Serious cracks appear between the party grassroots and behind-the-scenes wealthy
The confrontation between big capital and el pueblo – the people (over Proposition 10, the repeal of Costa Hawkins) – is also being fought out in the California Democratic Party.
And that’s not all that shows that the Democrats are splitting in California – between a rank and file that’s calling for “power to the people” and the wealthy and their running dogs who have long called the shots and run the party as their own.
At a recent gathering of the party’s executive board, 95 percent voted to support Prop 10, repealing the landlord-supported 1995 act hamstringing rent control. That’s a direct kick in the butt of deep-pocket real estate investors.
Their vote followed the Democratic state convention’s solid endorsement of state senator Kevin de León for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein – even though Feinstein has a huge campaign war-chest and is favored to win in November.
Many delegates at the state convention were aware that Feinstein has used her position to advance the fortunes of her billionaire husband Richard Blum at the expense of the state’s renters and homeowners.
Blum is a major global real-estate investor with holdings in the growing corporate industry of buying up and renting California single-family homes. He may lose big if Prop 10 passes.
The split in the Democrats became even clearer when the mock-populist mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, faced off against the all-but-governor-elect, Gavin Newsom. Garcetti came to the microphone at a Sacramento rally to support Prop 10. Newsom opposes it.
No surprise. As mayor of San Francisco, Newsom helped billionaire Democrats run off with the San Francisco military bases that were decommissioned with Feinstein’s assistance – the Hunter’s Point and Treasure Island naval shipyards.
Major party funders and fundraisers such as Los Angeles billionaire Ron Burkle and Darius Anderson are among the most powerful lobbyists in the state.
Whether the power-to-the-people folks take over the California Democratic Party … or leave and join the Greens … or form their own, the split between business Democrats and the working-class rank and file is real – and huge.
