by MARK GABRISH
CONLAN
Copyright © 2012 by Mark Gabrish Conlan for Zenger’s
Newsmagazine • All rights reserved
PHOTO: L to R: Juan
Vargas, Denise Moreno Ducheny, John Brooks
At its February
23 meeting at the Joyce Beers Community Center in Hillcrest, the predominantly
Queer San Diego Democrats for Equality were unable to come together to endorse
a candidate for Congress in the 51st District, the seat incumbent
Democrat Bob Filner is giving up to run for Mayor of San Diego. After former
state senator Denise Moreno Ducheny fell one vote short of winning the 60
percent of members voting needed for an endorsement, the club rated both her
and her principal opponent, state senator Juan Vargas, “acceptable” despite
Vargas’s continuing opposition to marriage equality for same-sex couples.
The club heard
from three candidates in the Democratic primary: Ducheny, Vargas and former
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent John Brooks. Ducheny scored 100 percent on
the club’s issues questionnaire. Vargas scored 97 percent, being docked for his
opposition to marriage equality and a legal right for terminally ill
individuals to choose when to die. Brooks scored 88 percent, mainly for his
support of restrictions on a woman’s right to reproductive choice and his
opposition to requiring private companies doing business with the government to
offer equal benefits to same-sex and opposite-sex couples. Ironically, Brooks
claimed to have been inspired to run by the Occupy movement even though his
questionnaire answers suggested he was the least progressive of the three
candidates.
Since the original online version of this article was published, Brooks’ campaign has provided a copy of his original questionnaire and suggested that his answers were misreported by club officials at the meeting. He answered the question on whether the government should contract only with private companies that offer equal benefits to same-sex and opposite-sex couples, “U.S. companies, yes. Foreign companies, no. [We] do not have the right to push our beliefs on other countries.” He said he would support requiring women seeking abortion to notify their spouses because “I think the partner has a right to know. The woman has the final say, but the partner has a right to know.”
Brooks called the parental-notification requirement for minor girls seeking abortions “a tough question” and said his answer would “depend on the minor’s age.” He said that “the parents should know” if their daughter’s pregnancy was the result of rape or sex with an adult. During the meeting itself, Brooks told the club that he had talked to a person who worked as a Congressional staff member in the 1970’s, who had told him “we’re stepping back” on women’s rights. Brooks added, “The government has no right to legislate to any individual what they can do with their bodies.”
“I am not in favor of assisted suicide,” said Vargas, who used his opening statement to address his disagreements with the club’s issue agenda. “I am a very religious person, a Catholic, but I don’t think there should be any penalty for a physician who decides to assist a suicide.” On marriage equality, Vargas’s ambiguous response suggested he might support the suggestion made by several pundits that the government get out of the business of marriage altogether and allow individual churches to decide whether to marry same-sex couples or not.
Since the original online version of this article was published, Brooks’ campaign has provided a copy of his original questionnaire and suggested that his answers were misreported by club officials at the meeting. He answered the question on whether the government should contract only with private companies that offer equal benefits to same-sex and opposite-sex couples, “U.S. companies, yes. Foreign companies, no. [We] do not have the right to push our beliefs on other countries.” He said he would support requiring women seeking abortion to notify their spouses because “I think the partner has a right to know. The woman has the final say, but the partner has a right to know.”
Brooks called the parental-notification requirement for minor girls seeking abortions “a tough question” and said his answer would “depend on the minor’s age.” He said that “the parents should know” if their daughter’s pregnancy was the result of rape or sex with an adult. During the meeting itself, Brooks told the club that he had talked to a person who worked as a Congressional staff member in the 1970’s, who had told him “we’re stepping back” on women’s rights. Brooks added, “The government has no right to legislate to any individual what they can do with their bodies.”
“I am not in favor of assisted suicide,” said Vargas, who used his opening statement to address his disagreements with the club’s issue agenda. “I am a very religious person, a Catholic, but I don’t think there should be any penalty for a physician who decides to assist a suicide.” On marriage equality, Vargas’s ambiguous response suggested he might support the suggestion made by several pundits that the government get out of the business of marriage altogether and allow individual churches to decide whether to marry same-sex couples or not.
“I do believe
there’s a separation of church and state, and a very strong one,” Vargas said.
“The government should not baptize people or have any involvement with issues
you deal with with your own self, your church, your group. I voted against
Proposition 8 and I’m totally against the Defense of Marriage Act [the
federal law that defines marriage as between a man and a woman] because it’s government deciding what marriage is. I
do respect, agree with and accept marriage between Gay and Lesbian people,
between a man and a man or a woman and a woman, if a church or a group decides
to do it.”
But, Vargas
added, “Do I think the government should marry people? No, I don’t. I think
there should be a strict separation between government and church. That being
said, obviously we do have civil
marriages. I voted twice against the [California marriage-equality] bill when it was simply the government marrying
people. I wasn’t there for the vote on the Leno bill [which would
have given same-sex couples equal access to civil marriage but guaranteed
churches the right to refuse to marry same-sex couples], but I would have voted for it because it made the
distinction that the government isn’t marrying people, it’s simply recognizing
marriage — which I’m in favor of.”
“I did vote for Leno’s bill in 2009,” said Ducheny, “and I
continue to support its ideals. I’m proud to have the endorsement of former
state senator Sheila Kuehl [the first openly Queer person elected to
the California legislature], and she’s
helping on this campaign, as she did on my last.” She also argued that
“Congress desperately needs more women, especially after last week,” when
Republican Congressmember Darrell Issa of North County chaired a hearing on
whether the federal government should require private employers who offer
health insurance to cover birth control — and no women were invited or allowed
to speak.
The first
question both candidates got from the audience was on women’s reproductive
freedom — specifically the bill pending in the Virginia legislature, since
modified, which would have required women seeking abortions to have
“trans-vaginal ultrasounds,” meaning probes would be inserted inside them and
they’d be forced to listen to sounds allegedly representing the heartbeats of
their fetuses. “I’m completely against the bill in Virginia,” Vargas said. “I’m
for contraception and don’t think the church or government should be involved.”
“The Virginia
bill is outrageous,” said Ducheny, noting that even the voters of a state with
as Right-wing a reputation as Mississippi turned down a ballot measure that
would have defined human life as beginning with conception. Regarding the
controversy over the mandate that insurance companies cover contraception, and
the claim by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that this is both morally
wrong and a violation of their church’s First Amendment freedom, Ducheny said,
“It’s all about employees. You should not be able to deny contraceptive
coverage to your employees, zero, zip, whatever.”
While the
concerns around Vargas centered mostly on his opposition to marriage equality,
Ducheny got critical questions on a number of issues. She was attacked for
signing on to major cuts in funding for services to senior citizens, disabled
people and others while she chaired the budget committees in both houses of the
state legislature. She was also criticized for having accepted funding for the
National Rifle Association (NRA) and for having opposed some of the gun-control
bills in the California legislature.
Ducheny called
gun ownership “a constitutional issue, and [about] getting government out of
your house. I think you ought to be responsible. I voted for background checks
and against allowing people with a history of domestic violence to own guns.
It’s not like one organization tells you how to vote. You vote on each bill as
it is, and a lot of times they get really complicated, like the one they tried
to pass that said the Olympic training lady couldn’t own a weapon.” Vargas
boasted that he had voted for every gun-control bill that came before the
legislature while he served there.
Vargas, in turn,
got criticized for having turned against single-payer health care in the
California legislature this year after having voted for it twice previously. “I
had supported it before Obama came
forward with his plan,” Vargas said. “I think Obama’s bill should have a
chance. If it fails, I’d be in favor of single-payer again.”
Ducheny said she
didn’t see a contradiction between hoping the so-called “Obamacare” program
works and supporting single-payer. “I support the Affordable Care Act [the
official name for the law often derided as ‘Obamacare’],” she explained, “but a lot of the details won’t
work out when it’s implemented. California and other states should have the
right to move forward with single-payer.”
Ironically, the
most vehement challenge to Ducheny came from Lorena Gonzalez, head of the San
Diego-Imperial Counties Central Labor Council, over an issue that wasn’t on the
radar screen of most club members: the rights of workers in casinos on Native
American land to organize and bargain collectively. Ducheny insisted that she’d
always supported the right of casino workers to organize — “that’s why
Proposition 1A [which authorized Indian gaming in California] was written the way it was, to include labor
ordinances as part of the compacts” [the agreements between the
tribes and state and federal governments under which the casinos operate] — but “the problem came in 2006-07 when there was an
attempt to rewrite the laws.”
After the
candidates left the room, required by club rules, and the members debated the
endorsement, Gonzalez continued to attack Ducheny over the Indian gaming issue.
Gonzalez claimed that the bills Ducheny supported in 2006-07 eviscerated the
rights of casino workers. “If you are a LGBT [Queer] community member and you
work at a casino, unless you have a union, you can be fired or sexually
harassed,” Gonzalez said. “I like Denise and she is a nice woman, but she was
not willing to fight for us on labor issues.” Gonzalez also said the AFL-CIO’s
issues scorecard gave Ducheny only 60 percent — the lowest rating for a Democrat
in the California legislature — while Vargas got 98 percent.
Former San Diego
County Democratic Party chair Maureen Steiner tried to defend Ducheny’s labor
record. “When you talk about a person’s voting record, the bills are
complicated. Every advocacy group has their position, and it doesn’t always
reflect the complexity of these bills. Denise carried bills that required [the Indian casinos] to have labor rights.”
“That’s not
true,” Gonzalez interrupted — ironically evoking memories of Republican Congressmember
Joe Wilson publicly calling President Obama a liar during the 2010 State of the
Union Address. Later, when another club member asked that Gonzalez be censured
for rudely interrupting a speaker, Gonzalez interrupted him, too.
On the club’s
first ballot, Ducheny got 38 votes to 25 for Vargas, zero for Brooks and three
for no endorsement, winning a majority but falling three percentage points
short of the 60 percent needed for an endorsement. Under the rules, both Vargas
and Brooks were dropped from the second ballot — Brooks because he had got no
votes at all and Vargas because he got the lowest number of any candidate who did get votes. Ducheny got 35 votes to 27 for no
endorsement.
Later the club
debated whether to rate both Ducheny and Vargas “acceptable” — a lower level of
support that gets communicated in the club’s own newsletter and mailings but
doesn’t allow the club to raise money or offer volunteers to a campaign. The
motion to rate Ducheny acceptable passed on a voice vote without audible opposition,
but the one for Vargas ran into opposition over his stand on marriage equality.
His acceptable rating squeaked through with 36 votes in favor to 21 against —
three points over the 60 percent threshold.
The club also
debated some less controversial endorsements, including Rick Reyes and Dave
Roberts for the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, districts 2 and 3,
respectively; Mat Kostrinsky for the San Diego
City Council, District 7; and Mary Salas and Pamela Bantouzan for the Chula
Vista City Council. And before the endorsement debate, William
Rodriguez-Kennedy, former chair of the San Diego County Log Cabin Club — the
local affiliate of a nationwide organization for Queer Republicans —
ceremonially filled out a voter-registration form to re-register as a Democrat.
