The Association for Commuter Transportation has named Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, as its its 2008 “Legislator of the Year.”

The Washington, D.C.-based transportation advocacy organization said Tauscher has supported legislative initiatives that help commuters escape the high price of gasoline, including a law that would make it easier for local communities to use federal resources to start and expand vanpool programs.

They also say Tauscher championed legislation that would increase the cap on the monthly transit benefits and help transit riders with the most expensive trips eligible to utilize the transportation fringe benefit offered by local transit agencies in accordance with federal tax laws.

“It’ an honor to receive this award and to be recognized on behalf of the commuters both in my district and across the country,” Tauscher said in a prepared release. “Commuting isn’t just about getting to and from work; it’s about how much time you spend with your family instead of on the roads, how much money you can save versus the cost of daily travel, and how much our daily routines are affecting the air quality of our communities. Good commuter policy is about finding safe, cost effective, and environmentally sound options for all types of commuters and I am committed to developing these strategies to make everyone’s life a little easier.”

Tauscher’s “commitment to expanding options for her constituent’s and her dedication to improving the nation’s transportation system should be recognized” said ACT President Jon Martz. “The price of getting to and from work is making it tough for many Americans to make ends meet. One way Congress can provide immediate assistance is by promoting alternative transportation options such as carpooling, vanpooling, telework, and transit.”

The Contra Costa County Republican Party on Tuesday night elected a new chairman.

Greg Poulos will take over the post from Tom Del Beccaro, who is very busy as the state party vice chairman raising money for the cash-strapped group.

Interestingly, to keep the job, Poulos will have to win re-election to the Republican Central Committee on June 3. He’s one of 15 people running for eight seats in District 3. Four of the five GOP districts have contested elections this year, an unusual phenomenon as most voters know little about these committees and less about who serves on them. (The central committees of each political party have five districts, which match the county’s five supervisorial district boundaries.)

Here’s the press release the party sent out:

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Presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain told the Arizona Republic, his homestate paper, that he will aggressively campaign for California’s vote despite the state’s 20-year track record of voting for Democrats.

Click here to read today’s full story but here’s what reporter Dan Nowicki wrote in his first few paragraphs:

John McCain is boldly promising to mount the most serious Republican presidential campaign for California in years as part of a strategy that targets the entire Democratic-leaning West Coast.

California, the state with 55 prized electoral votes, once upon a time was the home base of President Reagan, one of McCain’s GOP heroes. But Republicans haven’t carried the state in a presidential race or won a Senate seat since 1988.

And, with an increasingly influential Latino population, California is central to any Democratic plan to capture 270 electoral votes and retake the White House.

We’ll see. So far, McCain has appeared chiefly in the Golden State to restock his campaign coffers.

In fact, he’ll be in Atherton on May 22 at the home of former E Bay CEO Meg Whitman for a fund-raiser luncheon.

To join McCain’s elite California Victory Advisory Team, you’ll need to raise $100,000 for McCain, which comes with six tickets to the host committee reception prior to the lunch, three photos and a table of 10 plus two seats at the head table.

Rep. George Miller doesn’t always have the nicest of things to say about President George W. Bush nor does the president often compliment the House Democratic leadership team’s agenda.

But today during a wide ranging press conference at the White House, the president graciously gave the Martinez congressman credit for authoring a bill that will provide uninterrupted access to student loans.

Bush referred to Miller by name and voiced support for H.R. 5715, the “Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act of 2008.” It passed in the House on April 17 by a vote 383-27 and it’s expected to pass within a few days in the Senate. Bush has said he will sign it.

The unsettled credit market has made it more difficult for lenders in the federally guaranteed student loan program to obtain capital and some are scaling back. The new federal law makes it easier for students to borrow and allows federal officials to advance federal funds to lenders if needed.

Click here for details about the bill.

Televised election round-tables with June 3 primary candidates for Assembly Districts 14 and 15, the two races for the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors and a debate on Propositions 98 and 99 are now posted on-line at the Contra Costa Times’ politics page.

I moderated the six, half-hour segments on April 23 and they will air on your local public access television station starting May 5. (I’ve posted the air date schedule below or you can visit www.contracostatv.org.)

The sponsors organized and paid for the production of the shows at no cost to the candidates. Sponsors include: Contra Costa Times, League of Women Voters of Diablo Valley, Contra Costa Council, Contra Costa TV, Contra Costa County Election Department, Comcast and the East Bay Community Foundation.

To save you a few clicks, I’ve also embedded the links to the shows here:

District 3 Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors

District 5 Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors

Assembly District 15, Republicans

Assembly District 15, Democrats

Assembly District 14, Democrats

Statewide Propositions 98 and 99

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I spent all day Wednesday in Contra Costa Television’s Martinez studio moderating — yep, one right after the other — a series of six, half-hour taped candidate and issue round-tables.

(CCTV staffers are busy finishing up the productions. As soon as they are finished, I’ll post airtime schedules and the on-line links to the debates for Assembly districts 14 and 15, county supervisor districts 3 and 5, and Propositions 98 and 99.)

People ask me every time we tape these segments, “How can you keep all those candidates straight?”

Hey, six segments in one day is nothing. My personal record is 22 round-tables in three days. We may break that figure this November depending on the numbers of contested local races. The Richmond City Council race alone had 14 candidates in 2006. (And no, they don’t teach you how to moderate candidate round-tables in journalism school. I inherited the job from my predecessor, Dan Borenstein.)

You never quite know what’s going to happen when you sit down in front of the television cameras.

Yesterday, Assembly District 14 candidate Phil Polakoff’s cell phone rang during the segment and then beeped again when the caller left him a voicemail. We forgave him because he’s a medical doctor, although for all we know, someone was telling him dry cleaning was ready for pick up.

AD14 candidate Tony Thurmond was late for the taping, which earned him a verbal rebuke from candidate Nancy Skinner. “I had a family emergency,” Thurmond snapped back. Ooookay.

We needed fur coats during a very chilly round-table between incumbent Contra Costa County Supervisor Mary Nejedly Piepho and her challenger, termed-out Assemblyman Guy Houston. He blasted her during his opening statements and the hostility between the two of them is obvious. Most of the angst is rooted in the fact that he encouraged Piepho, who worked in his Assembly office, to run for supervisor in 2004. In 2007, he tried to recruit her for his Assembly seat before he filed to run against her in the supervisor race.

In the five-way race in supervisorial District 5 against incumbent Federal Glover, challenger Mary Rocha waited until her closing statement to whip out from her purse an expensive glossy color brochure produced by challenger, Erik Nunn, and complain about the money being spent in the race. (Note to self: Ban purses allowed on the set.)

And in the Prop. 98 and 99 debate, we had a heck of time figuring out who was the proponent and opponent of what. You see, the proponent of Prop. 98 was also the opponent of Prop. 99, and the proponent of Prop. 99, well, you get the picture. Thank goodness, the two people who were debating the measures were patient and kind people.

Tune in and watch. The segments aren’t long enough to give you a total picture of each candidates’ views on a broad range of subjects. But they do allow you to see the candidates in the same room at the same time.

Veteran homeowners struggling under the weight of rising sub-prime mortgage payments could see a rise in the federally back refinance loan cap in legislation that passed out of a Congressional committee this week.

Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, authored an amendment to the Helping Our Veterans Keep Their Homes Act of 2008 that would hike the existing $144,000 loan cap to $729,750.

The lower figure is virtually useless in Northern California, especially in the Bay Area where housing prices are among the highest in the nation.

“I’ve heard from reservists who have been deployed multiple times, saw a big loss in pay and they get in trouble with their home loans,” McNerney said.

The underlying bill revamps the Veterans Administration Home Loan Guaranty Service, which provides home loans to military personnel. The bill passed out of a subcommittee on Veterans Affairs on Wednesday and is headed to the full committee.

McNerney said he sought in his amendment to include veterans who already own homes but have fallen victim to the sub-prime mortgage crisis. It would allow them to refinance with VA-backed loans at more affordable interest rates.

“We have heard complaints about the low, $144,00 figure in the past, but now, it’s a crisis,” McNerney said. “We had bipartisan support for the legislation in the sub-committee and I can’t imagine why anyone would oppose it.”

Click here to read McNerney’s press release.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee unveiled today its first frontal assault on presumed GOP Congressional District 11 nominee Dean Andal, the man (pictured on the right) expected to challenge incumbent Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, in the November general election.

Not surprisingly, the site, www.RadicalAndal.org, paints Andal as an uber-conservative.

The Republican equivalent organization, the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, has had its site up for months targeting McNerney. (Pictured on bottom right.)
Its site, www.votemcnerneyout.com, calls McNerney a leftwinger who votes lockstep with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. (It’s part of a slate of similar sites targeting freshmen Democrats elected in the 2006 wave.)

Read more for the DCCC’s press release today:

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The Service Employees International Union filed suit today against arch rival California Nurses Association in the two group’s ongoing and nasty dispute over labor practices.

The two unions have been at odds over recruiting and organizing tactics for nurses and the fracas devolved into a shoving match at a labor conference in Michigan and unwelcome visits by SEIU representatives to the homes of California CNA leaders.

Unless national union leaders step in and broker some of deal between these warring factions, this fight will play out in California courtroom.

Click here for CNA’s specific web site on the dispute.

Read on for SEIU’s latest press release and a link to its dedicated web site on the matter:

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The Rockridge Institute, a Berekely based progressive think-tank formed to combat its better funded conservative counterparts, is closing its doors due to lack of money.

The institute was founded by UC Berkeley linguist professor and author George Lakoff, who gained fame after Democrats tapped into his “framing” concept in the book, “Don’t Think of An Elephant.” Framing is the study of how individual worldview affects thought.

Here’s what the institute sent out this morning in an e-mail announcement:
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