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Josh Harder District 10 – GOP tactics

Repost from McClatchy DC Bureau

How the GOP tries to combat anti-Trump sentiment in a tossup district

BY KATE IRBY, October 31, 2018 04:42 PM
President Donald Trump holds up a “Presidential Memorandum Promoting the Reliable Supply and Delivery of Water in the West,” after signing it during a ceremony, Friday, Oct. 19, 2018, in Scottsdale, Ariz. Standing behind the president from left, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) Carolyn Kaster AP

WASHINGTON Rep. Jeff Denham’s closing argument in his fight for political survival is all about water — and mostly pretending that President Donald Trump doesn’t exist.

While Democratic opponent Josh Harder — like so many other Democrats vying to win Republican-held house seats — tries to bind Denham to Trump while also emphasizing health care issues, Denham is battling back by going local and trying to convince voters that Harder isn’t local.

Trump is staying far away from the district. Even when signing a memo focused on Central Valley water policy on Oct. 19, Trump flew in Denham and others to sign the bill in Arizona.

Water matters a lot in California’s 10th congressional district, where water-dependent agriculture makes up a substantial part of the local economy and a State Water Board is threatening to siphon off some of its supply in a vote the day after the election.

California’s Central Valley is constantly at risk of not having enough water, if it isn’t experiencing an all-out drought. Farmers in Denham’s district consistently worry whether they’ll have enough to grow their crops as environmentalists accuse them of using too much of the state’s water resources.

“Pollsters across the country have it wrong. This isn’t a blue wave or a red wave, it’s a Valley wave,” Denham said. “It’s us against those people trying to take our water.”

Denham’s race will be a key test of how much momentum the so-called blue wave can gather, as Democrats and Trump try to make the election a referendum on the president. The district went to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton by three points in 2016 as Denham won by three points.

Trump isn’t popular in the district — even among Republicans — and that’s likely to drag Denham down, but the congressman thinks he has the edge on local issues.

Democrats disagree.

“The foundation of this race is Donald Trump, even though he’s rarely mentioned,” said Mike Lynch, a Democratic political strategist in the district who said he’s received 37 mailers about the House race so far. “But this is also an area where local issues are at the tops of people’s minds, because it’s underserved.”

Like nearly all Democrats nationwide, the higher the turnout, the better Harder’s prospects are presumed to be. Early voting numbers are significantly higher than the primary, when Republican candidates earned 52 percent of the vote to Democrats’ 48 percent.

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Carol Whiteside, a former Republican political strategist in the district who changed her party affiliation in 2016, said voter turnout might be dampened by too much campaigning.

“Democrats keep saying it will be a big turnout, but people are tired of the race and the back and forth,” Whiteside said. “We’re getting one or two mailers per day lately. It could backfire on them.”

Democrats make up 37.4 percent of voters in the district to Republicans’ 34.1 percent, according to Political Data Inc., a California firm that collects such statistics.

The remaining 28.5 percent are mostly voters who declared no party preference, and polls have shown Trump’s approval rating among California independent voters in the high 20s. Latinos, who also have low approval ratings of Trump and tend to vote Democrat, make up 30 percent of registered voters.

But Denham has a reliable voting population of farmers lined up behind him that he’s been working to keep, constantly touting his work on getting more water storage in the district.

He appeared with Trump as the president signed the memorandum to speed up environmental impact reviews on dams, though such a memo won’t have much power on its own. The signing was widely considered a political move to help Valley Republicans.

Many farmers in the area who disdain Trump have lined up solidly behind Denham, partially because of his history of focus on water and his identification as a farmer. He used to grow almonds but now leases his farmland. Even the unpopular tariffs imposed by Trump that hurt farmers’ profits haven’t motivated many to switch their votes.

“There’s an intensity on the water issue here that I don’t know if you see in other areas’ local issues,” Lynch said. “It would be hard for anyone to break into that against Denham in a significant way.”

The most omnipresent threat to the Central Valley’s water resources is currently the Bay Delta Plan. The State Water Board postponed a vote on the proposal until the day after Election Day. It would direct substantial flows currently going into the Valley into the ocean, purportedly to save salmon populations. Denham has battled to block that plan at the federal level, with no success so far.

Denham has also helped pass congressional legislation to loan federal money to build needed water storage in the San Joaquin Valley. While plans for more water storage have already been lagging for decades, it will likely take years before that storage will be built or available for use.

Aiding the water initiative in the campaign is a message Denham’s troops have drummed into constituent minds repeatedly about Harder: Calling him a “Bay Area liberal,” because of his time living there.

While Republicans across the country have tried to tie Democratic opponents to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who represents a San Francisco-based district, that criticism has additional weight in the Central Valley, where many have an us vs. them mentality about San Francisco and how the city takes the Valley’s water.

Harder grew up in Turlock but went to college at Stanford University and spent much of his adult life working for a venture capitalist firm in the Bay Area, though he was only based in San Francisco for seven months.

Though Harder insists he’ll have support on the water issue too, local political strategists say he’s unlikely to get it. While Harder has taken the popular positions on water issues in the area — such as opposing the Bay Delta Plan — Denham has done the same. Unlike Harder, Denham has a record to support his positions.

Without the agriculture community, Harder’s base is still slightly larger in the district — but less reliable.

Harder has been working to drum up Democrats’ support by focusing on health care. The district has a higher than normal level of pre-existing conditions, as well as a large low-income population that depends on Medi-Cal, California’s version of Medicaid.

Harder said people in the district will feel their vote matters more this time around becausehe’d push to assure insurers could not reject someone because of pre-existing conditions.

“The district is split on Trump, but it’s united on affordable health care,” said Harder, who has a Medicare-for-all health care platform.

Harder’s chances at overthrowing Denham lie with Hispanics and independent voters, and on-the-ground canvassing work by Democratic groups has been intense. Latinos tend to not have high voter turnout — though Democratic groups have been trying desperately to change that — and those who don’t declare a party affiliation are impossible to call in the 10th district, Lynch and other strategists agreed.

“On the West Coast, you can count on most of those votes to lean Democrat,” Lynch said. “Here they’re actually more independent — they’re Democrats on social issues and Republicans on fiscal issues, or some of them are vice versa.”

“They’re the key vote,” Lynch said. “And it’s a coin toss.”

Bay Area Air District proposing to give refineries a pass on air monitoring

Repost from the Benicia Independent
[BenIndy Editor: For more, including HOW TO SEND THE AIR DISTRICT YOUR COMMENT, see the Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s Notice of Public Hearing.  Plan to attend on December 19, 2018.  – RS]

BAAQMD: Costs for daily air monitoring too expensive… poor refineries…

By Benicia Vice Mayor Steve Young, October 23, 2018 
Steve Young, Benicia Vice Mayor

The Bay Area Air District (BAAQMD) recently released their proposal on how to deal with the problem of excess ROG (Reactive Organic Gas) emissions from refinery cooling towers. Here are my favorite two sections from their proposed way of dealing (or more accurately, not dealing), with the problem …

Amendments to Rule 11-10 reduce monitoring of cooling towers for hydrocarbon leaks from daily to weekly, with provisions to extend monitoring periods after proving no leaks for an extended time. Costs for daily monitoring were found to be excessive relative to the potential hydrocarbon emission reductions. Requirements for cooling tower best management practices and reporting were eliminated when found to be focused primarily on Process Safety Management and cooling water chemistry rather than leak detection.

The only feasible method to reduce ROG emissions from cooling towers is more frequent monitoring and repair, but this method was concluded to not be feasible due to economic factors as per CEQA Guidelines §15364. Thus, no feasible mitigation measures have been identified that could avoid the significant impact or reduce the impact to less than significant.

Generally, CEQA (the California Environmental Quality Act) does not allow  an environmental impact to be ignored based on the fact that reducing those impacts will cost money. And refineries certainly SHOULD be expected to spend money on such things as more frequent monitoring and repairs.

Going to testify at these hearings – where testimony is limited to no more than three minutes, and often shorter – is both necessary and, seemingly, pointless.

Craig Snider: Progressive Dems & the Napa/Solano Central Labor Council

A few Thoughts on Endorsements

By Craig Snider, October 3, 2018
Craig Snider, PDB Vice Chair

Having lived in Benicia since 2003 I’ve had ample opportunity to observe local political endorsements.

In particular, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend regarding endorsements from the Napa/Solano Central Labor Council (NSLC).  This group appears to support any project that has the potential to create jobs regardless of the health, safety and environmental impacts on the local community.

Case in point – the NSLC supported Valero’s “Crude by Rail” project despite overwhelming concerns about “bomb trains” rolling through the Benicia Industrial Park, blocked roads, air pollution, and otherwise putting residents in danger of a catastrophic explosion.

Add to that the NSLC’s endorsement of Vallejo City Council candidates Malgapo and Dew-Costa, who continue to buck the Vallejo Planning Commission, citizen groups, and others in order to green light the ill-advised Orcem cement plant proposal.  That project would send 500 diesel trucks a day through Vallejo neighborhoods, past schools, and spew fine particulates into surrounding neighborhoods as far as Benicia.

Conspicuously absent from the NSLC endorsements are any candidates who don’t support unbridled development.  Apparently “jobs” trump concerns about health and safety for this group.

Recently concerns were voiced by Benicia City Councilmember Tom Campbell regarding the Progressive Democrats of Benicia (PDB) endorsement process – a simple majority vote of the members.  Christina Strawbridge came within two votes of receiving the PDB endorsement. Had she or two of her supporters joined the group and voted for her, she also would have received the PDB endorsement in addition to Kari Birdseye.

Contrast the PDB process with the endorsement process used by the Napa/Solano Labor Council. The steering committee of that group interviews and makes decisions on whom to endorse. The Labor Council includes the Benicia labor unions representing teachers, police and fire. But the endorsement process for labor is top down; their steering committee decides whom to endorse, and then instructs all of their member unions to make the same endorsements.  I would be curious to know if any Benicia teachers, for example, were actually asked who they preferred to endorse, or were they simply told that the unions would be endorsing Largaespada and Strawbridge?

It is more than a little misleading to say that “Benicia teachers, fire and police” endorse a particular candidate when the membership of those unions is never given a chance to validate the endorsements being made in their name. In fact, I wonder if any Benicia citizens actually weighed in on those endorsements?

Don’t get me wrong.  I love labor unions.  I think we need more of them.  They’re great for negotiating worker rights, worker safety, wages, benefits and the like.  However, the NSLC has consistently backed candidates that are soft on environmental protection and community well-being regardless of a candidate’s actual stance on labor issues.

Why else would the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers Local 180 PAC put $500 each into the Largaespada and Strawbridge campaigns? Why would the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulator and Allied Workers Local 16, AFL-CIO PAC fund put $580 into the Largaespada campaign and $330 into the Strawbridge campaign?

Fortunately, we have a candidate for Benicia City Council who is not backed by outside special interests nor taking donations from corporations.  Kari Birdseye won’t be swayed by big business, real estate developers, construction unions or the NSLC.

We need City Council members who are independent and not willing to swing votes toward ill-advised developments.  I watched while our community narrowly “dodged bullets” with the “Crude by Rail” proposal and the “Seeno” property development due to a “development at any cost” attitude by some City Council members.  We shouldn’t have to raise a ruckus to halt ill-advised projects that compromise our health and safety. Kari Birdseye is a sharp, independent-minded woman who wants to see development in Benicia that benefits Benicians without risking our safety and lifestyle.

Whenever I return to Benicia from elsewhere I’m so thankful for the small-town atmosphere, beautiful surroundings and my many friends.  I want to keep it that way and that’s why I’m supporting Kari Birdseye for City Council.

Craig Snider
Benicia