Prop 14 has made some crazy bedfellows. Like today, when I was reading my news feeds and I was forced to stop, look around, and say, well, thank you Jeff Denham:

Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Merced, transferred $50,000 last week from his Senate campaign account to a committee to oppose Proposition 14.

As The Bee has reported, the very vocal opposition to the “open primary” proposal has yet to show significant signs of life when it comes to raising cash to back a campaign. The California Republican Party has launched a No on 14 Web site, but has yet to contribute to one of four accounts opened to oppose the measure, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Secretary of State.(SacBee)

Of course, the Governor hasn’t been sitting back on this one. This crazy system is one of his key “reform” measures that he’s been targeting. At last check, he’s plopped down over $3 million bucks into the campaign to get this thing passed.  

So, on this one, Jon Fleischman, the rightwing blogger at Flash Report, and I are in complete agreement. This will lead to a less functional government, not a more functional one.  It strips the parties of their right to choose for themselves who will be their standard bearer. And it will create additional costly fights within the Democratic Party.  If it was applied in 2008, Democrats would have faced 6 Dem-on-Dem general elections, while there would be only one R-on-R general.

So, thank you Jeff Denham. Excuse me, I need to take a shower now.

Who saw this coming? Oh, right, everybody:

Across California, businesses are paying a far smaller share of property tax than homeowners since Proposition 13 was approved because of legal loopholes that allow companies to avoid a reassessment upon a change of ownership, a new study says.

The disparity exists in virtually all of California’s 58 counties, according to the 122-page report by the California Tax Reform Association and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. The full study is available here.

In some counties, residential property is shouldering two-thirds of the property tax load, sharply higher than when tax-cutting Proposition 13 was approved more than 30 years ago. (CapWkly)

The Right won this battle by showing commercials of little old ladies getting kicked out of their homes b/c they couldn’t pay their taxes.  But the fact of the matter is that Prop 13, rather than shifting the burden off of home owners, has been shifted to them from commercial property.

Asm. Tom Ammiano is working on a bill to close the loophole that allows mega corporations to merge or sell off a subsidiary and avoid re-assesment.  The issue here is that some of the biggest buildings in the state are still being assessed at 1978 levels despite the fact that they’ve changed ownership, sometimes slowly, sometimes through a quick corporate move.  But Prop 13 is rigid and won’t allow us to update the values on these corporate hijinks, and the homeowners pay ever increasing portions of the property tax pie.

This is fundamentally unfair, and it exposes the truth behind Prop 13. It is a corporate dream come true, and anything but a friend to the people of California.

The Demon Sheep are back in this CDP/DSCC web ad. And they are sporting some zany hair dos and even some pearls:

Because Prop 11 has been such an overwhelming success, the same folks are back with a November measure that will bring Congressional Districts into the Prop 11 commission.  Yup, apparently they are so imressed with an unrepresentative commission to draw borders for millions of dollars more than the Legislature cost that they decided it would be worth another round.  So, get ready for a fight this November:

REDISTRICTING OF CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Removes elected representatives from the process of establishing congressional districts and transfers that authority to the recently-authorized 14-member redistricting commission. Redistricting commission is comprised of five Democrats, five Republicans, and four voters registered with neither party. Requires that any newly-proposed district lines be approved by nine commissioners including three Democrats, three Republicans, and three from neither party. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Probably no significant change in state redistricting costs. (09-0027.)

The proponent of this initiative is Charles T. Munger, Jr.  He can be reached at [email protected].

By the by, Prop 11 was supposed to have no significant costs either. However, the State Auditor has already blown through the amount of money they were supposed to get under the law, which was pegged to the costs under the Legislature. So, yeah, no costs, because we were hoodwinked the first time around.

Anyway, Charles Munger is Warren Buffett’s right-hand man at Berkshire Hathaway, so a very, very wealthy man.  He gives money to some of these misguided goo-goo measures and a few right-leaning causes across the country. UPDATE: This Charles Munger is actually the son of the Berkshire Munger. My apologies for the confusion.

Remember all the hopes of increasing tax revenues? Fuggedaboutit:

State tax collections plummeted unexpectedly in April, wiping out months of steady gains that legislators hoped would ease their budget troubles and restore California’s economy faster than experts predicted.

Such hope is now fading fast.

Revenue for April, the biggest revenue month because it is when most Californians pay their taxes, lagged projections by nearly 30% – roughly $3 billion, according to state officials. The drop was steep enough to erase improvements recorded in each of the four previous months. (LA Times)

This means more painful cuts to services throughout the state (meanwhile Arnold thinks it is best to waste $2.5 million on a special election in SD-15).

Don’t expect any budget votes to come easy this summer

There are a lot of bad actors in California government right now. There are special interests with special interests.  Yet if you had to look for a list of companies that are exploiting the state with deceptive tactics, you would be hard pressed to top PG&E.  

And the latest rebuke isn’t even about Prop 16, their deceptive monopoly preservation proposition.  Instead, it is about Marin County’s community choice aggregation (CCA) program, where PG&E is fighting to keep customers on their roles.  And lying to do it.

California utility regulators Monday warned Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to stop using telephone and direct-mail tactics that could derail competition from the state’s first nonprofit group to offer electric service.

The warning letter from the California Public Utilities Commission came in the midst of PG&E’s $35-million campaign to pass Proposition 16, a statewide initiative on the June 8 ballot aimed at making it harder for local governments and citizens to form nonprofits to provide electricity. … (The PUC) said PG&E’s mailers to customers were “misleading” and the utility “must refrain from sending any mailers of this nature in the future.”(LA Times)

At this point, if there is a rule, PG&E will do its best to go as far as possible to violate it. If they make a promise, as they did with honoring the will of the people to create CCAs, is it worth anything any more?

We simply can’t trust PG&E with a monopoly on power anymore.

There was a lot of interesting comments at the GOP debate for governor. A lot of crazy on immigration issues and a lot of magical thinking on budgetary issues.  But that’s for a different discussion. The exchange, and the charge, that is working right now against Meg Whitman is simple. She is a profiteer who put her own personal fortune over the best interests of her company and its shareholders.

I’ll let Steve Poizner break it down for you:

Everytime this clip, or Poizner’s ad, is played, you can practically hear voters turning away from MoneyBags Whitman. She is part of a kleptocracy that thinks they can have what they want, when they want it. They are entitled, and Whitman thinks she’s entitled to the governor gig.  Her staff practically said as much when they demanded that Poizner drop out of the race.

Frankly, I have no favorites in the GOP primary, they are both far too conservative, and would move the state in the wrong direction.  And it is really hard to tell which one is more out of touch with Californians. Could it be the Goldman Sachs billionaire or the man who thought $450,000 homes were the “wrong side of the tracks?”  

It’s a tough call.

Today, the oil companies behind the plan to repeal AB 32, our landmark climate change legislation, will submit their signatures to the Secretary of State.

California voters will decide the fate of the state’s landmark global-warming bill in the November election after a big-bucks battle that may break records for political spending on an initiative.

Today, a group heavily backed by Texas oil giants Tesoro Corp. and Valero Energy Corp. plans to submit signatures for an initiative seeking to suspend AB32 until California’s unemployment rate improves dramatically. … AB32’s proponents call it a vital step in efforts to curb greenhouse gases and create green jobs. And with federal climate-change regulations stalled in Congress, the California law takes on added significance as a potential model for other states. (SF Chronicle)

Of course, the oil companies say that it “hurts jobs” without a whole lot of evidence. Of course, to the contrary, California stands as the world’s leader in clean tech. We stand an amazing opportunity to build upon that success. However, if we take a step backward, investors will shy away from the state when we are able to move forward in the future.

Look, at a time when we are facing an unprecedented environmental catastrophe, we just can’t be moving in the wrong direction.  And Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner as well as nearly every statewide candidate have all taken positions favoring repeal. I think Chuck DeVore is personally emitting extra hot air just to piss off the environment, which, according to DeVore is his to exploit.  

But, other statewide candidates seem to want to avoid the subject. Funny how some like to play every side of the issue.