California
is a leader in environmental practices and most importantly, innovative
thinking. When our state — in bipartisan fashion — put into place the
nation’s most aggressive policies to spur the development of clean
energy and reduce air pollution as a means of preserving our resources
and increasing our ability to create alternative fuels to apply to our
work four years ago, it was a giant step in economic development.

In part because of these policies, our state is home to the largest
collection of life science companies in the United States with over
1,377 companies and over 100,000 employees. More than 6,000 new jobs
were created in our sector in just in the past 12 months, many of them
in the development of alternative bio-fuels that are the direct result
of California’s leadership.

Yet this bright spot in California’s economy is being threatened. Texas
oil companies are heavily financing Proposition 23, which would
essentially reverse our new clean energy policy while debilitating
California’s biotech industry.  To justify their positions, these big
oil companies are polluting the air with rhetoric. 

Ken Lay, the former CEO of Enron, loved the idea of a cap-and-trade program for carbon dioxide.  Ken Lay, a Greenie?  Of course.  He was chasing green his whole life.  Cap-and-trade, according to the felonious Mr. Lay, would "do more to promote Enron’s business than almost any other regulatory initiative."

Enron brass may have been criminals, but they were smart.  Enron made their money trading stuff, and the mother-of-all markets is for carbon dioxide.  Yup, the very stuff that we all exhale with every breath and that is generated by cars, air conditioners, stoves, washing machines, livestock  . . .  just about every human endeavor that involves energy.

But there is a big problem trying to trade in a commodity for which there is no natural market.  You see, the law now is that Americans do not need a permit to breath.  But if crafty market manipulators were somehow able to get government to create such a market, and if those same crafty capitalists could control that market, they would become very, very wealthy.

You send a manuscript to New York agent.  The agent sends it to an editor who buys it for a lot of money.  Soon your book is on the New York Times bestseller list.

A dream? Well, as Bloody Mary sings in South Pacific, "You gotta have a dream/If you don’t have a dream/How you gonna make a dream come true?"

Time for some different, but no less marvelous dreams.

In a recent post I warned that self-publishing on Kindle was not a ticket on the bullet train to success. But everyone from the editor-in-chief at Random House down knows that the publishing landscape is changing rapidly, and that the power is shifting to the people.

With our state struggling with one of the highest unemployment rates in
the nation, we need our elected officials to support our small
businesses. They are the backbone of our economy.

Unfortunately, right now, small businesses in our state are fighting an
unfair set of rules that give a huge advantage to out-of-state,
online-only retailers.

Here is the problem: small businesses in our state are required to
collect state sales taxes at the point of purchase. But an
out-of-state, online-only retailer that sells the same product does not
have to collect this tax – essentially giving them a competitive
advantage over California businesses that provide jobs and revenue for
important services.

Next year, 2011, brings the 100th anniversary of statewide initiative, referendum and recall. And the city of Los Angeles adopted direct democracy a decade before it was adopted statewide.

But referendum may be even older than that in California -a century older.

Michael Warnken, a reader who has been engaged in the question of whether California’s legislature is of sufficient size, unearthed a passage from a 1912 history of Solano and Napa Counties that shows the referendum being used in California in the first half of the 19th century-before statehood. Here’s the passage, with one note (an ayuntamiento is a term used to refer to the council of a municipality, or sometimes the municipality itself).

For
the past year, we’ve heard you say again and again that your top
priority is jobs for California workers. Unfortunately, you are not
walking the talk.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, from August, 2009 to
August 2010, thirty one states created new jobs while nineteen states
lost jobs. Texas was the big winner with 134,600 new jobs.

California was the big loser with a loss of 103,900 jobs.  Utah, with
a population  1/14 the size of California created 13,800 new jobs by
targeting California’s high technology employers. The long term jobs
picture for California is even gloomier.

Summer in California is usually quiet with no real interest in politics.  This year is different – and it’s not just the summer heat that’s making people delirious.  They want change – and it’s not in the form of Barak Obama.

I was part of an incredible team that helped Sam Blakeslee prevail in not just one election, but two in two months.  When I started, few were aware of the Special Primary Election on June 22nd where Blakeslee nearly won the race outright in an 8 point Democrat district.  Sam had help from Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, and Governor Schwarzenegger. 

In fact, nearly every notable Republican offered some form of assistance.  They backed him wholeheartedly not just because he’s a Republican.  Sam represents a new California – he’s an innovator and researcher with a deep understanding of budgets and how to rally people towards a common cause.  His impressive record of bi-partisan legislative accomplishments gave voters confidence.

Every year for what seems like forever, when the Legislature tackles the budget our legislators wake up and say, "How did I get into this hole and what is my favorite shovel doing here?"

Well, your shovel is there Mr. and Ms. Legislator because you are the ones who dug the hole. So as a first step, how about stop digging.

California’s decaying and crumbling state parks and the circumstances that have brought them to this point offer a textbook example of why California chronically finds itself in this self-created budget hole year in and year out.

Supporters of direct democracy – initiative, referendum and recall – like to go on about "The People." But the official role of the people in California’s initiative process is limited.

The people give their signatures to paid petition circulators. And they vote on measures. That’s it.

One consensus that emerged from the recent 2010 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy in San Francisco was this: the people should and could have a bigger role throughout the process.