State Budget Crisis Like Sacramento Weather
Mark Twain once commented about Sacramento: "people suffer and sweat, and swear, morning, noon and night…"
Twain may as well have been talking about the budget negotiations, be he wasn’t. He was talking about the weather and Sacramento’s "eternal summer."
The budget morass has become as predictable as the weather in the state capitol.
Nearly Forty Years Later … Another Prop 19 to Legalize Marijuana
History often repeats itself, sometimes in odd ways.
Proposition 19 on the California ballot will not be the first time California voters had an opportunity to legalize marijuana and the previous effort carried the same proposition number. Proposition 19 in 1972 qualified for the ballot by volunteers attempted to legalize the drug but fell at the polls winning only 33% of the vote.
The 1972 measure would have allowed personal pot growing and use but forbade selling the weed. Today’s Proposition 19 would allow legal, recreational use.
A Lesson about a November Ballot Measure from the Current Budget Debate
The battle is on over the state budget due July 1 and the fireworks could shed light on an initiative measure on the November ballot. Designated as Proposition 25, the measure would reduce the legislative vote requirement to pass a budget from two-thirds to a simple majority.
Assembly Speaker John Perez’s budget plan is built on borrowing, although the plan includes a tax increase the speaker believes he can make happen with a majority vote. The attorney general says the plan may be in violation of state law. The treasurer says Wall Street will not buy into the plan because of the attorney general’s opinion letter.
The governor has gone out of his way to point out flaws in the plan, going as far as sending out a press release citing sharp attacks against the plan by newspapers around the state.
The Whitman-Nurses’ Union Debate: Who’s Afraid?
The nurses’ union asks what Meg Whitman is afraid of in not agreeing to meet union members in a conference set up and controlled by the union. The question can be turned around and the union leaders can be asked why they are afraid of their own members.
The nurses union opposed Prop 75 in 2005, the paycheck protection measure, which would allow individual union members to decide it they want to give a portion of their union dues for political purposes. Union leaders opposed that measure because they were concerned about the answer they would get from individual members.
Just as Whitman’s polls show that many members of the nurses’ union support her positions, polls at the time indicated that many public union members wanted to make a choice on whether to dedicate dues for political purposes.
The Gubernatorial Election Won’t be Decided by a Voting Record
Meg Whitman was wrong not to vote for many years, as she admits, but I find it surprising that the union funded independent expenditure chose to kick off its television ad campaign against her on this issue. You would think the unions would want to get to its solution for fixing the California budget crisis – raising taxes by $40 billion dollars.
Okay, maybe they want to keep that a secret.
It’s unlikely the issue of voting will have a great impact. The same charge was made against our current governor in the recall election of 2003 and did not stop his winning campaign.
Blakeslee Win is About Jobs
Is Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee’s first place finish in the Senate District 15 special election an omen for what might come in the November battle over suspending AB 32, the greenhouse gases law? Ironically, on the same day that Blakeslee pulled off a comfortable victory over former colleague John Laird – although not decisive since Blakeslee just missed 50% necessitating a runoff — the initiative to suspend AB 32 qualified for the November ballot.
Blakeslee missed capturing outright the senate seat vacated by new Lt. Governor, Abel Maldonado, by winning 49.71% of the vote. Millions of dollars was poured into this race because a Democratic victory would leave Democrats one vote short of the two-thirds vote necessary to pass the budget and taxes.
But, the election was heavily influenced by the Gulf oil spill. The Laird campaign tried to splash the oil spill crisis all over Blakeslee, reminding voters he used to work for an oil company, and that he supported a form of off-shore drilling. The images of the destruction caused by the Gulf oil spill certainly have an emotional pull.
All Democratic Budget Plans Lead to the Oil Severance Tax
California politics is feeling the brunt of the tragic Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Besides the issue of offshore drilling becoming a key component in the 15th Senate District special election, Democrats in the legislature see the oil spill opening the door to a major revenue source for funding California governments.
Both the Senate and Assembly Democrats’ budget plans are built on a foundation of taxing oil extracted from within the Golden State. True, efforts to install an oil severance tax have been around long before the Gulf spill, but the oil industry has become a particularly juicy target in the eyes of many legislators since the spill.
Yesterday, the Senate Democrats offered a plan to realign programs as a responsibility of local governments and offered a number of revenue raising proposals to fund the transition. Chief among them were an oil severance tax, removing tax changes offered businesses last year and making permanent an increase in the vehicle license fee.
Setting up the November Ballot Means More than Counting Signatures
This is an important week for sizing up what the November ballot will look like as the Secretary of State is set to declare by week’s end what initiatives have qualified for the ballot. County registrars are frantically counting signatures on six initiative measures so see if they qualify for the ballot.
However, the final catalogue of measures on the ballot may not be set for a while.
The water bond measure placed on the ballot for November by the legislature and governor could be removed. All ready stories are circulating that raising funds for the measure has been more difficult that anticipated. On top of that, the measure has been heavily criticized for its pork-barrel nature, including items that were placed in the bond just to capture legislative votes.
The Proposition 13 Idea of Capping Property Taxes Continues to Spread
Proposition 13 was passed by California voters 32 years ago this month and in New Jersey the governor is trying to get a similar property tax reform on the ballot. Gov. Chris Christie’s proposal would set an annual 2.5% cap on property taxes.
The measure is more in line with Massachusetts’s Proposition 2 ½, which passed in the shadow of Proposition 13. Proposition 2 ½, steered to victory by taxpayer activist Barbara Anderson, celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. Anderson held meetings with Howard Jarvis a number of times in preparing her initiative. It seems Proposition 13’s progeny could populate more of the country.
Of course, the New Jersey property tax proposal is not law, yet. The Garden State does not have the initiative process so the governor has to convince the legislature to put the measure on the ballot. Then the people will get a chance to vote on it.
Pension Deal Good First Step
The negotiated change in the pensions for four public employee unions announced by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is a good first step in fixing a major component of California’s fiscal problems.
The deal negotiated by the governor and four unions representing 23,000 workers is like slowing a portion of that Gulf oil leak, but not stopping the flow all together. There are hundreds of thousand of more public workers who must agree to reforms. Other unions falling in line would stem the flow of red ink leaking from the budget.
The proposal, which still needs rank-and-file member approval, increases payments made by current union members toward their retirement from 5% to 10%; determines a worker’s pension benefit based on the three highest salary years instead of just one; and requires retirement age to increase by five years for new hires.