Social Networking Changes Signature Gathering in Colorado
A group in
Colorado wants to qualify a ballot initiative to provide more money for
education, but it doesn’t have institutional support – and money – from labor
or business. What to do?
The group,
Great Education Colorado, has come up with an intriguing answer that
Californians might want to watch closely: use social networking to build one’s
own network of signature gatherers.
Great
Education Colorado is circulating, via the Internet and social networks, a kit
that offers detailed instructions on how to download, distribute, and gather
signatures on petitions. While petitions must be signed on paper in Colorado
(as in California), the network provides a way to reach people.
Is ConsumerWatchdog.org Only Watching Out for Itself in the Legislature?
ConsumerWatchdog.org, formerly known as the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, is on the warpath. It is fighting legislation sponsored by Los Angeles area Democratic Assemblymembers Mike Feuer and Mike Gatto that would require proponents of ballot measures to include a provision to raise the revenue to pay for them. And it’s pushing hard for the inclusion of “intervenor fees” in AB 52, a bill also authored by Assemblyman Feuer, that would regulate health plan rate increases.
Last week, an article in POLITiCO, the Beltway-based national political publication, revealed why.
According to POLITICO, ConsumerWatchdog.org “stands to gain millions” from passage of the rate regulation bill. The newspaper’s investigation revealed that the organization has raked in more than $7 million in “intervenor compensation” from 2002-2010.
Your Money or Your Life?
It was television that grabbed the viewer by the throat and wouldn’t let go.
Here is how the Los Angeles Times described it:
The dramatic, 30-second ad depicts a woman cowering in her bedroom as she desperately dials 911 and tells an emergency operator that someone has broken into her home. Holding her terrified little daughter, she pleads: “We’re alone here. Please, send someone.”
As a gloved intruder makes his way up the stairs to her bedroom, she becomes increasingly frantic. “You don’t understand,” she tells the operator. “He’s here right now.”
The commercial ends with the woman screaming, “No! No! No!” The sound of a heart beating is heard and then a dial tone.
The State of Re-Entry
Last week the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the chronic overcrowding of California’s prisons was tantamount to “cruel and unusual punishment”. As such, the state is mandated by the court to release between 36,000 and 46,000 offenders from its custody. The 20 year narration of protest, admonishment, and now judicial ruling by the Federal courts should come as little surprise to those Californians who were paying attention. It should be a wakeup call to those that were not.
Choosing which prisoner to release from their sentence is a job for Solomon but Governor Brown and the prison board will have to do. And unless there is a new prison growing in the desert, inmates will soon be coming to a neighborhood near you.
Re-entry is a term used to describe the return of the formerly incarcerated back into society as a whole. The journey for the criminal is demanding, uncertain and dangerous. There is small hope for success when the recidivism rate in the state is above 70%. Families, to whom close to 90% return to, are ill equipped to adjust to the return of their loved one, if they are even loved at all. Communities that are already tense will amplify to near panic unless some guidance arrives before the court appointed time limit for prisoner release arrives.