Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-SF) has been known as a big idea guy for a while here in San Francisco.  His record as a legislator on the Board of Supervisors is really without comparison. You probably have heard about AB 390, that would legalize, regulate, and tax the sale of marijuana.  Many simply laughed at the idea, but when a recent Field poll (PDF) showed that 56% of the state favored the idea, well, a lot fewer people are laughing now.

Someone else who isn’t laughing? Well, that would be our very own Governator, who told reporters today that he thinks the idea should be open to discussion.  From the Bee:

“Well, I think it’s not time for that, but I think it’s time for a debate,” Schwarzenegger said. “I think all of those ideas of creating extra revenues, I’m always for an open debate on it. And I think we ought to study very carefully what other countries are doing that have legalized marijuana and other drugs, what effect did it have on those countries?”

This still isn’t very likely to get passed anytime soon, but if we can get it done in the next decade both at the state and federal levels, we will spend a whole let less on the “War on Drugs” and putting it to better use.  Oh, and we get a new product to put a sin tax on.

While Arnold is putting the moves on President-Elect Obama in Philadelphia, there’s some stuff going on here. So, here are some links:

• Senator Steinberg has named the committee chairs. Of particular note, Fran Pavley was named as chair of the Natural Resources & Water Committee. This is important because Pavley has not been particularly outspoken against the peripheral canal, something the SoCal water nerds were worried about.  Apparently they think there’s a better shot to get the canal through a Pavley led committee. I kind of doubt it.

• Following in the classy footsteps of his father, newly elected Rep. Duncan D. Hunter has decided that Tijuana is more dangerous than Iraq or Afghanistan.  He’s been to all three so we’re supposed to believe him.  Sadly for Hunter, anecdote is not data.  And false assertions are not evidence.

• It’s a good thing the OC Board of Supes has all this money to throw around to lawyers. Oh, right, they have a $32 million deficit. I bet they would love to have this 1.1 mil free to spend.

• It appears that Arnold wants to star in a new version of A Christmas Carol.  At least that’s how I can reconcile his desire to lay off state workers during the holidays.

• The SEIU State Council put out a budget plan of their own. Well, that’s more than the Republicans have done. Peter Shrag also has a (sarcastic) plan: completely de-fund higher ed and the prisons until June. Seems about as reasonable as anything GOP has.

• Another rising cost: Free lunch enrollment at schools has risen dramatically during the current recession.

• The LGBT Legislative caucus is pushing a resolution opposing Prop 8, introduced by SF Legislators Leno and Ammiano.  Sure, it would have been more helpful a few months ago, but it won’t hurt now.

Although there have been reports that the California LGBT Legislative Caucus is in danger of extinction the truth is that in January 2009 it is very likely that it will be as large as ever.

The only current members of the LGBT Caucus who are not termed out are State Senators Christine Kehoe and Carole Migden. However, Migden is facing a tough primary fight which she is very likely to lose.

Here is a table showing the members of the LGBT caucus for the current legislative sessiob and a projection of what the caucus will look like after being sworn in in January 2009.

January 2007                       January 2009
Assembly                         
Mark Leno (AD-13)                  Tom Ammiano (AD-13)
John Laird (AD-27)                 John Perez (AD-46)
                                   Chris Cabaldon (AD-8)
State Senate
Christine Kehoe (SD-39)            Christine Kehoe (SD-39)
Carole Migden (SD-3)               Mark Leno (SD-3)
Sheila Kuehl (SD-23)

In addition, there’s the possibility that Laurette Healey may win her primary to replace

Assemblymember Lloyd Levine in the 40th Assembly District and it’s possible that Greg Pettis will win his primary in the 80th district (but it’s unlikely he will win the general election in this Republican-leaning district).

The SF Bay Guardian released their endorsements for local races and state propositions. These tend to be some of the most influential endorsements in the City, and to a lesser extent, in the region. As always, they do a laudable job presenting a thorough analysis of each race and the relative merits of each position. Hats off to Tim Redmond and the crew at the SFBG.  Here’s a summary of their positions, and I’ll discuss some of them over the flip.

Prop 98: No, No, No

Prop 99: Yes, Yes, Yes

SD-03: Mark Leno

SD-09: Loni Hancock

AD-13: Tom Ammiano

AD-14: Kriss Worthington

CA-08 (Pelosi): No Endorsement

Let’s start with Props 98 and 99. (I work for No on 98) They state the position that progressives across the state have come to, whether Jon Coupal thought the opposite might be true, Prop 98 is a disaster for California. And they even give us a nice little way to remember which is the good one: “We hate 98, but 99 is fine.” Cute.

On to the Senate Races, surely the most watched position in this endorsement slate was the issue of SD-03 (aka Rumble in the Bubble, that’s mine, I want royalties for that, even though I do work for Mark Leno.)  The BG has endorsed both Leno and Migden in the past, but they haven’t been so into Joe Nation. (I don’t know if they ever endorsed him in a primary…he ran unopposed for at least one term in the Assembly.) So, this came down to a decision between the two San Francisco gay candidates.

The BG sees strengths and weaknesses in both candidates. Migden has passed some good pieces of legislation like community choice and toxics legislation, and Leno has a record of protecting vulnerable populations from evictions and passing the marriage bill. But they also disliked Leno’s close ties to Mayor Newsom and Migden’s connections to Gap Founder Don Fischer who is a huge “school choice advocate.”

The BG, like me, is a fan of primary challenges in this one-party town., and they laud the attention the mostly absentee Migden has now paid to the district. But toss Migden’s “imperious and arrogant” ways to her campaign finance troubles, and the BG tilted towards Leno. “In the end, we’ve decided – with much enthusiasm and some reservations – to endorse Assemblymember Mark Leno.”

SD-09: Loni Hancock. I’m a fan of both Hancock and Chan. Whomever wins will be a great Senator to replace the, shall we say “imperious,” Don Perata. The BG went with Hancock based upon her work on the budget.

AD-13: Ammiano. He’s running unopposed, but that is, in and of itself, is a testament to Ammiano. People in SF love the guy, for good reason. He’s great personally as well as politically.

AD-14: Kriss Worthington. There are some great candidates here, but Kriss Worthington, the openly gay Berkeley Councilman that has been the heart of Berkeley’s progressive movement, for years will be a great legislator. He’s willing to stand alone for progressive values, if need be.  And, in Sacramento, need exists. Often.

CA-08: The Guardian chose not to endorse Speaker Pelosi, stating that she no longer represents San Francisco’s progressive values.

I’ll leave the other races to the Guardian’s excellent endorsement editorial, save one where I think they got it wrong. That is the SF DCCC endorsement of the so-called HOPE Slate. Besides the obvious play off of Obama’s campaign, my issue is with a few members of the slate.  Specifically, the inclusion of two San Francisco supervisors on the slate. Now, I understand that the Supervisors want to ensure that their political positions get into the Party’s apparatus, but frankly, the point of the DCCC should be less about policy positions and grandstanding and more about organizing Democrats in San Francisco to ensure turnout.

I understand that the endorsements of the party have a very strong impact upon the vote for local issues here in San Francisco. But it is hard to argue that the SF Democratic Party has been anything other than progressive in the last two years. And furthermore, while hope is terrific and all, after all I am an Obama supporter, the results of elections depends on the hard work of registering voters and turning them out. Under the leadership of Scott Wiener, the SF DCCC has done just that. SF is one of the few counties to increase Democratic percentages during 2007. Fighting the battle against increased apathy and DTS registrations, we’ve been winning.

Scott has been an enormous part of that success and deserves re-election to the DCCC and to the chair.

( – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Well, today the good folks who want to “reform eminent domain” (notice the quotation marks there) have turned in their signatures to the Secretary of State.  This little shadily crafted hidden agenda masquerading as a eminent domain reform was attacked from all sides.  But one quote stood out to me, from Nan Brasmer, president of the California Alliance for Retired Americans:

Wealthy apartment and mobile home park owners spent close to $2 million to qualify their deceptive rent control rollback proposition for the June 2008 ballot. The landlords are going to try to trick voters into believing their measure is about eminent domain. But they won’t be successful. We will wage an aggressive campaign to educate voters that this measure is nothing more than a greedy scheme by landlords to eliminate rent control so they can make millions of dollars off the backs of seniors, veterans, working moms and other Californians.

Something came up on Calitics a few days ago about why language to abolish rent control was included in the Hidden Agendas measure. It seems pretty clear the rent control language is in there to help raise money from apartment owners.

Now, rent control is a fairly popular concept. I’m not saying its universally popular, but, in many of these safe-Democratic seats held by many of the leaders in the Assembly and Senate Caucus, rent control is viewed as a positive. And leaders who take a strong pro-rent control position are generally well-received. You don’t really need to look much further than the very well-attended event last Wednesday to see that there’s quite a bit of support in San Francisco. A couple of weeks earlier a similar rally was held in Los Angeles and I’m sure that same rally could have been held in several other cities across the state with equally strong attendance.

Unfortunately, the Legislature hasn’t been too kind to tenants in the last few years. Sure, it could be worse, but major pieces of pro-tenant legislation have been few and far between. That is the case for a variety of reasons, but there has been no real incentive for legislators to touch rent control for a while.

But, if the Howard Jarvis/Howie Rich eminent domain “reform” package makes it to the ballot, rent control will be a major theme of the race. And once that disastrous package goes down in flames, housing activists can work on using that informal poll on the popularity of rent control as a means to pursue more tenant protections.

So, as a little suggestion, I refer you to the Costa-Hawkins Act. More over the flip…

This little piece of legislation, passed back in 1995, allowed what is now known as “vacancy decontrol”.  Basically, vacancy decontrol allows landlord to set the initial rate of rental whenever the unit is vacated. So, in many ways, it’s a slow weaning off of rent control.  Well, here’s a bit more about Costa-Hawkins from our good friends over at the California Apartment Association:

This law cleared the way for owners in rent control communities to establish initial rental rates when there was a change in occupancy at a dwelling unit – a policy known as vacancy decontrol. While cities and counties continue to maintain the ability to implement local rent control laws, they must follow the parameters established in the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. At the heart of Costa-Hawkins are a number of basic rules: (1) housing constructed after 1995 must be exempt from local rent controls, (2) new housing that was already exempt from a local rent control law in place before February 1, 1995, must remain exempt, (3) single family homes and other units like condominiums that are separate from the title to any other dwelling units must be exempt from local rent controls, and (4) rental property owners must have the ability to establish their own rental rates when dwelling units change tenancy. (CAA)

In other words, Costa-Hawkins is a huge gift to the landlords of the state. So, if I’m a freshman legislator from, say, San Francisco (future Asm. Ammiano, I’m looking at you), I think I would invest a fair amount of my time pushing Costa-Hawkins reform.  I mean, given the extremely high rental rates in San Francisco, we could, at the very least work on fixing vacancy decontrol.  And, the argument for Costa-Hawkins reform becomes a whole lot stronger after an initiative was defeated based primarily on its inclusion of rent control restrictions. I’m just saying…