California Democracy

California Independence and the Separation of States

2012-01-03T10:42:00.000-08:00

Note: this entry was originally published on December 18, 2011 at californiademocracy.org. It should have been posted here as well at that time.

Suppose the Citizens of California, for whatever reason, wanted to separate from the United States. How could we do that?

So far in U.S. history there is only one precedent. The states of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina, by the end of 1861, withdrew from the United States of America by votes within their states. President Abraham Lincoln, supported by a Republican Party-controlled Congress, simply made war (the Civil War) on the untied states, and the federal government won that war.

Since then the predominant thinking in the re-United States has been that a state cannot separate from the Union because military force will be used by the federal government to overcome any such manifestation of local democracy. Kind of like when Czechoslovakia tried to opt out of the Soviet Block. Because the issue of slavery was entangled with the issue of separation of states during the Civil War, it is still hard to have a rational discussion of the topic.

Clearly the U.S. Constitution allows for an amendment that would either allow a particular set of states to separate, or would set rules for separation in general. In fact, one could dissolve the entire Union with a Constitutional amendment. However, before writing such an amendment, we should look at the Constitution as it now stands.

Reading the Constitution, you will not find a single phrase that says that a state cannot withdraw from the union. Nor does it say that a state can withdraw. This is not that different from many issues of federal powers. How broad the specific powers granted the the Federal government are to be in practice has been a constant source of argument and litigation since the ink was dry on the original Constitution.

A majority of Americans opposed the Constitution as written at the time. To get it passed by the nine required states a great deal of bribery and intimidation was used. Also, it was promised that a number of amendments would be appended to the Constitution, to make the package more attractive.

Regarding the separation of states, clearly Amendment X, the Tenth Amendment, has the greatest bearing. Many people voted for the new Constitution with the idea that their state could withdraw from the Constitution if the whole experiment did not work out. They feared a central government that could become as tyrannical as the British Empire had been. Hence the amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

I don't think you can get more clear than that without illegally declaring war on your neighbors, as Abraham Lincoln did. No where in the Constitution did it say that the Federal government could prevent a state government from withdrawing. The power to decide whether to be part of the United States was clearly a power "reserved to the States."

To force people to be governed against their will by any government, including the Federal government of the United States, is against the natural right of the people to govern themselves. That was recognized by the architects of the American revolution, or at least was prominent in their rhetoric.

If Californians should ever decide they want to separate from the United States, I suggest they go about it with more care than the State of South Carolina did in 1860.

First, the government of the State of California should write a state law saying that California has they right to separate and is indeed separating. Then this should be the basis of trying a case in the Supreme Court of the United States.

The Supreme Court is most likely, in fact certain, to rule that the State of California cannot secede by virtue of its own legislation. The point is not to expect an honest verdict, but to get a statement of why we cannot rule ourselves, and of the construction of the Constitution they use to rationalize this un-democratic ruling.

Then, having been ruled to still be part of the United States, we need to introduce legislation allowing us to leave. We should also try to pass a constitutional amendment making it clear what the rules are for leaving.

Of course, this whole path could be cut off by a Constitutional Amendment saying, roughly, "no State shall be allowed to separate from the United States, and the President and Congress shall have the power to use the military to enforce this provision."

The United States went to a great deal of trouble to break up the former nation of Yugoslavia just a couple of decades ago. We broke Vietnam in half in the 1950's when we did not like the projected outcome of elections there. I don't see why fair California should not be granted the same rights of divorce that the U.S. empire has so gladly imposed on weaker nations.

On the other hand, no one should want a messy divorce. Any such separation should be mutual and amicable.

Internally, I would want to see some major reforms before separation. The California Constitution is, itself, a mess (read it? It is so long even I gave up on the project). We would need to write a better California constitution. We also need a California-centric political party to replace both the Democratic and Republican Parties.

Buy It Now: Dianne Feinstein for Senate

2011-10-02T15:59:00.000-07:00

According to syndicated columnist Tom Elias, Dianne Feinstein recently put an additional $5 million of her personal cash into her re-election campaign for the U.S. Senate. She had to. A Democratic Party crook, Kinde Durkee, showed sometimes there is not honor among thieves by embezzling untold sums from the many California political campaigns she served as treasurer for.

The candidates who lost money, or whose funds are frozen while the investigation continues, may have a difficult time in the 2012 elections, perhaps even in the June primaries. Not Ms. Feinstein, whose personal and family wealth is inconceivable to most Californians.

Despite her voting record in Congress, most notable for her desire to crush any remaining Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation, to give unlimited funds to the U.S. military and homeland security, and to serve herself and her husband heaping helpings of the federal budget pie, there will be no serious reformist Democratic Party challenger to Dianne in the June primary. A Senate campaign requires reaching some 18,000,000 likely voters. If you can convince the media gatekeepers that you are a serious candidate, you might be in the debates, but not all that many voters actually watch or listen to debates. No, you would need to mail a flyer or two or ten to each voter and buy a good deal of television and radio spots to have a chance at winning. That is a daunting task unless you are a multi-millionaire or have a money machine left over from say, having already been governor of California.

Even Michael Reagan, talk show host and son of Ronald Reagan, apparently looked at the Feinstein money and decided even Reagan name recognition would not give him a shot at her Senate seat.

How did the Democratic Party end up with so wealthy of a Senator? That has always been the plan from the time when Andrew Jackson and his wealthy slave owning friends noticed that poorer white men, having been given the vote, had become a danger to the class system, and created the Democratic Party [See Andrew Jackson for President, Act I].

In particular, Dianne Feinstein was born to a wealthy doctor, then married money not once but three times (retaining her political last name, Feinstein, from her 2nd husband). Current husband Richard C. Blum is an investment banker (the kind people are protesting against on Wall Street right now) with very extensive real estate holding and close connections to the U.S. education, defense, and homeland security establishments. [See also DiFi and Blum: a Marriage Marinated in Money]

Most political offices in California cover a limited geography. Money is important in local elections and in elections to the California State Assembly and State Senate, but the magnitude of money needed to run for one of the two U.S. Senate seats, or for governor and other state-wide California offices, is staggering even to most successful, seasoned politicians. Since Republicans are hard pressed to win any state-level office anymore (the last was Arnold Schwarzenegger), the real action is in the Democratic party primaries.

Challenging a Democratic Party, state-wide, near-billionaire incumbent in a primary amounts to tilting at windmills. Perhaps we should take a lesson from Ebay. There should be a buy-it-now option. Then we would not have to wait to see who wins the auction. Instead of wasting money on lying to voters, Dianne could donate all that money to helping reduce the State budget deficit. [Yes, this last paragraph is satire, not an actual proposal.]

Term Limits not Enough to Reform California

2011-09-25T16:25:00.000-07:00

Voters of the State of California approved term limits (Proposition 140 in 1990). They hoped to break up a system where politicians treated seats in the California State Government, in the State Assembly and the State Senate, as permanent possessions. In the old system incumbents were able to acquire so much money from special interest groups that they simply outspent any opposition. The hope of the term limit reformers was that rotating politicians would be more responsible, less corrupt politicians. Politicians were limited to three two year terms in the California State Assembly and two four year terms in the State Senate.

Twenty years later it is fair to call the experiment a failure. It is not that term limits are bad in themselves, although they have some clear negative consequences. The problem is the special interest group money just flowed right into the new system and adapted to it.

The main negative consequence of term limits is that by the time a new Assembly person has learned the system, the three terms have been blown. Every election one-third of Assembly members are new. True, most have held office before, usually on city councils or county boards of supervisors, but being in a statewide Assembly with 80 members is a very different situation than being on a far-smaller board or council. To go for the full six years, members have to run two more elections, so they typically spend more time running for office than conducting public business. Confronted with so complex a situation, members typically just follow their party leadership on most issues. The legislative staff, which is more permanent and has more expertise on issues, ends up with more power to shape legislation than it should.

Term limits have not resulted in the ideal of citizen-elected officials doing their best to serve the general public. They have created a career path. After an initial period holding local office the next step is usually a bid for the State Assembly when the incumbent is termed out. Then, since there are only 40 state senators, two state assembly members go to war for the open seat when their state senator is termed out. If the timing requires waiting, an appointment to a highly-paid seat on a state board can fill the interval, or perhaps a year of highly paid lobbying. The pol lucky enough to get the state senate seat has an eight year career. Occasionally a pol does the senate seat first, then the assembly seat. After 14 years in the legislature few politicians go back to a local office, as the term-limit reformers had hoped. They may run for a seat in Congress, but there are no term limits on Congress, so those seats do not come up often. Instead there is a generous state pension and more consulting, legal, or lobbying work. For those who can stand or avoid the whining of constituents, it is a lucrative prestigious career.

The Center for Governmental Studies report, Citizen Legislatures or Political Musical Chairs, analyzes the detailed results of term limits. Term limits did accelerate the entry of Latinos into the state legislature, but seemed to be of minimal help in changing gender balance. Before term limits only 28% of members of the Assembly had served in local government before reaching the Assembly. In 2010 68% had. In 1990 68% of the State Senators had served in the Assembly; in 2010 92% had. After being termed out of the State Senate 30% of its members retired, 40% continued to work in the public sector, and 30% took work in the private sector.

Term limits exist within the context of a highly class-stratified society with a well-lubricated system of political donations supporting two major political parties that, between them, have crippled state government in the past decades.

If the goal is to prevent the entrenchment of individuals, term limits work well. But they offer no obstacles to organizations, whether they interest groups (ranging from public employee unions to business corporation trade groups) or political parties.

Proposition 14, which potentially makes political parties more important, will go through a similar test. It was designed to promote moderation, but that moderation is still likely to be trapped in the Democratic-Republican stranglehold.

California Democracy would like to see a modification of term limits, perhaps allowing for up to ten years service in the State Assembly. However, the main reform needed is cultural. As long as the vast majority of voters pay little or no attention to what their elected officials do after they assume office, those politicians will legislate for special interests, not the general good.

June 2012 California Primary

2011-08-14T11:59:00.000-07:00

Where to put the California Presidential Primary has long been a contentious issue. This year the state's politicians easily agreed that next-year's primary will be in June.

For local races (including Congress and the U.S. Senate) a June primary has always made good sense. For offices like the California State Assembly that come up every two years, having a February primary means there is only about a year in every 2 year cycle that the incumbent does not need to be campaigning. It also means a huge lull for the public between February and the runoff election in November. It also means low voter turnouts.

For Presidential nominees, the question is how much California will influence the nomination process. Because of the size of its population, California has a large proportion of votes at national nominating conventions. Because of its political culture, California tends to be more liberal than most other states both within the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. An early California primary in 2012 would have helped moderate contenders in the Republican Party. On the other hand having an early primary would not necessarily make California a king-maker. Having a late primary is a gamble if you care about such things. The contest may be all-but-over, making California votes seem irrelevant. Or the field will have narrowed to two viable candidates, and California voters would get to pick the nominee.

Usually it is the Democratic Party faithful who want an early primary, but this year they are mostly holding their steam (about Afghanistan, war spending, and compromises with the Republican) and hoping no serious left-of-Obama contender comes forward. Uniting behind the incumbent is their best bet at holding onto what national power they have.

The June 2012 election could be a groundbreaking election totally apart from the Presidential nomination aspect. The two big game changers are Proposition 14, which makes the primaries less partisan, and redistricting.

Redistricting occurs every ten years, after the results from the U.S. census are returned. In the past California political districts were designed by incumbents, for incumbents. In partisan political terms this meant district lines were drawn to maximize the percentage of either Republicans or Democrats (including independent (Decline To State) voters known to typically vote one way or the other). This actually reduced the number of Democrats in Congress, the State Assembly and State Senate from its theoretical maximum. More of the new districts will have less-than-landslide sized Democratic majorities. While in theory this could help the Republican cause in some elections, the most likely outcome is more Democrats will win these seats. The California Citizens Redistricting Commission will vote on adopting its final maps on August 15, 2011.

Proposition 14, which passed in June 2010, makes partisan primaries more like non-partisan local and school board elections. Candidates can still list a political party, but the winner in each political party does not proceed to the runoff election. The top two vote getters advance to the November runoff, even if they are in the same party.

This non-partisan reform measure could have a big impact, if entrenched interests can't eliminate it (they are suing to block it) or find ways to manipulate the new mechanics. It encourages challengers from within the dominant political party in a district, as well as serious independent and small party candidates. Take a district that is 60% Democrat and 40% Republican, not unusual in California. In the past typically a right-wing Republican and an incumbent Democrat would win their respective primaries. Then the Democrat would win the runoff. [Invert the scenario for Republican dominated districts in the Central Valley or San Diego]

Now a centrist candidate, Republican, Democrat, third party or even decline-to-state might pick up enough votes to become one of the top two vote getters. If they hold the center together, they can get elected.

If enough candidates see this new opportunity to take on incumbents, we might even see another scenario from time to time. Say three Democrats run and Two Republicans. Suddenly third parties like the Libertarians and Green Party could be viable. Taking 20% of the vote in the primary could make the third-party candidate one of the top two. In particular it would be interesting to see elections in left-leaning districts that pit a Green Party citizen against an incumbent Democrat.

Whatever the outcome, redistricting and non-partisan elections are good for democracy. Hopefully 2012 will just be the beginning of opening up our system to participation by citizens who do not already belong to powerful, entrenched lobbying groups.

California Citizens Redistricting Commission releases draft distric maps

2011-06-12T16:06:00.000-07:00

On Friday, June 10 the California Citizens Redistricting Commission released its first draft of the district boundaries for the California State Assembly, State Senate, and U.S. House of Representatives.

I want to congratulate the commission for doing what it was mandated to do: setting up compact districts with reasonable geographic boundaries. This is in contrast to past district redraws (they happen every 10 years, after each census), which aimed to give as many incumbent politicians safe districts as was possible.

The commissions maps are published here: California District Maps First Draft. In these low-resolution maps it is hard to tell where the exact boundaries are.

The LA Times put together an California Redistricting interactive map with far more detail. They also look at political consequences in District Maps Draw a New Political Landscape.

The Sacramento Bee offers Draft California congressional maps promise more competition.

Keep in mind that better districts may help, but without well-informed citizens participating in the process, no process can be said to be truly democratic.

Republican Party Aims to Control Primaries

2011-03-21T16:27:00.000-07:00

Traditionally in California (as in most of the rest of the U.S.) most elections are really decided before the primaries take place. Donors and organizations that control volunteers make their choices, if there is any choice other than the incumbent. Primaries just show how well political machines have pushed their candidates. For the most part in California for the past couple of decades this has resulted in very liberal Democrats and very conservative Republicans being elected to the state legislature. None can afford to alienate the machines that elected them. As a result in good times creating California state budgets has been difficult; in recessions, it has been a disaster.

Proposition 14, passed by voters in 2010, is supposed to change that. The two highest vote getters, regardless of party affiliation, will proceed from the primary to the runoff election. This is the same system that has always been used in California for non-partisan offices like school boards and city councils. The framers of Prop 14 hoped that this would allow centrist candidates to emerge and even win. For instance, in a Republican majority districts (most districts are drawn to be heavily biased, a back-scratching agreement between the parties), usually a very conservative Republican candidate backed by the local machine would win the Republican primary under the old system. Even if the Democrats ran a centrist, that Republican would still win the main election. Under Prop 14 a centrist Republican might garner the number 2 spot in the primary, then go on to beat the conservative, machine-supported Republican in the runoff.

All the political parties in California opposed Prop 14, including the Green Party. Now all are working on reasserting their power under the new system. The Republican Party has a pretty good idea for doing that: holding its own internal elections before the primaries. They intend to mail ballots to all Republican voters, and let them decide on who will be the official Republican nominee. That is, who will be backed by party resources. Of course, this will mostly work out to be much like tthe old system because voters choose based on name recognition, and that is based on advertising or outreach by volunteers from the same old sources.

Still, it is better than allowing the party bosses to decide which candidates will be supported by the party.

Whoever the official Republican nominee is for an office, they will still have to run against all the other candidates in the primary, and if they don't place first or second, they will be out of the running.

In my opinion what we really need to give the voters real options is some strengthening of some of the smaller parties, like the Green Party and Libertarians, and a new, centrist party. Call it the California Center Party for now. There are a lot of people in the center, and they want a functioning California government that is not either overly indulgent of the anti-tax crowd or the tax-and-spend crowd.

But no such party has emerged yet.

See also:

The GOP Searches for relevance post Proposition 14
California Republican Party

Addenda: facts not so clear about Republican plans: Sparks Fly at California Republican Party [Sacramento Bee, March 19, 2011]

California: Democracy in Form

2011-01-23T14:59:00.000-08:00

After writing about Representative Mike Thompson's bill to allow commercial development of conservation easements, I was reflecting on how formal our democracy is when it comes to the elections in his California district. We have not had a meaningful election as long as I can remember. Every cycle the incumbent collects some $2 million in campaign funds mostly from the timber industry, the wine industry, the public-funded construction industry, and public-serice employee unions.

Mike Thompson is registered in the Democratic Party, as are a majority of the voters in the district. Republicans form a distinct minority; the second largest group in the district are unaffiliated ("decline to state" in California parlance). Mike (who is a likeable and shrewd guy) has never had meaninful opposition in a primary since his first election. This is despite there being lot of leftish Democrats in the district, including a number of Democrats in the hierarchy who are more in touch with voter sentiments in the district. As to the Republicans, they nominate someone to run every time (as do the Greens and Libertarians), but they aren't going to waste good money in a district where they will get clobbered on election day just the same.

Aside from the bias towards rich people's problems, in many ways Mike's voting record is reflective of an largly apathetic electorate. On abortion Mike is pro-choice. He is for the environment unless it gets in the way of a winery or development. He is againt the war when standing in front of Democrats, but always votes for funding the war. It is hard to imagine us getting a new Representative before he dies or voluntarilly retires.

In a dictatorship maintaining this poor of a standard of government would require silencing critics like me. But I can criticize Mike all I want. Worst case scenario, if a lot of people listen to me about a particular issue, Mike will back track, voters will calm down, and it would soon be business as usual.

From what I hear from around California, this scenario is the rule, not the exception. There are a smaller number of Republicans with safe seats than there are Democrats, which reflects the overall liberal culture of California. It can't even be said that the liberalism is entirely symbolic.

It is sad that a mere $2,000,000 can buy a seat in the House of Representatives that controls a multi-trillion dollar economy. I suspect the rich would give more if they could do it legally. A favorable estate tax rate, or capital gains rate, is worth a lot more to even a mid-level capitalist than a mere $2 million. At $2000 per person, it only takes 1000 donors to raise $2 million dollars.

In effect about 1000 people participate in running the California 1st congressional district. That is called an oligarchy, not a democracy. I would think that would be a ball park figure for the typical seat in Congress. With 435 seats in the House, that means there are less than one-half million people who get to meaningfully participate in the decision making at the national level.

But maybe what is wrong is that ordinary people don't give enough to the opposition. At a more affordable $100 giving level, 20,000 people should be able to band together to buy a seat in Congress. But they would have to band together and agree on what they want for their money. Which is harder than getting some agreement out of 1000 donors.

California Budget Woes Show Flaws in Democracy

2011-01-16T12:20:00.000-08:00

On November 2, 2010 California voters went to the polls. They chose Jerry Brown to replace Arnold Schwarzenegger as Governor. For the most part they sent the same gang back to the State Assembly and Senate, barring only those who were forced out by term limits. Well-greased political machines made sure that when their guys (or gals) were term-limited out, an indistinguishable candidate was selected to continue to represent their interests in exactly the same way.

After so many reforms being enacted in California, it is fair to ask: what is the point? Nothing stops The Blob of self-interest, it just oozes around what ever new barriers or weapons are used against it.

But there is a barrier The Blob cannot overcome: the limits on California state spending. Oh, it tries. It tries to increase taxes, and some times it succeeds. But there is only so much economy out there. Raise personal or business taxes and people only have so much they can spend, especially given they have to pay federal taxes in addition to state taxes. True, at the high end, rich Californians and giant corporations that operate in the state may still have some juice left to squeeze out. But then there is the major goal of the Blob: squeezing the juice out of the middle class, so that the rich need bleed out only token juice.

Now Jerry Brown is delivering the bad news: his budget is going to cut services, and public sector jobs and salaries, even further back than Arnold's did. This is not Jerry's fault. He is trying to deal with reality. Just like Arnold was.

The reality is that in good years the screaming Mimi's, from MediCal recipients to public service unions to corporations that profiteer on government contracts, always want more. They get it, too, then try to hold onto it during recessions.

California's economy will grow again, especially once housing starts to sell again and new housing construction resumes, but 2011 will be a tough year. Silicon Valley is already prospering and paid more taxes in 2010 than it did in 2009, but much of the tax base depends on real estate taxes and the construction industry. Real estate tax revenues may continue to decline in 2011 and even 2012 as people get their residences re-assessed.

People and businesses can take only so much squeezing. A wise government would find ways to encourage business activity in California without compromising the environment or exploiting workers. Democracy, unfortunately, works (to the extent it works) by allowing the dividing lines to be set by the pushing and pulling of interest groups. The rich are few in number, but can deploy a lot of money to choose the politicians they want. Generally speaking, only candidates backed by the rich, or by public sector unions, can win political primaries. Most of us are not rich and not in public sector unions, so we get shafted. In fact the current system means 90% of the voters are disenfranchised before the general election is held.

Public funding of campaigns could help break up this unfair scenario, but attempts to enact that have been consistently blocked.

Which leaves only remote possibilities to break the deadlock. A political party, currently a third party, could organize the 90% to vote for their interests. Organizing voters without already having political power to begin with, however, is no easy task. Or independent political machines could emerge in each Assembly district, led by individuals rather than political machines. Proposition 14 made that possible, at least in theory.

California Voters Extend Citizens Redistricting Commission

2010-11-06T15:36:00.000-07:00

California is notorious for non-competitive electoral districts for the State Assembly, State Senate, and U.S. House of Representatives. Each district is designed to maximize the incumbent's chance of re-election. Almost all districts are currently designed to be either heavily loaded with Democratic Party voters, or with Republican Party voters.

In 2008 California voters passed Proposition 11, which established a Citizens Redistricting Commission to redraw the Assembly and Senate district boundaries after the results of the 2010 census come in. Otherwise the state legislature would have redrawn the districts, thus allowing each elected official to have a say in their own district's boundaries. Both the Democratic Party and Republican Party apparatus opposed Proposition 11, making its passage a landmark along the path of California voters to independence from these two ancient, corrupt, federal parties.

In the November 2, 2010 election two related propositions were on the ballot. Proposition 20, in passing, extended the authority of the Citizen's Redistricting Commission. Proposition 27 would overturn Proposition 11, returning redistricting power to the very legislators whose districts are to be redrawn.

With the votes tallied as of today, the results were:

	Yes Votes	%	No Votes	%
Proposition 20	4,569,276	61.4%	2,881,716	38.6%
Proposition 27	2,963,152	40.4%	4,354,553	59.6%

I interpret this as a dramatic victory for democracy. A substantial number of citizens saw the need for a redistricting system that is designed for the good of the citizens, not the good of politicians.

That said, I don't see anything wrong with arguing about some of the particulars of the original Proposition 11. Hopefully, however, the experiment will go well. Then we, those California citizens who can put partisanship aside in favor of the general good, might make some improvements in the system for the round of redisticting that begins in 2020.

Be sure to visit CaliforniaDemocracy.org for more about issues important to democratic government in California and the United States.

California Government Sells People's Assets

2010-10-18T09:45:00.000-07:00

The government of the State of California announced on Monday, October 11, 2010, that it was selling the following state assets to California First LLC, a company that seems to have been created specifically to bid on the buildings. The buildings sold include:

Attorney General Building, Sacramento
California Emergency Management Agency Building, Sacramento
Capitol Area East End Complex, Sacramento
Franchise Tax Board Complex, Sacramento
Department of Justice Building, Sacramento
San Francisco Civic Center, San Francisco
Elihu M. Harris Building, Oakland
Public Utilities Commission Building, San Francisco
Judge Joseph A. Rattigan Building, Santa Rosa
Ronald Reagan State Building, Los Angeles
Junipero Serra State Building, Los Angeles

The state government will lease back the buildings. In the long run this will cost the citizens of the state more money than keeping them would have. The money, $2.3 billion, will be used to cover about 10% of this year's budget "gap," the difference between revenues and tax receipts if the budget contained no new spending cuts or tax increases.

California's government holds a lot of assets in the name of the people. Why not sell most of them? The Chinese would probably be interested in our university system. We could sell our freeways to private investors, who could erect toll booths. Unfortunately some of our most prestigious parks, like Yosemite, are actually in federal hands.

Sell enough and we could lower taxes and raise pay for public employees (both public service union members and administrators). For two or three years. Don't want to sell them? Why not mortgage them?

Would a democracy really sell off the people's assets? The people would have to be really decadent. I do think some people who have made themselves dependent on the state would support any measure taken to keep the slop in their troughs. But most California citizens are not that stupid or lazy. The problem is the state is run by two minorities: public service employees unions, and large corporations. Each enlists allies during the elections. These two poles share only one common goal: getting other people, the ordinary non-corporate tax payers, to pay for their free lunches.

California needs a central political party, free from ties to the national Democratic and national Republican parties, to represent its ordinary citizens. Creating a political party, however, is no easy thing.

Meanwhile at the United States of America federal level, pressures to sell off assets are building. See Save America, Sell Alaska.

Along those same lines, maybe it is time to think of selling San Diego back to Mexico, unless the Chinese are willing to bid higher for it.

California November 2010 Propositions

2010-09-14T11:43:00.000-07:00

The following very brief discussions, with recommendations, are preliminary. I hope to treat each proposition in more detail, and may change my recommendations on further consideration.

Proposition 19 Legalizes Marijuana Under California but Not Federal Law. Permits Local Governments to Regulate and Tax Commercial Production, Distribution, and Sale of Marijuana. Initiative Statute [link to full text of California Proposition 19]

Recommendation: YES

Comment: Marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol, and so should be treated about the same way.

Proposition 20 Redistricting of Congressional Districts. Initiative Constitutional Amendment [link to full text of California Proposition 20]

Recommendation: YES

Comment: The state legislature, currently responsible for drawing Congressional districts, has served only the incumbents and their political machines. Giving the job to an independent commission does not guarantee a better job will be done, but at least the opportunity should be there. No more gerrymanders, please!

Proposition 21 Establishes $18 Annual Vehicle License Surcharge to Help Fund State Parks and Wildlife Programs. Grants Surcharged Vehicles Free Admission to All State Parks. Initiative Statute. [link to full text of California Proposition 21]

Recommendation: YES

Comment: For me $18 a year more in car tax is not a big deal, but it could be for many Californians. I'd rather fund the parks by getting the U.S. military budget under control, but that is not an option.

Proposition 22 Prohibits the State From Borrowing or Taking Funds Used for Transportation, Redevelopment, or Local Government Projects and Services. Initiative Constitutional Amendment. [link to full text of California Proposition 22]

Recommendation: NO

Comment: The California Legislature has enough trouble coming up with balanced budgets without more restrictions on how they can allocate the funds that are available. If you don't like the way the legislature allocates taxes and spending, vote out your incumbent.

Proposition 23 Suspends Implementation of Air Pollution Control Law (AB 32) Requiring Major Sources of Emissions to Report and Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions That Cause Global Warming, Until Unemployment Drops to 5.5 Percent or Less for Full Year. Initiative Statute. [link to full text of California Proposition 23]

Recommendation: NO

Comment: I understand people's concern about the California economy, and the negative effects that high taxes and unecessary regulations can have. However, global warming is the mother of all storms coming right at us, and AB 32 should spur California to become an economic leader in this Age of Global Warming.

Proposition 24 Repeals Recent Legislation That Would Allow Businesses to Lower Their Tax Liability. Initiative Statute [link to full text of California Proposition 24]

Recommendation: YES

Comment: The legislation to be repealed was a corrupt deal. The pre-2008 rules for tax effects of business operating losses were reasonable and fair.

Proposition 25 Changes Legislative Vote Requirement to Pass Budget and Budget-Related Legislation from Two-Thirds to a Simple Majority. Retains Two-Thirds Vote Requirement for Taxes. Initiative Constitutional Amendment [link to full text of California Proposition 25]

Recommendation: YES

Comment: Everyone in the state needs budgets to be passed on time. Changing the budget vote to majority rule encourages, though it does not guarantee, a timely budget. With the majority party clearly in charge, it will be clearer who to blame when the tiny amount of work our legislators really need to get done fails to be completed on time.

Proposition 26 Requires That Certain State and Local Fees Be Approved by Two-Thirds Vote. Fees Include Those That Address Adverse Impacts on Society or the Environment Caused by the Fee-Payer’s Business. Initiative Constitutional Amendment [link to full text of California Proposition 26]

Recommendation: NO

Comment: Passing, or not passing, fees by a legislative majority is the only way to get things done. If you hate a fee, help defeat the incumbents who passed it.

Proposition 27 Eliminates State Commission on Redistricting. Consolidates Authority for Redistricting With Elected Representatives. Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute [link to full text of California Proposition 27]

Recommendation: NO, NO, NO!

Comment: In local governments, elected officials are supposed to recuse themselves on votes where they have a self-interest. Elected officials are all very self-interested in the drawing of election districts. In the past the legislature has redistricted mainly to keep incumbents, or their political machines (now that there are term limits) in power. Keep the indpendent redistricting commission!

Californians Will Pay the War Tab

2010-05-28T13:58:00.000-07:00

Who will pick up the tab? On the micro scale, everyone has experienced this question, typically at restaurants. In society, when services are given to the poor, the unfortunate, or even those who competently avoid taking responsibility for themselves, either donors pay or taxpayers pay the tab.

Then there is the War. Mostly in Afghanistan these days, but it could flare up any minute in Iraq, Somalia, Iran, Korea, etc. There are direct costs to the occupation of Afghanistan, and then there is the ongoing, bone-crushing cost of maintaining the U.S. military establishment as a whole. There is no doubt that U.S. taxpayers are picking up this tab. But taxpayers are a varied lot, and pay or evade a wide variety of taxes.

Yesterday's vote in the U.S. Senate on special funding for the occupation of Afghanistan illustrates some interesting shifts in the tab-picking-up dynamic. Some Senators in the Democratic Party and some Senators in the Republican Party voted against the funding. The Democratic Party naysayers want a timetable for withdrawal set. The Republican Party Nays had voted against the amendment to attach a withdrawal timetable for the bill. They voted against the bill itself because no provision was made to raise the money for it; it would add to the deficit. So they want the meal, They are worried about who will pay the tab.

American taxpayers have run up an enormous tab. It is called the National Debt. There is interest on the national debt, which itself makes up a big part of the Federal budget each year.

Back when the Dems were the outs and wanted to be voted in, they opposed the war as pointless. Now the leadership of the Dems, including the President, sound exactly like the leadership of the Republicans did just a few years ago. Only the Republicans, given their self-inflating, gun-toting constituency, can't oppose the war openly. There are no votes there. What they can do is point to the way the Democratic Majority is taking out a mortgage on America, at variable interest rates, with no ability to pay if either interest rates go up or the economy cycles back into recessionary mode.

Who will pay the tab? With the Democrats in power, the Republicans are worried that taxes on the "rich" will be raised. After all, you can't squeeze tax dollars out of income-less people living in Obama-villes. The rich already pay a lot of the tax burden, but they also get some pretty good breaks, like not paying taxes on capital gains until the capital is sold, which is typically only when they die. I would rather be rich and pay at higher tax rates, but once you are rich you get used to spending your money like anyone else. Higher taxes for the rich could mean waiting a year before buying a new Bentley, or taking a few days less vacation on the French Riviera, or having to fire one of the maids. That is the kind of irritant that makes rich people put pressure on their politicians.

You know how it goes. "Sure Bob, last year I raised $100,000 for your campaign, but then you raised taxes and now Sally Sue's vacation budget is $250,000 short."

In case you have not noticed, in Democratic majority districts the rich have to pick up two tabs. One is for the presumed winners, the Democrats, and the other is for the Republican Party candidates, to keep their hopes alive and the pressure on the Democrats.

Talk about a quagmire. The Democrats can't get out of Afghanistan without a "victory" because that would make them vulnerable to the Republicans. The Republicans are really, really worried about the future tax burden (and everyone should be), and the smarter ones are beginning to realize that the military part of the military-industrial complex has gotten to big compared to the industrial part. Too much industry has left the U.S.A., leaving a service-based economy that can't pay for the industrial goods we import.

Once I was working as a waiter in a pizza joint and a table of customers ran out on me. The restaurant owner, chewed me out thoroughly, but did not carry out his threat to take the tab out of my miniscule wages. He had to pick up the tab.

When taxes get high, evasion becomes commonplace. Some blame the Greek crisis on that phenomena.

Before dining out, which I seldom due since my wife and I both prefer cooking ourselves, I like to negotiate who is going to pay the tab. I don't like surprise. I especially don't like heavy drinkers who suggest that the tab be split "evenly." The federal deficit and national debt are one big surprise waiting to happen. There is absolutely nothing in our legal codes about who exactly is going to pay that tab.

In California we have seen the same problem with the state budget. Every constituency sucking on the state tit, from welfare babes to billionaire contractors, wants more, at the very least a restoration of the recent budget cuts. Paying for more means raising taxes on an entire class of people. But taxes really do hurt people, and the economy, and are already high except for one class of people. Those who have benefitted from the undervaluing of their buildings, for tax purposes, due to Proposition 13.

Yes on 14

2010-05-07T14:07:00.000-07:00

14. Elections. Increased Right to Participate in Primary Elections

California's Proposition 14, on the ballot for the June 8, 2010, would make major changes in how citizens get elected to office in California. While it is not without its risks, it is a reform well worth trying. At its core it makes elections less partisan for offices in the State Legislature and U.S. Congress. It takes a step towards the non-partisan model already used in elections for local offices like school boards, city councils, and county boards of supervisors.

Under the current system a primary and a general election are held, with each recognized political party selecting a candidate in the primary. A candidate who comes in second in their parties primary is out no matter how many votes they get. A candidate who wins their primary (and third party primaries are rarely contested) goes onto the general election no matter how few votes they get. Independent candidates (highly discouraged by election rules) also go straight to the general election. This violates basic principles of democracy.

In the new system the two highest vote getters go on to the general election, whatever their parties. In many of the election districts, as they are currently gerrymandered, the likely outcome is either two members of the Democratic Party or two members of the Republican Party. The consensus among political pundits is that this will cause the elections to gravitate towards the center.

For instance, moderate Republicans (often fiscal conservatives who are pro-choice environmentalists) have trouble winning Republican primaries in Republican districts. By coming in second in the primary election, behind the more conservative Republican but ahead of any Democrats, a moderate Republican could be in a position to win the general election by appealing to Democratic voters who can't simply vote the party line.

Voters would need to do more thinking; they would no longer be able to simply rely on party labels printed on their ballots.

Third parties, notably the Green Party, have argued against Proposition 14, asserting a right to have their candidates in the general election. First, this is not a right. Second, Prop 14 creates a major opportunity for independent and alternative party candidates. Using the Green Party as an example (no disrespect to Libertarians, etc.), currently there are very few registered Green Party voters. So in a primary Green Party candidates only get a few votes. This makes them look like losers even as they advance to the general election. If Prop 14 passes anyone can vote for a Green Party candidate in the primary election. Even if the candidate is not in the top 2, they have a much-improved chance of getting out of the under-five-percent ghetto, if they run a strong campaign. Which means they are in a position to do better in the next election.

Also, a Libertarian in a largely Republican district might have a chance of coming in second ahead of the leading Democratic Party candidate. A Green (or Peace & Freedom Party) candidate in a heavily Democratic Party district might come in ahead of the leading Republican.

The main point democracy advocates should be making is that Proposition 14 allows voters to vote for who they want in primary elections. They are guaranteed that the two top vote getters will go head-to head in the general election. Party bosses will lose some power.

Today the Democratic Party dominates the state, and it is ossified. Money and power have created a machine that prevents reform from within. Prop 14 allows insurgent Democrats (and Republicans, and Greens) to gain control of their local party. It won't be easy, but at least it will become possible.

Whether 14 passes or not, the big problems will remain. The California Constitution is a bloated mess. Most money in California politics comes from relatively few rich people. We are saddled with the federal system where are most important decisions are made in Washington, D.C. by representatives of states that are even more befuddled by the modern world than our own representatives are.

If Proposition 14 passes it will not go into effect until the 2012 round of elections. In 2010 we will mostly see the re-election of the same incumbents who got us into the current mess. Except when they are term-limited out and replaced by the next player in line in their party machine.

But in 2012 we would see politicians having to earn the right to be in the general election by getting enough votes. The people of California could begin to be united in the pursuit of excellence in government, rather than divided by moribund political parties. We might begin fixing some of our social and economic problems, instead of leaving them as black energy holes.

Vote Yes on Proposition 14.

Text and Arguments, Proposition 14

New Plan Could End Electoral Corruption

2010-04-17T09:48:00.000-07:00

Not to pick on California Senator Barbara Boxer, but I was looking for an example of how our (or their) system works and found this at www.nytimes.com today: "The proceeds from twin fundraisers will be split between Boxer and the Democratic National Committee; ticket prices range from $100 for a reception to $17,600 for dinner with the president.” [Calif. Sen. Boxer Finds Rocky Re-election Terrain, Associated Press April 17, 2010]

$17,600 is about half the annual take home pay of the average worker in California.

Californians have been trained to think that a bribe consists of a suitcase full of paper United States money given to a politician (or policeman or bureucrat). But a large election donation all to often is simply a legalized bribe.

According to the Supreme Court (of California's overlord, the federal government of the U.S.A.) the rigth to free speech includes the right of the rich, and of business corporations, to give unlimited "donations" to political campaigns.

That is the main reason we are in such a fiscal mess. The $17,600 crowd wants a return on its investment. Often millions of dollars of taxpayer money are allocated to please someone who has given only a few thousand dollars in donations. On a larger scale, millions may be spent in donations and lobbying to get billions in targetted expenditures. But the same people want low taxes. So most of the tax burden, and almost none of the benefit from government spending, falls to the middle class.

I am a strong believer that even those of us who are near the bottom of the economic pyramid should set some money aside to help candidates we like. Even near minimum wage workers, and certainly skilled workers, could contribute $25 to their favorite candidate once every two years. We have numbers on our side: 5,000 $25 donations is $125,000, enough to give an honest candidate a chance in a city council or State Assembly race. But we don't have a culture of giving to election campaigns in the working class. When unions were stronger, they collected dues and used some of those dues for politics. Workers got used to not worrying about it, and never thought about this consequence of letting the unions die. [Not that many unions did not have their own corruption issues.]

Here is a simple cure: give tax credits for voting and for making political donations in California. Say $100 for every time you vote, up to $100 per year for donations to candidates or campaigns for propositions. To make this really attractive, don't make people wait to file their taxes to get the credits. We have computers, we should be able to set up a system that can do this easily with minimal fraud.

If even 50% of the voters of California took advantage of the election campaign contribution tax credit, this would wash away the advantages of large single campaign donations.

More at www.CaliforniaDemocracy.org

Catching up on California Referenda, etc.

2010-03-29T14:11:00.000-07:00

My lack of writing here does not mean that a lot has not been going on. There is nenewed interest in the issue of Corporate Personhood, so I'm going to be speaking in Davis on April 15, and then we are celebrating Democracy Day in Point Arena with a couple of events: on the 23rd This Land Is Your Land will be shown at the Arena Theater and on the 24th we'll have a discussion on corporate personhood.

There will be 5 propositions on the California primary ballot on June 8, 2010. I'm not sure that illustrates democracy in action, since getting propositions on the ballot takes so many signatures these days, it mostly happens when some big business interests have money to throw at an issue. You can see my takes on the five issues at June 2010 California Propositions Overview at californiademocracy.org.

By way of controvery, I am in favor of Proposition 14, which makes the primaries essentially non-partisan. I don't buy the fear-driven arguments of the California Democratic, Republican, and Green Parties. What is good for the citizens is not necessarily what is good for the parties. Incumbents tend to have a lock on elections in California, and so small groups of voters, the majority within the dominant party in each district, decide almost all elections in the primaries. In particular I think that "third" parties will be able to attract more voters in the primaries under Proposition 14, and that should help them build their cores of regular voters. In the many districts of California that have become nearly single-party, in November everyone will be able to choose from two candidates of the dominant party. That would at least break the monotony.

Money will still be a big factor in the campaigns, and so will all the usual political trappings. I don't expect 14 will pass, but if it does I don't expect a lot of change overnight. I do hope that more people will participate in primaries and also register decline-to-state, instead of feeling they have to be in a particular party to participate.

Going Down With the U.S.A.

2010-02-10T10:43:00.000-08:00

As we enter the off-year election season, Californians and Americans both have a lot to be angry about. The incompetence of incumbent politicians and their mostly capitalist masters has reached epic proportions.

Nothing is being done about overpopulation. Only token measures are being taken as greenish nods towards long-term environmental sustainability. Yet despite ignoring these very real problems, the economy is in shambles.

I believe that in general Californians are over-taxed. I am not saying that there are not people who don't pay their share, because of one loophole or another. I am saying that between local, state, and federal taxes and between income, real estate, sales taxes and various fees, the problem is not that the tax rate as a whole is too low.

Why, when we pay so much in taxes, is there so little to show for it? One reason is bureaucratic creep, which is the tendency over time for bureacracies to expand, and for pay for especially the highest level of bureaucrats to increase out of proportion to productivity. This is true within business corporations even more so that in government agencies.

The other is misallocation of taxes. This happens in all areas, on all scales. But the biggest problem for California is the biggest problem for the United States of America: defense spending.

The reality is that the U.S. runs a global empire. We spend more on our military than pretty much any conceivable combination of enemy states put together.

This has undermined America's economy since the Vietnam War, and now the sink holes are appearing. The biggest, undeniable sink holes are the federal deficit and federal debt.

While I believe that we are in an economic upturn this year, I don't see the Democratic Party or the Republican Party dealing with our fundamental economic problems. As a tag-team they are able to crush third-parties and independent candidates, but they also amplify economic mismanagement. In California the Republican politicians won't cut prison funding, or admit that the War on Drugs is a failure. The Democrats don't seem to recognize that the rest of us can only pay so much for welfare programs before we have to start begging ourselves. On the national level both parties fall over themselves to serve and protect the budget of the Department of Defense.

The most recent round of blame has to be laid squarely on the Bush tax cuts for the rich. Recall that many Democrats in Congress voted for those tax cuts, including Mike Thompson of California's 1st Congressional District. The cuts were supposed to stimilate the economy, eventually leading to higher tax collections on a larger economy. But then we had an amplification of the Islamic rebellion, and President Bush with Republican and Democratic Party support decided to invade both Iraq and Afghanistan. Domestic programs were not cut, nor were taxes raised.

The federal deficit was bad enough when the economy was in its latest up cycle, fueled by too-low interest rates from the Federal Reserve and the fee-based mortgage origination system that led to the housing bubble. When the bubble popped, the Democrats blamed George Bush and the Republicans, conveniently forgetting their own support for those low taxes on the rich and high defense spending.

Think of it this way: if the state of California were to pull out of the Union, and we wanted to pay off our share of the national debt on a per capita basis, how much would we each pay? You don't even want to know the answer. It is too depressing to print here.

On a funnier note, the rich really kicked themselves in their collective ass with part of the Bush (+Democrats+Republicans) tax cuts. The rich don't pay the same taxes as you and me. Most Americans are employees, so their biggest tax bite is federal income tax on wages plus social security taxes. The rich mainly get richer from capital gains and dividends (of course they may pay real estate taxes, and sales tax). So President Bush lowered taxes on capital gains. But surprise, the economy was so mismanaged that between the time of the Bush tax cut and today, on the whole, in the stock market (the biggest liquid source of capital gains), no one made any capital gains!

In other words, in retrospect, as a class, the rich would have been better off not wrecking the economy with tax cuts and military spending. Then they would have at least actually had some capital gains to spend, after they paid the old tax rate.

When will they ever learn. [Where have all the flowers gone ...]

California Should Sell Its Own Bonds

2010-01-13T13:43:00.000-08:00

I am, generally speaking, opposed to the use of bonds for California finances. I believe that it is wiser to pay for all projects out of general funds, rather than increase the total cost by paying interest on borrowed money. I believe bonds can lead to waste; people, including politicians and bureaucrats, are not as careful with borrowed money. Another cost of bonds that is seldom considered is that the interest paid on them is exempt from taxation, which lowers the state's revenues. This creates hidden costs, with the hidden benefits going mainly to the wealthiest citizens of the state.

Even when projects have a high value to the citizens of California, there can be too many of them, borrowing too much. I believe we are long past that point, and should have a ten year moratorium on all new statewide bonds. Localities and school districts could issue bonds at their discretion.

If we do issue bonds, we should create an in-house California brokerage office to sell the bonds and to create an aftermarket in the bonds. There is no reason why professionals from corporate brokerage houses can't be hired to do this. The cost to the state of issuing bonds would drop, and the corrupt practices that have evolved around bond issues could be brought under control.

Some people think private enterprises always do a better job than government bureaus at any given task. These people apparently don't have much work experience in private enterprise. You can run either badly, and you can run either well. If both are run well, I believe the citizens of this state would get quite an advantage from doing bond sales in house.

In general I am for a smaller government of California. But in some cases a few government workers can do quality, necessary work for the taxpayers far cheaper than is done by private companies.

The government of California needs to shrink, but it needs to shrink to fit, not shrink to being useless.

California 2010 Looks Grim

2010-01-10T16:30:00.000-08:00

The global economy and even the U.S. economy may be recovering, but 2010 looks grim for California. It is difficult for a state with a $20 billion projected budget deficit to pull itself out of a recession. Even as some California businesses are gearing up exports to China and India, the public service sector will be seeing major cutbacks.

Unlike the federal government, the State of California can't just borrow money during recessions to see it through. It borrows too much money all the time anyway, in the form of bonds. But the real problem is a lack of long-term budget planning. The Democrats and Republicans in Sacramento, pawns of their respective corrupt party regimes, can't even do a single year's budget on time.

The seeming prosperity of California from 2002 until 2006 came in a form that was particularly misleading to those responsible for budgets. Let's imagine what it is like to be a California Assembly (or State Senate) member in California. You raised a lot of money to win the election, and owe a lot of people favors. Normally you would need to dampen post-election expectations. But in good tax years, you can take a lot of the pressure off yourself by spending every cent that comes in, and providing whatever tax loopholes your donors demand. Better still, be optimistic. If tax revenues went up in 2005, plan for them to go up in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 ...

But California's economy was not really producing much more in real goods and services in 2006 (the last great tax year) than it was in 2002. The increase in taxes was largely due to the real-estate frenzy. Under Proposition 13, if you stay in your home property taxes stay low. But if you buy a new home, taxes are based on the sales price. So when real-estate changed hands in 2005 and 2006, there was a windfall in real-estate taxes. The assumption is that once a house is set at a high tax rate, it will stay there (with modest annual increases) until it is sold again, at an even higher price. Bad assumption.

I was on the Point Arena School Board in 2005 and 2006 and our revenues were increasing 8% to 10% a year. The Superintendent loved it. He could give more money to the teachers without having to cut back in other areas. I said we should be more careful, paying out any surplus in bonuses instead of raises, because it is really hard to take back a raise. In my experience teachers unions prefer layoffs to pay cutbacks. Which hurts the kids. I did not believe we could rely on 10% budget increases on an annual basis. I was right, of course, but no one was much interested in my arguments in 2005. I like to think I made my district more fiscally conservative than many other districts, but in retrospect we were spending wildly and the district did run into a crunch when the bubble burst.

Public employees and welfare recipients are the people most affected by the state budget crisis. But they really need to understand that what they were given in the middle of the decade was a mistake, it was based on an illusion, it was a standard of living that was not sustainable. Those who have been laid off (private and public sector) have paid for the mistake for all of us. It isn't fair. We should all share some of the pain, and we all need to work more effectively when we do work. Unless we want to become a third-world economy going forward.

The place where we should be able to find the most savings is prisons. Aside from the common observation that prison guard salaries are outrageously high, we need to admit that our lock-them-away system is an economic disaster. I believe that for most criminals shorter sentences consistently applied have a strong deterent effect. I also believe that crime intervention programs among high school students are the most economically effective way to cut crime. Most kids will do the right thing if given the right guidance, support, and a job. In addition, we need to bring most black market economies into the legitimate economy. Black markets create super-profits that can be used to lure youths (and adults) into crime.

I don't expect much to change. Every incumbent should be thrown out, but most voters will just elect the same old people. They know there was a train wreck in Sacramento, but they don't understand how their own incumbent was part of the train wreck. Almost the only changes will be when the incumbents are term-limited out, and even then the party machines will just promote the same corrupt types up through their primaries.

Probably there will be a Democrat elected governor this year, and it will probably be Jerry Brown. And he will face the same realities Schwartzenegger has faced lately. Except the economy might be more on the mend by the time he takes over in 2011.

When a computer is filled with crap, with viruses and trojans and even otherwise harmless programs that just run in the background taking up memory and CPU time, at some point if you want to use the computer you need to clean it out and reboot it. California desperately needs a reboot, but even Hercules would be bewildered by the amount of crap that needs to be cleaned out.

Election Apathy Bodes Poorly for California

2009-11-10T16:25:00.000-08:00

The election last week was devoid of passion in Mendocino County. There were no California state-level offices at stake, no state-wide propositions, nothing to stir up the voters except perhaps Proposition A, which would have rezoned an industrial site in Ukiah to mixed use with the emphasis on retail. The corporation that would have benefited from the rezoning spent a lot of money lying to the voters, but the Proposition went down in flames anyway.

The ridiculously poor governance of California was evident at the poling station. The extremely expensive computer scanning machine that briefly counted ballots after the state govenment forced the county to buy it was used - as a box. I suspect taxpayers paid about $15,000 for that box.

The Veterans Hall, now owned by the county, is of limited use these days because the county inspector decided its kitchen was non-conforming. Rules for exhaust hoods have changed. Bringing it up to code would cost about $35,000. The county does not have the money, so the kitchen can't be used.

California's government is among the most corrupt in the world. Karzai of Afghanistan looks like Mr. Clean compared to any California governor of the last 50 years. The difference is in the details. Californians may be famous for fornicating, but their human waste material disappears down flush toilets. Our political corruption is similarly disguised, but it is vast in its quantities and it poisons the political landscape. One can argue that it is not corruption because it is legal. The corrupt state legislature made it legal. It is legal to lobby, it is legal to give campaign contributions, it is legal to ask for laws to be passed. And there is nothing inherently wrong with lobbying for laws to be passed.

It is the laws that are passed, as opposed to the laws that are not passed, that mark the corruption.

Doing anything in California has becaome ridiculously expensive. Legitimate concerns like safety are turned into cash cows for the construction industry, lawyers, and politicians. Ordinary, hard working people could not afford houses because of the spider-web of laws making every house an order of magnitude more expensive than is necessary. Unable to afford houses, the snakes that run the real estate and credit agencies came up with the brilliant scheme of lending money to people who should have been buying one-room shacks on 1/8th acre lots to buy McMansions instead. As you know, that scheme backfired even on the real estate and banking industries.

I could write a book on how money for our public schools is misspent. Mostly that is not due to bad decision making in the school districts, but to bad law writing and bureaucratic administration in Sacramento.

I am an environmentalist, but the environmental laws (national and California) are a nightmare. A law should tell you whether you can do something or not. Either you can build a factory, retail complex, or housing development, or you can't. Instead we have a system of zoning, EIR (environmental impact reports), citizen lawsuits, and appeals courts that sucks the life out of business without actually protecting the environment. It is a good example of the Gruel of Law: small players can't afford the red tape, but the big players not only can cut right through it, they can generate more of it for their oponents.

I don't see a path to basic reforms in California. At this point we need a new Constitition and new legal codes. But if we try that from where we are standing now, the same special interests and their lawyers and political operatives will be off to another round of bad lawmaking.

Some of my friends believe we need to start with campaign finance reform. Clean up political contributions. I am not against that, but I know how black markets work. Just because unsavory lobbying and campaign-contributions for favors is legal now does not mean that outlawing them will make them go away. Black markets always arise when their is a desire to trade and a law that prohibits it.

Perhaps we should think like Alexander Hamilton. As much as I hate the guy, we might borrow his one big idea: you can only minimize corruption by making it work against itself.

The Green Party talks about social justice and the environment. I think they should talk about governance more. The Green Party officially favors small, locally based businesses (which could include worker or consumer-owned businesses). It wants those businesses to be environmentally friendly, of course. What that means to me is that the powers of Sacramento should be cut back in a major way. Let the counties and communities make most of the decisions. Let them tax as they like and spend as they like. State-level government should only come into play when there are matters that need to be coordinated between the counties.

The same is true of the Federal government. We don't need better federal law. We need the feds out of our hair. We don't need laws written by idiots from Mississippi to govern us. We came to California to get away from those folks.

California Green Party Proposals

2009-10-06T11:10:00.000-07:00

The Green Party of California is considering adding a plank to its platform outlining proposed State of California reforms. While the Green Party is powerless except, in a few cases, at local levels, it does illustrate the kind of thinking people are doing about the mess called Government in this state. The failed budget process has been at the front of the news, and much of the Green proposal addresses budget issues.

The Green Party is proposing a "pay-as-we-go" system, meaning no more bond issues. Bonds are a way of borrowing money. Fees for placing them, and interest, greatly add to the cost of projects funded by the bonds. One reason there is so little money for necessities this year is that so much money is being used to make payments on bonds from the past. Bonds are often passed using the initiative/referendum process. Voters don't think about how an individual bond impacts the budget. They tend to vote for things they think are necessary or nice, like prisons, hospitals, and transportation projects. Bonds, if not abolished entirely, need to be part of a central budgeting process that does not over-estimate future taxpayer revenues.

A unicameral legislature of 360 members is proposed. I like the idea of a unicameral legislature with enough members to keep the number of consituents per member manageable. The Green Party proposal wants only 8 geographic regions. Within each region it proposes 45 members, half (23?) elected by by geographic district and half (22?) elected by proportional representation among political parties. This would pretty much assure that the Green Party would get some seats in the legislature. It sounds complicated, but it is a system similar to that used in most nations in Europe (and around the globe); voters get used to it quickly. It helps ensure that minority views get represented.

The Green Party would allow budgets to be passed by a 55% majority. In the short run this would let the tax-and-steal Democrats to run wild, but at least budgets could be balanced and passed in a timely manner.

A reserve fund would be established so that as the economy, and taxes collected, fluctuated, the state's annual budget could remain on an even keel. This has been proposed by many reformers.

The proposal also calls for "an extra 10% tax on state lottery winners." I find this to be a ridiculous way to raise small sums of money. The lottery already has an effective tax rate of over 50%, when you consider what the state gets in lottery receipts versus what it pays out to winners. Then the winners get to pay both state and federal income tax.

The Green Party wants to stop building prisons. I agree; we have a rate of incarceration that looks more like Stalin's gulag than like a healthy democracy. We may never be able to close our prisons, but we do need to use better methods to discourage crime. Young people need better guidance, and we need to make honest work more attractive than criminal methods of fund raising. More important, California needs to stop acting like every time someone has a little fun, a crime has been committed. Behavior should be treated as criminal only when someone is hurt.

The focus of law enforcement and the courts should be on career criminals and criminal organizations, including those operating under the mask of legal corporations.

More:

Green Party of California site
my Green Party pages at IIIPublishing.com

Democracy Under Pressure

2009-09-20T19:12:00.000-07:00

Democracy is one of those words that can have a very broad meaning. To what ever extent you believe the state of California is a democracy, you should be aware that the ongoing economic crisis is putting severe burdens on "rule by the people."

Some would say that California is, in fact, a republic, not a democracy. See my America, Republic or Democracy? for an introduction to this topic for the United States. Most of the arguments apply to the state of California as well.

We certainly have very few elected officials compared to the size of the population (37 million). There are only 80 members of the California State Assembly and 40 members of the California State Senate. In most of the states of the United States there are far fewer voters in a district for a state legislative seat than there are for a member of the United States House of Representatives. But in California the Assembly districts are only lightly smaller than U.S. House seats (California has 53 Representatives in Congress). Each California State Senate seat represents almost 900,000 people and is larger than a congressional district.

That means only tiny percentage of people in the district have any meaningful access to their representatives. Which in turn means that interest-group lobbies rule. The most powerful lobbies in the state represent corporations, often ones that do business in the state but are headquartered in other states. Sometimes they are foreign (non-U.S.) multinational corporations. Other powerful lobbies include state employees unions and professionals like lawyers.

You might think with a small ruling political class, what government lacked in democratic representation would be made up in efficiency and unity of purpose. But the government of California is probably as inefficient as any on earth. It can't make decisions, unless it is making bad ones.

Blessed with natural resources, including a window on the economically important Pacific Ocean rim, and a talented people of diverse backgrounds, California has prospered despite the state government, not because of it.

The only thing our legislators are good at is blaming someone else for their incompetence. Generally speaking, those associated with the Democratic Party and those associated with the Republican Party cast the blame at each other at election time. That way few voters look closely at the legislative record of their own representatives.

If California were split into 2, 3 or 4 states, each state might be small enough to reform and govern itself. If California split from the United States, we might divide it up into 20 or so regions each with a population larger than many of the current united states.

A more likely solution would be up to the people themselves. They could create California-based political parties that made California issues the decisive factors in state elections. Most citizens can only devote so much time to paying attention to politics. Naturally, they pay attention to big-issue national politics: war and peace, and which Congressmen are cheating on their wives. So they vote for members of the California State Assembly and State Senate based on party identifications that have little to do with governing California.

Throw the rascals out should be the rallying cry for Californians in the 2010 elections. But the usual will happen: the power of incumbents is so great that none, or very few, will fail to be re-elected unless they are term-limited out. And when there is a term-limit reached, the party machines will have some hack ready to step in and play at politics the same as the old hack. The donors seldom change, just the political faces that their money buys.

California on the Ropes

2009-01-25T13:04:00.000-08:00

California is on the ropes. It is being hit harder than most states by the current recession. Its government is paralyzed. No one is steering; the ship of state has run aground.

Unraveling a disaster of this magnitude is going to be a lot harder than avoiding it in the first place would have been. After the budget crisis of 2001-2002, the government of California should have taken steps to build up a surplus during the relatively good years of 2003-2007. It should have made fundamental reforms in the way budgets are created. Instead it feasted on tax dollars blown in by the housing bubble.

The electorate should bear part of the blame for electing those who have been in the legislature lately. Mostly, though, the electorate has mainly be manipulated by the two major party political machines. The machines determine who will have the money to win their primaries. All most all of California's elections are basically won in the primary of the dominant political party in that district; the lines of the district are drawn to ensure that almost no incumbent that runs loses his or her seat. And even competent politicians are term limited out of the Assembly in just six yeas.

Even if better politicians were elected, they might be dazed and confused by the current budget system.

There is no central budgeting authority that makes sure budgets are balanced in the sense that in good years there is a surplus that can be used as a cushion in bad years. Nor is there an authority that makes sure public spending is balanced between the various needs of the people of California. The state Senate is not a central authority; nor is the state Assembly. The governor actually has little power over budgets except the power of persuasion. Nor is there any bureaucracy that keeps things in order so that politicians can do what they do best, posture and swill whatever lobbyists lay before them.

Every session of the legislature is a feeding frenzy. This is fought around a skeleton of laws enshrined in the state Constitution that determine where much taxpayer money can go. Can't get the legislature to throw you a bone? Sponsor a referendum. Bond measures are passed willy-nilly because voters consider each measure in and of itself, with little regard to how the bonds affect the state budget. Bonds take decades to pay off and effectively treble the cost of any project, once you include interest payments.

I think it is fair to argue about whether any specific tax in California is too high or too low, but I agree with those who think that taken as a whole, California taxes (with federal and local taxes) are about as much as a people can reasonably bear. When the economy revives there will be more tax revenue

I would also tend to agree that California's tax structure is ridiculously unfair. Two people living in houses of similar real value may be paying taxes that are an order of magnitude different. Some businesses pay little or no taxes, when businesses that are equally profitable pay much higher taxes. The Board of Equalization seems to be all about inequality these days.

The people of California have to look at the whole picture and come to a consensus about what a good budget process would look like. Once that is known, they need to elect politicians who will put it in place.

Perhaps what California needs is a California political party that is centrist in nature. It could put a damper on politicians who love to spend other peoples' money and don't mind raising taxes. And on those who won't allow taxes to be raised, but who in actuality also love to spend other peoples' money on their pet bureaucracies, or provide tax breaks for their friendly corporate sponsors. Those two groups of politicians have caused the current crisis, and they correspond fairly closely to the two major political parties.

Even if a centrist party were started today, it would take a while to implement. Be prepared for a couple of unpleasant years in California. It won't be the government that pulls us out of this mess. It will be the creative citizens who put their shoulders to the wheel and revive the economy with their sweat. While most unemployed citizens just bumble around, happy to get unemployment benefits while waiting for their next set of instructions.

Here are three suggestions for immediate use:

Have a ten year moratorium on new statewide bond issues. Don't make it a law; organize the citizens to vote down every bond for ten years.

Let 25% of state prisoners out of prison on early parole. That is the quickest way to cut the budget. They are going to get out eventually anyway, which is a risk society has decided to take. If they violate parole, they go back in. So the downside is not nearly as bad as bankrupting the state of California would be.

Create a state-owned credit union that is strictly for creating mortgages for residences. Loan only to those who have substantial downs, but keep interest rates on the loans as low as possible. Get the housing market stabilized, and the tax base will be stabilized. That will buy time to make the fundamental changes that are necessary for survival in the 21st century.

Welcome to the California Democracy Blog

2009-01-01T14:51:00.000-08:00

As I write this the State of California is estimated to comprise nearly 37 million persons. The first census of the United States of America, taken in 1790, showed the population was under 4 million persons.

In theory a democracy is rule of the people. What does it mean to say that 37 million Californians rule themselves? Do we rule ourselves?

In reality the government of California (including the federal governance component) is in trouble. This goes beyond the current budget crisis, the economic problems of 2008, and the problems that typically confront even the best of governments.

The California Democracy Blog will focus on questions about the democratic governance of California. How democratic is our republican form of government? Is the current state of misgovernment caused by too much democracy or too little? What structural changes could be made to improve the government of California?

An earlier, discontinued version of this blog was started by the organization California Center for Community Democracy, with me (William Meyers) as Web master. I expect to write the vast majority of entries, but may also post writings by other commentators. Of course you are welcome to add your comments to the posts at the site.