In the last few weeks, CalBuzz has gotten a lot more content and a lot more interesting. It was started by a couple of former political editors, from the Merc and the Chronicle, so they have a bit of experience with California politics. The site itself is an ugly Blogspot blog, but I can forgive a bit of poor formatting if the content is interesting.
At any rate, I bring this up because they have asked all of the presumed candidates for governor to respond to a list of questions. Tom Campbell took up the offer first, answering the full questionnaire in the comments section to the original post.
First, I will say this, Campbell is clearly running to the left of Poizner and Whitman, but that doesn’t take a whole lot. On social issues, he wins the moderate argument. He is at the same place or to the left of Arnold on seemingly every social issue. He’s not really progressive on immigration, but I think you could find quite a few Dems that would be to the left of his position on that issue too. He spells it all out succinctly, in one run-on sentence:
Here are my positions, with respect for those who disagree: gay people should have the same rights as straight people, including the right to marry, a woman should make the choice on abortion up until the time of viability, we should not drill offshore where it would damage our fishing or tourism industry or run a higher risk of damaging the environment than shipping petroleum does, those who break our country’s laws to come here should not be treated as though they were legally here, except that public health should be accessible lest all be endangered by communicable disease, and children K-12 should be in school lest they be recruited for criminal activity, drivers’ licenses should not be granted to those who are not here legally , and we should use the California National Guard to assist in making our border more secure.
So, score one point for post-partisan Tom, and his courage to publicly and vocallyoppose Prop 8 should not be taken lightly. That being said, social issues aren’t the only positions he shares with Arnold. He is also in love with the business lobby, just like the Governator. He even uses the words job-killer throughout the responses. Here he is on splitting the Prop 13 property tax rolls:
When I was California Finance Director, I’d speak before the California Manufacturers’ Association, the Chamber of Commerce, and other groups, whose members included some employers thinking of moving out of the state. One of the only arguments I had for them to stay was Prop.13’s limits on taxing commercial property. If the employer moved to Texas, for instance, where the sales tax is lower and there is no income tax, the property might be reassessed once it was developed to the point that it could not move. That could not happen in California. So the “split roll” idea is job-killer.
He addresses the inequality of long-term homeowneres paying so much less than newer homeowners, and gives an answer about expectations of the purchasers. But the inequality he doesn’t address is the inequality between businesses and residences. Business property doesn’t transfer nearly as often as residential property, yet he isn’t concerned that the owner of a high rise is still paying taxes on property values based in 1978.
And, guess what he opposes democracy, still relying on the broken supermajority system. Because, you know, the majority would run amok and kill jobs.
The rule that used to apply was that a 2/3 vote was required only if the budget spent more than the Gann Limits: that is, more than the previous year adjusted for inflation and population. I’d reestablish that. Keep the 2/3 requirement for tax increases; otherwise, our taxes would rise above their already job-killing level.
Of course, he ignores the fact that if the majority hated the taxes so much, they could simply vote out the majority. It is a basic tenant of democracy, that just doesn’t exist in California. Here in California, it is the minority that rules, not the majority.
And he still is a Republican, so there’s some garbage about how taxes really, really suck:
On taxes, we need to lower every tax that discourages jobs in our state. We need to get more in line with our competitor states’ levels on income tax, sales tax, and business tax. (A good start was in the recent budget deal’s adoption of the single sales factor for apportioning multi-state income: before that change, we were actually taxing employers more the more employees they had in our state.) We should eliminate the sales tax on productive machinery, and adopt a capital gains tax mirroring the federal one, to encourage investment in California that leads to jobs. I’d keep Prop. 13; without it, our number one marginal income tax rate, number one state sales tax, and number 3 state business tax make California a very unattractive place to hire people.
In the end, Campbell’s social positions will likely doom him in the GOP primary. But, he should not be underestimated if he does somehow squeak into the general election. He is running on Arnold’s campaign platform, which was quite successful for two elections. It might be wearing thin these days, but a face lift could bring new life. And the last thing we need is a repeat of Arnold.