In the days after Proposition 8’s passage, much was made of a CNN Exit Poll showing 70% of African Americans voted for Prop 8. That poll had a number of problems including a small sample size. But the damage had been done, and it soon became conventional wisdom that black voters made the difference, that Obama brought out a huge wave of black anti-gay voters, etc.

But a further review of the evidence, more accurate exit polling, and academic analysis suggests that the 70% figure is way off, as David Mixner reports:

Dr. Fernando Guerra of Loyola’s Levy Center for the Study of Los Angeles did a far more extensive poll than CNN and found that the 70% figure was way too high. The figure is closer to 57% (still not acceptable) but a long way from the 70%. Other models that I have been running in an attempt to get the facts and not the emotions show the latter a more likely figure.

The other data that appears to be emerging (BUT yet to be totally verified) is that African-Americans who early voted (which was a huge number) voted YES while those on election day voted NO. Remember we did not do extensive campaigning in many of the African-American precincts until the final week or so which was long after tens of thousands had already voted. Our campaign was slow to use Obama’s opposition to Proposition Eight which he gave the day after the initiative qualified five months before the election.

That explanation makes much more sense than anything else I’ve seen. Early voters tend to be older and it would make sense if some of them in the African American community were strongly associated with Yes on 8 churches. Once the No on 8 campaign finally got its act somewhat together and did outreach to African Americans, we saw the rewards on Election Day.

Ultimately this reminds us how cheap, stupid, and misguided the scapegoating of African Americans over Prop 8 has been. Prop 8’s passage revealed that the marriage equality movement has a lot of outreach to do in this state – to older voters, voters living in “red California,” to some Latinos and African Americans but also to numerous white voters (if whites had voted strongly No, this discussion would be moot), to Asian and Pacific Islanders, to some religious groups, including LDS Californians.

When the next campaign happens we will be sure to not make these same mistakes. Outreach is going to happen early and often. Just as Barack Obama took his campaign to red America – organizing in places Democrats never before thought they could win, reaching out to voters Dems often ignored – so too must the Prop 8 campaign adopt an inclusive and assertive organizing strategy, mobilizing our base and doing outreach in every community that did not vote strongly enough for marriage equality.

So the legislature has scheduled a weekend vote on a new budget plan for the special session.  It could be that they will vote on Governor Schwarzenegger’s plan without modification.  In fact, that’s almost certain, because Denise Ducheny, the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, is in India until next Wednesday, and unless she’s holding hearings in Mumbai, I don’t think she’ll be marking anything up.

So what exactly ARE they going to vote on?

The basic political dynamic that caused a record-long impasse over the state budget last summer – Republicans blocking any new taxes, and Democrats vowing to protect services from deep spending cuts – has not changed. Even so, Schwarzenegger is expected to gather with the Democratic and Republican leaders this morning, after more than three hours of talks on Monday.

“We’re committed to making a dent in this problem with this Legislature and not waiting until Dec. 1,” Darrell Steinberg, the incoming Democratic Senate leader, said after Monday’s negotiations. But asked if he knew what legislators would be voting on Sunday during the scheduled floor sessions, he said, “We definitely don’t know yet.”

The Governor seemed to suggest in this weekend’s interview with George Stephanopoulos that his proposal would be changed before the vote, but I don’t see how that would happen.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Yet, your critics say that this one-and-a-half- cent sales tax is the most regressive form of tax. It’s going to hit the people who are going through the toughest times right now the hardest.

SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, no one should be that worried about any of that, because remember, the way it works is that the governor puts up a proposal, and then the legislative leaders go and start debating over that and looking into it, if they maybe have a better idea or a different idea. So we have a very collaborative kind of approach to the whole thing. So they may come up with different type of taxes.

Get to work, Sen. Ducheny!  Or maybe the hordes of lobbyists can come up with something.

Meanwhile, at this point, it seems like the best option for the state is to beg the Congress for aid.  The stalemate with the Yacht Party is overwhelmingly likely to continue, and the numbers that California would need to survive are dwarfed by the handouts to banks and other industries.  The Governor has been lobbying for support as well, and Speaker Pelosi appears to agree that some aid is needed.  Without that help, we’re going to see cutbacks even worse than lowering future enrollment at CSU by 10,000 students.  And sadly, it’s better at this point to seek help from Washington than Sacramento.

• The trial on prison overcrowding began today. This could blow another hole in our budget, or could end up in a mass release of prisoners. Either way, this is yet another sad day for a failed corrections system in the state.

• We’ve already run out of money in our fire fighting budget, and exceeded the budget allocation by over $200 million.  Tack it on to the 12Billion in deficit, I suppose.

• Jerry McNerney as the Secretary of Energy?    It seems like more rumor than fact, and his spokesman is denying any contact with Barack Obama.  But this would start a chain reaction and would likely set up a contested special election.  McNerney hasn’t been the best Congressman, but he does have fairly substantial knowledge about energy issues, particularly wind power.

• Markos has an important post on the Prop. 8 protests, the Human Rights Campaign, and grassroots politics.

• Disgraced conservative former SF Supervisor Ed Jew pleaded guilty to lying about where he lived in order to run for Supervisor. Ed Jew lasted only a few months before trying to shake down a business in the City. SF is better for his absence.

• “America’s Sheriff” Mike Carona’s exploits are getting detailed in his corruption trial. Yesterday we learned that one of his contributors got something of a “get out of jail free” card.  Fun, just like a board game!

• In election counting news, Tom McClintock’s lead over Charlie Brown is down to 562 votes, with provisionals to come, which usually favor Democrats.

Dave Johnson, Speak Out California

I came across the article, Why the Economy Grows Like Crazy Amid High Taxes, by Larry Beinhart, and it says some things that the people of California should hear.

Beinhart make some very good points. first, he points out that if you look at the periods of higher taxes, you see that these are the very periods when the economy does much better. He writes,

Examples include World War II and the Truman-Eisenhower years, when it

was around 90 percent, and the Clinton years, when it was high relative

to the preceding and following administrations.

He also points out that big tax cuts are often followed by bubbles and crashes, like the big crashes of 1929, 1987 and 2008.

Beinhart says that one reason for this is that low taxes encourage businesses to distribute profits rather than reinvest them in their companies. When taxes are low the owners have incentive to grab all the cash they can out of the company. But when taxes are high every dollar they take out of the company is immediately reduced.  If the money stays and is reinvested in the company the company’s value grows and can later be taken as capital gains. As a former business owner I understand how this works.  

Beinhart writes,

With high taxes, the only way to retain the bulk of the wealth created by a business is by reinvesting it in the business — in plants, equipment, staff, research and development, new products and all the rest.

The higher taxes are (and from 1940 to 1964 the top rates were around 90 percent), the more this is true.

This creates a bias toward long-term planning.

If a business is planning for the long term, it wants a happy, stable work force. It becomes worthwhile to pay good wages and offer decent

benefits.

So low taxes cause companies to only think a few months ahead and sacrifice their long-term good for short-term gain, instead of planning to be in business year after year.  Also, low taxes encourage a fast-buck climate in which takeovers and disruption rule.  Beinhart writes that when the Reagan tax cut era took over,

It was no longer enough for a business to be a reasonably good business, making steady, reliable profits.

Indeed, that became a very bad condition for a business to be in. It made it a target for takeovers by people who were willing to milk them of their profits.

There is a lot more over at the article, so go read the rest.

This holds important lessons for Californians. Along with Beinhart’s observations, there are other reasons to think that low taxes harm the economy.  For one, it is the nature of our economic system that a few people can come into possession of huge shares of the wealth.  This dries up the economy because regular people don’t have enough of a share of the wealth to allow them to spend much on consumer goods, etc. We are seeing this happening today. On top of that we are seeing the government forced by tax shortfalls to lay people off just at the time we need more people to be able to buy houses, cars, etc.  Taxes provide jobs and redistribute the wealth in multiple ways, so that regular people CAN buy houses, etc.

But in California we have rules that don’t let us raise taxes, even though we can see that we need the income so that the state can keep teachers, firefighters, roadworkers, etc. employed! We as citizens actually tolerate rules that keep us from asking corporations and wealthy people from pitching in to help fix the economy!  It is time for us to start looking at how to fix these rules that hobble us during times of economic emergency.

Click through to Speak Out California.