The budget fight has touched just about every single person with an interest in the fiscal policy of the state and that includes strippers, porn stars and others in the adult entertainment industry. The Democrats are trying to find ways to raise revenue and avoid having to cut even deeper than they already have into essential programs and education funding. That means "sin taxes" and other sales taxes and fees. LAT:
As state leaders hunt for politically palatable solutions to the swelling budget shortfall, some Democrats are proposing unorthodox ways to generate cash.
Strip clubs, six-packs, grocery bags and iTunes downloads are all in their sights as alternatives to broad income or sales tax hikes. So are gas guzzlers and yachts -- and a tax loophole for criminals.
Despite tough odds of overcoming an oath signed by their Republican colleagues to stop any tax hikes, Democratic lawmakers seem confident that their ideas will carry the day. They predict the public won't stand for painful cuts to schools and healthcare to close a shortfall the governor now pegs as high as $20 billion, and say anti-tax forces will ultimately have to accept that more revenue is needed to bring the state into the black.
This is nothing new. We are roughly in the same place we were a few months ago, only the deficit is even larger. Flip it.
I'm a nerd. I'm actually a bit bummed that I don't get gadgets to review like the gadget blogs. (Hey, as an aside, I might begin a weekly non-politics review of random stuff...let me know your thoughts.) Long story short, I read all the tech blogs.
Yesterday, over at Wired, there was a post about a report commissioned by the airline industry about emissions. Turns out the report didn't come out in their favor so they politely "declined" it. How sweet.
But this report shows that we have a long, long way to go. We will need to rapidly change how we live, how we do business if we are to really change the course of climate change. Airline emissions are really, really high:
A recently disclosed report finds that airlines are spewing 20 percent more carbon dioxide into the environment than previously estimated and the amount could hit 1.5 billion tons a year by 2025. That's far more than even the worst-case predictions laid out by the International Panel on Climate Change.
If you're looking to put that number in perspective, the European Union currently emits 3.1 billion tons of CO2 annually. Yup, that's the entire 27-nation, 457 million person EU.
"Growth of CO2 emissions on this scale will comfortably outstrip any gains made by improved technology and ensure aviation is an even larger contributor to global warming by 2025 than previously thought," Jeff Gazzard, a spokesman for the Aviation Environment Federation, the group that uncovered the report, told the Independent. "Governments must take action to put a cap on air transport's unrestrained growth." (Wired 5/7/08)
California is a big source of emissions. I would tell you how much, but unfortunately, the CA Climage Change Center seems to have taken down their report on Trends in California Emissions Levels. That's too bad, because it had all sorts of information on emission levels. Nonetheless, I can tell you the report was measured in millions, rather than billions of tons. So, even a 20% reduction in our emissions levels only puts a small dent in the problem.
We need to do more. Much of that has to be done by individuals like us who are living in "rich nations." We most consciously choose to eschew waste. That being said, even the poorest of Americans still has a carbon footprint more than double the world average, according to a study by an MIT class. AB 32 should not be considered an endpoint, but a first step.
A Quaker who lost her appointment as a Cal State Fullerton lecturer after she objected to a state loyalty oath submitted a revised statement of her beliefs Thursday in a bid to win the job back.
People For the American Way, a Washington-based civil rights group now representing lecturer Wendy Gonaver, called on the university to reinstate her and adopt a policy protecting the religious freedom of all California State University system employees.
"She is willing to sign the oath as long as she can exercise her free-speech rights and note that her views as a Quaker would prevent her from taking up arms," said Kathryn Kolbert, president of the organization and a constitutional lawyer. "We would like to avoid filing a lawsuit, but we are certainly prepared to do so if we need to."
PFAW has clearly stepped up on this, and rightly so - this is a clear-cut case of violation of constitutional rights and Wendy Gonaver deserves support. They have proposed a new CSU policy regarding the oath in a letter to the Cal State Fullerton administration:
CSU recognizes that some of our employees may have religious or other objections to taking this oath. It is our policy to accommodate the religious and other beliefs of our employees by allowing an employee to append an explanatory statement to the employee's signed oath.
This would be a sensible policy, at least until the state finally does away with the moronic oath. No word yet on whether CSU is going to accept this, but the recent incidents suggest that CSU needs to reexamine their practices regarding the oath and need to adopt proposals such as this to guarantee the rights of their employees. There is absolutely no reason for them to resist this.
Unfortunately for Wendy Gonaver, Cal State Fullerton is resistant on offering her the job again:
[CSU General Counsel Christine] Helwick said the campus might not be able to rehire her despite the revision: "The addendum she is now proposing is different in tone, scope and content from the one she originally presented. However, the position for which she originally applied last August had to be filled by someone else when she refused to sign the oath."
This is BS. It wasn't Gonaver's fault, as the CSU implies, but their own. The CSU system, and CSUF in particular, should be able to offer her another position. And the CSU system needs to implement the PFAW's proposed policy change as well as get behind Alan Lowenthal's effort to do way with the oath. Enough is enough.
Lost in all the presidential primary news is the fact that California has another important primary coming up on June 3rd. Many of us are boning up on Prop 98 and 99 and understanding the importance of our votes on those measures.
But most of us are woefully unprepared for decisions in other contests, especially those for the office of Superior Court judge. And with turnout expected to be light, we could wind up with some very scary judges if people don't pay attention and vote.
This is really kind of incredible, what "law and order" Republicans have been reduced to.
Saying the ailing economy is putting enough stress on taxpayers, Senate Republican leader Dave Cogdill said Tuesday that Republicans will oppose any tax hikes to bridge California's budget deficit.
Cogdill suggested the deficit, which he pegged at $16 billion for the fiscal year beginning July 1, could be wiped out through service cuts and tapping into the reserves of voter-approved initiatives intended for early childhood education, mental health services and transportation [...]
Democrats, meanwhile, are likely to oppose Cogdill's suggestion to borrow money from three initiative-created funds: the county-based First Five commissions for children, established by Proposition 10; Proposition 63 to expand mental health services; and the Proposition 42 gas sales tax for transportation purposes.
Sen. Darrell Steinberg, the Senate's incoming president, said "no way" will he allow proceeds from Proposition 63, which he sponsored, to be used to defray the budget deficit.
"The voters of California passed an initiative which specifically prohibits the state Legislature from taking the money to balance the budget," said Steinberg, D-Sacramento, adding that such a raid on the initiative would be "unlawful."
The idea here is that if we only overturned three initiatives and defied the will of the people, and broke standing law in the state of California, then everything would be fine and we could place a gold brick in everybody's mailbox.
In other words, the Republican budget strategy is based entirely on embezzlement.
Frank Russo got out of a Yacht Party press conference and they basically said the same thing. From his notes:
This is their play: You need to have "reforms" in order to save money and balance the budget without raising taxes. All the Democrats do is talk about raising taxes. We are the only party that is talking about reforms and something other than taxes. The dems literally have no proposals. We've been criticized in the past for not being specific and forthcoming with our proposals (I lambasted them last year mercilessly for this) so here we have these ideas.
Take a look at the ideas and you find they are proposals to change the substantive laws in a number of areas and they are using the 2/3 vote requirement and the extreme financial emergency we are in as leverage to get things passed that they otherwise don't have the votes for.
This is not a budget fight - it's a hostage negotiation. The Yacht Party is playing the part of the hooded figures negotiating the terms of surrender. And big ups to Don Perata for signaling yesterday that he's extremely bullish on surrender, for his part.
(The Prop F/G debate is a really, really big deal in San Francisco. The Bayview Shipyard is a huge mess and something needs to be done about it. The question is whether Prop G is the best means of getting that done. The good folks at Beyond Chron think no. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
Today, Beyond Chron comes out against Prop G - a local San Francisco measure on the June ballot to redevelop Bayview-Hunters Point.
On June 3, San Francisco voters will decide the future of the largest remaining undeveloped acreage remaining in the City. Although its location at the Hunters Point shipyard and alongside Bayview's low-income minority community has long kept it out of sight and mind, this land is our last opportunity to remake the City's waterfront a striking community that continues to meet our city's needs.
Remarkably, almost all the information sent to voters has come from political consultants hired to sell this proposal. It comes in brochures with attractive drawings but very little else, with campaign costs already over $2 million and likely to set an all-time record for a San Francisco ballot measure.
San Francisco, the leader in so many areas, appears to be on the verge of giving birth to yet another first-of-a-kind: the stealth campaign to write public policy out of public view, through a ballot measure exclusively funded by the corporation anxious to seize a billion-dollar prize, and offered in language that wriggles, weasels, and walks away from all the promises it boasts.
To hear the bigmediafolks frame it, you'd think Steve was also requesting a mansion in St. Moritz as well. But, in fact, Steve Ybarra's got a pretty good eye for good tactics, and this is just that: a tactical request. Ybarra wants the campaigns to spend $20 million on registering Latino voters in the Southwest. From the Comedy Central Blog:
Well, that's kind of, um, honorable. It's kinda not fair the way the article was written; it didn't mention his intentions until midway through and tricked me into thinking he was being greedy. ...
Still, it seems unlikely that Ybarra will get $20 million dollars out of the candidates, who need to spend that money ads calling each other names and accusing each other of being unAmerican.
Plus, I'm sure they can find ten or twenty superdelegates from below the border who will register and educate eligible Mexican-American voters for $2 million and a mattress to sleep on.
Well, obviously the last part was Daily Show-esque satire, but the campaigns are just not that likely to give up control of their precious dollars. I agree with Steve that such an investment would pay off quite handsomely in both the short and long term. But given the Obama campaign's tendency to move power inward, I wouldn't expect them to start taking orders from external sources.
Anyone who hangs around on Facebook even a little has seen that Secretary of State Debra Bowen makes great use of it.
Late this (5/7/8) evening, she posted a "note": Facebook tip leads to conviction for voter registration fraud. Secretary of State Debra Bowen Announces
Conviction for Voter Registration Fraud in Orange County (warning pdf) The link is from the Secretary of State's website, since you have to be logged into Facebook to see the note.
It's basically a press release detailing a case tried in Orange County Superior Court. Sacramento based Don Cornell Williams plead guilty to registering 3 ineligible voters in 2006. A warrant for his arrest was issued in 2006 but he wasn't arrested until this year.
Apparently a complaint was filed against his signature gathering techniques this year. Which lead to his arrest on the outstanding warrant.
The press release does not mention where the tip came from. But since Bowen's note says "Facebook tip leads to conviction" I think we can all infer where.
Social networking taken to a whole new level.
Don Perata has no ability to end the recall, mind you, but in his mind he's done it.
First off, let's say that I'm happy to have been on the right side of Prop. 93, the outcome of which will send Don Perata into the sunset. What a laughable bit of incompetence this is.
Let's start with the fact that he doesn't get to say what's on the ballot and what's not. The authoritarian style of "what I say goes" is the only thing that would've doomed this otherwise perfectly justifiable recall of a legislator who forgot his district and went along with an obstructionist GOP that is harming the state to a severe degree. A real Senate leader would have broadened the race into a referendum on state Republicans and would have done very well. You either do something like this full-speed or you never start it in the first place. This half-step just furthers the narrative of Democratic weakness.
Combined with the stab in the back on SD-15, where Perata demanded that nobody contest Abel Maldonado in another winnable seat, the Senate Pro Tem has assured that there is no way we reach a 2/3 majority in 2008. It's still possible by 2010, but this is a wave election, a realignment year and we're waving the white flag in two prime Senate races. That's just stupid politics. I appreciate the need to speed along the budget; the state is broke. But this recall is over by June 3, and it's not like everything's going to be wrapped up by then. And the stupidest part is that Perata RECOGNIZES that the threat of the recall was helping provide leverage for the Republicans.
In a statement, Perata credited the recall for recent legislation that passed out of the Senate:
"The vote we couldn't get last year to close the tax loophole for yacht owners -- we got that vote," he said. "The vote we couldn't get to help homeowners facing foreclosure - we got that vote. You put everyone here on notice -- and I don't think people are going to forget that anytime soon."
No, you now let everyone off the hook because you've proven you can be bullied by a Republican hissy fit and tut-tuts from the conventional wisdom crowd in the media. No Republican will EVER take a Democratic threat seriously in the near future, crippling the leadership of Darrell Steinberg. And all the leverage on getting legislation passed in the Senate just ended.
Great friggin' job, Don. If you want to just go ahead and quit now and let any stray cat from Berkeley finish out your term, that'd be just fine with me.
...the thought has crossed my mind that Perata is just taking his name and aura off the recall because it'd be easier to pass without him, but if any organization associated with him donated a dime there'd be an even bigger hissy fit cry of "hypocrite," so his dropping the recall really signals a drop of any financial infusion, and I'm not seeing how Simon Salinas or the Dump Denham group will raise the necessary funds (especially considering that Denham is not restricted by any fundraising limits in a recall).
Blackwater made its way into the big time here in San Diego today, with mayoral hopeful Steve Francis picking up on the issue and savagely beating Jerry Sanders over the head with it. There's no love lost between these two (as you may remember or enjoy viewing), and they know that whether it's on June 3 or in the November runoff, they're in direct competition with each other for roughly the same political real estate in this mayoral race. So when Francis is kind enough to adopt the Courage Campaign frame in his press release entitled Blackwater Permit Issue Raises Serious Questions. Which makes Blackwater a defining issue as both Republicans try to stake a claim to the center-left.
By this time, I hope you've heard about Prop 98. But that's not the case everywhere, so much attention has been paid to getting the word out about the really negative effects that Prop 98 would have upon California. A great group of people came together in SF to talk about the Landlords' Scheme to eliminate rent control, tenant protections, and affordable housing regulations.
Several folks came with cardboard boxes to make the point that many people living in rent controlled units would be forced to the streets. Many units would be converted to luxury condo conversion projects and housing supply in San Francisco would dwindle further. Affordable housing is already tough enough to come by (just look at Craigslist if you don't believe me), the last thing we need is Prop 98 eliminating much of the affordable supply.
You can watch the entirety of the rally on YouTube over the flip, but some of the comments lept out at me. Some people expect that these propositions won't really affect their lives, but Prop 98 is very different. From June 4, 2008, landlords will have carte blanche to do what they please to tenants. "Just Cause" eviction will be a thing of the past, and renters will have to prepare for an onslaught. As Ted Gullicksen of San Francisco Tenants Union said, "San Francisco would become a city not just for the wealthy, but for the very, very, very wealthy. ... San Francisco would lose its character and its diversity."
It is not all that surprising that landlords' would try this, really. After all, they are businesses trying to maximize their shareholder and/or owner's pocket books. Heck, this is a great investment for people like Sam Zell, who stands to make $15 Million from a Prop 98 win. The problem is that they are using deceptive means to overturn the will of the people. The people in several cities across California have determined that they favor rent control. And practically every locality has chosen to require a "just cause" for eviction (as well as some state regulations).
But the landlords weren't able to get rent control overturned at the local level, at least totally. So instead of trying to convince localities to end it or to get state legislators to overrule the localities, the landlords' go with deception. They hide under the cover of eminent domain to end tenant protections. That's why this is so important to defeat June 3. We just can't let Prop 98 sneak by us, it would be the third leg of the stool. Prop 13, the 2/3 rule, and this. But that stool is one that doesn't support all Californians, only the super-wealthy.
Follow me over the flip for the videos and more. You can also get more photos at my flickr set.
However, I just received a call from Andy Stone, Communications Director for Jerry McNerney, who says:
The intent is to check in with both campaigns and not to endorse anyone. Jerry McNerney was walking to a meeting a meeting and was pulled aside by Senator Clinton for a conversation lasting only a couple of minutes.
