Not what I expected: Mike Thompson on gun violence

By Roger Straw, The Benicia Independent
U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson – Gun Violence Prevention Task Force  mikethompson.house.gov/issues/gun-violence-prevention

An influential Benicia resident (who wishes to remain anonymous) wrote to me on May 22, highly concerned over our Rep. Mike Thompson’s moderate statements on the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force page on his website.  Her email subject line was “Not what I expected: Mike Thompson on gun violence.”  She wrote:

Rep. Mike Thompson, District 5, has been chair of the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force in the US House of Representative for several years. Here is his disturbing current statement on the Task Force site: note: there are links on the site about his gun prevention plans.  From his website…

“As a hunter and gun owner I believe we should protect a law-abiding individual’s Second Amendment right to own firearms. As a dad and grandfather I also believe that we have a responsibility to make our schools, streets and communities safe. We can do both, but Congress will need to step up.

After being named chair of the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force in the U.S. House of Representatives, I held a series of open town halls in our district that examined some of the actions that Congress could take. Hundreds attended these meetings. I heard views from law enforcement officials, mental health experts, school officials, NRA members and gun control advocates. Many feared that their Second Amendment rights would come under attack when my task force made its recommendations to Congress. Others wanted to cast those rights aside.

I believe both views are too extreme. I will never give up my guns and I will never ask law-abiding Americans without a history of dangerous mental illness to give up theirs. Not only am I personally against this, the Constitution does not allow it. In District of Columbia v. Heller the Supreme Court affirmed once and for all that Americans have a right to keep and bear arms.

However, just as the First Amendment protects free speech but doesn’t allow you to incite violence, the Second Amendment has restrictions too. As conservative justice Anthony Scalia outlined, Heller does not prohibit laws forbidding firearms in places such as schools, nor does it restrict laws prohibiting felons and the mentally ill from carrying guns.

This ruling provides people on both sides of the issue with an opportunity to work within the confines of the Second Amendment and pass legislation that will reduce and prevent gun violence.”

I wrote back, detailing Mike’s stated views on assault weapons: “After the Parkland FL school shooting in February … Mike held a Benicia town Hall on March 17, where he very clearly, more than once, stated that ‘military grade automatic and semi-automatic assault weapons do not belong in the hands of citizens.'” (See Mike Thompson makes news in Benicia: ‘military grade assault weapons do not belong in citizens’ hands’.)

I wrote to Thompson’s staff, sharing our concern about the Gun Violence Prevention page on his website, and suggesting they update the page to show Mike’s evolving views on this subject.  “I hope you will pass this on to Mike and make an effort to update the website, calling for new and more stringent controls on guns, with special attention to military grade automatic and semi-automatic assault weapons.”

I heard back that same day with a promise to pass our concern on to Mike’s communications director in Washington D.C., Alex Macfarlane.

As of today, there have been no updates on Mike’s Gun Violence Prevention page.  Similarly, I can find no mention of assault weapons or automatic / semi-automatic weapons on Thompson’s Facebook page.  I hope to hear from his office about changes, and will report here with updates.

Contact Rep. Mike Thompson – ask him what is his position on banning military grade automatic and semi-automatic assault weapons:

Roger Straw
Benicia

PDB Endorsements – June 5 Primary

LAST CHANCE – VOTE TODAY!

JUNE 5 – Today is your last day to vote.   See endorsements below.


MAY 9th – Mail-in balloting has started already!  Just in time, Progressive Democrats of Benicia met last night, shared in deep and significant conversation on the issues and candidates, and voted our endorsements… see below (or go to our Endorsements page for even more detail).  Share this information with folks you know, write letters, and get your ballot turned in!

JUNE 5 PRIMARY ENDORSEMENTS:

Below you will find Progressive Democrats of Benicia endorsements for the June 5, 2018 Primary Election.  In March and April, an Endorsement Committee met and carefully researched state and regional propositions and candidates, and presented its recommendations to the Steering Committee.  The Steering Committee received those reports and voted on recommendations for the Club’s membership.  The members held substantive discussions on the issues and candidates, and voted the following endorsements.

Propositions & Measure 3

Proposition 68 Support
Proposition 69 Support
Proposition 70 Oppose
Proposition 71 Support
Proposition 72 Support
Regional Measure 3 Oppose

More Proposition details on our Endorsements page…

Candidate Endorsements

U. S. Senate Kevin de Leon
U. S. Congress District 5 Mike Thompson
Governor Delaine Eastin
Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis
State Assembly District 14 Tim Grayson
Attorney General Dave Jones 
Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond
State Controller Betty Yee
Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara
Secretary of State Alex Padilla
State Treasurer Fiona Ma
Solano County Superior Court Judge Steve Gizzi

More Candidate details on our Endorsement page…

Battle royale within the Democratic party?

Repost from ArcaMax – Politics from the Left

Reports of a Democratic party rift are greatly exaggerated

By Dana Milbank on May 27, 2018

WASHINGTON — To peruse the coverage of the Democratic primaries of 2018, you’d think there was a battle royale within the Democratic Party: insurgent vs. establishment, Bernie vs. Hillary, progressive vs. moderate, grass roots vs. party bosses.

There’s been mention of a “battle between progressives and moderates” (the Guardian), a Democratic “identity crisis” (The Washington Post), a “full-blown Democratic war” (CNN), a “civil war” (Fox News) and a “fight for the future of the Democratic Party” (BuzzFeed).

But if a civil war has been declared, somebody forgot to tell Democratic voters. They are stubbornly refusing to view 2018 through the progressive/moderate, insurgent/establishment lens.

In the Georgia Democratic gubernatorial primary Tuesday night, the winning candidate was a progressive darling who also had a lot of establishment support. In Kentucky on Tuesday night, a former Marine fighter pilot defeated an establishment favorite in a congressional primary.

But in Texas, a House candidate backed by the Sanders-inspired “Our Revolution” and trashed by the establishment Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) went down by a lopsided two-to-one margin.

In Nebraska a week earlier, a progressive congressional candidate upset a centrist in a House primary. But in Pennsylvania that same night, two congressional candidates backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., lost to candidates with establishment ties.

Those trying to plot these races on the progressive/centrist axis or the insurgent/establishment axis will have trouble discerning a pattern. That’s because those are false choices this year. Those distinctions are not driving voters in 2018.

Overriding all other considerations this year in Democratic voters’ minds (and candidates’ messages) is stopping President Trump and his congressional enablers. Related to that is the other major influence of this primary season: a huge rise in support for female candidates among men and women alike, likely driven by Trump’s misogyny, the #MeToo movement and Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016.

In Texas on Tuesday, the Democratic primary runoff in the 7th Congressional District, in suburban Houston, was supposed to be a Democratic donnybrook, according to the media narrative. The DCCC — aka the establishment — took the unusual step of criticizing candidate Laura Moser because party leaders thought she couldn’t win in November. In response, Our Revolution – aka the insurgents — jumped into the race and attempted to portray her opponent, Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, as a tool of the establishment.

But when all the ballots were counted, it was no contest. Fletcher got 67 percent to Moser’s 33 percent. Those who followed the media narrative of the campaign will conclude that this was a major victory for the establishment, and for moderates.

They would be dead wrong.

I didn’t write about the race, because my wife is Fletcher’s pollster. But one piece of Fletcher’s polling, printed here with the campaign’s permission, shows how phony the establishment vs. insurgent narrative was: Likely Democratic voters in the district had a highly positive view of the insurgent Sanders: 74 percent favorable, 15 percent unfavorable. But guess what?

Their view of the establishment doyenne Hillary Clinton was virtually identical: 72 percent favorable, 17 percent unfavorable.

If this was supposed to be a Democratic civil war, Democratic voters were non-combatants.

Certainly, there are policy differences among Democrats, and those will come out whenever they are again in a position to govern rather than resist. But Democrats are more ideologically homogenous than they have been historically. The southern conservatives are long gone, and there is no equivalent to the “New Democrats” of the Bill Clinton era. The party has been pulled to a populist consensus by Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and pushed there by the Trump plutocracy, which has showered riches on the wealthy and the corporate.

Some within the party are fomenting division with litmus tests, such as Tom Steyer’s effort to get Democrats to commit to impeaching Trump. But while 71 percent of Democrats want impeachment, according to last month’s Quinnipiac Poll, there’s little evidence that voters are punishing candidates who don’t commit to what would be a futile gesture without a Democratic supermajority in the Senate.

The left-vs.-center and insurgency-vs.-establishment constructs don’t fit this year. Politico reported this last week that Our Revolution is in “disarray,” with “no ability to tip a major Democratic election.” Yet two months ago, after only two primaries, Politico reported that “the Bernie wing” had already won “the battle for supremacy” in the party.

Contradictory? Not really. Populists and progressives are the Democratic establishment now. No insurgency needed. The Democratic donnybrook is a phony war.

Equity & Justice For All