There are two primary reasons for the dysfunction of the state legislature and, in turn, the political crisis our state is in. The first one is the 2/3 rule to pass a budget or raise new revenues, which has given conservatives veto power over almost everything that happens in our state.

The other is term limits, which has destroyed good government in Sacramento. Legislators don’t have enough time to learn the workings of state government – not something you can pick up overnight – and by the time they do, they’re on their way out. Because of the ridiculously short terms, legislators are often looking for their next job or fundraising, leaving less time to do the people’s work. Term limits prioritize short-term fixes over long-term solutions, and have given more power in the Capitol, not less, to lobbyists,

There will be an initiative on the November ballot to deal with the 2/3 rule, restoring majority rule for the budget (but not taxes). It also looked like there would be an initiative to fix term limits, resembling the Prop 93 fix (allowing people to serve 12 years in either house) but unlike Prop 93, exempting current legislators.

But not any more. As the Sac Bee reports, the term limits initiative may fail to qualify for the November ballot:

Validity rates for a sample of signatures from all 58 counties projected that proponents turned well over the roughly 694,000 valid voter signatures needed to qualify for the ballot, but not enough to qualify in the random sample process. Counties now have 30 days to verify every signature submitted….

The campaign behind the measure, called “Californians for a Fresh Start,” has reported raising more than $1.6 million and spending more than $1.4 million on paid signature gatherers.

Campaign spokesman Matt Klink expressed confidence that the measure would qualify during the full count validation process, which would place it on the ballot in the next statewide election after November.

With this year’s budget fight likely to drag on well into the summer, perhaps this isn’t the worst thing in the world if the term limits initiative fails.  Another budget delay might not put voters in a mood to extend legislators’ terms, even though the case for doing so is quite strong. However, if the majority vote budget initiative is approved, it could unlock the doors to much greater reform in California. A more effective legislature might put voters in a better mood to support things like term limits reform.

Although the bigger reform efforts such as the constitutional convention are dead for now, the need for fundamental reform of California government remains strong. And as we’ve known, the right-wing will keep pushing their own version of “reform” until we progressives are able to articulate and promote our own reforms. That’s one reason why the majority vote budget initiative is so important to support and pass this November. It helps remove the tree trunk that’s blocking the tracks, enabling us to finally start fixing what has been broken here in California.

Note: Dianne Feinstein’s communications director emailed me on Thursday morning to say the Senator was misquoted, and that the WaPo and HuffPo would be issuing a correction. I’ll add more info as I get it. Original post follows.

The US Senate, continuing its tradition of destroying the economy and preferring to fret about deficits instead of pushing for economic recovery, today voted down cloture for the jobs bill, which looks increasingly unlikely to pass. Both of California’s Senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, did the right thing and voted for cloture.

But Dianne Feinstein is starting to wobble. Even though her state is suffering from 12.3% unemployment – a record rate, likely the highest since the Great Depression – she apparently thinks there are plenty of jobs out there going unfilled because people are too lazy to work, preferring to enjoy their unemployment benefits.

Yes, she really said this:

“We have 99 weeks of unemployment insurance,” Feinstein said. “The question comes, how long do you continue before people just don’t want to go back to work at all?”

This is perhaps the classic statement from one of California’s most elitist and out of touch politicians. It’s as if she has absolutely no clue at all about the economic conditions out here.

As most people know – whether you are unemployed or know someone who is unemployed – the fact of the matter is that there are no jobs available. People aren’t on long-term unemployment benefits because they want to be, they’re on those benefits because they cannot find a new job.

With fiscal austerity long dominant in Sacramento and now becoming dominant in Washington D.C., there’s less money in the economy to support job expansion, and less ability for government to pick up the slack through their own hiring, which they should be doing in a severe recession like this.

One of the major political and economic problems this country will face in this decade is the long-term unemployment crisis. The best solution is indeed to get people back to work. But that won’t happen by punishing people for being unemployed in the worst job market since the Depression. Instead the Senate has to get off its ass and finally embrace stimulus and make job creation its #1 priority. Unfortunately, they appear to be listening to the deficit scolds, who do not have our best interests in mind.

If Feinstein holds to this view, it should be the final straw for California Democrats, who should begin organizing a serious primary challenge to her in 2012. Such an unrealistic and insensitive attitude is not appropriate in a US Senator from any state, much less one from California.

Speaking of Meg Whitman, she’s apparently well along in her training as a member of the dark side. In 2007, she physically assaulted an eBay employee who was trying to prepare her for a press interview. The employee pressed charges and later settled out of court. Here’s the New York Times story:

In June 2007, an eBay employee claimed that Ms. Whitman became angry and forcefully pushed her in an executive conference room at eBay’s headquarters, according to multiple former eBay employees with knowledge of the incident. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter was delicate and was deemed to be strictly confidential.

The employee, Young Mi Kim, was preparing Ms. Whitman for a news media interview that day. Ms. Kim, who was not injured in the incident, hired a lawyer and threatened a lawsuit, but the dispute was resolved under the supervision of a private mediator. Two of the former employees said the company paid a six-figure financial settlement to Ms. Kim, which one of them characterized as “around $200,000.”

The article goes on to describe how Whitman was reputed to bully her staff, “express[ing] sharp bursts of anger toward employees whose work or preparation she found lacking.”

This is the same woman who now wants to be governor of California. Will she shove the Speaker of the Assembly when she doesn’t get her way? Verbally abuse her Director of Finance when it becomes clear her “fire everybody” strategy only worsens the budget deficit? It certainly does not speak well to Whitman’s judgement or her personality, which appears to be that of a pampered CEO who cannot deal with the rest of society as equals, but instead treats them like indentured servants.

In addition, this story indicates there may be more to Whitman’s notorious avoidance of the press. It may well be that Whitman is scared of the press, and scared of the public glare. Perhaps her desire for secrecy isn’t a calculated political move, but a reflection of an inner personality of a control freak who cannot abide situations she does not dominate.

If so, that doesn’t bode well for California government should she become governor. At a time when the public wants more openness, she would almost certainly lead one of the most secretive administrations in recent history, and would lash out strongly against anyone demanding more openness or transparency.

That seems to be the real story here. Not just that Whitman has no respect for those who work for her (and that is a very big deal), but that she is so determined to control every interaction she has with the public that she is unfit to govern this state.

Like many of you, I wasn’t exactly surprised when Dick Cheney endorsed Meg Whitman for governor last month. We always knew Whitman was a right-wing candidate whose policy proposals come straight out of the George W. Bush school of thought. No wonder other leading right-wingers joined Dick Cheney in endorsing whitman – Newt Gingrich, Condoleeza Rice, Mitt Romney, and others.

In fact, what this looked like to us at the Courage Campaign (where I work as the Public Policy Director) was a vast right-wing force trying to impose its will on California. And when Dick Cheney came out of his undisclosed location to offer his endorsement, the first thing that came to our minds was Darth Vader – or as some have called him, Darth Cheney.

We thought more Californians should know that Dick Cheney endorsed Meg Whitman. So we joined our friends at the California Federation of Teachers to produce this video showing what happened one afternoon when “Darth” Cheney went out campaigning in Los Angeles for Meg Whitman:

Dick Cheney, a master of evil, has a new dark apprentice. It’s time for progressive Californians to form our own rebel alliance to fight back against this right-wing empire in which Whitman is a rising star. If you’re not already a part of the Courage Campaign, you can click to watch the video and sign up to become part of our progressive rebel alliance.

If you like this video, you can share it with your friends on Facebook or on Twitter.

It has become the most important political story of the year – the battle between the New Hoovers who demand austerity, and the rest of the world that understands we need prosperity instead of prolonged recession. So far the Obama Administration has been hard to pin down on this. They pushed hard to get the $787 billion stimulus done in early 2009, but made the stimulus too small to pull the nation out of recession for fear of asking for too much.

Since then, calls for austerity have grown louder. Some of this comes from wealthy folks like Pete Peterson spending a ton of money to push this messaging out to the public. Some comes from Austerity Democrats who do not understand how economies actually work. And some comes from the teabaggers, who as I explained are afraid deficit spending will undermine their privileges by being spent on nonwhite and poor people.

California has been suffering from the flaws of austerity since the summer of 2007. Budget cuts have merely worsened the recession and worsened the budget crisis, not solved it. Yet it would have been worse had the White House not won the stimulus battle last year.

However, it was beginning to appear that Obama was starting to listen to the siren song of the deficit hawks, and drive the halting recovery into a ditch by repeating FDR’s 1937 mistake and withdrawing stimulus.

As Calitics alum David Dayen reports, the White House just might understand the risks of New Hooverism. In a letter Obama wrote to Congressional leaders, he lays out a clear case against Hooverism and for $50 billion in new stimulus:

In the long, four-page letter, Obama says that “we are at a critical juncture in our nation’s path to economic recovery,” and that more support must be given to the economy in upcoming bills before Congress. Specifically, Obama wants Congress to pass a $6-8 billion measure to extend the 65% subsidy for COBRA eligibles, so jobless Americans can keep the health insurance provided by their former employer. He wants $23 billion in FMAP funding to go to the states so they don’t have to cut back on their Medicaid rolls. Both of these measures were cut from the tax extenders/jobs package in the House, a concession to Blue Dogs nervous about short-term deficits.

In addition, Obama calls on Congressional leaders to include $25 billion for state education and public safety jobs for state and local governments in the war supplemental….

the Administration at least recognizes the need for action. He notes that allowing hundreds of thousands more layoffs just adds more costs in automatic stabilizers like unemployment and job training, as well as lowered demand for goods that can no longer be afforded, and lower tax revenue as jobs vanish. “That is why the actual cost of saving state and local jobs is likely to be 20 to 40 percent below their budgetary cost,” Obama writes.

It’s a welcome sign that the White House understands the reasons why austerity now would be an unusually bad idea, and seems to confirm that Tim Geithner’s statements at a recent G20 meeting that global austerity would be extremely reckless were a sincere representation of the White House’s position, and not just a desire to have other countries stimulate to give the US room to cut here at home.

But even if Obama is successful in Congress, the effects of new stimulus would be weakened here if austerity is once again employed here in California. Obama’s letter should give powerful new momentum and clear, popular messaging to Sacramento Democrats this summer. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Republicans are demanding more austerity, despite the growing pile of evidence showing that the three years of austerity we’ve already had are merely worsening our economic and fiscal situation.

And of course, it’s also worth pointing out that Meg Whitman would embrace austerity, planning to make it permanent through a spending cap and intending to increase the unemployment rate by firing 40,000 public workers. Carly Fiorina, for her part, has a long track record of destroying jobs, nearly destroying HP in the process.

Californians still support President Obama and his agenda. That should give a further boost to Democrats here as they beat back the New Hoovers in the California Republican Party.

In what is becoming a very enjoyable ritual after every election, Calitics is once again mythbusting the notion that Californians somehow dislike taxes. The evidence yet again proves that voters will indeed approve tax increases.

California City Finance reported on the numbers yesterday. They found that 73% of the local tax and bond measures on the June 8 ballot passed – 44 out of 60. Here’s the breakdown:

The report also notes that 65% of majority vote local taxes have been approved since 2001.

The passage rate would have been higher if California had real democracy instead of rigging elections so that a small minority can block these tax increases. Of the three school parcel taxes that “failed,” only one actually failed to get a 50%+1 majority, and that was in the Cutler-Orosi Joint USD in Tulare/Fresno counties.

June 2010 results prove yet again that Californians will vote for tax increases. They won’t approve every one, but they will approve most of them. The myth, lacking in evidence, that California voters are anti-tax has once again been exposed as a lie.

In looking at the disparate results of the June 2010 election, there are two themes that stand out to me:

1. Republicans will do what they are told by their corporate masters. Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina won their primaries because they spent an enormous amount of money to tell Republicans that they should vote for CEOs because they’re smarter than everyone else and more likely to beat the Democrat this fall. That’s it.

Joe Mathews has a good take on Whitman’s victory, but it really does come down to her money. Same for Fiorina. Both dominated the messaging and TV airwaves with their ads, and did so early and often.

But it’s not only the money – it’s who they are. The Republican Party is the party of big corporations, with a voter base that believes big business can do no wrong. Look at the maps: Props 16 and 17 did very well in the Republican-friendly counties of Southern California. Prop 16 went down in the Central Valley partly because of voter anger at PG&E over the smart meters, but in SoCal where PG&E is unknown, Republicans said “sure, let’s give corporations whatever they ask.”

2. Corporations can be beaten. For the rest of California, however, unlimited corporate power is not seen as a positive thing. Letting them dominate and distort our elections with their money is rightly seen as a huge problem, whereas to Republicans it’s business as usual.

The defeat of both Propositions 16 and 17 is a major victory for progressives whose importance cannot possibly be underestimated. PG&E spent $40 million to pass it. The opposition? They spent $100,000. But with groups like the Courage Campaign (where I work as Public Policy Director) pitching in to help educate and organize voters, we were able to mobilize progressive activists to get the word out about this bad proposition, turn out to the polls, and make sure Prop 16 went down. Prop 17’s story was very similar, with opponents being outspent 10 to 1.

We weren’t able to beat Prop 14 or pass Prop 15. The voters really do want major political change, and don’t yet understand the benefits of public funding. But Prop 15 did much better than Prop 89, which suggests victory for clean money is near.

As we go into the fall campaign season, the arc of this election is now clear: it is a battle between corporate wealth and populist democracy. Our victory in Prop 16 and Prop 17 show how we can win that battle. Time to build and organize to win again in November.