The Two-Thirds Vote IS about Taxes
The effort to do away with the two-thirds vote to raise taxes has been camouflaged with an argument that “democracy” must be served by applying a majority vote to all state revenue issues. UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff’s initiative to lower the two-thirds vote to majority rests on this argument.
No one is fooled. The attempt to remove the two-thirds vote IS about taxes.
Lakoff’s first initiative effort will not have the signatures needed to qualify for the ballot. He has filed a new initiative hoping to get a different title and summary out of the attorney general’s office. The first initiative title and summary told potential petition signers what the initiative was all about: “Changes Legislative Vote Requirement to Pass a Budget or Raise Taxes from Two-Thirds to a Simple Majority.”
Lakoff argued in the Huffington Post that taxes should not be mentioned in the title and summary because the measure is simply about setting up a democratic majority vote for legislative acts. Further, he argued that most people would not face taxes anyway because: “No one in the legislature wants to raise taxes on most voters.”
Don’t Call It a Comeback
In the words of L.L. Cool J.: Don’t call it a comeback.
Not yet, anyway.
A front-page article in Sunday’s Sacramento Bee suggests that even among signs that the national economy is improving slightly, California faces an uphill climb.
The article, titled “California Comeback Faces Global Competition,” details the many challenges facing California businesses, both small and large.
For starters, the state continues to lag behind in critical areas:
– Business owners still face the harshest regulations among any of the 50 states. They face absolutely zero incentive to grow their businesses – or worse, to simply keep their businesses in California. The article points out whether it’s a small startup business in Davis, California or a large employer like Intel, companies are practically begging for the slightest shred of evidence as to why they should remain in California.
– Workers comp insurance rates are still 20% higher than most states in the nation;
Dunn and Done: Treasurer Street’s Dead End
Orange County doesn’t seem to have the best of luck when it comes to electing good treasurers. According to OC historian (and former OCBC CEO) Stan Oftelie, two of the county’s earliest treasurers, William B. Wall of Tustin, and Josiah C. Joplin of Trabuco Canyon, were Southern Democrats and Confederate soldiers. Joplin, who fought at Gettysburg for the Old South, was elected seven times despite political charges that his son, John Booth Joplin, was named after John Wilkes Booth, President Lincoln’s assassin. Joplin denied the charges.
In the 1950s, Treasurer Henry Gardner, a conservative Republican, was criticized by the Orange County Grand Jury for spending most of his work day at a Santa Ana cocktail lounge rather than investing county tax dollars. The Grand Jury said Gardner worked about 15 minutes a day, signed a few papers, then was busy getting soused by 10 a.m.
And who doesn’t know the story behind disgraced OC Treasurer-Tax Collector Bob Citron, Democrat,ending in the notorious 1994 county bankruptcy? Citron pled guilty to six felony counts and three special enhancements. Charges also included filing a false and misleading financial summary to participants purchasing securities in the Orange County Treasury Investment Pool. His successor, Republican John Moorlach, was elected saying, “Chicken Little was right. The sky IS falling!”
Top-Two Open Primaries: A Gateway to New Solutions in Sacramento
The approval rating for the state Legislature is hovering in single-digits. Voter confidence is at a historic low. And 80 percent of voters believe that California is on the wrong track. Partisan legislative solutions have created paralysis in Sacramento. That is why the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce is supporting Proposition 14 to create a new, non-partisan primary in which the top two vote-getters, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the general election.
A recent statewide USC College/Los Angeles Times poll confirmed that 20 percent of all voters choose not to affiliate with a political party and their ranks are the fastest-growing segment of California’s electorate. That reality is one of the reasons why California should encourage all of its registered voters to participate in open primary elections by passing Proposition 14 on the June 8 statewide ballot.
A closed primary system combined with an incumbent-controlled redistricting process and term limits that beg for reform has created a wobbly and broken three-legged political stool that fails to represent a broad cross-section of state voters who consider themselves “centrists.”