SATURDAY POLITICS: Toni Atkins Sworn In As 1st Lesbian Speaker Of CA Assembly

History was made this week as openly gay Speaker of the Assembly John Perez presided over the swearing in of another openly gay Speaker of the Assembly, the first time the head of a state legislature has transitioned between two openly LGBT people. The new Speaker of the Assembly is Toni Atkins from San Diego.

Here is an excerpt of what Speaker Atkins said after she was sworn in:

We want to restore the Golden State that provided our kids the best education and good jobs. We want to ensure that the California Dream is alive and well for everyone in our state, and for everyone who, like me, comes here to achieve their dream. We want the Golden State to be the Gold Standard that others strive towards. 

For the last decade, and especially in light of the Great Recession, we’ve had to work our way back. And, California has finally turned the corner. 

We are still the 8th largest economy in the world. And members, regardless of how it may be misrepresented, we aren’t really in competition with Texas. We are in competition with Brazil and Italy and France. We are a $2 trillion dollar economy. We are the number one state for venture capital. We have 3.4 million small businesses that provide more than half the jobs in California. And last year we enacted 18 new business-friendly laws that will help business owners by removing regulatory burdens, restoring some investment tax breaks and by creating the “Made in California” program.

Hat/tip to Karen Ocamb 

Frank Schubert's Lesbian Sister Running For Sacramento County DA

Interesting political news out of Sacramento today. Frank Schubert is well-known to readers of this blog as the mastermind behind California's ban on same-sex marriage, Proposition 8, and many other ballot campaigns against marriage equality. It has been well-known for quite awhile that Schubert has a lesbian sister, but now Anne Marie Schubert is running for District Attorney of Sacramento County, as a openly gay Republican. During the Proposition 8 battle back in 2008 it was not known that Schubert existed and many people feel like if she had come out publicly at the time then it may have had an impact on the election.

Most openly gay candidates get the support of the LGBT community, but when you're the sister of the LGBT community's public enemy number one that is unlikely.

The Sacramento Bee's Marcus Breton reports

Schubert isn’t running as a gay candidate but as a champion for public safety. She doesn’t hide her orientation but doesn’t think it should define her, either. 

“Don’t vote for me because I’m gay or not gay. Vote for me because I’m the most qualified for the job,” she said. 

That Schubert is open but not an advocate for anything but the principles of her profession partly describes why Sacramento’s gay community is glaringly outside her varied tent of supporters. 

Ultimately, DAs are best judged by their record of achieving justice. 

But Schubert’s ascension and her disconnect with politically active segments of Sacramento’s gay community would have been unimaginable a few years ago. 

It was only eight years ago that West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon “came out” to his constituents after virtually hiding who he was his entire political career.

I think that the main reason Ms. Schubert is not going to be endorsed by the LGBT community in Sacramento County is not that she's a republican but that she is not really friendly to or supportive of the LGBT community.

California Progress Report discussed the dilemma in Sacramento's LGBT community:

Public records show both Schuberts are registered as Republicans, while the candidate's two opponents, Maggy Krell and Todd Leras, are registered Democrats. 

Ms. Schubert's oldest brother, Frank, made millions of dollars stripping away equal marriage rights of homosexuals at the ballot box in California and Maine in 2008. Because of the familial connection to the fight against marriage equality, Ms. Schubert's run for District Attorney has proven to be divisive among the region's LGBT advocacy community. 

"I don't hold Anne Marie accountable for the actions of her brother," Darrick Lawson, the past president of Sacramento's Rainbow Chamber of Commerce whose group surprised many with its recent endorsement of Schubert's leading opponent, Krell. "I hold her accountable for her own actions, and more importantly, her own inactions. 

"I believe there is one Californian in 2008 who was uniquely qualified to make a difference during the Prop 8 campaign, and that was Anne Marie Schubert. If she had stood on the Capitol steps with her partner and their two children, the debate would have changed immediately," Lawson claimed. 

While Frank Schubert designed a successful campaign that promoted the idea that children would somehow be damaged or diminished to be knowledgable of same-sex unions, his sister and now candidate for District Attorney worked and lived in Sacramento with her Domestic Partner, Julie Greenberg, raising two young children the approximate age of the young boy, Joey Wirthlin, politically exploited by her brother to get California voters to strip away the right of their gay fellow citizens to marry.

What do you all think?

What

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Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/03/16/6240784/marcos-breton-why-gays-oppose.html#storylink=cpy

Saturday Politics: Lesbian Wins NoCal Senate Seat

Cathleen Gagliani won a hotly contested State Senate race to
give Democrats 29 votes and the LGBT caucus an 8th member

Cathleen Galgiani made news last year when she came out of the closet to become the 8th member of the California LGBT Legislative Caucus. At that time she came out she was an Assemblymember representing the 17th District in Northern California, in the Republican-leaning sections of Sacramento and San Joaquin counties. Galgiani decided to run for the 5th Senate District this year in another conservative district against Republican assemblyman Bob Berryhill and was trailing when votes were tallied on election day.

However, it looks like she has won the tightly contested race when absentee and provisional votes were counted:

After trailing since Election Day, Democrat Cathleen Galgiani overtook Bill Berryhill by more than 2,100 votes Wednesday night, assuring her of victory in their hotly contested 5th Senate District race. 

Thomas Lawson, Galgiani's campaign manager, said the trend is clear and that her victory will make Thanksgiving Day even sweeter. 

Berryhill's campaign consultant, Duane Dichiara, stopped short of conceding defeat but admitted, "It's a tough row to hoe" now. 

Galgiani inched ahead of her Republican opponent on the strength of her showing in San Joaquin County.She started Wednesday about 1,500 votes behind and now leads by 2,111 votes.

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2012/11/cathleen-galgiani-overtakes-bill-berryhill-in-hot-senate-race.html#storylink=cpy

If Galgiani's win is confirmed it will mean that Democrats will have 29 seats in the 40-member Senate, 2 more than the two-thirds super-majority needed to place constitutional amendments directly on the ballot and pass new taxes. Astonishingly, Democrats will also have a super-majority in the Assembly, and openly gay Speaker John Pérez will lead the largest Democratic caucus in a century, with at least 54 members in the 80-member lower house.

There is also good news for the California LGBT Legislative Caucus, which will maintain its status as the nation's largest, with 8 members (tied with Maryland).

The openly LGBT members of the California legislature from 2012-2014 will be:

John A. Pérez (Assembly District 53) 

Toni Atkins (Assembly District 78) 

Richard Gordon (Assembly District 24) 

Tom Ammiano (Assembly District 17) 

Susan Eggman* (Assembly District 13) 

Ricardo Lara* (Senate District 33) 

Cathleen Galgiani* (Senate District 5) 

Mark Leno (Senate District 11)

California would have had a record NINE openly LGBT members if my friend Luis Lopez had won his intra-party race against Jimmie Gomez in my Assembly District (the 51st in Los Angeles), but unfortunately that did not happen.

CA-10: Black Gay Candidate Starting To Garner Attention

Anthony Woods is a young African American man with impressive credentials who is currently running for Congress: he is a West Point grad, attended Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and served two tours of duty in Iraq before the age of 29. MadProfessah met him at the California Democratic party convention in Sacramento in April. Oh, and Anthony Woods is gay and was kicked out of the miltary due to the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy.

There are much bigger names (Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi) running to replace Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher in the 10th Congressional District of California as Woods hasn't been given much of a chance but he is starting to get widespread blogosphere notice. Andrew Sullivan called him "A Very New Democrat" and he was described as "the Best Political Resume Ever" by a blogger at The Daily Beast, a story that was tweeted by influential political reporter Marc Ambinder and appeared in The Huffington Post.

This week, Woods was also endorsed by Lieutenant Dan Choi, who has also been in the news due to his public fight against the DADT policy.

MadProfessah endorses Anthony Woods for Congress in CA-10.

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).

Report from CA Democratic Convention: Day 1

Day 1 at the California Democratic Covention in Sacramento was a bit of a blur.

I joined and attended the African American and the LGBT Caucuses of the CA Democratic Party, although I only voted in the former. The two were scheduled at the same time! I also attended and voted in the Progressive Caucus.

So far I have seen at close quarters:

Attorney General Jerry Brown
SF Mayor Gavin Newsom
CA Lieutentant Governor John Garamendi
SF Attorney General Kamala Harris
Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson
Speaker Karen Bass
Many state legislators...

In addition I met and spoke privately with two openly gay African American men who are both running for political office: Manhattan Beach mayor Mitch Ward (state assembly) and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" casualty Anthony Woods who is running for the soon-to-be-open 10th Congressional district seat curretly held by Ellen Tauscher (CA-10).

That's it for now!

MadProfessah in Sacramento at the CDP

MadProfessah is attending his first California Democratic Party convention in Sacramento this weekend as an elected delegate representing the 45th Assembly District.
I'm also an official blogger at the conference so I will be tweeting and blogging about my experiences.