There is a schism in California between Equality California and the popular will of the people which is supported by the Courage Campaign. Equality California put out a big press release yesterday claiming the challenge to proposition 8 would not be until 2012. They claimed it would take that long to persuade 3% of California voters that equality is a good thing. Prop 8 only passed by a 2.5% margin in 2008. They also do not think they can raise enough money to make a go of it in 2010. Equality California was responsible for the highly criticized campaign that lost in 2008.

Enter Courage Campaign, an allied progressive grass roots campaign managed by Rick Jacobs. Their hundreds of thousands of supporters are pushing for a challenge to prop 8 in 2010. They are raising hundreds of thousands of dollars not only for California, but also for the fight in Maine to protect that state from a pending constitutional amendment supported by the same foes that sponsored prop 8. (In Maine support the No on 1 Campaign.) They polled their supporters several months ago and over 80% of the people were ready to roll for 2010.

Voter turn out is better during Presidential election years. The last prop 8 campaign cost each side approximately $40 Million, so fund raising is an issue. However, the GOP never misses an opportunity to turn gay bashing into votes as we can see in Iowa’s governor race right now. As progressives do we want to put California’s electoral votes on the line by placing a proposition on the ballot that is sure to motivate the teabaggers to turn out in droves? Is it fair to make people wait almost 4 years to restore their rights? Do we really want the same team that lost in 2008 to make any more important decisions on behalf of the LGBT community?

Or is Equality California right, the timing is just way off and we should just wait. After all same sex couples in California do enjoy a very strong domestic partnership program. A federal lawsuit challenging proposition 8 is working its way through the courts that could overturn the ban and open the door for all same sex couples to marry in all 50 states. $40 Million could go a long way in states that have no formal legal protection for same sex couples, such as the 30 other states that have constitutional amendments banning same sex marriage equality.

I’m afraid I have more questions than answers, but that seems to the common theme in the LGBT community right now. With so much at stake, no one wants to make a bad decision. But frankly, what do we have to lose that we haven’t already?

originally published on Current.com

It appears opponents to domestic partnerships are hiring petition gatherers with long histories of alleged fraud to achieve their 120,557 goal to quality referendum 71 for the ballot. The Lewis County Chronicle reported on an incident in front of a Wal-Mart in which a paid signature gatherer intimidated voters. His name tag said he was Dan Ricca. The petition gatherer neither confirmed nor denied his identity, but for there to be two Dan Ricca’s with long histories of intimidating citizens to collect signatures is just too coincidental not to be true.

Here is a photo of the suspect:

Is this Dan Ricca?

In October 2006 a Daniel Alwin Ricca was charged in Orange County, California for falsifying voter registration cards.  He allegedly told people they were signing a petition to cure breast cancer and fight child molestation.  Instead the victims were flipped from their previous political party to Republican. He was allegedly paid $10.00 per flip. At the time the warrant was issued Daniel Alwin Rica was 33. He plead not guilty in November of 2007. A jury acquitted Ricca of the charges in March of 2009.

In 2002 Dan Ricca was accused of forging signatures  by former co-workers in Oregon. During a December 2001 Video Taped deposition of Saul Klein, he claimed he saw Ricca forge signatures and alleged Ricca even hired people to forge signatures for him.  The testimony was part of a civil lawsuit brought by OEA and AFT-Oregon against various companies owned or operated by Bill Sizemore. OEA and AFT-Oregon alleged fraud and racketeering  by the various businesses, including forgery of signatures on various initiative petitions. During the trial Leesa Beaudoin, a former employee of Oregon Taxpayer United who worked for a short time on initiative petitions testified that Dan Ricca’s petitions were associated with “round table”, a practice of several petition gatherers sitting around a table and forging signatures.  In fact during the hearing 376 petitions were presented that were identified as forgeries that were gathered by Dan Ricca. “The jury awarded damages to OEA/AFT-Oregon for a total of $842,000. Because the racketeering charges were proven, under statutes the damages were tripled to just over $2.52 million.”

People are innocent until proven guilty in this country, but there is certainly enough evidence  that Dan Ricca is a suspicious individual whose activities should be monitored extraordinarily closely.  If there is even a slight chance the Dan Ricca the Chronicle encountered is the same Dan Ricca accused of fraud and forgery, I demand the Secretary of State validate every single signature turned in on Saturday. Standard operating procedure is a 3% review of signatures turned in.  Considering what’s at stake, nothing less than a 100% review of the signatures will satisfy me. And if you are on the fence about signing the petition, you should ask yourself, “do I want to give my personal information to someone like Dan Ricca?”   If you agree please contact the Washington Secretary of State’s office to let them know your feelings:

Nick Handy, Director of Elections

Location:
520 Union Avenue SE
Olympia, WA

Mail:
PO BOX 40229
OLYMPIA WA 98504-0229

Telephone: Toll-Free
(800) 448-4881
(800) 422-8683 TDD/TTY
(360) 902-4180

Dick

At the Gerald R. Ford Foundation National Press Club, Dick Cheney said:

“I think that freedom means freedom for everyone,” replied the former V.P. “As many of you know, one of my daughters is gay and it is something we have lived with for a long time in our family. I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish. Any kind of arrangement they wish. The question of whether or not there ought to be a federal statute to protect this, I don’t support. I do believe that the historically the way marriage has been regulated is at the state level. It has always been a state issue and I think that is the way it ought to be handled, on a state-by-state basis. … But I don’t have any problem with that. People ought to get a shot at that.”

The Republican party remains largely split on the issue of equality, but the momentum is shifting towards civil rights for all.  Republican strategists can see the writing on the wall — young voters (even Evangelicals) overwhelmingly support equality.  They realize that in order to win in the future they need to evolve on certain social issues.  As it stands most young people see the Republican party as cruel and mean for opposing equality.  Megan McCain (former presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s daughter) has been on a press junket lately calling for a change in the Republican party.  She supports marriage equality and thinks the party should too.

The damage has been done, though. The Republican party is largely responsible for the 31 state constitutional amendments throughout the country restricting rights for gays and lesbians.  Even if the party does change their views, it will take a long time for some of us to forgive them.  Even so, any support is welcome support.

Against the warnings of the ACLU and Lambda Legal, two high powered lawyers filed a case in Federal Court against proposition 8. The case is based on the 14th Amendment.
Traditional gay rights groups are concerned the Supreme Court is not ready to hear this case. They are afraid they could rule against equality setting a long lasting precedence that could set the movement back decades.

Theodore B. Olson and David Boies, who represented opposing sides in the 2000 Bush v. Gore election challenge believe that waiting is no longer an option.

“There will be many people who will think this is not the time to go to federal,” Olson said Wednesday at a news conference in Los Angeles. “Both David and I have studied the court for more years than probably either one of us would like to admit. We think we know what we are doing.”
Boies agreed: “Reasonable minds can differ, but when you have people being denied civil rights today, I think it is impossible as lawyers and as an American to say ‘No, you have to wait, now is not the right time.’ I think if we had done that in prior civil rights battles, we would not be where we are.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF3tjPLxGHU&feature=player_embedded]

Yesterday at the New York demonstration against the California Supreme Court Prop 8 ruling a plan for a national march on DC was announced for October 10 – 11.  Book your flights.  Book your hotels. We need to have an enormouse turn out for this to be a success.  There are no more excuses.  See you there.