Here are some notes from a few stories I'd been meaning to get to all week.
• Frank Russo had a good recap of the initial hearing from the three-judge panel charged with finding a solution to California's prison crisis. This panel may result in the early release of thousands of prisoners to reduce overcrowding. The panel does not appear to be able to be swayed by political expediency (unlike the Legislature for the past 30 years), saying "This is a judicial and not a political process." It is clear that the torturous conditions in California jails and the inability to deliver even basic medical care violates the Constitution and will be dealt with swiftly. Even the Correctional Officers union has come around to the point of view that reductions in the prison population are needed. Only a cowardly, leadership-challenged political class refuses to face reality.
(Nice to have the Senator here. Now go do as he says! - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
Recently the Los Angeles Times ran an editorial, “For Citizens Only,” on the California Dream Act (SB 160) which misrepresented facts and promoted a policy position out of step with reality and mainstream opinion in California.
Just one week after the LA Times declared their objection to increasing access to higher education for all Californians, the California Public Policy Institute (PPIC) issued a definitive analysis citing a critical gap in the number of college grads the state will produce. PPIC warned that California will not meet the economic demand for highly skilled workers with current immigration and graduation rates; they recommended swift action on the state’s behalf to intervene. Additionally, a Field Poll in April 2007 noted that 83% of Californians support creating programs to legalize the status of undocumented immigrants indicating a far more open attitude toward immigrants than the LA Times expressed in their editorial.
The California Dream Act is an appropriate step to address our state’s workforce needs and is in alignment with voter sentiments toward immigrants. As the paper of note in California’s largest immigrant city, we expect more from the Los Angeles Times.
Please help us express our dissatisfaction with the paper’s position and presentation of facts. It is critical that we set the record straight on SB 160 and make the paperaware of our concerns.
I have a conflicted relationship with the LA Times. On the one hand, they still do a stellar job covering international news; I would put the paper's Iraq reporting up with any other news organization in the world. But on the editorial side, the paper has taken up the neoliberal consensus with a vengeance, and turns a blind eye to vital issues to this community, like inequality and poverty. Nancy Cleeland, an excellent writer, has decided to leave the paper for just this reason:
The LA Times gets downright progressive about voting reform, in the wake of the horrible turnout for Tuesday's school board runoff, where $9 million dollars in voting infrastructure and campaign expenditures yielded a 6% turnout.
A much better solution is to use instant runoff voting, an electoral method that elects a majority winner in a single election.
Here's how it works: Voters rank the candidates in their order of preference instead of just picking one candidate. If a candidate wins a majority of first rankings, the election is over, just like now. But if no candidate wins a majority of first rankings, voters' other rankings are used to determine the winner instantly. The candidate with the fewest first rankings is eliminated, and voters who ranked that candidate first can now have their second choice counted. All ballots are recounted in the "instant runoff," and the process of dropping the last-place candidate continues until one candidate has a majority of the votes [...]
Because this method of voting would save millions of tax dollars, part of that money could be used for an expansion of Los Angeles' public financing system, which might produce more candidates and more competition - which could induce higher voter turnout.
Los Angeles also could change to an all vote-by-mail system. Oregon votes this way, as does Burbank, and it has led to higher turnout in non-November elections. It also saves tax dollars by avoiding the high costs of setting up polling stations and hiring election workers.
In the interest of regional balance, here are a few things in the part of the state that gets sun (jus' kiddin', guys) which caught my eye:
• Full public financing of municipal elections will be on the agenda at tonight's Santa Monica City Council Meeting. Solidly progressive City Councilman Kevin McKeown raised this issue earlier in the year and couldn't get a second, but they ran a staff report, and both Common Cause and the League of Women Voters are pushing this hard. Just like everything else, we'll need to win the Clean Money battle from the bottom up.
LA Times journo Robert Salladay picks up the story of progressive bloggers running for CDP elections, in particular me, and says "Lordy, help us."
And then this:
Don't expect a revolution or a leftward shift for the party. The establishment is too organized to let that happen.
I'm sure that's what the CDP thinks as well. Of course, the only way movements begin and catch fire is from the bottom up. You don't just get to be party chair first.
Kind of hilarious, all the tut-tutting from the establishment (and media figures like this are a part of it). All I have to say is "we'll see." By the way, check the Secretary of State's office is you don't think a leftward shift is possible.
Jennifer Warren writes in the LA Times today about two former prison officials who claim that the corrections officer's union and the governor conspired to stymie any efforts to fix California's condition-critical prison system. The officials claim that Chief of Staff Susan Kennedy was tasked with handling the labor contract between the prison guards and the state, and that top Schwarzenegger aides were willing to give the union whatever they desired in order to support them in the gubernatorial election (which they did not; they endorsed Angelides, but did not run the barrage of ads that were initially expected). The union was repotedly given veto power over the nominations to top posts in the corrections department (Union officials deny this). These paragraphs are indicative of the general tenor:
