[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

One year ago, Dean Andal announced his candidacy for Congress in California’s 11th congressional district. Since then, his campaign has been noticeably quiet, and Andal’s fundraising has started to dry up. (Perhaps Andal is too focused on his latest development project to be bothered with his campaign?) Regardless of his excuse, many observers have taken note of Andal’s conspicuous absence from the campaign trail ("GOP recruits show lagging fundraising").
 
However, we haven’t forgotten about Dean and his run for Congress, so we thought posing a few unanswered questions to him might jolt him back onto the trail.
 
Stockton has the highest home foreclosure rate in the United States. How do you plan to address the foreclosure crisis?

Last week marked the five-year anniversary of President Bush’s infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech. Do you support President Bush’s "stay the course" plan for Iraq?

Where do you stand on expanding the state children’s health insurance program (SCHIP) and California Healthy Families to provide health care to millions of uninsured children?

There's more...

Image courtesy the Lodi News-Sentinel.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By David Dayen
d-day

There's a confluence of high-profile lawsuits against the state today, on big topics with far-reaching consequences. First, the medical community is suing over Medi-Cal payments:

“Doctors, hospitals and health care providers filed a class-action lawsuit Monday seeking to block the state from cutting payments to them for treating the poor.

“The lawsuit argues that an upcoming 10 percent rate cut to Medi-Cal -- the state-run health insurance program serving 6.5 million low-income residents -- will exacerbate a shortage of doctors, dentists and pharmacists willing to treat poor patients because payments are so low.

"Medi-Cal already doesn't cover the cost of providing care," said Dr. Richard Frankenstein, president of the California Medical Association, which led the lawsuit. "If these cuts take effect, Medi-Cal patients will be forced to seek care in already overcrowded hospital emergency rooms, which undermines access to care for all Californians."

“The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday, seeks an immediate injunction to block the reduction from taking effect July 1.”

by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Today’s symbolic passing of the torch at the White House from President Bush to Republican presidential nominee John McCain couldn’t be better news for California Democrats.
 
Talk about timing -- just as McCain himself is vowing to "compete in California," he’s embracing the blessing of one of the most unpopular Presidents in history, a politician whose disapproval rating in California is well over 70 percent. Even more confounding, McCain’s plan to keep troops in Iraq for 100 years, his steadfast opposition to abortion rights, his vote against the reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program and other far-right positions offer California voters nothing more than a third Bush term. That doesn’t seem to be a winning strategy in the Golden State.
 
Then again, McCain’s advisors appear to be rosy-eyed enough to consider California a "purple state." Really? A "purple state"?

There's more...

Image courtesy CNN.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Peter Schrag

The departure of Mitt Romney from the presidential campaign ought to lower the decibel level on what loomed as the nastiest wedge issue of 2008: illegal immigration. Although John McCain supported comprehensive reform, then flipped and pleaded mea culpa before the conservatives he's now courting, he obviously understands its complexity. Ditto Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

That hardly means immigration will vanish as an issue: It will be played to a fare-thee-well in a lot of congressional and legislative races, even in city and county races, especially in districts where new immigrants are increasingly visible on the streets and in the malls, but not yet on the voter rolls.

Opponents of illegal immigration have also seized on it in a lot of bills, including the federal State Children's Health Insurance Program, where there could be a claim that some benefit might go to somebody who wasn't supposed to be here.

And there are still the frothers – Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter and countless other drive-time talkers who, without questioning or (often) checking the data, retail the stuff of anti-immigration outfits.

The GOP, said Frank Sharry, the head of the National Immigration Forum, which supports comprehensive reform, "is a party that's in the grip of nativism."

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Randy Bayne
The Bayne of Blog's California Notes

Congress voted once again today to reauthorize the State Children Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The vote on H.R. 3963 was 265 yeas to 142 nays.

The new version of SCHIP attempts to address concerns raised by President Bush and House Republicans. According to a press release from Congressman Jerry McNerney's office, there are several changes to this bill that did not appear in previous versions:

• SCHIP coverage will be permitted for children only from families who earn less than 300 percent of the poverty level.

• In order to ensure that lowest-income children are covered first, the states will only receive bonus payments for enrolling eligible children in Medicaid, in this case California’s MediCal program.

• The revised bill goes even further that previous versions in clarifying that the legislation does not allow illegal immigrants to get SCHIP:

• If the Social Security Administration cannot confirm an applicant’s citizenship, the applicant will be required to provide the state with additional documentation to confirm eligibility.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

• Federal dollars for SCHIP will run out Nov 16 without Congressional action
• Board will reconsider emergency regulations on November 5

By Anthony Wright
Executive Director of Health Access California

The Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board (MRMIB), which oversees the Healthy Families program--California's version of the State Child Health Insurance Program--today decided it would wait until at least November 5 to decide whether it should adopt emergency regulations to pave the way for creating wait-lists and disenrolling children from the program.

FEDERAL STALEMATE