MadProfessah Voting Guide: June 2022 Los Angeles and California Primary Elections

Here are MadProfessah's positions on how I will be voting have voted in the June 7 2022 California Primary Elections. This post will contain  endorsements information from other organizations like the Los Angeles Times,  California Democratic Party, East Area Progressive Democrats and the Los Angeles County Democratic Party. 

The 2022 Primary Ballot is quite long. Here are my endorsements (how I am voting) along with information about how others are encouraging you to vote. This link will take you to a printable two page version of this voting guide. Names with an asterisk * are openly LGBTQ+ candidates.

Information about judges of the Superior Court were informed by these two documents by two informed insiders (a former Superior Court judge and Someone who works in the DA's office).

The information here is accurate to the best of my knowledge. YMMV.

LAist also has a very helpful voterguide here: https://laist.com/news/politics/voter-game-plan.

CITYWIDE RACES (Los Angeles)

COUNTYWIDE RACES (Los Angeles)

COUNTY JUDGES (Superior Court)

STATEWIDE RACES 

POLL: Support For Death Penalty Hits New Low In California

California Governor Gavin Newsom made headlines a few weeks ago when he announced a moratorium on the death penalty in the state along with the dismantling of the death chamber in San Quentin. Since California voters have rejected ballot measures twice in the last decade (and as recently as November 2016) to end the state's death penalty the media characterized the move as "thwarting" the will of the populace. However, new polling shows that Gov. Newsom may be more in line with public opinion in California than expected. According to the Public Policy Institute of California's March 2019 poll, voters approve of mandatory life without parole to the death penalty by a 58% to 38% margin, and when you expand to include all Californians (not just voters) support for the death penalty falls to 31%. The only  demographic group where support for the death penalty has increased is Republicans, with support at 64% while Democrats are at 21% and Independents at 36%. Thank Zeus we have so few Republicans in Deep Blue California their share of the electorate is low and falling and their impact on public policy is negligible!

Hat/tip to CalMatters

GODLESS WEDNESDAY: Poll Says Atheism Is No Longer An Impediment To Elected Office

Previously I have blogged (repeatedly) about Americans uneasiness with voting for an atheist for president. However, a new survey from the American Humanist shows that progressive voters (who are pro-marriage equality and pro-choice) are happy to support an agnostic or atheist candidate for elected office.

The survey finds that 72% of liberal Democrats would vote for an atheist on the ballot. 74% of them would support a more generic “non-religious” or “agnostic” candidate.
Also interesting? 14% of those voters said they would be more likely to support an atheist while only 7% say the opposite.

Hat/tip to Friendly Atheist.

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Eric Bauman, Openly Gay Chair of CA Democratic Party, Resigns In #MeToo Furor

Eric Bauman, longtime chair of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party and former vice-chair of the California Democratic Party under John Burton, was elected chair of the California Democratic Party in 2017 after a close and hotly contested election with Kimberly Ellis. He is the first openly gay man to lead the largest Democratic Party state organization.

This week Bauman was in the news again because he abruptly announced his intention to resign his position as party chair one day after multiple accusations of improper sexual comments and unwanted physical contact by Bauman were documented in a blockbuster Los Angeles Times story published on Wednesday November 28.

After the article came out Governor-elect Gavin Newsom and openly LGBT Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins were among the high ranking state Democratic politicians who called for Bauman's resignation.

I have known Bauman for years (and been to the annual holiday party at his house multiple times). I never witnessed any unwanted sexual comments but I would say that I have definitely seen him "tipsy." (It was a holiday party, after all!) Initially after word of the accusations were raised last week, Bauman had announced he would take a leave of absence to get treatment for "a problem with alcohol" but soon it became clear that in the current #MeToo era that response would be insufficient. I am somewhat surprised that these accusations of imroper behavior did not come to light last year when the internecine battle between the establishment party folks who backed Bauman and the progressive "Bernie-crat" folks who backed Ellis was raging.

#AD51: Carrillo Wins Assembly Seat Over Lopez 53-47 (900+ votes)

The special election in my Assembly District was held yesterday and the results are in: Wendy Carrillo, received approximately 1000 votes more than Luis Lopez in a very low turnout election (estimated to be 7.6%). Carrillo took an early large lead when absentee ballots were tallied.

This means that Carrillo will be the newest member of the Assembly.

GODLESS WEDNESDAY: Jacinda Adern, 37-yo PM of New Zealand, is Agnostic

Jacinda Adern is set to become the next Prime Minister of New Zealand. She is 37 years old and a former Mormon. She says she left the church over its homophobic stances on LGBT equality and same-sex marriage recognition. That was the main reason why I was going to blog about her but then I saw these quotes:

“I have a real respect for people who have religion as a foundation in their lives. And I respect people who don’t.“I’m agnostic. I don’t spend a lot of time trying to figure it out.“I just think people should be free to have their personal beliefs and not be persecuted for it, whether they be atheist or staunch church members."

Clearly New Zealand politics is very different from American politics! It is unlikely that the not-yet-sworn-in leader of our country would say something. After all, atheists are the one group that a majority of poll respondents still feel should not become President.

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Kevin de León Announces Challenge to Dianne Feinstein's Re-election Bid

Whoa! Kevin de León is my State Senator and is the head of the California State Senate. The 50-year-old Latino politician from Los Angeles is termed out of the legislature next year and many people have been wondering what higher office he would seek next. This week he announced that he is running to become a U.S. Senator from California. Currently, California's Senators are Dianne Feinstein (who was elected in 1992) and Kamala Harris, who was elected in 2016. Feinstein recently announced that she would be trying to win a 6th 6-year term in 2018.

de León has announced that he will try to stop that from happening.

Since both are Democrats and California has a top 2 primary it is very likely this race will not e decided in the primary, but almost certainly go the distance to November 2018.

SATURDAY POLITICS: #AD51 Runoff On 12/05/17 With Wendy Carrillo and Luis Lopez

The special election to replace now-Congressman Jimmy Gomez in the 51st Assembly District happened this Tuesday October 3 and the top 2 finishers were Wendy Carrillo (who had also run against Gomez in the special election in the 34th Congressional District) and Luis López. Carrillo received the most votes (4,771) in a crowded field of 13 candidates while López was second with 4,086 and Mike Fong was close behind with 3,515.

However, only the top 2 finishers advance to a run-off election to be held on Tuesday December 5. López has run for this seat before, way back in 2012 (against Gomez), while Carrillo is something of a perennial candidate in Northeast Los Angeles elections. López is openly gay and is a healthcare executive and was endorsed by various progressive democratic clubs (East Area Progressive Democrats and Stonewall Democrats) while Carrillo used to work for a local affiliate of Service Employees International Union, which ran an independent expenditure campaign that spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to support her.

This is my home district (and I voted) so I am following the race quite closely. It will be interesting to see who (if anyone) Gomez endorses as well as what the other candidates in the race do.

Hat/tip to Los Angeles Times.

Trans Civil Rights Are Law Everywhere In Canada

International LGBT journalist Rex Wockner reports that Canada now has universal transgender rights, i.e. every province and territory in the country has enacted non-discrimination statutes which prohibit discrimination based on gender identity and allow legal changes in gender.

However, Xtra points out that there still is no federal trans rights bill enacted, although one is currently under consideration in the Senate:

The bill’s sponsor, Liberal Senator Grant Mitchell, told the Hill Times he’ll fight to get the bill passed before the June 30 summer break, even threatening to use time allocation — a parliamentary motion that curtails debate and forces a vote, but often prompts opponents to delay other bills in retaliation.
“It’s a hill I’m prepared to die on. This has to be passed before the summer break,” Mitchell said.

Hat/tip to Rob Salerno

UPDATE: C-16 passed its third reading in the Canadian Senate on Thursday and will almost certainly go into effect soon!

Hat/tip to TransGriot

Nebraska Eliminates Death Penalty By Overriding Governor's Veto!

Wow! Big progressive news out of the state of Nebraska today (there's a sentence you don't see every day!) with the elimination of the death penalty by the legislature overriding the Governor's veto of a bill.

GRAPHIC: Polling Data On Marriage Equality 1985-2015

As 2014 comes to a close we should take stock of where we are on the question of marriage equality. Right now 35 states have marriage equality, with Florida (the 3rd largest state in the Union) going into effect on Monday January 5. That is very close to two-thirds of the population living in jurisdictions with marriage equality.

The U.S. Supreme Court is considering appeals from the states in the 6th Circuit within the next week or so and if they grant certiorari then we could have a final national determination by July 2015.

The graphic above shows the  polling data on support for marriage equality (i.e. same-sex marriage) for the last three decades. It's a pretty picture!

Hat/tip to Daily Kos

QUEER QUOTE: Obama Says Right To Same-Sex Marriage Exists In Federal Constitution

Ptersident Barack Obama gave an interview with The New Yorker where he expresses his belief explicitly that the United States Constitution's Equal Protection clause guarantees marriage equality for same-sex couples.

This excerpt from his conversation with Jeffrey Toobin is today's Queer Quote:

“Ultimately, I think the Equal Protection Clause does guarantee same-sex marriage in all fifty states. But, as you know, courts have always been strategic. There have been times where the stars were aligned and the Court, like a thunderbolt, issues a ruling like Brown v. Board of Education, but that’s pretty rare. And, given the direction of society, for the Court to have allowed the process to play out the way it has may make the shift less controversial and more lasting.”

Obama also named the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to refuse to hear appeals from three appellate circuits on Monday October 6th and effectively causing marriage equality to go into effect in roughly 35 states as the "the best Supreme Court decision of his tenure."

“In some ways, the decision that was just handed down to not do anything about what states are doing on same-sex marriage may end up being as consequential—from my perspective, a positive sense—as anything that’s been done. Because I think it really signals that although the Court was not quite ready—it didn’t have sufficient votes to follow Loving v. Virginia and go ahead and indicate an equal-protection right across the board—it was a consequential and powerful signal of the changes that have taken place in society and that the law is having to catch up.”

Elections have consequences, people!

SATURDAY POLITICS: California Legislature Passes Plastic Bag Ban

Well, well, well! The California legislature has wrapped up its action for the 2014 year, sending numerous bills to the governor for his signature. One of the most closely watched bills was SB270, which would impose a statewide ban on the use of plastic bags.

Senators who had previously opposed the bill, including incoming Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, a Los Angeles Democrat, this time supported the measure after protections were added for plastic bag manufacturers. 

The bill by Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of Los Angeles would prohibit single-use plastic bags at grocery stores and large pharmacies in 2015 and at convenience stores in 2016. 

It includes $2 million in loans to help manufacturers shift to producing reusable bags and lets grocers charge 10 cents each for paper and reusable bags.
The bill had sparked one of the most contentious debates in the last weeks of the legislative session, with aggressive lobbying by environmentalists and bag manufacturers.

Glad to see my state senator Kevin de Leon finally changed his position and supported this important legislation! I hope Governor Brown signs it into law soon.

QUEER QUOTE: Attorney General Holder Declares DOJ Will Affirm Marriage Bans Are Unlawful

Attorney General Eric Holder has made news saying that if (really, at this point, the question is when, not if) the United States Supreme Court hears a case questioning whether a state ban on same-sex marriage violates the federal constitution, the Department of Justice will weigh in on  the side of marriage equality. This is important (and encouraging) news because the U.S. Supreme Court often wants to know what the position of the federal government is on questions of the U.S. constitution, even if a state law is under consideration.

This is what Holder said on a Sunday Talk show last week which is today's Queer Quote:

"When you have differentiations on the basis of sexual orientation they should be heightened scrutiny. That being the case, I think that a lot of these measures that will ultimately come before the Court will not survive a heightened scrutiny examination."

Holder also answered "Yes" when asked whether he thought it was unconstitutional to discriminate against same-sex couples in marriage.

I think there's really no doubt about whether marriage bans survive heightened scrutiny and there's less doubt that sexual orientation should receive heightened scrutiny. Several judges have ruled that marriage bans do not even survive rational basis review. If the Supreme Court (and the Department of Justice) took that position, that would basically end the marriage equality question once and for all.

SATURDAY POLITICS: John Duran Snubs Sheila Kuehl In L.A. Supervisor Runoff

In a pretty shocking turn of events, openly gay West Hollywood city councilman John Duran has endorsed Bobby Shriver instead of openly lesbian Sheila Kuehl in the run-off for Los Angeles County Supervisor. Kuehl placed first and Duran third in the June 3 primary election.

Karen Ocamb reports for Frontiers L.A.:

“A lot of our old assumptions are no longer true,” Duran told Frontiers on July 7. “The idea of the first gay this or that has run its course. We just had a lesbian Speaker of the Assembly replace a gay Speaker of the Assembly. We have a gay City Controller and gay City Councilmembers in L.A. and West Hollywood. It was a big issue in the 1990s, and we fought hard for it—to have LGBT people immersed in the power structure. Now we’re in it. We are it. Now how people vote is based not on whether someone is gay or straight—but on whether we agree or disagree with them—and that’s how it should be.” 

Duran said he decided on Shriver after having lunch with both candidates and participating with them in 25 debates. “In all those debates, I found myself agreeing with what Bobby was saying—in particular, his experience and how he perceives local government—and many times I was in disagreement with Sheila.”

This is a very disappointing development. John Duran is a friend of mine and I am stunned to read that he thinks that LGBT people have made so much progress that it is not important whether one of the most powerful important elected positions in the country (Los Angeles County Supervisor) should be filled by an openly gay politician. I vehemently disagree with this sentiment. Even if the person involved was not Sheila Kuehl, one of the smartest politicians ever to serve in the California Legislature (and who was the first openly LGBT member of that body), Duran would still be wrong. The fact that he is endorsing someone other than Kuehl when she is still in the run-off makes Duran's decision worse than wrong.

Major LGBT Groups Withdraw Support For ENDA in Wake of Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby Decision

Ruh-Oh! Things have started to come off the rails for the current version of the "federal LGBT rights bill," also known as ENDA or the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. The problems is that the current version of the bill (which passed the United States Senate last year) includes an "overly generous" religious exemption that would allow discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in certain settings where the equivalent discrimination on the basis of race or sex.

In light of the recent 50th anniversary of the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision focusing more attention on religious exemptions and how they apply to federal statutes, a number of mainstream LGBT organizations have taken the unusual step of coming out to oppose legislation that they have previously supported, legislation which would expand prohibitions on discrimination for millions of workers in the United States, but would also codify a religious exemption to discriminate against LGBT people.

Joint Statement on Withdrawal of Support for ENDA and Call for Equal Workplace Protections for LGBT People

The following national LGBT legal organizations have signed onto the below statement: American Civil Liberties Union; Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders; Lambda Legal; National Center for Lesbian Rights; and Transgender Law Center. 

The provision in the current version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that allows religious organizations to discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity has long been a source of significant concern to us. Given the types of workplace discrimination we see increasingly against LGBT people, together with the calls for greater permission to discriminate on religious grounds that followed immediately upon the Supreme Court's decision last week in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, it has become clear that the inclusion of this provision is no longer tenable. It would prevent ENDA from providing protections that LGBT people desperately need and would make very bad law with potential further negative effects. Therefore, we are announcing our withdrawal of support for the current version of ENDA. 

For decades, our organizations have challenged anti-LGBT workplace discrimination in the courts and worked for the passage of inclusive non-discrimination laws at the local, state, and federal level. We do this work because of the devastating toll workplace discrimination has had, and continues to have, on the lives of LGBT people. It is unacceptable that in the year 2014, men and women are forced to hide who they are or whom they love when they go to work. 

The current patchwork of legal protections at the state and local level has left LGBT people vulnerable to discrimination. For this reason, we have supported federal legislation to explicitly protect LGBT people from discrimination in the workplace, and have urged President Obama to sign an executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity or expression. 

ENDA's discriminatory provision, unprecedented in federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination, could provide religiously affiliated organizations - including hospitals, nursing homes and universities - a blank check to engage in workplace discrimination against LGBT people. The provision essentially says that anti-LGBT discrimination is different - more acceptable and legitimate - than discrimination against individuals based on their race or sex. If ENDA were to pass and be signed into law with this provision, the most important federal law for the LGBT community in American history would leave too many jobs, and too many LGBT workers, without protection. Moreover, it actually might lessen non-discrimination protections now provided for LGBT people by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and very likely would generate confusion rather than clarity in federal law. Finally, such a discrimination provision in federal law likely would invite states and municipalities to follow the unequal federal lead. All of this is unacceptable. 

The Supreme Court's decision in Hobby Lobby has made it all the more important that we not accept this inappropriate provision. Because opponents of LGBT equality are already misreading that decision as having broadly endorsed rights to discriminate against others, we cannot accept a bill that sanctions discrimination and declares that discrimination against LGBT people is more acceptable than other kinds of discrimination. 

Our ask is a simple one: Do not give religiously affiliated employers a license to discriminate against LGBT people when they have no such right to discriminate based on race, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information. Religiously affiliated organizations are allowed to make hiring decisions based on their religion, but nothing in federal law authorizes discrimination by those organizations based on any other protected characteristic, and the rule should be the same for sexual orientation and gender identity or expression. Religious organizations are free to choose their ministers or faith leaders, and adding protections for sexual orientation and gender identity or expression will not change that. 

These concerns are not hypothetical. Increasingly, this is what employment discrimination against LGBT people looks like. Take the example of Matthew Barrett. In July 2013, Matthew was offered a job as food services director at Fontbonne Academy, a college prep high school in Milton, Massachusetts that is affiliated with the Roman Catholic Sisters of St. Joseph of Boston. Fontbonne Academy has employees and admits students of various faiths. Yet, two days after Matthew listed his husband as his emergency contact on the standard employment paperwork, and despite twenty years of work in the food services industry, his job offer was rescinded. Although nothing about the food services job involved religious rituals or teaching, Matthew was told by an administrator that the school was unable to hire him because "the Catholic religion doesn't recognize same-sex marriage." The current version of ENDA would authorize this sexual orientation discrimination. 

As the national outcry against SB 1062 in Arizona (and similar proposals in numerous other states) demonstrates, the American people oppose efforts to misuse religious liberty as an excuse to discriminate against LGBT people. It is time for ENDA (and the LGBT non-discrimination executive order for federal contractors) to reflect this reality. Until the discriminatory exemption is removed so that anti-LGBT discrimination is treated the same as race, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information under federal workplace laws, we think ENDA should not move forward in Congress. In addition, we will oppose any similar provisions at the state and local level. We are hopeful that the many members of Congress who support this historic, critically important legislation will agree that singling out LGBT people for an unequal and unfair exemption from basic workplace protection falls unacceptably short of the civil rights standards that have served our nation well against other types of discrimination for fifty years. We stand ready and eager to work with them to achieve the long-sought goal of explicit, effective federal non-discrimination protections for LGBT people.

That's pretty deep!

SATURDAY POLITICS: Yee (Currently) Leads Pérez BY 659 Votes

Last week's Saturday Politics discussed the insanely close vote count between Democrats Betty Yee and John Pérez for the #2 slot in the California State Controller race. Last week, Pérez had a lead but in the latest update on Friday evening by the Secretary of State, Yee now leads by 659 votes (out of well more than 4 million votes cast in this race) over her Democratic rival, with a total of 876,670 compared to 876,011. The two are basically tied with 21.7% of the vote while a Republican is currently well ahead for the #1 run-off spot with 24.8%.

Regardless of who is declared to be the winner, it is very likely there will be a recount, and also likely that a Democrat will end up winning the general election. (After all, if you add up the Republican-leaning votes in the current tally, it only totals 45.8% of the vote.)

SATURDAY POLITICS: Nailbiter Election Between Yee and Pérez For State Controller Run-Off Slot

John Pérez, former openly gay Speaker of the California Assembly and Betty Yee, current member of the powerful but little-understood State Board of Equalization are in an incredibly tight race for the second slot in the Top 2 general election in November 2014. Pérez and Yee are both Democrats, and each won about 21.7% of the ballots cast in the June 3rd primary election, second behind Republican Ashley Swearingen, the Mayor of Fresno, who earned 24.9% of the more than 4.3 million votes cast in the state controller race. Swearingen was endorsed by the Los Angeles Times while neither Perez nor Yee were able to obtain the 60% threshold required for the state or county Democratic Party endorsement.

Yee and Pérez are currently just a few hundred votes apart with the lead switching multiple times as vote counting has continued since June 3rd. On election night, both Democrats were behind a second Republican, Dave Evans who now has 21.2% (and who spent an astonishing $600 on his campaign). A Republican has not been elected to any statewide constitutional office in the last general election of 2010 and the specter of Democrats being shutout from a slot on the ballot due to the Top 2 primary system shocked many observers. As of 5:44pm on Friday June 13th, Pérez has 852,243 and Yee has 851,921, a lead of 322 votes, or 0.008% of all votes cast. That is basically a tie!

It's likely (but not certain) that whichever Democrat comes second will be favored to win the Controller's race in November as the Party unites to keep its lock on the state constitutional offices in California in the 2014 general election.

SATURDAY POLITICS: L.A. County Democrats Endorse Kuehl, Solis, Prang

The Los Angeles County Democratic Party has issued their endorsements in a series of high profile country races.

The LACDP has endorsed two openly LGBT candidates for two important positions: Sheila James Kuehl for County Supervisor (District 3) and Jeffrey Prang (Los Angeles County Assessor). They also endorsed progressive Hilda Solis (and former Secretary of Labor in the Obama administration) for County Supervisor in District 1 (the district I live in).

The County Supervisor positions are incredibly powerful. There are only 5 such positions representing the concerns of more than 10 million Los Angeles County residents, so they have more constituents than all Congresspeople and some United States Senators! Thanks to term limits, two slots are opening up, with the forced retirements of Gloria Molina (District 1) and Zev Yaroslavsky (District 3).

MadProfessah has also endorsed Solis and Kuehl in these races already.

CA State Senate Abandons Attempt To Restore Race-Conscious College Admissions

Bad news today out of the Democratic state senate, where a state constitutional amendment that would place a partial repeal of Proposition 209 on the November 2014 ballot has been tabled. Proposition 209 passed in 1996 and banned the use of race, ethnicity or gender in public education, public contracts or public employment. The state senate had passed SCA 5 by a vote of 27 to 9 on January 30, 2014.

Speaker John Perez (and State Controller candidate) announced today that the Assembly would not consider the measure. According to the San Jose Mercury-News Asian-American state senators switched from support to opposition due to pressure from the community.

Last week, saying they had received thousands of calls and emails from constituents, senators Leland Yee, D-San Francisco; Ted Lieu, D-Torrance; and Carol Liu, D-La Cañada/Flintridge asked Assembly Speaker John Perez to stop the bill. 

"As lifelong advocates for the Asian-American and other communities, we would never support a policy that we believed would negatively impact our children," they wrote in a letter to Perez. 

In 1996, California became the first state to outlaw affirmative action in public university admissions and state hiring, a policy that took effect in 1998. The amendment would have allowed voters to lift that ban, either this fall or in 2016. 

Hernandez and others have said that misinformation about what affirmative action would mean -- such as racial quotas for new freshmen -- spread quickly, stoking parents' fears about their children's chances of getting into UC, the state's public research university system. 

Using racial quotas in admissions would be unconstitutional; recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have strictly limited consideration of race in public university admissions. UC officials last week said any suggestion of quotas is irresponsible: "We have never done that, and we never would," said Nina Robinson, UC's associate president and chief policy adviser.

 Hopefully the legislature will realize that it is important to be able to use race as a factor in college admissions.