I’ve put up one more Texas race: Mike Siegel in TX–10, who is repeating his 2018 challenge to Michael McCaul. He lost by 4 in 2018, without getting much attention. He’s a Bernie liberal.

We may still be a cycle or two early, but Texas is where we can pick up significant numbers of seats. There just aren’t many Republicans in California to toss out any more. Texas CDs 3, 10, 21, 22, 23, 24 are all highly competitive (Lean R or better). TX–02, already up, is one of several that can flip on a good night.

If you can, there are many state legislature races looking for small amounts of money. Look for lists from Daily Kos or Democratic Party sources.

In a Zoom debate between the Iowa Senate candidates, Dem Theresa Greenfield knew the going price of corn to the penny. Republican incumbent Ernst? Too much time hanging with the DC lobbyists: she was nowhere close on the price of a bushel of soybeans.

I’m told it’s a big deal.

Wow. Democrat @GreenfieldIowa was asked what a bushel of corn costs. She nailed it down to the PENNY. When Republican @joniernst was asked the cost of soybeans, well… not so much. pic.twitter.com/CQ534jxEjV

— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) October 16, 2020

 Her performance in the Judiciary Committee hearings was as weak as the worst predictions, ending with a hug of Lindsey Graham. I’m not even sure she realizes she is supposed to vote No. That fax number? (202)228-3954 [DC Office]

I had a dream I received the following letter.

Dear Andrew,
It’s too bad about Roe v. Wade being overturned. The Republicans packed the Supreme Court, even when I asked them nicely not to. The best way to show them you won’t stand for this is to make a large donation to my 2024 re-election campaign. Yours, Senator Feinstein.

Action items

1. We’ll be mailing Vote Forward letters in Lafeyette on Saturday. If you want us to take yours, put them through our mail slot Friday afternoon or evening.
2. We still have some postcards, and Tony the Democrat still has a few campaigns. Stop by and take what you want from the box on our porch.
3. With cards and letters almost over, everyone is transitioning to phone and text banks. For phone banking we suggest Flip The West and Swing Left SF. Judy and Karen are deep in texting land. Contact them if you want help. Judy suggest starting with Flip The West texting and move up from there.
4. Andy is now doing 3 hour shifts with DNC’s Voter Protection Project for Spanish-speaking voters. Emily is with the same project, in English. Lots of people are calling this helpline with voting questions. 90 minutes trainings happen almost every day. [Added Oct 12: Mostly people wanting to know where to vote early in person, how to register, or how to obtain an mail ballot. No lurid tales of voter suppression.]
5. Working from suggestions at the meeting, Raphael Warnock (Georgia Special) is added to the ActBlue site, and the House races are sorted by promise of success.

Propositions

Below are various recommendations on State and Alameda County propositions, including the Wellstone Club’s and my own. There seems to be unanimity on the best-known ones, but not on 21 (Rent Control) and 24 (Online Privacy), both of which I found, personally, difficult and on which I am not completely certain. Judy mentioned disagreeing with Wellstone’s endorsement of 23 (Dialysis). Feel free to add links to other recommendations (e.g., newspapers) in comments to this post. Y’all do know that you can add comments, right?

I should mention that there are also two county-wide propositions, both maintain or increase taxes.

An infallible rule is that any measure opposed by the XYZ Taxpayers’ Association should be voted for.

Just to start off what will probably be a spirited discussion, here’s my take on the propositions.

Let’s start with the State ones, and the subset that are easy.

Prop. 15: partial repeal of Prop. 13. Yes. Opponents say this is just the beginning of chipping away at Prop. 13. Inshallah!

Prop. 16: Affirmative Action. Yes.

Prop. 17: Restore more felon voting rights. Yes.

Prop. 18: 17 year olds allowed to vote in primary if 18 by election. Yes. But please don’t deceive yourself that this is the answer to poor voting rates among youth. I doubt if any race will be decided by these votes in the next century.

Prop. 19: More special privileges under Prop. 13 for existing homeowners. No. Let’s not vote ourselves more gimmicks to keep our own property taxes low. I am also very skeptical of analysis that governments will get more tax money in the long run.

Prop. 20: Re-grow the carceral state. No. Brought to you by the prison guards union.

Prop. 22: Uber and Lyft special pleading. No. I dislike their business model of looking for under-regulated high tech services and exploiting loopholes until lawmakers catch up. I like Berkeley’s proposed surcharge on their rides even more.

Prop. 23: Something about kidneys. No. I didn’t bother to learn about whether dialysis clinics should have physicians, or whatever this is about. Something this detailed has no business being an initiative.

Prop. 25: Cash bail. Yes. Brought to you by the bail bond industry, with the hope you will vote against it from ballot fatigue.

I found these ones more difficult.

Prop. 14: Stem cell research. No? The Federal government is going back into stem cell research. Do we still need a California plan?

Prop. 21: More rent control. Tepid Yes. I think Naomi is No. These specific additions seem OK to me. A 15-year window is more than long enough to understand the market for a new property. On the other hand, I don’t want vote in a way that may perpetuate the idea that rent control offers a solution to the Bay Area’s housing supply problem. For that reason, I’m a hard No on Berkeley’s drastic Prop. MM.

Prop. 24: OK, I am embarrassed, as a software guy, to say I haven’t researched this enough to make up my mind. I think more people I respect are on the Yes side (e.g., Ro Khanna), but there are groups recommending No who are also good, e.g., state ACLU. Maybe the fact the California Republican Party is a No means I should be a Yes.

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4:30–5:30 (as usual)

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I am in the process of changing the donations page to six House races that didn’t look competitive until recently. These are all uphill races, but they are possible in a landslide. We really are building a Blue Wave. These are races where I am worried the Democrat needs more money, but on just that criterion I could have picked four times as many. I restricted myself to a list of the most reprehensible Republicans.

CO-03 (Diane Mitsch Busch over Lauren Boebert) Boebert is the Q-Anon nut who loves her Second Amendment and hates her mask. She might quit Congress when Nancy Pelosi tells her that guns are prohibited and masks are required on the House floor, but better not to send her in the first place.

NY-01 (Nancy Goroff over Lee Zeldin) Zeldin yields to no one in Islamophobia and connection to Israel’s right-wing. Time to put an end to bigotry.

OH-01 (Kate Schroder over Steve Chabot) Chabot has been a mediocrity even by GOP Standards (anti-evolution, anti-climate change, fanatical on abortion), but COVID–19 has truly given him an opportunity to come into his own, fulminating against China all the way into summer instead of doing anything here to stop it.

SC-02 (Adair Ford Boroughs over Joe Wilson) You remember Joe Wilson, right? He is the man who yelled “You lie!” at President Obama, back when the GOP was cool with disrespecting the President. Need I say more?

TX-02 (Sima Ladjevardian over Dan Crenshaw) Crenshaw got off to a promising start with a feel-good Saturday Night Live appearance, but since then he has gone Full Trump. There is often an undertone of violence towards Dems in his recent statements. Let’s help him get a new career as Fox TV Action Hero.

VA-05 (Cameron Webb over Bob Good) Good is bad. He upset the Republican incumbent in the primary with a message that a Republican Representative should lose because he officiated a gay wedding. Because of covid, he was able win a drive-by convention instead of a full primary. His opponent is an M.D. Has this district absorbed enough D.C. exurbanites to flip?

A post on Steven Vincent Benét and the Democrats’ longstanding reluctance to manipulate the courts.

Even today, while Blue Dog Democrat Joe Manchin is finally hopping mad over the hasty Barrett nomination, our own Dianne Feinstein is pooh-poohing the idea of court packing. It’s also become obvious that conservative Supreme Court justices pay attention to the timing of their replacements, and liberals do not. The only recent conservative justice to leave the bench under a Democratic President was Antonin Scalia, whose departure was unscheduled. (Last before him was the retirement of moderate-right Byron “Whizzer” White, in 1993.)

The connection to Benét is his famous short story “The Devil and Daniel Webster“, which he subsequently rewrote as a play and opera libretto. To summarize the plot, New Hampshire farmer Jabez Stone sells his soul to the Devil in return for years of good luck. Eventually Mr. Scratch returns to collect. Stone hires famed attorney Daniel Webster to try to save himself from Hell. Webster insists successfully that Stone is entitled to a trial, but the Devil in return picks the judge and jury. The judge is John Hathorne, who presided enthusiastically over some of the Salem Witch Trials. The jurors include the pirate Blackbeard and other malefactors.

Nevertheless, with his stirring advocacy (“You were men, once!”), Webster wins an acquittal, and moreover forces the Devil to agree never to bother a New Hampshireman again.

The Democratic leadership are all dreaming of their success as the modern-day Daniel Webster (who opposed the Democratic Party his entire career), who gets votes from Roberts, Gorsuch, the potential new Justice Barrett, perhaps even roué Brett Boofanaugh. Watch me salvage Obamacare, or even Roe! The conservative justices are not monolithic: Gorsuch appears to be the most sympathetic to Native Americans, including all the liberals, in at least a generation. But on cases that tilt the political playing field in the Republicans’ favor, they have never shown mercy. Bush v. Gore. Citizens United. Shelby County (Voting Rights Act). Voter ID cases. Cases on loosening rules for the 2020 pandemic. Not a single conservative defection.

Right now, the lily-white Republican Party, counting both its explicitly racist Trump vanguard and its business rump, attracts not more than 45% of the national electorate. Maintaining permanent minority rule is exactly why these Federalist Society judges are on the bench. Preservation of Republican supremacy has moved from the ballot box to the courts, and no amount of eloquence or legal brilliance will fix that. Six new progressive seats on the Supreme Court, on the other hand…