By The Associated Press
April 22
Los Angeles Daily News: “Dream debate: Thee-way faceoff between gubernatorial candidates isn’t a bad idea”
When it doesn’t seem as if you’re running against anyone, it’s hard for a politician to get a lot of traction.
In the Republican primary for governor, Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner have each other. No matter that their positions on the issues and their backgrounds as multimillionaire former Silicon
Valley executives are similar. It’s a competitive campaign with real opponents, and thus there are ways to get your name into the news cycle.
Poor Attorney General Jerry Brown. The presumed Democratic nominee and the most iconoclastic figure in California politics literally can’t buy a news story. (With his small campaign treasury, he’s saving the $15 million he’s raised so far for later in the campaign.)
That’s probably why Brown came up with the stunt last week to challenge Whitman and Poizner to a three-way debate. He knows that a pol can’t live on his past credentials. And he knows that when it comes to debating, he’s one of the best.
Poizner, who doesn’t have the money and thus exposure of Whitman, says he’s up for a three-way debate. He doesn’t have much to lose.
Whitman, however, rejected the idea out of hand, dismissing it as a ploy for Brown to get some air time. She’s not wrong, and she doesn’t need the help. Whitman has spent more than $30 million of her own money on getting her word and image out there in the form of television advertising — and there’s a lot more where that came from.
But ploy or not, it’s not a bad idea to whip up some interest in the June 8 primary at a time when California desperately needs to shake up the political structure. Whitman quipped that she’d wait to debate until she wins the primary. But that may leave her at a disadvantage. Brown is an amazing communicator, able to win over foes of his policies with his personal charm. It’s unlikely either Poizner or Whitman on their own can best him. A three-way pre-primary debate, then, might even things up as well as highlight some of the things at stake for the state in this election — its long-term financial health, its educational system, its economy, etc. Besides, it would be a rare and fascinating sight in California to see Republicans outnumber Democrats just once.
It’s a dream debate for sure. It would be a lot of fun and would be a service to voters who have little to no chance to see their candidates in an unscripted situation.
Too bad that it’ll never happen before the June primary. Still, there’s nothing wrong with engaging in some California dreaming.
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April 26
San Diego Union-Tribune: “The error board / State’s environmental regulators have more to apologize for”
The state Air Resources Board has long faced fire for its zealous determination to establish California as the global leader in environmental regulation with no concern about the real-world effect of its ever-multiplying rules. But developments over the past year raise questions about the air board’s basic competence.
First came warnings from automakers that vehicle paint the air board was considering requiring was so heavy it would significantly increase the risk of rollovers in high-profile vehicles like SUVs. The air board disregarded these warnings and only scrapped the paint plan after law enforcement officials began publicly complaining the same paint would interfere with GPS tracking devices worn by some convicted felons.
Then last week, veteran Sacramento journalist Daniel Weintraub reported on his HealthyCal.org website that air board staff members had admitted that sweeping, costly restrictions imposed in 2007 on diesel emissions from off-road construction equipment were based on a flawed computer model, one that greatly exaggerated the pollution coming from this equipment. Soon after, the air board moved to delay the implementation of the 2007 rules.
This sloppiness only adds credence to critics who say diesel emission rules issued in 2008 targeting heavy-duty on-road vehicles also were based on bad data. Those rules were adopted by the board even though Chairwoman Mary Nichols knew they were based on a study overseen by an air board researcher who lied about his academic background. Their implementation was delayed in December and a new study was ordered.
This revised study apparently will be released next month. There’s no way of knowing now if it will raise new questions about the air board’s competence. But at a February hearing, a series of speakers raised credible concerns about the 2008 study’s assumptions and conclusions. So don’t be surprised if the air board soon disavows more of its diesel rules.
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April 23
Pasadena Star-News: “California schools are top concerns”
California’s politicians haven’t shown much interest in regular old taxpayers’ protests over the disastrous state of public schools. But lawmakers tend to listen to business leaders, so the results of a new survey of executives should lift the spirits of education advocates.
The Silicon Valley Leadership Group’s annual business climate survey — which this year drew responses from 153 top executives at employers as varied as IBM, Wells Fargo, NASA and SunPower — sends an unmistakable message: Fixing schools should be the state’s top priority. Sacramento needs to listen.
Asked to name five things the state could do to improve the business climate, 60 percent of respondents cited improving K-12 education as one of their choices – the largest percentage of any of the survey options, which included limiting frivolous lawsuits and lowering certain business taxes and fees.
California needs to regain the more than 1 million jobs lost during this recession. But listening to some politicians, you might think that just lowering taxes and reducing regulation would bring jobs pouring back. Executives who were surveyed recognize that the reality is far more complex.
A majority in the survey, 53 percent, did place high importance on the state’s research and development tax credit; 48 percent cited business taxes as a challenge. But only about a third said streamlining regulations was crucial. Many placed quality-of-life issues — housing, traffic, schools — high on their list of priorities for government. Good schools are needed to recruit the best employees, who can work anywhere in the world and often balk at the area’s combination of high home costs and weak schools. Longer term, the K-12 system is central to developing a work force that can foster innovation and growth. Yet the state’s per-student funding is near the lowest in the nation, and proficiency rates are abysmal. Who could blame a CEO for worrying that in 10 years, California won’t have enough qualified workers?
Two-thirds of the respondents support more funding for K-12 schools, but where will the money come from? The survey shows surprising openness to tax increases.
While 47 percent said corporate taxes should be lowered, only 28 percent said the same of personal income and sales taxes — about the same number who say they should be raised. And large majorities said they supported raising the vehicle license fee and the gas tax, which would bring billions to the state budget — and public schools.
Even without more money, lawmakers can do plenty to improve schools. They can modify the education code to give all schools the flexibility enjoyed by charter schools. And they can fully embrace the nationwide push to measure student and teacher performance and turn around low-performing schools. For that, they’ll have to gain the cooperation of teachers unions, or else stand up to them.
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April 25
Santa Rosa Press Democrat: “No on 17″
Proposition 17 is full of fuzzy promises, and voters have good reason to be confused and concerned. Ultimately, those concerns should translate into a no vote.
As with Proposition 16, which is bankrolled by PG&E, Proposition 17 is almost entirely funded by one special interest — Mercury Insurance Co. — under the pretense of benefiting consumers.
It doesn’t. Not in the long run.
Proposition 17 would tweak existing law to permit insurance companies to offer a discount to drivers who have continuously maintained their insurance coverage for at least five years. Right now, insurance companies are prohibited from offering that “continuous coverage” discount if drivers switch companies.
Proponents contend that the discount would promote competition and save good drivers up to $250 a year. So, what’s not to like?
Plenty. Here’s the problem. In California, one person’s discount is most likely going to end up being another person’s surcharge.
As a result, Proposition 17 will only make it more difficult and more expensive for uninsured drivers — including those who have allowed their coverage to lapse for 90 days due to unemployment, college, stateside military service or a number of other reasons — to obtain coverage.
That means that whatever short-term benefit drivers may gain by this measure would be wiped out by the long-term risk and increased costs of accidents involving uninsured motorists. Sonoma County has enough of those out on the streets as it is.
The state should be doing more to help uninsured drivers obtain coverage, not laying more traps to ensure they stay away.
This is why so many consumer organizations across the state, including Consumers Union and Consumer Watchdog, are opposed to Proposition 17. The California Community College trustees also recently came out in opposition, noting the measure’s “disproportionate impact” on low-income Californians, including many community college students.
Mercury Insurance, the third largest carrier in the state, argues that the company is only looking out for the best interests of drivers. Color us skeptical.
What’s lost in this discussion is that the primary factors that determine insurance rates are driver safety, the number of miles driven per year and years of driving experience. “Continuous coverage” is just one of 16 optional rating factors that insurance companies can use to reward and lure customers.
If insurance companies really want to reward good drivers, they have the tools in hand to do so.
The Press Democrat recommends a no vote on Proposition 17.
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April 26
MediaNews: “Eye on the middle / Treating investment agents as lobbyists would promote transparency” THANKS IN large part to state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, a special-interest bankruptcy bill, which should have died last year, has been reanimated.
The measure, AB 155, would require cities and counties seeking federal bankruptcy protection to get approval from the California Debt and Investment Advisory Committee. Such a mandate would undermine the ability of local governments to make their own decisions in the public interest during a tough economic environment.
Bankruptcy allows local governments to rewrite public-employee contracts to reduce expenses when there is a severe shortage of revenues.
Certainly, no city or county wants to declare bankruptcy, but having that option can be a valuable tool for local leaders to use to rein in expenses.
Not surprisingly, public-employee unions would rather that cities and counties not have such power. That is why they support AB 155. It is also why DeSaulnier played a key role in keeping it alive.
Last year, when AB 155 stalled in a Senate committee, DeSaulnier gutted and amended SB 88 into a bill similar to AB 155. DeSaulnier told the Times that he did not like the gut-and-amend tactic, but that he was pressured into the action by the Senate leadership.
He also told the Times near the end of last year’s legislative session that he wanted the bill to be advisory only, which would have been a significant improvement.
Fortunately, SB 88 failed. That should have been the end of the effort to undermine local governments’ ability to use bankruptcy protection.
However, AB 155 was given new life when Senate leader Darrell Steinberg replaced Sen. Lois Wolk with DeSaulnier on the Senate Local Government Committee. Wolk and two Republicans on that committee comprised a majority opposing the bill and kept it from moving forward.
But DeSaulnier was all too willing to do Steinberg’s bidding again and voted to move AB 155 out of committee and on to appropriations.
DeSaulnier said he would seek compromise language on the bill before it goes to the Senate floor so that a state review of a local government’s bankruptcy decision would be simply an advisory one.
If that is the case, why didn’t DeSaulnier insist on altering the bill in committee, where he had far more influence? It appears to us that DeSaulnier never had any real intention of softening this or any other bill that is supported by public-employee unions.
DeSaulnier has a consistent record of siding with government-worker unions even when it poses a long-term threat to the economic health of state and local government.
His rescue of AB 155 is a glaring example of special-interest influence in Sacramento. It is a disservice to the public and an insult to local government and his constituents.
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April 25
The Sacramento Bee: “Prop. 14 would be a win for democracy”
California is often characterized as a polarized state, yet its real condition is far less fractious.
This is a state with a growing swath of moderates. The problem is they lack representation.
These voters watch in frustration as candidates win election with platforms that are consistently far more liberal or conservative than the mainstream of California.
Partly because of gerrymandered electoral districts, many of these contests are settled months before the November runoff.
Some candidates waltz into office winning a tiny plurality of those bothering to vote in the June primary, with no real competition in the general election.
Sacramento will likely see such an outcome this year in Assembly District 9, where four Democrats and no Republicans are vying to replace Dave Jones, who is termed out of office. In such a contest, a candidate could win the seat with little more than 25 percent of the June vote.
Given this assault on democracy, it’s no wonder that many voters are growing cynical, tuning out from politics and dropping their party registration.
In 1994, for instance, 49 percent of California voters were registered as Democrats, 37 percent were Republican and 10.4 percent declined to state. This year, those numbers are 44.6 percent, 31 percent and 20 percent.
California deserves better. If voters were to approve Proposition 14 on the June ballot, it would be a step in the right direction.
Proposition 14 would restore an open primary in California to races for Congress, the Legislature, the governor and other statewide offices. Instead of party primaries, candidates from all parties or political affiliations would run against each other.
Voters registered as Democrats could vote for a Republican or a third-party candidate, and vice versa. The top two vote-getters would advance to a runoff.
Proposition 14, by itself, would not transform the political landscape in California, but it could go a long way toward democratizing the process.
In an open primary, moderate Democrats or Republicans could appeal to voters of either party, and many would feel less beholden to unions or anti-tax groups to get elected.
In some parts of the state, third-party candidates might also benefit. In San Francisco or Mendocino County, Green Party candidates might prevail in legislative contests, just as a Libertarian might win in Placer or Orange county.
Not surprisingly, the unpredictability unleashed by an open primary scares the bejesus out of the major parties.
Leaders of the Democratic Party, the GOP, unions and other special interests are all opposing Proposition 14, just as they did in 1996, when California voters approved a version of the open primary system.
As old-timers might recall, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down that “blanket primary” law just four years after voters approved it. Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia ruled that the California law violated the right to free association, since it allowed unaffiliated voters to help pick a party’s nominee.
In response, Washington state in 2004 adopted a more refined version of the open primary. Instead of the top vote-getters from each party advancing to the general election, the Washington state system allows the top two to advance, regardless of party affiliation.
Proposition 14 is modeled after Washington state’s law, and so far it has survived court challenges by the party machines — those self-serving defenders of the status quo.
If Proposition 14 were to pass, it wouldn’t wipe out the clout of the state’s two major parties. Nor would it instantly lead to the election of more moderate, levelheaded lawmakers. But it would empower candidates who, because they refuse to pander to the party machines, are now reluctant to throw their hats into the ring.
That empowerment is ultimately good for democracy, and it will be good for California.
