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Issa Goes, Opposition Grows: Indivisible Ups the Ante in 49th and 50th Congressional Districts

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Credit: Sandy Lee via Indivisible 49 Twitter

Indivisible groups and their coalition partners have announced plans to turn up the heat in San Diego’s Republican-held congressional districts in the wake of Rep. Darrell Issa’s decision not to run for re-election in the 49th District.

This week, rallies and marches in both the 49th and 50th districts will focus on the 2018 elections. Voters are gathering outside the office of Rep. Darrell Issa today to plan the next phase of work to Flip the 49th.

Tuesday afternoon at 3pm, a “Hunter Is Under Criminal Investigation” Billboard Rally will take place in Fallbrook near Mission Road & Old Highway 395. Democratic candidate Ammar Campa-Najjar will appear, promising to remind voters that Hunter lacks integrity and does not represent his district’s values.

Campa-Najjar was recently endorsed by Indivisible groups working in the 50th Congressional district, following a weeks-long in-person voting process, with locations in Ramona, Escondido, Bonsall, San Marcos, La Mesa, El Cajon and Temecula. A two-thirds majority was required for endorsement.

Spokeswoman Kathy Steele of San Marcos was quoted in a statement saying “Hundreds of Indivisible CA50 members pledge to work our hearts out to elect Campa-Najjar. We will follow the Indivisible playbook for the 2017 Virginia and Alabama elections and focus on voter registration, targeting and high voter turnout.”

Flip CA 50th raised $7,500 for a recently unveiled billboard aiming to inform voters about the criminal investigation surrounding Rep. Duncan Hunter. A grand jury is hearing evidence this month on Hunter’s campaign finance troubles. The billboard’s location will garner 1.75 million impressions over four weeks according to the group.

The Indivisible group calling itself Encinitas Unity will hold a rally on Thursday (4-5pm) at Encinitas Boulevard and El Camino Real, urging voters to elect a Democrat in the 49th “to help flip Congress and stop the Trump agenda.”

On Saturday, January 20th Indivisible members from throughout the county will participate in the Women’s March 2018 in San Diego –marching together waving blue flags to symbolize the #BlueWave election– and the North County Women’s March at Palomar College.

Next week a “Resistance Road Trip” will start with a 10am rally outside Issa’s Vista office, travel by chartered buses to Temecula, and stage a Noontime protest outside the offices of Rep. Duncan Hunter. Organizers are calling these events “Repeal the Trump Tax” rallies.

According to a press release, “the message to Rep. Hunter is that the united resistance is coming for your seat after you voted to raise our taxes. The message to Rep. Issa is that if you decide to run for Congress in CA50, the resistance will follow and defeat you there.”

Countdown to the Shithole Shutdown…A government shutdown (of non-essential services) is becoming more likely in the wake of last Thursday’s disastrous meeting at the White House.

Legislation needs to get passed by Friday, January 19, to reauthorize government spending, and the votes are not there in the Senate to make it happen. Republicans need to gain the support of at least nine Democrats, and Trump’s profane remarks have –for now, anyway– made getting support difficult.

A bi-partisan group of Senators went to the White House expecting to gain the President’s blessing on compromise legislation regarding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Instead, they walked into an ambush. Unbeknownst to them, immigration hardliners from both houses of Congress were summoned to the meeting by White House staffers.

From the Washington Post:

When President Trump spoke by phone with Sen. Richard J. Durbin around 10:15 a.m. last Thursday, he expressed pleasure with Durbin’s outline of a bipartisan immigration pact and praised the high-ranking Illinois Democrat’s efforts, according to White House officials and congressional aides.

The president then asked if Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), his onetime foe turned ally, was on board, which Durbin affirmed. Trump invited the lawmakers to visit with him at noon, the people familiar with the call said.

But when they arrived at the Oval Office, the two senators were surprised to find that Trump was far from ready to finalize the agreement. He was “fired up” and surrounded by hard-line conservatives such as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who seemed confident that the president was now aligned with them, according to one person with knowledge of the meeting.

What triggered the shithouse/shithole (which word was actually used depends on who’s talking about the meeting) remarks was, according to an article in Politico, the inclusion of 300,000 El Salvadorians whose Temporary Protected Status will be ending next year.

While no Democratic elected official wants to be quoted as supporting a shutdown, the odds of a compromise are not good, especially since the President has resorted to name-calling aimed at Senator Richard Durbin.

Here’s a snip from the Washington Examiner, a conservative publication that twisted itself into a pretzel trying to explain why a shutdown won’t happen.

But the Democrats are confident. They are convinced the uproar over Trump’s denigration of immigrants from Haiti and certain African nations by referring to them as coming from “shithole countries” has given them the upper hand in the debate.

“The politics, especially right now, is more about why the shutdown is happening — and, if there is a shutdown, it can easily be attributed to the unreasonable demands of a racist president,” Ed Espinoza, a Democratic strategist in Austin, Texas, said.

“The shutdown of 2013 essentially happened because Republicans could not keep Ted Cruz in line,” he added. “If there’s a shutdown in 2018, it will be because Republicans cannot keep Donald Trump in line.”

Finally…

Looking for some action? Check out the Weekly Progressive Calendar, published every Friday in this space, featuring Demonstrations, Rallies, Teach-ins, Meet Ups and other opportunities to get your activism on.

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Doug Porter

Doug Porter

Doug Porter was active in the early days of the alternative press in San Diego, contributing to the OB Liberator, the print version of the OB Rag, the San Diego Door, and the San Diego Street Journal. He went on to have a 35-year career in the Hospitality business and decided to go back into raising hell when he retired. He won numerous awards for his columns from the Society of Professional Journalists in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Doug is a cancer survivor (sans vocal chords) and lives in North Park.

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