by Brian Leubitz

With the austerity plan set to lop between one and two points off our GDP growth, the House today voted to pass it anyway.  It’s a doozy no matter how you look at it.

Here’s the vote tally, with the California caucus splitting in strange ways. Tom McClintock and Devin Nunes joined Zoe Lofgren and Barbara Lee in voting no.  John Garamendi, Jackie Speier, Wally Herger, and John Campbell teamed up to vote yes. Quite the dynamic alliances there.

Of course, if you like the way your member voted, or if you didn’t, be sure to let them know.

by Brian Leubitz

A few weeks ago, it was nearly impossible to find any good maps of the proposed districts.  Now that we have a tentative final map, they are sprouting up everywhere.  And with all the shakeups in the maps, it is pretty hard to keep track of who is in what district, who is going to run next time, and where the hot races will be.

However, AroundTheCapitol.com is looking to put some of that information in one easy place. They have set up pages with the maps of every district, who is in the district now (or the nearest approximation of the district) and who will run.  I randomly chose a district to check out, so here is the page for the 10th AD as defined in the new maps.  (It is basically Jared Huffman’s current district.)

Scott Lay, the creator of the site, is accepting information about who is running in the districts and updating accordingly.  You can also leave your comments using the facebook commenting system.

If you have info, or want info, on the districts, it is definitely a nice little site to check out over the next few weeks.

A bit of controversy at the General Session

by Brian Leubitz

While CDP Executive Board delegates seemed to be on edge about the debt ceiling debate, the meeting also contained a fair bit on the accomplishment side.  The big news from the CDP was an effort in Los Angeles County to register far more PAVs for the next round of elections.  The PAV numbers in LA are far below other counties, and the associated drops in turnout particularly affects minority turnout.  Even if we just get LA County to parity with other counties in the state, we could be looking at an extra half million votes.  That sure would have made my life easier in the Kamala Harris race last year.  Kudos to the CDP for their work on the project, we’ll be anxiously watching the results in the coming months.

But that certainly wasn’t the only news.  As I explained yesterday, there were a few issues of controversy at the CDP e-board this weekend.  First, the death penalty resolution that called for the conversion of all sentences to permanent incarceration was passed without much dissent at all.  While there was resistance at the April convention for political reasons, that seems to have melted away with the prominent support of CDP chair John Burton.

On the other hand, the fight over bylaws changes was not so easy.  The easy cases for the handling of endorsements in the 2012 were handled quickly.  Endorsements for the 2012 election will be made at the Feb 10-12, 2012 CDP convention.  If the endorsed candidate does not proceed to the general election, there will be another endorsing caucus in the district.  The big issue was if the party wanted to endorse somebody who did not express a Democratic preference.  

There were quite a few speeches back and forth on the subject, including CYD VP Hillary Blackerby who strongly opposed allowing non-Democrats to get the state party’s endorsement.  This opinion ultimately carried the day, but only just.  Because amending the bylaws of the state party requires a 2/3 vote, the majority that supported the change was not able to succeed.

The other controversial issue was the change of the “convention pull” process for endorsements. Under the current rules, Democrats who did not get the endorsement in the regional caucus at the convention could bring the endorsement to the floor by getting 300 signatures.  After verification, these endorsements then went to the floor for debate.  The Mark Leno/Carole Migden episode was one of these events.  But this is problematic for a couple for reasons.  

First, the verification process requires an excessive amount of staff time.  On the leniency side, getting 300 signatures at an event of approximately 2000 isn’t really all that high of a barrier to entry.  There should be more respect for the opinion of the local delegates, but no so much as to allow the Democratic brand to be carried into the gutter.  A corollary of this issue is that legislative caucuses are known to pack the local caucuses with delegates in their region. In fact, in that Leno/Migden race, about 15% of all delegates were in the 3rd Senate district.  Obviously that was unacceptable, and legislators are now only allowed to appoint half of their delegates outside of the district they represent.

The solution presented over the weekend was to allow appeal to a board composed of the regional director and Chair appointed members of standing committees.  The main concern with this process was that it would essentially be a yes-man for the earlier decision to avoid controversy.  Whether that would have been true won’t be known, as after all the speeches from both sides the rule failed to gain the necessary votes.

However, I think there is a lot of room to build a process that reduces the load on CDP staff while still preserving the convention pull process.  I think you’ll hear more about that in the next few months, but the contours seem anything but clear now.  These issues certainly need to be addressed as soon as feasible.

These issues will eventually be settled.  And with that being said, the executive board was an overall success as we head into another election season.  

General session will feature debates over the death penalty and some controversial rules changes

By Brian Leubitz

CDP executive board meetings tend to be sedate affairs featuring more schmoozing than anything else.  But on occasion the closing general sessions feature a few fireworks, and today may be such a day.

First, a death penalty resolution that called for the commutation of all death penalty sentences to Permanent Incarceration passed through the Resolutions committee with only a minor tweak.  The resolution originally called for all sentences to be changed to life without parole, but it has been changed to permanent incarceration.  With Chairman Burton’s support, it seems likely to pass.

On the other hand, as I discussed in an earlier post, there are a few potential rules changes to be discussed today.  First, there is that possibility of endorsing Dts voters in the top 2 primary system.  That change has dominated the conversation, but another change just might end up creating quite the stir as well.

Under the current endorsement rules, a Democratic candidate that loses  the endorsement in the regional caucus at the convention can gather signatures to bring the endorsement to the floor.  The change would instead allow the candidate to appeal to a board that would then decide whether the endorsement should proceed to a floor debate.  This would end the gathering of signatures, (as happened in the case of Mark Leno against Carole Migden) and the processing and the associated resource questions.  On the other hand, questions of stacking may still arise.  Whether this board would be as responsive remains to be seen.

The general session runs from 10 until noon this morning.

Maps have a few more hurdles, but should stand up

by Brian Leubitz

Well, the vote was due on August 15, but why not go ahead and figure out how things are going to go early?  Apparently, the maps, viewable here, are set to have sufficient votes.

New legislative, congressional and Board of Equalization boundaries were tentatively approved today by California’s Citizen Redistricting Commission, ending months of hearings, public comments and debate.

Final action will be taken Aug. 15 on the maps, which are expected to be used for next year’s statewide races.

The 53-district congressional plan nearly was killed by Republicans, receiving no votes from GOP members Michael Ward and Jodie Filkins Webber. Three other Republicans on the panel gave the maps thumbs up.(SacBee)

The CRP will likely sue to block implementation, as well any number of other smaller groups, but any major changes seem unlikely.  Perhaps a border here or there, but the CRP isn’t all that likely to get the wholesale changes they are looking for.  While a 2/3 majority in both houses seems a stretch, I think you’d have to say that these maps make at least somewhat more likely.

One more thing, I must now admit that I was wrong that the commission would not be able to come up with an agreed upon map.  Well, it appears that I was wrong, and that the commission was able to find consensus.  How quaint.

State Audit reveals no major malfeasance, but a deep lack of transparency

by Brian Leubitz

Sen. Leland Yee has been all over the UC system, arguing that nobody knows what is going on with the system.  But while State Auditor Elaine Howle didn’t find anything legally wrong, she did find that much more could be done to shed light on the process

The University of California should justify to the public why it spends thousands of dollars more per student at four of its 10 campuses and also do a better job of explaining how it spends more than $1 billion it allots annually to “miscellaneous services,” state auditors said Thursday.

The audit found no major malfeasance in the university system’s budgeting or spending, but noted a lack of transparency in the way it handles its finances that could erode public trust.

For example, $6 billion was budgeted for the UC president’s office over five years, all of it falling under a line-item category called miscellaneous services. (SF Gate)

Now, most of the money can be traced back to legitimate expenses, but why was so much money just tossed into a “miscellaneous” file.  UC can do better than that. Heck, they have a whole fleet of accounting professors that can help them out with that.  But we would all be served by a bit more sunshine in the Office of the President.

The report also revealed that several campuses receive much smaller amounts of funding per student. UCSB receives $12,309 per student, while UC-Davis receives $17,660.  Much of this has to do with some important underlying factors such as percentage of graduate students, but once again, a little sunshine could make this whole process smoother.  If the UC just did a better job in keeping its books open, many of these issues wouldn’t get heated at all.

Meanwhile both the UC system and Yee are taking the report as a win. Hooray for that.

Justine knows her stuff on initiatives, and SB 168, which would ban per-signature payments, is a very important reform. – Brian

By Justine Sarver

Executive Director, Ballot Initiative Strategy Center

With the stroke of a pen, Governor Brown can start fixing California’s broken ballot-measure system this week.

A bill that would ban paying per-signature “bounty” payments to petition signature-gatherers – Sen. Ellen Corbett’s SB 168, which my organization is sponsoring – is on the Governor’s desk now. The bill is good for California and I urge the governor to sign it.

Governor Brown should sign SB 168 because bounty payments are a proven incentive for fraud. When each signature on a petition is worth anywhere from $1 to $5 dollars, too many signature gatherers are tempted to fake signatures or deceive voters about what they’re signing. Some will even bribe homeless people on Skid Row with Snickers bars to get a few extra signatures.  Because most initiatives qualify for the ballot based on a random sampling of signature validity rather than a full check of each one, there’s no way to know how many faked or coerced signatures help qualify measures for the ballot.

The bill will also help give all groups equal access to the ballot. Right now, California has direct democracy for the highest bidders, rather than what Gov. Hiram Johnson intended – direct democracy that gives the people a powerful check on corporations and the government.  Texas oil companies and PG&E can afford to pay massive bounties to qualify measures for the ballot, while it is far rarer for truly populist efforts to be able to do the same.

There are other, less obvious reasons the governor, a known reformer and former Secretary of State, should sign this bill:

SB 168 is good for direct democracy. It is good for Californians. And it deserves Governor Brown’s signature.

—

The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center is the progressive community’s only organization focused solely on ballot measures. In conjunction with national and state partners, BISC works to reform ballot-measure laws and support ballot measures that advance social and economic justice.

The first draft of maps were rather confusing, but since then, the Commission has given us some nice Google-maps powered visualizations.  And today they have released their draft maps through that system.  Here is the link

To get the latest maps, choose the type of map you want from the middle dropdown on the top row, and then provide an address.  You can then scroll around the map to find the district you are interested in.