* The Chamber of Commerce endorsed Meg Whitman. Not surprising really, other than it was done on the Friday before Labor Day, and that they don't normally officially endorse. But, they're letting their freak flag fly this year, not without controversy of course, as Jack Scott, the chancellor of the Community College System and Mark Yudof, the president of UC quit the chamber.
* More strangeness in the Bell story: the former city administrator had his email subpoenaed as he was conducting city business on his personal account and personal on his city account.
Nate Silver, who's moved his 538 blog to the New York Times, is out with his gubernatorial projections. He's got Whitman narrowly beating Brown by a 0.4 point margin, 49.2% to 48.8%. He also gives Whitman a 53% chance to win the seat and Brown 47% chance of winning.
Much of this is due to the way he weights his polling data - a recent Rasmussen poll (Whitman 51, Brown 43) and SurveyUSA poll (Whitman 47, Brown 40) are largely responsible for this. The SUSA poll gives a 6 point swing to Whitman between August 11 and August 31.
For the Senate, Silver projects Boxer over Fiorina 49.3% to 47.7%, with Boxer having a 58.7% chance of winning.
The takeaway here is that this race is extremely close, as is the Senate race. It will come down not to persuasion, but to turnout. Every vote counts in November. I know people have been complaining about this or that aspect of the Brown campaign, but the time for that is over. Californians, progressives especially, have to decide whether they want a radical, destructive, elitist right-winger governing them or whether they want to have a chance at making a more progressive California with Brown.
At Wednesday night's debate, Carly Fiorina refused to take a position on Proposition 23, the initiative backed by Texas oil companies and polluters that would stop state action on global warming (which Fiorina dismisses as "the weather") and would devastate the green jobs industry:
Pilar Marrero: "...so I have a double question: what is your position in Prop 23 and do you think global warming is real, or is it just a problem with the weather?"
Fiorina: You know, the ad that you are referring to was really talking about national security and what are our priorities for national security, and I think that's a very legitimate question to be asked of Senator Boxer who has been campaigning since 1992 on cutting our military budget in half, who believes that terrorists should be given the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens. That is what that ad was about. We should always have the courage to examine the science. But all scientists agree on this: the only way to impact global warming is to act globally. A state acting alone will make no difference. What we need in this country, a priority of mine, if I am fortunate enough to gain the confidence of the voters of California, will be a national and comprehensive energy bill. And that means that AB 32 would be superseded. It should be. It would have been superseded by Barbara Boxer's cap and trade bill, but her bill was completely the wrong track. It would have cost us trillions of dollars in lost economic output, millions of jobs, it doesn't do enough to fund energy R&D. What we need to do in a comprehensive energy policy is fund energy R&D. We need to give more federal funding to Lawrence Livermore for example. We need to give more to Berkeley. We also need to take advantage in an environmentally responsible way of every source of energy we have including nuclear, wind, solar, and we have to acknowledge that we cannot put bills in place that punish excessively energy intensive industries like farming, like manufacturing, and like small business owners.
Moderator: Time is up but you didn't answer part of Pilar's question which is: do you support Prop 23 which would suspend AB 32?
Fiorina: My focus is on a national energy policy. Because that is...
Moderator: Yes or no? Just answer. Do you support it?
Fiorina: I have not taken a position on it yet, because I think what we are doing, there's no question in my mind and there's no question in people who have studied AB 32 that AB 32 is at the very least in the short-term a job killer, so why would we go forward, but what we need is national energy policy.
Boxer's retort to Fiorina's desperate desire to avoid the issue of Prop 23 was "if you won't take a stand on Prop 23, what will you take a stand on?"
Today we learn that in the space of 48 hours, Fiorina's hesitation has magically evaporated, and now she supports Prop 23. According to an email her campaign sent earlier today:
Proposition 23 (Suspends Implementation Of AB 32 Until Unemployment Drops To 5.5 Percent Or Less For Full Year): SUPPORT
"Proposition 23 is a Band-Aid fix and an imperfect solution to addressing our nation's climate and energy challenges. The real solution to these challenges lies not with a single state taking action on its own, but rather with global action. That's why we need a comprehensive, national energy solution that funds energy R&D and takes advantage of every source of domestic energy we have - including nuclear, wind and solar - in an environmentally responsible way. That said, AB 32 is undoubtedly a job killer, and it should be suspended."
Of course, a cap-and-trade system such as that in AB 32, or a carbon tax would both fund energy R&D. And AB 32 is already fueling the development of solar and wind energy here in California, creating thousands of jobs.
But Fiorina believes those jobs should be destroyed for the same reason she destroyed tens of thousands of jobs at HP - because those jobs get in the way of her or her wealthy cronies making more money.
As to AB 32's impact on jobs, other Silicon Valley leaders - successful Silicon Valley leaders, I might add, as opposed to the failed CEO that is Carly Fiorina - have pointed out how AB 32 creates jobs:
[Venture capitalist Vinod] Khosla stated his position clearly on the oil-backed ballot measure: "Prop 23 will kill the market and the single largest source of job creation in California in the last two years." Innovation started happening in California, and the next ten Googles of greentech will be created there, because the market is there, he said. If California's market is destroyed, countries like China and other states will have a competitive edge and those next ten Googles will be built in those markets, said Khosla.
Google's [Bill] Weihl agreed and said that AB32 has helped create companies and jobs and has been one of the brightest spots in the economy in the state. While many studies and researchers back this position, other conflicting studies have also found that AB32 could reduce the number of jobs (which is the fear that Prop 23 is tapping into). Think about AB32 as a 401K, said Khosla, you put aside a little bit month by month, but over time you save a whole lot. "It's an investment in our future."
Fiorina doesn't believe in investing in our future, however. She believes instead in pillaging the future to enrich a small elite here in the present. No wonder she supports Prop 23 - it's all part of her larger crusade to destroy the California economy and create mass unemployment in order to enrich herself and her friends.
Meg Whitman briefly checked in with the San Mateo County Courts a couple of days ago, and was told that she was on call. She got that call, and apparently the whole buying the governor is going to get her out of jury duty for the time being.
Earlier in the day, while being questioned, Whitman told attorneys she would serve if selected but acknowledged this is "not a good time for me to give 100 percent."
Defense attorney Richard Keyes asked the former eBay CEO if, considering "the nature of your current position "... this might be one of those cases that it's not the right time" to serve on a jury.
"I would try my very best," Whitman replied. "Whether it is the right time for me is another question," she added, drawing laughs from the courtroom.(SJ Merc)
Whitman was "Juror No. 11", which meant that unless she was disqualified for some reason, she would have been on the pool. We all have lives and commitments, some of us choose to honor them, and honor our democracy by doing the little things, like jury duty, and, well, voting. Running for governor is great, and it takes a special person to do it.
It also takes a special person to sit on a jury for a terrible child molestation case. Or to work as an in-home support service worker, or as a teacher.
Perhaps Queen Meg would be served well by partaking in the tasks of everyday Californians a bit more.
The secretive, many-tentacled Koch Industries has just donated a million dollars to the Yes on 23 campaign. Tesoro Industries, another Texas oil business, has matched that amount. Scorecard:
Total Contributions to date: $8,221,096
Contributions from oil interests: $7,987,995 (97% of the total)
Contributions from out of state: $7,307,995 (89% of the total)
Valero, Tesoro & Koch Industries: $6,575,000 (80% of the total)
In Sacramento yesterday, the 3rd District Court of Appeals rejected a right-wing attempt to force the state (in the form of AG Jerry Brown and Governor Schwarzenegger) to appeal Judge Vaughn Walker's decision striking down Proposition 8.
A state appeals court has denied a conservative law group's request that it force Attorney General Jerry Brown and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to defend Proposition 8 in federal court.
The denial was issued Wednesday and entered Thursday on the website of the 3rd District Court of Appeals in Sacramento.
"I guess we'll have to file another emergency petition with the California Supreme Court," said Kevin Snider, chief counsel for the Sacramento-based Pacific Justice Institute.(SacBee)
Thing is, the two elected leaders have a fairly wide level of discretion in this case. If they don't feel that there is a strong case on appeal, which they pretty clearly showed by not bothering to defend it in the first place.
At the debate last night, moderator and KTVU political editor Randy Shandobil got frustrated with Fiorina's evasive answers on Prop 23. Apparently the other reporters at the post-debate press conference were getting pretty frustrated with the situation as well.
Well folks, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Carly Fiorina supports Prop 23 and the death of AB 32. She said as much in the debate. When she evaded the answer, she said specifically that it would "make sense to suspend it" or something to that effect. Ladies and germs, that is what Prop 23 is arguing that they want to do. Not sure how much more clear it can be made. She can hem and haw all she wants, but she can't jujitsu this one. She opposes Prop 23, but doesn't want to say as much because that will turn off environmentally minded voters and signal that she isn't some sort of moderate that she is trying to play.
Nope, Carly Fiorina is just another short-sighted CEO who couldn't even manage the short-sighted goals of increasing stock value at HP. She likes to posture, even going so far as hiding her impressive educational resume to build up her "rags to riches" street cred. But, California voters can see through these charades.
The Fresno Bee provides some more details on the report that former "Democrat" Nicole Parra, former Assemblymember who fell out with Speaker Karen Bass and the rest of the Democratic caucus after voting against the budget in 2008, is going to help the Meg Whitman campaign:
Former Democratic Assemblywoman Nicole Parra has signed on to help Meg Whitman woo Democratic and independent voters, the Republican gubernatorial candidate's campaign said this morning.
That's no surprise. Parra is helping Republican U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina in a similar capacity....
In a written statement, Parra said she would travel the state talking to Democratic and independent voters "who are tired of the old ways of thinking and are looking for fresh ideas and a new style of leadership from their elected officials. We will be talking about Meg's plan for improving the economy, controlling spending and fixing our public schools, issues that Californians care most about. Democratic and independent voters will help lead Meg to victory in November."
Carla Marinucci adds via Twitter that Parra will "lead" Whitman's outreach efforts to Dem and DTS voters.
Parra re-registered as an independent, and helped Danny Gilmore win her old seat in 2008 as part of the ongoing Parra-Florez family war in the Central Valley. So apparently she's got a chip on her shoulder against Democrats, and is doing all she can to help elect Republicans.
It certainly helped Gilmore in 2008. But I'm not so sure it'll help Whitman. Parra's tour in support of Whitman begins in Oakland, where I'm guessing the reaction she'll receive from Dem and DTS voters is "Nicole who?"
Parra has absolutely no presence outside of part of the San Joaquin Valley. Nobody knows who she is, particularly Democratic and DTS voters. Whitman is probably hoping to use her as an example of a Democrat who saw the light and now supports Republicans, but that tactic usually only works if voters actually know something about that person. Most Californians outside the San Joaquin Valley will simply shrug at this unknown figure, and I'm not even sure Parra will have much impact in the Valley either.
Ultimately this suggests Whitman isn't really putting very much of a priority on winning over Dem and DTS voters. Instead she is quietly building up a powerful field organizing apparatus, which she test drove to great effect in support of Sam Blakeslee's successful campaign to win the SD-15 special election, in order to crank her right-wing Republican base to turn out in an election where Democratic turnout isn't likely to be as high as it was in 2008.
Jim Sanders has some interesting thoughts, many of which have passed between my two ears over the last couple of weeks with the closing of the legislative sessions. Specifically, there have been a few instances of crass political maneuvering outweighing policy. Not that it is anything new, nor is the impact of lobbyists anything innovative. But it seems, as the legislature has completely lost its institutional knowledge, the power of the almighty lobbyist dollar has become magnified. And Sanders has some specific examples, take for example the interesting case of the plastic bag measure, AB 1998.
Plastic bags have been "banned" from major San Francisco groceries for several years now. The sky has not fallen, and prices have not skyrocketed. You see more reusable bags these days (which is an incontrovertible good), and a bunch more paper (which is a bit of a wash). But, what is also clear is that the plastic bags are killing the San Francisco Bay and other California waterways. Millions are floating around the bay, and drastic action is necessary, as these things just don't break down over any short-term horizon.
But, you know, as Dustin Hoffman learned in The Graduate: "plastics!"
Supporters of the plastic-bag ban struggled to overcome an army of lobbyists - including former Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez - and a tsunami of "misleading ads," said Dan Jacobson, of Environment California.
"Money was no object," he said of opponents, who also unleashed a flurry of political donations.
"If the American Chemistry Council wasn't in the middle of the debate, this would have been a no-brainer bill getting through the Legislature and to the governor's desk," said Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, a Santa Monica Democrat who proposed the ban.
But Tim Shestek, of the chemistry council, said accusations of undue influence unfairly ignore that the coalition of AB 1998 supporters was high-powered as well, including grocers, labor groups, environmentalists and legislative leaders. (SacBee)
Was it a fair fight, maybe, maybe not, but the greater issue is that the paid corporate interests are now drowning out the voices of the people. Even if legislators make a concerted effort to talk to constituents, they get flooded with industry spurred communication.
There are many reasons for these issues, and some have no simple cure. BUt surely, some sort of fix that allows our legislators to gain the upper hand through experience in their position before they are on to the next gig would be a reasonable starting point.
There was always a massive contradiction - or one might say, a dishonest hypocrisy of stunning proportions - at the heart of Carly Fiorina's US Senate campaign. She touts herself as someone who can create jobs, but her record as the failed and fired CEO of Hewlett-Packard shows her to be one of the worst offenders when it comes to corporate destruction of American jobs.
Fiorina destroyed tens of thousands of jobs while CEO of HP between 1999 and 2005, many of which were shipped overseas. When she was excoriated for this, particularly by the Silicon Valley press during the severe dot-com bust of the early '00s, Fiorina responded by calling outsourcing "right-sourcing" and saying "there is no job that is America's god-given right anymore." Her record is that of someone who got rich by destroying jobs - yet she now declares herself an advocate of job creation, even while opposing the federal stimulus, federal aid to states to hire teachers, and other programs that have been proven to create jobs.
That is not only a contradiction, it's also a big campaign liability that was just waiting for someone to exploit it. And that's exactly what Senator Barbara Boxer did in last night's debate. She opened with this line of attack:
So every time you really get past the surface, you see my opponent fighting for the billionaires, for the millionaires, for the companies who ship jobs overseas.
And it only got worse for Fiorina from there. One of the audience questions selected came from a Republican on the San Mateo Peninsula named Tom Watson, a retired HP employee. His question was:
Carly, while you up were at HP, you sent thousands of jobs offshore, you coined the phrase right shoring. Also, in a keynote speech in 2004, you said, "there is no job that is america's god-given right anymore." Do you still feel that way? Or what are your plans to create jobs in California?
At this point, Fiorina could no longer hide from her past. But instead of accepting responsibility, she made it sound like it was others' fault for her own actions:
The truth is that California has higher-than-average unemployment rate because we are destroying jobs and others are fighting harder for our jobs. Texas is fighting harder for our jobs. So is North Carolina, Brazil, Guatemala, China, India, Russia, Poland. I know precisely why those jobs go. And I'll tell you why. Because China, for example, like Texas, like Brazil, gives companies huge tax credits. They help them cut through regulation.
Fiorina here is repeating the lie that California's job woes are created by overburdened companies seeking less regulations. In fact, as Jed Kolko of the PPIC showed in June, California doesn't really lose that many jobs to other states due to business relocation:
Rhetoric aside, California loses very few jobs to other states. Businesses rarely move either out of or into California and, on balance, the state loses only 11,000 jobs annually as a result of relocation-that's just 0.06 percent of California's 18 million jobs. Far more jobs are created and destroyed as a result of business expansion, contraction, formation, and closure than because of relocation.
What Kolko didn't add is that California also loses a lot of jobs when wealthy CEOs decide to fire their California workers to hire someone overseas so that the CEO and their allies can make more quarterly profit. Fiorina claims companies are forced into doing it, even though when Fiorina did it at HP, it nearly destroyed the company as its profits fell.
Boxer responded by hitting Fiorina hard on her record of mass layoffs and opposition to job creation policies, and obviously Fiorina felt rattled. After Carla Marinucci wasted everyone's time with a pointless and off-topic question about an exchange Boxer had with a general during a Senate committee hearing, Fiorina herself felt the need to come back to the issue, digging her political grave deeper:
It's a shame that Barbara Boxer would use Hewlett-Packard, a treasure of California, one of the great companies in the world, whose employees work very hard and whose shareholders have benefited greatly from both my time at CEO and all of the hard work of the employees that I had the privilege to lead.
I'm sure this condescending and dismissive statement, where Fiorina ignores the damage she did, the lives she ruined, will go over well among the tens of thousands of hardworking HP employees she laid off.
From there, Boxer hit Fiorina extremely hard on the issues, to the point where Fiorina clearly began losing ground. By the end of the night, the debate had become a rout, with Fiorina thoroughly beaten. Here are some of the highlights, showing how far-right and out of touch with Californians Fiorina is:
• Fiorina wouldn't take a position on Prop 23, which would destroy the state's growing green jobs economy, to which Boxer replied "Well, if you can't take a stand on prop 23, I don't know what you will take a stand on."
• Fiorina supports overturning Roe v. Wade and thinks that women who have a life-threatening pregnancy should not be allowed to have an abortion
• Fiorina supports repealing the state's assault weapons ban, put into place after dozens of people were massacred in tragedies like 101 California
• Fiorina also supports letting people on the no-fly list own weapons. Fiorina claims the problem is that the no-fly list is flawed. It is. So why not clean it up instead of letting anyone on it own a gun, whether their presence on the list is legitimate or not?
• Fiorina opposes marriage equality, which a majority of Californians (according to some recent polls) now supports.
Boxer gave a strong response to all of these, and added her own points showing how she would be a strong progressive leader. She pointed out, correctly, that overturning Roe v. Wade would turn doctors into criminals and lead to the deaths of (at least) thousands of women. She said she would appoint Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and reminded the public of her long and principled opposition to the Iraq War.
But overall, the night was won by Boxer not just because she showed her progressive colors, but because of how effectively she expose the contradiction at the heart of Fiorina's campaign. It's just not credible that someone who destroyed tens of thousands of California jobs, and who has opposed every federal effort to create new jobs, would somehow lead the creation of new jobs in California.
Instead the inescapable truth is that Fiorina is using her claims of supporting job creation as a cover for her true agenda, which is to promote further tax cuts for the rich and regulation cuts for large corporations, in order to enrich herself and her wealthy allies while the rest of the country suffers higher unemployment, more pollution, and less safe living standards.
Fiorina was exposed as a fraud by Barbara Boxer last night. Let's hope Californians get that message.
UPDATE: Others are making similar assessments, with the LA Times writing that:
For much of the hourlong debate, Boxer kept her opponent on the defensive by steering her answers into scathing critiques of Fiorina's record as chief executive at Hewlett-Packard, where she fired more than 30,000 workers before she was dismissed in 2005.
The Senate debate will be streamed live at 7 PM on ktvu.com, as well as on the real tv in the Bay area on Channel 2. See the flip for full details on where to watch/listen to the debate.
There are a number of major issues to be discussed, but expect to hear a lot of questions about the economy, jobs, and perhaps a word or two about the environment. Any thoughts?
* After spending nearly $9 million attacking Meg Whitman, California Working Families, a labor-backed IE, will be gearing down as Jerry Brown prepares to gear up.
* Illegal immigration is on the down swing. No big shock when you consider the economy in the United States right now.
Over in the right wing California blogosphere, they've worked themselves into a lather at the possibility of being denied the right to put some legislation to a referendum. Well, Joel Fox, Jon Fleischman and other Chamber of Commerce types anyway. This delightful post is from Loren Kaye of the California Foundation for Commerce:
Enter Proposition 25. Through careful word-smithing, the drafters created a loophole in the referendum power. They created a category of statutes, called "other bills providing for appropriations related to the budget bill," that would be approved by a majority vote, yet qualify for the exemption under "urgency measures," because they go into effect immediately.
Here's the heart of the complaint: urgency measures, such as budget trailer bills, go into effect right away. And thus, they can't be put to a referendum. Under the old rules, I suppose the Right didn't have a problem with that because they had a minority that could block the measure. And we know how the Right feels about the constitution and this pesky representative democracy that is clearly an experiment destined for failure. Washington DC is a passing fad I suppose.
Direct democracy feels better to them, with the wonderful opportunities that a few million dollars can bring. But the trouble is that there is no "there there." Most importantly, Prop 25 takes away no right of referendum. There was previously no right to put the urgency budget bills to a referendum now, so nothing changes, it is just that under Prop 25, you only need a majority.
But the crux of their argument is that now the Democrats are going to go crazy with their wild-eyed progressive bonanza. (Which after the last few days of Democrats voting against progressive legislation over and over again, doesn't seem to be much of a problem anyway.) And boogah-boogah no power to put it on the ballot. Except that Fox and friends seem to miss the part about these urgency measures and the requirement for them to be budgetary measures.
Substantive measures cannot be tied into the budget. For years, the same power has existed around electoral legislation. Legislation could, in theory, be tucked into legislation surrounding our elections, and be free of the possibility of a referendum. Except that that there is another rule: the single subject rule. Under the constitution, legislation can have just one subject, in this case the budget. Any substantive new policy in these bills would violate the single subject rule, and would thus be plucked out.
In the end, it is just another desperate false attack to keep Californians scared.
A portion of Modoc County voters on Tuesday approved the creation of a hospital district and a parcel tax of $195 per year to save its bankrupt medical center.
The hard-red rural county (population 9,184) is the largest per-capita recipient of state spending. Their tiny medical center has been losing money for a decade, despite the county supervisor's cutbacks in service and improper allocation of state funds intended for education and transportation.
The County requested a $12.5 million loan from the state after a State Controller's audit revealed that the supervisors had misallocated... $12.5 million dollars. The new hospital district will generate $3.1 million per year and be governed by its own board, independently of the the County.
Modoc has 5,667 registered voters, Only 3,724 voters whose properties lie within the new district participated in the mail-in election. Turnout among those was 63%. The vote to create the district passed by 70% and the vote for the parcel tax passed by 68%.
Two myths have been busted in Modoc:
1) The myth of Republican fiscal competence, and
2) The myth that California voters will not tax themselves to fund government-run services.
