September 7

JIMMY-ON-THE -SPOT

Readers might remember a BrattonOnline “SC Report” column I wrote back in July, “Where Was Jimmy (Panetta)? I called out our Congress member for voting in favor of moving toward passage of this year’sUS/Trump war budget. Although the President did not get as much largesse as he wanted into the House’s final bill, the budget from the previous year looks like it will actually increase. It is notable that more than 40 progressive members of congress voted against this war budget (HR 6395), which is officially called “The National Defense Authorization Act” (NDAA). The current FY 2021 spending is to be somewhere around $740.5 billion. Even after a series of internet searches, it’s tough to tell what the exact amount will be. If you include, as some do, the budgets of Homeland Security, FBI and the Dept. of Justice cybersecurity operations, and Dept. of Veterans Affairs, then next year’s military budget becomes around $935 billion. Yes, wow!

A Phone Call

Well, I received a phone call from Congressmember Panetta about a day after BrattonOnLine came out. He said he read my column and wished to set the record straight about two issues I wrote about. One, why was he not present when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, along with other House members, offered their impassioned speeches in support of women while lambasting Rep. Ted Yoho‘s use of the “effing B**ch” remark towards AOC on the steps of the capital; and two, why he, Jimmy Panetta, voted yay on the national war budget for Fiscal Year 2021? He said he was totally sympathetic and in support of AOC’s hour-long rising on the House floor seeking “recognition for a point of personal privilege” in responding to Rep. Yoho’s remarks the previous day. Congress member Panetta said he would have been there, but the list of supporters who spoke that day along with AOC was long and a limited number of spots were all taken. He says he has a “very good working relationship” with Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and that they are both members of the House Progressive Caucus. On the military budget, he said that “15,000 jobs in the district” are dependent upon passage of the military budget. Panetta went on to say that there are 12 military installations in the district, and what he voted on was “all about the students, climate change, and removing Confederate names from all military installations.” Both the House and Senate versions of the bill support the name changes. “It was the first time we got to vote against Confederate-named bases,” he said. 

Tale of Two Cities

Dear Jimmy,
In case you’ve forgotten, the City of Santa Cruz is a part of the 20th US Congressional District. You don’t just represent the military in Monterey and other places in the district, but you represent the people of Santa Cruz too. Over the years, we have consistently and unapologetically voted for peace initiatives and against a Navy ship docking here during a July 4th ceremony, for example. We voted to become a “Nuclear-free Zone” as well. Our city council voted against Reagan’s war in El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980’s. In the 90’s when Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London the council voted to support his extradition to Chile in order to stand trial. AOC and Bernie Sanders both support abolishing the thuggish arm of Homeland Security (funded by military budget), that is U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE. I suspect Santa Cruz voters would follow suit as well. I implore you not to take this part of your congressional district for granted. I urge you to conduct an annual town hall meeting on the military budget, receive input from regular Santa Cruz voters, and actually seek to “beat” those 15,000 jobs attached to the military budget into “ploughshares,” peace time jobs in education, alternative energy, and Covid-19 tracking-related work. There is no doubt that a reasonable person would look at the military budget and see tremendous bloat. It must be hard to continue to vote for this outrageous expenditure year in and year out. I urge you to lead by directing some of these funds into the coming implementation of the AOC-Ed Markey “Green New Deal (GND),” which I know you support. (Thank you!) Let’s argue over GND funding, not missiles and tanks and the funding of weapons for the Saudis in their unforgivable assault on the Yemeni people. GND offers the opportunity to invest the military budget money into green jobs and alternative energy. You can lead on this one and you will get tremendous support from the voters in Santa Cruz too!

Some of Jimmy’s (Not So Progressive)Record

1. a) On July 21, 2020, Panetta voted YES on the Dept. of Defense budget for 2021. And it appears that Congress member Panetta has NEVER voted against the enormous military budget.
2. b) On July 21, he also voted with 185 Republicans, against progressive Mark Pocan’s Amendment839 that every other progressive in Congress voted for, which tried to scale back an increase in weapons spending and other non-personnel cuts. It “sought to reduce the overall authorization level by 10%; excluding military personnel, DoD federal civilian workforce, and defense health program accounts from the 10% reduction.”
3. c) On March 11, 2020, Panetta voted YES on HR 6172 USA Freedom Reauthorization Act,” which was the Progressive’s nightmare bill born out of a post-9/11 paranoia hangover. “This bill reauthorizes through December 1, 2023, provisions related to intelligence gathering under the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act (FISA) and amends FISA-related provisions.” This bill authorizes the FISA court.
4. d) On Jan. 29, 2020, Jimmy Panetta again voted against the progressives and in favor of a largely, I think fair to say, conservative-backed drug bill, “Temporary Reauthorization and Study of the Emergency Scheduling of Fentanyl Analogues Act.” In fact, the Addiction Center newsletter reported that [I]n a recent statement, the ACLU and the Drug Policy Alliance echoed the Democrats’ position, as opposed to the Republican vote: “We continue to have serious concerns that granting the Drug Enforcement Administration class-wide scheduling authority for fentanyl analogues will exacerbate already disturbing trends in federal drug prosecutions and incarceration levels.”(US Senate extends Schedule 1 Fentanyl Analogues )
5. e) Perhaps, the most Santa Cruz slighting of all his votes took place on July 17, 2019. Congressmember Panetta voted NOT to impeach Donald J. Trump for “high misdemeanors.” (It was a motion to table the impeachment, basically not vote on it.) Again, 95 Democratic House members wanted to impeach. Congressmember Panetta had also voted previously against impeachment, so this was the second bite at the apple. 

Footnote
Jimmy’s Assistant called me last week after I emailed some more questions to the Congressmember following up on our discussion. Mathew Manning is a policy analyst for Panetta. He wanted to further clarify Jimmy’s stand on defense-related issues. Manning said, according to the Middlebury Institute study, the NDAA adds 15,000, jobs and “$50 million to the Monterey economy.” This includes 6,000 active military members and 5,000 civilian jobs. Then Manning ticked off a bunch of things Jimmy’s done: a provision to increase maternal support for military members; he voted against the Saudi aircraft deal because of war in Yemen; he supports closing Guantanamo Bay; and he voted in the recent budget hearing to “cut spending on military interventions abroad.” All good things.

“The $740 billion military budget is not enough for Senate Republicans. Now they want to give the Pentagon an additional $21 billion.  Instead of making the CEOs of defense contractors richer, we should provide every working class American $2,000 a month until this crisis ends.” (July 23)