A Field Poll released today shows support for 6 items on the May 19 statewide ballot (they neglected to poll the new and improved Prop. 13, which deals with prohibiting seismically retrofitted buildings from being classified as “new construction” for property value purposes, and will also be on the ballot).  These are baseline numbers, as the awareness of the election is low and the turnout model is unclear.  But I think we can conclude that this initial support is in no way firm, and at least two items are in peril.  Here are the raw numbers:

Proposition 1A (Spending cap/tax extension)

Registered voters

Yes: 54 percent, No: 24

Likely voters in May special election

Yes: 57, No: 21

Proposition 1B (Education funding)

Registered voters

Yes: 59, No: 27

Likely voters

Yes: 53, No: 30

Proposition 1C (Lottery)

Registered voters

Yes: 48, No: 37

Likely voters

Yes: 47, No: 39

Proposition 1D (Early childhood services funding (Prop. 10))

Registered voters

Yes: 62, No: 20

Likely voters

Yes: 54, No: 24

Proposition 1E (Mental health funding(Prop. 63))

Registered voters

Yes: 61, No: 23

Likely voters

Yes: 57, No: 23

Proposition 1F (No raises for officials in deficit years)

Registered voters

Yes: 74, No: 17

Likely voters

Yes: 77, No: 13

The softest support is for Prop. 1C, the measure to sell the lottery, cashing in now to fill a budget hole in exchange for a long-term revenue loss.  That’s under 50% and could easily be tipped over if a No campaign explained that this will hurt long-term future revenues.  A loss on this measure would put a $5 billion dollar hole in the signed budget that would have to be dealt with by June 15.

Most interesting is the case of Prop. 1A, the spending cap.  The ballot language is going to be crucial here.

when told that the “rainy-day” measure, Proposition 1A, triggers as much as $16 billion in higher taxes through 2013, four out of 10 initial supporters said they were less inclined to vote for the measure, particularly Republicans and fiscal conservatives.

“I’d vote ‘no’ on that,” said William Tate, 49, a South Lake Tahoe voter who said he’d support Proposition 1A before learning of the taxes. “They should just save some money and put it in a ‘rainy-day fund’ without taxing people. We’ve got too much bureaucracy in this state.”

This of course is an expression of magic pixie-fairy Santa Claus conservatism at its worst, but there’s no doubt that a sliver of the electorate will view things this way.  And unlike other potential ballot measures around taxes, this is very tangible (your taxes will go up X) and there’s no counter-argument of what voters are getting in return.  In fact, they’re getting an unpalatable spending cap that would ratchet down state services and tie the baseline to a budget put together during the worst economic crisis since the Depression.  There’s something for pretty much everyone to hate in Prop.1A, and the construction of it was a pure play to keep interest groups on the sidelines, and just to make sure no mere voter knows about it, they hid the truth from the ballot language.

When the Legislature places a measure on the ballot, however, it often bypasses the attorney general by specifying the ballot title and even indirectly designating those who write ballot pamphlet arguments. In other words, the Legislature, in league with the governor, tries to fix the election by fixing how measures are portrayed.

Cases in point are the six measures that the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are asking voters to approve in a hurry-up May 19 special election to implement much of their state budget deal.

The most important of the measures, Proposition 1A, would create a state spending limit and direct excess revenue into a “rainy day” account to be used when the economy and state revenue dip. But a very important provision of the package is that billions of dollars in new taxes would be short-circuited if Proposition 1A is rejected.

That “poison pill” is designed to discourage unions and other left-of-center groups – which despise state spending limits – from campaigning actively against the measure. But it indirectly gives conservative anti-tax groups, which despise the new levies, a potential weapon.

Voters won’t be told any of that in the official title written by the Legislature, which reads this way: “RAINY DAY BUDGET STABILIZATION FUND. Reforms the budget process. Limits future deficits and overspending by increasing the size of the state ‘rainy day’ fund and requiring above-average revenues to be deposited into it, for use during economic downturns.”

That’s misleading on a whole host of fronts, not just on taxes but on the role of the spending cap.  Our friend Anthony Wright at Health Access is teaming with the Howard Jarvis Association to file a lawsuit to overturn the ballot title and summary.  The question is whether the larger groups will jump into the fray.  That the legislature allowed this subterfuge can only empower the argument that they are trying to stealth tax everyone and will hurt future efforts at reform.  It may well cause someone like a Meg Whitman with designs on the Governor’s mansion to spend some of her fortune to beat it, and given that support drops from 57% to 34% at the mere mention of the tax issue (and particularly how its hidden from view), it wouldn’t take that much.  With progressives like Loni Hancock committed to killing the spending cap, this could be a strange bedfellows election.

Anthony Wright of Health Access has a good piece musing about whether or not we’ll still need additional spending cuts or revenue increases before the next fiscal year budget in June 2010.  It basically hinges on two things: the May 19 special election, where close to $6 billion in budget money is on the line, and the federal stimulus, which if it provides enough money to the state could trigger some reductions in cuts and taxes.  First, the trigger:

Although the budget contains a number of spending cuts, it also contains a mechanism to restore some of those cuts using federal funds authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) signed by President Obama on February 17, 2009. The mechanism requires that in order to restore cuts, the state must receive at least $10 billion in federal funds to offset General Fund costs. In other words, $10 billion of federal funds are needed to “trigger off” some of the cuts.

The precise amount of federal stimulus funds for California is still being determined, however, the Director of Finance and the Treasurer must determine by April 1, 2009 whether federal funds meet the $10 billion threshold to trigger off the spending cuts. Specifically with respect to health care cuts discussed above, if there is sufficient federal funding, Medi-Cal benefits would not be eliminated and public hospital payments would not be reduced. If there is insufficient federal funding, those cuts and others–including steep cuts in SSI/SSP, IHSS, and CalWORKS would be implemented July 1, 2009.

Hopefully, these funds will make it to California’s shores to stave off the worst cuts.  Ultimately the federal government should seek a goal of stopping all cuts in public services and layoffs of staff, and should fill the gap in revenue in the short term.  The states are being punished through little fault of their own, and counter-cyclical cuts threaten the success of recovery.

The next element is the May 19th special election.  We’ll be covering that in the weeks to come, but Wright lays out the most important initiatives that relate to the budget.

* Proposition 1D would amend Proposition 10, which was passed in 1998 and increased the tobacco tax to be used exclusive for services for children up to five years old. This budget, subject to voter approval, would redirect Proposition 10 funds of up to $340 million in the first year and $268 annually for the following five years to be appropriated by the Legislature. As a result, local First Five Commissions would have to cut the programs they fund, such as county “Healthy Kids” coverage initiatives.

* Proposition 1E would amend Proposition 63, which in 2004 raised the income tax for the upper-tax bracket to earmark funding specifically for mental health services. This budget, subject to voter approval, would redirect Proposition 63 funds of up to $226.7 million in the first year and $234 annually for the following year from Proposition 63 mental health services to backfill the existing Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment (EPSDT) program.

* Proposition 1A would pass a Constitutional amendment to institute a spending cap, to limit the amount of revenue that can be appropriated for the General Fund. It also would extend the temporary taxes to last from two to five years. Under the spending cap, any revenues above a forecasted amount must be put in a “Budget Stabilization Fund,” and can only be accessed under certain circumstances. In other words, the spending cap locks up money making the state less able to fund education, health care, and other core state services.

Wright doesn’t mention Prop. 1C, which would sell the state lottery to fill a $5 billion dollar hole in the short term, but cost the state money in the aggregate in the long-term from the loss in consistent revenue.  I’ve always thought it was a stupid and shortsighted idea and would be unlikely to support it in May.

But clearly, Prop. 1A is the most dangerous measure in the long-term, locking the state into deep cuts into the distant future, which would ratchet down services regardless of demand or growth.  This is the long-sought effort by the far right to drown government in the bathtub.  And yet to this point, no opposition has been found to this measure.

The last time Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked California’s voters to permanently cap state spending, organized labor dumped millions of dollars into a successful campaign to defeat his proposals.

Four years later, Schwarzenegger and other proponents are hoping the unions will sit out the May 19 special election in which the governor is again asking voters to enact a spending cap. That measure was placed on the ballot by the Legislature as part of last week’s deal to resolve the state’s cash crisis.

The official ballot arguments have been submitted, and in what administration officials hope is an encouraging sign, the best-funded labor groups opted not to weigh in against the measure. At least not yet.

In addition, the state’s major antitax groups have split over the measure, with at least two supporting it even though it would prolong the tax increase that the Legislature passed last week. The California Taxpayers’ Assn. signed the ballot measure backing the spending cap, and Lew Uhler of the National Tax-Limitation Committee said he also favors the measure, called Proposition 1A.

The above-mentioned provision that extends the taxes passed by the Legislature makes for approximately the easiest demagoguery in the history of California initiatives.  Jon Coupal at the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association says his group will try to defeat the measure.  The fact that the ballot arguments had to come in so quickly may be driving this perceived silence on the part of slower-moving unions, but they need to make themselves clear.  Do they support a spending cap that will unquestionably take the state backwards in the future, or will they oppose it – and back up that talk with action?  We shall see.

I’ve been trying to get confirmation on when a special election would take place if and when this horror show of a budget was to get passed.  Well, the actual language in the budget bills (via Around The Capitol) states that the five ballot measures are being scheduled for a May 19, 2009 ballot.  There would be Los Angeles city general election on that date for any seat that doesn’t get a 50% +1 majority in the March 3 primaries, so with that large election already scheduled it makes a bit of sense.  Still, that is fairly soon, and earlier than expected.

You can read and weep at the other bills here – actually 23 of them in the Senate and 22 in the Assembly have to pass to finish this budget deal.

Meanwhile, the New York Times has taken notice of the madness, which means people in LA might actually read about it.

The state of California – its deficits ballooning, its lawmakers intransigent and its governor apparently free of allies or influence – appears headed off the fiscal rails […]

After negotiating nonstop from Saturday afternoon until late Sunday night on a series of budget bills that would have closed a projected $41 billion deficit, state lawmakers failed to get enough votes to close the deal and adjourned. They returned to the capital late Monday morning only to adjourn until the afternoon, though it was far from clear whether they would be able to reach a deal.

California has also lost access to much of the credit markets, nearly unheard of among state municipal bond issuers. Recently, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the state’s bond rating to the lowest in the nation.

This is something that’s not clearly understood.  We can’t borrow money and that market will not snap back even if we pass a budget, especially since it hinges on must-pass initiatives that won’t be resolved until May.  And yet $11 billion of the budget is based on, yes, BORROWING.

By the way, Abel Maldonado’s effort to get an “allow Abel Maldonado to be able to win a Republican primary” rider tossed into the bill takes major chutzpah.

Democrats, who had already given into Republicans’ long-held dreams of large tax cuts for small businesses and for some of the entertainment industry and a proposed $10,000 tax break for first-time home buyers, balked at Mr. Maldonado’s request that the legislature tuck a bill into the package that would allow voters to cross party lines in primary elections.

Mr. Maldonado, who is also seeking a constitutional amendment to prevent lawmakers from getting paid if budgets are late, defended his request that the open primary bill be included in the budget package.

“There needs to be good government reforms in this budget, and no member should be getting pet projects,” he said. “I think with an open primary, we would have good government that would do the people’s work.”

While he’s at it, why not a law making his votes count three times as much as any primary opponent?  I mean we need good government reforms like that.

…CapAlert reports that Maldonado has a “list of demands” – open primaries, no pay for lawmakers any day after a late budget, bans on legislative pay raises and per diem increases in down years, and “cutting out the pork” in the budget, which is just a revival of his nonsensical John Chiang feud.  In other words, Maldonado wants some populist notches on his belt, and he wants the laws of the state tipped in the direction of his statewide electoral prospects.  This part made me laugh out loud:

He wants an open primary system similar to those used by local governments in which the top two vote-getters regardless of party run in the general election. The system is said to favor moderate candidates, such as himself, rather than encourage primary hopefuls to woo voters at their party’s extremes. He acknowledged he plans to run for statewide office, but sold the open primary as more of a “good government reform.”

Um, yeah, Abel, if you are making up LISTS OF DEMANDS as a condition for your vote, the last thing I’d call you is “moderate”.

The Senate is now scheduled for a floor session at 6pm, depending on how much tissue is needed to keep Maldonado from crying.

…John Myers has audio of Abel’s demands.  Amusing to hear him not deny that these demands are entirely based on his desire to run for State Controller, coincidentally against his new feuding partner John Chiang, in 2010, and act like he’s some kind of good government independent voice (“What are the Republicans afraid of from an open primary?”) in the process.

I just want to thank Don Perata for threatening every Democrat out of Maldonado’s re-election last fall.

(A spending cap would most certainly not be a positive for our budget mess. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

From today’s Beyond Chron.

With the state bankrupt and giving I.O.U.’s instead of tax refunds, the California legislature is expected to vote on a mid-year budget later this week.  It’s bound to have horrific cuts, but no one has details because it’s being crafted in secret negotiations with the “Big Five” (Governor + party leaders in each chamber.)  Democrats control 63% of the legislature, but the “two-thirds rule” lets Republicans run the show.  And the minority refuses to vote for a single tax increase – unless Democrats agree to kill the eight-hour workday (and other similar extortions.)  Everyone thinks a statewide special election is inevitable, which could help us get meaningful budget reform.  But June 2nd would be a terrible time to do it, because none of the needed fiscal reforms would be on the ballot.  Instead, we’d have the Governor’s awful proposal to borrow money off future lottery revenue – and a deeply insidious proposal to cap state spending.  While San Francisco has no choice but to call a June special election (or else cut half of its General Fund), the state musn’t go full speed ahead.

After writing a piece last week that argued the need for California voters to approve budget reforms, I developed a weird sense of dread that my article was written in vain.  Of course we must abolish the “two-thirds rule” so the state can pass a sane budget, and the political mood is ripe for some fiscal reforms that would save local government.  But op-ed pieces alone don’t put good things on the ballot, and the fact we may have a statewide special election soon doesn’t guarantee voters will get the chance to weigh in on these ideas.

To place an amendment on the California ballot, you either need (a) a two-thirds vote of the state legislature, or (b) a petition with 700,000 valid signatures, i.e. eight percent of how many voted in the last gubernatorial election.  Placing an initiative statute – such as restoring the upper-income tax bracket – would require 430,000 signatures, or 5% of the last turnout.  The first option isn’t likely (why would two-thirds of the legislature vote to scrap the “two-thirds” rule?), so the realistic approach is to start collecting signatures.

Democrats have submitted an initiative to lower the threshold to pass the state budget from two-thirds to a 55% majority, and are in the process of gathering signatures.  But if we have a June special election, voters still won’t have the opportunity to pass it.  Because in order for ballot initiatives to qualify for an election, all signatures must be turned in 131 days beforehand – and June 2nd is 120 days away.  Our only hope to have this passed is to delay any statewide special election until August, or possibly even into November.

As for other budget reforms that are desperately needed (and politically winnable among voters), no one has even started collecting signatures for them yet.  Progressive activists must file these initiatives with the Attorney General’s Office for review immediately – so that we can start the expensive and time-consuming process of gathering nearly a million signatures.  Otherwise, they won’t be on the statewide special election – and it will all be academic.

What initiatives would we expect to see on a June 2nd statewide special election?  According to the Secretary of State’s Office, four propositions have already qualified.  Two are budget related, and both would make the fiscal crisis worse.  One is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s idea to borrow money from the state’s future lottery revenues – which would sink us even further into debt.  But a recent poll has voters not liking it, so hopefully it would go down in flames.

The second proposal – however – is far more dangerous, because the same poll showed 70% of respondents calling it a “good idea.”  Authored by State Senator Roy Ashburn (a Central Valley Republican), it would impose a mandatory state spending cap – putting California in a fiscal straitjacket that would render us impotent at addressing our needs.

Spending caps have been tried elsewhere.  Colorado passed a spending cap in 1992, and the disastrous results include: (a) teacher salaries plummeted from 30th to 50th in the nation; (b) children receiving full vaccinations fell from 24th to 50th; (c) and low-income adults with health insurance dropped from 20th to 48th.  “By creating a permanent revenue shortage,” said the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a spending cap “pits state programs and services against each other for survival each year and virtually rules out any new initiatives to address unmet or emerging needs.”

An analysis by the California Budget Project projects that, if voters approve a Republican spending cap, the state would have to cut $40 billion a year – “eliminating all General Fund support for higher education; the judiciary; child support services; health care services; resources – including fire protection; and environmental protection.”  This is no accident.  The sponsors’ true intentions are simply to starve the public sector, shrinking the size of government (as their mentor famously said) so we can “drown it in the bathtub.”

But that’s the reality we would face with a June 2nd statewide special election.  Voters like the idea of restricting how much the government can spend, knowing we are in bad budget times and sacrifices must be made.  It won’t be impossible to defeat this proposal, but we’ll have to work hard (and devote a lot of resources) to educating voters about its dire consequences.  And it will be far more difficult, and quite infuriating, if there are no sensible alternatives on the same ballot – while everyone is asking for solutions.

A statewide special election makes no sense – unless progressives can also qualify their own budget reforms (eliminate the “two-thirds rule”; restore the upper-class tax bracket; amend Prop 13 to exempt commercial property; amend Prop 218.)  But going full speed ahead doesn’t give us that opportunity.  It only poses the risk of doing more harm than good – and we can’t afford to screw it up.

The same, however, cannot be said about San Francisco’s independent effort to hold a special election on June 2nd.  Facing a $576 million deficit that could mean cutting half its General Fund, the Supervisors have no choice today but to move ahead.  While the City has its own fiscal straitjacket that will hamper its ability to raise revenue, we don’t have the luxury of time to make sure the state can fix its own house in order.  We’ll have to walk alone for now.

As Capitol Alert reports, the California Teachers Association has approved an effort to put a 1% sales tax increase on a 2009 special election ballot. The full text of the measure can be found here 9PDF link). The article claims the tax is expected to raise between $5 and $6 billion annually. According to an earlier report on the proposed tax:

89 percent would go to K-12 schools, and the rest to community colleges.

The measure would restrict use of the revenue to specific purposes that include class size reduction, funding art, music and vocation education courses, and salaries for teachers and other school employees.

The money couldn’t be used for administrative costs, and legislators and the governor couldn’t touch the revenue. The money would be allocated to school districts based on their average daily student attendance.

CTA’s decision to move ahead with the plan is likely a recognition that the current budget mess is not going to be resolved without catastrophic cuts to schools. But is this the right move?

Sales taxes are often described as “regressive” taxes since they hit the poor harder than the rich. Over the last few decades California has relied more and more on the sales tax to fund services. As a result the lowest 20% pay more taxes than the highest 20% of income earners in California.

And yet sales taxes are more progressive than the alternative, which are cuts to schools that will hurt working Californians far more than a sales tax. Teachers help support working families and the small businesses that depend on their spending. For centuries – literally – education has been understood to be a key route toward economic security and prosperity for working people. Without access to a quality education, that route is closed. Given that situation a sales tax is more affordable and valuable to the lower 20% than cuts.

When assessing taxes and spending this simple equation needs to be kept in mind:

Income and property taxes > sales taxes > service cuts

That raises the question of why CTA proposes a new sales tax, instead of raising income taxes on the upper incomes and restore progressivity to California taxation. This could be as simple as restoring the tax brackets of 1992-98 that helped fuel broad economic growth.

It’s unclear why CTA chose not to go this route. The personal income tax is a volatile tax, but so is the sales tax, especially in an era when Americans are spending less and saving more.

Still, even a sales tax is better than education cuts and mass layoffs of teachers. As someone who hopes to start a family of his own in the coming years, I’d like to know that I can send my kids to a decent public school like I enjoyed as recently as the mid-1990s.

I’ll vote for this if it makes it to the ballot – and I suspect Californians will too. As we saw in November 2008, Californians are actually quite willing to tax themselves to fund specific projects, notably including mass transit. If thousands of teachers receive layoff notices and schools are slated for closure this spring, it seems highly likely to me that the CTA proposal will pass.

Some may criticize ballot box budgeting – but it is a byproduct, often necessary, of a legislative process that has been hopelessly broken by the 2/3 rule.

Arnold approve	38%
Arnold disapprove	52
Leg approve	15
Leg disapprove	73
Support Recall	29
Oppose Recall	63

Californians hate their politicians these days, but they hate the Legislature more strongly than they do the governor. Today’s Field Poll showed Arnold has record high disapproval ratings but still fares much better than the Legislature, as the table at right suggests.

The poll also shows little appetite for the prison guards’ proposed total recall. Whereas at this stage in the process in 2003 46% of voters backed a Davis recall, only 29% do today. Even Democrats oppose a recall, 40-52.

What this means is that the Legislature and the Legislature alone is on the hook for this budget. And as the budget is getting panned by virtually every stakeholder in the state, it’s likely that the Legislature’s standing is only going to be damaged further by this budget, to the point where one has to wonder from a purely political standpoint whether the Dems were better off prolonging the fight.

This budget, then, represents a BIG political gamble on the part of the Legislature – that the public will hate them less for this deal than they would a further budget delay. A spring 2009 special election on the budget is almost certain, and it may include SEIU’s effort to repeal much of this current deal alongside fundamental budget reforms from eliminating the 2/3 rule to the GOP’s long-sought spending cap, perhaps even a constitutional convention.

For Democrats to prevail in those struggles they need public support, and ultimately, some level of trust that if the Legislature is given new powers or an easier time of making a budget they will use those powers wisely. This budget deal may make that more difficult.

Dems can still win the 2009 budget war – but to do so they’re going to have to be smarter than they were this year. Perata in particular seemed to have no plan or strategy at all, and wound up cutting and running just as he did with the Denham recall. With new Senate leadership we can hope and we will expect better. The state’s future hangs in the balance.

UPDATE by Dave: It’s worth noting that this budget will require the voters to weigh in just to get it enacted.  The provisions on the rainy-day fund and the borrowing against future lottery revenue (which is dumb, dumb, dumb) need voter sign-off.  So we could see a special election as early as January.  I don’t know if there would be time to piggy-back 2/3 or the SEIU proposal or anything else to that election.

Yup, 2008 could be the year of four statewide elections.  Sure, it’s a presidential year, so you expect two. Then we moved up our presidential primary, but not our regular primary, to Feb 5, giving us three elections.  Now that we are rapidly approaching the drop dead date to get propositions on the ballot for November, likely this Sunday, without a budget, we are increasingly facing the specter of another election either in December or January.  After all, printing millions of ballots can’t be done overnight, so to pull off the gimmicks that will get us through Fiscal Year 2008-2009, we’ll need some help from the voters.

As an aside, I still wholeheartedly believe that this state needs real reform to revert back to a representative democracy. We go to the ballot far too often for issues that are far too important and complex for people to be deciding on in 3 minutes in a voting booth. It’s an issue that must be addressed before we get to the days of voting on 30 propositions on a ballot.  Oh wait, too late. This year, in San Francisco at least, there will be well over 30 initiatives on the ballot. Terrific, at least it keeps consultants in business…Props out to my consultant readers working 25/8…w00t!

Ok, back to the Special election. Arnold mentioned it yesterday:

A budget deal after Sunday would mean the governor would have to put his budget measures – calling for budget overhauls and for borrowing against future lottery sales – to voters in a special election later this year or next year.

“We can have a special election. … I prefer to put it on this ballot, but you always have to go for the next best thing. You can’t always have it exactly your way,” he said Thursday.

The last special election in California was in 2005 and cost the state about $50 million, according to Kate Folmar, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Debra Bowen.(SF Chronicle 8/22/08)

Sweet! I’m sure it will be great fun to find $50 million in the budget for that. On the plus side, who doesn’t love a holiday season peppered with political ads. What more could a hack wish for?

The polls have closed, you can view results here.

Discuss.

UPDATE: Absentee Results (8:24 PM)

Richardson: 3,893 (33.07%)
Oropeza: 3,519 (29.89%)
McDonald: 1,252 (10.63%)

UPDATE II (by dday): 8% reporting
LAURA RICHARDSON  DEM 4,534  34.95
JENNY OROPEZA  DEM 3,842  29.61
VALERIE MC DONALD DEM 1,358  10.47

That’s not a lot of VOTES separating Richardson and Oropeza, but so far the first Election Day voters have tracked with the absentee voters.  There’s really no substitute for boots on the ground in a race like this.  Richardson is looking good, and she ran a uniformly ugly race.

UPDATE III (blogswarm back): At 10:06 PM we have Richardson pulling away with 18.86% of precincts reporting (63 of 334)

Richardson 5,496 (36.79%)
Oropeza 4,410 (29.52%)
McDonald 1,550 (10.38%)

UPDATE IV: (blogswarm) Oropeza closed a little ground, but is still way back at the 10:35 mark (160 of 334 precincts reporting)

Richardson 7,174 (36.53%)
Oropeza 5,968 (30.39%)
McDonald 1,901 (9.68%)

UPDATE V: (blogswarm) As a blogger, I’m personally calling it for Assemblywoman Richardson. With 75.45% reporting at 11:00 PM (252 of 334 precincts)

Richardson 9,086 (36.71%)
Oropeza 7,777 (31.42%)
McDonald 2,371 (8.16%)

[UPDATE VI: (juls) That’s it.  With 100% reporting Richardson is the winner.  The early lead held through to the end.

LAURA RICHARDSON  11,027 (37.76 %) 
JENNY OROPEZA 9,144 (31.31 %)
Now who runs for Richardson’s Assembly seat?

Do you want to know what Jenny Oropeza thinks about health care? Do you want to know how Laura Richardson would work for civil rights for all? Do you want to know how Peter Mathews would end the occupation of Iraq? Well, you’ll have a chance to find out all of this and more on June 14!

LBPost.com, Charter Communications, and the Long Beach Democratic Club are co-sponsoring a debate among ALL THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES running to fill the vacated seat in the 37th Congressional District. If you live anywhere from Carson to Long Beach, then you’ll definitely want to come to this. Come, and see for yourself what the candidates have to say about the issues that you care about most.

Follow me after the flip for all the details on next week’s debate…

Please RSVP for the debate HERE!

Cabrillo High School
2001 Santa Fe Ave
Long Beach, CA 90810
(562) 951-7700

Here’s the map of the school.

This event is free and open to the public! All they ask is that you show up by 6:30 PM. There, isn’t that easy? And isn’t that worth making an informed decision for such an important election? : )