(A note from Jim Hines, team leader of the Sierra Club California Wildlife Team)
Greetings Friends:
The Sierra Club’s Mountain Lions FOREVER! campaign to protect the largest wild cats in California is asking each of you to support the following resolution before the Ventura county board of supervisors today (February 25) – Agenda item # 37 with no time certain, but we can all speak at general public comment which is at 8:30 AM.
Where: Ventura County Government Center at 800 S. Victoria Ave., Ventura
Swap Meet Justice began as a result of our voter registration efforts. We learned that the people passing us by were permanent legal residents who wanted to become citizens but were facing significant challenges in doing so. These included unaffordable attorney fees for help with the application process, and the impossibility of taking time off from work to meet with them.
Ventura’s resistance movement is strong and varied. Check out our entire list of events and keep track here. Send additions for the list to indivisibleventura@gmail.com
Action #1: THIS SUNDAY- 12/29: Volunteer, help spread the word and/or donate to our local free citizenship fair – Swap Meet Justice!
What are we doing? We help our neighbors turn their green cards (permanent residency cards) into citizenship. We also help renew green card and DACA applications and register new voters. Come help! No experience required.
Action #1 – TODAY – Thursday, 2/20: Meet at Santino’s for pizza, good conversation, and social justice – every Third Thursday starting at 11:30 am
The next community showing of this film will be by the Chalice UU on 3/28. Stay tuned to our “Event” page for more details. Ventura’s resistance movement is strong and varied. Check out the entire list and keep track here. Send additions for the list to indivisibleventura@gmail.com
Indivisible Ventura, along with groups and individuals across the country, has been participating in a postcard campaign with the Reclaim our Vote campaign, organized by the Center for Common Ground. This month, the campaign has sent us 400 addresses for the next area of deliberate voter disenfranchisement – Montgomery County, Alabama.
Where: Santino’s Pizza. It’s at 4231 Telegraph Rd., Ventura, 93003
When: Thursday, Feb. 20th, between 11:30am – 1:30pm.
RSVP for our supporters: Nope. Just come. Invite your friends!
We do, however, reserve the right to refuse any volunteers and their services.
What to bring: We provide the pizza, postcards, stationary. If you prefer, you may bring your own pre-stamped postcards, or stationary for letter actions. You are also welcome to bring stickers and different colored pens.
Donations gratefully accepted: A postcard stamp is $0.35! We’re trying to achieve 400 finished postcards, which equals $140!. Donations of money for stamps and pizza or rolls of postcard stamps are gratefully accepted.
Interviews with judicial candidates Catherine Voelker and Martin Zaehringer – Tuesday, February 11th.
To paraphrase Dr. McCoy from Star Trek, “Damn it, Jim! We’re political activists, not trained journalists!” (Much kudos here to all real journalists. They have a very hard job.) Read these interviews with these caveats in mind…
It’s tricky: Interviewing judicial candidates isn’t a straightforward process. Because of “Canon 5” issues, you can’t just ask them if they are future Ruth Bader Ginsbergs, or Brett Kavanaughs or what their opinions are on abortion, civil or LGBTQ rights or on protecting the environment.
“Not journalists” – part 1: We are not lawyers either. We consulted lawyers and various Bar sources for acceptable questions and we ended up learning a lot from both interviewees about Ventura County’s court system.
“Not journalists” – part 2: Not all questions were asked in the same way to each candidate, and some questions had extensive “cross talk” or additional comments, as we followed the flow of conversation. See above – “not journalists.”
Why didn’t you ask…: Assuredly, some great questions were not asked. However, these interviews took over 90 minutes each and we were grateful that the candidates were willing to sit that long for self-admitted partisan activists.
Yes, we edited…: Both questions and answers were lightly edited for grammar and brevity. We also added links for information and definitions of legal terms and issues.
Yes, they edited…: These interviews were not a “gotcha!” activity. Both candidates were given drafts of their answers to edit for clarity and conformance to Canon 5 requirements. We really want to understand who these people are before we vote on them.
Who’s on first?: Mr. Zaehringer’s comments were placed first, because Ms. Voelker was asked to address additional issues at the end of her interview.
What did the pros say?: The Ventura County Bar Association released their 2020 Judicial Candidates Ratings and we’ve graphed the results below the interviews.
Are you doing interviews for Office 8?: No. We recommend that you vote for Paul W. Baelly (endorsements here). His opponent, Steve Pell, is not considered qualified by the Ventura County Bar Association.
Candidate Bios: These two newspapers give good short overviews of the candidates’ demographic information: VC Star interviews here. VC Reporter blurbs here. Quick facts:
G. Martin Zaehringer is an 38-year trial attorney who’s worked on all the types of cases that appear before a Superior Court. Endorsements here. His campaign contributions are here.
Catherine Voelker has worked for 15 years in the District Attorney’s office. Her list of endorsements is here.
A moment to say “Thank you!”:These candidates had no idea how long the interviews were going to be, and that afterwards, that they would have to fit editing 18+ page documents into their busy schedules. They were both very good sports and we enjoyed working with them.
Before you start reading the interviews with both candidates, do you know what a “superior court” is? This will be important for making your choice.
“Superior courts have trial jurisdiction over all criminal and civil cases. Special departments of the courts handle family, probate, mental health, juvenile, small claims, and traffic cases. Many superior courts also have specialty departments for nonviolent drug offenses and domestic violence cases. Superior courts handle cases in which parties ask for special relief, such as an injunction or a declaratory order.
Superior court judges serve six-year terms and are elected by county voters on a nonpartisan ballot at a general election. Vacancies are filled through appointment by the Governor. A superior court judge (with the exception of former municipal court judges in now unified courts) must have been an attorney admitted to practice law in California or have served as a judge of a court of record in this state for at least 10 years immediately preceding election or appointment.” (Article on “The Qualities of a Good Judge“)
The Interviews – 40 questions.
Our questions and comments are in RED.
Martin Zaehringer’s comments are in BLACK.
Catherine Voelker’s comments are in BLUE.
Before we started the interviews with both candidates, we read them the following statement. We understand you are subject toCanon 5, (Oct. 10th, 2018), “a judge or candidate for judicial office shall not engage in political or campaign activity that is inconsistent with the independence, integrity, or impartiality of the judiciary.“ Section 5A(3)(d) prohibits a candidate for judicial office from making statements that commit the candidate regarding cases, controversies or issues likely to come before the court. As a corollary, a candidate should emphasize in any public statement the candidate’s duty to uphold the law regardless of his or her personal views.
Indivisible Ventura is busy today writing up some great local judicial candidate interviews for our upcoming voting guide, so thank goodness for Rogan’s List for today’s actions!
Action #1 – Emergency at the Department of Justice. Call your legislators!
On Monday, the DOJ made their sentencing recommendations in the Roger Stone case, based on the face that he is actually a criminal who lied under oath. Overnight on Monday, Trump tweeted out the unfairness of the sentencing recommendation. Tuesday, the DOJ announced a revision to the recommendation. Then, the four DOJ prosecutors resigned from the case in protest of the intervention of Attorney General William Barr. Then Barr announced that that he will be controlling all aspects of cases related to Trump (like the Stone case) which Trump is pleased about. Barr has agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on March 31, but that seems much later than needed. Regardless of Barr’s willingness to testify, this is a disturbing and dangerous politicization of the DOJ and isnot the behavior of democracies.
Minimal script: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want Sen/Rep [___] to know that we are very concerned about the following unacceptable actions by Attorney General Bill Barr:
setting up a Giuliani information backchannel
taking over all Trump-related cases (how can we even be saying this!)
slashing Roger Stone’s sentencing recommendations.
Contact Rep. Julia Brownley: email, (CA-26): DC (202) 225-5811, Oxnard (805) 379-1779, T.O. (805) 379-1779 or Rep. Salud Carbajal: email.(CA-24): DC (202) 225-3601, SB (805) 730-1710 SLO (805) 546-8348 Senator Feinstein:email, DC (202) 224-3841, LA (310) 914-7300, SF (415) 393-0707, SD (619) 231-9712, Fresno (559) 485-7430 and Senator Harris:email, DC (202) 224-3553, LA (213) 894-5000, SAC (916) 448-2787, Fresno (559) 497-5109, SF (415) 355-9041, SD (619) 239-3884 Who is my representative/senator?:https://whoismyrepresentative.co
Action #2 – Send a postcard or note of thanks to the attorney that resigned in protest.
Action #1 – Call your legislators with support for two local environmental bills.
(Message from Jim Hines, Sierra Club) Good Morning Ventura and Santa Barbara County Friends!: Noon (west coast time) February 12th…vote on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on:
Both bills protecting lands within Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
It has been exciting working on these two bills, lobbying members of congress for passage and now we will see tomorrow if we are successful.
for the wild, Jim
Minimal script: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want Rep. [___] to know how important [his/her] support for HR 2199 – Central Coast Heritage Protection Act and HR 1708/S.774 – Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act is for the protection of our environment and wildlife.
Rep-check for HR 2199 here – Brownley has cosponsored, Carbajal is the original sponsor.
Rep-check for HR 1708 here – Brownley has cosponsored, Carbajal has not.
Contact Rep. Julia Brownley:email, (CA-26): DC (202) 225-5811, Oxnard (805) 379-1779, T.O. (805) 379-1779 or Rep. Salud Carbajal:email. (CA-24): DC (202) 225-3601, SB (805) 730-1710 SLO (805) 546-8348 Who is my representative/senator?:https://whoismyrepresentative.com
Action #2 – Put your legislator on notice – “Don’t let selling off our public lands and our national parks to destructive industries happen on your watch.”
“There’s a quiet, almost covert, effort to dismantle the public lands management infrastructure,” said Jim Lyons, who was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management at the Interior Department in the Obama administration. “It’s very effective. I call it evil genius.” So let’s let in a little sunshine, folks!
“This is an unacceptable threat to our democracy as we know it,” said Lisa Rovinsky, who serves as advocacy chairwoman for the Atlanta branch of the National Council of Jewish Women…
…The groups opposing Brasher point to a brief he wrote as part of a lawsuit that ultimately led to a rollback of the Voting Rights Act, and they say that in another case he defended an Arizona law that required people to submit proof of citizenship before registering to vote.”
If they can get him through, Senate will turn to the these nominations, which include at least two Federalist Society members, and one, Joshua Kindred, who has a terrible environmental record.
Joshua Kindred (anti-environmental – LVC.org and afj.org, low professional ratings) On his SenateJudiciary questionaire, he answered all environmental questions with “As a judicial nominee, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on political issues or issues that might come before the court”.
The non-trial is over and McConnell isn’t wasting any time. He’s only guaranteed until November to turn the judicial branch into a extremist right-wing rubber-stamp for Trump’s policies. At the beginning of Trump’s reign, lawyers told us that we shouldn’t worry about young extremist Trump-udges, that essentially they would fall in line with the years of precedent that was slowly moving America towards a more just nation. Um, no. Even before Trump, there were huge setbacks, such as 2010’s Citizens United v. FEC, and in 2013, parts of the Voting Right Act (Shelby v. Holder). Now the march back to the 1950’s has accelerated, as these new judges are pushing off the guardrails and starting to deliver on their destructive potential. (See “Deep Dive” below)
Per the Hill, the Senate is expected to take its first procedural vote on the slate Monday evening, on Andrew Brasher’s nomination to be a judge on the 11th Circuit, the court that oversees federal cases originating in the states of Alabama, Florida and Georgia.
Call your senators and contact your family/friends groups to contact theirs, especially those with GOP senators.
Minimal script: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want to thank Sen [___] for opposing the confirmation of Andrew Brasher, whose extremist views are in direct conflict with the interests and rights of the population he serves. Also thanks for opposing the nomination of Joshua Kindred. Continue reading “Tues 2/11: Judges matter. Call your senators! Brasher is up today!”→
The non-trial is over and McConnell isn’t wasting any time. He’s only guaranteed until November to turn the judicial branch into a extremist right-wing rubber-stamp for Trump’s policies. At the beginning of Trump’s reign, lawyers told us that we shouldn’t worry about young extremist Trump-udges, that essentially they would fall in line with the years of precedent that was slowly moving America towards a more just nation. Um, no. Even before Trump, there were huge setbacks, such as 2010’s Citizens United v. FEC, and in 2013, parts of the Voting Right Act (Shelby v. Holder). Now the march back to the 1950’s has accelerated, as these new judges are pushing off the guardrails and starting to deliver on their destructive potential. (See “Deep Dive” below)
Per the Hill, the Senate is expected to take its first procedural vote on the slate Monday evening, on Andrew Brasher’s nomination to be a judge on the 11th Circuit, the court that oversees federal cases originating in the states of Alabama, Florida and Georgia.
Call your senators and contact your family/friends groups to contact theirs, especially those with GOP senators.
Minimal script: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want to thank Sen [___] for opposing the confirmation of Andrew Brasher, whose extremist views are in direct conflict with the interests and rights of the population he serves. Continue reading “Fri 2/7: Judges matter. Call your senators!”→
INDIVISIBLE VENTURA 