Buggy system stuck in the 1990s needs an overhaul

by Brian Leubitz

Sometimes California Forward hits on some solid ground, like on open government and transparency. Yesterday, they joined up with Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, the Sunlight Foundation, the California Newspapers Association and  a few others to push out a letter calling for greater support for the Cal-Access website and other transparency measures.

This week a broad coalition consisting of good government groups, newspaper publishers, and lobbyists came together for one goal: fix our disclosure systems.

The thrust of the effort, led by CA Fwd, is a joint letter submitted to Governor Jerry Brown and legislators urging them to prioritize funding for modernized campaign finance (Cal-Access) and conflict of interest (Form 700) systems. In addition to accelerated funding, the letter calls for oversight of the projects to ensure milestones are met on-time and within budget or be left with projects that, as currently structured, could take years to develop at huge costs to the taxpayer.(CA FWD)

Since it crashed a few years ago right in the heart of election season, it is functional but still very janky. It needs to be brought into this decade. This isn’t a ton of data, Silicon Valley operations deal with far more data in a lot prettier way. We can do this, it isn’t rocket science. Heck, I bet you put a few computer nerds in a room with some cash for servers and a few cases of Red Bull and you would have a system that would make any activist happy.

We can do this, and it is about time it happens.

California fails recent transparency study

by Brian Leubitz

California is home to Silicon Valley, so you think we could bring some of that innovation to bear on our state government. But one look at the Cal-Access contribution information website will quickly disabuse any user of that notion. But more than that, the state lacks the kind of transparency tools that other states provide. That yields a failing grade in the US-PIRG’s report on state government transparency.

The report describes California as a “failing state” because, even though it contains some checkbook-level data for contracts and grants, it lacks other important information to allow residents to monitor state spending, including checkbook-level data on non-contract spending and information about which companies benefit from economic development tax credits. California is also one of two states in the country without searchable vendor-specific spending information. California’s transparency site does not link to tax expenditure reports or information on the intended and actual benefits of economic development subsidies. California also fails to provide information on “off-budget” agencies as leading transparency states have begun to do.

One of the more interesting aspects of the Stimulus package of spending was the clean and easy to use website, Recovery.gov, that the federal government set up to track spending. But here in California, where spending will directly impact our daily lives, that data just isn’t easily tracked anywhere. If Utah can do it, and their transparent.utah.gov website  is pretty slick, why can’t California do it?

And while there are a few random attempts to improve transparency, it certainly has been Sen. Leland Yee’s focus for a while, there hasn’t been any systemic path towards greater transparency in state government. (Sen. Yee is also carrying SB751, a bill that calls for greater transparency, but is, in all likelihood a target for gut and amend in the future.)

On the other hand, some municipalities are making an effort on this front. San Francisco has set up a website, with APIs, for a slew of data. And other cities are working towards better transparency, but the process is slow and totally inconsistent. If we are to improve in this area, it will have to come from the top, with at least a modicum of funding. But despite the cost, transparency has a way of paying for itself in reduced waste and a better and more informed democracy.

State Audit reveals no major malfeasance, but a deep lack of transparency

by Brian Leubitz

Sen. Leland Yee has been all over the UC system, arguing that nobody knows what is going on with the system.  But while State Auditor Elaine Howle didn’t find anything legally wrong, she did find that much more could be done to shed light on the process

The University of California should justify to the public why it spends thousands of dollars more per student at four of its 10 campuses and also do a better job of explaining how it spends more than $1 billion it allots annually to “miscellaneous services,” state auditors said Thursday.

The audit found no major malfeasance in the university system’s budgeting or spending, but noted a lack of transparency in the way it handles its finances that could erode public trust.

For example, $6 billion was budgeted for the UC president’s office over five years, all of it falling under a line-item category called miscellaneous services. (SF Gate)

Now, most of the money can be traced back to legitimate expenses, but why was so much money just tossed into a “miscellaneous” file.  UC can do better than that. Heck, they have a whole fleet of accounting professors that can help them out with that.  But we would all be served by a bit more sunshine in the Office of the President.

The report also revealed that several campuses receive much smaller amounts of funding per student. UCSB receives $12,309 per student, while UC-Davis receives $17,660.  Much of this has to do with some important underlying factors such as percentage of graduate students, but once again, a little sunshine could make this whole process smoother.  If the UC just did a better job in keeping its books open, many of these issues wouldn’t get heated at all.

Meanwhile both the UC system and Yee are taking the report as a win. Hooray for that.

I proudly manage the IssaWatch.com project for the Courage Campaign. 

As Sunshine Week — an annual, national push to make government more open and transparent — begins, we at Courage Campaign are calling for Darrell Issa to back up his rhetoric with action. After resisting calls for his own disclosure while criticizing the Obama Administration for similar, we're calling on Rep. Issa to disclose all the meetings he has with lobbyists. While this sort of hypocrisy is nothing new from Issa, the double-standard is particularly audacious. Rick Jacobs recently sent this message to Courage members explaining the effort.

Yesterday, I mentioned Sarah Palin’s little attack on transparency and disclosure.  At the same time, the Legislature was looking in another direction: more disclosure during budget negotiations:

The Senate approved a measure that requires disclosure of contributions of at least $1,000 within 24 hours when they are made between the date in May when the finance director issues a revised revenue estimate and the date when a budget is adopted for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

The new disclosure requirements, approved on a 29-3 vote and sent to the Assembly, also would apply to the 15 days before the end of the legislative session and, for the governor, during the 30 days after adjournment of the Legislature when he signs or vetoes the bulk of bills.(LA Times)

Now, this is not going to actually change the world, but if it’s good enough for the election cycle, it’s good enough for the budget. After all, most elections are well ahead of the time that the big decisions are made.  The real power that special interests seek to influence is all about the budget.  Why not have the same kind of strict rules?

My guess is that if this passes through the rest of the legislative hurdles, Arnold signs this.  He won’t have to deal with the consequences, and he gets to look like the goo-goo impresario that he has always wanted to be. It isn’t going to change the power of the two weeks surround the budget negotiations, but it just might be a little bit of sunshine-y fresh disinfectant.

Concept	Support	Oppose
Fundamental Change to Constitution	51	38
Vote as a Package	49	40
Constitutional Convention	51	39
Would You Serve As Delegate	62	37
Structural Reforms Only	59	33
Illegal Immigration On Table	48	42
Parsky Commission Flatter Tax	23-32%	52-64%
Parsky Commission Net Receipts Tax	23	65
Spending Cap	48	45
Majority Vote Budget	43	52
Majority Vote Revenue	27	69
Split roll	37	52
Const. Amendments by Initiative Supermajority	56	36
Waste and Fraud Delusions	57	37
Term limits help	51	38
Consolidate Legislature	35	49

Field released their poll on reforming the state government today, and boy, is there some crazy data in there.  There are a lot of Californians who are big Dire Straits fans. You know, that’s the way you do it, your money for nothing…

I’ve shortened up the questions for this poll in the table here, and some may have gotten a little confusing, but most is fairly self-explanatory.

The state wants some sort of big change, it just doesn’t really know how it wants, what it wants, or why it wants it.  But, it just wants to start all over again.

Except keeping Prop 13 apparently.  The split roll and the majority vote for revenue faired very poorly, but what can you expect? The question was basically, would you like consensus to raise taxes. Well, sure, and I like apple pie too. But when one party refuses logic, what then?

The problem with a poll like this is that these concepts are very loose in voters minds.  They are almost completely defined by the question that is asked by the pollster. For an example of that, on the Parsky Commission Flat tax question, it was asked two different ways, and the answers changed by nearly ten points.

Finally, “waste and fraud delusion” in the chart refers to a question that asks respondents about waste and fraud. This makes me both sad and increases the chances that my head will explode by a factor of 10.

By a 57% to 37% margin voters believe the state can provide about the same level of services by simply eliminating waste and inefficiencies, even if its budget had to be cut by billions of dollars.

Not only is this so astronomically off the mark as to be laughable, it shows that the Republicans have destroyed us at messaging.  They have made “public employee” into a synonym for all that is evil and wasteful.  Despite the fact that our state employees work in some very demanding positions, the conservative movement has repeated over and over again how the government is just stealing.  And now the state believes it.

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, California believes that it is “waste” that is bankrupting the state. Despite the fact that the Republicans couldn’t come up with anything near even a billion dollars of identifiable waste. Despite the fact that the Republican budget slashed services, cut to the very core of what Californians have requested, nay demanded, since the days of Pat Brown.

Californians want their yummy chocolate cake, but they also want to eat the tasty carrot cake on the shelf. The key is that we can’t give up, and give in to this. We must continue to fight for changes that will make the state productive once again.

But I refer back to the problem with a poll like this: the questions define the answers. The poll on this last question sounds like something you’d hear on Fox and Friends:

The state government has been facing large budget deficits over the past several years.  Some people believe that by simply eliminating waste and inefficiencies our state government can provide roughly the same level of services that it currently does, even if its budget has to be cut by 20-25 billion dollars. Do you agree strongly, agree somewhat, disagree somewhat or disagree strongly with this view?

Really? Some people believe? Care to name one of them that doesn’t have a financial or electoral stake in that fact gaining traction? And even given that standard, you would be hard pressed to find anybody that really pays attention to the state government who thinks you can cut $20 billion from a budget that is now well below $100 billion and expect no service cuts.  I would love to chit-chat with that person.

In the end, polling for these kinds of nebulous question goes only so far, no matter how good the pollster.  This is the problem with all of this direct democracy, it allows one person or another to put their finger on the scale, whether in the form of the AG’s description or the pollster’s question.

We elect representatives to think about these issues for us, to come up with good answers. Yet we have consistenly knee-capped them over the last 30 years. Californians want big change, they just don’t want to change.

Incidentally, if you’d like to see some different questions get asked, you could look to George Lakoff. Some progressive activists are seeking money to fund a poll. They’ve raised $10,000 and are looking for another $25,000. You can help by giving on ActBlue.

UPDATE by Robert: This morning Brian beat me to the Field Poll post. What I was going to say is: It’s easy for Californians to say they want change, just as it turned out be fairly easy for the American people to say they wanted change by electing Obama last fall. As we’re seeing in Washington D.C., actually implementing change is the hard part. Are people – and legislators – really willing to give up long-held assumptions, beliefs, and ways of doing business, without which change cannot happen?

We’re witnessing the same thing here in California. Voters want change, but they are wary of the details, and are not yet abandoning old ideologies. That’s not to say they’ll refuse to do so – instead, in the absence of a clearly articulated and defined alternative vision for California, polls show that voters are not automatically going to give up on the 1978 model of California governance, even though its failure is obvious to all.

I agree with Brian that we’ve been getting “destroyed” at messaging. Even now, progressive and Democratic organizations still do not want to accept the importance of doing the basic work of creating and actively, consistently, and coherently pushing progressive frames. The consultantocracy still believes in playing for the near-term narrow victory, and has no confidence in their ability to produce fundamental changes in voter thought or voter behavior.

These poll numbers do show that Californians want change. And they are a starting point for how we can produce it. The numbers on Prop 13 are a baseline, not a sign that we should stay away from the topic. And the numbers on the Parsky Commission proposals show that voters do want progressive solutions. It’s time we offered them.