And deceptive signature gathering practices abound...
by Brian Leubitz
Last week, I ran into Safeway to grab a few groceries and saw the various assortment of your typical signature gatherers. I'm always intrigued to see what they are pushing, and how hard they are pushing it, so I took a look.
It looked like the one who approached me had a couple of clipboards but she only asked me about one, a measure to "repeal the new districts proposed by the NAACP."
"Interesting," I said, "because that measure is in fact paid for by the California Republican Party. They have already pumped more than a half a million dollars into it."
"Oh, that's not what they told me. They told me it was from the NAACP and Equality California."
"Well," I said, "that just isn't true, and you probably shouldn't be telling people that."
I was in a bit of a rush so I ran in and grabbed my few groceries. As I was headed out, I saw the signature gatherer speak to another gentleman. I quickly told him that it was paid for by the Republican party and he immediately said no thanks.
That's when the story gets more interesting, as the other signature gatherer decides to tell me that it was Equality California that hated the Senate maps. I assured him that was not true and that I am in fairly regular contact with EQCA. He would not take no for an answer and kept telling me that Equality California was paying for this. That is somewhat laughable as it fairly well-known that EQCA is having some serious money issues and could not consider funding something like that even if they were against the maps. (Which, as far as I know, they are not.)
But, rest assured, dear reader, that it was the CRP and their friends that are trying to put the referendum on the ballot. The irony that their one time savior, Arnold Schwarzenegger, put this thing on the ballot is kind of funny. But, now the right-wing interests are out to get it:
The financial woes of the California Republican Party have been well documented. The state GOP had just over $200,000 in the bank as of July 1, but in recent days, it has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into an effort to repeal the new state Senate district lines drawn by an independent commission earlier this year.
The source of that money has been the source of some speculation in Capitol circles since it began moving late last week. Jeff Green, a spokesman for George Joseph, the head of Mercury Insurance, confirmed Tuesday that Joseph wrote the state party a $1-million check to specifically fund the state party's efforts to have those Senate district lines redrawn. (LA Times)
Joseph also funded last year's Prop 17, the skeezy insurance measure that would discriminate against drivers that dropped their coverage for whatever reason. If they do get the entirety of this million bucks to the signature gatherers, they have a decent shot at qualifying, but it is far from guaranteed. They have to get 504,000 valid signatures by Nov. 13.
Now, the California Supreme Court today unanimously said that the Senate and Congressional maps are valid under the state and federal constitutions. If the CRP is successful in gathering enough signatures, it will then be up to the Court to decide which maps the state should use in June when the referendum will take place. They could either have their own drawn up by a special master, or just use the maps the commission drew up. It certainly wouldn't shock me to see them just use the Commission's maps even if it does go to a referendum. And, of course if the referendum goes through, well, all hell breaks loose and the Court has to come up with a new map.
Broad coalition will work towards ending the death penalty in California
by Brian Leubitz
It is often said that California voters are attached to the death penalty, that they would never vote against it. That something like 2/3 of voters support it in concept. But reality is far different from concept, and voters know that. We don't actually carry out the death penalty, yet we spend millions of dollars prosecuting it.
It's time for something different.
Today a statewide coalition of law enforcement, murder victim family members, exonerees and community groups announced the launch of signature gathering for the SAFE California Act (the Savings, Accountability and Full Enforcement for California Act), a ballot initiative that will replace the death penalty with life in prison without possibility of parole. The SAFE California Act will save California taxpayers millions of dollars, protect the innocent from execution, and direct funds to local law enforcement to solve more rapes and murders.
Over the last thirty-three years, we have spent something on the order of $4 billion pursuing the death penalty, but executed only thirteen prisoners. That money could have gone to solving some of the 46% of murders or 56% of rapes that go unsolved. Or it could have gone into prevention efforts that actually lower the crime rate.
Now is the time to end the death penalty. We can help save our budget, our prisons, and make us all safer at the same time. This is the right answer for California.
During that long legislative session, the legislature sent on a number of notable bills to consider. However, none will get the attention of SB202, which will push initiatives put on the ballot by signature back where they should have been in the first place: the general election.
When the idea came up a few weeks ago, CalBuzz did a nice look at the history of initiative timing. Long story short, signature based initiatives were always on either a special election called by the governor or the general election. The constitution did not envision a raft of them on various primary elections.
Of course, what Jerry Brown will do with this measure is never an easy question. You would think that he would support this measure, but there are several measures that looked set for approval that met Brown's veto stamp. But, if it does go through, the two measures that have already qualified will stay on the June ballot. However, I'm sure the measures in question, a term limits reform that switches all terms to 12 years and the tobacco tax for cancer, would rather be on a November ballot.
Reform would force Secretary of State to hew to state Constitutional requirements
California Constitution, Art. II, Sec 8(c)
(c) The Secretary of State shall then submit the measure at the next general election held at least 131 days after it qualifies or at any special statewide election held prior to that general election. The Governor may call a special statewide election for the measure.
That would be the founding document of our state government, with a requirement that initiatives gathering sufficient signatures to qualify for the ballot be placed on the next general election. However, over the years, as the Legislature has put measure after measure on primary ballots for expediency, or whatever reason, and the various secretaries of state over the past 40 years just put the signature-based initiatives on the primary ballot. Ho-Hum.
Except that really isn't what the Constitution states, and there is a good reason for that. Primary elections have wildly shifting electorates, in good ways and bad. Of course, the June primary this year is just one such example. The Republican base is going to be motivated, or at least somewhat motivated, while Democrats don't have a presidential primary, as of yet, to get excited.
And, as you may know, "paycheck deception" is now headed to the ballot. And given that they have now pulled the measure off the streets, it seems likely that they have the signatures. Paycheck deceptions not only threatens the power of labor, but also of the Democratic party. So, you know, the Legislature is getting some pleas from labor to help pull the initiative system back to 1971:
Democratic legislators are considering an 11th hour bill that would shift all initiative ballot measures to the November ballot -- a move that, if enacted, would help their union allies stave off some measures they oppose.(SacBee)
Thing is, we probably never should have strayed from the Constitution, and now that we've let it go for this long, we look very kind of strange making the big change now. But, the Constitution is the Constitution, and getting the SoS to act like Art. II exists seems like a reasonable goal no matter how the winds of a particular election are blowing at our backs or into our face.
UPDATE: CalBuzz ran a story with a bunch of background on the legal definitions.
Coalition aims to repeal death penalty, save a billion dollars
by Brian Leubitz
For a few months now, Sen. Loni Hancock has been working diligently on moving SB 490 through the legislative process. The bill, which would put a ballot measure on the November ballot, would have asked the voters whether it was time to eliminate the death penalty. And she was able to get the bill to fly through the Senate on a 39-0 vote. However, the bill stalled at the Assembly Appropriations Committee, and at this point, the odds are looking quite long for anything to actually happen before 2012.
Of course, in California there is always another option: the signature route. And that is exactly what the California Taxpayers for Justice, a coalition of law enforcement professionals, crime victim advocates, and individuals exonerated from wrongful conviction, has in mind.
When legislation to let California voters decide whether to keep the death penalty got shelved last week, death penalty opponents vowed to launch a ballot initiative anyway. They're keeping their promise. California Taxpayers for Justice is unveiling the SAFE California Act, which would replace capital punishment with life imprisonment without parole. ... Proponents of the initiative say that replacing the death penalty with life behind bars without parole would free up money for local law enforcement, victim compensation and schools. (SacBee)
To be clear, this is hardly some lightweight group here. The coalition press conference will feature former LA District Attorny Gil Garcetti and former CDCR boss and San Quentin warden Jeanne Woodford discussing the need to end the death penalty.
But, the argument this time will focus as much on cost savings as it will on morality. While most progressives find the morality argument plenty strong to make the case, the financial side of the debate is nothing to be ignored. By ending the death penalty, we could save $1 Billion over five years. That is money that can be better spent on education, or home health care, or any number of other priorities that have the long-term benefits that the death penalty, in study after study, has shown to lack. In other words, the death penalty accomplishes far too little (if anything) in terms of crime prevention, and costs far too much.
But the polling numbers still make this an uphill climb. As recently as last year, polling showed well over 60% of Californians support the death penalty. The question now is will the financial argument be strong enough to break through, and will the opponents of the death penalty be able to raise the money to get this measure on the ballot and into a strong campaign. We're talking about at least $1-1.5 million to get it on the ballot, and at least another 7-10 for a strong campaign.
It is still bill passing season up in Sacramento, and electoral reform is always a popular subject of conversation. Sen. Mark DeSaulnier passed an eminently reasonable reform to the initiative process:
Senate Bill 448, by Democratic Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, would require that paid solicitors working to qualify initiatives, recalls or referendums for the ballot wear badges stating in "no smaller than 30-point font print" that they are a paid signature gatherer.
The state Senate today approved amendments to the measure, which had previously passed both houses, on a 24-14 vote. The lower house had stripped a provision that would have also required identification badges for those working as a "volunteer signature gatherer." (SacBee)
SB 448 would be a nice simple reform of the system that would let voters know who exactly they are talking to. The downside is relatively minimal, so let's hope that Gov. Brown goes ahead and signs this one.
But there are other changes still lingering around the Capitol. While we have tried in vain for several years to get some form of same-day registration, we've been entirely unsuccessful so far. This year seems to be headed in the same direction as SB 641, a relatively modest same-day registration bill, looks to tango with the dreaded Suspense File for bills requiring appropriations. The pricetag is relatively small, pegged at between 300 and 600 thousand dollars, but that's enough for some monkey business.
SB 641 is scheduled to come to the Appropriations Committee on August 25, so we may learn more about the future of Ron Calderon's bill between now and then.
The grocery chain plans to begin enforcing their rules more strictly
by Brian Leubitz
Safeway isn't really a political ally to the left in any meaningful way. They could be worse to their employees, sure, but they could also be a lot better. But they are frequently the center of signature gathering operations. Not of their own free will, mind you, but just because that is where the traffic is. If you want to find a lot of people walking around, go to the grocery store.
But the problem is that the signature gathering business isn't really an activist operation anymore, if it ever really was. It's a business, and the people gathering signatures are doing it for money. And while the sidewalks are public property, safeway parking lots are not. So Safeway is doing more to clear the entrances to their stores and ensure that gatherers are following the rules. Unsurprisingly, the signature gatherers weren't so impressed, as Josh Richman explains:
Safeway says the signature gatherers don't abide by their corporate policies, block entrances and harass customers, and so has started a crackdown that, in some instances, includes seeking court injunctions against the worst offenders.
Signature gatherers counter that Safeway is disrupting their free-speech rights. About two dozen political petition signature gatherers protested the crackdown Wednesday outside Safeway's corporate headquarters in Pleasanton. (BayAreaNews)
I actually have had a couple of awkward situations with the gatherers at the grocery store. But that is mostly because I like to hear what they say, and never sign. I have seen them get rather rude to some people as well. It is really hard to blame Safeway from blocking what is really a nuisance at their doorway.
Justine knows her stuff on initiatives, and SB 168, which would ban per-signature payments, is a very important reform. - Brian
By Justine Sarver
Executive Director, Ballot Initiative Strategy Center
With the stroke of a pen, Governor Brown can start fixing California's broken ballot-measure system this week.
A bill that would ban paying per-signature "bounty" payments to petition signature-gatherers - Sen. Ellen Corbett's SB 168, which my organization is sponsoring - is on the Governor's desk now. The bill is good for California and I urge the governor to sign it.
Governor Brown should sign SB 168 because bounty payments are a proven incentive for fraud. When each signature on a petition is worth anywhere from $1 to $5 dollars, too many signature gatherers are tempted to fake signatures or deceive voters about what they're signing. Some will even bribe homeless people on Skid Row with Snickers bars to get a few extra signatures. Because most initiatives qualify for the ballot based on a random sampling of signature validity rather than a full check of each one, there's no way to know how many faked or coerced signatures help qualify measures for the ballot.
The bill will also help give all groups equal access to the ballot. Right now, California has direct democracy for the highest bidders, rather than what Gov. Hiram Johnson intended - direct democracy that gives the people a powerful check on corporations and the government. Texas oil companies and PG&E can afford to pay massive bounties to qualify measures for the ballot, while it is far rarer for truly populist efforts to be able to do the same.
There are other, less obvious reasons the governor, a known reformer and former Secretary of State, should sign this bill:
It's good for workers. Right now, signature gatherers are classified as independent contractors, rather than employees. Under SB 168, they would work as employees of petition-management firms, paid a living wage. If they fell ill, they could get sick days. If they were hurt on the job, they would be covered by workers' compensation insurance. Since the initiative industry is year-round in California, this just makes sense.
It can only help the state budget. Petition-management firms don't pay taxes on independent contractors. And many signature gatherers travel from state to state, initiative campaign to initiative campaign. It's anyone's guess how many of them follow the law and pay income taxes to the state of California before moving on to the next gig. If signature gatherers become salaried employees, they will no longer contributing to the tax gap.
It doesn't have to be more expensive. In search of facts about what it would cost to qualify an initiative under SB 168, my organization had a non-bounty signature-gathering firm develop budgets for qualifying a measure in 2010. While paying its employees an average of $10.50 an hour, the firm said it would cost about $1.2 million to qualify a ballot measure changing state statures. Qualifying a measure that would change the state constitution (which requires significantly more signatures) would cost up to $2.2 million. By comparison, it cost $2.6 million last year to qualify Proposition 25, which changed the state constitution. Of course, any grassroots organization, whether it be a taxpayers association or an environmental group, could drive down qualification costs significantly by using volunteers to collect signatures as well.
SB 168 is good for direct democracy. It is good for Californians. And it deserves Governor Brown's signature.
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The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center is the progressive community's only organization focused solely on ballot measures. In conjunction with national and state partners, BISC works to reform ballot-measure laws and support ballot measures that advance social and economic justice.
The thing about the initiative process is that there is a lot of smoke without fire. If you were to really monitor each initiative that comes into the hands of the offices of the Secretary of State you would keep yourself in a perpetual state of manic depression. First, initiatives that seem great (like repealing Prop 8) or initiatives that seem awful (like repeating the restrictions on choice that Californians have rejected many times). It is just a bag full of crazy, and most of the crazy has nowhere near the money to get close to the ballot.
He said he filed the three initiatives Tuesday with the state attorney general's office.
The first measure would ban recognition of all public-sector labor unions and prevent government authorities from collectively bargaining with them.
The second would impose a higher tax burden on pensions paid through CalPERS or CalSTRS. Someone who earns an annual pension of $100,000 to $150,000 would pay 15 percent above the regular state income tax on the pension. The rate would jump to 25 percent for any pensions above $150,000. Health benefits would not be considered in the calculation. Ebenstein said the tax would eventually raise $1 billion a year for the state.
The third would raise the retirement age for state employees to 65. Public safety workers would see their retirement age rise to 58.
As we speak, the Legislature is working on its own pension reform measure that might be on the ballot sometime next year, and who knows what other private organizations might decide that the time is ripe for them to get some publicity through this stuff. But Larry Eberstein, the head of the fair and balanced California Center thinks the time is now. So he's groping around for some cash from some of the big funders of initiative campaigns to get some money. (Not, you know, those dirty grassroots people...)
In the end, I would be pretty surprised if this got any momentum. The reaction from Wisconsin from milder "reforms" has been outrage, and in California, a bluer state, the reaction to the end of all teacher, firefighter, police, etc unions, yeah, that will not be taken lightly. Frankly, it's one thing to pay $200 to get some attention for your rather anonymous organization. But he does have former Assemblyman Brooks Firestone on board, and he is the father of Andrew Firestone, one of the first "Bachelors" on the TV reality show. So, that's awesome.
But, hey, why not let Eberstein play in the crazy box. It looks like fun. Perhaps next week I will round up some friends to file an initiave calling for a save the unicorn program.
As anyone who hasn't been living under a rock in this state probably knows by now, California politics are at an unsustainable impasse. Californians support extending taxes to balance the budget, and in particular support making the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share. On the other hand, when phrased generally, Californians prefer budget cuts to tax increases, but oppose any specific cuts to the budget that would make the slightest impact on the state's fiscal health. Additionally and more importantly, Californians don't support a repeal of Proposition 13, which creates the need for a 2/3 supermajority in both chambers of the Legislature to actually raise taxes.
The California Republican Party, meanwhile, has just over the 1/3 in the Legislature to not only prevent revenue increases, but also to stop commonsense efforts by the Governor to place commonsense budgeting that include a mix of cuts and tax extensions on the ballot. Nor does the CRP have any incentive, electoral or otherwise, to compromise even an inch on the issue without a offering ridiculous and ever-growing list of demands in exchange for the hostage. Democrats in both the Executive and Legislative branches, whom Californians voted into office overwhelmingly against the national 2010 tide, have little power but to attempt to minimize the damage caused by unnecessary and devastating cuts. And even if a combination of redistricting and GOP unpopularity were enough to deliver 2/3 of the Legislature to Democrats in both chambers, it is probable that just enough conservative Democrats afraid of Chamber of Commerce money could be found, to vote against their Party and continue the gridlocked status quo.
But another path of lesser resistance may lie open: one that takes the confirmed desires of Californians into account while providing a permanent and sustainable solution to the budget crisis.
The solution would involve keeping the 2/3 requirement for revenue increases on all households falling below a certain prescribed income level, while moving to a simple majority vote on revenues for corporate entities (with possible small business exemptions), and all households with incomes above that level. The level itself could be open to debate but due to high cost of living in California, should probably fall on the higher end (say, around $250,000 to $300,000 per annum.) Such an initiative should be free of significant legal challenge, as the California Court of Appeals already ruled the "Millionaire Tax" Proposition 63 to be constitutional, and not a violation of the equal protection rights of the ultra-wealthy.
Californians like the idea of raising taxes on the rich and on corporations, as a way not only to balance the budget but also mitigate the growing income inequality so damaging to the fabric of society. But they don't want to see taxes raised on themselves, as they already feel nickel-and-dimed in most aspects of their lives, even as basic cost of living continues to rise. Further, any politician seeking to implement regressive taxation in a state where the bottom quintiles already pay a greater share of their incomes than the top 1% as is should probably have their head (or heart) examined. The answer to both California's budget crisis and to feckless Democrats' political woes lies neither in regressive taxation nor in continual "compromise" with those who value the well-being of John Galt over those of the sick, the elderly, the destitute and the middle class, but rather in a sustainable economic system in which investments are made in the future with equitable contributions from all levels of society, particularly those who have been most fortunate and demand the most in externalized costs from society to support their lifestyles.
A ballot initiative specifically designed to leverage Californian's basic economic populist sentiments should have the power not only to be successful at the ballot box, but also to permanently end the legislative gridlock in Sacramento in a way that reflects the actual values of the people of California.
In a state ruled by direct democracy in many ways, George Skelton's column might be something close to seditious speech:
All that said, "check-ins" with the voters are what regular elections are about. The way our republican system of democracy was set up by the framers of both the U.S. and California constitutions, the people elect representatives to make decisions about spending and taxes.
You didn't see either the Clinton tax increases or the Bush tax cuts being put to votes of the American people. That occurred at the next elections, when the people voted whether to rehire their representatives.
Only in screwy California, where we have an out-of-control initiative system and a bloated Constitution that Sacramento often stumbles over when it does try to make decisions, do voters perpetually get handed such policy-making power. (LA Times)
Here's the situation we face. We have a state of 37 million voters. At most 10 million of them turn out to vote on any regular basis, or less than a third. Now care to guess how many of these people spent more than 5 minutes researching the issues they are going to vote on?
This is why we moved away from an Athenian-style direct democracy to a representative democracy. Our American founding fathers understood that not every voter had the capacity to take everything into context to make the decisions we expect of our legislators. You could argue that the information age has brought the knowledge necessary closer to the people, but in the end, uninformed voters are making decisions without all of the facts.
Even in a state of 1 million people the system would be impractical, here it's downright unworkable. Skelton takes Brown to task for boxing himself into the corner, but really, it was something of an electoral practicality. He may have won without it, but it sure made it a lot easier. But, here we are, in a position where Brown is now forced to bring this to the voters instead of just doing his job and making the decisions for the state with the Legislature.
Of course, Skelton goes on to throughly lambaste the Republican caucus for being pretty much worthless and waste of taxpayer money. (It's true!) But the real point here, is that while this is where we are headed in the short term, it is ultimately unsustainable to continue to run of the world's largest economies by plebiscite.
For those watching the November 2010 ballot, last week over 760,000 petition signatures were turned in to state officials to place the "Save Our State Parks" initiative on the November ballot. 434,000 valid signatures are needed.
The concept is to take the funding of state parks out of the state's annual budget and replace it with a trust account funded by an $18 annual vehicle fee on most vehicles. Vehicles that have paid the fee would then have no entry charge as at present.
Sorry if this story has already been passed on. I'm been away and did not see one.
The deadline for filing an initiative that would make the November 2010 ballot is Friday (Just a quick update to that: Friday is a suggested deadline to maximize time for signature gathering) . The initial measures to repeal the 2/3 ballot initiatives filed by Maurice Read failed at the end of July. There is currently an initiative to lower the threshold from 2/3 to 3/5 in circulation, but it does not have any backing.
And that's it. There is no pending initiative regarding any two-thirds rule, with the institutional support needed to get on the ballot, and the deadline is Friday.
A split between Democratic activists and the political pros who run the party may be growing over how to approach the issue that has bedeviled the party for years: the two-thirds vote required to pass taxes and budgets in the Legislature.
Most Democrats in the upper echelons of the party apparatus are convinced it's a fool's errand to try to persuade voters to hand the majority party unchecked power to raise taxes. Instead, they're gearing up for a campaign next year to lower the threshold - from two-thirds of both legislative bodies to a simple majority - on budget votes only, a path they believe voters can embrace.
But some grass roots liberals say they're frustrated with the caution of party leaders and believe, if sold right, voters would hand over both taxing and budgeting powers to the majority party.
"This is a doable thing, but it requires getting Democrats together and deciding to really do it," said George Lakoff, a UC Berkeley linguistics professor who has become a de facto leader of the cause and is preparing to submit by next week a ballot measure for the November 2010 election that would drop the two-thirds requirement on both taxes and budgets. "Either they want to give the state a future or they can let Republicans continue pushing it into disaster." [...]
But party leaders see him as quixotic, and dismiss his position as misplaced and uninformed.
"People are not ready to pass it," said John Burton, the Democratic party chairman and a former Senate leader. "He's got a theory. Good luck to him."
Mind you, that another guy had a theory before he entered the CDP Chairmanship: John Burton. At the time he committed himself to repealing the 2/3 majority for the budget and taxes, and listed it as a top priority. But I don't even know that the Burton fallback position is being considered; as of now, they have a little over 48 hours to file a 2/3 repeal on the budget. And of course, this would immediately put half of what a budget is - revenues - off-limits, while taking responsibility for bad budgets that cannot be fixed.
What I have heard now is that, with statewide offices being decided in 2010, party leaders don't want to put revenue on the ballot and increase GOP turnout against it, threatening their statewide officer candidates.
This is nothing more than a Friedman Unit strategy. We cannot put such a proposal on the ballot in 2010 because it might hurt candidates, so we move it to the next election. Which has candidates in it as well, so we have to just hold off past 2012. But our Governor's up for re-election/trying to defeat the Republican in 2014, so we have to hold off then, too. As a result, nothing proceeds.
And it's worse than that. We hear constantly that the public is not ready for a conversation about changing the rule, but in the meantime nothing is being done to prepare the ground for that shift in public opinion. It's not that we have to give the war a few more months to succeed, as in the Friedman Unit; it's that we have to give NOTHING more time for voters to, I guess, come up with their own ideas about state government.
The inescapable conclusion you must come to is that everyone in the system actually likes the system as it is. For Democrats, they personally prosper by getting elected and re-elected, and they can always blame the 2/3 rule for whatever failures occur. It's accountability-free government complete with a scapegoat, and it rocks their world.
We can talk about how Democratic leaders tend to view the electorate as static and unchangeable, rather than the starting point from where opinion can be shaped. We can talk about how small-bore goals or a major crisis can provide the spark for the change the state so desperately needs. But this isn't a failure of imagination. It's a general contentment with the status quo.
Which is why change will have to be imposed upon the system from the outside. The most intriguing initiatives to date are the one pushed by Lenny Goldberg to repeal the $2 billion dollar a year corporate tax breaks, and the proposal for a Constitutional convention (though that has also not gone into circulation by the Bay Area Council, but only through an independent effort from Paul Currier). This obviously cannot be left to anyone in Sacramento - they will always find a convenient excuse for delay.
People seemed to really engage with this post about a Constitutional convention, so I wanted to follow up with some of my thoughts for what a convention could tackle and what it could look like. As it happens I attended a town hall meeting about a proposed ConCon a couple weeks ago in Santa Monica, featuring Bob Stern of the Center for Governmental Studies, Jim Wunderman of the Bay Area Council, Steven Hill and Mark Paul of the New America Foundation, Asm. Julia Brownley (AD-41), Santa Monica Mayor Pam O'Connor and LA City Councilman Bill Rosendahl.
At the root, a Constitutional convention must concern itself with restoring confidence in government. Right now, that's at an all-time low, especially after budget agreements hashed out in secret that defy the will of the people and an erosion in the public trust in lawmakers to do the right thing in Sacramento. Government is not responsive, in fact in many cases it cannot Constitutionally be responsive to the popular will. The institutions have become paralyzed and captive to special interest lobbying. We have ten lobbyists for every legislator in Sacramento. And we have turned over the reins to a new branch of government, the ballot, and anything significant must be mandated by a vote of the people. As Julia Brownley, now in her second term, said, "Government structure is broken and we need to fix it... I didn't understand until I set foot in the Legislature the paralysis and gridlock that kills the system." I think Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, who is carrying Constitutional convention legislation in the Senate, put it well when he said that California remains at the vanguard with anything that can be accomplished on a majority-vote basis. Anything with a 2/3 threshold, in other words anything fiscal, is a mess. And it needs to be solved.
So how would a convention, the first of its kind since 1879, be structured? (flip)
In the wake of the latest, but by no means the last, budget mess in California, I continue to believe that the only way to break the deeply negative cycle of fiscal dysfunction and budgetary gridlock is through a Constitutional convention that restores democracy and provides sensible, workable government in the state of California. You'll be interested to know that this belief actually transcends party lines. Tom Karako directs the Golden State Center at the Claremont Institute, one of the nation's most conservative think tanks. And even he agrees that the state's Constitution needs to change to better serve the public. I haven't previously seen a conception of what a conservative vision for a Constitutional convention would look like, and so I think it's worth analyzing it to see their preferred options. Karako first says:
If Californians do rewrite the Constitution, it should be revised to resemble more closely the concise federal Constitution: more responsible legislators and executives, stronger control of the bureaucracy and less direct democracy.
Then he comes up with several issues that appear nowhere in the federal Constitution. Here are his six proposals:
1. Part-time Legislature
2. Hard spending cap
3. Two-year budgeting cycle
4. Eliminate the two-thirds supermajority requirement for budgets
5. Unified executive branch
6. Repeal ballot-box budgeting
The first four are either irrelevant to the federal Constitution or in direct conflict to federal Constitutional provisions. But I will soldier on and take them in kind.
Karako clarifies that his vision of a "part-time legislature" would not be a citizen legislature, and would include the same salaries and responsibilities as today. With all due respect, then, we already have this. State legislative sessions, in theory, open in January and end on August 31, and there are numerous recesses in between those dates. The only reason it seems lately like the legislature is always at work is because four extraordinary sessions have been called in the past year and a half to deal with the budget mess. Our legislature works around six months out of the year in less extraordinary circumstances. That sounds part-time to me.
This notion of a hard spending cap has been soundly rejected by the voters twice in the past four years. It is certainly not a feature of the federal Constitution, and it does not take into account emergency spending needs, the outpacing of inflation over wages in areas like health care, and multiple other provisions. States with spending caps have seen their quality of life suffer and their state rankings plummet (see TABOR in Colorado). This would in my view be disastrous, and obviously it's the major bone of contention between liberals and conservatives.
A two-year budget cycle actually sounds prudent to me. I would supplement it with an advisory long-term budgeting benchmark that would bring the concept of long-term planning back into state government, but anything that looks beyond the horizon could improve the quality of state budgets.
Conservatives have begun to relent on the 2/3 rule for passing a state budget, while keeping in the requirement for taxes, for somewhat selfish reasons. I agree that the current system eliminates accountability for both sides of the aisle, and letting the majority rule on these issues would allow the people to decide the results of that course of action. But Karako doesn't take this to the logical conclusion, that a budget is composed of taxes and spending, and that only with a full repeal of both of these 2/3 provisions would we have representative democracy in this state. He wants to hold one party responsible for budgeting while tying their hands on how to go about instituting that budget.
After citing positively how other states have part-time legislatures, and negatively how only two other states require a 2/3 vote to pass a budget, Karako calls for a "unified executive branch" without mentioning that practically no other state has its Governor appoint all additional Constitutional officers. Some states have Governors appoint certain various members, but not the entire slate. This and the next idea show a typical conservative contempt for the will of the people. Democracy, even direct democracy, is not the problem with California. (This "unified executive branch" is also a cover for vesting greater authority in the executive to engage in, as Karako says, "firing and controlling non-elected bureaucrats and public employee unions," or union-busting, in the vernacular.)
And that leads us to Karako's idea to repeal all ballot-box budgeting, where he does not specify between different types of ballot-box budgeting. Those measures with funding sources provide no strain on the budget process because they do not impact the General Fund. Unfunded mandates do represent a problem, and reformers have devised a solution, essentially "paygo" for ballot initiatives, requiring that they include a funding source before presenting them to voters. Karako, instead, wants to repeal all voter-approved measures and place them under the General Fund. I also believe in the indirect initiative, allowing the legislature a crack at either passing a ballot measure themselves in consultation with the proponents, or changing the language with amendments to better reflect current priorities.
On one thing I agree with Karako; "California needs constitutional reform before we can expect sustained fiscal reform." I don't think his ideas hold to his belief in drawing on the wisdom of the US Constitution; however, I do see some common ground, on two-year budget cycles, on the need for democratic rule, on initiative reform. My belief is that a Constitutional convention could bring together the entire rich diversity of the state to discuss, debate and decide on these issues, coming to a decision that will improve representative government in the state. I'll see Mr. Karako there.
UPDATE by Robert: For a progressive vision of a constitutional convention, the Courage Campaign's Citizens Plan to Reform California (CPR for California) is a good place to start. I plan to write more about it this week.
It seems thirty years or so too late, but a former UCLA chancellor and director of the MOCA in Los Angeles named Charles Young filed suit against the provision in Proposition 13, passed in 1978, that requires a two-thirds vote in the Legislature to raise taxes. The legal theory behind the case mirrors the theory behind the attempted repeal of Prop. 8 this year, which was ultimately unsuccessful.
The legal theory of the suit, which names the Legislature's chief clerks as the technical defendants, is that when voters passed Proposition 13 in 1978, cutting property taxes and requiring a two-thirds vote for tax increases, it was a "revision" of the state constitution rather than an "amendment."
The constitution allows amendments to be made by initiative petition but allows revisions - generally a more fundamental change - to be made only through a constitutional revision commission or a constitutional convention.
It's essentially the same argument that opponents of Proposition 8, the 2008 measure that outlawed same-sex marriages, made in attempting to persuade the state Supreme Court to void that measure. But the court, which had earlier sanctioned same-sex marriages, ruled that Proposition 8 was valid.
I'm a bit surprised that Young didn't include the single-subject rule in his charges, as the property tax rules and the two-thirds requirement for taxes don't seem to bear much relationship to one another. Of course, that has already been argued before the state Supreme Court, along with the revision argument, equal protection concerns and about a half-dozen other charges, four months after passage, in Amador Valley, and the Supreme Court upheld the initiative. Here's the way the revision argument played out back then.
The California Supreme Court held that although Proposition 13 would result in various substantial changes to the constitution, it was only an amendment because the changes were narrowly tailored to the objective of changing the taxation system. Id. at 228. According to the Court, a change in the voting requirement did not amount to a revision of the constitution. The Court further stated it was not uncommon to have similar voting requirements for financial matters, and that the Proposition would not effect home rule. Id. The Court cited Article XIII, Section 20 of the State Constitution that authorizes the legislature to set maximum property tax rates. Id. at 228. The Court concluded this new article, implemented by Proposition 13, would be no more threatening to home rule than Article XIII, § 20. Id. The Court, while not endorsing the Proposition, did state the initiative process was a direct form of government from the people. Id. Finally, the court held that it would not limit the ability of people, through the initiative process, to achieve such a limited purpose of a new system of taxation. Id.
The Court upheld every aspect of Prop. 13 at that time, and the law has withstood multiple legal challenges over the years. Like with Proposition 8, the Court seems loath to overturn a vote of the people, and now we're 31 years down the road. Of course, this forms the core of Charles Young's argument, that the effects of Prop. 13 are powerful evidence that it is not merely an amendment, but a major revision affecting the lives of all California's citizens.
I'm skeptical that this can get off the ground, but I see little harm in it. And maybe putting Prop. 13 on trial, and laying out the effects in sharp detail, could lead to closing the loophole and building a sustainable revenue base.
Rumors ran rampant yesterday that state employees, pushed too far by yet another salary cut (totaling 20% over the course of the year), would potentially strike.
Doug Crooks, Director of Communications with the Service Employees International Union's local 1000, which represents more than 95,000 state employees, declined to confirm the rumor but said any decision would be made by the employees through an authorization vote.
"In the first place, that decision hasn't been made yet," said Crooks about the plan to strike. "That decision hasn't been made yet. We are definitely going to strongly oppose and do everything we can to prevent the governor from imposing a fourth furlough day. But check back with me Monday."
"The bottom line is we negotiated with this governor in good faith and we agreed on a contract that would save $340 million dollars immediately, and if applied to all state employees it would save the state a billion dollars. That's billion with a 'B.' And for the governor to undermine that contract now is beyond irresponsible. He's made the state employee a pawn" in the state budget negotiations.
"Well actually, it's a five percent cut on top of those three furlough days," explained Alicia Trost, a spokesperson for Senate leader Darrell Steinberg. "It's simply a scare tactic by the governor, yet another, and we feel the state workforce has already paid their fair share. What's worse is that it would have a horrible effect on the economy if state workers were to lose up to 20 percent of their buying power."
By the way, Mr. Stogie just lost a furlough case, with a judge tentatively ruling that he cannot furlough the legal staff of the State Compensation Insurance Fund, which has emboldened the larger pool of workers in SEIU. But more to the point, in the world of Arnold Antionette and the Yacht Party, workers making a median income getting 20% salary cuts while the largest corporations doing business in the state get a massive corporate tax break is considered "everyone paying their fair share."
Speaking of which, Lenny Goldberg offers the text of an initiative to repeal the negotiated-in-secret corporate tax cuts and save the state $2.5 billion dollars a year. Opponents typically respond with race-to-the-bottom rhetoric about businesses leaving the state, which isn't true, by the way.
UPDATE: Here's a study out TODAY from the PPIC confirming that the whole "the rich are leaving California" line is a flat-out lie.
Finally, a federal appeals court ruled that California cannot cut Medi-Cal reimbursements, in an opinion written by a George W. Bush appointee. The familiar pattern of breaking the law to cut the budget often runs up against judicial review, and so the criminals in Sacramento - considering what they're attempting, I don't consider that hyperbole - will have to try something else to achieve their long-sought destruction of the social safety net.
The statement of organization for Californians for Children's Health says the group - for which a Web site is under construction - exists to support "expansion of children's health coverage," and its sponsoring organizations include the Children's Defense Fund Action Council; the Children's Partnership, a project of the Tides Center; Children Now; and PICO California. Its CFO is PICO California director Jim Keddy; its secretary is Kelly Hardy, Children Now's associate director for health.
Hardy earlier today told me Californians for Children's Health aims to develop a ballot measure for November 2010, and although today's rapidly changing budget environment makes it hard to say exactly what that measure's specifics will be, "we're contemplating new revenue sources that would come in, not General Fund sources, that would support children's coverage programs."
Steinberg has a history of going outside General Fund revenues to pay for social services projects - see the millionaire's tax in Prop. 63, which funds mental health programs.
You need to play within the hand dealt, and voters have shown a willingness to use tax increases to fund specific programs. Losing the Healthy Families Program would mean 900,000 kids without health care in California, and we would be the only state in the country not accessing federal SCHIP funds. So obviously, you try to get that revenue absolutely any way you can.
At the same time, is this any way to run a government? Create a system where no revenues can be raised inside the legislature, forcing stakeholders and politicians to go to voters to look for a dedicated stream here and another dedicated stream there? This is unsustainable to the nth degree. We will not transform California one dedicated funding stream at a time. It just won't work, and we'll spend hundreds of millions of dollars on consultants in the process. Steinberg shouldn't foreclose the option, of course, but his money would be better spent on reform efforts so that he no longer needs to go to the voters for everything, and we can have a representative democracy such that has worked in America for over 220 years.
Moreover, I fear that Steinberg is setting this fallback plan up assuming that Healthy Families will be either eliminated or gutted in the next couple weeks. Perhaps the donation to a potential ballot committee is a threat to the Governor; but perhaps it's a signal that the cuts can come down. Let's be clear - in the meantime, while we wait for the results of that election, children will die from a lack of health care coverage. We have other options - Jean Ross describes some of them beautifully here - and the Democratic legislature should be drawing lines in the sand, not giving up on drastic cuts and making contingencies.
As David Atkins discusses today, the decision on Prop. 8 by the State Supreme Court basically elevates the people as a Fourth Branch of government that cannot be countermanded by the judicial branch, no matter what their whims decide. The Court said, "the system may be broken - depending on your perspective - but that's the system we have, and we're powerless to do anything about it."
Thoughts at this point turn to the need for a transformation of this Constitution, to restore the balance of representative democracy, with a judiciary enabled to determine Constitutionality, with a legislative branch given their mandate by the people to reflect the popular will, with an executive secure in his or her role. While I do not believe that "the people" should be endlessly demonized for the options they have been given by a flawed process, I do believe that the verdict has been delivered on this form of government, and delivered as a failure. In an extraordinary discussion unrelated to the Prop. 8 case, the Governor today basically admits California is ungovernable even while vowing to follow the "will of the people," a will which he fails to properly define. Most of the rant Arnold made today involves him whining that he's not allowed to be a dictator. But some of it is brutally revealing.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger considers himself a glass-half-full guy, and he ended his California Small Business Day speech in Sacramento with a dose of optimism. But it seemed clear the governor has just about had it with California's governance system, especially after last week's special election was a colossal failure. Though he blamed many of the state's budget problems on the current economic collapse, he said part of our woes are "self-inflicted."
"California hasn't had a responsible fiscal system since Earl Warren in the late '40s and early '50s," he said.
The governor ticked off a number of complaints about the system this morning:
• The state relies too much on personal-income and capital gains taxes.
• The state doesn't have a spending cap, nor a "rainy-day fund" (the latter point is questionable given that Schwarzenegger asked voters to establish a "rainy-day" reserve in 2004, albeit one with weak restrictions).
• Federal judges tell California how to run its prison health-care system.
• Federal stimulus rules restrict how California can cut from its budget.
• California requires a two-thirds vote to approve the budget.
• An "endless list" of ballot-box budgeting requirements, including Propositions 13, 42, 49 and 1A, all of which he has championed in the past.
"Until we fix our system, nothing will ever change," Schwarzenegger said. "This is no way, of course, to run a state."
He's crying about "federal judges" who merely enforce the Constitutional right of prisoners not to be allowed to die as a cause of their incarceration. And the federal stimulus rules don't restrict a damn thing, they merely require a certain threshold of service to qualify for federal funds. Waah waah waah. But the last two are truly amazing. Schwarzenegger ADMITS the two-thirds rule has completely hamstrung government, and that "an endless list" of ballot-box budgeting have distorted the balance of power in California. Prop. 49 is the after-school program initiative that SCHWARZENEGGER HIMSELF put on the ballot prior to his tenure in office.
Arnold's press people tried to walk this back today, but this was a Kinsleyan gaffe where he made the mistake of telling the truth. Schwarzenegger has always wanted to claim to know the will of the people, and he pretty much got it right when he let his guard down today - Californians want a functional government with a basic level of services funded equitably, and they want lawmakers to do the job they were elected to do. "The people" are a Fourth Branch who want no part of being elected or serving.
The next batch of gubernatorial wannabes have a mixed record on Constitutional reform. Some reports claim that they are more interested with the rhetoric of change than offering anything specific and incurring the wrath of the unelected Fourth Branch. If in fact candidates run in this fashion, they will discover an electorate actually more interested in solutions than mantras, more interested in fundamental reform than careening along this unsustainable path. And 19 months later, when one of them sits in the office in Sacramento and actually looks deeply at the situation in which they find themselves, they'll have wished longingly for a whole raft of specific reforms they could implement right away. Because otherwise, they will sink under the weight of a top-heavy, broken governmental system.
Virtually the entire political leadership in Sacramento took without questioning the view that the overwhelming loss of the special election is somehow a mandate for "living within our means" and deep, drastic cuts to the budget. The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times (in multiple venues) and most other publications provided uncritical coverage of the Governor and even leading Democrats, parroting this theory that "the voters spoke" and the message was that only cuts would be allowable from this point forward.
Beware of any sentence that starts with the words "What the voters told us was..." Far too often in our politics, dishonest lawmakers decide that voters mandate their particular ideologies and preferred policy decisions regardless of the facts. Perhaps the only real message delivered from the voters to lawmakers was that the former doesn't particularly like or trust the latter. But there are other possibilities. A new polling memo by David Binder Research details why Prop. 1A in particular failed, and the results do not match the Governor's ramblings.
Contrary to what the Governor is saying after the defeat of his proposals, Prop 1A did not fail because voters delivered a message to "go all out" in cutting government spending. The all-time record low turnout for a statewide special election clearly demonstrates the lack of depth to that argument. Prop 1A did not
generate a spike in turnout and taxes were not cited as the main reason why voters overwhelmingly rejected Prop 1A. Support for a state budget that relies solely on spending cuts is very limited - even among those voting no on Prop 1a.
Voters in this election were more likely to be Republicans and less likely to be Independents, whereas Democratic voters came out in proportions consistent with past turnout. Of those that voted in this election, 43% were Democrats, 42% were Republicans and 15% were Independents or minor party voters. This past November, the electorate consisted of 46% Democrats, 32% Republicans and 22% Independents or minor party voters.
In November 2010, the electorate will be a group that is more supportive of the revenue options tested in the survey, and more strongly opposed to only using cuts to balance the state budget. While only 36% of voters that turned out for the May 19th election supported using entirely budget cuts to balance the budget, even fewer - only 24% -- of non-voters felt the same way [...]
Voters simply do not trust the leadership in Sacramento, and recognize that the failed special election was just another example of the inability to bring real solutions to voters. When given two choices, four out of five voters - even among those who voted 'Yes' on 1A - agreed that the special election was just another example of the failure of the Governor and Legislature, who should make the hard decisions necessary to really fix the budget. Only 20% agreed the special election was a sincere effort to fix the state's budget mess.
I would argue that the voters feel no trust in the legislature because they see time and again policy solutions that stick the average Californian with the bill that the wealthy and well-connected don't pay. The fact that the only permanent tax issue in the February budget was a $1 billion dollar tax cut for the largest corporations in America is a perfect example.
The polling memo also shows broad support for tax increases in a variety of areas, including wiping out this massive corporate tax cut:
75% support increasing taxes on alcoholic beverages (62% support among 'No' voters)
74% support increasing taxes on tobacco (62% support among 'No' voters)
73% support imposing an oil extraction tax on oil companies just like every other oil producing
state (60% support among 'No' voters)
63% support closing the loophole that allows corporations to avoid reassessment of the value of
new property they purchase (58% support among 'No' voters)
63% support increasing the top bracket of the state income tax from nine point three percent to
10 percent for families with taxable income over $272,000 a year and to eleven percent for
families with taxable incomes over $544,000 a year (51% support among 'No' voters)
59% support prohibiting corporations from using tax credits to offset more than fifty percent of the
taxes they owe (55% support among 'No' voters)
In addition, voters oppose the kind of spending cuts outlined by the Governor.
Now, I'm sure I'll hear "eat it, you pipe dream librul hippie" because of the structural issues that prohibit these kind of tax solutions. But the reason that the legislature has such desperately low esteem right now is that they fail to publicly even advocate for the solutions Californians plainly want, or the breakage of the structural barriers that would provide it. This failure caused the May 19 debacle and will cause further problems for the Democrats in the state if they are not careful. A political party seen as devoid of principle will not be a successful political party forever. What Californians desire, essentially, is leadership. And they will punish those who refuse to give it to them.
UPDATE by Brian: I've posted the slides for the Binder Research presentation over the flip.
