You don’t typically see the media analyzing the spin and framing work done for their behalf. But Steven Harmon of MediaNews does just that today. And, to this point, the Governor is winning…
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first move after the May 19 special election was to immediately tamp down any thoughts of raising more taxes, claiming voters had sent a “clear message” against taxes in rejecting five of six ballot measures.
In striking quickly against the idea of more taxes, Schwarzenegger was trying to take ownership of the political landscape before opponents could craft their own response, political observers said – and he was laying the groundwork for upcoming negotiations as lawmakers seek to resolve a projected $24 billion deficit.
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Democrats have countered with a muddled response. Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, conceded immediately after the vote that she saw little chance of going back to Republicans for more tax hikes, saying, “It’s really going to be about devastating cuts.”Since then, she has backpedaled some, saying that all options – including taxes – are on the table. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said that he is also bracing for “deep and painful cuts.” But, he added, “there is not $24 billion to cut in a way that would be acceptable to Californians. So, we’re going to begin with cuts, certainly. And we are going to look for every opportunity to use the crisis to fix the structure of government because it doesn’t work. (Media News 5/31/09)
Harmon goes on to talk about the yeoman’s effort put up by the coalition behind the No on 1A campaign (that I worked on), including SEIU and AFSCME. In the Binder poll that has been discussed around here frequently, we saw strong evidence that Californians support paying for the services they value. Without rehashing all of the details from the poll, suffice it to say that we have the data on our side.
However, we don’t have the framing on our side. It has always been easy to cast the May 19 election as some sort of referendum on taxes. But the fact is that the special was far more than that, or far less depending on your point of view. It was about the failed communication between representatives and constituents. It was about voters growing weary of the constant hiding of the ball and failure to address our structural problems. Sure, it was about the spectre of Jarvis’ ghost, but just as much as the failure to have a consistent fiscal policy since 1978 as the tax aspects.
Yet, like Harmon points out, Democratic elected leaders are losing the framing battle to (faux Democrat) Susan Kennedy and her gang of merry thieves in the Horseshoe. In the short term, we need our current elected leaders to stand up for government and for our values. In the long term, we need to work to ensure that those who are elected to Sacramento understand why we sent them there. When term limits create open seats, we need to put not just Democrats in those seats, but progressives who will shape the caucus into a body that can fight the Republicans obstructionism.
The Republicans have been very good about not letting the people vote on what they would pass–a 10 billion/year tax increase on the rich/corporations. Here’s how to “frame”
to make it work.
1. Pass the majority fee budget fix–gas tax swapped for fee and taxes on top 1%/corporations to make up for it.
This won’t make up all the deficit but it will raise more money (and on a continuing basis) than selling the lottery, which was supposed to save us.
2. Send it to Schwarz. If he vetos, announce that this is our last offer and put money into the recall (it’s already qualified). The recall would happend next June. California will have a hellacious 9 months until the recall, but it will be all of California, not just the poor, who is thrown under the bus.
3. The winning candidate on the recall will be the candidate who announces they will sign the majority-rule fee increase. All of the Democratic candidates for governor will fall over themselves to be that one, putting them on record on taxes.
4. It will never come to (2) above. Schwartz will not veto if he is faced with a recall. He hates dying at the box office.
could the overwhelming rejection of a spending cap be framed as a mandate for devastating cuts.
The economics of 30-second ads and the nature of campaign finance here in California makes the state Democratic Party gun shy about annoying corporate interests. With the exception of organized labor (which seems comfortable with the status quo on campaign finance), it’s very hard for any non-corporate interest to get a seat at the table, much less influence policy.
But we now have an opportunity to put anything done by Herr Governor in contrast to his catering to the corporate interest, and for the rich and wealthy, for which they stand, indivisible.
This is the line that activism needs to take if we are going to change the conversation substantially: no special rights for the rich.
the possibility that the leadership, or the consultant class behind them, wants no part of winning such a framing battle, or winning a 2/3 majority, or anything that leaves them open to any kind of blame. They want to have a villain in the Yacht Party and also an out so they don’t attract attention to certain policies they allow through at the supposed behest of the GOP.
Noreen Evans, for example, has run rings around the leadership and has actually done real work pushing out the proper framing with her videos and online work.
Bill Monning is starting to ramp it up too – his Facebook status update now reads:
Not the best from a technical framing aspect, but clearly he gets that the cuts are not OK, that nobody wants them, and that it’s time to rally folks for a better solution.
Instead we have Karen Bass and Darrell Steinberg who appear to have be caught totally flatfooted. I made sure the Courage Campaign was out there on Wednesday morning (and in fact, we blitzed our press list several days before that) explaining that people did NOT vote for cuts, that they voted for real reform. The No on 1A people as you noted were out there with the Binder poll.
Yet our Democratic leaders were so wedded to their tactic of trying to scare people into voting Yes on May 19 with promises of cuts that they painted themselves into a corner. We tried to tell them numerous times how foolish they were being by not taking a strong stand against cuts, but they preferred to try and rally voters with fear instead of with hope and leadership.
Drives me nuts.
the more i’m beginning to think they genuinely agree with the governor about where the state should go.
they’re treading dangerously close to splitting the party, if that’s true. people will eat them alive if they help slash schools and state gov services that they have campaigned every election cycle on protecting from the GOP. after all, why vote for democrats when they enact republican wet-dream budgets?
Jarvis’ actions in the state are still reverberating through our educational system and our state 30 years later. That’s what made me vote against 1A – the fear that the crazy spending cap would hamstring our state for the next 30 years.
I guess I’m just amazed that there’s no one in the Dem leadership banging a populist drum of tax fairness.
Why should a billionaire like Donald Bren be almost exempt from property tax on the apartment buildings and land that the Irvine Company owns while a condo owner in Aliso Viejo is paying Mello-Roos fees, HOA assessments to cover services that government used to provide, and 1% of the current assessed value of the property, while a billionaire is paying a quarter of the a per cent of the value of his property?
This may be an important clue as to how to frame an argument against the 2/3 rules that will appeal to moderates and some conservatives as well as liberals: the 2/3 rules actually cause spending to rise, because more legislators must be bought off with spending on their pet programs and special projects.
http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.c…
I’m not giving any more money, nor will I do any work for any Legislative-related caucus-y type stuff any more. Nor will I support any incumbents, unless they are of the No BS variety, like Noreen Evans.
The Legilsative leadership can go to hell – their lack of experience and ability is clear this time around and it’s time to move on. No more knee jerk support of Democrats at all – unless they are dedicated and won’t get corrupted by the Capitol in to supporting these bullshit budgets, I’ll just not vote at all and move on and support local candidates that will replace them once they are term limited out.
However, I question the wisdom of giving our legislators automatic 6 and 8 year terms in office at a time. I mean, once a person gets elected, that’s it until they’re term limited out. So in a sense, we are giving them longer terms in office because with one exception in recent years, incumbents aren’t challenged in primaries -we just let ’em have it and everyone else is too timid to run.
No wonder we have Democrats supporting Arnold’s bad budgets.
While I am thrilled that this report asserts that most people are far more supportive of tax increases than we hear they are, and I appreciate another analysis of why Prop 1A went down in smoke, I find it hard to believe that they wouldn’t have asked the million dollar question.
Do you support changing from a 2/3rds to a majority vote of the legislature to approve the state budget and tax increases? However they word it- it is glaringly absent, especially given the surprising CA Field Poll (surprised me) 58% of Democrats favored keeping the 2/3rds rule.
http://www.field.com/fieldpoll…
But at the heart of the Rep strategy is getting California voters to be cynical and distrustful of government –Dem /Rep, they’re all the same– conveniently helps suppress turnout too. All the while stripping away the ability of the [big] majority party to shape govt funding, programs and the role of govt in general.
As a party they have nothing to lose and everything to gain from being obstructionists, and are happy to bankrupt the state and remake it in its own image. Even moderate Reps will support cuts to popular programs, to oppose tax increases at any cost. Because their party will go after them in the next primary if they don’t. The only thing that could counter that threat, is if majorities of Rep district constituents supported tax increases over more cuts. In the long run the only way to unlock the gridlock is gaining enough seats or passing an initiative to undo 2/3rds rule- both require elections.
I am worried that if we do not start to consider this anti-govt frame, how we activate it, if we should & how we talk about who is responsible for these cuts– “progressives” will only help put overturning 2/3rds further out of reach in the next election.
So any analysis of this Field Poll in relation to the Binder poll? Or the million dollar question?