All posts by Edie Irons

Budget

End “minority rule,” NOT “2/3 requirement”

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Last week the Wellstone Democratic Club sponsored a wonderful event with George Lakoff and Phil Ting talking about budget reform. Ting is leading the “Close the Loophole” effort to reform Prop 13 (i.e. split roll). Lakoff is pushing for a majority vote of the legislature on both budget and revenues. Both issues are challenged in the framing department, as people tend to know them as “split roll” and “the 2/3 requirement.” Ting talks about closing corporate tax loopholes, and has named his campaign accordingly. One down. The other campaign, which is still shaping up and being defined by Democratic activists and their allies, has some work to do.

Lakoff made a very important point about the way we message the 2/3 issue, please bear with me as I attempt to summarize: We all learned that democracy = majority rule in civics class. We learned that a majority is 50% +1. The reality in California right now is that a minority (1/3 of the legislature, representing probably even less of the population of the state) is controlling our state legislature. But when people hear that it takes “a 2/3 majority” or a “2/3 vote of the legislature” to pass a budget, that sounds to a lot of folks like MORE DEMOCRACY, not what it really is, which is MINORITY RULE (less democracy)!

If we are going to win this fight – and we must – we need to start calling this the campaign to END MINORITY RULE OF CALIFORNIA. We need to have “minority rule” take hold as the problem with the CA budget problem, not the “2/3 vote requirement.” Minority rule sounds undemocratic, 2/3 sounds more democratic. Our goal should be for every article, every op-ed, every blog post, every mention of this by a legislator or activist, to use the term “minority rule” and not “2/3,” except as necessary to describe the problem. I do believe that our ability to reframe this debate could determine the outcome.

Budget

Schwarzenegger WOULD hang up on me

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(Arnold Antoinette can’t handle being held to account by the public. – promoted by Robert Cruickshank)

I just called the Sacramento number for Schwarzenegger to speak out against the cynical and shameful way he's been blaming CalWORKS recipients, state workers, and IHSS for the budget crisis, and his "constituent services" staffer hung up on me. I guess this is what I should expect from the staff of a governor who also refuses to engage and deal fairly with the people of California.  

Here's how it went:  

I called 916-445-2841 and said, "I want to voice my opinion about an issue. I think it is shameful that the governor is blaming CalWORKS recipients, state workers, and IHSS workers for the state's budget crisis," when the guy on the phone interrupted.

He said, "Well, you obviously misunderstood what the Governor said because he isn't saying that."  

I began to say "Yes he did" when the kid hung up on me!

Two attempts to call back were blocked – I got a recording saying they couldn't take my call at this time for reasons beyond their control. Makes me wonder if he could block my number from getting through. (I have had a busy signal before, and I have waited on hold before, but I have never had this message in all the many times I've called Schwarzenegger's office this number). All I could think to do was call the SF number, where I left an angry message complaining about their constituent services and demanded a call back.  

The quote I had in mind when I was calling was this one, from a press conference in LA on July 2: "Nearly 80 percent of California's welfare recipients aren't meeting our simple work requirements, yet year after year they're getting their paychecks and they're getting their benefits. All we want to do is just root out that fraud and abuse and I proposed simple reforms to curb this abuse but the legislature rejected it." If CalWorks recipients can't get jobs, I'm not sure the solution is to cut their benefits. There is no such thing as a welfare queen, the system doesn't pay enough.

More recently he's gone on about IHSS workers and state workers too. It's one thing to try to cut back on "waste, fraud, and abuse" in smart ways when it's a real issue, but that is NOT the source of California's budget crisis, and focusing on it is NOT a sustainable solution to the problem. The problem is Prop 13 (both the gutting of property tax revenue and the two-thirds vote requirement), the initiative process itself, and the governor's own refusal to approve a sensible, balanced solution that includes reasonable new revenues. 

UPDATE: I got a call from the Governor’s SF office this morning saying what happened yesterday was unacceptable and that they would follow up with the Sacto office. I got my licks in one more time and said thanks. But STILL. Keep the pressure on, people!