New Political Committee Surfaces, Attempts To Link BBB (Lets Incumbents Avoid Write-In Reqt For Third Terms) To DDD (Redistricting Reform/Cambodian Equity) By Portraying Both As Civil Rights/Voting Rights Matters, Receives $10,000 Initial Funding From So Cal Pipe Trades Union

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(October 26, 2018. 4:00 a.m.) -- With vote by mail ballots flying and just days before the November 6 election, a new political committee has surfaced in Long Beach -- launched with $10,000 in initial funding from a politically-active Los Angeles-based union -- that attempts to link Measure BBB (that would let LB's incumbent Mayor/Councilmembers avoid LB's current write-in requirement for third terms and beyond) to Measure DDD (a Redistricting reform/anti-gerrymanering measure strongly supported and crafted by Equity for Cambodians) by portraying both measures as civil rights/voting rights issues.

Filings with the LB City Clerk's office show that on October 17, an entity calling itself the "Economic and Policy Impact Center's Committee to Support Equitable Governance Measures BBB & DDD" signed organizational paperwork, which it filed on October 18 and on October 19 received a $10,000 contribution from "Southern California Pipe Trades, District Council #16" in Los Angeles.

One of the new political committee's two Assistant Treasurers is Alyssa Gutierrez, a former aide to 9th dist. Councilman Rex Richardson and a current Long Beach Democratic Party VP who exited Richardson's office in August 2018 to become Executive Director of a non-profit advocacy group, the "Economic Policy Impact Center" (EPIC.)

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On October 25 at 12:25 p.m., EPIC posted the video below on its Facebook page:

On its Facebook page, EPIC stated: "This November we have an opportunity to expand voting and civil rights in Long Beach, with Measures BBB & DDD. Lets give all of our communities a seat at the table to participate in our decision-making process."

The eleventh-hour effort to characterize BBB (a term limits change benefiting incumbents and disadvantaging challengers) with DDD (redistricting reform to correct unjust gerrymandering of LB's Cambodian community) comes as Mayor Garcia faces a grassroots-funded, unflinching campaign in opposition to BBB from the newly launched Long Beach Reform Coalition PAC. An example of its recent mailer (a folded four-pager) is below.

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As reported on Oct. 5 by LBREPORT.com, the Garcia-run committee supporting Measures AAA-DDD used an Oct. 4 event publicly described as a kickoff rally for Measure DDD to distribute lawn signs for the other three Mayor/ Council-sought Charter Amendments (AAA-CCC.) At the same event, a prominent Cambodian community member (speaking in Khmer that he later translated into English for LBREPORT.com) unambiguously urged the audience to support the three other Mayor-sought measures (AAA-CCC).

And AAA-DDD lawn signs, readied in an adjoining room, materialized and were distributed to the audience:

The strategy amounts to straigfhtforward numerical politics. Since DDD will likely have strong support in LB's Cambodian community, encouraging those motivated voters to also vote for AAA, BBB, and CCC could produce a sizable numerical vote boost for those three measures.

The EPIC committee's last-minute messaging goes a step further, effectively jettisoning AAA and CCC and adding a blunt ethnic/racial component in an effort to save BBB, the big ticket item for incumbents. It offers an argument not previously advanced over the past several months: that two substantively different measures -- BBB (making third-terms easier for incumbents) and DDD (to correct historically unjust gerrymandered of the Cambodian community) -- are somehow both related as civil rights and voting rights issues.

Whether the strategy produces sufficient additional votes to make a difference in BBB's outcome will be known after 8:00 p.m. on November 6.

Developing.

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