Is The Con Con Petition Being ‘Blacklisted?’
The answer: it’s not clear.
Here’s the scoop.
John Grubb of Repair California, the committee that’s
seeking to qualify ballot initiatives to call a constitutional convention for
the state, recently explained to me his group’s unconventional strategy for
signature gathering.
Instead of doing a conventional signature gathering drive,
with one of the big California firms and paid gatherers, Repair California is
trying to use the signature gathering process to help build an organization.
The effort combines social networking functions on the Internet and a volunteer
signature drive. Repair California is supplementing these efforts with some
paid signature gatherers.
Single-Payer Plan Is Politics, Not Policy
If you ever wonder why the Legislature’s popularity with California voters is at 16 percent and falling, you only have to know that state Sen. Mark Leno has reintroduced a plan to bring single-payer health care to the state.
Here’s all anyone needs to know about the chances of passing single-payer health insurance in California this year:
1. A Senate analysis of the bill, SB 810, found that it would cost the state $200 billion the first year.
2. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed nearly identical measures twice before and promises to do it again.
Colleges, prisons and crime
The Governor proposed in his State of the State address a constitutional amendment that would, beginning in 2014-15, limit prison spending to seven percent of the General Fund and guarantee higher education a minimum of ten percent of General Fund spending. The Legislative Analyst recently released a brief criticizing this proposal because it would “unwisely constrain” the ability of the state to set priorities, and is unnecessary because the Legislature can already shift funding among state programs.
The Governor made his proposal because of the disturbing and superficially symmetrical trends over the past twenty-five years: the share of the budget devoted to higher education (University of California and California State University) has declined from about 11 percent to 5.7 percent. Meanwhile, the share devoted to prisons has increased over the same period from about four percent to 9.5 percent.
Bob Marr and the Future of State Employment
I miss Bob Marr, and I think about him during the current discussions of state public sector employees.
Bob worked at the state Employment Development Department (EDD) from 1964 until a few months before his death in May 2005. Bob was a state employee for over 40 years.
I met Bob in 1982 when I was heading a community job training agency, the San Francisco Renaissance Center. Bob worked with then-Director Kaye Kiddoo on job training initiatives. Bob and I corresponded on job training issues over the next 16 years, until I became EDD Director in early 1999.
Bob was the opposite of a nine-to-five man. You could find him in the Department at all hours. For many years he worked on a manual typewriter, and only in the late 1990s converted to a computer. Bob knew every job training and job creation program since 1964, and the lessons they could yield for practitioners and policy makers.
Creating Jobs Depends on our Willingness to Compete
There is good news to report about keeping film and television production jobs in Los Angeles and California. Tax incentives approved by the state Legislature and signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last year are working. According to a state report, 60 productions that threatened to leave California are staying local, a strong statement about the value of competitive incentives.
Runaway film production has long threatened this signature industry of Los Angeles and California. Over the years, other states and countries have developed extensive tax and financial incentives aimed at luring entertainment jobs away from California. And those efforts were paying off for states like New Mexico and Louisiana, while California cities watched the jobs disappear. Every year, the Chamber and the California Film Commission suggested competitive incentives to even the playing field, but lawmakers in Sacramento argued over whether to offer any retention incentives at all. Fortunately, the long-sought film retention tax credits were enacted last February, following a strong push by local lawmakers led by former Assemblymember and now L.A. City Councilmember Paul Krekorian.