Candidates for Governor will face off on Sep 4 in LA

by Brian Leubitz

Neel Kashkari has been lobbying for a debate with Governor Brown for a while. It’s the typical challenger stuff, claiming he was dodging, or chicken, yada, yada. But for a position as large as Governor of California, a debate is a worthwhile use of everybody’s time. Once you strip away all the BS, hopefully we can have a productive conversation. And that conversation will happen on September 4 in Los Angeles.

Kashkari had challenged Brown to 10 debates, but until now, Brown had brushed off that proposition. Most polls show Brown leading Kashkari by about 20 points, and last month the governor told reporters he “hadn’t made up (his) mind” as to whether or not he’d debate the former U.S. Treasury Department official.

But both Brown and Kashkari campaigns have now agreed to the September debate, which will be produced by KQED, the Los Angeles Times, the California Channel and Telemundo California. KQED’s senior California politics and government editor, John Myers, will moderate the one-hour forum. Journalists from the Los Angeles Times and Telemundo will ask the candidates questions as well. (KQED / Scott Detrow)

Yes, Brown is leading, and it would take some sort of monumental change for Kashkari to get close to the Governor in the vote total. But this should be an interesting chance to hear two perspectives on the state. Brown has a strong record these last four years, but maybe Kashkari can at least try to drag his party into something approaching respectability over these last two and a half months.

A City Council veto override on Monday has set the scene for a showdown between local and national business interests vs. a labor-community coalition over San Diego’s Earned Sick Day / Minimum Wage ordinance.

Following months of public hearings and invitations (mostly declined) for local businesses to hammer out a compromise, the city council passed an ordinance providing access to five earned sick days and setting a local minimum wage increasing to $11.50 over three years.

This action makes San Diego the largest city in the nation to raise the minimum wage.

Mayor Kevin Faulconer–said to be one of the bright new faces in the GOP– then turned thumbs down on the bill on Friday, August 8th. Although the council was slated for vacation for the rest of the month, a special session was called by president Todd Gloria. The 6-2 vote upholding the ordinance surprised nobody.

It didn’t take but a few hours before a well-financed Chamber of Commerce-led group announced it would be collecting signatures to force a referendum on the ordinance, hoping to suspend (until the June, 2016 elections) an increase in pay for an estimated 172,000 local workers, along with denying access to earned sick days to 279,000 individuals.

They have 30 days to gather at least 33,866 valid signatures; National Petition Management has been reportedly hired to do the dirty work. If they fail to make that threshold, the first stage of the wage hikes will go into effect in January with an increase for local minimum-wage workers from $9 an hour to $9.75.

Decline to Sign Campaign

Funded by national restaurant chains and some of California’s biggest donors to Mitt Romney, the Chamber’s “Small Business Coalition” (managed by the right-wing Revolvis political consultancy) is facing off against Raise Up San Diego, which has called for a citywide decline to sign campaign, simply called “Don’t Sign It,” to defeat the referendum against the ordinance.

This attempt at forcing a referendum will be the fourth big dollar effort at overturning council-enacted legislation in the last two years orchestrated by conservative business interests who’ve long been used to getting their way in local government.

As San Diego has faded from being a solidly Republican town to having a Democratic majority among registered voters, the business as usual crowd has turned to well-financed misinformation campaigns run by right wing spin-doctors.

And until now they’ve been on a winning streak, enabled by local media either owned by financiers of these campaigns or incapable of reporting on issues outside the framing provided by the Chamber of Commerce and their allies.

Told, Sold and Lied To

Over the past two years San Diegans have been told, sold and lied to about:

**requiring impact statements on big box store construction,

**reinstating a linkage fee (tied to affordable housing funding) suspended for nearly two decades on big construction projects,

**and creating a barrier between residential and industrial projects in the neighborhood with the highest asthma rate in the state

Each campaign has used numbers pulled out of a bodily orifice to create the impression that people’s job’s would be in danger. The last campaign even went so far as spread stories about the US Navy (a major local employer) pulling out of town.

The local daily newspaper is owned by “Papa” Doug Manchester, known for his financial support of right-wing causes. He was a backer for Dinesh D’Souza’s smear-o-mentary, 2016: Obama’s America.  

The Sunday edition of UT-San Diego  featured a “news” story giving opponents of the increase major play.  

This time around, the Chamber types, hiding behind the ‘money is free speech’ notion, are out to claim they are the defenders of democracy. They are saying the referendum is needed since the City Council passed this ordinance without putting it up for a public vote.

It’s Orwellian beyond Orwellian; Big Money is trying to play the pity card because the City Council did the job voters elected them to do. And they’re claiming the “decline to sign’ campaign is a plot by labor bullies to harass business.

The Raise Up San Diego coalition is taking a stand on this issue. Two-thirds of voters – 63%, according to a recent Greenburg Quinlan Rosner Research poll – support the Earned Sick Days and Minimum Wage Ordinance.

When you have a local oligarchy capable of throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars or more on the table everytime they see something they don’t like, it becomes harder and harder to persuade people to vote in local elections.

And that, my friends, would be the point.

The Rise Up San Diego Coalition

In addition to faith, labor and community groups the Coalition fighting for this minimum wage increase has some high profile supporters in the business sector. Not every business in San Diego’s economy is dependent of a low wage model.

Irwin Jacobs, founder of Qualcomm (a major employer in the area) and Mel Katz (former Regional Chamber of Commerce Chairman) wrote a supportive op-ed, only to have it buried in the Saturday edition (lowest day for readership) of UT-San Diego.

The minimum wage and earned sick leave ordinance passed by a supermajority of the City Council establishes a basic standard of fairness for working people and their families. Our business experience here in San Diego tells us it makes good economic and business sense, too.

The high cost of living in San Diego is well-documented. Full-time work at the California minimum wage of $9 an hour pays $1,560 a month before taxes. In a city where the average one-bedroom apartment rents for $1,032, it’s unrealistic to support one’s self or a family on that wage. Our city minimum wage and earned sick leave ordinance gives an estimated 172,000 San Diegans a modest and gradual raise to $11.50 an hour by the year 2017 plus the ability to earn up to five sick days off per year.

Also well-documented is that increases in salaries of low-wage workers are spent close to home by these workers on basic necessities like food, housing and transportation. In San Diego, that means millions of dollars more circulating and recirculating through the San Diego economy each year and the associated multiplier effect of that spending. Earned sick days means millions more in improved productivity courtesy of a healthier and happier workforce.

Basketball great Bill Walton joined supporters at a press conference last week:

“We stand for a San Diego in which hard-working people aren’t locked in poverty and in which they can earn a few days off a year for when they get sick or need to care for an ill child or other loved one,” Walton said.  “We know the vast majority of San Diegans feel the same way, and we urge them to say no to the signature gatherers.”

It’s Time to Fight Back

Those seeking the referendum don’t care that they are literally taking away sustenance from those who need it most.

For Andrea Tookes, a minimum-wage security officer and mother in San Diego, this means another 20 months or more not having to choose between job security and a pay day, and taking care of one her four children when one of them becomes ill and can’t go to school.

“That’s a terrible choice,” said Tookes.  “You don’t want to send your kids to school sick.  You can’t leave them home alone.  And you can’t afford to forfeit pay or give your employer the impression you’re not a dependable employee.”

If you live in San Diego:

1.Take the pledge not to sign the anti-sick days anti-minimum wage petitions.

2. Inform as many people as possible that the earned sick days and minimum wage policy HAS PASSED, and that any signature gathering effort is an attempt to TAKE IT AWAY!! Tell your friends: DON’T SIGN IT!

3. If you see a signature gatherer, call or text the following hotline: (619) 930 – 3300

4. Volunteer.

Progressives in San Diego have used these recent challenges by reactionary elements in big business to increase organizing efforts throughout the community. Although we are outgunned, our numbers and commitment keep increasing; new alliances are being built on the shoulders of previous coalitions.

San Diego used to be a bright red city. Now it’s light blue and getting bluer. The minimum wage drive is just part of the shift. We will keep fighting until we’re BRIGHT BLUE..

Spread the word, my friends. This is going to be an epic battle.

This story was cross-posted at Daily Kos

There was no report from the SoS Monday. In Tuesday’s report (available at this website), Inyo County reported a raw count of 616 signatures. (That leaves just Amador and Trinity counties to report their raw numbers. Maybe we should have a pool on who will be last? :-)) Also, during Plumas County’s full count (they didn’t bother with a random sampling), they discovered that their raw count was only 1,618, not the 1,626 they originally reported. That brings the total raw count to 1,135,354 from 1,134,746. Plumas’s validity rate was 76.9%. In addition to Plumas, the following counties have finished their random sampling (with validity rate as indicated): Butte (66.6%), Madera (63.5%), and Mendocino (72.3%). The overall validity rate now stands at 66.9%, up slightly from the 66.8% reported last time.

Twenty of California’s 58 counties have completed their random sampling. At the current validity rate, Six Californias will need 7,797 more raw signatures to qualify for a full count. (I think they’ll be lucky to get another 2,000.) The alternative is for their validity rate to increase to at least 67.6%. The largest county (in terms of raw signatures) to report in so far is San Joaquin, with 27,831 raw signatures and a validity rate of 72.7%. There are nine counties with more raw signatures than San Joaquin: Los Angeles (311,924), San Diego (97,450), San Bernardino (88,067), Riverside (74,478), Orange (52,217), Alameda (51,366), Sacramento (43,578), Fresno (38,382), and Santa Clara (38,366). If their validity rates are higher than the current 66.9% overall number, they could pull it up enough so that Six Signatures will get a full count. Whether a full count would pull it up to the 71.1% needed to qualify for the ballot remains to be seen. (I doubt they can pull it up to the 78.2% necessary to qualify for the ballot without a full count.)

The counties have another month to complete their random sampling. And at the rate the reports are trickling in, it will probably take that long.

–Steve Chessin

President, Californians for Electoral Reform (CfER)

www.cfer.org

The opinions expressed here are my own and not necessarily those of CfER.

By Steve Smith



As we get closer to the end of the California legislative session, you see a lot more corporate types in fancy suits roaming in and around the Capitol. The goal? Stamp out worker-friendly bills. Near the top of their hit list this year is AB 1522, an effort authored by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez to allow all California workers to earn a few desperately needed paid sick days on the job.

In most other countries, this isn’t a controversial notion. 136 countries around the world have national laws that all workers to earn paid sick days. Most modern economies have made paid sick leave a basic workplace right because when workers are forced to go to a workplace when they’re sick, everyone from consumers to workers to businesses is put at risk.  

Here in the United States, polling shows 86 percent of Americans favor paid sick leave policy. Yet, only one state (Connecticut) has a paid sick leave law. Why so much resistance to something that seems common-sense and fundamental? Let’s go back to those business lobbyists roaming the Capitol. The Chamber of Commerce has labeled paid sick days a so-called “job killer.” Not because it actually kills jobs (research shows the laws in Connecticut and San Francisco didn’t have negative impact on jobs). No, for business lobbyists, “job killer” is merely code for any law that supports working people.  

Lobbyists like John Kabatek of the National Federation of Independent Business use arguments like the law “will create uncertainty.” Uncertainty? When I think of uncertainty, I think about the single mom who has to choose between going to work sick and possibly infecting her co-workers and customers OR staying home with a sick child and missing the rent payment. In today’s economy, that’s the uncertainty that 5.5 million workers face, many of whom are in low-wage jobs at multi-billion dollar corporations like Walmart and McDonald’s.

The Senate Appropriations committee, led by Senate President Pro tem-elect Kevin de Leon, has an opportunity to do the right thing this week and send the bill to the Senate floor for an up-or-down vote. It’s time to stand up to the corporate lobbyists swarming the Capitol. Millions of Californians who are without even a single paid sick day on the job are depending on it.  If you haven’t already, please sign the petition in support of AB 1522.

Alameda County finally reported their raw signature count! According to Friday’s update from the SoS, they had 51,366 raw signatures (a collection rate of 6.4%, the same as the state average), bringing the total raw signature count up to 1,134,746. We’re still waiting for Amador, Inyo, and Trinity to report in, but with only 37,771 registered voters among them, I doubt they’ll contribute more than 2500 signatures to the raw count.

Also in today’s update are San Francisco’s random sample results. They had a validity rate of 73.7%, bringing the overall validity rate back up to 66.8%. That gives a projection (as of today) of 758,010 valid signatures, not enough to qualify for a full count. (Throwing in my estimate of 2500 raw signatures from the remaining three counties only adds another 1670 signatures, still not enough to get a full count.)

In my previous report I discussed the concept of margin of error, so today I calculated it. If a county has a raw count of R, a sample size of S, and a projected validity rate of P (converting the percentage figure to a decimal fraction), then I calculated the margin of error in signatures as R*sqrt(P*(1-P)/S). (Of course, if S is the same as R, as it is for Alpine, Modoc, and Mono counties, the margin of error is zero.) For example, Kings County had 3,187 raw signatures, a sample size of 500, and a projected validity rate of 0.762. That means the margin of error on the projected 2,428 signatures is 61 signatures (about 2.5%).

Doing this calculation for all the counties that have reported so far and combining them (taking the square root of the sum of the squares) gives a margin of error of 795 signatures on the sum of the counties’ projections of 79,552, or about 10%.

Applying that 10% margin of error to my projection of 758,010 means that Mr. Draper could have as few as 682,209 valid signatures or as many as 833,811. (Actually, what it means is that there is a 68% probability that the true figure is between those limits.) But unless the final projected number of valid signatures is above the 767,235 necessary to trigger a full count, we’ll never know how many valid signatures he actually collected.

One could argue that the criteria for doing a full count should take into consideration the estimated margin of error; that is, instead of projecting more than a fixed number (95% of the amount needed to qualify), if the projected range includes the amount needed to qualify then a full count should be done, but that’s not the way the law is written.

In a previous report I discussed how duplicate signatures were handled. Jim Riley has posted a good comment on that. In addition, my colleague David Cary has posted a PDF of his derivation of the estimation formula (much clearer and yet more rigorous than my hand-wavy one), as well as the PDF of the SoS’s one page description of the formula.

–Steve Chessin

President, Californians for Electoral Reform (CfER)

www.cfer.org

The opinions expressed here are my own and not necessarily those of CfER.

Well, it’s another slow news day in the Six Californias signature verification world. There was no update from the SoS Wednesday. The only news in Thursday’s update was that the County of Santa Barbara finished their random sample, with a validity rate of 54.1%. This brings the overall validity rate down from 66.7% to 65.4%. Still no word from Alameda, Amador, Inyo, or Trinity counties as to their raw counts.

In my previous report I opined how the projected numbers made it seem unlikely that Six Californias would qualify for the ballot. It occurred to me that a random sample is subject to, well, randomness, and even if the projected number is below the number needed to qualify, a full count could reverse that. That indeed is what happened with the “State Fees on Hospitals” initiative that has qualified for the November 2016 ballot, so I thought a review of that initiative’s process might be educational.

Initiative 1613 (as it is known to the SoS) was filed late last April. By May 6th enough counties had submitted their raw counts to the SoS that she was able to declare on May 7th that more than 807,615 signatures had been filed and so the counties should begin their random sampling and report back no later than June 19th.

On June 19th, despite no projected numbers from Inyo, Mariposa, or Trinity counties, she reported that the initiative had a projected validity rate of 64.6% and a projected count of 787,693 signatures, not enough to qualify by random sample (which would have required a projected count of 888,377 signatures, 10% over the 807,615 minimum), but enough to require a full count of each and every signature. The full count was to complete by August 1st.

On August 1st she reported that, even without a full count from Kings County, the initiative had received either 807,950 or 807,984 valid signatures, enough (barely) to qualify for the ballot. (For some reason the spreadsheet shows different numbers in the “Valid Sigs.” and “Valid” column for Humboldt and Imperial counties. Also, the total in the “Valid” column is off by one as well, making me think someone doesn’t understand how to create a spreadsheet that adds the numbers for you.) The actual validity rate was 66.4%, almost two percentage points higher than projected.

I know when one does sampling one should also compute the margin of error. To be rigorous, you have to compute the margin of error separately for each county, and then combine them by squaring each one, adding them together, and then taking the square root. I’m not going to do the complete calculation right now (it’s late and I’m tired; I might do it for Six Californias when they finish the random sampling), but an oversimplified estimate gives an overall margin of error on the order of 5%. Thus the actual validity rate of 66.4% is within the margin of error of the estimated one, which is why even if an initiative is projected to fall short by 5% a full count is done.