Here are a few things I never got around to this week:

• Democratic Senators are asking for a real plan from Gov. Schwarzenegger about how to solve the prison crisis.  AB 900 passed a year ago with the promise of building thousands more beds to address prison overcrowding.  To date not one construction project has begun.  This is a complete shell game, and the courts are likely to act immediately in the face of such incompetence.  Just another reason why trying to build our way out of this problem was such a stupid idea.

• Not only did immigrant’s rights advocates rally in Los Angeles today, they were joined by businesses who want an end to workplace raids.  I actually believe in workplace enforcement to an extent, but business can be a powerful ally in reaching toward a comprehensive solution.  The crowd was smaller this year but I think there’s a more robust coalition for a breakthrough.  Voter mobilization is going to be the key.

• Others have mentioned the new poll numbers on taxes and schools, but I’ll say this – decades of anti-tax rhetoric has succeeded in dislodging the relationship between taxes and services.  People want education and other services to be funded but don’t want to pay for it.  The only way to restore that relationship is to… restore that relationship, by specifically explaining how America is worth paying for and turning the whole issue on its head.  Not a huge revelation, but thought I’d throw it out.

• Home prices continue to fall in LA and Orange County, and foreclosures continue to wreak havoc on the state’s homeowners, including Jose Canseco.

• I thought this was the most interesting study of the week:

It’s often said, “You are what you eat,” but new research suggests that where you eat may have a lot to do with it, as well.

In communities with an abundance of fast-food outlets and convenience stores, researchers have found, obesity and diabetes rates are much higher than in areas where fresh fruit and vegetable markets and full-service grocery stores are easily accessible.

“The implications are really dramatic,” said Harold Goldstein, a study author and executive director of the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, based in Davis. “We are living in a junk-food jungle, and not surprisingly, we are seeing rising rates of obesity and diabetes.”

Intuitive, and it’s a chicken-or-the-egg argument.  Convenience stores and fast-food outlets move to neighborhoods where people are more likely to only be able to afford convenience stores and fast food.  However, the researchers claim this holds across socioeconomic strata.  “Food environment” is something we have to think about.  Education would seem to be the key,

• Forgot to link George Skelton’s article on the potential for competing redistricting measures on the ballot.  My position on redistricting is well-known.  Skelton does segue into initiative reform, which is sorely needed.

When Arnold Schwarzenegger endorsed Prop. 93, some considered it the result of some deal on health care or some other quid pro quo.  I thought it was much simpler than that.  

Schwarzenegger has a good working relationship with Fabian Nuñez and Don Perata.  He for the most part gets what he wants out of that relationship.  Why would he want to change it for his last two years in office?  The pessimist’s view would be “Why would he want to housebreak someone else when these two are already housebroken?”  The optimist’s view is “He’s moving forward on his agenda, why rock the boat?”

Arnold has now confirmed this, by the way.

Schwarzenegger said he has developed a “trust” with sitting legislative leaders and hopes to continue to work with them. The governor said he felt a loss when former Senate leader John Burton was termed out of the Legislature.

“I just got this groove going with this guy and we got to understanding each other and all of a sudden he’s being ripped away,” Schwarzenegger said.

The governor said he and current lawmakers would be better able to tackle major issues facing the state, from the budget crisis to the state’s need for $500 billion worth of infrastructure improvements.

Besides, he said, “I really want some of those guys to stay.”

It’s a selfish view from the standpoint of Schwarzenegger (should the governor really be picking the majority leaders in the opposite party?), but perfectly coherent.  He wants to continue the working relationship.  In the short term, it’s up to the voters to decide if that working relationship is good for California.  I think the sum total of this site could be “Exhibit A,” but your mileage may vary.

(As a side note, interesting how this experience vs. change question continues at the state level, no?  Of course, we must wonder about the right kind or the wrong kind of experience.)

Well that’s… interesting.

oftening his past opposition to changes to California’s term-limits law, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is endorsing a February ballot measure that would allow many sitting lawmakers to run for office again this year rather than be forced to leave the Legislature.

Schwarzenegger, who as a candidate in 2003 supported California’s existing term-limits law as a shield against “special interests” obtaining too much power, reversed himself in an essay released today that said the original law “went too far.”

“Under the current system, our elected officials are not given the time they need to reach their full potential as public servants,” Schwarzenegger wrote in an essay to be published in The Times on Tuesday. “Imagine what would happen if we told a big-city police chief or a sheriff he could stay in the job just long enough to start mastering it and then had to move on.”

The op-ed announcing the endorsement is here, and it amusingly includes the line “It takes time to learn how to govern effectively.”  You said it, Arnold, not me.  Also, considering you’re in your fifth year, what’s your excuse?

The No on 93 campaign is kind of freaking out about this, calling it the result of a “deal on healthcare.”

Discuss.

It appears the GOPigs “Steal the State” initiative will not be on the June 2008 ballot but it could still make it to the November 2008 ballot if it gets enough signatures, or a second version of it could be introduced after a low-turn-out June 2008 primary as a new but similar initiative.  A re-introduced initiative could require fewer signatures based on a low-turn-out election in June, if I understand the rules correctly.  So, either the initiative is dead or it isn’t.  Either it will be on the November 2008 ballot or it won’t.  Either it will pass in November or it won’t.   Either it will be challenging in court or it won’t.  Either it will be upheld or it won’t.  Either the final court decision will come before the electors cast their votes in December or it won’t.  

Well, I say “enough!”  We need to take the lead and not depend on or react to events beyond our control.  We need to quit responding to the GOPigs.  We need to make the GOPigs respond to us.

Follow me over the flip for an idea on how.  

As I understand it, the number of signatures needed to quality an initiative for the ballot is based on the percentage of voters who voted in the previous election.  If so, getting a favorable initiative on the November 2008 ballot should be easy if turnout in the June 2008 election is as low as expected.  We need to create and place an initiative on the November 2008 ballot that:

1) signs up California for the National Popular Vote and takes effect as soon enough other states that have 50 percent or more of the electoral votes do the same,

2) resets and retains the winner-take-all system in the meantime,

3) keeps the winner-take-all system in the event that the National Popular Vote and/or other portions of this initiative are ruled unconstitutional (the compact clause of Article I, Section 10, last sentence of the U. S. Constitution might apply),

4) repeals or overrides any other changes to the electoral college that may be made by the voters, such as the “Steal The State” initiative, and

5) has a severability clause if any portion is found to be unconstitutional.

The severability clause is important in the event both this proposed initiative and the “Steal The State” initiative pass and the National Popular Vote portion of this one is ruled unconstitutional.  

Doing this by initiative is important because Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed the National Popular Vote passed by the California state legislature in 2006.  We need to sidestep a likely gubernatorial veto.  

An election with both a National Popular Vote initiative and a delayed “Steal the State” initiative on the ballot at the same time would make for a fun campaign.  A big argument being pushed in support of the “Steal the State” measure is “fairness.”  Well, what could be more fair than a national popular vote to determine the President?  It would be very hard to argue against a national popular vote while, at the same time, arguing in favor of casting votes based on Congressional districts.  Just imagine the amount of attention California would receive from the Presidential candidates!   And just imagine how this could echo through the rest of the nation if the GOPig nominee were to be against the National Popular Vote initiative.  

If the courts ultimately decide that an initiative measure to change the way electors are determined is a violation of the U. S. Constitution (Article II Section 1, Paragraph 2, 1st sentence) and therefore unconstitutional, we will have not lost anything.  In fact, we will have gained.  We will have shown that the majority of people of the State of California support electing the President of the United States by a national popular vote.  

So let’s draft a proposal to file with the Secretary of State’s office.  If we start now, we could begin circulating petitions the day after the June 2008 primary.  We could use the basic idea of Dr. Matsumura’s 2006 Save Cal Now effort to recall Governor Schwarzenegger as a model to distribute petitions for circulation.  

Thoughts?

We are 56 days from the California Presidential primary on February 5, and just a few weeks from opening early and absentee voting, and I think it’s reasonable to assess how the facts of the race thus far have met with the expectations, and even if it isn’t reasonable, I’m about to do it.  The entire rationale for moving up the primary to February, from people as varied as the Governor, the Speaker of the Assembly, even our friends at the Courage Campaign, was that this would bring new attention to California in the Presidential race and would allow the state a say in the picking of a nominee.

How’s that goin’?

Monday was one of the first days in months and months where the two top contenders on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, were in California at the same time.  They were both here for fundraisers, and both by accident – there was supposed to be a debate on CBS in Los Angeles that day, but a pending WGA action and the unwillingness for the candidates to cross the picket line forced cancellation.  Obama’s fundraiser, granted, was a low-dollar event at the Gibson Ampitheatre in Universal City – a combination rock concert/political rally.  In similar rallies in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, fans saw Oprah: in Hollywood, home of the stars, we got Nick Cannon and the Goo Goo Dolls.  Indeed, the last public, no-money-needed appearance by any viable candidate in California fades into the back of the memory.  There just haven’t been any.

Last night I sat in on a conference call with supporters of John Edwards and the national campaign.  It was billed as a dialogue about how Edwards supporters in Southern California can best help their preferred candidate.  The unequivocal message from the campaign was that these activists can best help them by “adopting Nevada,” home to one of the earlier caucuses, on January 19.  They touted road trips to Las Vegas for phone banking and canvassing.  This was extremely redolent of work I did with the Dean campaign in 2004 on their “Southwest Victory Tour” into Arizona and New Mexico.  Four years later, absolutely nothing has changed.

This is not a slam on the top three campaigns.  They are ignoring California, so to speak, because they are making the calculation that victories in the early states will lead to a momentum build that will be impossible to stop.  And this is precisely the dynamic of the race.  It’s clear to anyone that is paying attention that Iowa, and to a lesser extent New Hampshire, have been made MORE decisive as a result of the truncated primary.  There are dozens of examples I can cite.  Edwards supporter and California Assemblyman Anthony Portantino was on the conference call.  He wasn’t whipping up support in his district, he was calling in from Iowa.  Fabian Nuñez recently took a trip out to Iowa.  A few weeks ago we had the executive board meeting of the CDP – the largest gathering of activists you’re going to see until the primary.  That inviting target attracted – well, it attracted Dennis Kucinich.  There have been no TV ads run in California and exactly one mailer, by Clinton, in a small enough quantity to get the attention of the political press and nobody else.  The public polling on the California race, at least on the Democratic side, has mirrored the national polling to a T, because all we’re getting out here is the national race.    The national primary is fictional, and so is the California primary, for all intents and purposes.

People in this state that supported this move, and it was broadly popular, were simply sold a bill of goods.  It was blindingly obvious that the only way to change the primary system and allow it to have a diversity of voices was to actually change it, by removing the dominance of Iowa and New Hampshire.  I am hopeful that, as a result of this ridiculous front-loading, that will happen in 2012.  But clearly, California’s move, which was the first of the non-early states and essentially broke the dike, causing 20 or so other states to move up in order to keep pace, EXACERBATED the problem.

And in so doing, the move enabled not only the ballot initiatives that we see on February 5, but the potential for all sorts of Republican mischief in the low-turnout June primary.  Frankly, to suggest that a group of lawmakers who wished to change term limits just happened to pick a day before the deadline for filing in the June primary to hold an election which could have that on the ballot is beyond naive.  In so doing, the June election became initiative bait, susceptible to all sorts of right-wing ballot measures.  We may have dodged a bullet with the Dirty Tricks thing, but there will be others, as you all know (starting with the Hidden Agenda initiative about eminent domain “reform”).

In point of fact, the only time that California has ever been a factor in the Presidential primaries is… when they held them in June, in the 1968 and 1972 races (the tragic death of RFK changed what would have been a decisive election in ’68, obviously).  I’m certainly not saying that history would have repeated itself in 2008 if California only retained its position, but I am saying that absolutely nothing good could have come from moving up, and still potentially something pretty bad could happen as a consequence.