Political Blotter: Pete Sessions raising money for District 11 GOP nominee David Harmer
National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman and Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas will host a fundraiser for 11th District GOP nominee David Harmer at noon today in Pleasanton.
Sessions is leading the party’s push to take back majority control of the U.S. House of Representatives, and the national party seems to be taking a great deal of interest in Harmer’s challenge of Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney of Pleasanton. The party has named Harmer one of the “Young Guns,” a national candidate promotion program.
Harmer is apparently taking some heat for crossing the picket line at the site of the luncheon, the Castlewood Country Club. Workers have been picketing the business for five months in a dispute over reduced health care benefits.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee also had choice words to say about Sessions’ California stop, which included a breakfast fundraiser for Harmer in Stockton this morning.
“David Harmer needs to come clean with Northern California voters that he supports a return to the dangerous Bush economic agenda that led to the mess so many are still trying to dig out of,” said DCCC spokesman Andy Stone. “After all, corporate lawyer Harmer wants to keep tax breaks in
place for companies that ship American jobs overseas, supported the privatization of Social Security and has stood up for the big Wall Street banks that wreaked havoc on the economy. David Harmer’s economic agenda is precisely what Northern California families can’t afford right now.”
Understandably, Harmer is heavily focused on fundraising. He had an expensive primary campaign against three opponents, while McNerney had no challengers in June and is substantially ahead of his GOP foe when it comes to dollars for November.
The event costs between $2,400 for a platinum co-host status table for eight and photos with Sessions, to $250 to be a silver sponsor.
— Lisa Vorderbrueggen
Aug. 6
A contractor’s error was responsible for some Bay Area households never receiving their official state voters’ guides before the June 8 primary, Secretary of State Debra Bowen reports.
In a letter sent yesterday to Assemblyman Jerry Hill, who’d contacted Bowen’s office after taking complaints from San Mateo County residents, Bowen said managers at Admail West, the Sacramento firm contracted to mail the guides, admitted “their company is responsible for duplicate or triplicate mailings of state voter guides to voter households in some counties, while at the same time failing to mail a single state voter guide to other households.
“No one at Admail West has ever been able to fully explain the extent of the mailing problem, or why the company did not have better quality-assurance procedures in place for such an important statewide project,” Bowen wrote. “Moreover, Admail West managers reported that the one employee who handled the mailing data and caused the San Mateo County mailing errors passed away in June, and many key details are not known by anyone else at the company.”
Regardless of who screwed up at Admail West, she wrote, “there is no excuse for the sloppy tracking and lack of quality control by any vendor when the Secretary of State’s office provides extremely clear mailing specifications and voter address data.”
Checking around online, I see that Admail West’s president is Kathleen Pescetti. Her husband is Anthony Pescetti, the Republican former Assemblyman from Gold River; their son, also named Anthony, is Admail West’s business development manager.
Hill, D-San Mateo, issued a news release today noting there are still unanswered questions that must be resolved to ensure this doesn’t happen again: “I will be working with the Secretary of State to identify corrective actions that may include legislation or a state audit.”
Hill on June 16 introduced AB 814, which would require that for a statewide election, officials include a notification with the sample ballot informing voters they can obtain a voter information guide on the Secretary of State’s website. The notice also would include the telephone number, designated by the county elections official, at which a voter could request that a ballot pamphlet be mailed to him or her; ballot pamphlets also would be made available at polling places. The bill passed the state Senate Appropriations Committee on a unanimous vote Monday, and now awaits a Senate floor vote.
Hill also this year authored AB 1717, authorizing county and city elections officials to create procedures letting a voter opt out of receiving their sample ballot, voter pamphlet and polling-place notice by mail and instead get them electronically by e-mail or on the county’s or city’s website. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed that bill into law last month.
— Josh Richman
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