Report from CA Democratic Convention: Day 2 & 3

The second full day of the California Democratic Convention was a very busy affair. There were many speeches by politicians in the main hall (Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom, Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, etc etc).

Because I had a blogger credential, I was able to attend U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer press conference after her speech at the convention which was attended by both bloggers and members of the "old media." It was a very interesting experience. I had a question prepared, but I was too shy to ask it. My qeuestion would have been:

Senator, according to several national LGBT civil rights organizations there are currently nine United States Senators (10 if you count Al Franken) who have publicly announced their support for marriage equality. I think many of us in this room are aware of your position on this issue, but my question is would you like to use this opportunity to go on the record in favor of marriage equality, especially in light of the state Supreme Court's imminent ruling on the legality of Proposition 8 and the ongoing discussion about a future ballot measure to legalize the practice if the Court upholds the measure?

But, the other questions asked at the press conference were pretty good, if a bit focussed on the potential challenge of Carly Fiorina.

Later, in the day I went to the "Recession Reception" hosted by Attorney General Jerry Brown at the historic Governor's Mansion. At the reception I ran into the openly gay mayor of Mahattan Beach Mitch Ward who is running for the 53rd Assembly District seat currently held by Ted Lieu who is running for Attorney General. Ward is the first person of color (African American) elected to the Manhattan Beach city council in over one hundred years. Also at the reception was Ward's main rival for the seat, Betsy Butler who says she has already received the endorsement of Assembly Speaker Karen Bass.

Luis Lopez (President, HonorPAC, the Latina/o LGBT political action committee),
Hans Johnson (Board Member, NGLTF) and
Jerry Brown (CA Attorney General and Former Governor)

After the recession reception, I hung out with Luis and Hans and we ran into HonorPAC-endorsed, openly gay Long Beach city councilman Robert Garcia (who was the youngest person ever elected to that august body at the age of 31 a few weeks ago).

31-year-old openly gay Long Beach city councilman Robert Garcia with Luis Lopez

On Friday I had previously reported that I had run into openly gay, African American guy who is running for Ellen Tauscher's congressional seat in the 10th district. Here's a picture of Anthony Woods (left) with Tauren Jones, a volunteer for the African American caucus of the California Democratic Party.
(Notice the spiffy red-green-black pin on his lapel).