Despite Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s success in negotiating some concessions from state unions on the pension front, heated action in the battle for pension reform is happening in California’s cities.

Yesterday, initiative petition signatures were filed in San Francisco to require thousands of city employees to contribute 9% of their salaries towards their pensions and health care plans. Currently, many (but not all)  contribute nothing. The initiative would also boost public safety workers contributions to 10% of salaries. Police and firefighters just saw their contributions increased to 9% by voters in the June election.

Interestingly, the initiative’s proponent is an outspoken liberal public defender. Jeff Adachi is leading the petition drive because his office has been cut 40% in recent years.

To: Meg Whitman
From: One of those Media Guys You Mostly Ignore
Re: How to Show You’re Serious About What You Say

It must be starting to get to you. The millions and millions spent, and still you trail the Old Guy in the polls. You talk about cutting spending and targeted tax rates and about how determined you are to not let California fail. And the state’s voters yawn as though they’ve heard it all before.

Because they have.

How to show you really mean it when you say you’ll fix the state?

Attorney General Jerry Brown is one of those politicians who have been
a fixture on our political mantle for 35-plus years.  Soon he may be
both the youngest governor in California history and also the oldest
come November 2nd.

The questions remains, however, is how much gas is
left is the old blue Plymouth Satellite?  Brown definitely has the experience and
the name recognition.  Does he have, to use a song hugely popular in
his last year as governor, the "Eye of the Tiger"?

Brown faces the monied juggernaut of Meg Whitman, the Republican
nominee who has spent almost $100 million of her own money thus far in
an attempt to secure the brass ring of California politics: the
governorship.  He brings experience at running state government, a
record of problem-solving and an ability-to use an idiom popularized by
Brown himself during his presidential runs-to live off the land.

The uprising is growing.

Voters
in California have made it clear that fair competition and the
betterment of local communities is more important than guaranteeing
work to unions, regardless of value or quality.

Voters in Oceanside and Chula Vista are the most recent cities to place bans on project labor agreements (PLAs).

Both candidates for governor, and especially Jerry Brown, face what might be called the Human Sacrifice Dilemma.

What’s that?

I first encountered the HSD while researching a book on Gov. Schwarzenegger. In looking through polling conducted by the governor’s political team in early 2004, it was clear that there was strong public support for an increase in the sales tax as part of a plan for getting the state out of its budget crisis. Even when arguments against such a tax increase were read to those surveyed, the sales tax remained popular. The data seemed to argue for Gov. Schwarzenegger to endorse such a tax.

Imagine
walking through a California public school and hearing the voices of
students singing "I am special" to the tune of "Frere Jacques."  One
might look through the classroom window expecting to see kindergartners
about to enjoy Graham crackers and milk — or perhaps a more
politically correct snack.

Now back to real life, where singing choruses of self-affirming music,
such as "I Am Special" is part of the curriculum in a college course
called "Self Esteem" taught at CSU Fresno.

Students preferring to attend UCLA can enroll in a class on electronic
dance music that explores "the political and cultural implications of
the relentless hedonism of the dance floor."   And at UC Berkeley, they
can take a course entitled, "Sex Change City: Theorizing History in
Genderqueer San Francisco" where they learn all about "the regulation
of gender-variant practices in public space by San Francisco’s
Anglo-European elites."

Last
week, Off The Presses radio interviewed Meg Whitman’s policy advisor
Rob Stutzman and Fox & Hounds’ publisher Joel Fox. Click here to listen.

Stutzman presented some of Ms. Whitman’s policy objectives to reign in
state spending and improve the state’s business climate through
regulatory reforms.

He also drew contrasts between Whitman and Jerry
Brown along the lines of business management experiences and "career
politician" experiences, which will surely be a theme of Whitman’s ads
between now and Nov. 2. Plus, Stutzman is a witty guy and rolled with
the radio show hosts’ weird senses of humor.

If
you had a choice between paying several thousand dollars a year in
higher utility, fuel, food and other costs, and temporarily postponing
an ineffective global warming law until the economy improves, it would
be a simple decision, right?

Well, thanks to the 800,000 voters who signed petitions to put the
California Jobs Initiative on the November ballot, voters will actually
have a chance to make that choice.

The California Jobs Initiative is a common-sense proposition that will
temporarily suspend implementation of AB 32, the state’s global warming
law, until our unemployment rate returns to a level closer to where it
was when the law was originally adopted by the Legislature.

On
the last day of the just-completed fiscal year, the Assembly Speaker and Senate
President Pro Tem announced agreement on what
they call a unified Democratic budget "framework" that purports
to reconcile their different approaches and "signals the next step of
negotiations" with the Governor. 

It
does no such thing.

But
don’t take my word for it; read the previously-confidential paper here.
You will find that this is not a document that anyone could negotiate from.