California is redrawing her lines. For the first time, an independent citizen’s commission will be heading the effort to apportion state and congressional representatives, instead of the State Legislature. The 14-member commission has been selected from an initial applicant pool of over 30,000. Significant efforts were taken to create a commission that reflected the demographics of the state. The resulting demographic make-up of commission mirrors this work. The commission also evenly split among party affiliation: 5 are either registered Republican or Democrat and the remaining 4 are Decline-to-State, Green Party, or other party. All of this care was taken to ensure that the commission at least appeared neutral and removed from the influence of the political environment.

The new lines will be based on existing City and County lines, rather than on existing district lines or the residences of incumbent lawmakers. When City and County lines can’t ensure evenly-divided districts (465,674 people per Assembly District, with up to a 1% variation), the Commission is instructed to take into account communities of interest. Defining these communities will be part of the Redistricting Commission’s public hearings, in which we can all participate.

Defined, a community of interest is: “A contiguous population which shares common social and economic interests that should be included within a single district for purposes of its effective and fair representation.” What does this mean to you? What does it mean in the dynamism of demographic shifts and the movement inland by California residents along with the hard truth of geography? Redistricting asks us to examine what is fundamental and fair in representative government.

This commission is the perfect opportunity for you to shape this effort. The real work is set to begin and there is a way for you to participate. On Saturday, May 21, there will be a public workshop in Oakland (Place: TBD). We here at EBYD will keep you up-to-date and connected to the process – join our Facebook group for the latest information.

If you’re interested in taking part in the redistricting process, come to our mixer at Shashamane this Thursday, April 14th from 6 – 7:30. Ask anyone in the room about Redisticting and you will find out more.

We’d like to congratulate our young democrats in the surrounding areas who were elected to be delegates for the state party at the turn of the New Year. Please make sure to look for opportunities to get to know these folks as they are our voting representatives at the convention (just around the corner!). If you’d like to learn more about the CA Democratic Party Convention, join our Facebook group.

14th AD
Abraham Kneisley
Jael Myrick
Igor Tregub

16th AD
Nwamaka Agbo
Sean Dugar
Richard Fuentes
Abel Guillen
Jennifer Pae
Rebecca Saltzman
Esperanza Tervalon-Daumont
Chantal Reynolds

18th AD
Rocky Fernandez *
Julie Lind

20th AD
Aref Aziz
Alex Hilke
Deepa Sharma

* also elected to Executive Board

Here is a collection of videos from MSNBC’s news coverage on the ruling:

Hardball with Chris Matthews

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Countdown with Keith Olberman

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Kieth Olberman’s special comment on Prop 8 Ruling

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The Rachael Maddow Show

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Interviewing the dream team: Ted Olson and David Boies

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Taking it apart…

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November Preview

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Interview with Jerry Brown

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Prop 14 establishes an open primary in California. Essentially, it will be like having two general elections. The first general election is a “qualifying round” where only the top 2 candidates with the most votes in each race will face off in the November general election, regardless of party affiliation. So potentially two Democrats or two Republicans could battle it out in a November election for the their respective seats.

Check out this MSNBC video on the passage of Prop 14.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Interestingly enough, both the Democratic and Republican Parties both staunchly opposed this proposition and for good reason. Sure, it weakens the major parties and they have self-preservation to think about (especially the Republicans), but also because its really just a bad idea.

You all of a sudden have two general elections to run. Running campaigns in California is expensive and when you have to talk to everyone in the state, the numbers add up really fast. Primary elections are usually cheaper because they only target their party affiliates. But now they will have to do the entire state twice.

Now, some people think this may be a good thing because it will force candidates to moderate themselves to appeal to all of California, thus, becoming more democratic. But people are really only thinking of the big ticket races and don’t see how this is actually wholly undemocratic because it actually encourages deal making and a smaller candidate field.

Votes are a finite resource. There are only so-many votes in California to fight over and when you have everyone and their mother fighting for votes in an open primary, you essentially shrink everyone’s piece of the pie. You then end up with situations where there top 2 vote getters in a race only represent a small percentage of the entirety of the region or district. Now that youre thinking about that, think about this…

Picture a place like Orange County. We all know the OC is filled with Republican voters. Many more Republicans than Democrats. But in a place like this under this system, an election involving the OC in its district could easily end up going Democrat. Sure, as Democrats we would love to see this, but think about how un-democratic this is. If there were five candidates in a race, 2 Dems and 3 GOPs and votes were distributed roughly evenly among their party affiliates, you would end up with a situation where the top 2 vote getters in orange county are actually the 2 Democrats. Then in the November general election, the people of Orange County, a very heavily GOP county, would have no choice but to vote for either one of the 2 Democrats or not vote at all.

Do you see where i’m going with this? Better order another drink because the bar is closing.

In the past, the East Bay Young Democrats have put in substantial work for our endorsed candidates. We’ve spent countless hours phoning and walking, educating voters, and getting out the vote.

This year, for the first time in our club’s history, EBYD will be educating voters in another way – we are mailing our voter guide to more than 3,000 young Democrats in the East Bay.

Please donate today to help us send out this important voter guide.

The EBYD voter guide is particularly important for the June 8th election, as many voters know little about the candidates and issues that are on the ballot. With instant runoff voting being implemented in November, some people don’t even know there is an election in June!

Local races could be decided by just a few hundred or a few thousand votes so this mailer could push our endorsed candidates to victory.

We plan to expand our mailing universe for the November election, but we need your financial support to do so. Please donate to help us educate young Democrats!

Please share our voter guide with your East Bay friends, and remember to vote on June 8th!

The deadline to vote in the June 8th election is this Monday, May 24th

The deadline to vote in the November 2nd election is October 18th

If you haven’t registered, please check out the options below.  Remember, our future is worth the fight and our future is worth your vote!

• Register to Vote ONLINE!
• Print and Mail-In Registration Form
• Check Your Registration Status! (Alameda County Residents Only)

Don’t forget to visit our Election 2010 page and consider voting for our endorsed candidates this June!

$64 MILLION!! That’s a lot of cash.  As California suffers from the worst economic environment since the Great Depression, can you think of a few things CA could use that money towards?  Well, the California Democratic Party can:

Help EBYD stop Queen Meg from buying California and support Jerry Brown for Governor!

And just for fun… a little nostalgia…

There is a candidate for statewide office here in California who has exaggerated their credentials, taken credit where credit is not due and poured millions of their own money into their campaign coffers.  If you guessed Meg Whitman you would be wrong.  It’s Democrat Chris Kelly who is running for attorney general.

I hate to break it to California voters, but this is Chris Kelly’s kingdom and we’re just visiting.  Mini Meg, as some have come to call him, is content as he pours his own fortune into his campaign.  Kelly has already dumped around $10 million of his money in his campaign.  Sure, hes not even close to the kinds of money that his GOP counterparts, Queen Meg and Steve Poisner have poured into their own camps, but considering other AG candidates like Ted Lieu, Alberto Torrico and Kamala Harris have been running solely on donation from supporters, he clearly has the similar conviction that he can buy the Democratic nomination.

Then there is his recent TV ad in all its glory.  Most of us tend to embellish a little bit when we tell a story.  Like that little fish you caught was actually a 10lb-er, or you totally kicked that one guy’s ass when in reality he just happened to trip on the sidewalk.  But when you spend $10 million of your own money and a new SurveyUSA Poll shows you third in line behind behind Kamala Harris and Rocky Delgadillo, then you definitely try turning water into wine when it comes to padding up your resume.

But only in a Chris Kelly kingdom he claim credit for President Bill Clinton’s 1994 passage of the Crimes Bill.  In his TV ad, Kelly claims that he helped put 100,000 new cops on the streets as a policy advisor for Bill Clinton.  But this isn’t true.  Chris Kelly, 23 years old at the time, was a junior level staffer… in the Department of Education.  Not even some mail-room intern in the Justice Department.  Wow.  Even Karl Rove would say that’s a stretch.

Chris Kelly also claims as Facebook’s privacy czar, he has worked with all 50 states’ attorney generals.  Well, yea… i can tell you that you will work and develop a relationship with all 50 state attorney generals real fast when you’re hit with a subpoena because of Facebook’s egregious privacy policies, as the SF Chronicle reported last month.   That’s like saying im experienced in working with the police departments of Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Fresno and Santa Monica because i got a parking ticket in all those cities.

How about protecting consumers?  Ask the millions of people who use Facebook if they feel protected by Chris Kelly.   Kelly was the man behind Facebook’s privacy policies that received a lot of negative attention and in December of 2009, the uproar over privacy (or lack thereof) at Facebook was the result of privacy guidelines HE designed.  Maybe that’s why Kamala Harris has twice as many Facebook fans as him?  I know, Chris-  when the online community of the company you used to work for and now tout as your biggest asset prefers Kamala over you 2-to1, it’s like being rejected by an old girlfriend.  That’s gotta hurt.

This misleading ad has not gone unnoticed.  The blog California Majority Report and the Fresno Bee newspaper, two sides of the political spectrum, have brought attention to the inaccuracies of Kelly’s claims.  Kamala’s camp has also released a video ripping apart this ad (see below).

Chris Kelly lives in his own world and we’re just visiting.  It’s time to wake up and realize that we need a attorney general who has experience in the real world.  A candidate who has created real policies to address all levels of crime and looks not just to put criminals in jail but to keep them from having to be put in their to begin with.  This is why Kamala Harris is the right vote for the Democratic nomination for attorney general.

Join EBYD and support Kamala Harris as the next California Attorney General!

Check out Kamala’s video in response to Kelly’s TV ad:

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Kamala Harris is endorsed by EBYD as our choice for Attorney General of CA.  To see a list of other EBYD endorsed candidates, please visit our Endorsements page.

Be sure to check out Kamala’s website at www.kamalaharris.org!

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Kamala Harris is endorsed by EBYD as our choice for Attorney General of CA.  To see a list of other EBYD endorsed candidates, please visit our Endorsements page.