Dear California’s Public Employee Unions
You are absolutely right when you argue that state budget cuts are doing lasting damage to California.
It is plain foolish to cut the school year, lay off thousands of teachers, increase university tuition, undermine the safety net, and close state offices on Fridays. And you’re also right to argue that there need to be new revenues on the table to reverse the cuts to these important priorities.
If only you were effective advocates of these positions.
On Mehlman: A Modest Solution to the Closeted GOP Official Problem
The case of Ken Mehlman, the former Republican National Committee chairman who has just revealed that he’s gay, poses a dilemma for the political and journalistic classes.
Mehlman presided over a party that exploited homophobia for political gain in races all over the country. The dilemma is: what punishment did he deserve and when did he deserve it?
Mehlman has been embraced by many, and he’s now working on the effort to overturn Prop 8. Some critics, however, say he deserves criticism and political ostracism for his past use of anti-gay feeling as a tactic. Some have even argued that anyone who knew of his sexuality should have exposed it – and that the media and political opponents should expose the personal lives of similar closet cases. But others say outing is wrong, even in such cases.
Is the Referendum in California Two Centuries Old?
Next year, 2011, brings the 100th anniversary of statewide initiative, referendum and recall. And the city of Los Angeles adopted direct democracy a decade before it was adopted statewide.
But referendum may be even older than that in California -a century older.
Michael Warnken, a reader who has been engaged in the question of whether California’s legislature is of sufficient size, unearthed a passage from a 1912 history of Solano and Napa Counties that shows the referendum being used in California in the first half of the 19th century-before statehood. Here’s the passage, with one note (an ayuntamiento is a term used to refer to the council of a municipality, or sometimes the municipality itself).
Putting the People Back in Direct Democracy
Supporters of direct democracy – initiative, referendum and recall – like to go on about "The People." But the official role of the people in California’s initiative process is limited.
The people give their signatures to paid petition circulators. And they vote on measures. That’s it.
One consensus that emerged from the recent 2010 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy in San Francisco was this: the people should and could have a bigger role throughout the process.
Questions For Mr. Fox
Editor’s Note: Joel Fox’s response to this piece can be found here
Dear Mr. Fox,
Your defense of the Small Business Action Committee’s ad attacking Jerry Brown raises more questions than it answers. Its comparisons of the ad, and the decision to not identify the financial backers that provided SBAC with the money to broadcast, begs other questions. Among them:
1. You compare SBAC’s ads to the American tradition of protest against the powerful, citing the Boston Tea Party. The tea party after all was a public act of civil disobedience against a distant tyrant. Your ad is a private act by somebody or some businesses who won’t identify themselves or their intentions to influence public opinion in a free election – and to curry favor with a Republican candidate for governor who has more than enough money to spread her own messages already.
Isn’t that comparison an insult to the patriots who took real risks to found this country?
On Birthright Citizenship, GOP Flirts With Apartheid
The worst idea in American politics right now may be the effort by some Republicans in Congress to end birthright citizenship – the constitutional fact, under the 14th Amendment, that a person born in the United States is a U.S. citizen.
I do not know the intentions of the politicians advancing this argument, but let’s assume they are well-intentioned people, who believe they are preventing illegal immigration with such a policy change.
Here’s what they also would be doing, perhaps unwittingly: establishing a new American system of apartheid. Think about it. Some people born in the United States would be citizens, because they are born to U.S. citizens. Others born in the U.S. would not be citizens, presumably, if one or both parents were not permanent legal residents of the country.
Why Wasn’t I on the Journo-list?
The worst thing about a conspiracy theory isn’t when you discover that the conspiracy is true.
The worst thing is finding out that the conspiracy is true and that you weren’t in on it.
Which is why I’ve been so hurt by the revelations that important journalists – many of them friends and one-time colleagues — were members of a listserv called Journo-list and were exchanging interesting gossip and trying to plot story lines and saying many, many opinionated things that don’t look good when repeated publicly.
The #1 Global Lesson on Direct Democracy: We Need More Time
The 2010 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy (full disclosure: I was co-president of the event) finished up last week in San Francisco after five nights and days of discussion of initiative and referendum around the world.
While there were many disagreements, one verdict of those in attendance was crystal clear: American direct democracy moves too fast for its own good.
That goes double for California, particularly in the eyes of our foreign visitors. It convinced me that the most significant initiative reform in our state would be simple: more time.
Meg’s Sister Souljah Moments
Tom McClintock, the talk show hosts John and Ken, and Meg Whitman’s critics on the right may not realize it, but they are doing her a huge favor with their blasts at her candidacy.
They are providing Whitman with a series of Sister Souljah moments.
Remember Sister Souljah? She was the hip-hop artist who infamously said after the LA riots: "If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?" She was part of the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition. Then presidential candidate Bill Clinton showed his independence from Jackson and the Democratic left by criticizing Souljah. Clinton was condemned by Jackson and others for doing so – which helped serve Clinton’s goals.
The San Francisco Declaration on Direct Democracy
Greetings from San Francisco and the 2010 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy.
We are from all corners of the world and from all walks of life. Among us are scholars, journalists, activists, petitioners, philanthropists, artists, elected officials, election administrators, non-profit managers, lawyers, businesspeople, and farmers. We are members of dozens of political parties – a truly transpartisan group.
We have met for five nights and five days to discuss direct democracy at a forum that was free and open to anyone in the world who wished to attend.