Daily Archives: March 27, 2008

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Migden Reduced to Spoiler Role in State Senate Race

Even more reasons that the CDP must not endorse Carole Migden.

Randy Shaw wrote this for today’s Beyond Chron.

In late February, a David Binder poll found State Senator Carole Migden badly trailing Mark Leno and Joe Nation in the race for Senate District 3. Since that time, Migden agreed to pay $350,000 in fines for state campaign law violations, filed a federal lawsuit against the FPPC challenging campaign finance limits as unconstitutional, and was sued by the FPPC for $9 million in an action that charged, among other violations, that Migden “failed to report a number of large transactions entirely, while reporting other large transactions which simply never occurred.” In political trouble before the FPPC’s actions, Migden now has no chance to win re-election. She appears to be remaining in the race solely to defeat Leno, a strategy that would put a moderate Democrat from Marin in a seat that would otherwise be held by a San Francisco progressive.

In my view, Carole Migden lost her chance for re-election when tapes were released of 911 calls from terrified fellow drivers commenting on her reckless driving down Interstate 80.  Migden blamed health problems for her conduct and agreed to stop driving, but voters were unlikely to forgive her for the peril she caused those sharing the highway with her that day.

Migden and her backers insisted she could overcome the reckless driving charge, and a few months later was back behind the wheel. The State Senator also remained defiant after agreeing to pay $350,000 in campaign finance violations, insisting that voters “don’t care” about such violations.

Migden is likely correct that voters do not care about technical violations in campaign reporting, but her record as the politician who has been most fined for FPPC violations in California history is a different matter. Migden now faces a massive $9 million lawsuit for violations so egregious as to create the impression that the longtime politician has flouted campaign finance laws with impunity.

Republicans, not progressive Democrats, are those typically complaining about campaign finance restrictions. Yet it is Migden who will ask a federal court on April 1 to strike down as unconstitutional longstanding campaign finance regulations, all so that she can spend money she raised for her Assembly campaigns on the State Senate race.

This has been a bad week for the incumbent. On Monday night, Migden failed to win the sole endorsement of the San Francisco Labor Council, as it jointly endorsed both her and Leno.

The Council’s failure to solely endorse an incumbent Democrat shows her weakness as a candidate, and that this is becoming a Leno-Nation race. Leno has the stronger progressive record, and would be the clear favorite were he not losing some progressive votes to Migden.

If Migden cared about ensuring the Senate seat is occupied by a San Francisco progressive from the queer community, she would withdraw from the race. But word from those who know Migden is that she will keep campaigning in order to prevent Leno’s victory; she not only feels personally betrayed by Leno running against her, but believes that if he had not run, she would have coasted to re-election despite her reckless driving and campaign finance violations.

There is ample precedent of weakened incumbents dropping out of races to help ensure the election of a candidate of a similar ideological bent. Republican Congressmember John Doolittle of nearby Sacramento faced controversy over campaign law violations, and it looked for some time as if Democrat Charlie Brown would easily take the seat in November 2008.

But Doolittle put his ideology ahead of personal ambition and dropped out of the race. Conservative Tom McClintock has since declared his candidacy, and Republicans are now favored to keep the seat.

New Jersey Senator Robert Torricelli faced a situation similar to Migden, in that only a few months before the November 2002 election polls showed him losing to his Republican opponent. Torricelli dropped out of the race, and his Democratic replacement won the November election and continues to serve in the U.S. Senate.

Of course, Migden’s rivalry with Leno has a personal component lacking in the above two examples. Migden sees Leno as a Judas for running against her, while his backers would argue that she betrayed her former fundraiser when she backed Harry Britt against Leno in the 2002 Assembly race.

Migden’s personal animus toward Leno explains her willingness to play the spoiler role.

And if her spoiler strategy works and Nation wins,  it will be the district’s progressive constituents who will pay the price.

Budget

Immigrant Bashing Is Not A Budget Solution

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In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, California believed it could solve its economic crisis by deporting 2 million Mexican and Mexican American residents – including many US-born citizens. It did absolutely nothing to ameliorate the Depression – you cannot exclude your way to prosperity – but nevertheless the deportations went on throughout the decade.

The Assembly Republicans, better known as the Yacht Party, appear to be heading down the same failed path. They have come up with the foolish idea that the budget crisis can be balanced by attacking immigrants:

Assembly Republicans this week promoted nearly two dozen bills they said would reduce the “negative impact” that illegal immigrants have on the state budget and border security. The proposals range from requiring individuals to show proof of citizenship when receiving state-funded benefits to repealing a law enabling undocumented students to pay in-state college tuition….

Assembly Republicans on Tuesday said illegal immigrants cost the state $9 billion annually, citing a Federation for American Immigration Reform study released in 2004. The group estimated that California spends an estimated $7.7 billion alone on education for undocumented students.

Those numbers are suspect at best. In Gil  Cedillo’s response to this nonsense he cites these numbers:

a 2004 Social Security Administration analysis cited a $7 billion surplus in social security contributions as a result of payments from the undocumented, and a study by the Texas state comptroller in December 2006 reported the absence of an estimated 1.4 million undocumented in Texas would result in a loss to gross state product of over $17 billion. No similar analysis has been conducted in California whose undocumented population is similar in size to Texas.

Arnold, for his part, actually got it right in replying to this:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called it a “big mistake” Wednesday to blame illegal immigrants for the state’s looming $8 billion budget gap, just as Republican lawmakers have proposed a rollback of benefits for illegal immigrants to save money….

“There is, you know, always a time like this where you start pointing the finger at various different elements of what creates the budget mess, and, you know, some may point the finger at illegal immigrants,” Schwarzenegger said. “I can guarantee you, I have been now four years in office in Sacramento, I don’t think that illegal immigration has created the mess that we are in.”

Of course, Arnold himself bears most of the responsibility here. And his approach to the budget has been to blame the Legislature and obscure the fact that his actions are what caused this crisis – from the reckless elimination of $6.1 billion in VLF money to the borrowing to close the last deficit to his destructive 10% across the board cuts, this crisis is Arnold’s and Arnold’s alone.

As the recent PPIC numbers show, immigrant bashing has quickly lost its political luster. Fewer and fewer Californians are falling for the Yacht Party’s scapegoating efforts.

California’s future depends on immigration. The trolls in the newspaper and blog comments may not agree, but they are in the minority and unwilling to face reality. The only way to solve our budget crisis is to solve  the structural revenue shortfall, and most Californians now agree.

The Yacht Party merely puts itself further and further out on a limb and out of step with public  opinion each time they propose solutions that benefit the wealthy few at the expense of everyone else. It’s not entirely clear to me how bipartisan solutions are going to work when one of the parties has gone off the deep end like this.

Environment

EPA Goes Tanning Down Under, Leaves a Mess Behind for President ______

Recently, Senator Barbara Boxer(D-CA) got wind of EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson's plans to bring a “substantial number of EPA staffers” on a work-related to Australia next month– and in the process leave a whole lot of worries behind, which Boxer euphemistically refers to as “certain important matters” that he'll be unavailable to testify before Congress about. TPM Muckraker's Paul Kiel provides a useful summary of the matters (which should be familiar to Warming Law readers) on which Johnson might want to avoid Congress, adding that he was unable to get EPA to comment and that Boxer's office understands that the trip is scheduled to last at least two weeks. Boxer is clearly exasperated in the letter she wrote to Johnson yesterday, placing it in the context of EPA's already-scarce budget and noting that he ought to be looking a bit closer to home:

If your goal is to learn about actions to address global warming, I suggest that you visit California, which has moved ahead aggressively with greenhouse gas controls. I invited you to testify in January in California on global warming pollution from vehicles, but you declined.

Still, even though no one should envy Johnson's task of spinning the administration's indefensible delaying tactics during a month that will include Earth Day, the anniversary of Massachusetts v. EPA, answering Rep. Henry Waxman's (D-CA) subpoena, and other political and legal landmines, it seemed a bit too predictable that Johnson would leave the country to avoid these kinds of predictable issues alone. Something else, in other words, had to be up his sleeve.

Enter today's letter to Reps. Ed Markey (D-MA) and James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. Johnson, following up on his most recent testimony about the aftermath of Mass. v. EPA— and repeating its greatest-hits list of the bogus excuses it provided for refusing to issue the necessary endangerment finding for CO2 emissions– announced that he'll be issuing an “Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” (ANPR) later this spring to study industry's concerns the issue, and will follow up with a public comment period. Rep. Markey was not pleased, to say the least:

“The ‘A’ in this document should stand for ‘absurd,’” said Rep. Markey. “This is the latest quack from a lame-duck EPA intent on running out the clock on the entire Bush Presidency without doing a thing to combat global warming. The planet is sick, and instead of rushing to provide emergency medical attention, the Bush Administration has said ‘take 2 aspirin and call me after I leave office’.”

Basically, we've just gone from not having any sort of timetable for an endangerment finding, and thus speculating that EPA will run out the clock or act at the last very minute, to having a rough timetable that confirms exactly that. The more things change, the more they remain the same…unless the courts step in quickly and recognize that this charade is an unreasonable delay, and/or that EPA's incompetent defense of California's waiver denial has actually found endangerment.  

But at least next time he faces hard questions about it, Administrator Johnson will be sporting a nice new tan to hide his red face…

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CA House Races Roundup – March 2008

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Welcome back to the California House races roundup for March.  The races are coming into focus, with new challengers entering the fray before the March 7 deadline, and some actual campaigning between candidates (shocking!).  And with the DCCC looking at four races in the state, California will certainly be a battleground in Congress in November.  

We also know with a fair degree of certainty that Jackie Speier will be the next Representative in CA-12, after Lawrence Lessig declined to run.  The initial primary is April 8 and Speier is heavily favored.

So that leaves just one Democratic seat in any degree of question, and I’ve decided to expand to write about 13 Republican-held seats that have varying degrees of challenges.  Overall, Democrats are running in 18 of the 19 seats currently held by Republicans, and 52 of 53 seats overall.  Only Kevin McCarthy in CA-22 (Bakersfield) is uncontested AFAIK.  You can track these races yourself with the 2008 Race Tracker wiki.

A couple notes: I’ve changed the percentage of Democratic turnout in the February 5 primary statistics to reflect the final numbers from the Secretary of State’s office.  As you’ll see, six of the thirteen Republican-held seats mentioned had majority Democratic turnout.  Very encouraging.  Also, I’ve noted where applicable which challengers have endorsed the Responsible Plan to End The War In Iraq.  My hope is that eventually every candidate will do so; it will absolutely help them in their campaigns to show some leadership and offer a comprehensive strategy to end the war and change our conversation around national security.

DEMOCRATIC SEATS

1. CA-11. Incumbent: Jerry McNerney.  Main challenger: Dean Andal.  Cook number: R+3.  % Dem turnout in the Presidential primary: 53.7%.  DCCC defended.  In researching this race, I’ve noticed that Jerry McNerney gets excellent press inside his district.  He’s moved to more comfortable policy areas for him, like renewable energy and the green economy.  And he was pretty bold in standing up to the fearmongers who ran ads in his district against him about the FISA bill.  The NRCC found some coins in the couch and paid for a “Vote McNerney Out” website in support of their challenger Dean Andal.  But the percentage of Democratic turnout in the district reflects the fact that the demographics really have shifted here.  So, good luck, NRCC.

REPUBLICAN SEATS

I’m going to do three tiers in setting apart the top 13 seats where we have challenges to Republican incumbents.

First Tier

1. CA-04.  Last month: 1.  Open seat.  Dem. challenger: Charlie Brown.  Repub. challengers: Doug Ose, Tom McClintock.  PVI #: R+11.  % Dem turnout in primary: 44.7.  DCCC targeted.  This race is really heating up.  The Tom McClintock welfare queen story has legs, and may damage him in his primary fight against former US Rep. Doug Ose.  A guy running as the ultimate rock-ribbed fiscal conservative can’t be seen enriching himself on the public dole.  The Ose-McClintock primary is getting nasty, with McClintock saying things like “He is one of those congressman that has squandered away our rights.”  Meanwhile, Charlie Brown has kept his promises by donating $17,500 to veterans care providers, an event which got great press.  He also took the endorsement of VoteVets PAC and won an online poll with the veterans’ group, yielding $5,000 for his campaign.  CA-04 is most definitely still in play.

2. CA-26.  Last month: 2.  Incumbent: David Dreier.  Challenger: Russ Warner.  PVI #: R+4.  % Dem. turnout: 50.2.  DCCC targeted.  The first real misstep of the campaign from David Dreier came this month, as he misstated his earnings from stock sales (to the tune of $263,000) in financial disclosure reports.  Russ Warner pounced on it, and Dreier tried to make excuses, but it fits into the narrative of him being out of touch with the district.  

Kristin Ponts, campaign manager for Warner, said, “The idea that David Dreier, who has been in Congress for 27 years, wouldn’t know how to fill out a basic financial disclosure form is absurd.”

Warner called the report an example of the “scandal-plagued culture of corruption” in Washington. He said that it was “no surprise given these recent failures to comply with House ethics rules” that Dreier chose to vote against stronger rules being adopted in the House.

The creation of an independent house ethics office was recently approved by a 229-182 vote with opposition from most Republicans.

That’s a fighting Democrat right there.  Dreier also has a Republican primary challenge, though it doesn’t look to be that big a deal.

3. CA-50.  Last month: 3.  Incumbent: Brian Bilbray.  Challengers: Nick Leibham, Cheryl Ede.  PVI #: R+5.  % Dem. turnout: 50.8.  DCCC targeted.  The press is starting to come around in thinking that this is a legitimate race.  Nick Leibham was profiled in an interview by Lucas O’Connor that was pretty revealing.  I liked this:

We win this fight because their platform is old and it’s worn out…The Reagan Revolution…which started really in 1964 with Goldwater’s defeat…it culminated in 1980 and 1994 and the end of the Bush years are a bookend. It’s tired, it’s played out, and it no longer offers up a positive agenda for America. This isn’t just a change election in the sense of Democrats or Republicans.  This is a paradigm shifting election and Democrats can capture that…they’ve got a lot of work to do but we can capture it and I think the pendulum is swinging our way.

Cheryl Ede, who’s been endorsed by Progressive Democrats of America, has a base of support in the district, as evidenced by this account of an Escondido Democratic Club meeting where Leibham’s policy stances were questioned as perhaps being too conservative.  I think it’s great to be having this debate, and having Democrats locally move their candidates to the most representative positions.  That can only help in the fall.

Second Tier

4. CA-45.  Last month: 4.  Incumbent: Mary Bono Mack.  Challengers: Paul Clay, David Hunsicker, Julie Bornstein.  PVI #: R+3.  % Dem. turnout: 51.3.  As seen by the majority Democratic turnout in the primary, this is a district that’s ripe for a takeover.  And I’m intrigued by the prospect of proven electoral winner Julie Bornstein rising to the challenge.  Bono Mack is married to a guy in Florida and lives in Washington.  Bornstein is someone who’s represented the district and can do the same in the Congress.  And her son is currently serving in Iraq, which is undeniably powerful.  She announced her candidacy on the fifth anniversary of the war.  Her area of expertise is affordable housing, which is a sorely needed perspective in Washington, too.  Keep an eye on this race, it could easily go top-tier.

5. CA-46.  Last month: 7.  Incumbent: Dana Rohrabacher.  Challenger: Debbie Cook (Responsible Plan endorser). PVI #: R+6.  % Dem. turnout: 47.2.  This is going to be the most fun race of the cycle, no doubt about it.  Dana Rohrabacher is crazy.  This is well-known.  He spent an hour on the floor of the Congress recently ranting about a secret investigation about the 1993 WTC bombing that sounded like a first draft from an Oliver Stone movie.  His former aide was just sentenced to three years in prison for molesting young boys.  Howie Klein can give you all the background you’d ever need on Rohrabacher.  And this year, we’re actually poised to capitalize on this.  Debbie Cook is the mayor of Huntington Beach, a solid Democrat who has endorsed the Responsible Plan.  The Rohrabacher people are clearly nervous; they’ve been trying to use legal shenanigans to remove “Mayor” from Cook’s designation on the ballot.  This was tossed out of court, but the strategy is to bleed Cook of money and resources and tangle her up in legal machinations.  It’s almost just as telling that Crazy Dana is teaming up with Maxine Waters and calling for a boycott of the Olympic opening ceremonies in Beijing in protest of the crackdown in Tibet.  He’s trying to moderate his nutball stances.  He’s scared.

6. CA-03.  Last month: 5.  Incumbent: Dan Lungren.  Challenger: Bill Durston. PVI #: R+7. % Dem turnout: 51.8.  As I’ve said earlier, this is the most Democratic seat currently held by a Republican.  It had the highest Democratic turnout in February of any Republican-held seat, and it has the narrowest registration advantage, too.  Bill Durston is a physician and a Vietnam combat veteran.  He needs the resources, but a Democrat can win this district, and maybe some of the national money put into the neighboring district of CA-04 will wear off on people over here.  Plus, Debra Bowen’s relentless registration efforts have their best effect in the districts in and around Sacramento, and these days that means more registered Democrats.  This one will be close.

Also, Dr. Durston wrote a song about war.

Third Tier

7. CA-52.  Last month: 6.  Open seat.  Repub. challengers: several, including Duncan D. Hunter.  Dem. challengers: Mike Lumpkin, Vicki Butcher.  PVI #: R+9.  % Dem. turnout: 47.2.  Duncan Hunter is still favored, but Navy SEAL Commander Mike Lumpkin has been good at raising money, and this interview with him shows that he has a decent command of the issues.  Green Beret Jim Hester dropped out to endorse Lumpkin.  Much like in CA-50, Vicki Butcher has been endorsed by PDA, and will offer a nice progressive counter-weight in the primary.  A contested primary can only help a novice candidate like this.  Here’s a not-so-decent story on the race.

8. CA-42.  Last month: 10.  Incumbent: Gary Miller.  Challengers: Ron Shepston (Responsible Plan Endorser), Ed Chau.  PVI #: R+10.  % Dem. turnout: 44.0.  Disclosure: I do some netroots work for Ron Shepston.  You pretty much can’t find Gary Miller anymore, he’s gone so far underground, but Ron Shepston has become more visible of late.  He endorsed the Responsible Plan, and he attacked Gary Miller for a $1.28 million dollar earmark that he placed in the 2005 highway bill, clearly to benefit his biggest campaign contributor.  Ed Chau is also a bit of a mystery, although the LA County Labor Fed endorsed him.  I can’t imagine they’d put money into the primary, however.

9. CA-24.  Last month: NR.  Incumbent: Elton Gallegly.  Challengers: Jill Martinez, Mary Pallant, Marta Jorgensen.  PVI #: R+5.  % Dem. turnout: 50.6.  I decided to add this seat after seeing the Democratic turnout numbers from February.  If the right candidate can raise enough money to be visible, this is a dark horse seat.  Elton Gallegly is your basic rubber stamp Republican, and he flirted with retirement in 2006.  Jill Martinez was the opponent that year, and Mary Pallant, my fellow 41st AD delegate, appears to be putting together a decent organization locally.  PDA has endorsed Pallant, and she penned an op-ed in the Ventura County Star responding to Elton Gallegly’s no new taxes screed in the same paper.

The congressman plays a numbers game with the people’s money, while distorting history and facts. He feigns compassion for the nation’s middle class and poor while protecting tax loopholes for megamillionaires and the well-connected few.

Gallegly’s tax policy is inconsistent and unsound because it is too simplistic and relies upon the discredited notion of supply-side economics. The only thing that trickles down is massive debt to those least able to pay.

I love a strong an unabashed progressive in this district.  Let’s see what happens.  Marta Jorgensen is also running in this district.

10. CA-44.  Last month: 9.  Incumbent: Ken Calvert.  Challenger: Bill Hedrick.  PVI #: R+6.  % Dem. turnout: 49.3.  Bill Hedrick is the only challenger for this seat headed into the primary, as Louis Vandenberg and Rogelio Morales have dropped out.  Ken Calvert’s corruption questions continue to grow, as he has sponsored legislation that would help some business partners back home.  The fact that Democratic and Republican turnout was virtually tied in February shows that there’s an opportunity here.

11. CA-41.  Last month: 8.  Incumbent: Jerry Lewis.  Challengers: Tim Prince, Dr. Rita Ramirez-Dean.  PVI #: R+9.  % Dem. turnout: 46.3.  Jerry Lewis just got a lifeline from the new US Attorney for Los Angeles.  Thomas O’Brien disbanded the public corruption unit that would be investigating Lewis’ corrupt actions on behalf of lobbyists.  Dianne Feinstein is seeking answers on this, but the short answer is that Lewis is probably out of the woods on the indictment front.

12. CA-25.  Last month: NR.  Incumbent: Buck McKeon.  Challenger: Jacquese Conaway.  PVI #: R+7.  % Dem. turnout: 50.9%.  I threw this in because this is yet another seat where Democratic turnout outpaced Republican turnout in February.  I know nothing about Jacquese Conaway other than her candidate website.

13. CA-48.  Last month: NR.  Incumbent: John Campbell.  Challenger: Steve Young.  PVI #: R+8.  % Dem. turnout: 45.1.  I really like Steve Young and the tireless work he’s done to build the party in one of the reddest areas in the entire country.  Visit his site, won’t you?

Uncategorized

The CDP Must Not Endorse Carole Migden

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Earlier this week, the California Fair Political Practices Commission levied $9 million in fines against Carole Migden for her violations of California law. This new $9 million fine is in addition to the $350,000 the FPPC fined Migden last week. At that time, the $350,000 fine was the largest fine ever levied by the FPPC.  If you have a spare 15 minutes, consider reading my detailed analysis of Carole's most recent problems with the law.

The California Democratic Party meets this weekend and it will vote on whether the Party will endorse Mark Leno, Carole Migden, or Joe Nation for SD-3. The CDP must not endorse Carole Migden.

Carole Migden's repeated and defiant violations California law is reason alone for the Party to not endorse her. To date, she has admitted to violating the law more than 130 separate times. But what is more disturbing is that she shows absolutely no remorse for her illegal actions. Instead, she defiantly continues to break the law and she says that “People don't really care about things like this . . . .”  And this isn't just any law that she broke 130 times.  It is a law in favor of which Carole Migden herself voted. If there are any standards to which we hold our elected officials, shouldn't following the very laws they pass be one of the basic ones?  Or are we going to allow our lawmakers to choose which laws they follow?

The CDP also should not endorse Migden because she has joined forces with Republicans to have California's campaign finance laws (written by John Burton and voted for by Migden herself) declared unconstitutional. In the most desperate of desperate defenses, Carole Migden is trying to claim that the law that she violated somehow is not constitutional. Another fundamental standard to which we must hold elected officials is that they should not put their own financial self-interests above doing what is right for our State. And that's just what Migden is doing. She is willing to sacrifice California's invaluable campaign finance laws to try to protect her own pocketbook from the fines associated with her violations.

The Republican Party would be expected to endorse a candidate that has shown as much disdain for campaign finance laws as Carole Migden.  I expect better of the Democratic Party.  In light of Carole Migden's defiant violations of the law, an endorsement by the CDP of Carole Migden at this time would be to put the CDP's seal of approval on the deplorable actions Carole Migden has taken. I hope our Party does not stoop to that level simply to protect an incumbent.

UPDATE: Check out Beth Spotswood's brilliant writing about Migden in the Chronicle.

Budget

The High Broderists Come To Sacramento

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Seeking to increase the statewide per capita vomit output, this $16 million dollar boondoggle called California Forward continued its weeklong rollout with yet another fawning article, this time from Shane Goldmacher.

Could late and unbalanced budgets, along with partisan gridlock, disappear from Sacramento?

That’s the goal of a new bipartisan political foundation that unveiled its campaign Wednesday to improve state government, bringing along a three-year, $15.9 million budget and high hopes for overhauling the way the state does business.

If there’s one thing we’ve seen over the years, it’s that bipartisan unelected commissions really do change everything.  After all, the Iraq Study Group got us out of the war, right?

“California cannot be a leader in the 21st century if its government is not functioning effectively and efficiently for the people of this state,” said the group’s co-chairman, Leon Panetta, a Democrat who has served in Congress and as chief of staff to President Clinton.

Thomas McKernan, a wealthy Republican activist in Orange County and CEO of the Automobile Club of Southern California, is the other co-chairman.

The foundation’s leaders promised it will differ from past reform coalitions. As board member and former state Sen. Chuck Poochigian, a Fresno Republican, put it, California Forward has “the resources to get the job done.”

You don’t need ten cents to know what has to be done in California.  You need to let elected officials govern.  I believe in checks and balances, but here we have barriers and deadbolts.  And guess what, the entire state understands this already.  Well over 2/3 of the state believe major changes need to be employed in the budget process, like eliminating the stupid requirement allowing 1/3 of the legislature to block tax and budget proposals.  Everyone gets that budget reform needs to reflect democracy.

But closing loopholes, while helpful, doesn’t come close to real budget reform and restoration of the representative democracy and accountability that have been eroded for decades by an initiative process that encourages both ad-hoc automatic spending formulas and paralyzing revenue limits.

The governor properly points out that the common cycles of feast and famine – both in California and elsewhere – make little sense. But the fix is not more formulas. It’s a return to a system of representative government that forces voters to make choices between good services and low taxes, and makes all politicians accountable instead of rewarding them, as the process does now, for fudging, borrowing and irresponsibility.

I don’t think Peter Schrag was given $16 million dollars to come up with that.

Of course, it wouldn’t be right to just advocate for democracy in Sacramento, because that would be too terribly “Democratic.”  It’d ruin the street cred of these sensible wise men, these moderate militants, who think that the best solution necessarily includes a little bit from the left and a little bit from the right, claiming that the real solution is just to tell lawmakers that “governing is more important than winning,” because holding hands in a circle is the $16 million dollar answer.  We actually need partisanship and a politics of contrast so voters can make real choices.  This call for bipartisan solutions only goes out when progressive ideas are flourishing.  Sacramento wasn’t “broken” when the energy market was deregulated.  It wasn’t “broken” when Prop. 13 made it impossible for the state to gather expected revenue.  It’s only “broken” when a tiny group of Yacht Party Republicans are straining to hold back the tide of legitimate government with a proper revenue structure.

And by the way, guy from California Forward who emailed me within 10 minutes of the last time I wrote about this: don’t bother.  I’ve little interest of being assimilated into the Borg.

Budget

PPIC Numbers are encouraging on Revenue, Props 98 & 99

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PPIC unleashed their latest statewide survey late last night, and the numbers are showing improvement for the progressive positions on a number of issues. Prop 98 is going down 37-41, and 99 is up 53-27, and both Democratic nominees are beating McCain. But for this post, I’ll focus on revenue:

Nearly all Californians (94%) see the state budget situation as at least somewhat of a problem today. With the reality of state spending cuts hitting home, concern about the effects has grown dramatically. Today, 56 percent of Californians say they are very concerned about the effects of spending reductions in the governor’s budget plan, up 20 points since January (36%).

The upshot is that Californians are now apparently more willing to consider tax increases as part of a solution to the budget crisis. When asked how they would most prefer to deal with the state’s budget gap, 42 percent of Californians choose a mix of spending cuts and tax increases, up from 36 percent in December. And fewer seem to view spending cuts alone as an option (down from 42% in December to 30% today). Democrats and Republicans remain wide apart on budget solutions-but they have edged closer. Most significantly, Republicans today are less likely than in December to support dealing with the budget gap mostly through spending cuts (down from 61% in December to 50% today) and are more likely to support a mix of spending cuts and tax increases (up from 25% to 35%). One thing all sides can agree on? Majorities of Democrats (66%), independents (67%), and Republicans (69%) believe major changes are needed in California’s budget process.

I added the emphasis there. Just 30% percent of Californians think that we should deal with our budget deficit through cuts alone, and even half of Republicans think that we should be looking at revenue increases. Yet the Republicans continue to fight for the privileges of yacht owners, or oil companies, or other large corporate interests over what is best for Californians. These numbers bear out the fact that the GOP delegation in the legislature no longer represents their constituents. They represent the Club for Growth. They represent the corpse of Howard Jarvis, but they do not represent real, hard-working Californians.

Flip it, please.

Another number that jumps out at you there is the strong support for budget reform. Now, there’s a loaded question if I ever heard one. To Entitled McClintock and his ilk, that means that the legislature should have less power over how to deal with the finances, and letting a minority of the state thwart the democratically elected representatives of the people. While he’s busy taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from the state to make sure his Ventura Cty. gardens are well maintained and attacking the Governator for his mathematics abilities, he’s still got plenty of ideas on how to “fix” the budget on his blog. But, McClintock’s ideas are out of touch with the sentiments of Californians. Californians want their state government to be responsive, rather than endlessly debate the revenue problems without doing anything. Why do 63% of Californians think that the state is run by a few big interests? Probably because they only need a small minority to block the passage of the budget. It’s just too easy for the Chamber, and the HJTAs (Howard Jarvis Tax Association) of the world.

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The Calitics Show: Tomorrow at 4! Check out the mobile site, too

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Sorry to be so brash and commercial about this, but, well, it happens. Tomorrow, Dave Dayen and myself will be hosting another episode of the seriously not regular Calitics at 4 PM. You can listen to the show live on the show page.

Also, in case you haven’t been annoyed by my persistence with the mobile site enough, let me  bother you again. Calitics will, quite simply, be the best source of information for the Democratic convention. Bar none, gold standard, whatever you want. We’ll have several regular posters in San Jose for the event, and you can even comment on the mobile site. We’ll provide plenty of open threads for you to post whatever info you want up there. So, make sure you watch the mobile site  throughout the three days of the convention. mobile site. mobile site. mobile site. There, now you should remember. 🙂