislike him. But when opportunity knocks, you gotta answer….)
Diamond is either being dishonest with us or dishonest with himself. A recall against a democrat is not good for democrats, even if they descend upon OC to “organize” us (as if the Republicans wouldn’t do the same.)
I’d prefer it didn’t happen, not only because it sucks up the time of lots of good people but also because it’s a distraction to Josh.
But we have never, ever, been in a better position not only to beat back such a threat, but to turn it to our advantage.
Let’s estimate that Republicans have already done 80% of the organizing that they could do in this area — and that we Democrats (if you are one) have done about 40%. The can match or even exceed us in money, but it is WAY easier to get from 40% to 80% than it is to get from 80% to 99%. And this would be happening at JUST the historical moment when we have the eager volunteers to do it.
I don’t really care how you code the “dishonesty.” I’ve been organizing this plot of land for a decade now, and this is the first time that I could honestly say “they can do what they want, but they’re gonna regret it!” We have the horses now — and so many easy gains to be made!
Disclaimer; I am not supportive of a recall on Josh, but I don’t think those considering it are entirely off base.
Greg, forgive me, my friend, but the Dem leadership still have yet to figure out why your party took such a national hit, and that elitist arrogance seems to be driving the idea that your party would get stronger for the hammering of a recall. Even an unsuccessful recall gives folks like me a chance to go door to door beating the shit out of the entire Dem machine for raising our taxes while pushing forward on the disastrous HSR fiasco, and as this seems to be the grade-separation hill your Gov Moonbeam wants to die on, I am kind of OK with how many foot soldiers he is going to take down with him. Please, allow me to get the door for you, Mr. Brown…
As you admit, the GOP already has a pretty viable outreach machine in OC, and your DP “room for growth” may be galvanizing, but it still leaves you defending a bizarre tax hike to backfill missing/misspent funds promised to taxpayers in prior Spending schemes and then diverted to pet projects. But go ahead, believe the numbers on misspent staffing at Caltrans dug up by Sen Moorlach won’t become a massive liability for your party.
Again, I think a recall on Josh to be misguided, and I would rather see resources spent to pursue genuine reform efforts like fighting to rescind HSR or otherwise pull in the abusive spending prior to biting drivers in the ass once again. But if a recall is pursued, the team building exercise you see this to be doesn’t look good from my end…just sayin’
Cynthia, it finally hit me – increasing taxes to pay for what can only be called a deliberate infrastructure decay serves the EXACT purpose of enabling funding for HSR from other existing mechanisms – just wait. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that suddenly $60 billion now exists for transportation projects at the same time the HSR price tag is at about the same amount.
Newman seems plenty smart to get this relationship.
A recall in a comparatively light turnout election in his district is wouldn’t go well for Josh. Too bad this bell can’t be unrung.
Im detecting a lil bit of sarcasm in this piece.
I’m never sarcastic. Ever.
Cynthia — from your vantage point, you might well think that. What I see is Democratic club meetings across the county having to move to new meeting sites because attendance has gone from 40 to 200. People are spitting nails right now, because the atrocities on the national stage are happening too far away to influence. The problem I see right now is to come up with enough truly meaningful things for people to do through the rest of the year until we enter a more active campaign mode.
If Republicans want to solve that problem for us, because we want to repair the roads, then we’ll just have to adjust accordingly. If this had happened at any time before 2017, I’d have been deeply worried. Now, the downside is mostly the opportunity cost. We’ll have to work hard to win — but we finally have the horses (and donkeys) to do it.
The pity is that if this were really about high-speed rail rather than disintegrating infrastructure, Josh is one of the Dems who would be most likely to give the con side a fair hearing. But it’s not. It’s about what it says it is — and Josh having been the sponsor of the ballot measure will be aporeciated. So will the “hostage-taking” argument that Ryan wants put to rest — and I can’t blame him for wanting it gone, even in vain.
This isn’t the Fullerton recall redux, nor the anemic LA Mayoral election. But if y’all have to see that to believe it, you will.
You don’t want to repair the roads.
If you wanted to repair the roads, you’d have a plan to repair the roads. You don’t have a plan to repair the roads, so clearly, you don’t want to fix the roads.
What you have is a new tax without a mandate. This cash is going to enable stupid projects like Brown’s Train to Nowhere.
It won’t fix any roads. It’ll just take a few hundred dollars out of people’s pockets who could really use the money.
Up next, a new tax to fix the dams you don’t want to fix either.
SCA 2 passed as well — and will prevent the diversion of funds away from transportation (which has been a problem) when it is approved by the voters. And Newman demanded it and got it. As we’ll be saying a lot later this year, if need be.
I’ve learned from you, Cynthia, Zenger and others that High Speed Rail is pretty much dead in the courts — partly, if I recall correctly, because of (1) the takings problems and (2) they can’t really figure out a great way to get the line over, under, or through the Tehachapis. So I don’t think that the part of HSR *that won’t likely work well* is likely to get approved. Nor do I think that an APPROPRIATION of these funds for that purpose would pass. Newman is much more concerned about getting state dollars to fix the 57/60 freeway clustersuck that lowers the quality of life of very many Californians by more than $100 per year.
For now, work has only started on the Merced to Bakersfield portion. Frankly, that and the Chowchilla Wye (connecting the Chowchilla/Madera area to Gilroy, places where they can readily access Silicon Valley) are built, it may have some value given how the SF/Santa Clara area is suffocating from lack of housing stock.
If HSR along those two segments means that we’d have something like the Long Island RR or the Metro North Line taking commuters living far away into Manhattan — people commute 2.5 hours each way for the 80 miles between Poughkeepsie and Manhattan, and they DO take it — then may end up being worthwhile, much as those lines are considered to be. I do NOT think that, in the near future, it will replace air flight between LA/OC/SD and the Bay Area, which is still relatively cheap. But it may facilitate something up north along the lines of what development of the Inland Empire has done for LA and OC in the south — except with high speed commuter trains (leading to lower-speed trains) rather than clogged freeways.
But, by statute, that’s only what a relatively small portion of this could be for. It’s mostly about fixing roads and bridges. In June of next year, that scope will itself be fixed.
So don’t insult me by telling me that I don’t want to fix roads. (I’d like to fix dams too, because there also I am not an idiot.) I appreciate that you are testing out the compelling case that you think that you’d be able to take to voters here — but I think that you overestimate your case and underestimate the power of the assertion that Josh can make that, “no, I’m trying to do exactly what I SAID we’re doing, and if necessary I will fight my own party if need be to keep it that way.”
And you know what? He’ll be able to say it credibly — because he’ll mean it.
That’s not a plan. That’s a distraction. Tax first and sequester later?
You shouldn’t be offended by me pointing out there is no plan for the state to fix one single road in Senator Newman’s district.
You should be embarrassed that Senator Newman passed the single largest tax increase on the working poor in California’s history without a guarantee to fix one stinking street for his constituents. Not one.
Your party doesn’t want to fix the roads. If they did, they’d have a plan. They don’t, so they don’t.
Want they want us for you to believe in their manufactured crisis. The roads! The roads! They must be fixed!
They’ve needed fixing for twenty years. Now that your party has neglected critical infrastructure long enough, your party believes that Californians are stupid enough to buy the myth of a crisis.
Well, i guess we’ll see, but for all our sakes, I hope Californians see right through Sacramento, reject the self inflicted manufactured crisis, and take California back.
The legislature can’t impose a constitutional amendment on its own. When the public votes on the Newman-Frazier bill a year from June – I presume that you’ll favor it – then the door will be closed. In the meantime, Josh will probably be among those agitating within the party NOT to take advantage of a brief time window to do something underhanded.
Unless he’s recalled, of course.
If you’re really worried that “sequester comes second,” you would use the recall of Newman as a threat in the event of such a move. But if you’re just interested in letting a talk show host lead you to act for political gain (and his greater fame), rather than in influencing an outcome then of course that’s not a consideration.
As for my party’s actions: it’s a sad fact that my party appears not to feel that it can get a decent proposal for funding needed repairs through in the absence of a supermajority of both houses of the legislature. But having watched state politics pretty closely for the past decade and more, I can certainly see where they got that impression.
We do have common cause in ensuring that these funds are spent responsibly – which does not require having advance plans in place for choosing every street to be repaired – if you think that that is in your political interest.
If.
“So don’t insult me by telling me that I don’t want to fix roads.”
What you want is neither here not there. What Jerry Brown wants is $60,000,000 plus of transportation funds to pump into HSR now that the Republican congress is looking to ax it.
I have never claimed HSR is “dead in the courts” nor have I ever read any such utterance from Cynthia or Ryan.
I have said that judges are just government employees in robes – meaning that when government is involved they almost never side with anybody else.
HSR rail is far from dead.
Or, add three zeros: $60,000,000,000 of existing transportation funds.
Then I suppose that your statement limits what I could be remembering to something that I heard from Ryan or Cynthia, or perhaps it was someone else whose opinion I respected, that you did not happen to hear or read. Point taken.
I am furious that dishonest Republican interests are perpetrating a recall ploy on voters aimed at Sen Newman when their real goal is to break the state senate Democratic supermajority! Paid petitioners are out telling voters this is a gas tax repeal for $1 a signature and the cost of recall is estimated to be millions of dollars paid by taxpayers. Shameful.
“the cost of recall is estimated to be millions of dollars”
Can you tell us where you got that number?
Yeah, that’s completely bogus.
Also, Karen, supporters of the recall have been quite honest in their goal of breaking up the Democrat Supermajority.
Politics this is. Dishonest it isn’t.
It’s funny. proponents of California taxes are forever telling us how small the personal cost is – “piddling.”
So if you use that argument, a $1,000,000 recall would only cost the taxpayers of the district a dollar apiece,
Ryan — what they’re doing is dishonest, but not because it’s political. It’s because they’re misrepresenting what they’re doing.
I won’t have time to write about it until next week, but it’s really beyond the pale. You like to lecture about how people should be ashamed; go check out what is going on at one of the signature-gathering tables and see whether you think that the pitch they’re making is shameful.
I saw four this weekend, Greg. The guy is being judged on how he cast his vote. That’s not beyond the pale. It’s fair, reasonable,, and quite frankly expected.
I don’t see Josh Newman crying in his office about how unfair this whole thing is. I see him doing his job. The recall vote is going to happen. It just is. I think your time is better spent highlighting what good Newman is doing for his district.
If signature gatherers get people to sign petition on the basis that Newman should be punished for his vote, so be it.
If signature gatherers get people to sign petition on some other basis, such as that it is itself the referendum petition, then that is totally unacceptable — and you know it, and I hope that you will admit it.
If you saw four signature gatherers this past weekend, I hope that you will recount their pitch.
No one I saw represented the petition before them was a referedum. That’s a red hearing as far as I’m concerned.
Ryan, people seem to be having truth issues. I just heard a robocall from Dems saying a recall is going to “cost millions” and that it’s the fault of “Trump Republicans.”
I just saw their website.
Greg, the is going to bury Josh.
You should be playing to his strengths.
The correct strategy is to embrace the recall. You should be using this as an opportunity to embrace what makes Josh different: Someone who does not Dodge accountability, who puts good policy before politics, and who doesn’t hide behind slogans. It should be a war over his personality.
You should be daring the GOP to put up someone better: “Want a recall? Fine. Bring it on. I’m Josh Newman and this is what I stand for. Don’t like it? Vote for someone else.”
Instead, the GOP got exactly what it wants. An excuse to make this not about the person being recalled, but about the party desperate to cling to power.
How sad. This is over before it even starts.
http://www.dontsignrecall.com
Ryan, it appears that the official Dem Party strategy is going to be “recall won’t repeal the gas tax,” a surefire way to piss people off because there is no accountability and no recourse. I don’t know what might work, but that isn’t it.
Wait, just a second — I have to decide whether I’m silly enough to take advice from the two of you or gullible enough to be impressed by your repartee.
Nope: neither. But keep having fun! I’ll be out working on organizing the area, now that people will be so motivated. Maybe it’s not fair that Trump will be held against the Republicans in this area — but who said that any of this was fair? Certainly not you, Ryan.
Fine. It ain’t my Supermajority.
I wish Josh had a fair shake based on his own merits. Unfortunately it would seem that isn’t going to happen.
Too bad.
I’m sure that you has a sad over it.
Out to secure a yes vote from me then?
Keep at it. Almost there.
Still waiting for Karen to share where she got her information about a recall costing millions.
Saw a couple of gatherers tonight at our neighborhood Stater Bros (La Palma and State College.) Their pitch was “sign up to recall Josh Newman, he voted for the gas tax.” Simple enough.
Has anyone heard how much the GOP is paying them per signature? The guy wouldn’t tell me.
We had a signature gatherer in our neighborhood – Willow Park. That’s never happened before that I know of.
At this point there are numerous committees open and apparently they have lots of money.