State Assembly candidate Betsy Butler picked up the endorsement of the California Democratic Party this past weekend at the organization's convention in San Diego. But as has been the case for many of the endorsements in the 50th Assembly District contest, this one came with controversy.
Butler, a current Assembly member who represents a South Bay district, received 62 of the possible 85 delegate votes. Rival Torie Osborn, a political activist, had 20 backers and Santa Monica Mayor/California Coastal Commissioner Richard Bloom earned no support. Three delegates voted for no endorsement.
"These numbers represent the heart and commitment of Los Angeles Democrats," said Butler, according to a press release issued by her campaign. "People in my district worked so hard for this. They took me from a solid majority locally to nearly a three-fourth super-majority across the goal line. This was not just a victory for me, it was a victory for their passion and dedication to the work we have done together.”
Osborn supporters looked at the win differently. Several said Assembly Speaker John Perez, who is a Butler supporter, made sure his pick got the victory.
"Thirty-eight of Betsy Butler's votes were handed to her by Speaker John Perez, who had party officials and legislators from outside the new 50th A.D. appoint delegates who lived in the district who were pledged to vote for Betsy," wrote Malibu resident Ted Vaill, one of the delegates at the convention, in an email to Patch.
Osborn's campaign did not immediately respond to Patch's request for comment.
Osborn has received endorsements from several local Democratic clubs, including those in , and .
The endorsements from Malibu and West Hollywood-Beverly Hills were controversial, because in both cases large numbers of Osborn supporters joined those Democratic groups at the last moment. Detractors said these people did not live in the cities the clubs represented and the new members joined with the sole purpose of getting the endorsements for Osborn. In both cases, checks in excess of $1,000 were submitted to cover the membership dues of all the Osborn supporters joining the clubs.
The 50th District was created last year as part of . It includes West Hollywood, Malibu, Santa Monica, Brentwood, Beverly Hills, part of Hollywood, Pacific Palisades and Agoura Hills, as well as other areas near those cities and neighborhoods.
In addition to the three Democrats, West Hollywood Republican Brad Torgan is in the contest to claim the Assembly seat. The primary election is June 5. The top two vote-getters, regardless of party affiliation, will face off in the general election in November.
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"Here is where State Party rules are not only stacked in favor of incumbents - but give politicians like John Perez an unsavory role in manipulating the outcome. On Saturday, delegates from the 50th Assembly District gathered to make the Party endorsement. Assembly members can appoint up to five delegates, but only three must live in the legislator's district. Therefore, Perez asked all Democratic Assembly members to set aside their two "non-resident" slots - so he can appoint delegates who live in the 50th District, and will vote for Betsy Butler over Torie Osborn. As I walked in to observe the 50th Assembly District caucus on Saturday (as a San Francisco delegate, I could not vote - but I attended to observe), aides for Perez were in full force with clipboards - keeping track of who had shown up to vote for Butler. Aides for other Democratic Assembly members like Fiona Ma had already been working the Convention for the past day, promoting Betsy Butler. This was a well coordinated effort to rig the endorsement, for the Speaker to deliver for one of his members. The Osborn campaign knew they didn't have much of a shot." Full story here: http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=9889#more
More importantly, what's missing from the complaints here is that one of the most vocal Osborn supporters, Dante Atkins, helped write those rules that the state party used. Raise your hand if you can say you were "inside" the party enough to have active involvement with the party's rules. I sure didn't have any say whatsoever. Earlier this year the party even changed its rules to give local clubs more involvement at his behest. And give him credit, Dante had some good ideas. However, to now turn around and complain about the rules that your person helped create is a little silly, especially since the justification for stacking local clubs was "it was within the rules." Nothing that happened with the party endorsement was outside the rules either -rules that your own person even had a say in creating. You can't have it both ways.
Perhaps you'd like to disclose you work for CLCV, who has endorsed Betsy Butler for AD50, and that your former boss is Butler's campaign manager? No? That's OK, I'll do it for you. As for your assertion that Atkins wrote the CDP endorsement rules, nice try, but no, he didn't. They were written by a large committee called PERC, composed of dozens of party officials from all over the state. Atkins was but one member of that committee. Saying he "wrote" the endorsement rules is wildly and willfully inaccurate, akin to claiming Butler single-handedly "wrote" every piece of legislation that passed through Sacramento this year. As for issues with the CDP endorsement process, don't take my word for it, take the word of a self-identified Butler supporter and CDP delegate, Dan Kalb: "I've been saying (to members of the CDP Rules committee and others) for years that, while appointed delegates serve at the pleasure of their elected legislators, all legislators should be required to make all their appointments from within their district. I support this proposed restriction to increase the integrity of the CDP endorsement process, and as someone who also supports Betsy Butler for re-election."
There's something wrong when a self-described "progressive" like yourself fails to actual follow progressive principles like admitting when you're wrong and arguing in good faith. Being progressive isn't about a category you place yourself in, it's about a set of principles and a philosophy that you actually follow (especially when it's disadvantageous to do so), and if you fail to follow them you may want to re-evaluate whether or not you're actually a progressive. It's easy to give yourself a title. It's hard to live by it. Now to address your comment, I didn't say Dante wrote the rules, I said he "helped write the rules" and that he had a voice in the process in a way that most of us don't. That's certainly true. By the way, this is what I mean when I say you don't argue in good faith, and thank you for proving my point. Now if you want to say he didn't literally write them down on a piece of paper, sure I'm ok with that, but he was certainly on the committee like you admit and had his say and his suggestions were taken. That's more than the vast majority of people can say including the candidates. I stand by my comments, and your own account only supports what I've said, so thank you.
According to campaign finance reports, Assembly Speaker John Perez gave $5K to CLCV, which then turned around and made a $7,800 donation to Buter's campaign. Why is CLCV donating so any $$$ to a candidate in a safe Dem district while virtually ignoring Dems running in swing districts in races that could bring us a 2/3rds majority? I'm thinking specifically of AD66, the South Bay district Butler abandoned. CLCV only donated $1K to Al Muratsuchi, the Democratic candidate. Why is that?
@Misterbee1 - Thanks for your long patronage to CLCV. It has certainly not been misplaced. As a non-partisan organization, CLCV's mission is to elect the best environmental candidates not Democrats. In AD 50 the comparison is between an environmental champion with a 100% voting record and who authored and passed landmark environmental legislation to ban BPA from baby bottles that the community has been trying to accomplish for more than half a decade and has a long track record of understanding and being involved in our issues and working for the environment (Betsy Butler) and three other candidates who are not likely to perform nearly as well. Please don't be fooled by Marta's comments. She has very limited knowledge about CLCV and our focus and is more driven by an interest in helping her candidate win than actually learning the situation or even helping Al Muratsuchi win in AD 66. Since it is not in CLCV or our candidates' interest for us to discuss political strategy in a public forum, as a member I invite you to call us to discuss this further. CLCV has a long track record of supplying the necessary resources of helping our candidates win, and our candidates in 2012 are no exception. AD 66 candidate Al Muratsuchi knows for a fact what we've been doing for him, as we've already long discussed this with him and his campaign.
I'm also a longtime member of CLCV, but I'll be looking to donate my money to other groups like the Sierra Club and Heal the Bay from now on.
as an outside observer (and a voter) looking at what happened and at the manipulative process for both candidates to get endorsements and the ensuing bickering from campaign managers and party lackeys I would have to hold my nose to vote for either of those candidates. I pray for an independent that is untarnished by dirty party politics. There is not a word being said about issues that people actually care about and that's why people don't vote. this whole process is a complete farce.
So there has been a word -- but just that one word. I don't think Mike is working for the Butler campaign, just defending a group's endorsement. I don't know his group, but his views seem to make sense to me -- certainly more sense than those who have responded to him (or rather, AT him). We still have no idea who Marta Evry is. She tries to call others out while ignoring any of us who ask her to identify her own affiliations. I just know that she started popping up on PATCH in December, and ONLY posts about this single issue, and always to fling mud at Butler, never to actually support in a positive way the candidate I suspect she supports (or works for?). That tells me a whole lot.
http://vimeo.com/35677810 The transcription is below... "Thank you all. Come back to West Hollywood soon. We're not going to work for you, Torie. This is bullshit. This is bullshit. You violated our community. You violated our community. It's not like we won't remember this. [Something something aside to another gentleman] ...you're working for a woman. Their not all lesbians." -Esteemed West Hollywood Mayor John Duran
CLCV is always working towards achieving and maintaining environmental majorities in the legislature, not Democratic or Republican majorities. We also want to elect the best environmental candidates in each of the races across the state. We certainly spend the vast majority of our campaign resources helping to elect environmental champions and often that becomes a race between a Democrat and a Republican, but we also spend resources supporting candidates who may be running against people of the same party. Coastal seats historically offer candidates with better environmental voting records, but we also need legislators who understand the complexities of environmental issues enough to author strong legislation, especially in the world of term limits where there's so much to know but legislators get so little time to learn about it and then do something. This quality is much more difficult to come by. The problem is, if you have a majority of good environmental votes but not enough people working on good legislation, it still doesn't move environmental progress forward. In AD 50, Betsy Butler is a legislator with a proven track record of doing so. So while none of the Democrats in this race would necessarily be a terrible environmental vote, there are significant distinctions between the candidates that would impact the environmental community.
And the latest tactic of screeching "misogynist" at someone like Duran -- whose record on this is public and unblemished -- just because he doesn't support a *particular* woman in a race is ridiculous. It's even more ridiculous when, as in this race, he actually endorses a different woman.
At least the Perez situation demonstrates that *someone* endorsed the candidate besides the candidate herself. And last time I checked, Perez actually has a pretty good record on progressive issues.
I never mentioned I did not agree with Duran's political position. As you state, "you can't say that his actions don't match the ideals he strives for." THIS[video] is exactly what concerns me, along with his "actions". As Mayor, even when stepping outside your doorstep, I would hope a person of his position would carry himself better in the public, especially when he not only is there touting his horn, but also damaging respect to our party. Hey, it's what keeps me out of politics and keeps me objective without drinking anyone's juice. Perhaps you may rethink your attack on why I posted this demonstration of the leader of WeHo Council. What? Are you proud and seriously supportive? Sheesh... Pull your head out and maybe be a tad more thoughtful?
Seriously though, as Mayor, he should have handled himself better regardless of the passion behind it. That's all. So be it. Relax. There are many folks troubled by this example. If someone freaked out in Chamber, he would have gone off on the person for that kind of outburst, don't you think?
If I were in charge of the Democratic Club meeting, I'd question the presence of a video camera in the room before I'd question one of the delegates having an emotional outburst.
My primary focus this election season isn't AD50, but achieving a 2/3rds majority in the State legislature. We're only 2 seats away in the Assembly and state Senate. If we achieve that, a Republican minority will no longer be able to continue to block the fundamental structural reforms our state needs. Without it, the best we can hope for is triage. My preference had always been to support both Butler and Osborn, but Butler's choice to abandon us in the South Bay made that impossible. But while I support Osborn and would prefer she win in AD50, the reality is this race will in no way shift the balance of power in the legislature. A Democrat will win in AD50 no matter what. However, AD66, the South Bay district Butler left, is a different story. There's a real possibility a Tea Party Republican can win this seat. It's why I cringe when I read this from Mike Young, "CLCV is always working towards achieving and maintaining environmental majorities in the legislature, not Democratic or Republican majorities.", because it betrays his fundamental ignorance of how CA government works and why the state is in crisis.