The June 9 Re-Cut
Here’s a cost-cutting suggestion for whichever of the two Republican gubernatorial candidates emerges from the June 8 primary.
Don’t make any new TV ads for the fall. Simply take the attack ads your defeated opponent has been using against you – and re-cut them slightly, replacing foreboding graphics and music with friendly and upbeat stuff. In substance, the attack ads you’re facing now may be the best advertisement you have for yourself in the general election.
Seriously. Watching Poizner blast Whitman and Whitman attack Poizner for these last several weeks, I’ve had the through-the-looking glass reaction of an independent, Decline-to-State voter: the attacks make each more attractive.
Needed: A Plan for Predictability
I was in Washington DC recently and spoke with a couple of venture capitalists who work in California. Each reported seeing other venture capital firms move employees out of our state.
The problem, they said, was that California had become too unpredictable.
It isn’t just that schools are being cut; it’s that no one knows how much the schools are being cut. It’s not that taxes get raised-it’s that no one knows exactly how or when it will happen. It’s OK and understandable, the venture capitalists said, if California raises taxes or cuts spending. But such actions need to be part of a credible plan that makes the state’s immediate budget future more predictable for people deciding whether to invest here.
Zurich vs. LA: Which is the More Democratic City?
Zurich and Los Angeles share an intriguing political distinction: each is the largest city in one of the world’s two greatest centers of direct democracy.
California and Switzerland use initiatives and referenda more often than any place in the world, and have for more than a century, when Los Angeles followed Zurich’s model and instituted the first municipal system of direct democracy in the U.S. But direct democracy has been challenged in both places.
In Los Angeles tonight, I’m moderating a free, public Zocalo Public Square event that compares the democratic structures of LA and Zurich, and of California and Switzerland. My hope is that the comparison may give us some ideas about how to make democracy in California, and in LA, work better.
From the Brown Papers: Burton, Federal Taxes and Mosquitoes
John Burton now leads the California Democratic Party. In 1978, he was a member of Congress. The day after Prop 13 passed that June, he took to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives for a one-minute statement, which I found in Gov. Jerry Brown’s briefing papers on Prop 13:
"Mr. Speaker, the people of California voted on a proposition yesterday that will have the effect of sending at least $700 or $800 million more to the Federal Treasury. They voted out of their disgust for the 8 years of the Reagan administration out there, which raised the taxes by better than $2.7 billion and never addressed the property tax relief problem.
"Mr. Speaker, I would just ask, as we sit here today, to have a moment of silence for those who live in mosquito abatement districts in California, because they have just been wiped out and all of the money will go to the State capitol, where Gov. Jerry Brown in 2 weeks will stand with Howard Jarvis and say, ‘I knew we could do it.’"
Brown’s Campaign Manager Lobbies Brown
Relax. This is an old story.
I’ve begun wading through boxes and boxes of papers from Jerry Brown’s first governorship, which are housed in a library at USC. I made a request last summer for access and complained publicly when I didn’t get an answer. Brown, who like all former governors can restrict access to his papers for at least 50 years after he leaves office, granted me access in February, though some issues with the library’s schedule for processing papers had delayed actual access for a couple months.
I’ve been through about 20 boxes out of hundreds. But there have been several small, fun finds, including a telegram sent to Brown at 5:13 p.m. on June 13, 1978, a week after the passage of Prop 13. The writer worries about whether tuition could be imposed at Cal State campuses as a result of Prop 13.
Cassandra Schwarzenegger: I Told You So
The message of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s press conference this afternoon to introduce his revised May budget?
I told you so.
Schwarzenegger mentioned that the budget was bad but focused mostly on
his argument that things might have been better if legislators had
adopted his fiscal proposals over his seven years in office.
He
talked about budget reform and a real rainy day fund: "I have proposed
that so many times," he lamented. "I have begged." He claimed a
previous rainy day proposal of his would have created a $12 billion
reserve, which he said could have been spent over four years to prevent
university tuition increases and teacher layoffs.
An Unworthy Budget That May Advance Two Worthy Goals
It’s guaranteed. No one is going to like Gov. Schwarzenegger’s revised budget when it’s released today, not even Gov. Schwarzenegger.
According to advance reports, it’s likely to eliminate key health and human services programs and make deeper cuts than are wise, given the recession. It’s a budget unworthy of California.
But such a budget could be very useful to California. In fact, the nastier and meaner it is, the better it may be for California. How’s that? Because the state is so stuck in an endless cycle of budget deficits, cuts and accounting gimmicks that an embarrassingly awful budget proposal may serve two goals.
Tom, Seize the Terrorist Gun Issue Now
And there it was: at a GOP Senate debate devoted to the notion that the candidate who sounds craziest wins, Tom Campbell injected a little common sense.
He was the only one of the three contenders who thought that people on the government’s no-fly list – i.e., people the government thinks might be terrorist risks – shouldn’t be permitted to buy guns.
Yes, read it again. Tom Campbell has the totally, ridiculously radical view that possible terrorists shouldn’t be allowed to purchase weapons!
Speaker Perez Impressive in Los Angeles
It’s hard not to be sour about politicians these days, but I couldn’t help but be impressed while interviewing Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez last Friday night at a Zocalo Public Square event in Los Angeles.
The speaker’s sharp wit (to the point of irreverence) is perfect for such forums. He made the clearest case I’ve heard for measures to support manufacturing, particularly the sales tax exemption for equipment used in green manufacturing.
He also made an impassioned case for getting rid of the 2/3 supermajority for budget bills. A majority vote budget, he argued, would make the legislature, both majority and minority parties, more accountable. And it would reduce delays that hurt the state’s credit rating – and thus cost California scarce dollars. When I asked him why reform proposals in the legislature wouldn’t eliminate the supermajority for taxes, he said bluntly that the politics were too difficult.
Poizner and Whitman Battle for the Old In a War Both Are Losing
Wednesday was a busy day for spin in the governor’s race. Cut through all the talk about polls and general election viability, and two things stand out.
1. Whitman and Poizner are both losing.
Losing in the sense that each is unpopular – and becoming more so. Whitman strategist Mike Murphy and his Poizner counterpart Stu Stevens each did an effective job of explaining the problems of his candidate’s opponent. Murphy made a convincing case that Poizner’s move right in the primary would cost him badly against Jerry Brown in a general election. Stevens was convincing in describing Whitman’s strategic missteps and vulnerabilities as a CEO candidate who wasn’t engaged in political and civic life until recently.