Los Angeles Times Endorses Dave Min for Congress

State Senator Dave Min has received the Los Angeles Tmes editorial board’s endorsement to replace Rep. Katie Porter in Congress for CA-47.

Here’s this morning’s endorsement.

From the editorial:

Nine other people are seeking the seat in the March primary, including two locally prominent Democrats: state Sen. Dave Min (D-Irvine) and Joanna Weiss, an attorney and founder of a social- and political-action nonprofit, Women for American Values and Ethics.

The platforms of Min and Weiss are similar — both intend to protect a woman’s right to abortion at the federal level and say they are ready to battle climate change, work toward immigration reform and push sensible gun regulation. The difference is in their leadership skills, legislative experience and ability to achieve results and communicate a sense of cooperation.

Min, an affable lawmaker who has authored successful bills on the environment and guns, has the clear advantage here. Before his political career, Min was, like Porter (who has endorsed his candidacy), a professor at UC Irvine law school. And like Porter, he should be elected to represent the 47th District.

….

There is one trouble spot in Min’s history, which Weiss is already using in her campaign: He was arrested last May on suspicion of drunk driving in Sacramento and later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. Min was pulled over after he stopped at a red light to check cross-traffic, but then proceeded through the intersection while the light was still red and with his headlights off.

It wasn’t a trivial incident, but to his credit, Min never treated it that way. He immediately made a straightforward public statement about his arrest and apologized. He didn’t try to make excuses or pretend that the arrest was unfair, overblown or an attack on liberalism. He has completed court-ordered community service and says that although he never had a problem with alcohol, he immediately stopped drinking. Too many political events — that’s where he was drinking before the arrest — are alcohol-infused, he said. He also, of his own accord, entered into therapy. More politicians who err badly should follow his example.

Min inspires confidence that he won’t repeat the mistake — and that he would be an excellent member of Congress.

The paper states clearly why Baugh would be a disaster:

Baugh is a former state assemblyman who ran unsuccessfully for Congress twice. That included 2022, when he lost to Porter. His belief that there should be a federal law restricting abortion rights is out of keeping with voters’ values — and with the rights of women to have autonomy over their own bodies. He opposed the federal Respect for Marriage Act, which was signed into law in 2022 and codified the right for same-sex and interracial couples to marry, and he opposes banning assault weapons.

He recently said that “wokism” was more of a threat to religious freedom than both world wars; perhaps if he had lived through the Holocaust, he would know better. In the 1990s, he faced federal felony charges over campaign finance violations; those were later reduced to civil violations for which he paid close to $50,000.

I’m still trying to figure out what the Times Editorial Board saw in Weiss’s (in)ability to communicate a sense of cooperation.  Her campaign seems to lead with “Min’s DUI makes him permanently damaged.  The Times editors actually paud Min’s response to a mistake.  Should Min prevail in the primary, Baugh’s campaign will simply follow the Weiss campaign example of leading with the DUI instead of meaningful policy discussions.  And this strategy just salts the earth for any future campaigns by Weiss.

The Weiss campaign canvassed over the weekend and I was surprised that public education popped up as an issue.  Weiss attended public schools but sent her own children to pricey St. Margaret’s; CDM schools are ranked in the top 3% nationally for academic achievement but that wasn’t good enough?  Min’s kids attend Irvine Unified School District schools so if you’re going to talk the talk on public education as an important issue, you had better walk the walk too.

The Southern Califronia News Group’s (publishers of the Orange County Register) editorial board has already made itself plainly clear Min won’t get their endorsement.  That boost will go to Baugh, not Weiss, unless the Board decides to back a “top two.”  And that hasn’t happened before.

The Register’s Opinion Editor, Sal Rodriguez, has made it clear he thinks Min should drop out. And any endorsements coming from him should be colored by Rodriguez’s past statements on race, bigotry, mysogyny, and homophobia uttered years ago as a failed standup comedian in college, of which he has never apologized for and his editor and publisher remain silent.

Democrats already know endorsements from the Orange County Register are rare.  But Min’s endorsement by the LA Times and from Rep. Katie Porter are the two most important endorsements a candidate for Congress can have in OC.