Foul-mouthed, frustrated Democrats seek a spine

San Francisco Chronicle​

5 hours ago

ANAHEIM — California Democrats have learned one lesson from last November's national loss to Republicans: Voters want to see them fight. Especially for the working class.
Their next challenge is actually doing it. And California Democrats have a prime opportunity to do so in an upcoming budget fight in Sacramento.
Part of Donald Trump's appeal is that voters at least feel that he's 'fighting' for them even if it is largely performative. (Exhibit A: Trump's tax plan gives a $300 tax break to families earning $50,000 and $90,000 to a filer making $1 million, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
So the word 'fight' was omnipresent in every speech, often in profane ways, at the California Democratic Party's three-day convention that ended Sunday. Speaking of his Republican opponents, California Sen. Adam Schiff told attendees: 'We do not capitulate. We do not concede. California does not cower, not now, not ever. We say to bullies, 'You can go f— yourself.''
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee and a keynote convention speaker, told delegates Saturday, 'We gotta be honest. We're in this mess because some of it is our own doing.'
Walz acknowledged that as half of the losing presidential ticket, he may be 'the last person to lecture on this topic, but I'm going to tell you, none of us can afford to shy away from having hard conversations about what it's going to take to win elections.'
'We didn't just lose the working class to just anybody. We lost to a grifter billionaire giving tax cuts to his grifter billionaire buddies. That last election was a primal scream on so many fronts: 'Do something! Do something! Stand up and make a difference.''
America is dubious that Democrats can do something. A CNN poll released Sunday found that 16% of respondents felt Democrats are the party that could 'get things done.' More than twice as many respondents (36%) felt that way about Republicans.
'If you ask people today what a Democrat is, they say it is 'a deer in the headlights,'' Walz said. 'We've got to find some goddamn guts to fight for working people. … Nobody votes for roadkill.'
'That means having the guts to break down the power structures that are there. We know who's strangling our politics.'
Lorena Gonzalez, president of the 2.3 million-member California Labor Federation, warned that Democrats shouldn't become 'Republican lite' by adopting their positions. She invoked the Depression-era song written by Florence Patton Reece, 'Which Side Are You On?'
'Are you on the side of the billionaires and the tech bros and Elon Musk and the Republican Lites?' Gonzalez said. 'Or are you on the side of working people, men and women who make this state work, who continue to go to work every day, hardworking people. Are you on the side of unions?'
Case in point: It sounds hollow to hear California Democrats rail on Trump and congressional Republicans for their budget that would cut health coverage for 8.6 million Americans (according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office) when California is considering cuts to its most vulnerable citizens to close a $12 billion budget deficit.
Gov. Gavin Newsom's May revised budget proposal i ncluded cuts to the In-Home Supportive Services program, which provides care to low-income elderly and disabled people. Those providers, who are predominantly women of color, earn about $17 an hour. The typical provider would lose about $20,000 in pay annually under the proposal, according to union leaders. These are the 500,000 workers who bathe, dress and take care of 850,000 frail Californians — our parents, children and siblings. Many providers are one paycheck away from homelessness, union organizers say.
Such a pay cut 'would be devastating,' Cynthia Williams, an Orange County in-home provider since 2008, told me. If the cuts were passed, her family would likely have to move and use the local food bank even more.
She cares for her disabled-veteran sister and her daughter, who is blind and disabled and has a gastric condition that requires her to have four or five small meals a day.
'So that (salary reduction) would cut down on what I would be able to do. Providing four or five meals a day would not be an option,' Williams told me.
'We don't need to keep milking the poor to give to the rich,' she said. 'We need to make sure that Democrats care for the people that are the most vulnerable.'
Union leaders, whose members are the lifeblood of Democratic campaigns, say they are watching how Democrats handle this proposed cut. At a rally Saturday outside the Anaheim Convention Center where Democrats were meeting, United Domestic Workers Executive Director Doug Moore directed a message 'to our Democratic lawmakers. This rally is not just a protest. It's a warning.
'Balancing the budget on the backs of low-income children, seniors, people with disabilities and the caregivers who support them is not leadership, it's shortsighted cowardice,' Moore told rallygoers. 'Every Democrat inside this convention hall, this is your moment. Your integrity matters now more than ever. You can't claim to stand for justice, equity, working families in your speeches, then turn around and vote for budget cuts that hurt the very people who make this state function.
'It is time for you to have the courage to stand with us — or else. We are watching. We are the people who got you in the office.'
California Democrats are looking for ways to stave off those cuts. Behind closed doors, Senate Democrats are considering several plans that would raise revenue from wealthy corporations to plug the budget deficit. One idea is to tax large corporations that do business in California but do not provide adequate or affordable health coverage to their employees and pay their workers so little that they must rely on Medi-Cal. It would require employers to pay a tax for each worker; details on the proposal are still being crafted.
Other Democrats in the Legislature are privately discussing a proposal that would close the 'water's edge loophole' that would require corporations to report all their worldwide profits, not just the profits they claim were earned in the U.S. This proposal could enable California to collect taxes on its rightful share (an estimated $3 billion) of those total profits. Now, the percentage of national sales that occur in the state is the percentage of profit subject to corporate tax in California. Twenty-eight states plus Washington, D.C., require a version of water's edge reporting, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Polic y,
The short-term question: Will Gov. Newsom veto this because he is concerned about being tagged as someone who 'raised taxes' — even if it is on wealthy corporations — if he runs for president in 2028 when his term ends?
The long-term question: Whose side are Democrats on?