by Brian Leubitz

We still have twelve weeks before the 2018 election, but a coalition of labor, community organizations, business leaders, and elected leaders are already thinking about 2020. Today, they filed 860K signatures, far more than the 575K requirement to get to the ballot. Even assuming a higher failure rate that is typically encountered when using a mostly volunteer signature gathering process, this seems like it is on the road to the ballot.

In short, it is a split roll measure, which would split the personal property roll from commercial and industrial property. It is difficult to imagine that as they were watching ads about granny losing her home, voters were thinking about how much an office building or factory was worth. And that’s exactly the point here, the state is basically giving a huge tax boost to large companies. Maybe that’s what we would want to do, but we should be upfront about the transfer of wealth from school teachers to real estate conglomerates.

“Over the last 40 years, California has lost hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue, leading to chronic underfunding of schools, services, and local communities along with poor local land use decisions, and a spiraling housing crisis,” said Helen Hutchison, President of the League of Women Voters of California. ”Schools and Communities First is the first structural and equitable tax reform in four decades. It will reclaim over $11 billion robbed every year from schools and local communities, shaping a new legacy of investment in the people of California.”

Of course, you will see people screaming about “job killers.” But, alas, this is simply not true. In a recent study, UC-Santa Cruz researches came to the conclusion that fair assessments of real property would actually strengthen the state’s economy by incentivizing better land use.

We will have a long time to talk about this split roll measure, but it is a conversation that has been necessary for a long time. Prop 13 reform is overdue, and maybe 2020 will be the year we actually get some real reform.

By the by, don’t be fooled again by this granny in the streets canard. The CA Realtors are trying it again with Prop 5, and it will be an uphill climb to defeat it at the ballot. But don’t fall for it, it will cost the state and municipalities billions of dollars.

Election results from across the state were generally favorable, with the huge exception of Josh Newman’s recall. Most importantly, while there are still a few races left, it appears that Democrats avoided the Top2 stumbling block and have a shot at flipping the seven targeted House seats.

For better or worse, it appears that Gavin Newsom is now very well positioned to be our next Governor, with only John Cox in his way. No big surprises in the other statewide constitutional races. But one to watch will be the state superintendent race, where Marshall Tuck leads Tony Thurmond. This nonpartisan race will likely be an expensive race as the charter schools and teachers unions fight over the future of our public schools. In both his previous run and his current one, Tuck has been reliant on the charter school movement for his electoral prospects. While the position is somewhat limited, a strong charter advocate would not be a good omen for our schools.

Back to the subject of Sen. Newman, Kerry Cavanaugh in the LA Times states the truth behind the election: the Republicans wanted a do-over in a lower turnout election. Their stated pretext of the gas tax was a mere fig leaf for their reliance on the flawed recall process.

Finally, here in San Francisco, the Mayoral race still is far from decided. London Breed is winning on first choice ballots, but as Don Perata learned, that alone does not make you Mayor. Leno now leads in the latest RCV count with a big boost from the second choice votes from third place Jane Kim. Lots of votes are still out there to determine the final outcome though, so this will probably be an agonizing wait for San Francisco to finally determine who will take over for Interim Mayor Mark Farrell.

Another June poll: in Mark DiCamillo’s (formerly of Field) Berkeley IGS poll, Newsom and Feinstein both retain big leads in their respective races. However, in the gubernatorial race, both of the two Republican gubernatorial candidates are polling ahead of the Democratic pack.

On the Senate side, behind Feinstein (28%), Kevin de Leon (11%) is just narrowly ahead of the Republican pack for the second spot in the November general election. And the anti-Semitic Twitter troll didn’t make it out of the “other candidate section”, so that’s a good thing.

The leading Republican is a man named James P Bradley(10%), likely on the basis of his ballot designation “Chief Financial Officer.” Now, his website is pretty much a stock WordPress theme, complete with the twitter feed of the developer rather than the candidate and a slew of typos. But, he has a website, so that’s something. He’s a Trumpster, and proudly proclaims that he is the “Keep America Great First Candidate,” just to make sure he gets all the Trumpisms in there. (Also note that I didn’t do anything to his photo with the weird 3D effect or whatever is going on. That’s straight from his site.)

Ultimately, the races for the second spot in both contests are rather unsettled. It is entirely possible that there are no Republicans in either race and we have competitive Dem-on-Dem general elections or it could go the other direction and we have two Democrats who are huge favorites to win in November. Of course, having no Republicans on the statewide ballot would help competitive down ballot races.

In other news, Top 2 really is awful.

California Republicans risk tax increases for their constituents

by Brian Leubitz

The feud over the tax deduction for state and local taxes continues after the recent House vote on the federal budget. Gov. Brown and Rep. Pelosi are mincing no words after all 14 California Republicans supported the budget. Brown went so far as to call the Republican members “like a herd of sheep” for voting for a measure that would increase taxes on Californians by ending the state and local tax(SALT) deduction.

But don’t worry, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) has a plan for that:

“You know how you get to deduct where California continues to raise their rates? I don’t think it’s fair that somebody else subsidize poor management of California or New York policies,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) told the California Republican Party convention last weekend.

“No longer can Sacramento say, I’m gonna raise the rates, just cause I’ll have the federal government subsidize it,“ McCarthy added as the crowd of conservative activists cheered him on. “They will have to be held accountable for when they want to raise taxes higher.“ (Capital Public Radio)

In other words, look over there, there’s a bathtub, let’s go hop into it because Grover Norquist told us to!

The California Republicans are hoping that the blame when the tax increases occur in California will be assigned to Democrats in the Legislature. But that seems somewhat of a gamble considering that those increases will be showing up on federal Form 1040 while Republicans control the federal government.

Look, SALT deductions are clearly not perfect, especially with respect to progressivity, but neither are any other of a number of tax expenditures. You know what else isn’t very progressive? Flattening the income tax structure to reduce taxes on the richest of Americans that, as Warren Buffet pointed out, don’t need a tax cut. Zeroing out this one deduction, while reducing taxes on the wealthy isn’t really what the Trump voters were dreaming of in their MAGA hats. And are the people really clamoring for reductions in the corporate tax rates that the Republicans are really focused on?

Pelosi, for her part, is calling on California Democrats to rally against the budget and the end of the SALT on November 3. For what it is worth, Capital Public Radio asked all of the California Republicans where they stand on the SALT deduction, with most not responding, but McCarthy and Rohrabacher said yes. We may get a full answer on how interested they feel in representing California as “tax reform” moves forward.

Is this the fight we want or the fight we need?

by Brian Leubitz

By this point, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will have heard about Kevin de León’s entry into the Senate race next year. There have been rumblings for a while, and it seemed that he was going to enter the race whether DiFi was retiring or not. He has his shiny new website all ready to go, while she has, um, a spam site at what would be the most logical website, and a site from 2012 that is apparently selling space for google ads. She may want to have somebody look into that.

There are any number of ways to think about this race, and much of it comes from where you stand. Sen Feinstein was never the progressive California Senator, that was Sen. Boxer and now Sen. Harris. She has always been a champion for gun safety legislation, and a leader as chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee. But she has never been a progressive firebrand. According to 538’s “Trump Score”, she is in the middle of the Democratic pack. But, that’s also 12 points more favorable to Trump than would be expected from a California senator.

On the flip side, there will be no end of Democrats announcing that running against an incumbent will bring ruin and the wasting of resources that could be spent in other states defeating actual Republicans. We will have to see where KdL’s money comes from once we see a report, but given the drama surrounding his candidacy, one would suspect that you won’t see many of the usual suspects on the contribution lists.

Now, Kevin de León has a lot of work in front of him convincing Californians that he will be a more representative (probably not so hard) and more effective (probably much harder) Senator that Sen. Feinstein. But the remaining question is whether the election will be decided in the first election or the second. As of yet, there are no serious Republicans in the race. But, if there are only two Democrats, and only one Republican, might we see another Dem-on-Dem general? Add in a third Democrat (Steyer?) that becomes a lot less likely. Add in a second Republican, and it becomes a lot more likely. Of course, this is one of the problems of the top-2 system. It leaves a lot up to gamesmanship and the sheer number of candidates. (For example, had Top-2 applied in the 2010 AG race, we would have missed a Rep on Rep race by a few thousand votes.)

At any rate, this race will certainly be interesting. How defining it is for the California (and national) Democratic Party is still up in the air.

State pokes stick in the eye of Sessions, Trump, and their neo-nativist supporters

by Brian Leubitz

Governor Brown doesn’t mind confronting the federal government. He’s shown that particularly in the climate change arena as he has become the de facto American leader taking on that global crisis. However, he also likes to tread carefully.

And that was his hangup about Senator Kevin de Leon’s sanctuary bill, SB 54. And yesterday, the governor apparently got the changes he felt were necessary:

The amendments would give law enforcement agencies more discretion to notify federal immigration officials about convicted offenders in their custody and to transfer those offenders to immigration authorities.

The bill would still allow federal immigration officials to interview those in custody, though it will not permit those officials to maintain permanent office space in state prisons or local jails.

“This bill protects public safety and people who come to California to work hard and make this state a better place,” Brown said in a statement.(The Hill 9/12/17)

The changes also helped ease some of the opposition from law enforcement leaders that had been troubling to the governor’s office. And now, I suppose the ball is in the court of AG Sessions to get all mad and storm off with whatever block grants to the state aren’t glued down to the floor.

The agreement is getting praise from other state leaders as well.

“From the moment Donald Trump won the White House, California Democrats have been tirelessly working to protect and shield undocumented Californians from the federal Government,” said California Democratic Party Chair Eric Bauman.

“One of the cornerstones of that effort is SB 54 by Senator Kevin de Leon, and California Democrats are deeply grateful that he and Governor Brown have reached agreement on final language that ensures California’s law enforcement agencies are not used as instruments of federal immigration enforcement. Californians welcome our undocumented brothers and sisters, and the use of California’s peace officers against our own brothers and sisters would have been unconscionable and dangerously corrosive to the trust law enforcement needs from the community to keep Californians safe. This is a powerful message of inclusion and reassurance to Undocumented Californians, and I urge the Legislature to approve this bill as swiftly as possible.”

National group funded by gun manufacturers files suit against assault weapons regulations

by Brian Leubitz

The NRA has a problem in California. They don’t have their normal power here, but they are still awash in money. So, the money goes to the lawyers instead of the politicians, because it is pretty tough to get Democrats to touch the stuff these days. The lawyers are getting quite creative too:

The new lawsuit, filed Thursday in Fresno Superior Court, seeks to block the new regulations, arguing that new rules requiring registration of existing assault weapons “go far beyond” the allowed registration process, and “unlawfully expand the scope” of the state’s registration requirement. (LA Times)

Long story short, the legislation banned guns with a “bullet button” that allowed for easy clip transfer. The NRA already sued on that one. But the guns that were out in circulation get to stay in their owners possession, but they have to be registered. The NRA likes neither of these, and sued on both aspects.

It will be a while before we get a final ruling on these cases, but we may see some sort of short term action in the interim.