Schiff or Rogan - Down to the Issues

With the biggest population of Armenians in the United States in the 27th Congressional District in California, our move with this election is, in my opinion, a great showing of our forces in Washington. Who should we support Adam Schiff or James Rogan, with all aspects of issues in mind. While both Schiff and Rogan have been active in Armenian affairs, who trully represents our beliefs when it comes down to issues like Social Security, Health Care, and Education. I just want to tell us Armenians to not only vote on the candidate's voting record on Armenian issues but look at where each stands on issues most important. The most important factor in voting is voting for the candidate most reflective of the voter's belief. I ask you what are your thoughts on this election on the aspects of who is better for the Armenians, and on all other issues I mentioned.

Well, if I believe the tons of junk mail I've been receiving, Adam Schiff is going to have us all running around gay in the streets any day now

Since both are sensitive to Armenian issues, it seems it's going to come down to the standard Republican vs. Democrat.

I strongly support the Republican agenda except the Constitutional Amendment on abortion, which is not in play in the current platform. I also strongly support the Republican approach to Social Security, Medicare, Education and Health Care. To me, they make a lot of sense.

I find that we Armenians are very different, among ourselves.

Mike, if the gay issue is the criterion, here, I think the overwhelming majority of Armenians will vote for Rogan




[This message has been edited by MJ (edited October 25, 2000).]

(forgive me if I've mentioned this before)

It's not a question of Rogan vs. Schiff for me. It's a question of who will best represent our interests as a community. I think we as Armenians should side with one party at all times and let them court our votes, just as the Hispanics and Blacks did with the Democrats. We represent a substantial and (sometimes) important voting block, evidenced by the skillful handling by the Republicans of the genocide issue. Politically, we'll be better able to further our interests as a community and as a voting block if we join in our support for one of the major parties. To me, the question isn't "Rogan or Schiff", it's "Republican or Democrat".

So, Republican or Democrat?? On a personal level, I think we have all decided. On a community-wide level, I myself have yet to decide.

Gayane,

On a community level I think no one should get the Armenian vote for granted, and there should not be a community-wide voting. Armenian community should leverage its vote - to have influence on both sides, and make both sides to put effort to earn its vote. Therefore, I think everyone has to vote based on his/her personal beliefs. It will naturally split the vote.

For decades the Democrats have gotten the black vote for granted. I don't see in what way has it benefited them...

Affirmative action, Martin (Dems. and blacks)

also, remember: united we stand, divided we fall

Well, Gayane, the affirmative action is dead in CA, in TX and elsewhere, right?

Regarding the standing and the falling, I find that phrase not much valid. The whole question is united around what, and divided on what...

In this particular case, I think the artificial unification is a strategic mistake. Imagine that all Armenians get united, and vote for Schiff. And it turns out that Rogan wins. Will it be good for Armenians? Same way we can argue about the opposite. I can tell you that even 100 constituents can make a difference on the behavior of a congressman. I am telling you this per some congressmen's own admittances, who I have met personally in the past.

Look at my district. Probably there are only a handful of Armenians here, and I know only of one active Armenian, who writes to the congressmen. But it makes difference. The American democracy is an incredible mechanism, though I normally don't think that the democracy is a fine system (what about the minority, especially if the minority is right, as always?). But I cannot suggest a better governing mechanism - don't know.

One of the fundamental tools of mitigating the risks in economics and the financial sphere is the diversification. I think it is also a fundamental tool of risk management in politics. This is what the corporations do, if you look at it carefully. The same corporation contributes to both sides.

The Newshour with Jim Lehrer
November 1, 2000

Impeachment Echo

In California's 27th district, Republican incumbent and House Impeachment
Manager Jim Rogan is in the middle of an uphill battle to win reelection.
Kwame Holman reports from California.


KWAME HOLMAN: By this point in the election year, Republican Congressman
James Rogan hoped to be back in his southern California district,
campaigning full-time for a third term.

REP. JAMES ROGAN: We'll be here on... For votes Tuesday and Wednesday, so
we're just going to have to redo the schedule.

An uphill battle for reelection
KWAME HOLMAN: Instead, Rogan and all the other members of Congress were
stuck in Washington, trying to get agreement with the White House on
spending bills for the new fiscal year that's already a month old.

REP. JAMES ROGAN: I'm keeping my fingers crossed that at the end of the day,
my constituents will appreciate the fact that I'm sacrificing campaign time
to be back here doing the job that they sent me to do.

KWAME HOLMAN: Unlike the vast majority of his House colleagues, Rogan
actually is in a tough fight for reelection. But it's a position he's used
to. The Republican barely squeaked by in his last two races in a district
that's become more and more Democratic. Its population includes growing
numbers of African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans who are moving
into the cities of Pasadena, Burbank, and Glendale, north of Los Angeles.

REP. JAMES ROGAN: I've always won in a heavily minority-populated district
because African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans in my
district, Armenian-Americans, all know that I care about the issues that are
affecting their community because I come from a community like that. I was a
kid that grew up in a welfare and food stamp house raised by a single mom on
welfare and food stamps in the mission district of San Francisco.

KWAME HOLMAN: Still, Democrats are targeting Rogan again, in a year when
they need only a handful of new Democratic seats to recapture control of the
House of Representatives.

SPOKESPERSON: Thank you very much.

KWAME HOLMAN: Rogan's opponent, Democrat Adam Schiff, has been campaigning
full time. As a state senator, Schiff represents in the California
legislature the same constituents Rogan does in Congress.

ADAM SCHIFF: I work in a bipartisan way in the state legislature. There is a
great desire for that kind of leadership in Congress, and I think people in
the community really want someone who is much more reflective of the
priorities and the values of this district than what we've had in Congress
so far.

CONSITUTENT: You've got our vote.

Courting the Armenian vote

KWAME HOLMAN: Though Schiff won't mention it unless asked, an undercurrent
in this campaign is what Rogan was involved in for a good part of his second
term in office.

MAN: Mr. Chief Justice...

KWAME HOLMAN: Rogan's role as one of 13 prosecutors in the impeachment trial
of President Clinton made him a national figure. His campaign donor list
grew from 3,000 to more than 50,000 people from 46 states. It is estimated
Rogan will have raised and spent more than $6 million by election day.
Nonetheless, the race for this congressional seat has been sharply contested
for the last year and a half.

WOMAN: How are you?

WOMAN: Oh, I've been working for you.

KWAME HOLMAN: That's in part because Adam Schiff also is well financed. He
has strong backing from the entertainment industry, and from people around
the country who opposed President Clinton's impeachment. Together, it's
estimated the Schiff and Rogan campaigns will surpass the $12 million,
making it the most expensive House race in history. And with money to spend,
the campaigns have saturated the expensive Los Angeles media market with
television ads.

MAN: Adam Schiff voted to raise your car taxes by 850 million dollars.

MAN: Rogan voted against banning assault weapons and against banning
Saturday night specials.

WOMAN: What we can do is put this around here.

KWAME HOLMAN: As a result, the two candidates are well known among residents
of this congressional district. At the YWCA Street Fair in Pasadena a week
and a half ago, voters we talked to said Rogan's impeachment role would be a
factor in their choice. Alberta McBride is a retired schoolteacher.

ALBERT McBRIDE: I guess one of the things that turned me off of him was the
impeachment, and his role. I felt he was a little unnecessarily vindictive.

KWAME HOLMAN: Roger Milton is a former police officer.

ROGER MILTON: I was very impressed with his talks about the impeachment
hearings that I watched on TV quite a bit, and the thing that most impressed
me was his take on the moral issues and the legal issues involved with
politicians.

KWAME HOLMAN: But Democrat Schiff says Rogan has problems beyond his
impeachment role.

ADAM SCHIFF: Even before the impeachment, Jim Rogan was in trouble in this
district. He's never gotten more than 50% of the vote, and I think he has
ignored the most important premise there is, that this job of representation
is a job of bringing service to one's community, working in a bipartisan way
to confront the national priorities, and he's lost sight of that.

KWAME HOLMAN: Chuck Sambar's family normally would be considered likely
Rogan supporters. He's a lifelong Republican and Glendale school board
member. But the family had a costly dispute with their HMO, and now its five
members are unhappy about Rogan's opposition to a bipartisan HMO reform
bill. Rogan supported a Republican version of the so-called Patients' Bill
of Rights that limited a patient's right to sue an HMO.

CHUCK SAMBAR: His lack of support for that bill was a key in my change in
position. I felt he could have lent his support to that bipartisan bill, and
he did not.

KWAME HOLMAN: But former Glendale Mayor Larry Zarian, a longtime friend of
Rogan's, says the Congressman has addressed other issues important to his
constituents.

MAYOR LARRY ZARIAN: Education is of utmost importance to him. When we talk
about the lockbox for Social Security, he is a champion of that, and
philosophically conservative, making sure that we don't overspend our
bounds. And he believes truly that the citizens ought to have the right to
make a lot of the decisions locally, rather than Washington deciding for the
people in this area or across the country.

KWAME HOLMAN: Zarian says Rogan is a victim of a multimillion-dollar ad
campaign funded by Schiff and the National Democratic Party.

MAYOR LARRY ZARIAN: I must tell you, for all of the people that are pouring
money to defeat Jim Rogan, they don't want this district. They don't want
the 27th Congressional District. They are interested in Jim Rogan. They want
him out of Congress because he has a bright future, he is a fighter, a
person that can speak, a person that stands for what is right in this
country, and a person that is there to protect the constitution. That's why
I'm supporting him.

A blizzard of independent expenditures

KWAME HOLMAN: But Rogan is getting outside help as well. The Republican
Party has paid for Rogan ads. So have issue advocacy groups such as Citizens
for Better Medicare.

AD SPOKESMAN: Congressman Jim Rogan is working to strengthen Medicare and
provide a prescription drug benefit so all seniors can get the medicines
they need.

MAN: There has been a...just a blizzard of independent expenditures in the
last few weeks. The pharmaceutical industry, for example, has embarked on
what looks like a multimillion-dollar campaign on Mr. Rogan's behalf because
he voted against prescription drug benefits for seniors under Medicare. And
people are being hit with this, and I do think it's having a negative
effect, in that people are kind of bewildered. Where is all this money
coming from? Who are these people masquerading as citizens for better
Medicare?

KWAME HOLMAN: Chuck Sambar agrees.

CHUCK SAMBAR: I think that the electorate here are being whipsawed by every
extremist group coming in here telling us how to vote. I am not interested
in that, and that should not happen in a congressional election.

KWAME HOLMAN: Both campaigns say internal polls show a very tight race. And
so it surprised no one that Rogan, stuck in Washington, exercised his
legislative prerogative and tried to strike a blow for a large bloc of his
constituency. The City of Glendale is home to the largest Armenian-American
population in the country. They make up nearly 15 percent of the electorate
in Glendale.

REP. JAMES ROGAN: Mr. Speaker, good morning. How are you?

KWAME HOLMAN: From his office on Capitol Hill 12 days ago, Rogan pushed for
a non-binding resolution that would have recognized as genocide the killing
of hundreds of thousands of Armenians that took place under the rule of the
Turkish Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923. But under heavy protest from the
Turkish government, President Clinton intervened to derail the resolution.
Turkey, a NATO ally, allows the United States to use its bases to fly
patrols over Iraq. Ultimately succumbing to President Clinton's plea, House
Speaker Dennis Hastert backed off his original support for the genocide
resolution and pulled it from consideration.

REP. JAMES ROGAN: You and my mom would get along.

WOMAN: Oh, I'm sure. (Laughs)

KWAME HOLMAN: Two days later, when Rogan finally got back home to campaign
briefly, he still was unhappy about the upending of his resolution.

REP. JAMES ROGAN: I don't appreciate-- and many colleagues on both sides
don't appreciate that fact that the current government of Turkey was using
blackmail and threats against their friend and ally to keep this from coming
to the floor. And the most unfortunate thing of all is that the President of
the United States was a willing pawn in that blackmail.

KWAME HOLMAN: But Adam Schiff insists Rogan's support for the Armenian
resolution was purely political.

ADAM SCHIFF: I think that everyone has acknowledged, both Republicans and
Democrats in Congress, that but for Mr. Rogan being behind in the polls, he
would not be pushing this, and I think that's caused a lot of chagrin in the
Armenian community in this district. Rogan's been there four years. Why
didn't he bring up the resolution the first year or the second year or the
third year? Why only now, a few weeks before the election?

KWAME HOLMAN: As Rogan comes into the final days of his campaign cut short
by events in Washington, he understands his impeachment role will work
against him with some of his constituents. But he's hoping most voters will
judge him on his entire record in Congress.

REP. JAMES ROGAN: I'm an old DA; I'm an old trial lawyer. I learned after
you argue your case to the jury, you've got to hand it to the jury, and it
doesn't belong to you any more. It belongs to them. At 8:00 on November 7,
I'm handing this case to the jury, and they own it then.

KWAME HOLMAN: This is one of a handful of too-close-to-call races in
California that could end up determining which party controls the next House
of Representatives. The races are so close, the winners might not be known
until the early morning hours after election day.

That is a load of crap! He's in his office because the old-line white republican Glendalians (that hate Armenians, by the way) put him there. Give him as much or as little credit for the Genocide Resolution as you want, but make no mistakes about it, he's a traditional WASP republican--the same kind that bitch about Armenians everyday in the Glendale News-Press letters to the editor.

Also, he's as "from the streets" as George W. (or Al Gore for that matter).

I'm arguing for unity in the armenian community on this issue primarily because I think we're too divided as it is. Political programming on Armenian TV lately is sickening. One minute they're lobbying for Schiff, next minute they're lobbying for Rogan. And let's face it: most of the Armenian voters in this district aren't exactly what you'd call informed voters. They need to be told who to vote for. Normally, I can't stand those Armenian channels, but I think they're a very useful tool of political mobilization for our community. They need to be used more effectively in uniting Armenians, not dividing them (Dem. vs. Rep.). I'm particularly saddened and angered by the flurry of pro-schiff, con-schiff, pro-rogan, con-rogan idiocies reaching the airways after the genocide fiasco. If it were constructive I wouldn't mind at all. But all they did (and are probably still doing) was argue about who did more for the armenian cause, Rogan or Schiff. When these WASPS are in Congress, something as minor as the degree of their suppor of the armenian cause or not is not going to matter....at all!!! What's going to matter is their views on definitive issues, views that weren't sufficiently represented to our community. Then again, maybe that won't matter either, because politicians aren't exactly known for representing the interests of your average joe when in office. (I'm afraid I don't share in Martin's optimism when it comes to the political process )

Bottom line: what can either Rogan or Schiff do for our community when in office? My answer is "probably very little...armenians just aren't important enough"