Steve Maviglio, You are Wrong on Redistricting
Steve Maviglio knows neither the history nor the law on redistricting. California law as to population deviations was settled 38 years ago by the State Supreme Court in the case known as Legislature v Reinecke. There the court laid down the standard in clear English: “Population of Senate and Assembly districts should be within one percent of the ideal excerpt in unusual circumstances, and in no event should a deviation greater than two percent be permitted.” Maviglio cites several federal cases that have no bearing on our state districts, while he ignores the clear mandate of state law. To follow Maviglio’s rule, Senate districts could deviate by 46,000 people. In no way could this be constitutional.
And he should know that. He worked for the legislature when they last did the districts 10 years ago. The deviation of State Senate districts is exactly TWO PEOPLE. For Assembly districts it is LESS THAN 20 PEOPLE. Maviglio contends that passage of Propositions 11 and 20 (that set up the Commission) changed all this. I worked on those initiatives and there is nothing at all in the measures nor their history that suggests anyone intended to change the district population standards. It is amusing that someone who opposed both measures suddenly finds meanings in them no one intended.
Thinking Outside the Box: A Response to Economist Magazine’s Report on Democracy in California
The Economist Magazine’s report on direct democracy
in California is an excellent compendium of existing direct democracy’s
shortcomings. However, all those failures in California exist (and then some!)
at the federal level of American government — where no direct democracy
exists. The point being that failure of governance need not be associated with
direct democracy. The report relies on history grade-school knowledge to
interpret Madison’s role in our founding.
Who
are the Sovereigns of the Polity – the People or Government Officialdom?
On three
separate occasions in 1787 and 1789 James Madison pointed out that, "The people were, in fact, the fountain of
all power, and by resorting to them, all difficulties were got over. They could
alter their constitutions as they pleased."
That most of
the Founders believed that the people had every right to exercise their
sovereignty to make laws, amend constitutions and to alter their governments is
reflected in the following quotes:
CEOs Rank CA Worst State for Business
Cross-posted at CalWatchdog.
Once again, California garners the booby prize for business climate:
For the seventh year in a row, CEOs rate Texas as the #1 state in which to do business and California as the worst. North Carolina maintained its #2 rank, while Florida rose three positions to the #3 spot.Tennessee fell one slot from last year to #4 while Georgia climbed two positions to claim the #5 rank.
Chief Executive magazine’s annual “Best & Worst States” survey takes the pulse of CEOs on business conditions around the nation. For the 2011 survey, 550 CEOs from across the country evaluated the states on a broad range of issues, including regulations, tax policies, workforce quality, education resources, quality of living and infrastructure.
“A handful of states have made business-friendly policies a priority,” says J.P. Donlon, Editor-in-Chief of Chief Executivemagazine and ChiefExecutive.net. “These forward-thinking states are the exception rather than the rule and include Utah,Arizona, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma.”
CEOs voted California as the worst state in 2011, with New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Michigan rounding out the bottom five.
Shiver Me Timbers: Bar Pilots Want Gold-plated Deal
If the state gave you a monopoly for a job which paid $400,000 a year for six months of work, were driven to and from jobs in a town car or limo, had all of your business expenses paid for by someone else, and were on your way to earning a public pension of a quarter million dollars per year to which you didn’t contribute a dime of your own money, would you be demanding a raise in this economy? You might if you were a state-licensed Bar Pilot.
Most people never heard of the San Francisco Bar Pilots until the Cosco Busan oil spill, when a ship under the control of a state-mandated pilot hit the Bay Bridge. After the accident in 2007, several changes in the state pilot system were enacted by the Legislature and the State Board of Pilot Commissioners was put under the jurisdiction of the Business, Transportation & Housing Agency (BT & H). Since then, BT & H has made significant improvements in much of the oversight of the state pilot monopoly.
Why We Can’t See Housing Recovery
If you’re looking for a recovery in the housing market, get a magnifying glass. It’s that hard to find.
Just look at last week’s Case/Shiller Home Price Index report. House prices in February nationwide were down 1.1 percent from the month before. And compared with the same month the year before, house prices were down 2.6 percent or 3.3 percent, depending on which index you look at.
Los Angeles didn’t fare much better. Prices in February were down 1 percent from the month before and down 2.1 percent from a year earlier.
Maybe it’s not a magnifying glass you’ll need. Maybe it’s a microscope.
In the official announcement, the chairman of the Case/Shiller index said, “There is very little, if any, good news about housing. Prices continue to weaken, trends in sales and construction are disappointing.”