by California Labor Federation Legislative Director Angie Wei
Assembly Republican leader Connie Conway has an answer to just about any question directly relating to our budget crisis. “No.” No revenues. No vote of the people. No Republican budget proposal. No closing corporate tax loopholes. No spending cuts. No, No, No, No, No.
Conway explained her caucus’ flurry on “No’s” to the LA Times recently:
The reality of it is, if we put up a ‘budget’ of our own it will get picked apart, criticized.
That may be a good answer for a politician. But it’s the last thing we need to hear from a public servant.
In the midst of over a year of energy disasters around the world, Californians have been given a reason to celebrate and look forward to a safer energy future. Today Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a historic mandate that will put California back at the forefront of the clean energy movement.
Senate Bill X1 - 2 (Simitian), better known as SB 2X, mandates that providers of electricity in California increase their supply of renewable energy to 33 percent by the year 2020. Iterations of the bill limped along the past three years, once making it all the way to former Governor Schwarzenegger's desk where it fell victim to his veto pen; other times it didn't even round up enough votes of support to pass out of the legislature.
As soon as Jerry Brown’s State of the State was finished, like clockwork, the Republican responses deploring Brown’s call for voters to have a voice on whether we extend existing taxes or cripple public education and other vital services started pouring in. The temerity of this governor, suggesting voters should have a say in how we solve the state budget crisis! they said. Voters told us in past elections what they wanted so we don’t have to ask again, they reasoned. It’s all the unions’ fault! they cried.
Edit by Brian for space. See the extended for more.
We come from all walks of life. Some of us are students, some are workers, and some are jobless. Some of us are laden with student debt. Some of us work to support our children, some work to support our parents. Some of us have had to postpone starting a family, and some of us have had to move back in with our parents just to make ends meet. But we all have one thing in common -- we are the young voters of California. And it’s time for us to flex our muscle at the polls, take control of California’s future and fight off the right wing’s attempt at a hostile corporate takeover of our state.
Our generation has been hit disproportionately hard by the recession. According to a recent report from the AFL-CIO, a third of all adults under age 35 cannot pay their bills, and 70 percent don’t have enough saved to cover even two months of living expenses. We just can’t afford to sit back and wait for things to get better, because if corporate candidates like Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina triumph on Tuesday, things will undoubtedly get worse.
These Wall Street candidates have spent hundreds of millions in order to buy this election, and if elected, they plan on doling out massive tax breaks to the wealthiest individuals and corporations in California, while at the same time slashing the vital services, education, health care, unemployment benefits, civil liberties and much-needed jobs for young people trying to enter the workforce.
So what’s at stake in this election?
Our jobs. Both Whitman and Fiorina have extensive track records of outsourcing tens of thousands of jobs as corporate CEOs, and Whitman’s plan for California centers around laying off 40,000 state workers, which could cause our unemployment rate to jump a full percentage point. Whitman also believes in the categorically untrue concept that giving tax breaks to the rich will somehow create jobs. It didn’t work when Bush did it, and economists agree that the concept is totally bogus.
Our education. Meg Whitman plans to cut another $15 billion from the state budget, and nearly half of the budget goes to K-12 and higher education, which would inevitably mean more draconian cuts to schools and universities that have already been decimated under Schwarzenegger.
Our health care. Carly Fiorina vowed to repeal the new health care law that has allowed so many of us to go back on our parents’ health insurance while we finish school and look for work in this tough job market.
We can’t allow these extreme right-wing candidates to trample all over our generation. We’ve got to take matters into our own hands, and the best way we can do that is to hit the polls en masse on Tuesday, just like we did in 2008. Let’s not forget, it was the young people – both voters and volunteers -- who secured Obama’s triumphant victory. And we have the power to do it again, if we commit to vote and getting others out to vote as well. As the President said last week to more than 37,000 Californians at a rally at the University of Southern California:
You’ve got to talk to your friends. You’ve got to talk to your neighbors. You’ve got to make phone calls. You’ve got to knock on doors. You have to make sure that you are as fired up and as excited now as you were two years ago - because the work is not yet done.
If you’re like me, you’re sick of the tired rhetoric from the media that young people just don’t vote as often as older adults. It seems like that message has become a self-fulfilling prophecy – many young people mistakenly feel like their votes don’t count as much, and subsequently they’re less inclined to vote.
But with an election as close as this one, our votes are more valuable today than ever before. If we do the expected and stay home on Election Day, we’re essentially handing the reins over to the mega-wealthy corporate shills whose Big Business agenda will make their super-rich friends even richer, while the rest of us are left fighting for the crumbs. It’s on every single one of us to vote, and do everything we can to get out the vote to our friends, family, co-workers, classmates and neighbors.
Even lifelong Republicans who recognize the importance of the IHSS program are voting for Jerry Brown for Governor.
Check out these comments from Meg Whitman's own website:
"I'm being forced to vote Democrat for the first time in my life.... I am shocked that a Republican would make me go to the Dem side, but I have been informed that you intend to do away with or seriously cut "I.H.S.S." K. Jones, Roseville
This Labor Day, California is at a crossroads. We can either continue the economic race to the bottom - exacerbated by corporate policies and Gov. Schwarzenegger's slash-and-burn budgets - or we can chart a new course to rebuild California from the bottom up. The heart of California's economy, our workers, are struggling with near record unemployment, stagnating wages and devastating budget cuts that are eroding the California Dream.
This November, Californians have a critical choice to make about which direction our state should take to deal with the enormous challenges we face. This election is simply a battle for the soul of California.
In the race for Governor, the choices couldn't be starker.
Meg Whitman epitomizes the disastrous corporate policies that fueled the collapse of our economy. Her proposals to give the rich tax breaks at the expense of middle class programs and public safety would choke off any hope of economic recovery. Her promise to eliminate 40,000 state jobs would spike unemployment and force businesses to shutter. Her long record of outsourcing and eliminating jobs in the private sector to boost CEO profits shows how dangerously misplaced her priorities are.
Jerry Brown has spent his entire career fighting for working families. As Governor, he created 1.9 million jobs. He proposes to create a half million new clean energy jobs, positioning California to be the national leader in the new green economy. He supports investment in infrastructure and education, the two most critical areas in driving job growth. He respects the contributions workers make to the economy and would prioritize an expansion of the middle class.
California voters face a similar choice in the race for US Senate. Barbara Boxer is a champion for California's workers. She's led the fight to rein in Wall Street, prioritize good jobs and pass national health care reform. Failed CEO Carly Fiorina , on the other hand, thinks our economy should be more like China's. She calls outsourcing of American jobs "right sourcing."
Labor Day marks the beginning of the final push by California's workers to elect Brown, Boxer and other leaders who will create jobs and restore hope of broadly shared economic prosperity. In the coming weeks, more than 25,000 union volunteers will lead the largest grassroots voter mobilization in California history. Workers will be out in force every week between now and the election to combat Whitman's avalanche of campaign spending by doing what we do best - talking one-on-one with friends, neighbors, co-workers and members of our communities about the stakes in this election.
Every generation has a defining moment. This election is ours. And California's workers stand ready to take a leading role in rebuilding our economy and restoring our once vibrant middle class.
Where does Meg Whitman stand on immigration? Well, that all depends on when she's being asked, where she's being asked, and who is doing the asking.
* Last year, in an attempt to cater to her Republican base as she prepared for a heated primary, Whitman told reporters she believes the state should "prosecute illegal aliens and criminal aliens in all of our cities, in every part of California."
* When Whitman's primary opponent, Steve Poizner, began gaining traction by veering far to the right on immigration, Whitman's campaign advisor, former Governor Pete Wilson, produced an anti-immigrant radio ad, touting Whitman's opposition to "amnesty" and her plan to block immigrant families the having access to education, driver's licenses and other vital services. He said she'd be "tough as nails" on immigration. Gov. Wilson is the notorious architect of Proposition 187, the initiative that sought to deny immigrant families these same basic rights.
* Whitman's hypocrisy became even more evident when she told a reporter, "You haven't seen an ad from me with the border fence," while at the same time airing TV ads across the state that prominently feature the border fence.
* Just one week after winning the primary, Whitman again changed direction, and began airing Spanish-language ads during the World Cup, indicating she was against the Arizona immigration law.
An Ipsos/Reuters poll out this morning shows Jerry Brown leading Meg Whitman 45-39 in the Governor's race and Barbara Boxer leading Carly Fiorina 45-41. http://www.ipsos-na.com/news-p...
Obviously, these races are going to be hard fought and there is a lot of work to do. Brown's lead is very good news, seeing as Whitman has saturated the airwaves for months and Brown hasn't had a presence at all. Boxer's lead is narrower, but as the campaign goes on, Fiorina's tenure at HP will be one of the main focuses and that will give Boxer more of an edge. Brown and Boxer haven't hit the airwaves (at least I haven't seen any ads), so they still have a lot of room to get their numbers up.
The results of tonight's primaries set in motion a battle for the soul of California. It's Main Street vs. Wall Street, with the winner having an opportunity to shape California's future for decades to come.
After months of obscene campaign spending, billionaire CEO Meg Whitman will use her seemingly unlimited fortune to try to stage a hostile takeover of our state. She's made clear that, if elected, she plans to bring a Wall Street agenda to California. What that means for working families is more massive tax giveaways for corporations and the wealthy, and wholesale cuts to education, public safety and programs that our state's most vulnerable rely upon. Whitman's economic philosophy, which she honed as a corporate executive and director in places like Goldman Sachs, is simple: What's good for Wall Street and the wealthy is good for everyone. California families know all too well just how flawed that philosophy is.
The contrast between the candidates couldn't be starker. Jerry Brown shares the Main Street values that built this state's economy into a global powerhouse and expanded our middle class. Brown has a spent a lifetime fighting for working families. He presided over the creation of nearly 2 million jobs as Governor. He fought the exploitation of workers by large corporations as Attorney General. His experience, values and leadership are exactly what this state needs to get back on track.
It's equally critical that Sen. Barbara Boxer is sent back to Washington to continue to fight for working families on key issues like financial reform, health care and workers' freedom to join unions. Boxer is a champion for working families. Californians can't afford to have a Senator like failed CEO Carly Fiorina, who joins Whitman on the "Wall Street Express" ticket.
With record unemployment, a huge budget gap and a rapidly shrinking middle class, the challenges California faces in the next four years are epic in proportion. Because the stakes are so high, the California labor movement intends on engaging like never before. We'll counter Whitman's massive spending with an unprecedented grassroots campaign to reach voters on the issues they care about: jobs, health care, retirement security and rebuilding the middle class. We'll work harder than ever to re-elect Sen. Boxer to the US Senate and send more worker-friendly candidates to Sacramento.
The battle for California's future begins tonight. Workers look forward to meeting the challenges that face our state and using this election as the springboard for California's economic rebirth.
Art Pulaski is executive secretary-treasurer at the California Labor Federation, which represents more than 2 million workers in 1,200 unions throughout the state.
House Dems could pick up 20 or more seats this year, building on remarkable successes winning three special elections this year in long-held Repub districts: Mississippi Travis Childers (54%) beat Greg Davis (46%) in a district Bush carried with 63% in 2004; Louisiana Donald J. Cazayoux Jr. (49%) beat Woody Jenkins (46%) in a 2004 59% Bush district; Illinois Bill Foster (52%) beat Jim Oberweis (48%) in a 2004 55% Bush district held by former Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert for 21 years.
The San Francisco Bay Area's nearest competitive Congressional races include Congressman Jerry McNerney (CA-11), a top target of the Repubs, and Dem challengers Charlie Brown (CA-4), Bill Durston (CA-3) and Jill Derby (NV-2). You can meet and support them all at a Sunday June 1 Champagne Brunch Reception, details at http://www.democracyaction.org...
• Congressman Jerry McNerney knocked off Environmental Enemy #1 Richard Pombo in 2006, brings renewable energy expertise to the House and constituent services to his district, and now faces former State Assemblyman, former State Board of Equalization conservative Dean Andal.
(Thanks for the info! If anybody else has similar information for other areas, please post it. And hey, don't forget about Jerry McNerney's virtual phone banking. You can do it from home, and Skype provides free long distance calling. - promoted by SFBrianCL)
Take Back Red California Volunteer Bulletin
SPECIAL 11/3 UPDATE
GOTV Special Bulletin
TIME TO GET OUT THE VOTE!
NOW IS THE TIME TO TAKE BACK CONGRESS!
Four days til the election, folks--and it's all coming down to turnout, getting voters to the polls.
The Republicans have a well-funded, well-oiled machine to Get Out The Vote. The Democrats have
YOU . . . the grassroots volunteers...You're the key!
Every single voter contact is critical right now--every knock on a door, every phone call.
(The Corporatist Agenda at its Finest - promoted by SFBrianCL)
There's been a lot of talk about the recent rise of violent crime in cities across America. Chuck Poochigian, the Republican candidate for Attorney General of Cailfornia, particularly likes to celebrate the spike of violence in Oakland, California, where rival candidate Jerry Brown has been serving as mayor. But violence has many forms.
To paraphrase Woodie Guthrie, some folks kill with a gun, others with a fountain pen.
