Opponents of health care reform rallied in the shadow of the Capitol this week.

The House of Representatives descended into procedural chaos and contentious partisanship this morning as historic debate started on the health care debate.

One by one the women Democrats of the House lined up to make one sentence statements about their support for the bill. But Republicans continually objected and tried to hold up the proceedings.

Lawmakers talked over one another and Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, the longest serving member of the House, tried in vain to get the Republicans to let the Democrats state their support for the bill. 

“Because I support health care reform that invests in a health care workforce dedicated to the needs of all women I ask unanimous consent to advise and extend my remarks,’’ said Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Santa Ana.

“The chair would suggest to all members that we respect each other’s rights,’’ Dingell pleaded – to deaf ears.

This is the start of what will likely be a long day and evening that could spill over into tomorrow and perhaps Monday as this contentious health care issue is debated on the House floor for the first time in decades.

In the House, debate is limited on individual bills and often the procedure of stating a “unanimous consent” request is used by lawmakers to get a statement inserted in the Congressional Record as a way of circumventing the limited time available.

Sanchez, for example, doesn’t sit on any of the committee that worked on health care and likely wouldn’t have been able to get time on the floor to make an extended statement about the health care bill.

The GOP wants to have an extra hour be added to the debate but such a request is not allowed under the rules.

So after the Democratic women finished their remarks, Republicans lined up at the mike to begin theirs. There were no objections from the Democrats.

Sanchez, for example, doesn’t sit on any of the committee that worked on health care and likely wouldn’t have been able to get time on the floor to make an extended statement about the health care bill.

So far none of the Orange County Republican members have come to the floor this morning.

Yesterday, Rep. Gary Miller went to the House floor twice to talk about his opposition to the bill.

Miller, R-Diamond Bar, called into question the support of the American Association of Retired Persons ands the American Medical Association, support that President Barack Obama has been touting this week.

Miller said those endorsements did not reflect the rank and file members of those groups.

“You can’t support this bill and say you support seniors and you support doctors who represent their patients,’’ Miller said.

All of this is going on as Obama is on Capitol Hill meeting with House Democrats, trying to help Speaker Nancy Pelosi round up the 218 votes she needs to get this bill passed.

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Last weekend after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom bowed out of contention for the Democratic nomination for governor, Sanchez’s name again was mentioned in many quarters as a potential candidate.

“I think the reality is that because it’s only Jerry Brown (left as a Democratic contender now) and because he’s got resources and name ID, I think it would be difficult for somebody like me to start off now,” said Sanchez, D-Santa Ana.

Sanchez said she had planned to do some statewide polling to see where she stood. But she had wanted to wait until after the health reform bill was passed and signed into law. But because that has been so delayed it’s getting too late, she said, to take the electorate’s pulse on any potential Sanchez candidacy.

“I love the work I’m doing right now,” says Sanchez, who is the senior woman on the Armed Services Committee and the second most senior Democrat and a subcommittee chair on the Homeland Security Committee.

The reality is given the state’s size and incredibly expensive media markets it would be difficult for any House member to win the governorship. One by one Democratic possible have said they don’t plan to run and it’s looking more and more likely that  the attorney general - AKA Moonbeam - will be the Democratic nominee and try for a second time around in the statehouse.

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The 60-39 procedural vote stopped Louisiana Republican Sen. David  Vittter  from excluding non-citizens from the population count that is used to determine the number of congressional representatives from each state. The population totals are also used in many formulas that send federal aid to the states.

The U.S. Constitution says every 10 years the federal government will count the number of “whole persons’ living in the United States. Vitter said that doesn’t mean non-citizens should be counted.

“The current plan is to reapportion House seats using that overall number, citizens and non-citizens,” the Associated Press quoted Vitter as saying. “I think that’s wrong. I think that’s contrary to the whole intent of the Constitution and the establishment of Congress as a democratic institution to represent citizens.”

Vitter’s state of Louisiana stands to lose one of its seven House seats because of declining population. If his proposal was adopted states like California, with large non-citizen population, would lose congressional seats.

California’s two Democratic senators – Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein – voted to block Vitter’s amendment. He was attempting to add a provision to the funding bill for the Commerce, State and Justice departments that would have withheld money from the Census Bureau to conduct the 2010 count unless t he citizenship question was included in the 600 million forms that are printed.

Census officials have said this week ever since Vitter’s proposal surfaced, that it would be very expensive to enact Vitter’s plan because 400 million census forms have already been printed. They also said it would delay the decennial count.

Other critics of the plan said such a question would have discouraged immigrants from responding to the survey.

Participation from many immigrant groups is already a problem. Every 10 years federal immigration officials go out of their way to tell immigrant communities that filling out a census form would not lead to any immigration enforcement actions.

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The Orange County Registrar of Voters invites community members to apply as volunteers for their newly created Community Election Working Group (CEW) that consolidates its various outreach committees. The working group was established to continue the Registrar of Voters’ proactive outreach, which will meet quarterly to discuss a variety of election topics.

The Registrar of Voters recognizes that successful elections can not be conducted in Orange County without the input and cooperation of the public. All members of the public are invited to apply and the Registrar of Voters is looking forward to extending its reach in both the Asian and Latino communities to assist with required language outreach. For more information and to sign up for the Community Election Working Group please visit www.ocvote.com/cew.

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The vagaries of political polling are raising their ugly heads, as a new survey is showing Meg Whitman with the support of 34 percent of Republican and decline-to-state voters in the race to be the GOP’s nominee for governor. Tom Campbell is at 12.5 percent and Steve Poizner, 5.5 percent, according to this poll by Capitol Weekly/Probolsky.

Less than four weeks earlier, a Field Poll of Republican voters put Whitman at 22 percent, Campbell at 20 percent, and Poizner at 9 percent. The Probolsky poll surveyed 750 registered voters and lists a margin of error of 3.7 percent. The Field Poll talked to 1,005 registered voters, and yet listed a larger margin of error, 4.5 percent.

It seems unlikely to me that Whitman went from a statistical dead heat with Campbell to a nearly 3-1 lead in less than a month, but discussion with the pollsters make the big swing a little more understandable. A Field Poll in March showed similar results to its most recent survey (that one had Whitman at 21 percent, Campbell at 18 percent and Poizner at 7 percent).

Pollster Adam Probolsky, whose own poll showed the two close in Mayr, attributed much of the swing largely to Whitman’s far greater outlay of campaign funds.

“She’s spent $20 million on radio ads and she’s getting treated like a rock star, and the others haven’t been spending anything,” Probolsky said.

The Field Poll’s Mark DiCamillo said the different polling methodologies may have also played a part, since he polled registered voters while Probolsky focused on registered voters who were likely to actually cast ballots.

“While I do think the Whitman’s recent advertising has been having some effect and is responsible for her improved standing in the Probolsky poll, there is also a methodological difference between the two polls that could also be having an effect,” DiCamillo wrote me in an email. “Our poll was conducted among all registered voters whereas it is our understanding that Probolsky’s was conducted among likely voters.

“This difference typically has its largest impact on the age of voters in the sample. For example in our survey 15% of Republican primary voters were age 18-34, whereas in the Probolsky poll just 5% were. Our poll report noted that Campbell’s strongest support in the GOP primary came from younger voters. So, the fact that Probolsky’s sample has fewer of them would tend to reduce Campbell’s support his poll.”

In this space, I’d previously written that Probolsky included decline-to-state voters in his GOP polling, while Field Poll did not. I’ve since been corrected by the DiCamillo - in fact, both polls asked DTS voters which party they expected to vote for in the primary, and tallied likely GOP voters in that primary category.

O.C. Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley says the parties have the choice of whether to allow DTS voters to participate in their primaries, and none have made that decision yet. In the 2006 gubernatorial primary, Republicans, Democrats and American Independents all allow DTS voters to participate in their races, Kelley said.

More on the the governor’s race:
Tom Campbell busts 25 political myths
GOP governor candidates tangle in Irvine debate
Jerry Brown shows his moderate side during O.C. visit
Gavin Newsom drops out of guv race
GOP governor candidates tangle in Irvine
Field Poll: Brown way out front in governor’s race
Columnist attacks Whitman’s budget math
My Q&A with Meg Whitman
My Q&A with Tom Campbell
My Q&A with Steve Poizner
My Q&A with Gavin Newsom
GOP candidate hopes to outrun the ghost of voting past
Democrats in background of 3 GOP governor candidates
Governor candidates wary of citizens’ power

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In his typically gentleman manner, Campbell declines to attach names to the myths. Fortunately, many of the readers here are not constrained by such delicate manners - so I hope you’ll tell us which myths came from which candidates.

If you don’t already see the list below, click on the prompt.

1. The budget will be balanced if only the wealthy pay their fair share.
2. Cut taxes and government revenue will automatically rise. (The logical corollary is that government will generate most revenue at a tax rate of zero.)
3. You can balance the state budget by eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse.”
4. You can balance the state budget by a “top down” review to get rid of hundreds of state programs.
5. You can balance the budget if you “run the state like a business.”
6. You can balance the budget by firing thousands of state workers.
7. We can solve California’s water shortage if only farms would use drip irrigation.
8. We can solve California’s water shortage if only Southern Californians would stop watering their lawns, and washing their 3rd and 4th cars.
9. We don’t need to build new dams — the system we completed 48 years ago is more than adequate today.
10. All our country’s petroleum needs can be met by offshore drilling.
11. No source of energy is worse than nuclear.
12. Global warming is all made up.
13. Stopping global warming is more important to the 3rd world than clean water, child immunization, or anti-malaria treated mosquito nets.
14. You can’t trust companies to stop producing greenhouse gases without monitoring every smokestack.
15. A new health care plan to cover everyone won’t add a dime to the deficit.
16. One Republican Senator makes a bill bipartisan.
17. Thank God for Mississippi, because otherwise, California would be dead last in per pupil education funding. (Actually, we’re 26th.)
18. California can cut funding to education without worsening results.
19. It’s OK to have more than 30 students in a class, because children really don’t learn better in smaller classes.
20. There’s no such thing as a bad teacher — that’s why we haven’t fired any.
21. You can fix education if you only allow corporal punishment back in the classroom.
22. The government can print 3 trillion dollars in new money without causing inflation.
23. The Wall Street melt-down was caused by paying greedy CEO’s too much.
24. There’s nothing wrong with Wall Street that more federal regulation can’t fix.
25. You can raise 7 million dollars without really deciding to run for Governor!

More on the gubernatorial race:
GOP governor candidates tangle in Irvine debate
Jerry Brown shows his moderate side during O.C. visit
Gavin Newsom drops out of guv race
GOP governor candidates tangle in Irvine
Field Poll: Brown way out front in governor’s race
Columnist attacks Whitman’s budget math
My Q&A with Meg Whitman
My Q&A with Tom Campbell
My Q&A with Steve Poizner
My Q&A with Gavin Newsom
GOP candidate hopes to outrun the ghost of voting past
Democrats in background of 3 GOP governor candidates
Governor candidates wary of citizens’ power

Post from: Total Buzz

No Republicans were at Boxer's panel to vote on climate bill.

Sen. Barbara Boxer’s Environment and Public Works Committee decided  10-1 to send her and Sen. John Kerry’s global warming bill to the full Senate despite not one Republican member being there for the vote.

GOP lawmakers have insisted the committee should not have gone ahead without a more thorough analysis of the bill, which caps greenhouse gas emissions. Boxer and the Democrats brought an Environmental Protection Agency official to the panel this week  who said  there’s no point in doing another review until a bill that combines the work of six Senate committees is ready.

“I have not been able to find a time when a bill has been marked up without minority participation,’’ said the senior Republican on the committee, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma.

Inhofe was in the committee room at the start of this morning’s meeting. He made a statement and then left before Boxer called for a vote. Inhofe reiterated the minority’s request for a full blown Environmental Protection Agency analysis of S1733, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Clean Power Act.

Boxer repeated her insistence that EPA had done a complete analysis. “I so regret you weren’t here when the EPA was here senator ,’’ Boxer said before Inhofe left.  On Tuesday EPA  associate director David McIntosh said it would not be useful to do another analysis of the impact of this bill before it was amended and merged with measures from other committees. Such an analysis would cost $135,000 and 1600 staff hours of work, he added.

“We believe we were fair,  more than fair,” Boxer said after the vote. “We tried to meet every objection the Republicans have. This is a step in the process. Our colleagues are working towards a comprehensive bill. We will join them.”

The bottom line of what happened this week is that Inhofe and all the Republicans on the committee would have voted no on this legislation. Inhofe has long believed there is not a man-made global warming problem. Most of his other GOP colleagues have said they agree something has to be done but that the cap and trade solution the Democrats prefer would hurt the economy of their states.

Because the Democrats have a 60-vote majority in the Senate, the minority has to use whatever tactics it can to stop legislation it opposes from going forward.

Democrats see the Republican move as just such a stalling tactic. Reid had planned to bring a global warming bill to the floor this year. But because the health reform bill has gotten so bogged down, it has increasingly become clear that climate change would have to wait until next year.

The week-long feud between the seven GOP members of this committee and the 12 Democrats mean the climate change issue is now in the hands of Majority Leader Harry Reid. Reid will now  have to meld the work the six panels with jurisdiction on this issue. He will also have to sift through the many amendments that lawmakers on Boxer’s committee had planned to offer before the bill went to the Senate chamber but couldn’t because of the GOP boycott.

Inhofe and the Republicans called Boxer’s action the “nuclear” option, something that would euphemistically blow up the Senate.

Boxer said she was following the rules. Committee rules say at least two minority members must be at a mark-up - where bills are debated and amended. So that means a Democratic-only panel could not make amendments to the bill Boxer and Kerry proposed. But the rules also allowed the committee to report a bill to the full Senate with a majority vote.

Sen. Max Baucus of Montana was the only Democrat who voted not to send the climate change bill to the full Senate. Baucus has been opposed to parts of the bill, particularly the requirement that greenhouse gas emissions be cut by 20 percent by 2020 is too high. He prefers the 17 percent standard set in the House bill.

But Baucus said he is “committed to passing meaningful and balanced climate change legislation” and would work to get the bill changed on the Senate floor.

With six committees having some jurisdiction over this issue, Boxer wanted to get her panel’s work done and to Reid so he could have a full bill ready for Senate action early next year. The further it gets into 2010 election year the harder it would be for such legislation to get passed. The House has already passed a climate change bill.

At the early part of the meeting, Inhofe referred to a letter from four GOP senators who are seen as moderates on this issue  to the EPA asking for the analysis the Republicans want. The letter was signed by Sens. Olympia Snow and Susan Collins of Maine, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

What could be key about that letter is whether these GOP senators will continue wot work with Democrats on this issue despite the partisan feud.

Graham has already co-authored an op-ed with Kerry supporting a global warming bill. And the other three senators are from states that have taken their own actions on this issue.

Boxer had her own letters to add to the record. A group of power companies, including Exalon, wrote to Boxer asking her to proceed despite the GOP boycott.

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Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina stopped in Garden Grove this morning to announce her candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Barbara Boxer.

"After chemotherapy, Barbara Boxer just isn't that scary," Fiorina said.

And while the Republican touted job creation as her top priority, she also defended herself from criticism that Hewlett-Packard had eliminated some jobs and sent others overseas while she was chief there.

“The truth is that we were taking Hewlett-Packard through tough times and we had to make tough decisions,” Fiorina told reporters after announcing her candidacy and holding a town-hall meeting at the Garden Grove plant of Earth Friendly Products. The company makes the nation’s best-selling environment-friendly laundry detergent.

Fiorina said that there was a net gain in jobs over her six-year tenure. She complained that “government policy can kill jobs” and force employers to seek workers abroad. She also painted her 2005 firing as the outfall from backroom politics at the company.

“My firing from Hewlett-Packard came when a couple of board members leaked information to the press,” she told about 200 supporters and Earth Friendly workers at the town hall. “I am extremely proud of my record at HP. … Part of my satisfaction is seeing how well HP is doing now.”

A Field Poll last month showed Fiorina running neck and neck for the GOP nomination with Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine. More than half of Republican voters remained undecided.

The poll also showed that 17-year incumbent Boxer led Fiorina 49 percent to 35 percent, and led DeVore 50 percent to 33 percent.

While DeVore began campaigning early in the year - and made up a significant gap behind Fiorina in the polls – the businesswoman has spent much of the year battling breast cancer. While she sported close-cropped gray hair Wednesday, she appeared lively and healthy.

“Breast cancer is officially behind me and I’m doing great,” she said, noting that she’d undergone surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatment.

Fiorina vowed to bridge the divide of partisanship, which could be a signal that she’ll be poised as a moderate in the primary against DeVore, a hero to many conservatives. She said she supports gay couples having the same rights as married heterosexuals, but doesn’t back gay marriage. She’s also said she’s “personally” opposed to abortion, leaving open what her public position will be.

Fiorina portrayed Congress as a place of talk and no action, of fiscal waster, of “rabid partisanship,” and of backroom deals. And she portrayed Boxer as part of the problem, and as someone more interested in writing novels than in passing legislation.

“I can take a punch and I can throw a punch,” Fiorina said after noting that she expected a tough campaign from Boxer. “I will put my record of accomplishment against hers any day.”

In terms of job creation, she said she would focus on encouraging innovative small businesses. Taxes should not be raised on small business, they should have better access to credit, and there should be an overhaul of regulations on businesses, she said.

DeVore said he welcomed Fiorina’s entry into the race for two reasons.

“First, I think it will bring quite a bit more attention to the primary and secondly, I’m looking forward to having a good debate over which direction the Republican Party is going,” said DeVore, who on Tuesday received an endorsement from prominent conservative Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina.

Exemplifying that difference, he said, is his opposition to the federal bailout of Wall Street. He noted that Fiorina was the chief financial advisor to John McCain’s presidential campaign when he embraced the bailout.

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman Eric Schultz this morning fired a shot at Fiorina even before she’d made her announcement, and gave a preview of the attacks she’s going to be facing in the campaign.

“The hallmark of Carly Fiorina’s resume is her tenure at Hewlett-Packard where she laid-off 28,000 Americans while shipping jobs overseas – just before taking a $21 million golden parachute,” he said. “Given that record, the United States Senate is the last place Carly Fiorina should go next.

“Fiorina’s political debut has generated serious questions over her nonexistent voting record, an atrocious tenure at Hewlett-Packard… Given how well her debut went, the rest of her campaign should be equally entertaining.”

The San Francisco Chronicle has reported that Fiorina voted in just 5 of 18 elections since registering to vote in Santa Clara County in 2000, and she has acknowledged that she hasn’t participated in voting as much as she should have.

You can read Fiorina’s essay in today’s Register, “Why I’m running for Senate,” if you click here.

And you can click here for more background on the race, including last month’s polling numbers for Fiorina, DeVore and Boxer.

Register photos of Fiorina at this morning’s event are by Jebb Harris.

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In the 72nd Assembly District special election, county Supervisor Chris Norby has been getting pounded not only by fellow Republican Linda Ackerman’s campaign but also by an independent expenditure group called Alliance for California’s Tomorrow.

However, the Ackerman-friendly ACT has suddenly gone quiet.

The group - whose donors include Indian tribes, hospital and pharmaceutical interests, the state Chamber of Commerce, and the man who wants to build an NFL stadium in the city of Industry - has spent $130,000 on behalf of Ackerman since Oct. 19. Most weekdays, it has spent money on the campaign - often two or three times a day - but the Secretary of State’s Web site shows that since shelling out money for a poll on Friday, it has not spent a dime. That’s the first time the group has been quiet for two consecutive workdays since getting into the race.

This could be a simple anomaly - more likely the group has run out of money or, best case scenario for Norby, the poll showed that the race is out of reach for Ackerman.

This is expected to be a low-turnout election - probably well under 20 percent, with more than half the ballots cast by mail. Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley said that as of this afternoon he’d mailed 80,531 ballots and gotten 20,178 back, so the window of opportunity for making up ground is shrinking.

I checked the daily late-contribution updates - which only include contributions of more than $1,000 - and have come up with $153,000 raised by Norby, including a loan of $40,000. Ackerman, meanwhile, is showing about $176,000 raised - and that’s besides the $130,000 spent by ACT.

So if Ackerman is unable to overcome Norby’s initial advantage in name recognition, it won’t be due to fiscal disadvantage.

I called ACT’s consultant, Jim Nygren, to ask, among other things, if that group was done spending money on the race. After discussing with his clients whether to talk about the campaign, he told me he was directed not to comment.

Click here for the Register’s voters guide on all the candidates.

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Sens. Barbara Boxer and George Voinovich at climate change meeting.

The partisan divide between Democrats and Republicans over global warming legislation got even deeper today when lawmakers on both sides couldn’t even agree on whether the Environmental Protection Agency has properly analyzed the bill proposed by the majority.

After Republican Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio  made a cameo appearance at Sen. Barbara Boxer’s markup to state the GOP position that the EPA review of the House climate change bill was not sufficient, Boxer said she would have an EPA official at the Environment and Public Works committee in the afternoon to answer senators’ questions.

So David McIntosh, a former aide to Sen. Joseph Lieberman and veteran of the climate change wars, came to the committee in his new role as the EPA ’s associate administrator for legislative and intergovernmental affairs.  But no Republicans showed up.

So the Democrats spent a hour asked McIntosh leading questions that all added up to an affirmation on his part that not only was the EPA analysis of the House global warming bill extensive, but that the measure authored by Boxer and Sen. John Kerry wasn’t different enough from the House bill to lead to a difference EPA analysis.

“I grew up in the inner city,” said Boxer, who was raised in New York City. “ When you called somebody out you faced them down and told them why. They’re calling out the EPA and are not willing to come and look them in the eye. It’s not right.”

Instead, the Republicans scheduled a news conference late in the afternoon to give their side of the EPA analysis debate. But a few mintues  after the appointed time, a spokesman for senior committee Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, came in and told us the ranking member was instead  headed over to the committee room because he heard Boxer was going to try to take action on the bill.

See there’s another fight besides the GOP boycott. Inhofe believes the committee rules prevent Boxer from holding a debate on her bill. Boxer says she can work on the bill and  that Senate rules allow her to send it to the full chamber with just Democratic votes.

By the time Inhofe got to the committee room Boxer had ended for the day.

The word circus does come to mind.

Inhofe held court outside the committee room and told reporters that the GOP will not return to debate the climate bill until a proper EPA analysis is done. I said the EPA officials said there was a thorough analysis. Inhofe didn’t buy it. He said it was his word against McIntosh’s and they were holding out for a complete review.

McIntosh did say during the hour he spent in Boxer’s meeting room that to do another analysis of the Kerry-Boxer bill would cost $135,000 and 1600 hours of staff work. It makes much more sense, he said, to wait until Majority Leader Harry Reid melds together the bill from Boxer’s panel and the other committees with jurisdiction on this issue, including the Energy, Finance, Commerce, Agriculture and Foreign Relations committees.

Boxer said she got a promise from Reid that he would wait the five weeks it would take for a full EPA analysis of the melded bill, once such a measure was available. That could happen by the end of the year or early in 2010.

In the meantime, Boxer is determined to get her  bill beyond the committee stage.

Inhofe said if Boxer went ahead on her own she would  “destroy the integrity of the committee system.”

Boxer wouldn’t give us a preview of her strategy, saying she heard a rumor the Republicans might show up in the morning or they might not. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Some related posts:

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