Author: Joel Fox

Meg Whitman holds a 17.5% point lead over Steve Poizner in the newest Small Business Action Committee poll conducted by M4 Strategies of Costa Mesa.

The poll was conducted May 12, 13, and 16, targeting 600 high propensity Republican voters. The poll’s margin of error is 4%.

Whitman leads Poizner 49% to 31.5% with nearly 20% undecided or refusing to respond.

Pollsters asked respondents if they viewed the candidates as favorable or unfavorable. Whitman registered 54.5% Favorable, 26.8% Unfavorable. Poizner stood at 38.5% Favorable, 33.8% Unfavorable.

44.3% of the respondents labeled themselves “very conservative.”

I’m trying to determine what the Los Angeles City Council actually did with their move to boycott Arizona over that state’s immigration law. From reports, it seems like there are a number of loopholes in the L.A. resolution.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the "resolution would still allow city officials to travel to Arizona under "special circumstances" that are in the city’s interests. Also, existing contracts with Arizona firms would be exempt from the ban if canceling them would lead to "significant additional cost" to the city.

You can read this as: We will punish you unless it hurts us, then forget about it.

The illegal immigration issue is driving this primary election; the tax and spend concern not so much. How else to interpret the results of the Survey USA poll this week?

Steve Poizner has pounded on the illegal immigration issue relentlessly and has seen his polls numbers close on Meg Whitman.

Meanwhile, Whitman has tried to push the tax and spend issue. While Whitman has battered Poizner on Proposition 13 and corralled the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association endorsement, Poizner has countered with Representative Tom McClintock’s endorsement and a tax cut message of his own confounding many Republican voters.

Looking at the Controller’s report on revenues coming into the state you have to wonder what the Democrats on the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee were thinking as they embraced new business tax proposals yesterday. Revenue collection is below estimates in most tax categories. One of the few exceptions is the Corporation Tax.

The Democrats’ solution? Let’s kill that golden goose, too.

On a party line vote, the Democrats on the committee supported raising property taxes on business property and eliminating business tax breaks that were passed in last year’s budget negotiations.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano’s AB 2492, scheduled to be heard today in the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee, would change the definition of change of property ownership under the law resulting in increased property taxes on commercial property. But, the ultimate goal for many of those supporting the bill is to change all of Proposition 13, including the homeowner property tax protections.

Ammiano made no secret of his desire to "nuke" all of Proposition 13 in a press conference held last week. The assemblyman admitted he was pursuing his bill to change the law on commercial property first because he needed to attack Proposition 13 "incrementally." The public employee unions, which support Ammiano’s bill, to my knowledge have not disassociated themselves from his remarks. Representatives of some of those unions appeared at the press conference.

The message that echoed through the meeting hall in Oakland at the second Governor’s Conference on Small Business and Entrepreneurship was that entrepreneurs and small business would lead the state out of its fiscal woes.

Small business is the engine of the economy, creates jobs, and will produce an economy to help overcome California’s difficult fiscal situation, many speakers said.

Governor Schwarzenegger, sitting in on a mid-day panel discussion on California’s economic recovery, asserted that, "Green tech is where the action is." Despite the recession, the governor said California continued to create jobs because of its emphasis on green technology.

Steve Poizner’s campaign released an internal poll showing Poizner closing to 10 points behind Meg Whitman in the Republican gubernatorial primary setting off dueling press conferences between the campaigns to discuss the meaning of the poll.

Poizner’s people emphasized momentum; Whitman’s people talked electability.

Let us talk about a wild ride until Election Day for those who revel in political horse races.

On top of the news that state revenue is falling short of what was anticipated by $3 billion, comes the decision from Superior Court Judge (and former state legislator) Lloyd Connelly that the state can shift $2 billion in local redevelopment funds to schools.

Redevelopment agencies will appeal the decision. But, if nothing else, Judge Connelly’s decision will force a hard look at the effectiveness and oversight of the redevelopment process and that is a good thing. 

By declaring "blight" in communities, redevelopment agencies can use the power of eminent domain to seize property and develop the blighted areas while attaching the "tax increment" revenue to the redevelopment agency. The "tax increment" is the new property tax revenue that is the amount of taxes above what the property was paying when it was "blighted." The new revenue stays with the redevelopment agency and is not available for schools and other county government services.

Certain images and situations developing around the world recently directly and indirectly play on the politics in the nation-state of California.

Already involved directly in the governor’s race are the troubles of investment firm, Goldman Sachs. Meg Whitman’s stint on the Goldman Sachs board and her involvement in the financial process known as “spinning” has given fodder for the Poizner campaign to deliver sharp attacks. The Goldman Sachs saga has also touched Democratic candidate Jerry Brown for inroads the financial firm had with the City of Oakland when Brown was mayor, and Brown’s sister Kathleen’s working relationship with Goldman Sachs.

Expect to hear the name Goldman Sachs bounced around in campaign ads and mailers over the next five months.

The oil spill threatening the Gulf Coast states will undercut the effort to move forward with drilling at Tranquillon Ridge off of Santa Barbara. While Governor Schwarzenegger initially stated he would continue to pursue the goal of drilling at T-Ridge despite the spill, resistance clearly stiffened against the project because of the massive spill. The governor announced yesterday he was pulling his support for the T-Ridge project.