Since Politicians Are Humorless, Ballot Initiatives Host Own Roast
News item, from the Sacramento Bee The California Center for Civic Participation’s much-anticipated fundraising dinner, known for delivering raunchy lines and lots of laughs, couldn’t nail down a politician willing to take the heat. The center announced in a letter sent to supporters this week that it has postponed until 2013 what was to be […]
Where Is Putin on Prop 28?
Exciting news for the Yes on 28 campaign. The cause of term limits reform has a new supporter: Vladimir Putin. In a question-and-answer session with Parliament in Moscow, the Russian president/prime minister/president again indicated that, like those who drafted Yes on 28, he is concerned about the musical chairs phenomenon of people moving from one […]
Vote Romney…. In 2014?
Call it the Los Angeles precedent; since we’ve been talking about potential candidates for LA mayor for more than a year even though election isn’t until 2013, it’s now OK to talk about candidates for governor in 2014. When you think about 2014, of course, the immediate thought is about the possibility of Democratic challengers […]
European Initiative Season Is Underway Too, And Some of It is Familiar
The new European initiative process launched Sunday. Yes, that was April 1, and no, this isn’t a joke. This is the world’s first transnational process. You have to gather 1 million signatures, meeting minimum threshholds across at least seven countries, to qualify a measure. There is no ballot – not yet – but the resulting […]
Skelton and Sacramento’s Bad Habits of Mind
George Skelton is a great journalist and better person. It always feels bad to pick on him. But a recent column of his was so emblematic of the nutty thinking of Sacramento that I couldn’t let it pass without comment. Skelton’s column was about civil rights lawyer Molly Munger and her ballot initiative to raise […]
Penalizing the Circulators
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the signature gathering business in California run at such full blast. The latest: with so much time pressure to produce so many signatures (thank you, Gov. Brown and CFT), there are huge worries about the validity of signatures. In Southern California, petition circulators told me that they are being […]
The Brown Era Budget Fight – The Final Four
Click Image for Full Size Final Four Bracket
Is Fletcher Finished?
If you want to watch a political suicide in real time, check out Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher’s six-minute video declaring that he’s leaving the Republican Party. It’s not merely the weird way the video is cut, right through his forehead. Or his grim tone (act like you’re excited about this, Nathan!). Or the self-serving statements connecting […]
Is CTA Too Reasonable?
The California Federation of Teachers came in for heavy criticism in recent months for shooting for the moon. Its Millionaire’s Tax ballot initiative, now dropped in a compromise with Gov. Jerry Brown, was seen as being too bold and ambitious in raising taxes on the rich, so much so that it would have imperiled the […]
Can We Get the Money Upfront, Molly?
Molly Munger is 100 percent right when she calls out Gov. Jerry Brown for his dishonesty in selling his tax-hike ballot initiative as a measure that is 100 percent about schools. Brown’s measure is really about figuring out ways to raise money to reduce the budget deficit and to fund his peculiar effort to give […]