Joel Fox, the honcho of this blog, had an interesting piece Wednesday about the prospect of dueling initiatives battling on the November 2010 ballot.
Ballot measures on the two-thirds budget vote rule, a split-roll property tax, a new paycheck protection assault on union dues, repeal of corporate tax incentives and other reform/revenge measures could bring out big money donors in campaigns that could change the political face of California, he warned.
Any of those measures could have a major impact on the state for years to come. But there’s an inside baseball feel to all of them, as if they’re issues that will stir up the party faithful and the groups directly affected, but won’t really interest the average California voter until a week before election day.
But if you want a ballot measure people will be talking about all next year, one that will bring in reporters and TV crews from across the nation, check out the guys who have started collecting signatures in front of the local supermarket.
If supporters can collect the 433,971 signatures needed to qualify for the ballot, voters next year will decide whether California will become the first state in the nation to legalize marijuana.
We’re not talking medical use of marijuana, which is now legal in 13 states, including California. This isn’t decriminalizing marijuana by dropping the penalty for possession and use down to the level of a traffic ticket, as Massachusetts did last year.
Nope, this would be sit-on-your-front-steps-and-wave-a-doobie-at-the-passing-police-car legal.
A ballot measure to legalize marijuana is a lot easier to understand than an effort “to clarify the circumstances in which the Legislature and the Governor can impose fees without a two-thirds majority vote to those areas with a clear and justifiable nexus to the service provided,” as California Forward’s 2010 Reform Plan puts it. It’s a heck of a lot more fun to fight about, too.
There’s nothing new about initiatives to legalize marijuana. Since 1971, more than 20 measures have been approved for circulation in California. The only one to make the ballot, Prop. 19 in 1972, was obliterated at the polls, losing 2-to-1.
But things are different this year and the difference is money.
When San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano sponsored a bill http://www.assembly.ca.gov/acs/acsframeset2text.htm this year to legalize pot, he didn’t talk about making it easier for Californians to get high, but about the $1 billion plus in much-needed cash the state could make by taxing marijuana.
Although the bill didn’t go anywhere this year, Ammiano found support in some surprising quarters. Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example, agreed that the state should debate legalization. Democrat Don Perata, former head of the state Senate, already has endorsed the new legalization initiative, saying it’s time “we thought outside the box” when it comes to bringing new revenue to the cash-strapped state.
A Field Poll last April found that 56 percent of California voters favored legalizing marijuana for recreational use and taxing the proceeds.
The initiative itself argues that taxing cannabis would bring in billions of annual revenue “to fund what matters most to California: jobs, health care, schools and libraries, roads and more.”
But money is playing another important role. The initiative’s backers, who officially began their efforts two weeks ago, already have raised enough to hire a company to gather signatures, a $1 million-plus necessity in a California ballot measure campaign.
There’s no indication where that campaign cash came from, but billionaire George Soros is an obvious candidate. Soros, who has backed efforts to ease drug laws across the nation, has been in the center of what has essentially been a slow motion, multi-year effort to legalize marijuana in California.
In 1996, he put $550,000 into Prop. 215, which allowed the medical use of marijuana in the state. Four years later, Soros gave more than $1 million to Prop. 36, which required substance abuse programs instead of jail time for offenders in non-violent drug possession cases.
Last November, Soros shelled out $1.4 million in an unsuccessful effort to pass Prop. 5, which would have eased criminal penalties for many drug offenses.
At a conference of political consultants in Sacramento Monday, there was almost universal agreement that the initiative to legalize pot would make the November 2010 ballot. But few were willing to go as far as former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, who predicted in his newspaper column that the measure will pass with no organized opposition.
That may depend of whether you consider the United States government organized opposition or not.
Regardless of how California votes, marijuana still will be listed as a Schedule 1 dangerous drug, banned by federal law. While the Drug Enforcement Administration may have backed off on raids against medical marijuana dispensaries since President Obama took office, expecting the government to turn a blind eye to California’s plan to legalize, regulate and tax what is considered to be a $15 billion illegal industry is another thing entirely.
But that’s for the future. For now, backers of the legalization initiative have until Feb. 18 to collect the signatures they need. If that happens, the fun will really begin.
John Wildermuth is a longtime writer on California politics.