[Originally posted at NorCal Politics by Cheryl on December 19, 2005]

The recent execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams at San Quentin prison has brought the death penalty issue home for all of us. Many in the CA State Assembly are on board with re-examining the death penalty process in our state, and a bill has come up for a vote to re-evaluate how capital punshiment is carried out here. The bill, Assembly Bill 1121, would institute a two-year moratorium on the death penalty in Caliornia, and many assemblymen in NorCal need to hear your thoughts on this issue before the bill comes up for vote in January 2006.

According to the San Mateo Daily Journal:

The statewide commission began meeting this fall to look at potential flaws throughout the process and has 24 months to complete a final report. However, much of the work has been overlooked by those who believe it will play a role in the future of the death penalty.

“The charge of the commission is to review the criminal justice system and determine if there are cases where people are wrongfully convicted. Many believe a reversal means it was a wrongful conviction but that’s not always the case,” [San Mateo County District Attorney Jim Fox] said.

Fox, who personally opposes the death penalty, feels that the bill is unnecessary. 

On the other side of the fence, Leland Yee, assembly speaker pro tem (D-San Francisco), supports the bill and believes, somewhat optimistically, that many inmates on Death Row have the capacity for rehabilitation. "We should hold them accountable and get them back to society, not simply warehouse them for the rest of their lives." 

Assemblyman Paul Koretz (D-West Hollywood), who co-authored the bill, says that with more than 600 inmates currently on death row in California, the bill looks to reduce the chance that a person who is innocent is executed.

"Basically, my concern about the death penalty is the accuracy of it more than anything else," Koretz said. "There is nothing more horrifying then the state committing what in essence is the murder of an innocent person."

Koretz said the bill works to exhaust every effort in making sure if someone is on death row that they are guilty of the crime they are accused of committing.

In the Bay Area, the following cities and counties have already passed moratorium resolutions:

• San Francisco county
• Santa Clara county
• Marin county
• Alameda county
• Salinas
• Palo Alto
• Menlo Park
• Oakland
• East Palo Alto
• Santa Cruz
• Sebastopol
• Berkeley

The bill comes up for vote in January. Not very many Assemblymen have given their opinon on the bill as of yet. Probably because of the holidays. Here’s your chance to make your voice heard on this issue. Write your state assemblyman today.

[Originally posted at NorCal Politics on February 7, 2006]

I’ve had this Dan Walters column bookmarked for several days now.  It’s a discussion of AB 583, the clean money bill recently passed by the California Assembly, entirely without Republican support.  The bill itself is modeled after recent legislation in Arizona and Maine, and essentially allows candidates who raise a certain amount of small donations to then run their campaign with public financing.  The goal is to minimize the role of moneyed interests in California’s politics, which I believe is a worthy goal.

Continue reading [From NCP] Walters Scornful, Incoherent on Clean Money Bill →

In a quick follow-up to yesterday’s post on AB 583, the clean money campaign finance reform bill, I offer two items:

• This LA Times Op-Ed by George Skelton on AB 583.  Note in particular the last few grafs of the piece, in which he notes that the Republican opposition to public financing is basically the same as Dan Walters’ position.
• Were you aware that all three candidates for Governor are multi-millionaires?  I’m not saying that a multi-millionaire can’t represent working people well, but wouldn’t it be nice to make it easier for someone who wasn’t a multi-millionaire to run for office?

[Originally posted at NorCal Politics February 11, 2006]

As a progressive, and more importantly, one of your constituents, I’m begging you to stop it stop it STOP IT!  Stop what?  Stop this:

State Sen. Carole Migden hopes the next official state “thing” will be eminently quaffable with hints of black pepper and a certain jammy quality.

She’s thinking, of course, about mighty zinfandel, which she would like to name the official state wine.

But the San Francisco Democrat – whose district includes grape-growing Sonoma Valley – apparently did not consult Wine Country’s makers of chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon, pinot noir and other varietals before introducing the legislation this week.

Seriously, of all of the things that you could be doing, how does the official state wine make the list?  Who cares?

[Originally posted at NorCal Politics February 10, 2006]

I’m not a huge fan of term limits.  I think they put too much power in the hands of staffers and consultants.  This article from Capitol Weekly shows exactly how much power California’s term limits concentrate in consultants, using Richie Ross as an example.  Some excerpts:

Ross, who once served as chief of staff to Willie Brown, the legendary wheeler-dealer who outmaneuvered opponents to rule the Legislature’s lower house for nearly 15 years, is running more candidates in open Democratic primaries this June than any other political consultant.

…

Alarcon has endorsed 21 different Assembly candidates this year, only seven of which are Ross clients–but he has not endorsed a single non-Ross candidate in a race that Ross has a client.

…

As term limits force a shuffle of new relative unknown candidates to Sacramento every two years, Assembly hopefuls are increasingly turning to top-shelf consultants like Ross or Gale Kaufman, who serves as Nuñez’s consultant, to provide instant legitimacy to their candidacy.

“To be taken seriously you have to have one of the brand name consultants doing the campaign,” said Allan Hoffenblum, a GOP consultant and publisher of the California Target Book that track legislative races. “If you don’t, you are perceived as having insufficient funding or as politically naïve.”

And because those consultants are often better known around Sacramento than the candidates themselves, labor groups and other large Democratic donors are sometimes more likely to open their wallet to clients of the leading consultants.

Sounds to me like we’ve swapped a set of politically-accountable incumbents for a set of entirely unaccountable incumbents, who operate invisible to the general public.

Tell me how that’s better, again?

[Originally posted at NorCal Politics on February 15,2006]

I haven’t picked a dog in the Angelides-Westly primary fight.  I may not pick one publicly.  But I’m glad that Steve Westly is talking to the people out in Eastern California. One of the reasons that I wanted to start NorCal Politics is to try to bridge the city-suburb-agriculture-wilderness divides for progressives.

This post at Say No To Pombo really drives home why that’s important:

[C]onsider this. The Fish Sniffer has ~25,000 readers in the Valley. I would bet that most of the fish the Delta, or fish the mountain streams for trout. If someone is really upset about Pombo, you need reasons that get to people where they live and this is one for a population of sportsmen. If I were living in Lodi, or Brentwood, and I wanted to see Pombo gone, I would make sure that I visited all the little Marinas around…I might even leave a copy of the Fish Sniffer editorial.

The editorial in question rips into Pombo, and a host of other Republicans for their support of anti-conservation, anti-sportsman interests.  One might also consider this editorial from the same magazine, which goes after Pombo again, and throws Republicans John Doolittle and Devin Nunes onto the anti-sportsman list for good measure.

There is common ground for urban progressives and rural people, if each side is willing to listen.  The white noise of Republican smears and bogus “values” talk can be cut through, because the reality is that the Republicans don’t help very many people.