Yesterday I introduced you to my Congresswoman, Lois Capps, and discussed my desire to see Ms. Capps defeated and replaced in the house, due to the fact that she A) was initially elected due to her pledge to serve only three terms (she is currently serving her 5th), and B) the fact that in nearly 10 years she has passed one piece of legislation.
And my desire to see Ms. Capps defeated has nothing to do with the fact that she is a Democrat. The 23rd district of California, Ms. Capps district, is drawn so that it would be practically impossible for a Republican to win (See photo on the right).
Anyway, I was surprised on Thursday to see the headline “Faith Meets Politics At Capps Event”, with the sub headline “Democratic congresswomen invites local religious leaders to Washington for rare talk on church-state relations. “ in my local paper. I was surprised because while Church-State events are rare in Washington, one hosted by a Democrat is really rare. However, given that Capps is a preacher’s daughter, it made some sense.
The article describes how Capps invited 20 local clergy for “an all-day meeting to talk about faith, justice and religious pluralism.” It further states that Capps said “The deep religious divide between the political left and right is what inspired this conference.” The conference also drew appearances from Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md), and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Actually, I was a little surprised by Pelosi’s involvement, because I saw “The Omen” and I remember how Damien kicked and screamed as he approached a Church, so I just assumed…….
Initially, I thought that, even with Pelosi’s involvement, this was a good thing. I think mixing politics and religion can be dangerous, but I also think that the left’s effort to distance government from religion has done a lot of harm.
Capps revealed the concern that she and other Christian house members feel when they talk about their religious backgrounds in a political context because of a fear of alienating Muslims, Hindus, or others holding different faith beliefs. Why? Why is the left so concerned about offending Hindus and Muslims, but they have no issue offending Christians. And no, I’m not saying Hindus and Muslims don’t matter, of course they do, but why do we need to be “inclusive” in everything? You can’t even tell a story about your religion because you might offend someone? Look, if my Jewish friend is telling me about Yom Kippur or Rosh Ha-Shanah, I don’t take offense because he hasn’t found a way to “spin” it to include my religion.
Remember earlier when I stated that one of the reasons for this conference was to address ““The deep religious divide between the political left and right”? Well, they probably might have had a better time of addressing those concerns if they had actually INVITED someone from the right. Capps admitted that through self-selection there were no invitations made to anyone on the right side of the aisle. She did however include the faith-based organizers for the Kerry-Edwards campaign from 2004.
They also stated in the article that “There was gloating about how the religious right was “imploding”. Yeah, sounds like they were really concerned about closing that gap between the left and the right. But what more could I expect from Congresswomen Capps, Nancy Pelosi, and the rest of the left.
And my desire to see Ms. Capps defeated has nothing to do with the fact that she is a Democrat. The 23rd district of California, Ms. Capps district, is drawn so that it would be practically impossible for a Republican to win (See photo on the right).
Anyway, I was surprised on Thursday to see the headline “Faith Meets Politics At Capps Event”, with the sub headline “Democratic congresswomen invites local religious leaders to Washington for rare talk on church-state relations. “ in my local paper. I was surprised because while Church-State events are rare in Washington, one hosted by a Democrat is really rare. However, given that Capps is a preacher’s daughter, it made some sense.
The article describes how Capps invited 20 local clergy for “an all-day meeting to talk about faith, justice and religious pluralism.” It further states that Capps said “The deep religious divide between the political left and right is what inspired this conference.” The conference also drew appearances from Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md), and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Actually, I was a little surprised by Pelosi’s involvement, because I saw “The Omen” and I remember how Damien kicked and screamed as he approached a Church, so I just assumed…….
Initially, I thought that, even with Pelosi’s involvement, this was a good thing. I think mixing politics and religion can be dangerous, but I also think that the left’s effort to distance government from religion has done a lot of harm.
Capps revealed the concern that she and other Christian house members feel when they talk about their religious backgrounds in a political context because of a fear of alienating Muslims, Hindus, or others holding different faith beliefs. Why? Why is the left so concerned about offending Hindus and Muslims, but they have no issue offending Christians. And no, I’m not saying Hindus and Muslims don’t matter, of course they do, but why do we need to be “inclusive” in everything? You can’t even tell a story about your religion because you might offend someone? Look, if my Jewish friend is telling me about Yom Kippur or Rosh Ha-Shanah, I don’t take offense because he hasn’t found a way to “spin” it to include my religion.
Remember earlier when I stated that one of the reasons for this conference was to address ““The deep religious divide between the political left and right”? Well, they probably might have had a better time of addressing those concerns if they had actually INVITED someone from the right. Capps admitted that through self-selection there were no invitations made to anyone on the right side of the aisle. She did however include the faith-based organizers for the Kerry-Edwards campaign from 2004.
They also stated in the article that “There was gloating about how the religious right was “imploding”. Yeah, sounds like they were really concerned about closing that gap between the left and the right. But what more could I expect from Congresswomen Capps, Nancy Pelosi, and the rest of the left.
3 comments:
I'm confused. Was Capp elected because:
"The 23rd district of California, Ms. Capps district, is drawn so that it would be practically impossible for a Republican to win."
or because:
"...of the money she received based on her pledge to serve no more than three terms."
Capps was in a very tight race in the special election in 1998. She was losing to Bordanaro before taking the pledge, and nearly everyone credits both the pledge and the $150,000 in money she received from USTL with giving her the victory.
Once she was in office, the district lines were redrawn that have allowed Capps to hold onto her office.
There is no confusion. Politicians in power just count the votes from the previous election and toss out enough of the opposition party to perpetually elect their candidate forever.
This started with the Phil Burton Machine politics in San Francisco in the 1960s. To control Marin County, then mostly conservative, they went up and included Vallejo, a blue collar Democratic town (yes the Vallejo that just went bankrupt) to change the district to mostly Democrats.
In the SF Bay Area's "East Bay" they took Walnut Creek's neighboring towns of Orinda, Lafayette and Moraga and tossed them west into the Oakland/Berkeley district of then Congressman Ron Dellums (now mayor of Oakland) where their conservative votes wouldn't add up to a hill of beans.
There has really only been one major political party in the Bay Area since San Francisco democrats began gerrymandering. If you wanted to run against them you had no Republican base. So former supervisors like Quentin Kopp ran as Independents.
And now that I'm back in my hometown, the local San Luis Obispo Tribune won't even run a illustration of our gerrymandered "Ribbon of Shame" 23rd Congressional District.
Yes, they tossed out the entire city of Arroyo Grande and included it with Bakersfield. Where is Arroyo Grande? On Hwy 101 just south of Pismo Beach and north of Nipomo and Santa Maria. But only A.G. was excised so that they could bring in more democrats from further south in Oxnard.
Corruption at it's finest! LA Times columnist Skelton said, "It's not perfect but Prop 11" but it might be the last chance to control gerrymandering.
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