San Francisco Chronicle endorses Debra!
On Sunday, Californians woke up to great news in our fight for fair and transparent elections: The San Francisco Chronicle endorsed Debra’s campaign for Secretary of State!
Here are a few key paragaphs from the Chronicle’s endorsement editorial:
But for this office, Bowen is the clear choice in the Democratic primary. In her nearly 14 years in the Capitol, Bowen has demonstrated her commitment to what we believe should be one of the guiding principles of society: An individual’s actions should be presumed private, while a government’s actions should be presumed public. For example, her bills to help consumers guard against identity theft and block “junk faxes” have set national standards.
As chair of the Senate Elections Committee, Bowen has been a determined advocate of bringing more transparency to the political process — such as getting lobbying expenses online in a more accessibly way — and installing more rigorous standards on the use of electronic voting equipment. She has done her homework on technological issues and is ready to make the case that California needs a more aggressive secretary of state to restore public confidence in the electoral process.
Bowen is not one to flinch at a challenge. She entered this race at a time when many top Democrats were reluctant to criticize the scandal-drenched Shelley, who was clinging to office. In her typical straightforward style, Bowen explained, “It became clear we were going to need a new nominee.”
She was right. And Sen. Debra Bowen should be that nominee.
You can read the full editorial here. Then let us know what you think of the Chronicle’s endorsement in the comments below.
– Brent
April 24th, 2006 at 5:36 pm
Go Debra! Here’s what I wrote in response yesterday.
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“An individual’s actions should be presumed private, while a government’s actions should be presumed public.” With this, you have captured the essence of Debra Bowen’s work. Deborah Ortiz would probably agree with this fine axiom, and I agree that she has been a fine public official. However, while Debra Bowen has been immersed in voting system issues and has proven to be an important leader in this area, Deborah Ortiz has not shown any leadership here. Since the office of Secretary of State includes being the state’s top elections official, Bowen is the clear choice. So, I agree completely with your conclusion with respect to the Bowen v. Ortiz primary.
Although not the main subject of your editorial, I must take exception to your statement about Secretary McPherson restoring “calm and confidence” to the office. He has been slow and indecisive. Perhaps his style has been good, but he lacks substance. He has demonstrated poor comprehension of the voting system technical issues. His April 17th letter in opposition to AB 2097 (Goldberg) is gibberish. Fortunately, he was soundly refuted in the April 18th hearing in the Assembly Elections Committee, and no one voted in support of his point of view.
Alan Dechert
President, Open Voting Consortium
9560 Windrose Lane
Granite Bay, CA 95746
http://openvoting.org
916-791-0456
May 6th, 2006 at 11:47 am
The Chron has good points about Senator Bowen, and some slightly more disingenuous misgivings about McPherson’s predecessor. McP, like the current governor, holds an interim post.
It will be good to get back to the normalcy of due process, an interest deep seated in Senator Bowen’s view of how the job of secretary of state of CA should be performed.
Senator Bowen continues to impress with her development of ways to match the age old voting process with the new waves of technology, to safeguard our electoral activity in times when nationwide elections have been decided amid extraordinarily flawed voting.
Beyond the vote process, the position of secretary of state oversees a lot of watchdog activity in CA, a configuration which has provided leadership for other states which wish to modernize conflict-of-interest regulations. Interim secretary of State McPherson has acquiesced to let some advances continue in this subdepartment of the secretary of state’s office, though Democrats traditionally manage these responsibilities better than Republicans, given the diversity of the Democratic constituency.
In sum, Senator Debra Bowen offers experience and energy at a time when the office of secretary of state deeply needs those attributes in its leader.
It is unfortunate that the flak which ousted former secretary Shelley over recent months has begun to resolve into a more distributed kind of responsibility for some of the irregularities which made extension of his tenure in that post impossible. He did much to modernize the office while there; hopefully his drive and resourcefulness will continue to be assets to the Democratic Party in other ways.
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