{"id":11291,"date":"2010-03-16T19:21:40","date_gmt":"2010-03-16T19:21:40","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-03-16T19:23:19","modified_gmt":"2010-03-16T19:23:19","slug":"sf4d-parties-forum-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2010\/03\/16\/sf4d-parties-forum-report\/","title":{"rendered":"SF4D Parties Forum Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sf4democracy.org\/\">San Francisco for Democracy<\/a><\/b> held a <a href=\"http:\/\/sf4dem.com\/webcalendar\/view_entry.php?id=1370&#038;date=20100315\">forum for political party representatives<\/a> on Monday night. &nbsp;The panel consisted of:<\/p>\n<p><b>Aaron Peskin, Chairman, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfdemocrats.org\/index.php\">San Francisco Democratic Party<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>Barry Hermanson, Co-Coordinator, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cagreens.org\/\">Green Party of California<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>Marsha Feinland, State Treasurer, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.peaceandfreedom.org\/home\/\">Peace and Freedom Party<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n<p>The Republican Party representative had a scheduling conflict with his own party&#8217;s meeting.<\/p>\n<p>The SF4D meeting was open to the public. &nbsp;This was a moderated forum of two hours, with introductory statements, moderator questions, and audience questions. &nbsp;This report covers the points (my distillation, not verbatim quotes) that I found significant. <\/p>\n<p><b>Marsha Feinland, Peace and Freedom Party:<\/b><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Peace and Freedom Party is an avowedly socialist, anti-capitalist party.<\/li>\n<li>We tax sales of ordinary items such as shoes and school supplies; we should also be taxing financial transactions like stock trades.<\/li>\n<li>The state should be taxing oil extraction. &nbsp;Richmond voted to tax Chevron, and Chevron isn&#8217;t leaving.<\/li>\n<li>A legislature that actually worked on behalf of the people would be a unicameral one elected via proportional representation. &nbsp;When I ran for the U.S. Senate, more people voted for me than did for sitting Senators in fourteen small states.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Ranked-choice\/instant runoff voting is good, but it&#8217;s not the be-all, end-all of elections reform. &nbsp;Had it taken effect earlier, Matt Gonzalez never would&#8217;ve had a chance against Gavin Newsom.<\/li>\n<li>Proposition 14, the &#8220;Open Primary&#8221; proposition on the coming ballot, would destroy third parties electorally.<\/li>\n<li>Big businesses buy out and crush small businesses, so small businesses could fare better under a more socialist system.<\/li>\n<li>I helped organize the March 4th actions against California education cuts, and I made sure that the students themselves had center stage.<\/li>\n<li>Building a political movement is equally as important as running for office.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Barry Hermanson, Green Party:<\/b><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We shouldn&#8217;t be issuing government bonds for services, since the interest payments go to the wealthy and since we should be honest about what services actually cost.<\/li>\n<li>6400 city employees make over $100K. &nbsp;The issue isn&#8217;t necessarily about that being too much, it&#8217;s about why the rest of the city employees don&#8217;t have a higher standard of living.<\/li>\n<li>Ranked-choice voting helps third-party ballot access and spares us expensive, nasty runoff campaigns.<\/li>\n<li>We should split-roll Proposition 13. &nbsp;Business property tax currently gets updated with a property sale or a business ownership change, but any stock trade is really an ownership change.<\/li>\n<li>Communities should have the power to review and, if warranted, revoke corporate charters. &nbsp;That&#8217;s coming from a former small business owner who thinks a mix of capitalism and socialism is best.<\/li>\n<li>There should be a downtown business tax district for transit funds, given that downtown businesses&#8217; workers pack mass transit during rush hour. &nbsp;That&#8217;s fine; it&#8217;s just that they should help more to pay for it.<\/li>\n<li>The Democratic Party&#8217;s tent is too big. &nbsp;Conservatives in the Democratic Party kill popular reform. &nbsp;I want a realignment of representation, with the Democratic Party in the center, the Republican Party on the right, and the Green Party on the left.<\/li>\n<li>If Proposition 15, public financing of the Secretary of State campaign, passes, the Green Party candidate will be viable in that race.<\/li>\n<li>I am trying to bring people together. &nbsp;I am trying to stem the division over the 5% of what we disagree about.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Aaron Peskin, Democratic Party:<\/b><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There must be campaign finance regulation and\/or public funding of elections for there to be actual representation of the people.<\/li>\n<li>Union-busting via &#8220;firing&#8221; and &#8220;re-hiring&#8221; city employees would set a devastating precedent for labor nationwide, in addition to it being a disaster for the city.<\/li>\n<li>Voters are not yet familiar enough with ranked-choice voting to realize that they don&#8217;t need to take the &#8220;spoiler effect&#8221; into account anymore.<\/li>\n<li>San Francisco&#8217;s ranked-choice voting system may be overturned as part of a current federal lawsuit.<\/li>\n<li>There are billions of dollars in federal funds available for highway and mass transit construction but none for operation.<\/li>\n<li>The appointed MTA board is not independent of mayor in the slightest, despite the Board of Supervisors&#8217;s confirmation role.<\/li>\n<li>Many in the San Francisco Democratic Party are exemplars of public service, unlike the bought-and-paid-for standard most other places and unlike the wholly owned Republican Party. &nbsp;Also, as soon as a party like the Greens got to be anywhere close to as big as the Democratic and Republican Parties, the Green Party would have exactly the same corruption problems.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p>San Francisco for Democracy<br \/>\n<br \/>General Meeting<br \/>\n<br \/>Northern Police Station Community Room<br \/>\n<br \/>1125 Fillmore Street, San Francisco, CA<br \/>\n<br \/>7-9 PM, Monday, March 15, 2010<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><i>At present, the author of this post is not an SF4D member.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sf4democracy.org\/\">San Francisco for Democracy<\/a><\/b> held a <a href=\"http:\/\/sf4dem.com\/webcalendar\/view_entry.php?id=1370&#038;date=20100315\">forum for political party representatives<\/a> on Monday night. &nbsp;The panel consisted of:<\/p>\n<p><b>Aaron Peskin, Chairman, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfdemocrats.org\/index.php\">San Francisco Democratic Party<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>Barry Hermanson, Co-Coordinator, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cagreens.org\/\">Green Party of California<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>Marsha Feinland, State Treasurer, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.peaceandfreedom.org\/home\/\">Peace and Freedom Party<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n<p>The Republican Party representative had a scheduling conflict with his own party&#8217;s meeting.<\/p>\n<p>The SF4D meeting was open to the public. &nbsp;This was a moderated forum of two hours, with introductory statements, moderator questions, and audience questions. &nbsp;This report covers the points (my distillation, not verbatim quotes) that I found significant. <\/p>\n<p><b>Marsha Feinland, Peace and Freedom Party:<\/b><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Peace and Freedom Party is an avowedly socialist, anti-capitalist party.<\/li>\n<li>We tax sales of ordinary items such as shoes and school supplies; we should also be taxing financial transactions like stock trades.<\/li>\n<li>The state should be taxing oil extraction. &nbsp;Richmond voted to tax Chevron, and Chevron isn&#8217;t leaving.<\/li>\n<li>A legislature that actually worked on behalf of the people would be a unicameral one elected via proportional representation. &nbsp;When I ran for the U.S. Senate, more people voted for me than did for sitting Senators in fourteen small states.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"author":1587,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[501,967,4285,8563,8562],"class_list":["post-11291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-501","tag-967","tag-4285","tag-8563","tag-8562"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-2W7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1587"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}