On Clean Money Day, people from all over the nation will be talking about what we can do to take back the government from the big money interests that have overrun the system.  But in California, we can do even more.  That’s because the California Nurses Association (CNA) has gotten their Clean Money Initiative qualified for the November 2006 ballot.

The Clean Money Initiative has tremendous potential to get us on th right track towards an election system in which we can be take pride.  It provides public financing to campaigns through a small increase in the corporate tax.  While it does have a slight skew towards the two current major parties, it is the best solution that is currently on the table.  Passing this initiative along with Sen. Lowenthal’s redistricting amendment would go a long way towards providing a more workable California government.

Now, don’t take that to mean that I don’t have a full list of other things that need taking care of, but these two proposals are a great place to start.

On the flip, there’s a statement from the California Nurses Association that appears on the California Progress Report as well. Also, check out the Clean Money Day website for more information on screenings of Robert Greenwald’s new film The Big Buy, which chronicles Tom Delay’s theft of the Congress.  The CNA is sponsoring two screenings tonight, one in Oakland and one in Glendale. 

I wouldn’t ordinarily copy a whole press release, but I think the CNA deserves a little space for this accomplishment.

It’s Official – California to Vote on Clean Elections – Initiative Provides Public Financing, Contribution Limits for All

A public financing initiative based on systems already in place in Arizona, Maine, Connecticut, Portland, Or. and Albuquerque, N.M. has qualified the November, 2006 ballot in California.

This initiative is intended to enable elected leaders to focus on the wishes and needs of all its citizens rather than their campaign contributors, and to ensure that elections are about the candidates’ ideas and not about the amount of money they raise.

The California Clean Money and Fair Elections Act establishes a system of public financing for candidates who reject private money and sets tougher limits on contributions from corporations, unions and private individuals. It also closes some current campaign finance loopholes and strives to reduce the influence of professional lobbyists.  It contains strong enforcement provisions as well.

It qualified for the ballot with the signatures of 620,000 Californians in a petition drive sponsored by the California Nurses Association.

Although the initiative has only qualified today, it already has the support of the non-partisan Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, the California Clean Money Campaign, and Public Campaign.

Bipartisan clean elections laws now in place in the other states and cities have increased voter participation, made elections more competitive, inspired greater diversity of candidates, and reduced the influence of professional lobbyists.

Major provisions of the initiative include:

  * Public funding for candidates who agree not to take private money for their campaigns. To qualify for the funds, candidates must meet certain eligibility requirements including collecting a set number of $5 contributions.  Initial grants and matching funds allow “clean” candidates to compete equally with privately funded candidates.
  * Contribution limits that apply across the board to corporations, unions, and individuals: no more than $500 per election cycle to individual legislative candidates, $1,000 for statewide offices, and $1,000 to so-called independent expenditure committees.
  * Aggregate total limits of $15,000 per year per donor to all candidates and committees that seek to influence the election of candidates.
  * A ban on contributions to candidates by lobbyists and state contractors.
  * Limits on contributions to ballot measures. Corporate treasuries will only be able to spend $10,000. Additional contributions from corporations on initiatives may be made, as they are from unions, through political action committees.
  * Extensive public disclosure requirements.
  * Strong enforcement provisions, including removing those who cheat the system from office.
  * Funding will not come from individual taxpayers or the state’s general fund. It will come through an increase in the corporate tax of 20 cents for every $100 of profit or 0.2%. This would restore the corporate tax rate to a figure lower than it was  from 1980 to 1996. (CleanMoneyElections.org 6/26/06)

The Dems agreed to exclude the $23 million that Schwarzenegger had included in his May rewrite of his proposed budget.  However, it looks like the Governator agreed to work with them over the summer to get additional funding for the county health insurance programs.

With four days to go before the end of the fiscal year, legislative leaders and the governor reached agreement Monday on a state spending plan that they predicted would be in place by the July 1 deadline for the first time in six years.

The roughly $131-billion deal would pay back billions the state borrowed from schools in recent years to close budget shortfalls, as well as accelerate repayment of billions of dollars in bonds the state sold to fund transportation and other projects. … The deal includes a reduction in community college fees, new arts and physical education initiatives in public schools, a modest expansion of child care and other programs for the poor and a substantial boost for law enforcement.

Left out of the deal are the funds the governor and Democrats were hoping would be used to expand healthcare programs for low-income children. GOP lawmakers refused to support such an expansion because it would make health insurance available to children who are here illegally. Democrats received a commitment from the governor to work with them on expanding health insurance for low-income children later in the summer. (LA Times 6/27/06)

Now, getting the GOP to agree to additional health care spending in this area seems to be a difficult position.  Once again the problem is that the Reps have decided that they must toe this line in the sand, and a very artificial line at that.  The only people this is hurting are children?  Are we prepared to make children the pawn in some national pissing match?  It seems ludicrous and mean spirited…because it is.  The Democrats have been working in earnest to see this budget through to completion, all the while trying to deal with the GOP veto over the budget working to thrwart the will of the people.

So, my congratulations for completion of the budget, but the work is not yet complete.  We need to increase funds to the health insurance programs.  For more information on the California Budget, take a look at California Progress Report.  Frank’s going to be in Sacramento today reporting on the budget process.  Also, for background try the California Budget Project.

San Francisco Pride went off with nary a hitch.  While many seemed to most excited by Jennifer Beals, I was excited to see Phil Angelides appear at the event.  He also attended the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club annual Pride Breakfast.  Also, I was told by Mark Leno that Angelides was going to be riding in the parade with him, but I was running around and didn’t get to see him in the parade.  If, in fact, he was able to appear in at least part of the parade, it would mark the first time a major party gubenatorial nominee has appeared at Pride in San Francisco, possibly in the nation at large.  It’s refreshing to see a candidate that isn’t afraid of showing his support for the LGBT community.  Angelides also promised that if Mark  Leno’s gay marriage bill reaches him as governor, he will sign it. 

Mayor Newsom, Sen Migden, and all the usual SF elected officials appeared at the event, which attracted.  The picture was taken at the Pink Triangle Event held at Twin Peaks on Saturday morning of (L->R) Brian Devine, Mark Leno, and Brian Leubitz (SFBrianCL).  The event commemorates the discrimination faced by the community and usually draws a nice crowd for the unveiling of the giant pink triange on the side of the hill.

In last November’s special election, Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to ram a flawed redistricting proposition down the the throat’s of the California electorate.  Fortunately, the voters saw through it as a soft-core version of Tom Delay’s power grab in Texas.  Yes, the GOP knew that it wouldn’t be able to consolidate its power like it did in Texas, but they figured this would be a great way to possibly pick up a seat by using mostly Republican ex-judges.

However, I’ve always thought that we need a new way of redistricting.  Our general elections are drifting towards sham status.  Primaries are becoming the real election, and this causes the legislative candidates to become increasingly partisan.  It has yielded an assembly that is so hamstrung because both sides have retreated to their base and are unwilling to see the side’s position.  For example, at this point no GOP state legislator could really vote for tax increases.  They would soon be targeted by Grover Norquist and his gang for a primary challenge, and there goes his (or her) career.  And the primary pressures are causing both sides to want spending increases, but tax increases to support them are verboten by Norquist decree.

Wouldn’t it be great if every seat in the nation was truly competitive?  Where the seats were drawn by some reasonable cartographer?  Wow, that would be nice.  Well, now redistricting is back. Sen Alan Lowenthal’s (D-Long Beach) proposed consitutional amendment has support from both sides of the aisle.

A year ago, voters struck down Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s redistricting reform, turned off by what appeared to be a crass power grab to reshape legislative districts.

Less than a year later, state lawmakers are back with another reform ballot proposal — to create an independent redistricting commission that would redraw the lines that determine the political balance of power in California.

“This is a much cleaner proposal. But, it will need support from both sides,” said state Sen. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, the author of the measure, SCA 3. “People must be able to see that one party is not going to have an advantage over the other party. That’s crucial.”
***
Lawmakers must move quickly to get the measure on the November ballot. There is an official, though not strict, Thursday deadline. If they don’t make it, proponents may have to wait for 2008 to put it on the ballot.
(CoCoTimes 6/26/06)

And this time it’s done right: No mid-decade redistricting.  This time we’d wait until the 2010 census.  More on the flip…

One other issue raised is the tension between geographical continuity, that is having cities and counties in one region, and having competitive districts. 

But Democrats — perhaps leery of losing their big majority in the two legislative chambers — struck a provision that would have encouraged the commission to create competitive districts, instead putting more emphasis into drawing boundaries that avoid cutting through cities and counties.

The Center for Governmental Studies, in a study published last month, chastised that decision: “Commissions, without explicit instructions to define and prioritize competitiveness as a redistricting objective, are unlikely to achieve significant gains in the number of competitive districts.”

But much of California, Lowenthal said, has regional characteristics that can’t be forced into competitive boundaries.

“One goal is competitiveness, but it’s not the only goal,” he said. “There will be some areas where it will be competitive. But I don’t want to sell this like it’s going to create all these competitive districts.”

Both of these goals are tremendously important.  During Delay’s power grab, the Texas Legislature, which sure hates Austin, decided that there should be no representative that covers the bulk of one of the largest and fastest growing cities in the nation.  So, instead they saw fit to give a two-mile stretch of 6th Street, one of the city’s largest tourist attractions, into three different districts.  This should not happen in California.  We need districts that are both competitive and reasonable in terms of geography.  There are just some seats that will never be competitive (i.e. a couple of GOP seats in the O.C., San Diego and Inland, and several Dem seats in LA and SF.)  We needn’t force competiveness where there is a shared political sense in a region.  Rather, we should hope for districts that are drawn with a more reasonable geography, and then worry about competitiveness.

The actual system for annointing the new commissioners is a rather complex game.  Actually, it would make a very interesting game theory study, but well, hopefully that won’t happen. Here’s the CoCo Times’ description:

A look at how a redistricting commission would be selected under the proposed constitutional amendment:

• The California Judicial Council will choose 10 judges — five from each party — who will in turn nominate 50 potential commissioners.

• The 50 nominees must consist of 19 Democrats, 19 Republicans and 12 others who have not stated their party or belong to a third party.

• The four legislative leaders will then be allowed to remove two people from the opposing party, eliminating up to eight nominees.

• From the 42 remaining nominees, the judges will vote and select eight commissioners — with no more than four from either the Republican or Democratic party.

• Those eight commissioners then will choose the remaining three commissioners among the 12 who have no party ties for a total of 11.

Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Phil Angelides, Arnold Schwarzenegger, CA-04, CA-11, Richard Pombo, John Doolittle, Brian Bilbray, Ken Calvert, health care, corruption, immigration.

Governor’s Race

• In which Schwarzenegger pretends to care about firefighters, at least until November.
• Shari from An Old Soul does some muck-raking on Arnold’s “Education Coalition”. Turns out it’s got a heavy tilt toward people who want to destroy public education. The “Coalition” bit is probably true, though, so Schwarzenegger is batting 50% for truthiness. Schuyler Hall is not impressed either.
• Jonathan Singer at MyDD notes that Schwarzenegger was Latino-friendly in 2003 (running for office), for the Minutemen militarizing the border in 2005 (“governing”), and is now trying to tapdance around the Republican militarization of the border in 2006 (running for office again). What was the phrase for that? F..? Fl? Flick-flack? Oh, yeah, flip-flop.
• Shorter Joe Scott on one potential winning Angelides tactic: “Why did Arnold Schwarzenegger cross the road? Because he was following George Bush.”
• PowerPAC on Phil Angelides and the common good.