Prop. 14’s Reform Doesn’t Include Money
Some of the financial moves surrounding the Prop. 14 open primary measure make it clear that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s campaign reform efforts haven’t touched the money side of politics.
A flood of cash has been pouring into the Prop. 14 campaign ever since a financial report released last Monday showed that the effort was beyond broke, with about $90,000 more in bills than it had cash in the kitty.
No sooner had the Los Angeles Times mentioned that the campaign was on the shorts than Reed Hastings, the Netflix CEO, dropped $257,000 into the effort. The very next day, the governor’s political piggy bank, better known as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s California Dream Team, pumped another $500,000 into the campaign.
A deeper look at those financial records, however, shows why there’s a continuing concern about how money is used – and reported — in political campaigns.
Prop 16 – Taxpayers Right to Vote Act – will give voters the final say
You have no doubt already been made aware that at the state level, California is already burdened by record debt and we, again, face a 20 billion dollar annual deficit this year. At the local level, budgets are being slashed, with critical services from public safety to public works to parks being cut. The bottom line is: California’s state and local governments cannot make ends meet.
Yet, at the same time, some local leaders are working to have their communities commit hundreds of millions of public dollars or debt to push out privately run electricity businesses and get government into the retail electricity business. And, even in these tough economic times, they don’t want taxpayers to vote on it because current law does not require a vote.
Proposition 16 – the Taxpayers Right to Vote Act would simply require that voters have the final say if a local government chooses to spend public money or incur public debt to create a government-run electricity business. Like most other local special tax and bond decisions in California, a 2/3 vote would be required.
Antonio’s ‘Lockbox’
Cross-posted at RonKayeLA.com.
Remember back when Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told us he was tripling the trash fee and going to put all that money in a lockbox and use it solely to hire cops to make us safe on the streets and in our houses?
He never mentioned his “full cost recovery” policy applied only to homeowners except for the 60,000 who were getting the trash picked up free.
Remember when the state got rid of public access TV and the mayor promised to put $10 million of the $25 million they get from cable franchise taxes into a special account that would used to run Channel 35 and restore our opportunity to provide our own shows about important issues to the public?
He never mentioned he was going to use most of the money to run other departments and that he had no intention of ever restoring public access.
Legislative Minorities & Majorities & the Perils of Saying No Continuously
The fallout from the passage of health care reform will be many, varied and often surprising. For example, how many imagined that the Republican strategy of “just say no but say it continually” would have resulted in the resurrection of candidate Obama and the disappearance of the insider of policy wonk Obama? Another possible if unanticipated consequence of GOP parliamentary tactics may be a Churchill-like pushback by the majority Democrats.
Senator Harry Reid will not discover oratory. But he may remember that we are approaching the centenary of Winston Churchill’s triumph over another “just say no but say it continually” strategy.
In 1906 the Liberal Party won one of the largest parliamentary majorities in British history. The Conservative Party went from controlling nearly 60% of the House of Common to a bit over 20%. Yet Arthur Balfour, head of the Conservative Party, announced that his Party was the true voice of the Great Britain Nation and would use its majority in the unelected House of Lords to block Liberal legislation. For the next four years Winston Churchill (who years later would switch parties and join the Conservatives), David Lloyd George and other Liberal Party leaders tried to reach reasonable compromises. With a few exceptions, however, the Conservative Lords defiantly and continually said no. The situation continued even after the election of 1910 again returned a Liberal majority.