I will be on KRXA 540 AM at 8 this morning to discuss this and other California politics issues

In today’s column lambasting state politicians for the budget crisis George Skelton makes a rather startling and, to me, clearly inaccurate claim. After bashing Arnold and the legislature’s leaders for not calling an immediate special session to deal with the budget deficit he uses the situation to argue for Prop 11:

Predictably, the Capitol’s record 85-day tardiness in producing a state budget is not an issue in any competitive legislative race this fall.

That’s because — despite the national political drama, and rock-bottom public approval rating of the Legislature — there are very few competitive legislative races. Blame the Legislature’s gerrymandering of districts to make them safe for incumbents and their parties. No incumbent is in a tight race. No lawmaker is being held accountable for legislative fiscal irresponsibility.

It’s an argument for Proposition 11, a ballot measure sponsored by good government groups that would take redistricting away from the Legislature and hand it to an independent commission.

That is simply not true. California is FULL of competitive legislative races this fall. Look at the assembly, where as David Dayen explained yesterday there are competitive seats all over the place. You’ve got Alyson Huber in AD-10, Joan Buchanan in AD-15, John Eisenhut in AD-26, Fran Florez in AD-30, Ferial Masry in AD-37, Marty Block in AD-78, and Manuel Perez in AD-80 all with a very good chance of winning seats currently held by Republicans or in a competitive race with Republicans.

Linda Jones in AD-36 is running a competitive race and in AD-38 and AD-63 a polls show a tie between Republicans and Democrats in voter preferences. The race for SD-19 is competitive between Hannah-Beth Jackson and Tony Strickland. Here on the Central Coast Abel Maldonado feels the need to blanket the airwaves with TV and radio ads even though he faces independent and underfunded challenger Jim Fitzgerald. Ginny Mayer and Gary Pritchard are likely seeing a boost in their own fortunes in Orange County senate races.

I don’t know how George Skelton can claim that there are no competitive legislative races this year. It is an untrue statement and he’s doing his readers a disservice by saying there aren’t any. He’s so fixated on Prop 11, a pointless reform in search of a problem, that he is blind to the political earthquake that’s about to take place.

Skelton is also wrong that the budget isn’t an issue in these races. True, it does not seem to dominate the campaigns, but it is instead enfolded into a broader public unease with Republicans when it comes to the economy. California’s economy badly needs stimulus and increased government spending, not slash-and-burn like Republicans propose. Barack Obama at last night’s debate dramatically undercut Republican demands for across the board spending cuts, pointing out that’s not what you do in a severe recession, and Californians are smart enough to connect that to our own Republican caucus.

California voters understand full well what is responsible for the budget crisis. Skelton wants us to believe it’s because all legislators regardless of party are either incompetent or scared to face the truth. Never mind the fact that it is foolish to hold a special session while you’re trying to sell revenue anticipation notes – Californians are demonstrating that they clearly understand this is the Republicans’ fault.

By forcing a three month budget delay and demanding spending cuts at the worst possible time, Republicans have shown to Californians that they are irresponsible and not to be trusted with power over California’s basic services and with its tax revenue.

Prop. 11 is a sideshow. It’s time for California’s media to pay attention to the main event – numerous competitive elections across the state that will put 2/3 in our grasp. Something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Skelton?!

For the last few election cycles Speak Out California has been distributing a progressive voter guide, including recommendations on ballot propositions and a chart of how California progressive groups have endorsed. Their guide was a popular, useful way for California progressives to navigate the sometimes confusing propositions. Speak Out is on hiatus until after the election, but the need for a progressive voter guide remains.

The Courage Campaign Issues Committee (disclosure: I’m proud to work with them) has taken up the task, and put together the 2008 Progressive Voter Guide. It includes Courage Campaign’s positions on the 12 propositions, and includes the ever-useful chart of how prominent California progressive organizations have endorsed on the 2008 propositions.

The chart, of course, includes prominently the Calitics ballot proposition recommendations including Yes on Prop 1A, No on Props 4 and 8, and No on Prop 11.

The guide can be downloaded as a PDF or you can get it for your mobile phone by texting VOTECA to 69866.

We are on the cusp of a major progressive breakthrough in California, and part of that involves the 12 ballot measures. This guide can help California progressive make the right choices.

Below is the email we sent out earlier this afternoon to our members announcing the guide:

Dear Robert,

You asked for it. And here it is.

A few weeks ago, we surveyed our members about whether or not the Courage Campaign should provide recommendations on California ballot measures to our nearly 100,000 members and supporters.

Your overwhelming answer: Yes, absolutely!

So, today, we’re launching our 2008 Progressive Voter Guide for the 12 — that’s right, 12 — propositions on California’s November ballot. Our Voter Guide includes not only Courage Campaign recommendations, but also the recommendations of nine other leading California progressive organizations.

Click here to download and print the Courage Campaign’s 2008 Progressive Voter Guide from our web site:

http://www.couragecampaign.org…

The choices you make on this ballot will impact you, your family and friends for decades to come.

We’ve already talked about why we think you should vote “No” on Proposition 8, which would eliminate equal rights for same-sex couples. We’ve also talked about why we think you should vote “No” on Proposition 4, which would undermine teen safety and abortion rights.

But what about the 10 other propositions on the ballot? To help you make your choices in this momentous election, our printable 2008 Progressive Voter Guide includes:

(1) Short, easy-to-read, recommendations from the Courage Campaign.

(2) A handy chart of recommendations from numerous leading progressive organizations across California.

(3) A mobile phone guide that you can easily take into your polling place and send to your friends.

To download our two-page Voter Guide directly to your computer, please click on the button below for a printable PDF document (click the link above to download it from our web site). Then print the guide and take it to the polls or have it at your side as you fill out your vote-by-mail ballot.

With many vote-by-mail ballots already in the hands of voters, please help us spread the word to as many progressives as possible in California. You can start today by forwarding this email and Voter Guide to your family and friends.

Even better: Print your voter guide right now and pass it out to your friends tonight when you watch the presidential debate.

The November election is about more than who will occupy the White House. It is also about California’s future. Together, we can rescue our state and make 2008 a new era for progressive politics in California.

Rick Jacobs

Chair

Courage Campaign

P.S. You can also get this 2008 Progressive Voter Guide sent to your mobile phone:

Just text VOTECA to 69866.

Or, why the Sac Bee and Modesto Bee are wrong to oppose Prop 1A.

California is staring into the abyss. 30 years of conservative economic policy, including tax cuts, have brought the national and the state economy to the worst economic crisis we have faced since 1933. The state budget is in perennial deficit – caused by those same conservative policies. Since Prop 13 in 1978 the state’s revenue levels have been set artificially and deliberately too low to maintain our core services. The purpose was to force crises like this and tell Californians “either we raise your taxes or we destroy government.”

The budget deficit is a difficult problem. But it can be closed fairly easily by returning to the income tax levels on the wealthy that Ronald Reagan supported, that were in place from 1991 to 1998.  It is a question of political will – our budget deficit is not a force of nature but a deliberate creation of man. What we make, we can unmake.

More importantly, how exactly are we going to close that budget deficit, provide short-term relief and long-term economic growth without infrastructure projects? Many economists argue that government spending on infrastructure must be part of not just an economic stimulus right now but also of any financial rescue plan. These economists understand what we at this blog have understood – that we need stimulus to revive our economy.

Banks aren’t lending just because of the bad assets on their books – they’re not lending because the economy is sliding into recession. To stop that we need government spending on new stimulus. That was conventional wisdom during the Depression and it eventually brought us out of the depths – while also setting up the prosperity of the postwar era.

Unfortunately California newspaper editorial boards remain trapped in the failed conventional wisdom that brought us to this point of crisis. Instead of returning to tried-and-true economic principles of infrastructure stimulus, they argue we should sacrifice the future to the failure of the present. That because we are in crisis now, we cannot act to rescue ourselves from that crisis, and cannot act to provide a more stable future.

Such is the position of the Modesto Bee in its editorial against Prop 1A and of the Sac Bee. They both claim it is “too costly for the state.” In doing so they merely demonstrate their lack of knowledge about high speed rail and their unwillingness to act to reverse the slide into severe recession.

Details over the flip.

From the Modesto Bee:

The annual cost to operate the high-speed rail network would exceed $1 billion. Backers believe they can operate in the black. We’re skeptical. Passenger rail systems throughout the United States require subsidies.

The Modesto Bee should NOT be skeptical. Every single HSR system around the world functions without operational subsidies. In France HSR is so profitable it subsidizes the other systems! Even Taiwan HSR has achieved profitability after just 18 months in operation. Of course we should remind the Modesto Bee that every other form of transportation in America is subsidized – but HSR stands on its merits. Ongoing subsidies are just not likely. The Modesto Bee misleads its readers in not mentioning that.

That aside, our main concern is the price. A review by the independent legislative analyst’s office says that if the bonds are sold at an average interest rate of 5 percent and paid off over 30 years, the cost to the state general fund would be about $19.4 billion. That works out to about $647 million per year.

State legislators struggle to produce a budget year after year, and the current budget, just signed, is expected to be nearly $5 billion in the red unless drastic action is taken. As we noted in opposing Proposition 3, California can ill afford to encumber the general fund with more debt, especially the staggering cost for high-speed rail.

The Modesto Bee and the Sac Bee, which used almost the same argument, would do well to read Pete Stahl’s “semi-biennial lecture on bonds”. Pete reminds us that bonds are a fixed cost over time that become much easier to pay off as general fund revenues increase. Further, HSR construction will actually BOOST the general fund by providing increased income tax and sales tax revenue. Combined with the green dividend from HSR it is likely that it will pay for itself – the benefits to the general fund will equal or outweigh the ongoing bond service costs.

Newspapers like the Modesto and Sacramento Bee are suggesting that we were wrong to build Shasta Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge during the Great Depression. Both required public bond financing to be constructed. Modesto and Sacramento STILL benefits from Shasta Dam water. Instead, according to papers like the Sac and Modesto Bee, we should have waited until the 1950s. Of course that would come at the cost of not only higher unemployment during the Depression – which is the last thing you need – but it would have limited our ability to have postwar growth.

The equation is very simple, people. Prop 1A = jobs now + long-term economic growth. California would be engaging in an act of extreme recklessness if it sacrificed the future because of the failures of the present. The best way to ensure that we continue to have unemployment and a budget deficit is to reject Prop 1A.

A significant and hopefully well-timed ruling given the fight against Prop 8:

“Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice,” Justice Richard N. Palmer wrote in the majority opinion that overturned a lower court finding.

“To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others,” Palmer wrote. (NY Times 10/10/08)

That’s what the fight against Prop 8 is all about – the Mormon Church and Yes on 8 campaign want to treat same-sex couples as different and lesser people, with inferior and incomplete rights. The concepts of equal protection and equal rights make it clear that we must recognize their right to marry.

How will Connecticut react?

Gov. M. Jodi Rell said Friday that she disagreed, but will not fight the ruling.

“The Supreme Court has spoken,” Rell said in a statement. “I do not believe their voice reflects the majority of the people of Connecticut. However, I am also firmly convinced that attempts to reverse this decision — either legislatively or by amending the state Constitution — will not meet with success.”

California politicians were saying the same thing back in May, you’ll recall, but here we are on the verge of Prop 8 passing. If you haven’t donated to the No on 8 campaign what are you waiting for?!

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

It’s a common theme from the right this year – when the public turns on you and your failed ideology, respond with a barrage of lies, fear, and fear-based lies. We’ve seen it from John McCain, from Sarah Palin, and even from high speed rail critics.

But few campaigns are more egregious in their lies than those of the Yes on 8 campaign. And few campaign lies have the potential to do so much damage to civil rights in California as theirs.

Take the newest ad from the Yes on 8 campaign. This one focuses on the lie that if Prop 8 fails, kids might be taught about same-sex marriages in schools, against their parents’ will.

This is complete nonsense. A Sacramento judge ruled that this claim was “false and misleading” in the context of the ballot argument.

More significantly, California law is explicit in prohibiting any school to teach a child anything about health and family issues at school if their parents object.

Because of that crystal-clear provision, the Yes on 8 campaign has had to mention Massachusetts, where the laws are not so protective of family rights and religious freedoms. By citing Massachusetts they are able to mislead voters.

Which is ironic because back when I was in Sunday School, so many years ago, I remember pretty clearly being taught that it’s wrong to lie and mislead.

Still, the Yes on 8 campaign is having improved poll numbers – fear and lies work in politics, especially if we don’t fight back and challenge them.

The Yes on 8 campaign is also pulling far ahead in the money race – at least $7 million ahead of the No on 8 campaign. In response the No on 8 campaign has raised around $1 million over the last few days, but we need to seriously step that up.

More money for No on 8 helps counter the lies with ads like their newest at right, phone banks, and other ways to explain to Californians why it is wrong to eliminate marriage for anyone.

Here’s what you can do to help the No on 8 campaign:

1. Contribute to the campaign using the Calitics ActBlue page.  If you have the cash to give big give big.  If you only have $5 or $10, give what you can.  Yes, your money will be spent on TV ads, but unfortunately that is the way we win elections here in California.
2. Volunteer. Show up at a local campaign office.  They are all over the state.  Or stay in the comfort of your own home to phone bank.  We win this by persuading more undecideds to vote No on Prop 8.
3. Talk to your friends and family about Prop. 8.  Lot’s of people are still confused that supporting marriage equality means voting No. To that end, the Courage Campaign has created what the Politiker is calling“the most humorous TV ad of the fall election season”.  They like it, we think it’s pretty funny, but watch it for yourself.

   It is aimed at straight people, using a privacy, “get the government out of my pants” argument.  The undecided electorate is quirky.  Some of your friends will be swayed by talk about fundamental rights being taken away.  Others with a more libertarian streak may like the video. Tailor your discussion to your friends.

Crossposted from the California High Speed Rail Blog

This one isn’t really a surprise, since they’ve been supporters of high speed rail for many years now, but today the San Francisco Chronicle endorsed a Yes vote on Prop 1A:

The passage of Prop. 1A would generate an estimated 160,000 construction-related jobs at a time when the state could use an economic stimulus. But its even greater long-term value to the state will be the economic and environmental benefits of connecting urban centers with growing inland cities that don’t have major airports – and providing an alternative to the cattle-call flights between the Bay Area and Southern California.

They’re absolutely right – and even understating the case. The long-term value isn’t just in providing alternatives to cattle-call flights, nice though that will be. The long-term value comes in providing an alternative to oil, period. Our state’s dependence on oil is causing financial and economic havoc. Those who make baseless criticisms of Prop 1A’s financing are ignoring the far more risky and damaging impacts of “staying the course” and doing nothing in the face of a climate and energy crisis that is strangling our economy.

The editors had a good response to those fiscal critics:

Opponents have seized on the understandable anxiety about a venture of this magnitude and have questioned everything from its cost projections to ridership estimates to its environmental benefits. In a meeting with our editorial board this week, they suggested the money would be better spent on relieving gridlock on regional roadways.

However, the fiscal safeguards on Prop. 1A were toughened substantially with the Legislature’s recent passage of AB3034. It limited the amount of money that could be spent on administration or other items unrelated to construction. Also, construction could not begin on any segment of the project until it was certified that the funding for it had been secured. State funding would account for about half of the project; the balance would come from the federal government and private sources.

HSR deniers want Californians to believe that if this passes that we’re going to be DOOMED, doomed  I tell ya, especially in our state budget. But the Chronicle points out this is nonsense. If the feds and private enterprise come through as they have consistently indicated they will then we build it and everyone’s happy. If they don’t come through, we don’t build it, no money spent, no harm done.

They close well:

Prop. 1A presents an ambitious vision that is well tailored to the state’s transportation and environmental needs. We recommend its passage.

We strongly agree.

Capitol Alert reports that T. Boone Pickens, who has been pushing his own bailout plan, Prop 10, is sinking another $4 million to the Yes on 10 campaign:

T. Boone Pickens, the billionaire Texas oil tycoon behind Proposition 10, has doubled down on the alternative energy bond, plunging another $4 million into the measure through his company Clean Energy Fuels Corp.

Pickens’ company was already the largest financier of the ballot measure, having given $3.75 million to the campaign. The measure would provide $5 billion in rebates to help promote natural gas vehicles, the types of vehicles that could be Pickens’ company’s customers.

The rebates would be paid for through a general obligation bond, repaid by the state over 30 years.

Just as Goldman Sachs is using the US Treasury to bail itself and its allies out (h/t to jsw), T Boone is seeking to raid an already-stressed California budget to help boost his natural gas business. We’re already – and rightly – going to commit $10 billion in bond funds to Prop 1A, and even that is touch-and-go given public unease at the budget crisis and credit crunch. California cannot afford to give a handout to Oklahoma oil billionaires – we need to give that money to in-state, long-term, sustainable projects like high speed rail.