CalChamber Rightly Voices Business Concerns in Advocacy Ad
Business must be heard on the important issues in this upcoming crucial gubernatorial election. The public employee unions rushed into the fray months ago creating Independent Expenditures, eagerly responding to Democratic candidate Jerry Brown’s request that the unions attack his opponent on issues. The California Chamber of Commerce was right to begin laying the framework for a debate on important issues by advocating on one of the chief concerns business will face under a Brown administration: Taxes and spending.
The Chamber’s issue advocacy television ad campaign comes months after public employee unions established their efforts to badger Republican frontrunner Meg Whitman. Brown has urged them to do more.
Jobs and the economy are major concerns for the voters in this election cycle and the business community has an obligation to step into the hurly-burly of politics and inform the voters on issues such as taxes and spending that will endanger economic recovery and job growth.
Kafka on the Margins: Electronic Sigs Suffer a Setback In Court
San Mateo County Superior Court Judge George Miram this week ruled invalid the first electronic signature submitted on an initiative petition.
It’s an important ruling and not unexpected – but nevertheless it’s a setback for those of us who hope that electronic signatures might make registering voters and qualifying initiative petitions cheaper, and thus give more power to individuals and organizations that don’t have deep pockets.
What was Miram’s problem with the signature submitted by Michael Ni, founder of a Silicon Valley company that developed a technology that, it claims, allows voters to sign their names securely on their smart phones?
According to his four-page ruling, Miram’s problem wasn’t so much with the signature as it was with the nature of the electronic copy of the petition on which Ni signed his name.
One was technical. Noting that the election code requires a one-inch margin for initiative petitions, Miram found that the electronic petition that Ni signed with his iPhone was invalid because it didn’t have such margins.
Governor Launches Office of Economic Development
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think about California’s economy? If it’s the high unemployment numbers or the budget deficits in Sacramento, you are not alone. But it’s also true that California, in spite of its problems, remains one of the ten biggest economies in the world and America’s leader in categories like industrial research and development and attracting foreign direct investment.
California cannot allow the past few years of recession to threaten our state’s economic standing on the world stage. We must do everything we can to make sure our state remains an attractive place for economic innovation.
That is why Governor Schwarzenegger is today announcing the launch of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development. By creating this new office, the Governor is letting it be known that California will become an even better place for doing business once we do away with some current layers of bureaucracy and streamline economic operations.
CA’s High Tech Economy: One out of every five
One out of every five – That’s how many of America’s technology jobs are based right here in California. In this state, we don’t just talk about the technology revolution; we practically invented it. Our jobs, creativity and innovation are what drive America’s technology economy. And our high-tech industry has brought venture capital, greater wealth and increasing economic opportunity for our state and our nation.
But here is another statistic that is even more striking: one out of every four. That’s how many of America’s high-tech jobs were based in California just 20 years ago. That’s a 35% decline in the last two decades.
What is happening to California’s high-tech economy?
During the last 20 years we have seen our state’s economic environment change. The same state that once inspired two graduate students to invent Google in their dorm room now is watching as many of its largest technology companies outsource jobs to other states and even other countries. And why not? China, for example, has tripled its R&D investment since 1998.