Money Starts to Flow for Initiatives
It’s $6.5 million and counting for PG&E as the giant utility stockpiles cash for its effort to strangle the public power movement in California with a June ballot initiative.
In the other corner, packing an anemic bankroll of $10,000, is TURN, a utility reform group, and other public power advocates.
The $10,000 contribution, which was reported this week, is actually good news for the group. On Dec. 31, the war chest to oppose the PG&E juggernaut was a snappy $98.17.
Think of it as David versus Goliath, only this time Goliath is facing the shepherd’s sling with tanks and armored cars, along with plenty of cash to upgrade the weaponry.
The initiative, Prop. 16 on the June ballot, would require local governments to get two-thirds support from voters before providing power to any new customers. Since new local power customers would be the old PG&E customers, just figure the multi-million-dollar campaign as an insurance policy for the company to protect its revenues. If it wins, that is.
No Split Roll
The split roll property tax measures appear dead this election cycle.
Since the economic recession and the collapse of tax revenue in California government treasuries, commentators and activists pointed to a split roll property tax as a likely device to raise revenue. Under a split roll, Proposition 13 would be altered to tax business property under a different formula than residential property.
Two split roll initiatives were filed aimed at the November 2010 ballot. One would require reassessment of commercial property to full market value on a regular basis; the second raised the property tax rate on business property.
The chief backer of these initiatives was the California Teachers Association. CTA has floated a number of split roll proposals in recent years. Despite gathering signatures for a split roll tax in 2004 and 2006 the petitions were never filed and the measures never appeared on the ballot.
Petition Circulators Focus On the Wrong Enemy
Petition circulators are refusing to work on the constitutional convention petitions for fear that a convention would limit the initiative process – and thus hurt their own livelihoods.
The circulators are right to be worried about their futures.
But they are worried about the wrong thing.
The constitutional convention is the longest of long shots. An outcome injurious to petition circulators would require several events, many of them improbable.
First, the con con measures must qualify for the ballot and be approved by voters. That’s an uphill battle, given the widespread nervousness about a convention and a recent record, in other states, of voters declining the opportunity to call conventions. Second, the convention would have to meet and reach agreement on reforms that included restrictions on the initiative process, an institution that presumably would be popular with delegates (as it is with big majorities of Californians) who would be gathering at a convention that had been put in place by initiative. And third, such restrictions would have to pass muster with voters who treasure the initiative process.