CA-10: An Interview With Adriel Hampton

We have less than 50 days until the special election in the 10th Congressional District to replace Ellen Tauscher, who resigned to take a job at the State Department. The candidates include local members of the legislature, the state's Lieutenant Governor, and several candidates with interesting resumes. There's even word that New Age guru and Oprah pal Marianne Williamson may get into the race, although she doesn't have much time to make her decision. The 2nd quarter fundraising totals revealed some interesting outcomes, and the campaign staffs have debated who has the most local support and the most endorsements. There's even a burgeoning controversy about Ellen Tauscher's presence on Sen. Mark DeSaulnier's mailers, which may violate the Hatch Act now that she works in the State Department.

We've heard a lot about strategies, funding and endorsements, but a little less so about where the candidates stand on the issues. So I'm making an effort to interview all the Democratic candidates in the race, to discuss their views on the type of vexing problems that the country faces which they would be expected to deal with in Congress. The first candidate to respond was Adriel Hampton, the former Political Editor at the San Francisco Examiner and an investigator in the SF City Attorney's Office. What follows is a paraphrased transcript of the interview I conducted last week.

DD: Thanks for taking some time to talk with me.

Adriel Hampton: Thank you for contacting me, this is great.

DD: How are things going with the campaign?

AH: Things are good. I kind of feel on the razor's edge here, where I could either do really well or crash out. Obviously, (Anthony) Woods and I are the underdogs, while the elected officials are duking it out. Woods focused on fundraising and did a pretty good job, while I focused on building a volunteer organization. I'm working on voter ID in a distributed way using volunteers, and I've dropped 8,000 pieces of literature, half of it myself. I have two little kids, and I've been canvassing basically every night after they go to sleep since April. I got a designer in Los Angeles to deliver sharper literature, with a better printer, and I'm starting some targeted PAC fundraising among peace groups and progressive organizations. I think Anthony and I are running a bit to the left of the field. And then you have the possibility of Marianne Williamson getting in, and she has a major public profile as well as having worked with Kucinich in the past. I think she takes votes from everybody a bit, but certainly (Assemblywoman Joan) Buchanan.

I've just been trying to build a consistent presence on the ground, through appearances and volunteer events. The other campaigns have big staffs, especially (Lt. Gov. John) Garamendi. (Sen. Mark) DeSaulnier has the Democratic club circuit down, and Garamendi is kind of running an air war. But the poll he put out showed an 80% name ID and only 24% of the vote. I've been campaigning everywhere, all over the district, and we'll see how it goes.

DD: Let's get into the issues. I've been looking at your 12 ideas to change the nation, and right at the top is economic reform. Could you talk about that a bit?

AH: Absolutely. I got into this race to discuss economic issues and taking on Wall Street. In fact, I was strongly considering running a primary against Ellen Tauscher, I have been critical of her since her vote to authorize the Iraq war. Then I learned about how she was one of Wall Street's biggest friends. I'm running as an economic progressive. A big problem with the Democratic Party is that they consistently fail everyday citizens on economic issues. In many ways, they're just as corporate as the other party. I was active in the grassroots against the Bush bailout. Obama brought in some of the same people responsible for taking us down that road with Wall Street. I supported the stimulus, and the opportunity for New Deal-type spending, but I think we need to go further and break up the political power of Wall Street.

DD: You mention supporting credit unions. How exactly would Congress be able to do that?

AH: I think we can favor them with an FDIC guarantee, promoting them as an alternative to the global banks. During the financial crisis, the banks outside the big national firms tended to do better. And so I think we should encourage that more local approach.

DD: There's been a lot of talk recently about bankslaughter, this idea that we could add a new crime to hold bank managers personally responsible for behaving recklessly or in a negligent way. Do you support bankslaughter?

AH: I would tone down the name to enact popular support! But you know, when you see someone like Angelo Mozilo, he certainly engaged in what I would call a dereliction of duty. I don't have a problem with holding bankers personally responsible for failing to hold to certain consumer protections. What I've seen is that the grassroots folks who are not necessarily active in politics are very receptive to this. They want to see some accountability. And I don't want to harp on Obama entirely about these issues, he needs a progressive Congress as well to push this through, it's not all on him.

DD: OK. Another one of your 12 issues I read kind of surprised me, it was about conscience clauses. As it turns out, there was a federal ruling recently saying that pharmacies must dispense the Plan B pill and cannot use their religious beliefs to deny women legal medical aid that they seek. How you do respond to that?

AH: I am not for restricting access to the morning after pill or abortion information. All I'm saying is that there has been a robust system of jurisprudence around reasonable exemptions. You cannot fire disabled people because they cannot perform one task in a job, you have to make an exemption. If a pharmacist doesn't want to provide those pills, some other pharmacist can in their place.

DD: But some people live in rural areas where they have no other choice but one pharmacist for possibly hundreds of miles. If that person doesn't want to provide legal services, shouldn't he find another job?

AH: Well, I'm for reasonable accommodation, not blocking access to health care. I believe in allowing people to exercise their individual liberties as long as they don't infringe on others. I'm willing to talk about the nuance of issues like this, to see if we can come to an understanding.

DD: The biggest issue in Congress right now is health care. Where do you stand?

AH: Well, I'm for single payer. Pete Stark, up here in the Bay Area, decided to vote against that cap and trade bill because it was too weak, and conservatives now love him for it. But I don't think that should come into account, and I don't think the grassroots should give up. Some of my opponents say we should get what we can get, but we might lose the momentum for reform if we do that. But I understand that we have to treat those millions of people who are suffering right now without health insurance.

DD: Let me ask you this, would you agree to refuse to sign any bill without a robust public option that is available immediately and can use Medicare bargaining rates to drive down costs?

AH: You know what, I would. I would not vote for anything that didn't severely change the insurance system. I'm not a violent person, but the system is so violent right now that I feel the need to do violence to it. And the same with war funding efforts without drawdowns and timelines, I couldn't vote for that. I know that the ads would kill me, defying the President. But I think it's important to talk about the issues, meeting as many people as I can, going right to them and explaining myself. There have to be lines in the sand. We have a radical right-wing party in this country that is almost insane. And the Democrats are playing down the center. We need some organizing from the left. Just imagine someone like me, a regular guy, expressing the beliefs of Lynn Woolsey and Barbara Lee. I'm not afraid of the word socialist in certain respects. I think there's a role for government in equalization, to provide an economic bulwark against death, disease, and poverty. And I get that regular people in the insurance industry may suffer, but are they worth the struggle of 47 million uninsured? At least we can start these debates on the left, I think it would result in a better outcome.

DD: Obviously at Calitics we're focused on the budget issues. What help do you think the federal government could provide to help get some systemic reform here?

AH: Well, I voted all No on May 19, because I didn't see any serious reform efforts in there. One benefit of the problems now in California, which are tragic, is that I hope people are waking up. There's such a right-wing influence in the media and the popular consciousness. As it turns out, California's taxes are not progressive. I just think there's a rage on the populist level that can be tapped by progressives. Everyone in this race is a strong liberal, but I think I'm the only progressive, fighting for progressive taxation and labor rights.

DD: So what reforms can we get out of Congress? Some want the Feds to provide loan guarantees to the states, or they can condition a second stimulus to real budget reform, or even take Medicaid out of a state/federal partnership and into the realm of a purely federal program to smooth out outcomes throughout the country. Where do you fall?

AH: Probably along the lines of more extreme reforms. I appreciate Calitics' reporting on this. The loan guarantees sound like a good idea. I could live with centralized funding of Medicaid with local administration. And I'm for carrots and sticks in any stimulus funding, the idea that if you bail out a state, they have to have additional guarantees. Overall, I'm for structural reform. One of my opponents, Sen. DeSaulnier, is pushing a Constitutional convention. But we all need to stay on top of that.

DD: One final question, with respect to Iran. You wrote in your 12 points to change the nation that "I will oppose, by any means necessary, Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon." Obviously, a lot has happened since you wrote that. Are you revisiting this, and how can we engage with Iran now given the scenes of repression?

AH: Iran is one of the most difficult issues we have right now. We shouldn't forget the amazing turnout in their election, almost 85%. What did we have for the special election, 25%? We shouldn't really be in the position of telling Iran what to do. And you cannot give a state democracy, the people have to want it for themselves, things have to happen. Military intervention in Iran right now would be terrible. And we have to be careful, because the students over there are already being scapegoated as US puppets. It's also an open question whether Mousavi has clean hands, or if he's just an outlet valve for the current system. But I still believe we have to have negotiations. I think Woods and I are the only two who said that at our last forum. Garamendi was talking about banning the import of refined oil. That would only hurt everyday people in Iran. So I think we need diplomatic relations and a strategic dialogue. I'm not happy about dealing with Ahmadienjad, but you have to play the hand you're dealt.

DD: OK, thanks-

AH: Can I add one final issue? I am the only candidate in the race who supports the full legalization of marijuana, I think Woods supports decriminalization. We're seeing a modern prohibition movement, and that leads to inefficient and dangerous outcomes. We have a highly regulated alcohol industry, and I think we could do the same thing with marijuana. I don't smoke, but people like me, squares, need to say, "what is the policy benefit of continuing the drug war?"

DD: All right. Thanks for your time.

AH: Great, thanks.

Carrots for Barney Frank

I criticized Barney Frank last week for his demonizing of progressives and slavish defense of the Administration's horrid DOMA brief. He deserved the criticism. Now he deserves some plaudits.

First, Frank offered an amendment that would strip out unnecessary funding from the Defense Authorization Bill for the F-22 program, which the Pentagon, the President and even the manufacturer agree should be shuttered. Not only will this offer clarity on who wants to put parochial interests above the needs of the country, it will offer a good lesson on how "fiscal responsibility" goes out the window when it comes to defense spending, which of course to Blue Dogs and Republicans is magic and doesn't impact the bottom line. I don't think this amendment will be successful, actually, but House members should be up front about adding needless weapons spending that has not been used in the Iraq or Afghanistan theater while at the same time they scream about the deficit.

Then, Frank introduced a bill to decriminalize marijuana use, one of the first bills to upset the bipartisan consensus on the failed war on drugs that I've seen in decades.

A controversial law in Massachusetts could go national if Congressman Barney Frank gets his way.

Frank has filed a bill that would eliminate federal penalties for personal possession of less than 100 grams of marijuana.

It would also make the penalty for using marijuana in public just $100.

"I think John Stuart Mill had it right in the 1850s," said Congressman Frank, "when he argued that individuals should have the right to do what they want in private, so long as they don't hurt anyone else. It's a matter of personal liberty. Moreover, our courts are already stressed and our prisons are over-crowded. We don't need to spend our scarce resources prosecuting people who are doing no harm to others."

Frank says it best there. We should not be warehousing nonviolent offenders who do no harm to others and send them to what amounts to violent crime college. It's destructive to those individuals who need treatment and not jail, destructive to our budgets which runneth over with prison spending, and destructive to law enforcement who could be pursuing criminals but instead have to bust people for pot. Digby has more.

While Frank sometimes uses his prodigious skills to front for elite interests, and while he seems to unduly criticize those who attack his point of view from the left, he's a very useful lawmaker because he's willing to fight these battles that practically nobody else will fight.

...True Majority wants you to call your lawmaker and tell them to vote against purchasing F-22's that the Pentagon doesn't even want.

...Great quote by Rep. Frank:

I am of course struck that so many of my colleagues who are so worried about the deficit apparently think the Pentagon is funded with Monopoly money that somehow doesn’t count... These arguments will come from the very people who denied that the economic recovery plan created any jobs. We have a very odd economic philosophy in Washington: It’s called weaponized Keynesianism. It is the view that the government does not create jobs when it funds the building of bridges or important research or retrains workers, but when it builds airplanes that are never going to be used in combat, that is of course economic salvation.

It makes the hand-wringing over paying for health care completely ridiculous.

Why Obama on Legalization Bugs

Just to show that I'm not some drug-addled hippie looking for a safe toke (in fact I've never smoked pot more than once or twice in my life), let's have a slightly more scholarly discussion about reforming our nation's drug laws than the President wants to have. You can even do it without snickering!

I don't think it takes much to convince everyone that the nation's current drug laws have failed, and failed utterly. Don't take my word for it, take the word of the Secretary of State.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled to Mexico on Wednesday with a blunt mea culpa, saying that decades of U.S. anti-narcotics policies have been a failure and have contributed to the explosion of drug violence south of the border.

"Clearly what we've been doing has not worked," Clinton told reporters on her plane at the start of her two-day trip, saying that U.S. policies on curbing drug use, narcotics shipments and the flow of guns have been ineffective.

"Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade," she added. "Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police, of soldiers and civilians."

Let's be extremely clear about what Clinton means by failure. At home we have a policy focused on decreasing demand through law enforcement and incarceration. This has only sent the industry underground, made it more violent, increased the ranks of the jailed in our prisons, which typically provide college-level courses in how to commit violent crime instead of rehabilitation and treatment, and done nothing toward the central task. Abroad, we have a policy of interdiction and eradication, which inflames local populations, again sends the industry underground, makes it more violent, and does nothing toward the central task of decreasing supply.

Charles Lemos links to a CNN report by Jeffrey Miron that goes into this subject in greater detail.

Prohibition creates violence because it drives the drug market underground. This means buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes with lawsuits, arbitration or advertising, so they resort to violence instead.

Violence was common in the alcohol industry when it was banned during Prohibition, but not before or after.

Violence is the norm in illicit gambling markets but not in legal ones. Violence is routine when prostitution is banned but not when it's permitted. Violence results from policies that create black markets, not from the characteristics of the good or activity in question.

The only way to reduce violence, therefore, is to legalize drugs. Fortuitously, legalization is the right policy for a slew of other reasons.

Prohibition of drugs corrupts politicians and law enforcement by putting police, prosecutors, judges and politicians in the position to threaten the profits of an illicit trade. This is why bribery, threats and kidnapping are common for prohibited industries but rare otherwise. Mexico's recent history illustrates this dramatically.

Prohibition erodes protections against unreasonable search and seizure because neither party to a drug transaction has an incentive to report the activity to the police. Thus, enforcement requires intrusive tactics such as warrantless searches or undercover buys. The victimless nature of this so-called crime also encourages police to engage in racial profiling.

Prohibition has disastrous implications for national security. By eradicating coca plants in Colombia or poppy fields in Afghanistan, prohibition breeds resentment of the United States. By enriching those who produce and supply drugs, prohibition supports terrorists who sell protection services to drug traffickers.

Prohibition harms the public health. Patients suffering from cancer, glaucoma and other conditions cannot use marijuana under the laws of most states or the federal government despite abundant evidence of its efficacy. Terminally ill patients cannot always get adequate pain medication because doctors may fear prosecution by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Now that is the argument for legalization. It is not ridiculously popular and I don't think the data even show much of a generational shift yet. But it's not an unserious argument. It's not worthy of snickering. The truth is that, even while opposing the eventual argument for legalization, there are a host of issues that the Obama Administration could tackle, and indeed says they are tackling, to reduce the worst effects of the failed war on drugs. Eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing for nonviolent offenders, as they are moving toward in New York with the repeal of the Rockefeller drug laws, is a start. So would increasing funding for treatment centers, and decriminalizing low-level drug crimes, and ending the raids on perfectly legal medical marijuana centers in the states. While the Obama Justice Department has vowed to do the latter, they forgot to tell someone at the DEA today:

Drug Enforcement agents yesterday raided a medical marijuana dispensary in San Francisco, a week after US Attorney General Eric Holder said federal authorities would no longer prosecute providers that are not otherwise in violation of state laws.

Yesterday, agents raided Emmalyn's California Cannabis Clinic, hauling out plants and growing equipment. The dispensary, which gives out free marijuana to the poor once a week, had a temporary city permit allowing it to operate.

The DEA special agent in charge told the San Francisco Chronicle that Emmalyn's was skirting state laws as well. According to Holder's remarks last week, that would make it a candidate for federal legal action. Also:

A source in San Francisco city government who was informed about the raid said the DEA's action appeared to be prompted by alleged financial improprieties related to the payment of sales taxes. DEA Special Agent Casey McEnry, spokeswoman for the local office, would not comment on that information.

I don't remember the DEA raiding any other business that had a state sales tax issue, ever, in history.

My point is that advocates for legalization, and I'm not entirely one (I believe that there would be a similar issue with advertising and sales to minors as you have with cigarettes), have an argument to make, and it can be handled entirely seriously, with the pros and cons weighed and the final judgment reached. The dismissiveness of the President today is the problem, not his verdict.

Punch A Hippie Moment #2,938

So I was on NPR's Marketplace this morning, and when we taped the interview yesterday I was asked what kind of questions are likely to come from the online audience at the President's Open For Questions town hall. And immediately the question on the legalization of marijuana came to mind, and I thought "If I say this, the impression will be that everyone online is a pot-smoking dirty hippie," so I talked about bread-and-butter issues like health care and jobs, and then at the end I said "you'll see questions that are totally off limits to the traditional media, like the legalization of marijuana." It just slipped out.

Of course, that's what NPR used.

And the question was indeed asked at Obama's online town hall, and while I didn't see it, the President apparently snickered, along with his snickering staff, made a crack like "This is a very popular question to you online folks," and then categorically said no, that it wouldn't grow the economy, and moved on. Thus insulting the audience about their very popular question and giving it little respect. Here's how the liveblog at TechPresident discussed it, and I basically agree:

12:10
[Comment From Karen]
Not sure making fun of the "online audience" for asking is the best way to have handled that.

12:11
[Comment From Josh]
Probably not, he turned the question into a joke

12:11
[Comment From Andy]
Only good way to deal with it if you don't want to deal with it.

12:11
[Comment From Gene]
Is that going to feed the trolls or placate them

12:11
Matthew Burton: Too bad that he laughed off the most popular topic

12:11
[Comment From Josh]
feeds the trolls

12:11
Matthew Burton: Josh is right. There will be blowback from this.

12:12
[Comment From Karen]
Now how many million people feel that they weren't taken seriously? Frustrating. At least the room approved.

12:13
[Comment From Gene]
Blowback from a relevant segment of the audience?

12:13
Matthew Burton: He made it even more likely that the most popular questions in future town halls will be about marijuana

12:13
[Comment From Josh]
The fact that he made light of one of the most popular questions being asked does not say a whole lot for mr. obama

12:13
Joan McCarter: It was a simplistic response on the pot question, particularly in light of the border violence that Napolitano talked about yesterday. There's a connection he could have drawn to give a serious answer.

There are two issues here. First, legalization actually does deserve a serious response. You don't have to agree with it - I'm not certain that I do - but you ought to engage with it. The war on drugs has utterly failed, so it's not like the status quo is any less silly. But the second issue is even more damaging. Obama's Administration wants to bypass the media filter and open the tools of communication to a much larger community. And then a non-Village approved question gets asked and he snickers about it? For a real community interaction to work there has to be a certain level of respect, and that was apparently sorely lacking.

Then again, the only caucus Obama has not met with on Capitol Hill is the Progressive Caucus, so this is not surprising. In Washington, every day is Punch a Hippie Day.

America, Get Over Yourselves

When the media isn't hyperventilating over this horrible Democratic governance that the whole country voted for last November, they're hyperventilating over a 23 year-old kid smoking a bong. Guess what, bobbleheads - every one of your kids and probably a lot of your colleagues have done the exact same thing, and this mass case of the vapors makes you look like a bunch of rubes. Adam Serwer says:

Obama and Phelps do have one other thing in common besides media obsession and lankiness. They've both smoked weed. Between the first black president and one of the most successful athletes in American history, the case that puffing a blunt destroys one's life as easily as addiction to crack and heroin has pretty much been destroyed. Apparently, smoking weed doesn't necessarily result in you running over a little girl on her tricycle while picking up burgers at the drive-thru.

Radly Balko writes the letter Michael Phelps should have written. We have mass theft happening on Wall Street but put billions of dollars into stopping petty crimes like this, when their effect on the greater health and welfare of Americans is more than dubious.

Dear America,

I take it back. I don’t apologize.

Because you know what? It’s none of your goddamned business. I work my ass off 10 months per year. It’s that hard work that gave you all those gooey feelings of patriotism last summer. If during my brief window of down time I want to relax, enjoy myself, and partake of a substance that’s a hell of a lot less bad for me than alcohol, tobacco, or, frankly, most of the prescription drugs most of you are taking, well, you can spare me the lecture.

I put myself through hell. I make my body do things nature never really intended us to endure. All world-class athletes do. We do it because you love to watch us push ourselves as far as we can possibly go. Some of us get hurt. Sometimes permanently. You’re watching the Super Bowl tonight. You’re watching 300 pound men smash each while running at full speed, in full pads. You know what the average life expectancy of an NFL player is? Fifty-five. That’s about 20 years shorter than your average non-NFL player. Yet you watch. And cheer. And you jump up spill your beer when a linebacker lays out a wide receiver on a crossing route across the middle. The harder he gets hit, the louder and more enthusiastically you scream.

Yet you all get bent out of shape when Ricky Williams, or I, or Josh Howard smoke a little dope to relax. Why? Because the idiots you’ve elected to make your laws have have without a shred of evidence beat it into your head that smoking marijuana is something akin to drinking antifreeze, and done only by dirty hippies and sex offenders.

You’ll have to pardon my cynicism. But I call bullshit. You don’t give a damn about my health. You just get a voyeuristic thrill from watching an elite athlete fall from grace–all the better if you get to exercise a little moral righteousness in the process. And it’s hypocritical righteousness at that, given that 40 percent of you have tried pot at least once in your lives.

RTWT. America is such a bunch of Gladys Kravitzes I can't even stand it.