DEMOCRATIC REPORTER. BAND Newsletter, Volume 5 - Issue No. 2 - April A Newsletter for Bay Area New Democrats

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1 DEMOCRATIC REPORTER A Newsletter for Bay Area New Democrats BAND Newsletter, Volume 5 - Issue No. 2 - April 2012 Lampson Fires Up BAND Support BAND welcomed Nick Lampson back into the political fray with a standing ovation at the February meeting. The once and perhaps future Congressman Lampson was the guest speaker at the BAND monthly meeting. He is running for Congress in the newly drawn Congressional District 14, which runs along the Gulf Coast and includes Beaumont, Galveston County and parts of Brazoria County. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has recognized him as having one of the best chances nationally to pick up a Democratic seat in Congress. I love politics, Lampson said. There are times that you get to help people. Lampson, a former science teacher, and his Space Advocates group were especially helpful to the NASA community during the brief time he represented the Clear Lake area and Fort Bend County in the former District 22. Lampson has been involved in Democratic politics a long time. He said his first date with his wife Susan, to whom he has been married 40 years, was to a fundraiser for former Congressman Jack Brooks. Lampson was first elected to Congress in 1996 in what was then District 9, which included Beaumont. Lampson served four terms before aggressive redistricting by Republican state legislators working with then-congressman Tom DeLay forced him out. Lampson ran again in 2004 but lost in District 2. Then Lampson moved to District 22 with the hope of unseating DeLay in DeLay stepped out of the race to fight criminal charges against him (and he was later convicted). Unable to replace DeLay on the ballot, Republicans conducted a write-in campaign for another candidate. Lampson won, only to be unseated in 2008 by Pete Olson in the heavily Republican district. Since leaving office, Lampson has worked on issues he was known for in Congress, such as mental health and missing and exploited children. Meanwhile, local Democrat Joseph Vogas set up a website to draft Nick Lampson. Then, Joe Strauss, Lampson, continued on page 2 Nick Lampson is running for Congress in the new District IN THIS ISSUE Nick Lampson 1-2 Gas prices 3-4 Lane Lewis 5 K.P. George endorsement, April meeting 6 1

2 Lampson, continued from page 1 speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, appointed a man who is a friend of Lampson s son-inlaw to advise the House on redistricting. Lampson described to his son-in-law s friend how he thought districts should be drawn. Instead of gerrymandering in order to group likely voters from each party, Lampson thought the districts should be drawn with groups sharing similar geography and economics. Along the Gulf coastal plain, between Beaumont and Galveston, the economy is based on agriculture and recreation. The redistricting committee wound up drawing a district almost ideally suited to Lampson, except that it did not include his beloved NASA. The divisiveness in Congress made him think he was not interested anyway, he said. Finally, several friends, including Vogas, encouraged him to run, and then the DCCC called; Lampson said that in the past, he had to chase them for support. What ultimately convinced him was your enthusiasm, Lampson said, indicating supporters in the room. Now, the negativity in Congress that once discouraged Lampson is having the opposite effect. Lampson mentioned President Bill Clinton s book that talks about the anti-government movement. Concerned how such a movement would affect his grandkids, Lampson thought he had no choice but to run for Congress again. In 2008, Lampson felt that residents in District 22 voted against their own interests. He thinks we need to challenge Republicans about what their real interests are. Every one of us in the room is impacted directly or indirectly by what happens at NASA, he said. Lampson wants to meet people in their living rooms to discuss NASA and other issues. Although NASA itself is not in District 14, many aerospace workers do live in League City and elsewhere within the district. One of Lampson s concerns about NASA is the move to support the space program with the defense budget. We want a civilian science program, he said, not a space program designed to wage war. BAND member Doug Peterson noted that Space BAND members expressed eagerness to support Nick Lampson in his run for Congress. Advocates for Lampson has been revived. Lampson quoted a Texas A&M Aggie T-shirt he saw recently. It said, When we are unified, we are victorious. Lampson said that when Democrats are unified and turn out to vote, they always win. The voter ID bill passed by the state legislature in 2011 is really suppressive to the vote, Lampson said. If the law stays in place, we need to find a way to offset it, he said. Although the Department of Justice has since rejected the voter ID requirement, Republican state officials have vowed to continue to fight for it. Voters who don t live in Lampson s new district can still support him by volunteering in the district and getting friends to host meet-and-greet parties. Lampson is also on the DCCC s Red to Blue list, which means supporters can contribute online to his campaign from the DCCC s ActBlue page or by going directly to the website....band Board of Directors President C.J. Farley Vice President Bob Tomlinson Treasurer Mohammed Nasrullah Secretary Tonita Franklin Director Don Rhorer Director open Director Ila Montalvo Roel Director, newsletter editor Vicki M. Cherewaty 2

3 At this time, there is a lot of rhetoric on both left and right sides about the cost of gasoline, and analysts are saying prices will go over $ 4/gallon this year. The GOP candidates for President are laying the cause of high gasoline prices squarely at the feet of President Obama. Is this a fair attack? Is this reasonable? At least two major candidates/pundits are saying we need to return to $2 per gallon gasoline and if I m elected, we ll increase drilling to make it happen. That is a great fairy tale, but it has no basis in reality and will never take place without a dramatic shift in energy policy on a global scale. Sourced from the whitehouse.gov website, the graphs on this page and the following illustrate the global situation. Increasing Gas Prices Have Little to Do with Domestic Production Figure 1 domestic production and imports as share of consumption If you look at what is actually taking place, domestic oil production is as high as it s been since the timeframe. However, what is different from 2003 and 2004, is that our overall dependence is lower on a percentage basis. The last time we were this independent of foreign oil isn t shown on the charts; it was more than 12 years ago. The U.S. producers are providing approximately 55 percent of our requirement domestically. There have been a few attacks that say President Obama is reaping the benefits of permitting put into place by the Bush Administration, which has an element of truth, but you cannot argue with the actual production rates. So, whether we wanted to or not, we have engaged as a country in the drill, baby, drill mentality, and we have approximately 500,000 more barrels per day of oil production domestically available now compared to Think about that 42 gallons in a barrel, so it s an extra 21 million gallons of oil a day, every day. What s happened with prices at the same time? The chart on the left in Figure 2, at the top of page 4, illustrates that for the last three years, we have been driving up rig count and total production of oil, but prices have either been flat or increased during this time period. U.S. oil production has at best an attenuating effect or no effect. The chart on the right on page 4, shows yearly average gasoline prices (so the chart is smoothed out compared to the one on the left), and we see the profit in billions on the right axis in 2009, profits were approximately $36 billion for the top three oil companies, rocketing up to more than $72 billion in Additionally, the chart in Figure 2 shows the top three oil companies. It does not say top three domestic oil companies. Forbes lists the top three oil companies as Saudi Aramco, National Oil Company of Iran, and Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX). Those three companies produce 14.9 million barrels per day of crude oil, with Saudi Aramco producing 8.2 million by itself. To put it on the first chart in figure 1, it would be 14,900, roughly three times the entire domestic production of the U.S. So, the U.S. produces more oil (10 to 15 percent more compared to 2008), our global dependence is down by 10 to 15 percent since 2008, and our prices are higher than ever. Why? When you realize that just the top three oil companies produce three times the amount of oil that all of U.S. Domestic production can, it is pretty obvious. Oil is a global gas prices, continued on page 4 3

4 gas prices, continued from page 3 commodity, and the U.S. is in all the wrong positions to be able to leverage the price. We don t produce a significant amount on a global scale, approximately 10 percent of the global production, but we consume 20 percent of the global production. We are buying a lot more than we will ever produce. Even if we ramp up our production, it comes on line in small amounts at a time, and it s easy for the global major producers to control the price on a global basis. The President has advocated for less oil consumption to save money. In the 2008 campaign, he advocated doing the simple things today, like checking your tire pressure, and the GOP couldn t wait to make fun of him. The truth is, making sure your tires are at the proper pressure can give you a 6 percent increase in fuel efficiency, meaning 6 percent less gasoline consumption to get you where you are going. It s one of the single biggest steps we can take to ensure minimum oil consumption. Raising fleet miles per gallon fuel economy standards is great, but it also necessitates getting rid of gas-guzzling cars for more fuel efficiency, and this has a cost associated with it -- when you compare the operating cost of buying the new or pre-owned car versus paying a little more for gasoline at the pump during fill-ups. That means you make the changes when cars are at the end of their lives; let people drive cars that are 10 to 15 years old, and there will eventually be a time when they replace them. As mentioned, oil production is a global economy, but so is oil refining. Some refineries have to sell their refined products locally because of where they are located; places like Minnesota, Utah or Wyoming are very niche areas because products are consumed locally. But, on the Gulf Coast, there are many options for refiners in terms of where to sell their products. Refiners product prices are set by global conditions and influenced by local happenings. Figure 2 gasoline prices from 2007 and 10 years of the top three oil company profits How do refiners select where to sell their products? We live in a country that is driven by a free market economy, so refiners choose to send their products where they will make the most money. This means that today, right now, we have local refiners that are shipping products to other countries because those materials command higher prices there than here. It s exactly how the system is designed to work. This is one of my big issues with how the Keystone Pipeline gets talked about there is a lot of rhetoric about how this oil will help us eliminate or reduce dependence on foreign oil. There is no guarantee that this material will ever be refined or sold in the U.S. as a refined product. If it s better for the owners to ship it to Europe or China, they will do so in a second. They have to in order to maximize profit. And sure, it will create some jobs, but those jobs are very short-term. In the long run, the only jobs we create are going to be in maintenance and operation of that pipeline. We are talking two to 10 people who will have a long-term job due specifically to that pipeline. Sure, we have shovel ready jobs by the thousands, but those jobs last a few months to a couple of years. They are not sustainable. C.J. Farley, BAND president Editor s note: C.J. Farley is a chemical engineer employed in the energy industry. 4

5 Lewis Preparing for Democratic Dominance in Years to Come Lane Lewis wants the business of the Harris County Democratic Party to be about the party, not just periodic campaigns. Lewis spoke at the March BAND meeting about his goals as the Harris County Democratic Party (HCDP) chair. He took over as the interim chair when Gerry Birnberg stepped down from the position last December. Standing for election in the primary on May 29, Lewis said getting Democrats elected one year should not be the goal for HCDP. For him, the coordinated campaign is a rollout of a campaign that is put away after an election, but it shouldn t be. The long-term goal is to make the county like it once was, when pundits would ask how someone who was not a Democrat could get elected. Lewis talked about his ideas for achieving the goal of turning the county blue. First, he wants every dollar that legally can go to the party to do so. He is seeing already that some Democrats who previously gave to the Texas Democratic Party are now donating to the county party too. In addition, Lewis wants precinct chairs to be trained and educated to solve Interim Harris County Democratic Party chair Lane Lewis spoke about his vision for the HCDP at the March 14 BAND meeting. Lewis is running to fill the slot for the next term in the primary on May 29. community problems at the most local level. In the HCDP office itself, Lewis has found a better phone system. Also, HCDP is now using technology in new ways. For example, Lewis is seeking technology to be used at Senate District conventions, which would prevent an attendee who takes a pledge that he or she will vote in the Democratic primary from turning around and voting in the Republican primary. The HCDP office is hiring new interns with a $15,000 grant to help interns get certification in grassroots organizing. The program will last three to four months, and then the interns will be assigned to Senate Districts. Interns and volunteers are calling Democrats in precincts that don t have precinct chairs. They are first looking for 10 to 15 precinct captains, and eventually the most reliable will become the precinct chairs. Lewis charged the clubs to clean those lists weeding out phone numbers and addresses that are no longer valid and then inserting the information in VAN (Voter Activation Network), a Democratic database used in phone banking and other campaign activities. The interim party chair said he was looking at ways to make our website a push-pull. That is, not only would users pull information they seek from the website; the website would also deliver or push information targeted to the user. Lewis believes Texas is really a blue state, even though the vote does not yet reflect that. If Dallas, Travis County and Corpus Christi go blue and so does Harris Harris County, Texas will truly be blue. The urban areas are more populated than the more conservative rural areas. Lewis noted that his is the last race on the primary ballot. Voters should remember to vote in the down ballot races, where their votes could be most important. Political advertising is paid for by Bay Area New Democrats. 5

6 BAND Makes Rare Endorsement for Primary BAND members in attendance at the March 14 club meeting voted by acclamation to endorse K.P. George for the Democratic nomination in the redrawn Congressional District 22, which now includes only part of the Clear Lake area. With the endorsement, BAND joins the Fort Bend Democrats in its Stop Kesha Rogers campaign. Rogers is K.P. George s only remaining opponent in the Democratic primary to oppose incumbent Republican Rep. Pete Olson. Candidate Douglas Blatt sent a message to Democrats that he was dropping out of the District 22 race. Kesha Rogers, a Lyndon LaRouche candidate, ironically won the Democratic nomination in 2010, even though her supporters accosted patrons at the post office with campaign literature featuring photos of President Obama doctored with a Hitlerstyle mustache and signs advocating the President s impeachment. Bay Area New Democrats president C.J. Farley, said, I urge every voter in the Democratic primary to select Mr. K.P. George as their candidate in the Texas Congressional District 22 race. K.P. George Sadler to Be Guest Speaker At the April meeting of the Bay Area New Democrats, the guest speaker will be Paul Sadler, candidate for U.S. Senate. The BAND meeting takes place at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 11 at the Harris County Courthouse Bay Area Annex at Buccaneer, across the parking lot from the Freeman Library. Sadler served in the Texas House of Representatives from 1991 to 2003, where he was the only House member to serve as chairman of more than one committee in the same session, in 1991 and He received numerous awards for his legislative work, including recognition in Texas Monthly magazine s Ten Best List for legislators in 1995, 1997, 1991 and An attorney, Sadler has also served as executive director of the non-profit Wind Coalition promoting responsible development of wind energy. Candidate K.P. George, running for the Democratic nomination in Congressional District 22 against non-democrat Kesha Rogers, thanked BAND members after the club endorsed him by acclamation. will be a champion for all of us and will help ensure our children have every chance to be successful. K.P. is a good man, well-known in the community, and he will be a great civil servant when he wins election. K.P. s life story represents the best of what the United States can be, and it has instilled a deep understanding of what government representation should be; K.P. will never forget he works for the citizens of Congressional District 22. K.P. George will be a great advocate for us, from Fort Bend all the way to Clear Lake, and will help ensure a vibrant future for all of us. Judge Gilberto Hinojosa, a candidate for Texas Democratic Party chair, appeared at a recent meet-andgreet with the Asian-American Democrats of Texas. 6