Who is the real Mr. Huffman

My impressions of Jared Huffman have been mixed since I met him in December of 2006. I moved from being not impressed at all to loving his stated position on water in California. His recent statement regarding the budget priorities have given me hope. But my hope is cautioned with great skepticism. I am really writing this to gain some clarity regarding Mr. Huffman. Here’s why.

A favorite politician of mine has been known to say, whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over. At the Glaser Center in 2007 Jared spoke eloquently about the need to reshape our development policies and the need to treat our water supply in a sustainable fashion. His wonderful generalized statements don’t match with the following actions.

Jared Huffman’s support for the water bill of last year was played as providing environmental controls on the delta waterways. It’s a complex bill and I don’t claim to understand its ramifications very well, however Food and Water Watch (FWW), a group I am beginning to respect, is mounting a campaign against the bond measure that the water bill generated because they believe it will put California water under the control of private interests. I think that Mr. Huffman was the only state legislator from the north coast to vote for this bill. I think that this bill will eventually allow for a peripheral canal to drain the SF Bay estuary.

Since I have moved back to Marin I have been educated around Marin Municipal Water District’s attempt to build a desalination plant, a project also opposed by FWW. I am a builder or was until recently. My first impression of this concept was positive. But now that cities and counties across the state are trying to cut back on their carbon footprint I find it unacceptable that MMWD is planning to double its greenhouse gas output. And that’s only if it builds the smallest of the planned desalination plants. If Marin were incapable of finding water for the current residents by any other means I might be persuaded that this is a reasonable thing to do -- although the treatment of our wastewater would be my first option as it is the much more environmentally sustainable thing to do. However, MMWD’s customers have been conserving water at rate greater than the desalination plant will produce, and there are many more options for the district to conserve further.

The only possible rationale for building this project is that it will allow for development of the bay front wetlands. This is an unsustainable policy that asks current users to fund the development projects of the landed gentry. What this has to do with Mr. Huffman is that he appears to be the kingmaker behind the scenes for this project. These are two strikes against him and in my tally sheet that’s all that is needed to strike out. The desalination plant is now on hold supposedly because the water users have been able to conserve. But in reality the reason is that 4 of the 5 board members are up for re-election this November and a grassroots initiative has collected enough signatures to require future voter approval for this project.

I have been down the road before of having some bright lawyer espouse squishy good feelings about policies only to see the reality dash the common folk on the tines of the powerful. It is not the balanced budget that is proposed in May just before an election that matters. It is the budget and all the other deals that will be produced later in June, or July, or even August that scare me. Last year’s deal included Prop 14, which it seems will pass. This open primary bill robs me of my right to freely associate with members of my own party.

Every day I work with people totally dependent on a state budget for health and human services. Their caregivers are very concerned about the funding of these supportive programs. Mr. Huffman is being challenged this year, even if ineffectively, because of his votes that cut these programs. Part of the problem with term limits is that by the time we get to know a candidate and understand how they will operate in the long run they are termed out and running for another office. Term limits and the 2/3 rule on budgets and taxes won voter approval because Democrats did not stand on principle but gave in to what seemed expedient for the short term. That’s the Democratic Party way. We cal it Realpolitik as if spelling selling-out improperly will make it OK. And when we say we want to take the party back it is in part from those who are wiling to give away long term gains to the powerful for short term self interest.