Environmentalists will hold a fundraiser next month for the state Attorney General campaign of Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, right in one of his chief rivals’ backyards.

The Sunday, Dec. 9 event – for which tickets cost $100 to $500 each – will be held at the San Francisco home of environmental attorney Trent Orr and University of San Francisco Law Professor Brian Mikulak, just over two miles from the office of San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, who also is a Democratic primary candidate for Attorney General.

The event’s other co-chairs are Steve Block (this one, I believe) [UPDATE: It's California Coastal Commissioner Steve Blank, not Block; the initial news release contained a typo]; Stanford Law Environmental and Natural Resources Law and Policy Program director Meg Caldwell; former California Coastal Commission Chief Counsel Ralph Faust; California Coastal Commissioner Patrick Kruer; Sierra Club California Coastal Program Director Mark Massara; former Sonoma County Supervisor and former California Coastal Commission Chairman Mike Reilly; Committee for Green Foothills San Mateo County legislative advocate Lennie Roberts; California Coastal Conservancy project manager and recent Half Moon Bay City Council candidate Deborah Ruddock; California Coastal Commission Chief Counsel Hope Schmeltzer; and California Coastal Commissioner Mary Shallenberger.

Nava by June 30 of this year had raised $202,351.02 for his campaign, and hasn’t reported much in big-ticket ($5,000+) contributions since then. Harris had raised $751,675.46 by June 30, and looks to have raised at least about $240,000 more in big-ticket contributions since.

Also in the Democratic primary for Attorney General are Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, D-Newark; Assemblyman Ted Lieu, D-Torrance; former Facebook chief privacy officer Chris Kelly; and former Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo. State Sen. Tom Harman, R-Huntington Beach, is the only declared Republican candidate.

I’ll have a story in Sunday’s editions about what legalized marijuana might look like were any of the proposed ballot measures now circulating for petition signatures, or a bill now pending in the Legislature, to be enacted. In trying to characterize law enforcement’s opposition, I decided to check in with all of the candidates for California Attorney General. And, don’tcha know, all the folks who responded are dead set against legalization.

From Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, D-Newark:

“Cannabis is a powerful medicine appropriate and necessary to treat the side effects of many serious illnesses, from HIV/AIDS to cancer. It is not, and should not be made into, a legal recreational drug or a new revenue source. We need to support the appropriate medical use of marijuana with strong new regulations and oversight of medical marijuana collectives.

“Even in the midst of this terrible fiscal crisis, the last way we want to balance our budget is by putting the state in the position of profiting from recreational drug use.”

From Brian Brokaw, campaign manager for San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, a Democrat:

“As a career prosecutor, District Attorney Harris believes that drug selling harms communities; it is not a ‘victimless crime,’ as some contend. While the D.A. supports the legal use of medicinal marijuana, she does not support the legalization of marijuana beyond that.”

From former Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly, a Democrat:

“California led the nation in passing the Compassionate Use Act of 1996. Now that the U.S. Justice Department has said they will not enforce the federal law against states, we should ensure that existing state law in California on this specific issue is appropriately implemented, including building the necessary regulatory structure, before we take any next steps. Therefore, I oppose all 3 measures and the Ammiano bill.”

From Tim Rosales, campaign manager for state Sen. Tom Harman, R-Huntington Beach:

“Tom Harman does not support any further liberalization of drug laws, including marijuana.”

Spokespeople for Assembly members Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, and Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, didn’t return my e-mail, nor did former Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo’s campaign.

Assembly Majority Leader and Democratic candidate for state Attorney General Alberto Torrico of Newark announced today that the Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC) voted Saturday to endorse him.

PORAC, a federation of local, state and federal law enforcement associations, claims about 62,000 members statewide. In Torrico’s news release, PORAC President Ron Cottingham said Torrico “has made protecting the public his top priority. He is the best choice for California’s top law enforcement official.” Said Torrico: “I can think of no more important backing than the support of front-line law enforcement personnel.”

I don’t usually spend much time noting endorsements here — and I hear Torrico has hit PORAC chapter meetings around the state in the run-up to this endorsement, so it’s not so surprising — but this one might indicate a trend in the race between Torrico and another Bay Area Democrat who wants to be state Attorney General, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris. In money and endorsements, law enforcement seems to be gravitating more toward Torrico – a labor lawyer turned elected politico – than toward Harris, a career prosecutor.

Torrico reported raising almost $992,000 in the year’s first half – including $610,000 transferred from his other campaign committees – and having more than $910,000 on hand as of June 30; it doesn’t look as if he’s done much big-ticket ($5,000 and up) fundraising since then. Torrico’s money seems to come from a wide array of business, labor and gaming – both Indian and non-Indian – gaming interests, as well as at least $28,000 from at least 10 California law enforcement PACs. Besides PORAC, a few law enforcement organizations are listed on his Web site as endorsements, too.

Harris – tapping into some of the same donors she’d helped wrangle last year for Barack Obama (note the Obama-esque logo at the top of her home page) – reported raising $1.2 million in the year’s first half and having almost $752,000 on hand as of June 30; it looks as if she has banked $142,500 in big-ticket donations since then, including some from Hollywood notables such as Steven Spielberg and Rob Reiner. Harris’ contributions seem heavy on well-heeled individuals, as opposed to businesses or unions, but I see no contributions from law enforcement organizations (though I notice her former boss, now-former Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff, anted up $500). I also see no law enforcement organizations among the endorsements listed on her Web site.

Harris has taken heat from law enforcement in her own back yard for her refusal to seek the death penalty in cases including a cop killer in 2004 to – earlier this month – an illegal immigrant gang member accused of killing three.

But Harris campaign manager Brian Brokaw didn’t seem worried this afternoon, noting his candidate “is proud to have earned the support of law enforcement leaders across the state, from San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne in the south to the San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennsessey, East Palo Alto Chief Ron Davis, and the San Francisco Officers for Justice POA here in her own backyard. When California voters go to the polls to elect our next Attorney General, they’ll favor a career prosecutor who has spent her entire professional life in a courtroom.”

Do law enforcement endorsements and contributions have much impact on how people vote, even in the race to be California’s “top cop?” Time will tell.

More on how law enforcement is or isn’t backing four other Democrats in the AG’s race, after the jump…
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There’s been a spate of news coverage in recent days of San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris’ fundraising prowess in the Democratic primary race for state Attorney General – the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Sacramento Bee all have written on her, noting her political and Hollywood backers and her $1.2 million raised in the year’s first half.

But hold on a sec, says Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, D-Newark, another Democratic contender for AG – who’s got the most money in the bank?

Torrico told me today his campaign war chest has had about $1 million come in since Jan. 1 – including transfers from his other campaign committees, though he said all of it has been raised from contributors in the past year to 18 months – and has somewhere around $915,000 cash on hand “which is really the only number that counts at the end of the day.” Torrico said his campaign – bereft of paid staffers since consultant Phil Giarrizzo finished a three-month, get-it-off-the-ground stint – has been “trying to run lean, we’re trying to get around the state” on the cheap, presumably so as to have more money when it’s really needed: TV ad time.

Harris’ campaign had noted yesterday that although its final numbers are still being tabulated and will be reported to the Secretary of State at the end of July, it will report raising $1.2 million from more than 2,400 donors, with more than $500,000 raised online. Torrico said today his treasurer is still compiling his campaign’s report, so he doesn’t know the number of donors, but he does know that about $50,000 came from public-safety-related sources – a factoid in furtherance of his “trying to march down the road of being the presumptive candidate of public safety.”

(Read as: I would support the death penalty for cop killers, and Harris won’t.)

Harris campaign manager Brian Brokaw noted later this afternoon that she’s “the only career prosecutor in the race for Attorney General and the only candidate to earn this tremendous amount of support from a broad cross-section of Californians. If there is one lesson to be learned from Barack Obama’s campaign, it’s the importance of building a broad base of support and mobilizing our backers early. The fact that Kamala Harris has attracted so many supporters in such a short amount of time shows that she has what it takes to win.”

(Read as: Harris raised more in six months than Torrico did in 18.)

In late and $5,000-plus donations reported since Jan. 1, Harris holds the lead at $455,038 while Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo – making his second consecutive run for the Democratic AG nomination – brought in $372,900 and Torrico clocks in at $132,700. Assemblyman Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, also in the AG primary race, looks to have raised $113,500 in these big-ticket contributions (not counting $45,000 out of his own pocket); Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara – who declared his candidacy in late May – looks to have raised $32,400 (not counting $107,464.76 he moved over from his Assembly account); and Facebook chief privacy officer Chris Kelly of San Jose looks to have raised $26,000.

The Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Alert had the scoop this morning that Santa Monica City Councilman Bobby Shriver – brother of California first lady Maria Shriver and nephew of U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy and the late President John F. Kennedy – is mulling a 2010 run for California Attorney General.

If he’s in, Shriver would join a crowded Democratic primary field including San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, who has been busy raising money from many of the same people with whom she rubbed elbows in the Obama campaign last year; Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, D-Newark, who entered the race with the biggest pot of money already in the bank; Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, who might’ve gained some valuable experience while taking a drubbing from Jerry Brown in the 2006 primary; Assemblyman Ted Lieu, D-Torrance; and Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara.

If someone can clearly break from the pack as a front-runner in the next few months, he or she could benefit from having so many others split what’s left of the pie.

“We expect there are going to be more people who will be entering this race,” Torrico campaign consultant Phil Giarrizzo told me today – they’d expected Shriver, he said, and they still think Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly will jump in, too.

As for Shriver, with whom Giarrizzo said he has worked on environmental issues, “he’s a talented, bright, articulate person, but we’ve seen many times, in the sense that ‘he’s a Kennedy,’ that people look to accomplishment, they look to a record,” Giarrizzo said. Primary voters tend to be very discerning, he noted, and “it doesn’t work that you can just pass along a family name; he will have to run on his own merits … a level of experience he’ll have to communicate. I don’t think we look at him as ‘a Kennedy’ – I think we look at him as Bobby Shriver, an activist and city councilman.”

“Politics is a debate of ideas and we’ll see as we go forward what his ideas are,” he said.

Harris campaign manager Ace Smith said Friday that “As the only career prosecutor in the race, District Attorney Harris looks forward to having a spirited debate about all the issues of law enforcement.”

Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico says he’ll formally announce Monday his candidacy for state Attorney General in 2010.

“As Majority Leader I’ve been involved with the budget more than ever before… and in these last few weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about where the state is,” Torrico, D-Newark, told me a few minutes ago. “Our state is clearly going in the wrong direction, we’ve got some challenges ahead of us, were going to spend more on prisons than on higher education in two years.”

“We need to have a new conversation in California about what our priorities are, and the Attorney General is an office that should impact law enforcement… and also a wide range of other issues I’m passionate about,” from civil rights to consumer rights and beyond, he said.

Torrico joins a 2010 Democratic primary field for AG already consisting of San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris – already hard at work raising money from many of the same deep-pocketed donors with whom she rubbed elbows during the Obama campaign – and Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo (who ran against Jerry Brown in the 2006 primary).

Other Assembly Democrats reportedly considering runs for AG in 2010 include Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, and Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara.

Torrico said he has a “broad vision for the direction the state needs to go in,” having been not only a legislative champion of law enforcement and public safety but also of creating middle class jobs; the Attorney General, he notes, has a big impact on California’s business climate.

And from a political standpoint, he said, he enters the race with $650,000 cash on hand – a sum far in excess of any of the other contenders, and a good down payment on a race that could cost $5 million or more. “If you look at the reports over the past four years, you see I have the track record of being able to raise the money,” he said.

More after the jump…
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I was just taking a spin through recent campaign finance filings in the Secretary of State’s database, and my, hasn’t San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris been busy raising money for a 2010 bid for state Attorney General?

Among the larger ($5,000 and up) contributions she has banked in the past month or so are:

Most of these people were friends of Barack Obama’s campaign either as signficant donors (Anderson, Cabraser, Weinstein, Lorre) or as fundraisers (Delaney, Jordan, Waldman) — a campaign of which Harris was an active supporter, and her brother-in-law, Tony West, was a state finance co-chairman (and is now a high-ranking Justice Department appointee). This is quite a deep-pocketed network Harris is starting to tap…

Former state Assemblyman and one-time Contra Costa supervisor Joe Canciamilla will spend the next six months exploring a possible statewide run for attorney general in 2010.

Canciamilla, a Pittsburg man who dropped out of a potentially contentious state Senate Democratic primary in June, has formed an attorney general exploratory committee and will make use of the roughly $400,000 left in his aborted Senate campaign.

“It’s one of the few down-ticket races, other than governor, that actually has some authority,” said Canciamilla, reached via cell phone earlier today. “Most of the other statewide seats (controller, treasurer, insurance commissioner) have very little ability to do anything or they are used only as political stepping stones for other offices.”

Of course, Canciamilla’s prospects depend heavily on a decision by the state’s current one-term Attorney General Jerry Brown,who is widely believed to be considering a run for governor in 2010. Under term limits, Brown could alternatively seek a second, four-year term as attorney general.

“I’m not crazy,” Canciamilla said. “I won’t run against Jerry. But I can’t afford to wait until Jerry makes a decision. I have to be ready to move.”

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