Meet "Democrat" Jason Hodge: a case study for involvement in local Democratic politics
by David Atkins
I've been dismissively accused in various progressive quarters of being a "Democratic Party operative" because I'm vice chair of a local county central committee and serve as one of a few hundred members of the California state executive board. Those making the accusation usually do so to imply that I'm somehow an agent underhandedly using my blogging to enforce the party line--thereby not only severely underestimating my own ethics and personal politics, but more amusingly vastly overestimating the degree of organization in the Party. Insofar as most in the Party have an opinion of me at all, it's as an Administration critic and troublemaker, which certainly differs from the sinister imaginings of some in the blogosphere. Certain stripes of progressives tend to think of the political parties as mafioso organizations wielding unspeakable control, when the reality is that anyone has been involved in local county committee politics knows that even trying to hold a meeting together to agree on a basic agenda can be a tedious effort in itself. Democratic politics is more like desperately herding cats than like being part of a tightly run ship.
When I first started posting here I offered a general rationale for being involved in the Dem Party. But today I want to offer a more specific one. It's this:
Meet Jason Hodge, conservative Democrat, harbor commissioner and candidate for California's 19th Senate District. If you click that website link, you'll see quotes like this:
"We need a government that protects farmland and gets out of the way of innovators, discoverers, creators and small businesses."
Yeah. That kind of "Democrat." He happens to be married to powerful Speaker Pro Tem of the California Assembly Fiona Ma, which is the only reason he's taken seriously for the Senate District 19 race, which was recently redistricted and is now likely to be taken by a Democrat after being in Tony Strickland's Republican hands. Strickland defeated progressive champion Hannah-Beth Jackson four years ago by less than 900 votes in a much tougher district. Now Hannah-Beth is running again and is likely to win, but Fiona and her husband are leveraging a great deal of pressure on his behalf.
One piece of that pressure (though Hodge denies it, it's been an open secret) included trying to get Governor Brown to appoint likely Republican opponent Mike Stoker to a state position in order to clear the way for Hodge to run against Hannah-Beth all the way through November in California's new open primary. That effort seems to have failed, though not for lack of trying:
He said the ramped-up efforts to secure the appointment were driven by "PACs and the third house" in Sacramento, referring to lobbyists representing business interests.
Their logic went like this: They believe the district is safely Democratic, and they further believe that Hodge would be more sympathetic to their interests than would Jackson. Getting Stoker appointed to the Air Board would have been a win-win for business interests because they would have gained a friendly member of the board and it would have cleared the way for them to openly back Hodge in the primary because there would have been no serious Republican opposition, or perhaps none at all.
Stoker said the reason he had said for the last several months that he was "99 percent certain" to run for the Senate is that "there was one thing that could have trumped that. I said all along that if I could be on CARB, I would be in a better position to make a difference."
He said he believes it is important that agriculture have a stronger voice on the Air Board, and that he could have provided that voice.
High-placed sources in the Capitol tell me that the appointment proposal was actively being considered two weeks ago but that it was ultimately squelched by officials in Gov. Jerry Brown's administration.
Had it gone through, the political result would have been to advantage Hodge. Because he has positioned himself as more moderate than Jackson and because the business community has generally found his wife, Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Fiona Ma, to be a Democrat they can work with, business interests were looking for a way to boost Hodge's chances. They believed that by removing Stoker from the field Hodge would be much better positioned in the primary because he would have had the opportunity to attract some Republican votes.
Four years ago before the arrival of myself and my allies on the local county committee, there was no endorsement process or field infrastructure of note in the Ventura County Democratic Party. After fighting tooth and nail against the opposition of certain labor interests who feared competition against their own more conservative choices of endorsements, there now is just such an infrastructure. Some labor folks have been pretty much at war with most of the leadership of both the Ventura and Santa Barbara Democratic Parties for the last few years now, myself included.
Those same interests moved mountain and earth to support "Democrat" Jason Hodge over Hannah-Beth Jackson, and to limit progressive influence in Ventura County. That included attempting to unscrupulously game the endorsement process on behalf of Hodge against the local grassroots, an effort which took a great deal of time and energy to derail.
As of today, that now includes fielding full slates--unprecedented in Ventura Democratic politics so far as I know--to run against me and my allies to dislodge us from the county committee elected positions. Some of those who are running against us include folks who were previously kicked off long ago for endorsing Republicans, folks who worked with local Tea Party members to oppose local progressive positions, and various others in that general line. And they will be using their considerable resources to do whatever it takes to defeat me and my allies in June, in order prevent the local Party from doing what is needed to win races for progressive Democrats across the county.
So while I volunteer as much of my time as I can afford to fighting the good fight online when it comes to national politics, I'm even more invested in stopping conservatives both within and outside of the party infrastructure at a local level. And the 19 Senate District is but one of a large number of local races with similar sorts of battles that need support for good progressive candidates.
This is what I do at a local level; and while it may disappoint the conspiracy mavens who imagine dark plots by the "Establishment" against the blogosphere, most of my involvement generally involves taking on some very powerful people very aggressively in a way that far from expanding my own personal power and connections, rather makes me a lightning rod for controversy. Speaker of the Assembly John Perez has, after all, endorsed Mr. Hodge because of his close relationship with his Pro Tem Fiona Ma. Fighting on Hannah-Beth's behalf is hardly a career boost.
But that's precisely why I do it--because I believe in progressive principles, and because I'll crawl over broken glass and sacrifice my own reputation, devoting hundreds of unpaid hours to stop people like Jason Hodge from sinking their claws into office and expanding their conservative power base, rotting the Democratic Party from the inside.
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