Now in Orange as well.

I already posted on one of the more interesting events of the Equality Summit from Saturday, the election/past year review.  I wrote it at the event so memory was a bit fresher.  If you haven’t had the chance to read that, it might be worth a read. If you’d like to relive the whole experience, EQCA has made everything available on Google Video. Here’s Part 1  and Part 2 of the Election Review.  You’ll find other videos along the Google sidebar from the plenary meetings. Part 2 has the very insightful Marriage Equality USA presentation and the David Binder presentation.  I think the one thing that I hope people took away from Binder’s presentation, if they took nothing else with them, is that phone calls don’t work.  It’s something that most field organizers can tell you.  But it’s cheap and easy, but sometimes you get what you pay for.

There was a bit of fun to be had afterward with Asm. Tom Ammiano’s take on the situation. After all, it’s pretty hard not to have a smile on your face after 10 minutes of his jokes. But what I got out of the review panel, and from the speeches of Ammiano and many other leaders that were outside of the campaign was something more basic.  Simply, don’t hide the ball. Marriage equality is about love.  It is about two people who want to spend their lives together. No matter how much spin you put on it, if we win an election any other way, it is a hollow victory indeed.

Follow me over the flip.

And the consensus, put tactfully by David Binder (powerpoint here) and more bluntly by the amazing Eva Paterson. (Video here) As we move forward, and the electorate shifts towards a millenial majority, equality will trump bigotry.  Paterson said it best when she said, paraphrasing here, “I’ll be more blunt than David Binder, the people who are against you are going to die.”

While it is a waiting game, there was a feeling pervading the room that it was more than just that.  This was a campaign that we could have won, that we should have won.  I won’t go into all of the mistakes, the failures to communicate, and the lack of honesty with the community, but I will say one thing.  The next time this campaign is run, this time for an affirmative statement of marriage equality, it will be the community’s campaign.  For better or for worse, the LGBT community will be visible in the next campaign.

As the day continued, I settled myself into the netroots breakout session.  I’m not sure the group itself was all that productive.  Or rather, it was productive in spite of the atmosphere. It was facilitated very old-schoolish, and it seemed that I wasn’t the only one chafing under the structured nature. Like most nerd gatherings, I think the group wanted to introduce themselves to the group and figure out what worked for them.  That didn’t happen, but I did get the chance to have a good talk with the very clever (and hilarious) Heather Gold.

After a bustling lunch trying to fight with a few hundred LGBT activists and a few thousand LA artists trying to pile into two cashier stations, LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa graced the stage with his presence.  Villaraigosa was one of the most prominent opponents of Prop 22, in fact, we have a button that says “Speaker Villaraigosa says No Knight” or something to that effect. He welcomed us to the city, and all that fun stuff.  The rest of the afternoon consisted of a few breakouts by region and a large meeting about talking about LGBT rights with people of faith and color. There were some really great ideas tossed around, and hopefully some of them will be incorporated into educational and campaign programs from some of the many groups at the meeting.

Near the close of the day, there was a meeting regarding strategy for getting marriage equality back on the ballot in case we lose the Supreme Court case.  In a room full of men (self-selected, but still worth noting that none of the many women at the summit came to the ballot proposition meeting), a few good points of consensus were made. Namely, a general election would be preferred to a primary, and that the language should be more refined than simply repeal Prop 8.  One issue that arose was the possibility of adding some language that addressed the religious concerns, something akin to what appeared in Mark Leno’s AB 43.  The propositions already submitted to the Secretary of State, while a good sentiment, present large risks. One, if we happen to qualify one of these, we either get on the primary ballot, or more dangerously, a special election. Also, for the most part, these initiatives are simple repeals without any of the religious or other beneficial language.

The event got plenty of media coverage, several short blurbs, but also a long article in the chronicle by John Wildermuth.  That appeared along with a “why do gays hate us” column by the always uninsightful Debra Saunders. It’s the same old tired refrains lamenting the disclosure rules and how the mean, mean gays are out to get all the people who just prefer to keep the gays second class citizens. She laments that people had to resign over their contributions to Prop 8.  She wants the LGBT community to be tolerant of people who are not tolerant of us. Wouldn’t that be sweet of us?  She of course misses the point by a mile. The bigots have a right to be bigoted, but our community, by the same token, has a right to not give our money to said bigots.  It’s called a boycott, and it’s used on a regular basis by Christian groups against large corporations when they dare market to the LGBT community.  Where is her outrage for that?

Finally, I think the meeting was worthwhile, which is perhaps more than I expected going in.  That being said, I think the real winner from all of this was Equality California. After the election, they were not popular amongst the community, and for good reason.  This event brought them back to the position of the lead organizer for California’s LGBT movement. I’m split on whether that’s a good thing or not.  But one thing that I’ve been telling everybody, and might soon be working on fixing, this community still needs a political arm. This is true nationally, but especially locally.  We have strong lobbying arms in DC and in Sacramento, but clearly we lack the deep bench of LGBT folks who know how to run a solid campaign, how to do large grassroots organizing, and run a field campaign in California. That must change, and perhaps some of these new groups forming might develop into something along those lines. But for the time being, we still need to work on the political side of the ledger.

As Capitol Alert reports, the California Teachers Association has approved an effort to put a 1% sales tax increase on a 2009 special election ballot. The full text of the measure can be found here 9PDF link). The article claims the tax is expected to raise between $5 and $6 billion annually. According to an earlier report on the proposed tax:

89 percent would go to K-12 schools, and the rest to community colleges.

The measure would restrict use of the revenue to specific purposes that include class size reduction, funding art, music and vocation education courses, and salaries for teachers and other school employees.

The money couldn’t be used for administrative costs, and legislators and the governor couldn’t touch the revenue. The money would be allocated to school districts based on their average daily student attendance.

CTA’s decision to move ahead with the plan is likely a recognition that the current budget mess is not going to be resolved without catastrophic cuts to schools. But is this the right move?

Sales taxes are often described as “regressive” taxes since they hit the poor harder than the rich. Over the last few decades California has relied more and more on the sales tax to fund services. As a result the lowest 20% pay more taxes than the highest 20% of income earners in California.

And yet sales taxes are more progressive than the alternative, which are cuts to schools that will hurt working Californians far more than a sales tax. Teachers help support working families and the small businesses that depend on their spending. For centuries – literally – education has been understood to be a key route toward economic security and prosperity for working people. Without access to a quality education, that route is closed. Given that situation a sales tax is more affordable and valuable to the lower 20% than cuts.

When assessing taxes and spending this simple equation needs to be kept in mind:

Income and property taxes > sales taxes > service cuts

That raises the question of why CTA proposes a new sales tax, instead of raising income taxes on the upper incomes and restore progressivity to California taxation. This could be as simple as restoring the tax brackets of 1992-98 that helped fuel broad economic growth.

It’s unclear why CTA chose not to go this route. The personal income tax is a volatile tax, but so is the sales tax, especially in an era when Americans are spending less and saving more.

Still, even a sales tax is better than education cuts and mass layoffs of teachers. As someone who hopes to start a family of his own in the coming years, I’d like to know that I can send my kids to a decent public school like I enjoyed as recently as the mid-1990s.

I’ll vote for this if it makes it to the ballot – and I suspect Californians will too. As we saw in November 2008, Californians are actually quite willing to tax themselves to fund specific projects, notably including mass transit. If thousands of teachers receive layoff notices and schools are slated for closure this spring, it seems highly likely to me that the CTA proposal will pass.

Some may criticize ballot box budgeting – but it is a byproduct, often necessary, of a legislative process that has been hopelessly broken by the 2/3 rule.

As the Congressional battle over Obama’s stimulus heats up, so too is progressive activism over the deliberate underfunding of mass transit. Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat, is leading the charge to redress the problem, as shown in this important discussion with policy geek Rachel Maddow:

DeFazio isn’t just complaining on TV – he is offering an amendment to provide $2 billion in direct aid to local transit agencies that have had to cut service or raise fares – or both – as a result of the economic downturn and state budget problems.

Here in California this problem is especially acute, as Arnold is having success in his effort to defund mass transit. As a result local transit agencies have been hit hard. From the Monterey Bay and SF Bay Areas alone:

* San Benito County Express in Hollister and San Juan Bautista raised fares 33% earlier this year and will reduce service 35% effective on February 1, with some routes eliminated entirely.

* Monterey-Salinas Transit hiked fares 25% this month, though they were able to avoid service cuts. (The fare is now $2.50 per ride.)

* SamTrans in San Mateo County (the Peninsula) will raise fares 17% in February.

* Caltrain increased fares on January 1. Caltrain is the commuter rail service between San Francisco, San Jose, and Gilroy.

These cuts are especially damaging in this economy. Many Californians depend on affordable and available bus service to get to work. When routes are cut or fares increased, many can no longer get to work, and job losses merely increase.

It also makes it more difficult to build a sustainable transportation system, since these cuts can be difficult to restore. It took well over a decade for AC Transit to recover from the service cuts of the early 1990s – and even that progress may be set back without federal assistance.

Transportation for America has a map of the transit cuts being proposed or implemented across America. And they are leading the charge for restoring this funding. DeFazio’s amendment will come before the House Rules Committee tomorrow, and T4America is asking folks to call Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY) to ask her to send the amendment to the House floor.

California has three Representatives on that committee, and their contact information is as follows:

David Dreier – Republican from 26th District (San Gabriel Valley foothills). Phone numbers: DC office (202) 225-2305, San Dimas office (909) 575-6226, Toll-free (888) 906-2626

Doris Matsui – Democrat from 5th District (Sacramento). Phone numbers: DC office (202) 225-7163, Sacramento office (916) 498-5600

Dennis Cardoza – Democrat from 18th District (Stockton, Modesto, Merced). Phone numbers: DC office (202) 225-6131 or (800) 356-6424, Merced office (209) 383-4455, Modesto office (209) 527-1914, Stockton office (209) 946-0361.

This was expected, but President Obama is setting in motion a process that would finally allow California to set its own emissions standards.

President Obama will direct federal regulators on Monday to move swiftly on an application by California and 13 other states to set strict automobile emission and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials said Sunday.

The directive makes good on an Obama campaign pledge and signifies a sharp reversal of Bush administration policy. Granting California and the other states the right to regulate tailpipe emissions would be one of the most emphatic actions Mr. Obama could take to quickly put his stamp on environmental policy.

Mr. Obama’s presidential memorandum will order the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider the Bush administration’s past rejection of the California application. While it stops short of flatly ordering the Bush decision reversed, the agency’s regulators are now widely expected to do so after completing a formal review process.

Just to pre-empt the whining from the right, the EPA had never before in its history denied California a waiver under the Clean Air Act.  The courts have looked at this from the perspective of the automakers and have ruled repeatedly in favor of California and other states, agreeing that they are well within their rights to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Not only did the Bush Administration deny California the right to implement their tailpipe emissions law, they slow-walked the fuel efficiency standards passed by the Congress and signed by the then-President in 2007.  President Obama will direct the Transportation Department to finalize those standards as well.

This will be announced in the East Room tomorrow.  We now have a President who understands the need to act swiftly to combat the worst effects of climate change.  California will finally be allowed to lead this effort.