Is true ADA reform possible? Apparently, not, at least not in the hands of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The committee, which is made up of three Democrats and two Republicans, had an opportunity to help stop abusive ADA lawsuits in California, but voted down SB 783 by State Senator Bob Dutton. This simple measure would have allowed businesses 120 days to fix alleged ADA violations before a lawsuit could proceed. Senator Dutton was even willing to reduce that window down to 60 days. This would have stopped the vast majority of these drive-by ADA lawsuits that are being filed in California.

However, Senators Noreen Evans, Mark Leno and Ellen Corbett did not feel that was reasonable (only Senators Tom Harman and Sam Blakeslee supported SB 783). The majority argued that when SB 1608 was passed and signed into law in the fall of 2008, a compromise had been reached on ADA lawsuits and that it has not been given a chance to work. Corbett actually argued that it is working and that there is no need to even consider SB 783. She argued this despite the fact that one of the people testifying at the hearing was a businessman who has been sued twice since the passage of SB 1608 and was even CASp certified (certified access specialist), which means he hired a specialist to ensure his business was compliant. Currently there are approximately 300 CASps and more than 1,400,000 businesses in California. Doing the math, it’s not hard to figure out why businesses have a difficult time ensuring they are in compliance.

Congratulations are in order to Assembly Speaker John Perez. The Redistricting Commission has now delivered the 54th seat necessary for Speaker Perez to achieve two-thirds Democratic rule in the Assembly, (an accomplishment the Democrats never achieved on their own). With a two-thirds vote, Perez and his friends can pass tax increases to their heart’s delight. They need not spend money trying to elect more Democratic members; the Redistricting Commission has done it for them.

It is all a matter of having friends in high places.

Their friends are not just the 14 commissioners, who feign ignorance of the partisan seats they are drawing – and that is true of some but not all of the commissioners. The real partisan work is being done by their staff of Berkeley Democratic consultants. Every change made to Assembly maps since release of the first draft districts on June 10 has favored the Democrats; to believe this is all by accident is to walk through an orchard and believe all the rows of trees just grew there by chance.

A potential
split within the business community over Amazon.com’s referendum on a new sales
tax law could have larger repercussions for business entering an unpredictable
election year. The referendum, should it qualify, would likely be on the June
primary ballot, which will be the first, full-blown test for the top two
primary system. The tax issue and the primary candidates make an unstable
mixture.

Amazon.com filed a referendum to overturn the newly signed law requiring that
online sellers collect sales tax on products sold to Californians. Should the
referendum qualify for the ballot, it will set up a business versus business
campaign battle, with state retailers who must collect sales taxes versus out
of state online sellers who do not collect sales taxes and their California
affiliates. The split in the business community could affect candidate races
during the 2012 primary election.

The California Retailers Association supported the law requiring that taxes be
paid on online sales, as they put it, to level the playing field. Sales taxes are
added to the cost of their products making similar products purchased online
that much less expensive. The sales tax could increase the total cost of an
item up to 10% in some jurisdictions.

The referendum filed yesterday by a representative for Amazon to
repeal the law applying sales taxes to certain online
purchases would have a small effect on the state budget, if successful.

But if the referendum appears on a ballot, it would
make a major statement about one of the most important untested aspects of last
year’s Proposition 25. This measure is best known as
permitting the state budget and appropriations to be approved by a simple
majority vote of the Legislature, and withholding pay and expenses from
legislators if they miss the June 15 deadline to pass a budget.

During last year’s campaign on Prop 25 I argued that the measure could also threaten the
very existence of the people’s referendum power; that is, the ability of voters
to reject at a statewide election a statute passed by the Legislature. Simply
stated, I suggested that the creation of a new category of budget-related
bills, which can take effect immediately but be passed by a majority vote of
the Legislature, might insulate virtually any bill from the threat of
referendum. Prior to Prop 25, the only measures insulated from the referendum
were those passed by a two-thirds vote of the Legislature – a high standard
requiring substantial legislative consensus.

Two years ago, the California Legislature enacted an onerous
law requiring business owners dubbed "qualified purchasers" to register with
the State Board of Equalization for the purpose of reporting "use tax." Like
many bad laws, this one was cooked up in an attempt to help balance the state’s
budget. As you might suspect, it hasn’t worked.

I was serving as a senator at the time and voted against
this legislation. Now, as an elected member of the State Board of Equalization,
I’m seeing firsthand the mess this law has created.

The "Qualified Purchaser Program" was supposed to bring in
$200 million in new revenue during its first two years; so far, it has yielded
only a fraction of that total, barely covering related expenses, including new
staff and other program costs.

Over
the next three years, 39,000 California prison inmates will be shifted from
state prisons to local facilities under AB 109’s "realignment" plan – even
though most counties lack the jail space and resources to safely house and
supervise them. The state promises money, but we’ve heard this song before.

To
ensure the realignment doesn’t spark a public safety disaster, California
urgently needs to think outside the "cell block" to find creative new ways for
protecting the public with fewer staff and financial resources, without further
fueling local budget meltdowns.

One promising approach is post-conviction bail
for certain non-violent offenders, which would provide them with a very real
incentive to comply with court-ordered alternatives to jail time, such as reporting
to their probation officers, job training and substance abuse
rehabilitation.  This would help ease
jail overcrowding, provide the public with a new level of protection, and
increase the success of jail alternatives, at no added cost to taxpayers.

The current political system has brought our wonderful Golden State to a point of crisis. Years of over-regulation, deficit spending, government debt and political gridlock have led to businesses fleeing, unemployment soaring, and quality of life declining.

The outcomes are depressingly familiar. But a new structural solution is emerging and finding favor.

The cause of the problem is our unrepresentative government. Special interests, lobbyists and campaign donors control our government, not the voting citizens..

California has 40 Senators and 80 Representatives in its Assembly, the same number as it had in 1879, when the state had under 1,000,000 residents. Back then, there were a little over 10,000 persons per representative. Today, California has over 37 million people and each member of the Assembly represents a district that ranges from several hundred thousand persons to over 1,000,000, larger than some states.

While Governor Brown has
repeatedly called for a transparent budget process, his office recently denied
a public records’ request submitted on behalf of California Common Sense (CACS)
seeking the state’s checkbook. It raises the question: why would the Governor’s
Office block a request for transparency?

Here
are the facts. In early April, CACS began seeking the state’s checkbook to
build a transparency portal and make government financial data more open. To
ensure the request was deliverable, we spoke with the Department of Finance. We
were dismayed to learn that despite the fact that the Controller, Treasurer,
Department of Finance, and multiple committees in the legislature all manage
different aspects of the state’s finances, there
is no central checkbook for our state. The Department of Finance informed
us that we would have to submit separate public records request to each
individual state entity to get detailed data.

On
April 17, CACS submitted a public records request to every entity listed in the
state budget in order to obtain each entity’s checkbook. On April 26 Erin Peth,
Deputy of Legal Affairs for the Governor’s Office, contacted us on behalf of
all entities controlled by the Governor’s offices. She authorized all entities
in the executive branch an extra 14 days to allow them to evaluate whether they
had responsive documents.         

Democrats in the Legislature are pushing another power grab and, if they win, California voters lose.

Assembly Constitutional Amendment 6, introduced by Assembly Democrats Mike Gatto and Mike Feuer, would radically enhance the power of the Legislature and two unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats while severely limiting the People’s right to put initiatives on the ballot.

ACA 6 would prohibit any initiative from even being voted on if, in the opinion of either the Legislative Analyst or the Director of Finance, the measure did not “pay for itself.” No exceptions. And if the voters at a future date tried to repeal ACA 6 outright, these same two unelected bureaucrats could determine that such a measure itself ultimately would have a “cost” to government in excess of $5 million and, as such, could simply order that the measure not be placed on the ballot. Under 100-year-old constitutional law in California, only the courts have had the power to order something off the ballot.