By Adrian Perez, SACRAMENTO LATINO POLICY EXAMINER
California is on the brink of deciding what its leadership is going look like for the next four years and what public laws will be passed come the June 8, 2010 primary election. Along with the barrage of television, radio, print and internet commercials, voters are being tugged by the political pundits, newspaper editorial boards, and bloggers on how to vote.
Campaigning for an elected office is one thing, but once in office all elected officials for the last decade have been swept into the broken system making them a part of an establishment voters are not happy with. This year is a little different. There is a movement of angry voters that crosses ethnic and political lines with a goal to create change. But, will we actually see change?
Let’s take a quick look at the campaigns:
Governor of California
The two leading Republican candidates, Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman, are moderates who have spent tens of millions of dollars trying to convince conservative voters that one is more conservative (or liberal) than the other. In the process, they have ignored the majority of the voters main concern, the state’s sluggish economy. Yet, the Republican candidates have created such a sour note with Latino and other voters by spending tens of millions bashing illegal immigrants and each other that their messages have lost their meaning and voters are reluctantly looking at Democratic candidate Jerry Brown.
In the meantime, Brown has continued raising funds for the fall election, demonstrating to moderates and conservatives he is tough on crime since he now serves as California’s Attorney General. This is an interesting strategy since his non-presence during the primary campaign could backfire for Brown in attracting young voters, but those over 50 will need little to remember him well, good or bad.
Among older Latinos, Brown is remembered as catering favorably to the Latino community, mainly because of the continuous pressure applied by the late labor leader Cesar Chavez. Even Chavez spoke about that in several speeches he gave at Harvard. Today, things are different. There is no strong Latino leader to pressure Brown, and his lack of Latinos in his administration as Mayor of Oakland and as Attorney General may serve as indicators of what may come.
The latest polls show Whitman leading Poizner by 23 points and also shows she is behind 6 points to Jerry Brown. Whitman and the rest of the Republican Party have Poizner and the state of Arizona to thank for that shift.
Constitutional Officers
This year is seeing the largest number of Latinos running for statewide constitutional offices like Lt. Governor, Insurance Commissioner, Attorney General, and State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Yet, none were formally endorsed at their respective political party conventions this past April. Why? Those of us who follow the numbers guessed that at least one out of the over half-dozen Democratic candidates that are Latino would garner support, but they didn’t. And we know that the Republican leadership is not too happy with their lone Latino candidate seeking the Lt. Governor post.
The issue is that both parties are run by leaders representing the majority white male voter, with Republicans being too far to the right and the Democrats too far to the left and neither able see the growing political power Latinos have become in California. But, this growing group, which will be adding almost a million new voters each year this decade is still not a majority, as a result, no Latino has a chance to win a constitutional office, with the exception of Republican Abel Maldonado . Having been appointed last month as Lt. Governor has made history and gave him additional visibility.
California Legislative Races
Here is where Californians appear to lose. Although the majority of the state’s voters have a poor opinion of legislators as a whole in Sacramento, they have no problem with electing their local state Assemblymember or senator repeatedly. Apparently, at the district levels, theses folks are great. But when they get to Sacramento, the established partisan system consumes them, making them a part of a dysfunctional team that caters to special interests more than the needs of California.
Legislative partisanship and special interest catering has created a bottleneck in resolving critical issues facing Californians today. Crime will go up as less-taxes are collected to pay for secure neighborhoods (let’s thank the Tea Party for that short-sighted strategy.) Businesses will either continue to fail or leave the state as long as they are seen as the bread and butter for all our ills (let’s thank the liberal social groups for that short sighted strategy.) Finally, the quality of the state’s workforce is diminishing as long as innovation, streamlining and efficiency in industry are forgone to maintain an aging workforce (let’s thank the union for that short sighted strategy.)
Who suffers most under a government system that deviates from its role? The children. Most of California’s children have little or no health coverage to address their physical and mental development. They cannot learn in an education system that is broken and more interested in protecting jobs than helping Billy to read. Plus, with two working parents, the streets are becoming the nannies of these kids, almost guaranteeing many of them to become school dropouts or future wards of the state. These Californians are our hope to help us as we age yet the legislature has thrown out the concept of future cultivation for self-preservation.
Before you vote for your local legislator, ask: 1) What has he/she done to improve the lives of our children? 2) If I vote for him/her will they keep their promise to help all Californians? 3) Are they willing to steer away from special interest ideas that could harm our children?
The Propositions
There are three propositions that are the most contentious. The public referendum process was established to ensure voters had a say in the development of statewide laws. This year two of the three contentious propositions are obvious attempts by corporate America to attain larger market share. Let’s look at each:
Proposition 14 is supported by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and was a brainchild of appointed Lt. Governor Abel Maldonado. The idea behind this proposition is to have primary elections decided by voters at-large and not decided, as it currently is, by each party. In other words, the two top votegetters will be matched in a runoff in the fall, even if they are from the same party. This would weaken the current hold Democrats and Republicans have on many districts. If passed it could provide a chance to change the status quo in 2012 and could increase the number of Latinos elected to local and statewide office without statewide political party intervention.
Proposition 16 is a referendum introduced and funded by the Pacific, Gas and Electric (PG&E) company, whose goal is to standoff previous attempts by a public owned utility company, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), to overtake their current market share. Currently, voters can decide to create a public owned utility with only a majority vote and hundreds of millions of dollars initially raised through a tax, an investor, or both. If passed, this proposition would require a two-third vote to create a public run utility, essentially giving companies like PG&E continued monopoly. Some groups, like the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), have found that this proposition would have a negative impact on the poor, especially Latinos living in the Central Valley since there is limited control on rate hikes. The problem with that argument is that rate hikes are now controlled by the economy and not by each private or public utility. Either way, ratepayers will be stuck with the bill, unless green energy takes hold and each home can produce their own utility needs.
Proposition 17 is sponsored by Mercury Insurance contributing over $14.6 million to attain voter approval and with 23.7 million licensed drivers in California, who can blame them for seeking a larger market share. The proposition is suppose to ensure good drivers keep their persistency discount when they shop for new insurance. The problem is 20 percent of the state’s drivers will not qualify for this credit, placing the burden on them to offset the discount offered to the other 80 percent. Guess where Latinos and other poor people fit? This will drive up the number of uninsured, driving up the cost of uninsured motorist insurance, increasing rates for everyone. Again, in the end everyone pays.
When you look at how much has been spent in this primary campaign, several dozen schools could have been saved across the state, several thousand college students could have paid their tuition, and thousands of children could have healthcare coverage for the first 18 years of their life. Perhaps we should limit campaign expenses to a hybrid car, a few hundred gallons of gas, motel rooms, and meals at local mom and pop restaurants so us common folk can talk to each of them face-to-face.
Tags: big corporations, contributions, deceptive, NewsStory, overcharges, Prop 17, trust, voters
