Author: Joel Fox

One question that jumped to mind in reading the latest two major independent polls was why the attention on the November marijuana initiative?

The initiative to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana was tested in both the Public Policy Institute poll and the USC/LA Times poll. PPIC found the marijuana measure near dead even at 49% Yes; 48% No. The USC/LA Times poll had the Yes side slightly ahead, 49% to 41%.

But this is a ballot measure that will be decided months from now. With a June primary staring voters in the face the pollsters found an interest in a measure an election away. The marijuana measure will not be the only initiative on the November ballot. There likely will be a cornucopia of issues for the voters to decide.

I’m not usually a guy who pounds his chest and says, "I told you so."  But there are others involved here, especially, the dedicated pollsters at M4 Strategies in Costa Mesa that produced a poll for the Small Business Action Committee at our request.

That poll found Meg Whitman leading Steve Poizner by 17 points in mid-May. It came out a couple of days before the Public Policy Institute poll, which had Whitman up by 9. While practically all the media was headlining a collapse of the Whitman campaign from the previous PPIC poll, our poll indicated a momentum shift back toward Whitman.

We did not dismiss the PPIC poll but pointed out ours was conducted for the most part after that poll and showed how Whitman was coming on fast at the end of the polling period.

The UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education issued a policy brief arguing that raising taxes will result in fewer jobs lost than would occur under the spending cuts in the governor’s budget proposal.

The brief indicates the best alternative to deal with job losses is to avoid the governor’s proposed cuts and instead raise taxes on oil severance, corporations, and top bracket income tax payers, which will produce billions in new revenue and fund the public sector. The report acknowledges the tax increases would slow economic activity and come with job losses in the private sector.

I’m trying to figure out how reducing jobs and economic activity in the private sector will benefit California in the long run.

The Senate Democrats want to continue ‘temporary’ taxes passed in last year’s budget negotiations.

The temporary tax extension is part of a plan to raise taxes $4.9 billion to help deal with the state budget deficit. With the legislature notching a 16% approval rating in the latest PPIC poll, extending temporary taxes will provide another blow to the legislature’s reputation.

The Democratic proposal includes extending a quarter-percent of the income tax surcharge scheduled to end December 31; extending a $217 per dependent reduction in the state’s dependent income tax credit; raising the vehicle license fee to 1.5 percent from 1.15 percent after being increased from 0.65 percent last year; and suspending corporate tax changes set to begin January 1. For good measure, they added an increase in the state’s alcohol tax that was not part of last year’s budget deal.

The Top-Two Primary measure, Proposition 14, shows signs of winning in June despite passionate opposition from all the political parties in California.

The Public Policy Institute poll showed Proposition 14 with a commanding 60% to 27% lead, with Independent voters, who swing many an election in California, solidly behind the measure, 67% to 19%.

The Top Two Primary system allows the two highest vote getters in a primary election, regardless of party, to face-off in the general election. Major political parties fear they will lose power and influence if the measure passes. Smaller parties are concerned they could disappear all together with their candidates failing to grab one of the top two spots in a primary and not appearing on the general election ballot.

An annual occurrence in Sacramento is the California Chamber of Commerce issuing a list of "job killer " bills. Earlier this week, the Chamber released this year’s list. The Chamber found 37 bills that would cripple job creation and keep California mired in its economic recession.

As I have argued on this page many times before, the way for California to crawl out of its financial hole is create more jobs, which will increase the wealth of the people and enrich government coffers.

A few years ago, Larry Kosmont, who, in conjunction with the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College, produces the well-respected Cost-of-Doing-Business Survey estimated that creating 173,000 new jobs in the state would provide $35 billion in tax revenue over ten years.

The Public Policy Institute of California came out with its last pre-primary poll confirming that the Whitman-Poizner Republican gubernatorial race has closed considerably over the last two months. Whitman holds a 9-point lead over Poizner, including leading across the board in all demographic categories. Her lead has dropped dramatically since the March PPIC poll, which had Whitman ahead by 50-points.

The poll covered a lot of ground not only dealing with primary candidate races, but also potential match-ups in the general election, proposition campaigns and peeks ahead at proposition battles for November.

You can read more about all the poll results here.

Attorney General and Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown brushed aside concerns over public employee pay and benefits as a major cause of California’s troubles at a UC Santa Barbara political event.

As described in Calbuzz on Tuesday, Brown answered a question about government employee furloughs by charging that Republicans use the public employees as "scapegoats" for the state’s fiscal problems when the real problem is caused by Wall Street people who Brown conveniently tied to Republicans.

Brown’s defense of the public employee pensions and benefits is a telling message on an important issue concerning the state deficit. Brown, who signed into law collective bargaining when he was governor three decades ago giving the public unions more power, appears ready to defend the groups that are now supporting his candidacy.

The hotly contested race for the Republican nomination in both the U.S. Senate and Attorney General races are tightening up with the primary only three weeks away, the Small Business Action Committee/M4 Strategies Poll found.

In the U.S. Senate contest, Tom Campbell leads with field with 32.6%, with Carly Fiorina close behind at 28.2%, and Chuck DeVore tallying 15.3%. Fiorina has made the biggest movement since the SBAC/M4 Strategies poll in February. At that time, Campbell had a similar 32%, Fiorina was at 18% and DeVore stood at 11%.

The poll conducted on May 12, 13, and 16 of 600 high propensity Republican voters has a margin of error of 4%.