CA-10: An Interview With Sen. Mark DeSaulnier

Mark DeSaulnier has had a rapid ascent through the state legislature and now, potentially, into Congress. Within three years, this former restaurant owner won elections to the State Assembly (in 2006) and the State Senate (in 2008), with a Congressional primary scheduled for September 1. Prior to that, he was a 3-time member of the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors and the California Air Resources Board. A former liberal Republican in the mold of Edward Brooke, DeSaulnier switched parties several years ago and compiled a liberal voting record in the State Legislature. His first ad of the campaign covered the topic of health care, and I asked him about this and several other issues in an interview conducted last week. Having taken place before the crucial budget vote, I spent a good deal of time asking DeSaulnier about that, and you can see his responses here. Depending on your perspective, he either did or did not fulfill the promise to vote against "most" of the budget, by the way, voting no on 11 of 26 bills, including all of the more controversial ones.

I'll pick up with a paraphrased transcript of the rest of the interview below:

DD: So, other than the budget, how's it going with your campaign?

Mark DeSaulnier: Well, this is a tough campaign, with a big field and a lot of good candidates. The polls we've done show us winning. We've got 70% of the money that we need to compete, and a lot of great endorsements. I would say we have the most local endorsements inside the district. And we're going to be able to put together a great ground campaign, with people I've worked with for 20 years in the district. I think we're going to be concentrated in Contra Costa County, where we can post a big number. I think we're putting ourselves out there as the local candidate, who has represented the district for a long time. And we have people out there walking and phoning, putting forward that message.

DD: As long as we're on California, obviously you've seen the dysfunction at the local level. What do you think you can do at the federal level to remedy this situation?

MD: You know, I read a lot of Paul Krugman, and I agree with him that we're going to need a second stimulus package. And I think we need it sooner and not later. I think we can take what's been learned from the stimulus package that we're doing now. I think the problem is that the banks like Citi and Bank of America aren't lending, and so we need to require the banks to lend, with relief for the credit worthy who are falling behind on their payments, and more money out to the credit unions who have done a better job handling this crisis. Next, I think we have to do some sort of fiscal stabilization. I see it in this state, people who need to access the safety net go up when the economy goes down. And so we have to break that cycle, and I think we can by providing some relief. Finally, we should say that we can do things more efficiently. There shouldn't be this silo mentality. I'll give you an example. We put together these "one-stops," places where you can go for unemployment and job training. And people tell me that you have to get out of one line and pick up a phone in the office to get your unemployment benefits. That just doesn't seem like good government to me. And I think we have an opportunity to make government work better.

DD: Let's move on to health care. Seems to be a big issue for you. What are the principles you carry in this debate?

MD: To me, the gold standard is single payer. We have the problem of getting health care to those who need it, and also how we get control of costs. I think the public option is the first step, and if we do it right, it could be, and really I think it should be, single payer. The question is what are the Democrats willing to give up to get moderates on board, and I think there have to be some lines we cannot cross there. In the end, it has to be about flexibility and more choice. That's the way you're going to sell this thing. It's telling that the moderates want firewalls in their plan, they don't want the people to have more choice, they want to preserve something for the insurance companies.

DD: Will you commit to not vote for anything that doesn't have a quality public plan available on day one, not a trigger, open to everyone, and with the kind of rates necessary to force the insurance companies to compete?

MD: Yes. I think as liberals, as progressives, something we don't do a lot but which we can learn from Republicans, sometimes we've just got to say no.

DD: Congress has started to debate the regulatory reform ideas put forward by the Obama Administration, and they're getting a ton of pushback from the banking industry, particularly on the concept of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. It's the same way on a lot of these issues, the banks just won't relent. How do we solve this problem?

MD: Honestly, the politics will never get totally fixed without a public finance system in this country. And then people say, "why should we pay for elections?" The truth is that the average American is paying disproportionately already, when the giveaways to businesses and corporations are factored in. They buy elections fairly cheaply, and they get the rewards. So that's something we have to pursue. As far as your question, yes, I think we need a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, in fact I think it should be cabinet-level. A Secretary of Consumer Protection. The point to all of this is that if middle income people don't have wealth, democracy ends. That's just the bottom line. And one way to ensure that is by protecting consumers, so you don't see all their wealth go into someone else's pockets. Inequality is just killing us right now. Kevin Phillips wrote about this years ago, in Bad Money, and he was very prophetic. I also think that you can't reform the financial system without holding people accountable. And so I would involve the Department of Justice right at the beginning. That's the only way to really ensure it doesn't happen again.

DD: You mention inequality, it's something Democrats don't talk about enough. A recent Wall Street Journal story talked about the top 1% earning 35% of all the compensation in the country.

MD: It's stunning. And our tax structure, by the way, rewards the accumulation of wealth, not work. This happens when you get a financial services economy, which is completely not sustainable. We don't have manufacturing, we just have this financial services giant, and it trades in bubbles. So one way to reduce that inequality is to retool the financial services sector, make it smaller, make it more boring.

DD: OK, last question. I wanted to ask you about SB375, the smart growth measure that you played a big part in passing last year. This bill doesn't get a lot of attention, but it really offers a blueprint to how to achieve smart growth policies with the statewide authority working in concert with local communities. Do you plan to scale that up if you make it to Congress?

MD: Oh, absolutely, and this is where I think my background really suits me to replace Ellen Tauscher. I chaired the Transportation Committee in the Assembly as a freshman, I think the first person to do that. I spent ten years on the California Air Resources Board, and I co-authored SB375. I'm pretty sure there's a companion bill in Congress right now. Doris Matsui (CA-05) is carrying it right now. I have honed in throughout my career on the changing transportation and mobility side of the energy issue. We accomplish this, in part by reducing miles, and also finding new energy sources for transportation. We need more transit, and a move away from single-occupancy vehicles and long commutes. It's about bringing the work space closer to the living space, and creating livable communities. So I think I'm naturally suited for such a task. I'd like to get on the Transportation Committee if I get to Congress.

DD: Thanks for your time today.

MD: No problem, thank you.

California's Most Important Traffic Jam

Perhaps the most important part of Barack Obama's Southern California trip, in my view, was not hearing the perspectives of a nervous public, or checking out battery technology in Pomona, or using the bully pulpit to speak to the nation on the Tonight Show. It's that he got stuck in traffic.

He got caught in traffic on the 110. He bantered with Jay Leno. And he sought to reassure people worried about the sagging economy and the spiraling national debt.

President Obama ended a two-day swing through Southern California on Thursday, a trip that exposed him to both celebrity and everyday struggles. Like many people navigating the freeways at midday, he was briefly tied up in traffic, his motorcade wheezing along at 10 mph as he made his way from west of downtown Los Angeles to Burbank. But he also got to trade quips on "The Tonight Show" with Leno, mixing a sober assessment of the AIG bonus scandal with details about his life inside the White House.

Traffic has actually improved in the LA area over the last six months, at least in peak hours with less workers traveling. But it remains incredibly difficult to move for large chunks of the daytime, which decreases productivity and causes harmful and unnecessary carbon emissions. Los Angeles' transit infrastructure has been abysmal for so long that few remember how it was built, along streetcar lines. Increased revenue from Measure R can spark a transit revival, with a subway to the sea, a Green Line to LAX, and increased light rail and bus service throughout the region, but that will take years if not decades, especially without federal aid. And this goes back to the need for smart growth solutions to reduce the need for highway travel for work.

Clearly, the status quo is unsustainable. Just ask the guy in the motorcade stuck on the 110 last Thursday.

Building Livable Communities

Ray LaHood, the Secretary of Transportation, has a post up at the Department of Transportation's blog, one of the ugliest-looking blogs I've ever seen, what I imagine a blog from 1982 would look like if they had blogs or the public Internet back then... but I digress, because the content is excellent:

Today, I was proud to address my former colleagues in the House of Representatives and co-present a DOT-HUD partnership to help American families gain better access to affordable housing, more transportation options, and lower transportation costs.

As I told House members, “One of my highest priorities is to help promote more livable communities through sustainable surface transportation programs.” That means roads, rails, and transit. It means safer passage for pedestrians, for bicyclists.

After housing costs, transportation takes the biggest bite out of the typical household budget. That's why a partnership between HUD and DOT can be so effective; we have the ability to ease the largest financial burden on many American families. We're talking about 60% of the average working American family's expenses. HUD Secretary Donovan and I can cut these costs by focusing our departments' efforts on creating affordable, sustainable communities.

While so many of the decisions about smart growth and livable communities are typically made at the local, the federal government can absolutely play a role in encouraging better development decisions, either through the bully pulpit or grants in aid. Housing, transportation and energy are all intimately linked. A community with residential and commercial spaces close together, which provides durable transit options between home and work, whether through bike lanes or light rail or whatever, allows for reducing carbon emissions through auto transit. It means a more vibrant neighborhood and a higher quality of life. Communities that cater just to businesses get abandoned at night. Bedroom communities are sleepy during the day. It doesn't make any sense. Not to mention that reducing housing and transportation costs in tandem frees up money for economic activity for small businesses that cater to the area.

Desmoinesdem has a ton more on this initiative, which I find very exciting. Land use and urban planning is the most important aspect of government that gets overlooked. The implications of a smart growth policy are boundless. Also, check out the Complete Streets project, which has legislation pending in Congress (S. 584 and H.R. 1443) that would ensure a fuller range of infrastructure investment on travel including "driving, bicycling, walking, or taking public transportation."

Smart Spending

I never expected a massive Keynesian stimulus to be easy. But the fact that the Obama transition needs to allay fears about the package is worrying. What economy are these neo-Hooverists looking at? Jobless claims keep jumping - expect another half-million to be out of work by next month. The housing market is still crippled with no sign of recovery. And even the lead economist of the IMF, no left-wing liberal, is warning of another Great Depression if governments don't replace consumer spending with massive spending of their own.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the IMF, is pushing governments to increase their own spending in order to support growth. The IMF has always been a big enemy of deficits. Why the reversal?

We are facing a crisis of an exceptional breadth, the basis of which is a collapse of demand. The consumer and business confidence numbers have never fallen this much since they've first been recorded. We've NEVER seen this!...

It is imperative to curb the this loss of confidence, to relaunch it and, if necessary, replace private demand, if we want to avoid a recession that turns into a Great Depression. Of course, in normal times, we would recommend that Europe reduce its budget deficits. But these are not normal times.

The fears that the Obama team is responding to are largely about limiting pork-barrel spending in the final bill. I think the nation can survive if a pet project makes its way into a trillion-dollar bill. Somebody has to build that pet project, too, and the whole point is to get money into people's hands in exchange for public works. However, that's not to say that we shouldn't be careful about the spending. On the contrary, I believe that funneling money to build more highways and roads that perpetuate unsustainable suburban sprawl is a bad idea. The opportunity of the stimulus is that we can create new economic opportunities based on building green industries and projects that can reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

"We've let our infrastructure crumble for a long, long time from water to roads to bridges. It makes sense to invest in them now," Biden said.

But environmentalists and their allies view old-fashioned highway construction as encouraging longer commutes and increasing the energy-consumption crisis of the past year. "They're going to put a bunch of money through a broken system to stimulate the economy. That doesn't make sense to me," said Colin Peppard, a transportation expert for Friends of the Earth.

Peppard's group recently began a "Road to Nowhere" campaign, saying that new roads would lead to "new pollution -- keep the economic stimulus clean."

This doesn't mean that existing infrastructure shouldn't be upgraded in the meantime. But projects like rail, smart energy grids, building out broadband, and developing alternative energy need to get their share of the pie. And there are examples of where "old infrastructure" and "green infrastructure" can work together. The best example is in the building trades. The commercial real estate industry wants their own bailout, and they're going to be the next of many industries seeking one. Now, just handing over money to developers who bought high and are underwater, when the default process works perfectly well and wouldn't disrupt the greater economy much at all, makes no sense. However, if we offered developers a deal like the Architecture 2030 proposal, which would save money in energy costs and have a societal good, that would be worthwhile. And it could be extended to ordinary homeowners as well.

An outfit called Architecture 2030, founded by Edward Mazria, suggests that we offer homeowners not just low-interest loans, but a sliding scale of low-interest loans that's conditioned on renovating their homes to increase energy efficiency. Their proposed scale is on the right. The nickel explanation is below:

"Mazria walked me through a hypothetical example that highlighted the huge incentives the plan could unleash. Say you're a homeowner with a $272,000 mortgage at 5.55%, paying about $1550 a month. You decide you want your mortgage rate to drop to 3%. In order to qualify for the reduction, you have to improve the energy efficiency of your home 75% below code, and it's going to cost you a pretty penny: about $40,000.

Existing tax credits would take care of about $10,000 of that cost. The rest would get tacked on to your existing mortgage, bringing it up to $302,000. But, at 3%, you'd be paying only about $1280 — saving almost $300 a month on the mortgage alone, plus another $150 in reduced energy costs. The value of your home rises, you have more disposable income, you've given work to someone to do the upgrades for you — and s/he's now paying federal taxes, and you've reduced your carbon footprint."

The Architecture 2030 folks claim that their program (which has a component for commercial buildings as well) would cost a mere $170 billion over two years, and in return would create over 8 million new jobs, jump start a new $1.6 trillion renovation market, save consumers a boatload of money, and reduce CO2 emission by about half a billion tons. What's not to like?

I think they're being a little sunny about the positive impact, but not very much.

We definitely need to be smart like this, but it's a tough job. There are a lot of competing interests at play, and nobody's going to be totally happy. At the very least, however, this cannot look like a highway bill.

...Matt Stoller has a good piece on the politics of this. The Blue Dogs appear to favor highway and road projects, but the question is whether they have enough clout to get what they want. Also, a bill like this includes Congresscritters seeking money for their districts that split ideological lines. For instance, the major green jobs repositories in California are Bakersfield and Palm Springs, which have Republican members. I don't think the Blue Dogs are going to be able to dictate this so easily.

Boyz In The LaHood

So the second Republican has been tapped for President-elect Obama's cabinet - former Illinois Congressman Ray LaHood as Transportation Secretary. In past Administrations, the Transportation Secretary hasn't been that powerful a job and has been a dumping ground for the inevitable token member from the opposite party. Heck, even Bush had Democrat Norman Mineta installed there. However, with the focus on infrastructure improvements being central to Obama's economic recovery platform, and with a lot of that going to rail and transit, DOT might be more important this time around. And it's being handed to a Republican. Of course, there's an open question about how involved LaHood would be on those infrastructure issues, rather than the normal work of DOT, a lot of which involves air travel.

The reception has been mixed. Streetsblog is not impressed.

We've been calling around to Congressional staffers, advocates and insiders to get a better sense of what Obama's appointment of Ray LaHood as transportation secretary means for those pushing for sustainable transport, smart growth, livable streets. While no one is giving up hope on the Obama administration a month before the inauguration, the general consensus is pretty clear. As one insider summed it up: "It's a real read-it-and-weep moment."

The selection of a downstate Illinois Republican with close ties to highway lobby stalwart Caterpillar Inc. is being taken by many as a clear sign that progressive transportation policy is, for now, nowhere near the top of the Obama's agenda.

"Obama still hasn't made the transportation - land use - climate connection," Petra Todorovich, director of Regional Plan Association’s America 2050 program said. "It's clear he's thinking about these things in separate categories." For Todorovich and other advocates, the LaHood pick was the second shoe to drop this week. The first piece of bad news arrived on Monday when Obama trotted out his "green dream team," his appointments to key environmental, energy and climate posts, and the transportation secretary was nowhere to be found.

Friends of the Earth is a little more hopeful:

“Congressman LaHood’s challenge is great. He must ensure U.S. transportation policy supports, rather than undercuts, the Obama administration’s goals on energy and climate change. This means he must work closely with Obama’s nominees for the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency, and with Obama’s new energy and climate czar, Carol Browner.

“While his overall record on energy and environment issues is poor, LaHood has in recent years broken with many in his party to support crucial investments in passenger rail and public transportation, and he is a member of the Congressional Bike Caucus. These are reasons to hope that he may be open to the visionary transportation policy that is needed to move our country forward.

“Friends of the Earth looks forward to working with Congressman LaHood to bring about such a policy.”

I think it's clear that Obama doesn't connect green policy and transportation policy, but it's probably because his green thinking outweighs the thinking on transportation. I don't think LaHood will have much of a power center. He is moderate for a Republican, and he has promoted expanded rail and transit funding in recent years, so I don't think he'll be an obstacle to that either. At some point, however, Streetsblog is right: to truly remake our energy future we need to provide options to alter the way we live - with smart growth, proper land use and livable streets. The era of suburban sprawl cannot continue because our efforts on reining in greenhouse gas emissions will collapse. DOT actually could play a valuable role in setting that policy, but Obama doesn't want to go there. His urban background, however, suggests he understands the importance of it, both for the economy, the environment and quality of life. So we'll see.

...just to round out the cabinet, there's former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk as US Trade Representative. I think it was clear with Xavier Becerra's remarks when he turned down the job that Obama didn't really think trade was a first- or second-order priority, and he didn't connect trade to our larger economic problems, so this may be another area where the pick doesn't entirely matter since that policy will be attacked from a different angle.

Straight Talk (Really) on Energy and Gas

So the Senate offered kind of a retread package of bills on energy and gas prices. They're all fine - cut oil company tax breaks and invest in renewables, investigate price gouging and speculation, a windfall profits tax for Big Oil - but nobody's expecting George Bush to sign this or for many Republicans to sign on. Mary Landrieu didn't support cutting the tax breaks the last time around, so the problem is not with the policy but the politics. Still, it's depressing that these ideas aren't a little bit more innovative. For example, something building on Tom Carper's discussion of transit and land use would have been a nice addition to this package of bills.

I ride the train back and forth most days. I live in Delaware, and I go back and forth. As my colleague, the Presiding Officer, knows, I go back and forth almost every night to Delaware. A strange thing is going on with respect to passenger rail ridership in this country.

I used to serve on the Amtrak board when I was Governor of Delaware, and every year we would see ridership go up by a couple of percentage points. We would struggle, try to raise money out of the fare box to pay for the system and the expansion of the system. Well, the first quarter of this fiscal year, ridership at Amtrak is up 15 percent. Revenues are up by 15 percent. People are starting to realize that maybe it makes sense to get out of our cars, trucks, and vans and take the train or take transit. Transit ridership is up again this fiscal year more dramatically than it has been in some time [...]

Americans are beginning to literally buy homes in places that are closer to opportunities for transit -- for rail, for bus, for subways, for the metro systems. As we have seen the drop in home prices across the country -- in some cases, very dramatic -- among the surprises, at least for me, is to see housing prices stable and in some cases actually going up in places where people can buy a home and live and get to work or wherever they need to go to shop without driving to get there [...]

Before I close, there are a lot of good ideas for things we ought to do. I mentioned, tongue in cheek, that we ought to provide more R&D investment for a new generation of lithium batteries for plug-in hybrid vehicles. I say, tongue in cheek, we ought to use the Government purchasing power to commercialize advanced technology vehicles. We are doing that. I said with tongue in cheek we ought to provide tax credits to encourage people to buy highly efficient hybrid vehicles and very low diesel-powered vehicles that are efficient. We are doing that.

There other things we need to do too. We need to invest in rail service. We can send from Washington, DC, to Boston, MA, a ton of freight by rail on 1 gallon of diesel fuel. I will say that again. We could send from Washington, DC, to Boston, MA, a ton of freight by rail on 1 gallon of diesel fuel. But we as a government choose not to invest in freight rail and, frankly, to invest very modestly in passenger rail. It is a highly energy-efficient way to move people and goods.

Carper is the very model of a modern major backbencher and not particularly progressive, but on this issue he's absolutely right. And as Barack Obama has shown, offering short-term gimmick fixes do nothing but insult the public. Obama has actually talked about mass transit a little bit as well recently, so I'm hoping this could be a real initiative of his Administration. Maybe Carper could be the legislative point person.

CA-24: Richard Francis Mulling Challenge to Gallegly

The LA Times writes a story about a possible challenge in CA-24, one of the few Congressional districts in the state which is somewhat purple (registration is 44-34 Republican, but with a lot of DNS votes), by a big-name Democratic opponent.

For months now, Democratic activists have been urging Ventura lawyer Richard Francis to run next year for the seat held by Elton Gallegly, Ventura County's longtime Republican congressman.

Gallegly's backing of the Iraq war and his record on environmental issues could make the 11-term representative vulnerable with crossover voters who want the war to end and are worried about the effects of global warming, they argue.

Francis, the author of Ventura County's popular slow-growth laws, Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources, would be the most credible challenger to face Gallegly since 2000. In that year, Ventura lawyer Michael Case finished 13 percentage points behind Gallegly.

"He has name recognition because of SOAR. He's working on a traffic issue in Oxnard right now. And he's a former mayor of Ventura," county Democratic Chairman Bill Gallaher said of Francis. "He's out there with popular issues that seem to be supported in the area."

Francis would likely not be the only challenger. Jill Martinez, the 2006 candidate, may run again. So might Mary Pallant, an ex-Republican-turned-progressive who was elected on the same delegate slate as mine in the 41st Assembly District.

Gallegly is always a threat to retire. He pretty much did last year before changing his mind after it became clear he annonced too late for any Republican to run in his place.

In a recent interview, the 63-year-old legislator said he was in excellent health but hinted that he still was thinking about retirement after two decades in office. For now, all he will publicly say is that he is keeping his options open for the June 2008 primary.

"The dynamics have changed dramatically in the last year or so. Now [the Republicans] are in the minority," Gallegly said, referring to the Democratic takeover of both houses of Congress in November. "Leadership has put a full-court press on some of the more seasoned people. It's an honor to have people trying to convince you to stay."

Gallegly said he'd make a final decision in January or early February.

Francis has made a name for himself in the the district with his drafting of a policy that enables voters to control the fate of any growth and development decisions in most of Ventura county. These wildly popular initiatives have been vital to preservation and environmental protection in the region. This could be a model for the nation if Francis is called to Washington to serve.

Obviously, the major issue in any race is going to be Iraq, and Gallegly continues to be a Bush rubber stamp, ignoring the will of the electorate in his district and throughout the nation.

But Gallegly, who has voted to support President Bush every step of the way, said he stands by his votes.

"I don't know anyone who likes war. I don't like war," Gallegly said. "But I don't like people who posture to do us great harm."

He isn't worried either that his environmental record will hurt him. According to the League of National Conservation Voters, Gallegly has voted 8% of the time in favor of legislation it supported over the last eight years.

I do think that this seat is ripe for a major challenge, whether by Francis or somebody else. The demographics are changing as more Democrats priced out of Santa Barbara move in. Ventura County Democratic groups have worked hard on voter registration and outreach. If they unite behind a candidate who can raise enough money, I think they can make a play at Gallegly.