Author: Joel Fox

As I stated last week, the pension issue is gaining traction.

One major reason is that the mainstream media has taken notice. The media  has had help. The website, Pension Tsunami, gathers articles and facts about  public pension news from around the country. Collected and assembled by Jack Dean, one time Libertarian candidate for U. S. Senate in California and president of the Fullerton Association of Concerned Taxpayers, the articles are distributed to more than 1,400 subscribers nationally, with the heaviest concentration in California.

While others have raised concerns about the pension issue, such as the Calpensions web site, I mentioned last week and talk radio hosts, Dean has been feeding material to radio hosts and news reporters and bloggers for five years.

He’s had a major impact.

State Treasurer Bill Lockyer generated a storm last week with his testimony before the Senate and Assembly Select Committees on Improving State Government.

He warned that public pensions and health care costs could bankrupt the state, that taxes will not go up, and that the legislature should clean up its act by getting rid of “junk” bills. An edited clip of his testimony can be viewed here.

Some might argue this was Lockyer’s Nixon-to-China moment, telling his Democratic colleagues to deal forthrightly with the state’s fiscal realities. In FlashReport, Former Republican State Senator Ray Haynes that Lockyer as the state senate leader had a different view of pensions, but now welcomed him to the fight.

The former legislative leader and former attorney general is no stranger to bold speaking.

Initiatives, initiatives and more initiatives. By my count there are 50 initiative measures either already cleared by the Attorney General’s Office or sitting in the IN basket. And, some of the expected big money initiatives have not been filed yet. No split roll, spending limit, oil severance tax or even the measure to call for a constitutional convention.

Voters could get an advanced degree in political science if the ballot book is chock full of legal language, analysis and political arguments next Fall. Measures already filed cover familiar ground including abortions; the two-thirds vote requirement (both dealing with taxes and the budget and the budget alone); term limits; local government protections; and closing tax loopholes or denying business incentives, depending on your point of view.

Hold on to your hat, the initiative battles could outshine the governor’s race and certainly outspend the gubernatorial candidates even with a couple of billionaires vying for the state’s top spot.

I had a sense I was in the movie “Groundhog Day” at the Milken Institute State of the State conference in Beverly Hills yesterday. Each year it seems experts at the annual conference are discussing how California can right the ship and solve the state’s fiscal problems. Different actors but the same play over again.

The morning panel session called Time For Change: How to Reform the State’s Budget Process featured an all-star cast. Former Governor Pete Wilson shared the podium with Treasurer Bill Lockyer, Former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, State Controller John Chiang, and California Finance Director Mike Genest.

Solutions were familiar as were objections to proposed solutions. Differences were aired. There was no lightening strike solving the budget crisis. However, some interesting points were made.

The public employee pension issue is gaining traction. Results from the recent Field Poll indicate that voters are becoming concerned with the potential cost to the taxpayers as a majority of those polled support changes to the government pension system. Polling the public on pension issues has hardly ever been done.

Public pressure from newspaper editorials and a radio ad campaign by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association against a Metropolitan Water District pension increase plan forced the water district’s governing body to pull the pension proposal off its agenda last week. Rallying public opposition to a pension program is not something you see everyday.

Part of the responsibility for this public awareness of pensions falls to the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility founded by former Assemblyman Keith Richman. Current president Marcia Fritz has led the organization on an aggressive education campaign to inform the public about pension excesses and potential taxpayer liability.

The following are my comments before the “Getting to Reform” conference held in Sacramento this week:

I have been asked if Proposition 13 should be taken “off the table” if and when a constitutional convention is called. My answer is: Absolutely not.

How can it be taken off the table when it is the central piece of the whole fiscal discussion? How many times in this conference was Proposition 13 mentioned as part of the mix. Many believe it must be reformed. How can you have a constitutional convention and simply ignore Proposition 13?

However, I would suggest that those who want to include Proposition 13 in a constitutional convention do so at their own risk. Proposition 13 did something revolutionary. For the first time in history, it gave certainty in taxation to the taxpayer instead of the tax collector. Why would the people ever surrender that certainty?

Here’s something you don’t hear everyday: No question about it, California is governable.

So said Bill Hauck, president of the California Business Roundtable, relaying his own views to the “Getting to Reform” conference hosted by Cal State Sacramento, UC Berkeley and Stanford in Sacramento yesterday. Hauck’s been through these reform efforts many times before. He chaired the state’s Constitution Revision Commission, was co-chair of the California Performance Review Commission, and recently was a member of the Commission on the 21st Century Economy. Inside the capitol building, Hauck served as deputy chief of staff to a governor, and chief of staff to two Assembly speakers.

Many have claimed that California’s size, diversity, and political structure make it impossible to govern. Hauck is convinced that the state can be governed with strong leadership and a change in priorities.

Here’s a quick read from a report on the Field Poll results dealing with budget reform released today: The status quo seems safe for now.

Yes, a majority of respondents to the poll said they supported fundamental changes to the state constitution by way of a constitutional convention. But, any political consultant worth his or her salt will tell you that a 51% affirmative result is not a ringing endorsement. Once details of the changes are made public that 51% undoubtedly will slip under majority rather quickly.

In fact, some of the most talked about budget related changes the poll respondents batted down. Not surprisingly, reducing the two-thirds vote to a simple majority to raise taxes was crushed, 27% Yes, 69% No. Even the much ballyhooed idea to pass the state budget by a simple majority vote instead of a two-thirds vote couldn’t gain a majority in this poll: 43% Yes, 52% No.

It’s Columbus Day morning and members of the SEIU Local 1000 have threatened not to come to work today. Whether they do or not, the mere threat is another poke in the eye of the typical California private sector worker, whether a private union member or not.

The public union members seem to have placed themselves above other workers in demands that they cannot be furloughed or laid off during a recession that has seen California unemployment reach more than 12%. There are rallies even today at Cal State Universities protesting public cuts while private workers suffer silently or scramble for new work.

Then of course there is the pension debacle. State and local governments are headed toward bankruptcy if the pension promises demanded by the public sector workers are not reformed. Imagine how the private sector worker feels, many of whom don’t have a pension or have difficulty contributing to one, when they will have to pay out of their own pockets to cover comfortable or even outrageous pensions for public workers who retire relatively early.