Republicans Split on Top-Two Primary (Prop 14)
High-propensity Republican voters split on the idea of a top-two primary system according to the poll conducted by M4 Strategies and released by the Small Business Action Committee today.
The top-two primary concept, incorporated in Proposition 14 on the June ballot, received 43.5% Yes and 36.3% No with nearly 20% undecided. Sometimes called the Open Primary, the measure would allow all voters to vote for any candidate in a primary election with the top two finishers facing-off in the general election regardless of their party affiliation.
Usually a measure that scores under fifty percent months before Election Day is doomed to failure. However, this poll reflects only Republican voter attitudes. The measure will undoubtedly be popular with independent voters who make up 20% of the electorate and who often determine the outcome of many elections in California.
Fun Times in the Lieutenant Governor Race
Janice Hahn and Gavin Newsom already have scored a surprise political victory. They’ve convinced California newspapers to actually write about the lieutenant governor’s race.
Here’s hoping they enjoy it because the moment won’t last for long.
What you have here is Newsom, the San Francisco mayor, doing his very public Hamlet imitation: To run or not to run, that is the question.
In the other corner you have Hahn, the Los Angeles councilwoman, treating Newsom as if he’s the political equivalent of King Kong and her top job is to shoot him off the Empire State Building.
The fun started earlier this month when a San Francisco pollster released a survey that showed Newsom running well ahead of Hahn and Central Valley state Sen. Dean Florez in the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor.
It’s business as usual at the Legislature
The special session called to deal with the State’s fiscal emergency expired on Monday, and what has been the Legislature’s response? Business as usual.
Facing a two-year, $20 billion budget deficit, and urged by the Governor to implement more than $8 billion in spending cuts and revenue transfers this month, the Legislature is threatening to revert to form: raising taxes and using one-time solutions to pay for ongoing programs. (The “X8” below refers to the Legislature’s Eight Extraordinary Session.)
Item: Senate Bill X8 6 is awaiting final action on the Senate floor. It comprises an elaborate exchange of raising gasoline excise taxes and repealing the state sales tax on gasoline that would free up hundreds of millions of dollars in General Fund spending authority. But wait … there’s more. It would also – for one year – suspend some business tax incentives that would especially affect firms hard hit by the recession. The complicated transaction to raise some taxes and cut another ostensibly allows the Legislature to approve the measure with only a majority vote, since it is “revenue neutral.” But since thousands of income taxpayers would actually see their taxes increase, this is in fact a sham.
One Employment Sector That is Growing in California
One of the most significant but least-recognized parts of California employment is the workforce in California’s skilled nursing facilities. There are around 1300 licensed skilled nursing facilities in the state, employing more than 130,000 workers at the end of 2009. This skilled nursing facility workforce is one of the few sectors in California that has been growing in recent years and is projected for continued employment growth.
Nobody knows more about this workforce and how it has developed since the 1970s than Ken Merchant. For several years, Ken was the director of education and training for the California Association of Health Facilities (CAHF) , the main association representing long term care employers. Since 2005, Ken has been working with local Workforce Investment Boards, employers and unions to train new Certified Nurse Assistants (CNAs) and assist incumbent CNAs to higher-paying positions in the industry. Recently, I was able to sit down in Sacramento with Ken and get his thoughts on the present skilled nursing facility workforce, the growth in number of employees and wages, and the opportunities for career mobility within the industry.