Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has set Nov. 3 as the special election date to replace former 10th Congressional District representative Ellen Tauscher.

The primary election will be held Sept. 1.

Per special election rules, the primary is an open ballot, meaning that all candidates will appear on the same ballot regardless of party affiliation. The top vote-getter in each party plus the nonpartisan candidates will advance to the general election unless one candidate receives in the primary 50 percent plus one vote. If that occurs, the candidate will win the post outright.

Contra Costa Registrar of Voters Steve Weir had requested the Nov. 3 date as it coincides with a handful of regularly scheduled elections in the county, including San Ramon mayo and city council races. Most of the county’s elections, however, occur on even years as jurisidictions consolidated elections to save money.

Congressional candidate and State Sen. Mark DeSaulnier mailed out a fat glossy brochure outlining his

Mark DeSaulnier

accomplishments but instead of using his federal campaign bucks, he paid for it with his Senate re-election account.

There’s nothing illegal about that. DeSaulnier may well be running for re-election as a senator in 2012 if he fails to win the congressional seat.

DeSaulnier and any other candidate with a state campaign account, including Lt. Governor John Garamendi and Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, cannot transfer most of those state-raised dollars into their federal campaign coffers due to different rules and limits.

That said, there’s no question that DeSaulnier put out the mailer — 3 1/2 years before his next Senate election — to raise his name recognition in advance of the 10th District special election primary, which will mostly likely be set for Sept. 1. (Contra Costa has requested a Sept. 1 election date but it is up to the governor, who has been a little busy declaring state fiscal emergencies.)

Here’s what Democratic opponent Adriel Hampton had to say about DeSaulnier’s brochure in a pretty funny press release this morning:

CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT 10: HAMPTON CONGRATULATES DeSAULNIER ON CA SENATE RE-ELECTION BID

Antioch, Ca. — As the Democratic candidates vying to fill the seat left vacant by Rep. Ellen Taushcher prepared for tonight’s debate, grassroots reformer Adriel Hampton congratulated rival Mark DeSaulnier on his bid for re-election to the State Senate. Hampton was alerted Wednesday to DeSaulnier’s impressive multitasking skills when voters throughout Contra Costa County reported receipt of a 12-page glossy “District Health Service Guide” paid for by DeSaulnier’s 2012 Senate campaign. Read the rest of this entry »

Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi, D-Castro Valley, was accused of some tit-for-tat legislative tactics this week, but her office says it’s much ado about nothing.

Hayashi chairs the Assembly Business and Professions Committee, while state Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod, D-Chino, chairs the equivalent Senate Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee.

Hayashi’s medical peer-review bill – AB 120, sponsored by the California Medical Association – was to be considered Monday by McLeod’s committee, but Senate committee staffers thought there should be a comprehensive medical peer review bill which would be the sum of parts offered by Hayashi (in AB 120), McLeod (in her SB 700) and state Sen. Sam Aanestad, R-Grass Valley (in his SB 58). To that end, McLeod’s committee offered amendments and gave Hayashi and the CMA a week to mull them over, putting AB 120 on the schedule for the Senate committee’s July 6 hearing.

Several Legislative sources say Hayashi’s reaction was to try to pull eight bills – some of which were McLeod’s own, the rest of which came from her committee – from the Assembly B&P Committee’s Tuesday-morning hearing agenda. Then she tried to scuttle the hearing entirely, the sources claimed; apparently state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg’s office intervened so that as of late Monday night, the hearing was back on, though some of the eight bills still weren’t heard.

“It caused a great deal of anxiety on everybody’s behalf. She … had thrown a lot of people’s lives into flux,” said one Legislative staffer, noting people had flown to Sacramento for the bills’ hearing. “We all scratched our heads.”

“She, with that bill from day one that it got into the Senate, was saying ‘This is the CMA’s biggest priority,’ and everyone else was like, ‘Well, that’s nice,’” said another staffer elsewhere in the Legislature, adding a one-week delay of her bill to insert some consumer-friendly amendments with bipartisan support shouldn’t have caused such a reaction.

The situation ranks among “tiddly-wink issues” compared to the massive budget crisis, this staffer said, and the Pro Tem’s office wasn’t happy that it had to take time during this hellacious week to deal with it. It’s unclear whether this had anything to do with Steinberg’s decision this afternoon to postpone all Senate policy committee meetings until after a budget deal is in place.

But Cory Jasperson, Hayashi’s chief of staff, says that’s not how it went down at all.

“The Business and Professions Committee hearing scheduled for Tuesday, June 30th, was never cancelled or rescheduled. Only the Speaker has the authority to cancel or reschedule committee hearings,” he said. “All of the bills scheduled for the Tuesday morning hearing were heard by the Committee with the exception of three bills authored by Senator Negrete McLeod which the author requested be put over to a later hearing.”

“There has been a lot of confusion in the Capitol over the past few days around the uncertainty of committee hearings in the Assembly and Senate due to the fluidity of on-going budget negotiations,” Jasperson added. “Some committee hearings previously scheduled for Tuesday were rescheduled for Thursday and today the Senate postponed committee hearings indefinitely. For example, some Senate hearings this morning were cancelled mid-hearing and hearings this afternoon were cancelled just minutes before the scheduled start times.”

So it seems as if either there was some honest miscommunication about hearing schedules followed by some state Senate knife-sharpening for Hayashi’s hide, or Hayashi tried to flex some committee-chair muscle and got smacked down.

It’s still a lot of he-said/she-said, but add this to Hayashi’s dust-up with state Sen. Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, over their bills to save the San Leandro Hospital emergency room from closure, and it surely seems Hayashi hasn’t been making any friends in the other chamber this week.

The short timetable for the as-yet-to-be-set date for the special election to replace Ellen Tauscher in the 10th Congressional District has created an interesting dilemma for candidates who would rather submit signatures than the $1,740 filing fee.

Even though no election date has been set, the deadline to submit signatures in lieu of a fee in order to become a candidate is MONDAY, JULY 6.

Deputy Registrar Candy Lopez explained the reasons why there is a deadline to file for an election that does not yet exist but frankly, the explanation was above my very low pay grade.

Suffice to say, if you want to avoid the fee and gather signatures, get down to the election office ASAP and pick up the forms because they are due on Monday by 5 p.m. And the election offices are closed Friday for the July 4 holiday.

Here are the details from the Contra Costa elections folks:

Ellen O. Tauscher filed her official resignation as the United States Representative for the 10th Congressional District of California.
In addition to Contra Costa County, the 10th Congressional District also covers parts of Alameda, Solano and Sacramento counties.
Candidates must be U.S. citizens for 7 years, at least 25 years of age and reside in the State of California when elected.
Candidates may obtain petitions to gather signatures-in-lieu of the $1,740 filing fee. The deadline to file signatures-in-lieu is 5:00 p.m. on Monday, July 6, 2009.
Petitions may be obtained at the Contra Costa County Elections Division located at 555 Escobar Street, Martinez. The office is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. except for state holidays. The office will be closed on Friday, July 3rd in observance of the Independence Day holiday.
To obtain additional information regarding the above, you may call Candidate Services at the Election Division at (925) 335-7800 or 1-877-335-7802.

I’d blogged Friday about how Rep. Pete Stark, D-Fremont, was the only Bay Area House member to oppose the Waxman-Markey climate change/clean energy bill, which passed the House on a 219-212 vote.

This morning, I received a news release from the the National Association of Manufacturers commending Stark for his vote, and claiming the bill will hinder our nation’s ability to compete in global commerce.

“Congressman Stark’s opposition to this misguided legislation was a true act of leadership and political courage,” NAM President John Engler said in the release. “By opposing this bill he is putting his constituents and the nation first.

“As the U.S. continues to struggle with great economic uncertainty, we need sensible and responsible climate change policies that encourage competitiveness without putting undue burden on businesses and ultimately consumers. We firmly cannot allow government to choose winners and losers if we’re going to compete in the global economy.”

But as I’d noted Friday, Stark didn’t oppose the bill because he felt it would hinder business — he opposed it because he felt it should’ve gone much further. Stark in January introduced H.R. 594, the Save Our Climate Act, under which carbon-based fuels — coal, petroleum and natural gas — all would be taxed at a rate of $10 per ton of carbon content. The tax would increase by $10 per ton of carbon every year, making it less affordable to burn fossil fuels as time goes on; when the United States reaches the International Panel on Climate Change’s standard of reducing CO2 emissions by 80 percent, the tax would be frozen. (The Congressional Budget Office thinks this is a good idea, by the way.)

Surely that’s not something NAM wants, right?

“To us a ‘no’ vote is a ‘no’ vote regardless of the reason. We do not support his carbon-tax bill,” NAM spokesman Hank Cox told me later this morning.

So for these strange bedfellows, it was the briefest of honeymoons…

The California Republican Party entered the TV ad wars over the state budget today with buys in the Los Angeles, Fresno and Sacramento markets.

The party either didn’t have the cash or chose not to bother with educating television viewers in the Bay Area. But I wouldn’t want you to feel left out.

Here are the ads:

Former Rep. Ellen Tauscher

Former Rep. Ellen Tauscher and retired airline pilot Jim Cieslak, the man she introduces as the “love of my life,” married Saturday evening in the backyard of the bride’s Washington, D.C., home, in the company of 120 friends and family.

Moments after the bride and groom said their “I do’s” and kissed, Federal District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle announced a surprise second act.

Tauscher’s 18-year-old daughter, Katherine, held a bible while her mother was sworn in as the new undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security in the U.S. State Department.

The ceremony was held under a large, air-conditioned tent in the backyard of Tauscher’s Kalorama neighborhood home near the city’s famed Embassy Row. Guests then strolled across the street for a steak dinner in the garden of the Woodrow Wilson House before returning to the big tent for drinks and DJ music.

Tauscher, 57, is well-known in Washington as a skillful and gracious hostess and her wedding was no exception. The food was good and plentiful and the atmosphere festive, they said.

Among the best moments, they said, were the “emotional” and “pitch-perfect” toasts from Katherine and Kelly, Jim’s daughter, to their parents.

Among the guests were Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who spoke during the ceremony, as well as General Jim Jones, President Barack Obama’s National Security Advisor and Tauscher’s close friend. Others in attendance were Reps. Joe Crowley, Jane Harman, Diana DeGette, Steny Hoyer and Carolyn McCarthy.

A number of folks from Tauscher’s East Bay district also made the trip out to witness the nuptuals, including her former staffer David Bowlby of Alamo and longtime campaign consultants Lisa Tucker and Katie Merrill.

The couple is honeymooning this week in Burmuda.

As a side note, one can only imagine the behind-the-scenes logistics in the days leading up to the wedding and swearing-in ceremony.

The U.S. Senate confirmed Tauscher’s nomination late last Thursday after a Utah GOP senator was persuaded to lift his hold on her name. Then Tauscher stayed on in the House Friday where Speaker Nancy Pelosi tapped Tauscher to lead the lengthy and contentious debate over the climate bill.

Tauscher cast an “aye” vote on the climate bill late Friday and was finally free to resign from Congress and focus on her wedding day.

Let no one say that Ellen Tauscher Cieslak lacks multi-tasking skills.

The House this afternoon passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act — the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill — on a 219-212 vote; the bill now heads to the U.S. Senate. Rep. Pete Stark, D-Fremont, was the only Bay Area member to oppose the bill, complaining it’s too watered down.

“We have the opportunity and the responsibility to confront catastrophic global warming with bold action. Congress should seize that opportunity by passing legislation that would end our addiction to fossil fuels, prove our leadership to the world, and build a foundation for long-term prosperity. This legislation falls short of these goals,” Stark — who in January introduced the Save Our Climate Act, which would impose a tax on carbon-based fossil fuels to slow climate change — said in his floor statement today. “Many have said that this vote is a historic one that we will be judged by. In my view, history will judge this legislation as a missed opportunity.”

Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, is a House Energy and Commerce Committee member who authored four of the bill’s provisions: to spur development of a more effective electric grid; to encourage electric vehicle use; to fund clean energy job training programs; and to promote water efficiency and reduce energy consumption by codifying the WaterSense program, which promotes voluntary labeling of water-efficient products and services. He was proud as a papa Friday.

“With the passage of this legislation we are one step closer to revitalizing our nation’s economy and cutting our dependence on foreign oil,” he said in a news release. “I am proud to support this groundbreaking bill that will benefit generations of Americans and lay the foundation for our country’s long-term economic prosperity.”

McNerney said he spent more than two decades working on clean energy technology before going to Congress, and this bill will help ensure that clean-energy jobs will stay in America. The bill also is “crucial to our national security,” he said. “For too long, we’ve been dependent on energy from foreign and sometimes hostile countries. When we’re developing new energy technologies here at home, we’ll be safer for it. We’ll also ensure cleaner, healthier air for our children and grandchildren by leading the world in addressing the threat of climate change.”

More reactions to the vote, after the jump…
Read the rest of this entry »

Check out my story here about how the special election to replace Rep. Ellen Tauscher will cost cash-strapped Contra Costa County at least $850,000.

Given the severe budget crisis, is it time to let counties conduct mail-only elections especially for low turnout special elections?

Contra Costa Sheriff Warren Rupf

Contra Costa Sheriff Warren Rupf will not run for either the 10th or the 11th Congressional districts.

“The more I talked to people, the more I became convinced that I am not well-suited for partisan politics,” said Rupf, whose consultations included talks with national GOP officials in Washington, D.C. “The people that most want to talk you, on either side, are on the political fringes. They have a narrower view of what’s wrong with the world and how to fix it.”

Rupf said his values “don’t line up with the fringes of either party and compromising my values or my priorities is a price I am not willing to pay.”

The news will disappoint Republicans, who believed the well-known, outspoken and gregarious Rupf would have given Democrats in either district a serious challenge.

But Rupf faced considerable challenges of his own.

As a Republican, his chances of success at the ballot box were extremely slim in the heavily Democratic 10th Congressional District, just vacated by Ellen Tauscher.

Party registration is about dead even in the 11th District, but Rupf is largely unknown outside Contra Costa County except in law enforcement circles. More than half the 11th District’s voters live in San Joaquin County. He would also have had to run against an incumbent, Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney, a task far more difficult than running for an open seat.

So, for now, the 10th District’s sole Republican in the race is political novice and attorney David Harmer of Dougherty Valley.

Several Republicans have declared in the 11th District, including San Joaquin County vintner Brad Goehring, David Bernal of San Ramon and Jon Del Arroz of Danville.