Crossposted from the California High Speed Rail Blog

The Field Poll finally got around to polling Prop 1A and the results are about what I’d expected after six weeks of the Reason Foundation and the Howard Jarvis Association flooding the state’s media with lies. We have a 47-42 lead with 11% undecided. The common rule of thumb in California politics is that a proposition under 50% before election day is in serious trouble, but I’m not convinced that conventional wisdom will hold true this year. There are a number of propositions – such as 4 and 8 – that are also very closely split, and voters are showing a better understanding of the issues, with a reduced inclination to vote no as a knee-jerk reaction.

Still, the poll shows that we have a LOT of work to do between now and Tuesday. Especially when you look at the crosstabs.

Prop 1A will be decided on election day. Those who have already voted oppose it 39-51. That is very close to the number of McCain voters opposing Prop 1A, 35-56. Here in California absentee voters have traditionally leaned Republican and conservative. Those groups oppose Prop 1A – Republicans by a margin of 35-58 and conservatives by a margin of 30-64. Voters over age 65, those most likely to cast an absentee ballot, oppose it 38-53.

However, if California gets an Obama surge on election day, the outcome may be much different (preferences are listed in order of yes, no, and undecided):

Democrats: 53-30-17

Independents: 54-40-6

Moderates: 49-40-11

Liberals: 61-25-14

Obama: 56-33-11

Age 18-34: 50-38-12

If young voters in particular hit the polls in large numbers than we can win this on election day.

The Field Poll also breaks the numbers down by region, showing us where we need to focus our energies over the next three days:

LA County: 55-37-8

Other SoCal: 32-54-14

Central Valley: 49-46-5

Bay Area: 59-28-13

Other NorCal: 46-46-8

Looking at this I would write off “Other SoCal” and pour as many resources as possible into the Central Valley. Fresno, Bakersfield, and Sacramento among others ought to be pro-HSR given how much they will benefit from the system. Over the next few days local political leaders and respected state leaders – I’m looking at you, Dianne Feinstein and Arnold Schwarzenegger – need to get into the Central Valley, get themselves on local news, and promote the hell out of Prop 1A.

There is a large number of undecided voters in the Bay Area as well. They can and should be brought over to our side, likely with a strong push from environmental and transit groups. I don’t know if the Sierra Club has any money to put an ad up, or can do something to attract earned media, but that would be very helpful.

I know this site gets a lot of readers from around the pro-HSR community. So here is what I suggest our plans be for the next crucial three days:

Link Obama to HSR. Run some ads or print up some flyers or just plain talk about how Obama and Biden are strong HSR advocates. The purpose here is to ensure that Democrats and Obama voters are going to cast their ballots for Prop 1A as well.

The Central Valley is where we will win or lose. Get thee to Fresno (or Bakersfield or Sacramento) and explain to voters why this will be a godsend for the Valley. It will bring jobs and cheaper, more reliable transportation. Fresno will be under two hours from SF and LA. And it will reverse a long history of California neglecting the Valley’s infrastructure needs.

Emphasize the economic stimulus benefits of HSR. This message would play well in the Central Valley, the Bay Area, and perhaps even LA County and some other parts of SoCal. Prop 1A is a smart investment in jobs and growth. Leading economists like Paul Krugman are calling for deficit spending on infrastructure to rescue our economy. That message needs to get through.

Continue targeting young voters. CALPIRG has done excellent work here over the last few weeks but they need to be joined by other groups – Young Democrats and other groups. At San Diego State an environmentally-minded group of fraternities and sororities has been promoting Prop 1A.

Speak more about the environmental benefits in the Bay Area. Voters there are the most likely to be motivated by the considerable environmental and global warming-fighting benefits of HSR. If the Sierra Club has any last-minute resources to deploy, that would be very useful.

We can win this thing if we drive a big Obama turnout on Tuesday, ensure that people vote their entire ballot (or at least as far as the first proposition!) and that they vote YES on Prop 1A. The internals of the Field Poll look good for us, IF we can accomplish the turnout task. Let’s get to it!

I will be discussing this and other state ballot propositions as part of an on-air progressive voter guide on KRXA 540 AM this morning at 8. For a complete endorsement guide see the Calitics endorsements and the Courage Campaign Progressive Voter Guide

Prop 11 is a solution in search of a problem – and a bad solution at that. At a time when our state’s budget crisis ought to remind us that the real problem is the ridiculous 2/3 rule, Broderist columnists like the LA Times’ George Skelton are trying to put in one last pitch for Prop 11.

In doing so all they accomplish is highlighting the absurdity of their proposal and their cynical approach to politics – assuming that California voters are animated by blind rage and a desire to smash a broken government instead of thinking intelligently about how to fix it.

The interesting thing is that Skelton doesn’t even attempt his usual efforts to argue why Prop 11 is needed. The “competitive elections” argument has been proved false by the six or seven competitive races in the Assembly, most of them in districts drawn to favor Republicans. Nor does Skelton attempt to say Prop 11 will solve the budget deficit. He merely assumes it to be a good idea.

Skelton lists “good government” organizations like Common Cause and LWV to suggest that Prop 11 isn’t a Republican power grab – never mind the fact that Arnold and other right-wingers are dumping money into it. Nowhere does he explain the real purpose here: to keep Democrats away from a 2/3 majority in the Legislature.

He also gets the details wrong, claiming:

Under the proposal, any frequent voter could apply to be a redistricting commissioner — as long as the person had no political connections. Prop. 11 drafters really wanted to ensure that commissioners had no partisan agendas.

But as Brian pointed out last night a drafting error excludes frequent voters. This vaunted “independent commission” will include infrequent and uninformed voters – which is fitting given that this proposal speaks primarily to such an audience.

More below.

It’s Skelton’s description of the makeup of the commission that is so damning, however:

Three randomly selected state auditors would select the 60 most qualified applicants, divided into equal subgroups of Democrats, Republicans and “others.” The four legislative leaders could strike six each. That would leave 36. The auditors would randomly select eight commissioners: three Democrats, three Republicans, two “others.” And those eight would select the final six, two from each subgroup.

The commission’s final makeup would be five Democrats, five Republicans, four “others.” Approving a redistricting plan would require a supermajority vote: nine, including three Democrats, three Republicans and three “other.”

That right there is your proof that Prop 11 is designed to give Republicans an artificial advantage that they haven’t earned with the voters. Republicans do not deserve equal representation on such a commission. They do not have equal representation among California voters. As of September 2008 Democrats had 43.9% of registered voters and Republicans had 32.3%. Those numbers have fluctuated a bit over the last few years but the overall trend has been remarkably stable – in 1999 the numbers were 46.3% Dem and 35% Rep.

So why is Prop 11 giving Republicans equal power on this commission? If anything it looks gerrymandered to increase their power and their representation.

Further, while I’m all for citizen democracy, I’m not convinced that redistricting should be left to the masses – especially in order to protect minority voting rights. Skelton makes much of a Center for Governmental Studies report claiming that minority voting rights won’t be hurt by this. Of course, most actual groups of color are opposing Prop 11, but their voices apparently don’t count here, they don’t seem to know what’s best for them:

Minority communities wouldn’t be any worse off than they have been with their Democratic pals drawing the lines. They’d probably be better off. Everybody would, except those politicians currently allowed to abuse the power.

Skelton has no basis to make this claim and gets dangerously close to assuming that “minority communities” are basically dumb herds that blindly follow Democrats. Has he ever stopped to consider some rather legitimate reasons WHY they back Democrats, like the persistent racism emanating from the Republican Party?

In any case, voting rights are no light matter in California, which still has four counties subject to the federal Voting Rights Act and to the state’s own voting rights laws. Politicians may be horrible and evil people but they do know these laws better than a citizen commission. If these communities of color prefer to let the smart people draw the lines, perhaps they might be speaking from experience and ought to be listened to?

Nah. When the media is in full throated moderate mode, no amount of common sense or authentic voices will deter them from their latest idiotic proposal to “fix” California, proposals that often wind up benefiting Republicans. Funny how that happens.

In a story that Hal Ginsberg broke yesterday morning on KRXA 540 AM the Monterey County Republicans sent out an email comparing Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler. The email, sent to their entire list, is basically a long rant against and addressed to “Barack Hussein Obama” but toward the end descends into some nasty territory:

Because some of these people are frightened about the future, the economy, and their financial security … and you are preying on their fears with empty promises … and because some (especially our young people) are consumed by your wonderful style and promises for ‘change’ like the Germans who voted for Adolf Hitler in 1932. The greed/envy by Germans in 1932 kept them from recognizing Hitler for who he was. They loved his style. Greed and envy are keeping many Americans from recognizing you … your style has camouflaged your dishonesty … but many of us see you for who you really are … and we will not stop exposing who you are every day, forever if it is necessary. [Ellipsis in original]

The response from Monterey County Democrats was swift:

Vinz Koller, executive director of the county Democratic Party, said he was shocked that local Republicans distributed “such despicable hate mail.”

He said the local GOP should “set the record straight.”

“They have to stand up for what it’s saying or repudiate it,” he said.

Koller said he personally reviews every e-mail distributed by the local Democratic Party to ensure against any light-speed faux pas.

(Which I can vouch for, since I write many of those emails he reviews.)

The local media has been deeply critical as well, with the Monterey Herald weighing in with this editorial:

Local party officials immediately climbed out of the muck to repudiate the piece and apologize, right?

Not exactly.

In a news release, the party disavowed the Hitler comparison but acknowledged that it had sent the piece out, in its entirety, because it was interesting and “might incite conversation.”

However, the release went on, “This sort of inflammatory language is neither condoned nor encouraged by our party.”

Except, that is, when this sort of inflammatory language is, in fact, condoned, encouraged and even distributed by the party.

And they’re calling him dishonest.

What happened here is obvious. The true face of the Republican Party came out and had a look around, a local radio host caught it and called them on it, and suddenly the local Republican officials felt the need to backpedal and try to deny to the public that their party’s base is full of people who think like that. We’ve seen it at McCain/Palin rallies around the country and from other Republican Party organizations around the state. Brandon Gesicki and his party can try and distance themselves from it all they like, but the truth is out there.

Crossposted from the California High Speed Rail Blog

The latest canard that high speed rail opponents are trying to use to defeat Prop 1A is that the Authority failed to deliver a legislatively-mandated, updated business plan. Dan Walters made this the centerpiece of his HSR denial column today.

On the surface it sounds bad. But as the facts demonstrate this is a case where Republicans – and Democratic Senator Alan Lowenthal, who oughta know better – have set up high speed rail and Prop 1A to fail.

On August 26th AB 3034, after a weeks-long delay, was finally signed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. That bill directed the California High Speed Rail Authority to create a new business plan…by September 1. Giving the Authority merely five days to come up with the new plan.

Why the delay? The bill was passed out of the Assembly on May 29. From there it languished in the State Senate. Alan Lowenthal put out a nonsense study trying to cast doubt on the plan, but it was Sen. Roy Ashburn who played the central role in delaying AB 3034 into early August. By the time the Senate passed AB 3034, however, Arnold Schwarzenegger had started in on his temper tantrum, refusing to sign any new bills until we got a new budget. Arnold relented on AB 3034 – but had the bill bent sent to Arnold sooner, it would not have been subject to Arnold’s tantrum, and there would have been time to produce it.

But it gets worse. As you know, the state budget delay this year was the worst on record – three months long. The state Constitution mandates that a budget be approved by June 15 and implemented on July 1 – the beginning of the new fiscal year.

The Authority’s staff consists of 6.5 employees. Not a huge amount of staff to put together a business plan, actually, especially when you give them five days and then withhold a budget from them.

HSR deniers have now tried to use the delayed business plan to claim that Prop 1A and HSR are flawed. Today the State Senate held a hearing about the business plan, likely designed and timed to hurt Prop 1A’s chances. You can see the complete video here and the YouTube of the key exchange above. At the hearing Quentin Kopp explained that the plan will be ready around November 8, after proper work goes into its production and review by Goldman Sachs.

Roy Ashburn tried to attack Kopp over the delay, asking “You and your Authority are in violation of California law as we sit here today. If you were in my chair, what would you say?”

Kopp’s reply:

If I were sitting in your chair I would use temperate language. Did you ever read the state Constitution? Did you ever read Article 4, Section 12? Do you know what it says? It says…the Legislature shall pass the budget bill by midnight on June 15 of each year. You’re in violation of the law. Consider the outcome should a taxpayer bring a suit to recover the money that you eventually drew between June 15 and September 23 of this year. Consider the fact that people don’t work without being paid. Consider the fact that my executive director hasn’t been paid since January of this year. Consider the fact that when you finally appropriated the money the contractors who expect to be paid can finally begin work on the business plan. I’ll tell you why people should believe me. Because I have an impeccable reputation for honesty, integrity, and independence.

Ashburn could not reply to that point. He avoided it and tried to repeat his same points. But the smackdown was delivered, and Ashburn is exposed as a fraud. The state legislature, led by Republicans like Ashburn who held this state hostage for three months, refusing to do their Constitutional duty to pass a budget because they were demanding unspecified cuts, have absolutely NO place to be criticizing ANYONE else in the state government for not following the law. Ashburn is full of it and kudos to Kopp for calling him out on it.

Kopp drank Roy Ashburn’s milkshake. I think we’re done with this whole “business plan” nonsense, aren’t we?

Sorry to push Brian’s excellent post down the page a bit, but some breaking news needs to be shared. The Yes on 8 campaign is admitting to having sent letters to companies that donated to No on 8 and Equality California demanding that the companies provide a matching donation to Yes on 8 – or that the would be “outed.” From the AP:

companies

Leaders of the campaign to outlaw same-sex marriage in California are warning businesses that have given money to the state’s largest gay rights group they will be publicly identified as opponents of traditional unions unless they contribute to the gay marriage ban, too.

ProtectMarriage.com, the umbrella group behind a ballot initiative that would overturn the California Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage, sent a certified letter this week asking companies to withdraw their support of Equality California, a nonprofit organization that is helping lead the campaign against Proposition 8.

“Make a donation of a like amount to ProtectMarriage.com which will help us correct this error,” reads the letter. “Were you to elect not to donate comparably, it would be a clear indication that you are in opposition to traditional marriage. … The names of any companies and organizations that choose not to donate in like manner to ProtectMarriage.com but have given to Equality California will be published.”

The letter was signed by four members of the group’s executive committee: campaign chairman Ron Prentice; Edward Dolejsi, executive director of the California Catholic Conference; Mark Jansson, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; and Andrew Pugno, the lawyer for ProtectMarriage.com. A donation form was attached. The letter did not say where the names would be published.

CBS 8 in San Diego has the money quote from Yes on 8:

Yes on 8 confirms they sent around 30 companies the letter. A spokeswoman told News 8 they are just trying to hold their ground in a passionate race. She added that No on 8 supporters picketed the Manchester Grand Hyatt after Doug Manchester donated $125,000 thousand. The publicity caused at least one very large group to cancel its event at the hotel.

She also pointed to a popular blog that asked readers to dig up dirt on Yes on 8 supporters, see if they’ve contributed to less than honorable causes, or have done something otherwise egregious, with the hope they can force the Yes on 8 campaign to return their contributions, or face a bunch of negative publicity.

If you’re sick of these intimidation tactics, the Courage Campaign is asking you to sign a petition calling on the Mormon church leadership to stop funding and supporting these kinds of intimidation tactics, lies, and other efforts to take away basic rights.

Note: I work for the Courage Campaign

Note: I will be on KRXA 540 AM this morning at 8 to discuss this and other topics in California politics

The dominant theme of the 2008 campaign – from the presidential race on down – has been lies. Republicans and conservatives have resorted to an unprecedented amount of outright lies to try and defeat progressive campaigns and policies. There has been a marked uptick lately in the amount of false advertising especially on the propositions, so I thought I’d collect some of them here.

• Prop 1A: The Reason Foundation, swimming in oil money, has been flooding the state’s newspapers with misleading claims against high speed rail. The worst example was in a recent issue of the LA Times when Adrian Moore of the Reason Foundation made totally false claims, including that global HSR lines are subsidized (all turn a profit and France’s TGV subsidizes other rail lines) and that HSR doesn’t take passengers from airlines (in fact, they all do – to the point that Air France is going to enter the HSR market itself). More on these lies at the California High Speed Rail Blog.
• Prop 4: Planned Parenthood is facing a malicious attack from Prop 4 proponents. From an email sent out to the No on 4 list yesterday:
  

  A new ad from the proponents of Proposition 4 twists a tragic case of a teen trapped in an incestuous situation, and falsely claims that Prop 4 would have helped. What is most outrageous is that Prop 4 would have put that teen in an even worse and more desperate situation. It would not have helped this teen in any way yet the anti-choice extremists behind Prop 4 continue to use tragic events to lie to California voters.

  Visit No on Prop 4 to donate and find volunteer opportunities to help defeat this attack on teen safety and abortion rights.

• Prop 8: Brian explained yesterday the most recent falsehood being peddled by the Yes on 8 folks. Even though Mormon legal expert Morris Thurston exposed these claims as lies and demanded the church stop spreading them, the Mormon Church is still helping pay for these ads. Visit the No on 8 campaign to volunteer your time or your money to defeat these liars and protect marriage rights.

Why all the lies? Partly because if we had a discussion on the actual merits of the issues, Prop 1A would pass and Props 4 and 8 would fail by large margins. The media plays a role here as well, letting groups like the Reason Foundation or the Mormon Church spread false claims without pushing back for the truth. Stenography has replaced journalism, as media outlets just report what “both sides” have to say regardless of whether or not there’s any truth to the claims. And the op-ed pages and TV ads exist in a zone of truthiness, where nobody holds the liars accountable.

Except us. California progressives, the blogs, the grassroots. All the more reason for us to Stay For Change and save California from the liars on the right who wish to set this state back decades instead of help us embrace a better future.

Every time you close your eyes…lies, lies.

Mark Jacoby, head of the firm Young Political Majors that has been implicated in the growing scandal over Republican fraud in voter registrations. The Secretary of State’s Election Fraud Investigation Unit led the inquiry that resulted in the arrest and had this to say in an emailed press release:

The owner of a signature-gathering firm that works across California was arrested in Ontario today on suspicion of committing voter registration fraud, Secretary of State Debra Bowen announced.

Mark Anthony Jacoby, who owns the firm known as Young Political Majors (YPM), was arrested after allegedly registering himself to vote, once in 2006 and again in 2007, at an address where did not live.  An investigation by the Secretary of State’s Election Fraud Investigation Unit revealed that Jacoby twice registered to vote at the address of a childhood home in Los Angeles although he no longer lived there….

“Voter registration fraud is a serious issue, which is why I vigorously investigate all allegations of elections fraud,” said Secretary Bowen, California’s chief elections officer.  “Where there’s a case to be made, I will forward it to law enforcement for criminal prosecution.”

This arrest comes on the heels of recent media coverage of YPM’s fraudulent tactics sometimes known as “slamming” – where voters are duped into changing their party registrations, or where their registration is simply changed by YPM without the voter’s knowledge:

The Times randomly interviewed 46 of the hundreds of voters whose election records show they were recently re-registered as Republicans by YPM, and 37 of them — more than 80% — said that they were misled into making the change or that it was done without their knowledge.

Jacoby’s arrest does not stem from those specific charges, which are still under investigation, but the fact that Jacoby himself was fraudulently registered is damning.

It should also lead us to ask why Steve Poizner is funding YPM’s efforts.

But then that’s the modern Republican Party for you – making baseless charges against someone else (i.e. ACORN) to hide their own criminal behavior.

Crossposted from the California High Speed Rail Blog

Not content with denying to Californians the numerous tangible benefits of high speed rail, Prop 1A opponents have retreated into a revival of Herbert Hoover’s economic policy in order to try and defeat the most important project Californians have considered in nearly 50 years. Their argument is that in an economic crisis, we should turn to austerity instead of following the tried and true path of deficit spending on infrastructure that provides short-term job relief and long-term economic value.

Today we have numerous articles and media outlets starting to push back against the New Hoovers. From newspaper editorial pages to leading economists there is a growing consensus that we must use deficit spending – in our case, bonds – to spur economic growth through infrastructure projects.

Speaker Karen Bass is calling for infrastructure projects to be part of a California economic stimulus that she hopes to offer later this year to deal with the worsening economic crisis.

Even conservative observers and federal deficit hawks are seeing the need for deficit spending, as the conservative Washington Times reports:

Conservative Financial Times columnist Samuel Brittan said the fears that short-term stimulus spending by governments will raise deficits miss the point. Even the $700 billion Wall Street rescue plan approved by the U.S. government – part of a more than $2 trillion international bailout of banks by governments around the world – does not change the equation.

“Maxims about debt that might be prudent for families can be the height of folly for government,” he wrote.

British economist John Maynard Keynes is credited with the basic insight, arguing that the Great Depression was prolonged because Western governments insisted on balancing budgets, raising taxes and cutting spending at a time when private economic activity had ground to a halt.

Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan research group, said both candidates must put together a credible long-term plan to deal with the exploding deficit, but that the government should be priming the pump in the short term.

These conservatives are joined by Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, who writes in today’s column:

And to provide that help, we’re going to have to put some prejudices aside. It’s politically fashionable to rant against government spending and demand fiscal responsibility. But right now, increased government spending is just what the doctor ordered, and concerns about the budget deficit should be put on hold….

All signs point to an economic slump that will be nasty, brutish – and long….

And this is also a good time to engage in some serious infrastructure spending, which the country badly needs in any case. The usual argument against public works as economic stimulus is that they take too long: by the time you get around to repairing that bridge and upgrading that rail line, the slump is over and the stimulus isn’t needed. Well, that argument has no force now, since the chances that this slump will be over anytime soon are virtually nil. So let’s get those projects rolling.

The growing unanimity of opinion on the need for deficit spending for infrastructure projects is striking. Krugman, MacGuineas and Brittan join leading economic figures like Nouriel Roubini and Lawrence Summers in calling for bold action to mitigate the deepening economic crisis.

They are joined today by the Fresno Bee editorial in favor of Prop 1A which clearly understands the need for infrastructure stimulus, and directly refutes some of the fiscal arguments against HSR:

Sadly, much opposition has come from people who say they like the idea of 220-mph trains zipping up and down the state, but don’t think we can afford it right now, in a time of budget disaster and economic crisis.

That sounds prudent, even reasonable, but it ignores an important fact of American history: Many of our most important public works projects have come in times of deep economic distress — and they have been crucial elements in our recovery in those times.

Recall the Great Depression, when voters in the Bay Area passed bonds to build the Golden Gate and Bay bridges — projects that lightened the impact of the Depression on that region and were critical to the postwar economic boom. Shasta Dam was built during the Depression, and remains a linchpin of the state’s water system.

The closing paragraph of the editorial is a powerful, stirring statement that deserves to be quoted in full:

The high-speed rail project is immense, and that can be daunting. The current economic situation is likely to get worse before it gets better. In the past, Californians have risen to such challenges with vision and determination. Voting “yes” on Proposition 1A is a declaration that we still possess those qualities, and have not surrendered them to a timid faith in a status quo that is no longer sustainable.

I’ve never seen it put so well. The Fresno Bee clearly understands that our state’s very future is at stake and that Californians should be able to meet that challenge just as we have done in the past.

And what about the arguments that the financial crisis makes this a bad time to float bonds? The Sacramento Bee reports “unprecedented demand” for California’s short-term bonds:

California has secured commitments for nearly $4 billion in short-term loans thanks to unprecedented demand from individual investors Wednesday, averting a need for federal assistance and allaying fears of a cash shortage….

California secured orders for $3.92 billion in short-term bonds from individual investors Tuesday and Wednesday, 98 percent of its original $4 billion goal, according to state Treasurer Bill Lockyer….

This week’s bond sale reassured state officials that traditional lending markets would suffice.

Translation: capital markets WANT state bonds. If we float Prop 1A bonds they will be quickly gobbled up by a hungry market desperate for a safe investment.

All the HSR deniers have left is what was at the core of their belief all along – opposition to passenger rail:

“This is like losing your job and then using your credit card to put in a new swimming pool to help provide work for others,” said [Kris] Vosburgh [of the Howard Jarvis Association] of the jobs argument.

Have fun with that ridiculous “swimming pool” analogy in the comments…