Author: Joel Fox

Memo to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa: The voters of California do not want to change Proposition 13. The mayor put a spotlight on the

Governor Jerry Brown’s says he wants a constitutional guarantee for state funding for law enforcement realignment that will shift certain prisoners from state to local

The first question to those seeking the governor’s veto of SB 469 at a news conference was a challenge about the bill’s effect on small

What’s it going to be – income tax, sales tax, service tax, split roll property tax, oil severance tax, vehicle license tax or a combination

At the California Republican Convention in Los Angeles this weekend, Congressman Ron Paul was a runaway victor in the Straw Poll with 45% of the

Here we go again – thirty-three years later Jerry Brown (the once and current governor) believes he can best Howard Jarvis in a battle over

With the legislature attempting to push the rainy day fund/spending limitation (ACA 4) off the 2012 ballot with SB 202, the effort to put a

We
know that SB 202 was a gut-and-amend bill that was introduced the last day of
the legislative session to move initiatives from the June ballot to November
largely at the behest of the public employee unions who believe they have a
better chance of defeating the Stop Special Interest Money Initiative.

We also
know that SB 202 included a provision to move from the 2012 ballot to 2014 the
rainy day fund measure (ACA 4) agreed to by the legislature during the 2009
budget deal. The reason was to stall the measure opposed by the unions who
don’t want spending capped. Whether the stall is for one election cycle or if
it becomes an annual vote by the majority to put off the measure remains to be
seen.

Another
possibility is that the Democrats, if they secure a two-thirds vote in the
legislature, would simply vote the measure out of existence before the people
get a chance to vote on it at an election.

SB
202 by Senator Loni Hancock designed to play games with the initiative
process to satisfy public employee unions finally shows itself just 15 hours
before the designated end of the legislative session. The bill states that any
initiative or referendum that qualifies after July 1, 2011 has to appear on a
November General Election ballot.

One argument put forth for the reason the bill exists is
that a larger turn out of voters should make decisions on initiative measures.
Funny that this motivation didn’t arise over the last four of five decades but
only now when some legislators are opposed to what is headed to the ballot by
initiative petitions.