America's Worst Legislature

Trying to appease the cowards running for higher office in the Assembly rank and file, Karen Bass has dropped the sentencing commission out of the prison reform package.

The sentencing commission was among the most controversial provisions of the Senate prison plan. But on Monday, Senate leader Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said “a real sentencing commission, with teeth, is my top priority” for corrections legislation.

Steinberg spokeswoman Alicia Dlugosh said Monday that the Senate leader would like to see any legislation passed by the Assembly “realize the same dollar figure in savings as the Senate bill.”

The bill passed last week by the Senate, AB 14 XXX would save the state an estimated $600 million, according to an analysis of the bill. But the Assembly seemed poised to make key changes that would reduce those savings by about $220 million.

Among the other changes expected to be made by the Assembly would be the elimination of a provision that would change some crimes which can be either felonies or misdemeanors --known as “wobblers” – exclusively to misdemeanors. The Assembly bill expected to come up for a vote this week would leave the state’s wobbler law unchanged.

Assembly Democrats also balked at a provision in the Senate bill that would allow some sick and elderly inmates to finish their sentences under house arrest.

Bass said she hoped to pass the sentencing commission as stand-alone legislation later in the year. First of all, the year ends on September 11, and second, adding the commission to a must-pass reform package was the whole point. If lawmakers objected to it as part of a package, they're not going to turn around and support it in isolation.

Punting on this issue will ensure that federal judges will be mandating reductions of the prison population 10 years down the road. The only reform worth doing in the package now clarifies parole policy, devoting resources to those who need to be monitored instead of the blanket supervision that has turned our parole system into a revolving door. But that will not be enough to turn around the prison crisis for the long-term, without finally doing something about our ever expanding sentencing law.

This also shows the complete dysfunction of the leadership. Darrell Steinberg may not go along with the limited version, and I don't blame him. His chamber has now stuck their neck out three times on tough votes - Tranquillon Ridge drilling, HUTA raids and now this - that the Assembly has quashed. I wasn't unhappy about the first two, but if I was in the Senate, I'd be pissed about all these controversial votes I was needlessly taking. You'd think Karen Bass would have a sense of her caucus and know that she couldn't pass whatever she and Steinberg and the Governor hammered out in private. Because she's on her way out the door in 2010 she has no leverage over the caucus, because everyone's termed out and running for something else they have no fealty to the Assembly, and because they all live perpetually in fear they won't take a vote they know would help future generations deal with a crisis.

As I've said, a broken process will almost always produce a broken result. But individual lawmakers need to be called out. Particularly the three Assemblymembers running for Attorney General who think they're showing off their toughness. When all of them lose, they'll probably attribute it to other factors. They should be reminded of this day.

No Vote Yet On Prison Reform

Jim Sanders reports that the Assembly will not hold a vote on a prison reform package today, as legislative leaders and law enforcement groups huddle to reach a compromise. Yes, law enforcement groups, which should read lobbyists. They hold a veto over processes like this.

I'm amazed by how any lawmaker could possibly view a vote like this on prison reform as a choice. Federal judges have affirmatively ruled that California must cut its prison population by 44,000 inmates, and submit a plan to do so by next month. The judges charged with oversight on the prison system have spoken unanimously on this subject and given the state years to work out the issue. If lawmakers vote this down, the population will get reduced ANYWAY, and in all likelihood in a far more randomized and less considered fashion. You would think that the legislature would want a bit more say in the matter, especially since any bad outcome arising from early release will be blamed on them anyway, since that's just the default reaction of most people in this state.

Furthermore, the legislature has already earmarked $1.2 billion in cuts to the prison budget. That was affirmed by a majority in both chambers - I believe, a 2/3 majority - and signed into law by the Governor. This vote is not optional. It's required as a function of last month's budget vote. Bills with compromises that cut less money or lead to the reduction of less of the population are really useless, because eventually, that money will need to be cut and those prisoners released. Assembly Democrats afraid of special interests are living in a fantasy world.

And we really are talking about fear.

In the Assembly, nearly 40% of Democrats (19) are running for another office. Most are fearful of being branded by campaign opponents as "soft on crime" if they vote for, say, early release from prison of even decrepit old blind men.

That's why a plan by Democratic leaders and the governor to reduce the prison population by 27,300 inmates this year and save $525 million passed the Senate 21 to 19 last week, but stalled in the skittish Assembly. No Republican supported the bill, but none was needed because it required only a majority vote to pass.

An amended, watered-down measure may be debated on the Assembly floor today. It will retain the feature Schwarzenegger deems most important: an overhaul of the parole system by focusing on the riskiest parolees and paying little attention to the rest, resulting in fewer ex-cons being returned to prison for minor violations.

All this can be worked out and space freed up in the barracks and gyms. Better to do it now than after the predictable prison blowup.

As for what is subject to change in that amended plan, here's a good rundown. Most of it is nibbling around the edges - adding back a couple crimes as felonies, lowering the dollar threshold for grand theft, changing the months' worth of sentencing credits for rehabilitation and vocational training from 6 to 4 - but these are the big ones:

Eliminate a proposal that would allow the release of up to 6,300 "lower-risk" inmates -- under house arrest with electronic monitoring -- who are medically infirm, aged, or serving the final 12 months of their sentence.

Alter the structure of a proposed sentencing commission that would have broad powers to rewrite sentencing guidelines.

The Assembly version would raise the commission's voting members from 13 to 14. It also would grant law enforcement more clout both by adding a representative from rank-and-file and by requiring that any actions of the commission by approved by two law enforcement members. A requirement that an ex-felon receive a nonvoting seat would be eliminated.

It's truly amazing the law enforcement, under this plan, would literally hold a veto over statutory considerations like sentencing. I believe that plenty of members of the law enforcement community actually understand that they can be smarter on crime, keep people safe and save the state money. But that's just a hijack over the process.

The bottom line is this - we spend more than any state except Michigan on prisons in terms of a percentage of the overall budget, and federal judges have ordered a reduction in inmates. Regardless of special interests or anything else, something's gotta give.

What A Constitutional Convention Means To Me

People seemed to really engage with this post about a Constitutional convention, so I wanted to follow up with some of my thoughts for what a convention could tackle and what it could look like. As it happens I attended a town hall meeting about a proposed ConCon a couple weeks ago in Santa Monica, featuring Bob Stern of the Center for Governmental Studies, Jim Wunderman of the Bay Area Council, Steven Hill and Mark Paul of the New America Foundation, Asm. Julia Brownley (AD-41), Santa Monica Mayor Pam O'Connor and LA City Councilman Bill Rosendahl.

At the root, a Constitutional convention must concern itself with restoring confidence in government. Right now, that's at an all-time low, especially after budget agreements hashed out in secret that defy the will of the people and an erosion in the public trust in lawmakers to do the right thing in Sacramento. Government is not responsive, in fact in many cases it cannot Constitutionally be responsive to the popular will. The institutions have become paralyzed and captive to special interest lobbying. We have ten lobbyists for every legislator in Sacramento. And we have turned over the reins to a new branch of government, the ballot, and anything significant must be mandated by a vote of the people. As Julia Brownley, now in her second term, said, "Government structure is broken and we need to fix it... I didn't understand until I set foot in the Legislature the paralysis and gridlock that kills the system." I think Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, who is carrying Constitutional convention legislation in the Senate, put it well when he said that California remains at the vanguard with anything that can be accomplished on a majority-vote basis. Anything with a 2/3 threshold, in other words anything fiscal, is a mess. And it needs to be solved.

So how would a convention, the first of its kind since 1879, be structured? Right now, only the Legislature, with a 2/3 vote, can call for one. But the Bay Area Council and others who have studied this believe they can go to the ballot with two measures - one changing the Constitution to allow the people to call for a convention, and another to call for one. These can even be accomplished on the same ballot; while some have raised legal objections to this, this is pretty much how a recall election works, with the recall and replacement on the same ballot. Those who want to maintain the status quo because it works for them may disagree, but the California Supreme Court has clearly shown very wide latitude on votes of the people under the current system.

Other major issues to be hashed out with a convention are the scope and the delegate selection. Jim Wunderman of the Bay Area Council has said that everything within government should be on the table, which worries some that a Pandora's box will be open, an opportunity to mess with fundamental rights. First of all, that's the case right now, as last November proved. Second, I do believe there would be eventual problems with any document that nullified rights granted by the federal Constitution (the basis of the current Prop. 8 lawsuit). What we're really talking about with a convention is a process to create a more sustainable structure, dealing with electoral issues, governance issues, fiscal/budget issues, and direct democracy issues. That's a fair bit of territory, and I don't see any need to expand beyond that.

Then there's the thorny issue of delegate selection. Steven Hill explains in a study of the issue that there are three basic means for selecting delegates: through appointments, through elections, or through a random selection consistent with state demographics. There are plusses and minuses to all of them, but Hill reasons that the appointment process could wind up looking like patronage, and the election process mired by our useless campaign finance laws. Both would fall to the whims of the current broken process and could be hijacked by special interests seeking input in the results of a convention. They would also wind up looking a lot like the Legislature, which doesn't go far to renewing confidence and trust in government. So Hill falls on the side of random selection as the "least worst" option.

Pros: Random selection would be the best method for ensuring a representative body; random selection of "average citizens" brings a sense of grassroots legitimacy to the process, which would give the proposals of the constitutional convention credibility with the voters; random selection might be the best process for shielding delegates against special interest influence; random selection has the gloss of being something new and different, never been tried, and therefore may have the greatest potential to capture the imagination of the public and the media.

Cons: Random selection of "average citizens" would not necessarily guarantee sufficient expertise on the part of the delegates. A thorough educational process would be necessary, and it would be important that the educational process for delegates was designed to prevent "capture" by any particular special interest or perspective. The selection process would also need to weed out any delegates who are not are sufficiently committed to participate for many months.

I don't think capturing the imagination of the media is a good reason to do it, but Hill has cited examples of citizen's commissions in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and in New York City dealing with the World Trade Center redevelopment, with fairly positive reviews.

I think where you fall along these lines can be best determined by your theories of government. If you think that the system needs to be gamed for particular outcomes, you probably want an election that would allow the participation of various special interests. If you believe that good government and progressive government are analogous, that an iron-clad structure itself need not be partisan, but just allow the prevailing philosophy of the majority to have sway over the results, you may be interested in a random selection based on demographics (and, I would add, party ID). Right now, we have a progressive legislature and a conservative system, which frustrates efforts at accountability. A small-d democratic system would not only be more fair than the current system of minority rule, and it would not only be more helpful for the voters trying to determine who is responsible for what happens in government, but it would actually be more fiscally responsible. The Two Santa Claus Theory that dictates we can have robust services and endlessly low taxes forces government to resort to borrowing and accounting gimmicks to cover deficits, which lead to larger deficits pushed out to the future. Spending mandates like Prop. 98 haven't even worked to protect school funding - we've become the worst state on spending K-12 under that mandate. A clear set of rules that resists enshrining policy but allows policy to work unimpeded through a framework of government seems to be the best practice here.

Then there's our failed experiment with direct democracy, which brought about many of the constrictions under which current government now labors, such as the crazy 2/3 requirements, which allow the majority to say that the minority blocks their wishes while allowing the minority to claim that they have no power because they're in the minority.

What do I think a Constitutional convention needs to include?

• ending the 2/3 requirements and restoring democracy to the fiscal process over the tyranny of the minority, and returning decisions for spending and taxation to elected representatives
• two-year budget cycles and performance-based budgeting to try and engender a long-term approach
• indirect democracy, where the legislature can either work out the item on the ballot with proponents and pass it through their chamber, or amend items that reach the ballot. In addition, we need a higher barrier for Constitutional amendments and changes to the process of signature gathering.
• any ballot-box budgeting must include a dedicated funding source - "paygo for initiatives"
• smaller legislative districts, either by expanding the Assembly or moving to a unicameral legislature with 150 or more members.
• elimination of the current term limits, the tighest in the nation, with more of a happy medium
• instant runoff voting for state legislative vacancies to speed the process of filling them
• local government gets the local resources they collect without them routing through Sacramento

Those are a few of the things I'd like to see addressed, and I'm sure people have additional ones. The crisis we currently have in California presents an opportunity for new thinking about government and how to manage the largest state in the union and one of the largest economies in the world. Despite the doom and gloom, California retains its vibrancy, its diversity, its abundance. Only the structure under with it governs itself has failed, and that failure has seeped into everyday life. Lifting that structure will be like lifting a heavy weight off the backs of the citizenry. We can lead a path to a better future.

Related - Repair California

Recommitted

The 111th Congress convenes today, and House leaders have a new package of rules that they will be submitting, for what I would guess would be a quick approval, given that they have a 256-178 advantage (Rahm Emanuel's IL-05 is vacant, but will be filled by a Dem). Republicans seem to be most publicly perturbed by the elimination of term limits for Committee chairs, about which I'm basically ambivalent, but I really like their stance on getting rid of the silly "motions to recommit" that Republicans use for partisan purposes.

Democratic leaders are definitely taking a hard look at preventing the minority party from scoring easy political points with motions to recommit a bill to committee with instructions to make contentious language changes and then report it back to the House "promptly." In the outgoing Congress, "promptly’’ has meant an indefinite hold, because committees were not willing to adopt poison-pill amendments sponsored by the minority.

Most motions to recommit require instead that an amended bill be returned to the floor "forthwith," which means within minutes.

Republicans would retain the right to offer two other motions to recommit — either without instructions for policy changes, or with instructions to make changes "forthwith," or immediately, meaning that the bill stays on the floor and moves to passage with revisions.

"Republicans will still get a chance to make motions to recommit. But they would not be allowed to just kill bills in a way that was never intended," said one Democratic aide.

This is parliamentary inside baseball, for the most part. But it does suggest that Democrats in the House will be takng a sharper tone with Republican nonsense and using the power vested in them to deal with it. We've seen the House become a more liberal body, through leadership elections and the increase in Democrats. They may finally start to use some of that power.

...by the way, Congress Matters, being led by the fantastic Kagro X, is a great one-stop shop to learn about the more arcane aspects of the Congress.

A Tale Of Two Speakers

Fabian Nunez hosted his final press conference as speaker yesterday, and began his post-speaker life by offering a series of proposals focused on process issues.

The redistricting component features an independent 17-member "hybrid" commission. No legislators will serve on the panel, with the majority picked randomly from a screened pool with no legislative influence and eight others picked by legislative leaders. Unlike the Voters First initiative that may appear on the November ballot, this proposal requires diversity in every step of the process and puts the Voting Rights Act first and foremost among the criteria in selecting districts. There's also a host of transparency and public input provisions.

The term limits provision is similar to Prop 93, but excludes the provisions that protected many incumbents that drew criticism. It reduces the maximum amount of time a person can serve in the Legislature from 14 years to 12 years, allowing a legislator to serve all their time in one house.

There's also a fundraising blackout period prohibiting campaign contributions to legislators and the Governor from May 15th until the budget is enacted.

These would go up on the ballot for passage by voters in November once they get through the Legislature. There is of course already a redistricting measure that appears to be on its way to the ballot, so it's unclear whether or not this is a "confuse and kill" strategy. But Nuñez said that his hope would be for one redistricting proposal on the ballot.

That's the past; here's the future.

Karen Bass has drawn up a short agenda for her two-year reign as Assembly speaker that begins next week.

There are only three items:

* Balance a state budget that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared is "$20 billion out of whack."

* Create a ballot initiative that would produce $300 million to $500 million annually for foster care programs.

* Restructure California's tax system to make it conform to the modern world. Actually, she wants to create a blue-ribbon commission of "the best and the brightest" to tackle taxes.

That's all.

Foster care programs are Bass' pet issue, but otherwise she's focused on, I have to say, the ACTUAL problem facing California.

We are out of money. Not out of money in theoretical terms, or on a balance sheet somewhere, but physically out of money by August if no budget is enacted. The cash reserves are empty and the revenues aren't coming in. All that matters between now and August is that we put a budget in place that is SUSTAINABLE and, as Bass notes, in line with the modern world. All of this process stuff about redistricting and term limits is what gets pundits and press people all a-twitter, but it's not the problem in California. What Bass is saying without saying it is that we need to end the 2/3 requirement so we can have a legislature that reflects the will of the people. That's the only way we're going to pass a sustainable budget, that's the only way we'll get a 21st-century revenue system. And I believe she knows that.

The governor wants to sell out our future, sell bonds, sell the lottery, hold a fire sale and mortgage California for generations. We should not have to stand for that. Selling off the state to preserve tax cuts for the wealthy is not a "creative" solution. I have no idea how Karen Bass will fare in her 2 1/2 years as Speaker, but I'm now confident that she's at least focused on the right issues.

Prop. 93's Achilles Heel

As we reach the beginning of the post-Nuñez and Perata era in the California Legislature, I want to reiterate what I said in a comment thread to the Speaker's top spokesman, almost a year ago, just days after the term limits measure was announced:

If it's so disastrous to (Nuñez') career and future plans to go through with this, why doesn't he sign a simple pledge stating that he will not benefit from a last-minute change in the law? He can certainly run for a State Senate seat, or Congress, or LA mayor, or whatever. But certainly, signing such a pledge would remove any appearance of impropriety, and give the Speaker freedom to serve MORE time in Sacramento, making him even wiser in how to negotiate that difficult terrain.

So can I fax the pledge right over?

The bottom line is that if the law wasn't seen to have benefited the 120 legislators in office to an outsized degree, it would have passed, because this is what turned off liberals and Democrats. George Skelton agrees.

What really stunk up Prop. 93 was an incumbents' sweetheart provision that mostly helped senators, including Perata. It would have allowed incumbents to serve 12 years in their current house regardless of previous service in the other house. So some senators could have spent 18 years in the Legislature, six more than advertised in Prop. 93.

Voters probably would have accepted a straight-up deal that allowed incumbents to choose either the new 12-year arrangement or the old 14-year system, but not be awarded extra "transition" years.

"They could have had term limits on a silver platter, but they got greedy," says Dan Schnur, a Republican consultant who has worked for redistricting reform. "They could have passed it with both hands tied behind their backs."

Of course, there would be no incentive for them to pass a term limits change if they didn't benefit from it. Where would the money come from? Good government groups don't have that kind of scratch.

But if Nuñez and Perata held a joint press conference three weeks before the election and said "We thought it over and we will not seek another term. The other legislators are free to do as they wish, but we believe in improving the state of California more than ourselves," then the "No" side would have had their legs cut out from under them. It was their entire strategy to make the proposition a referendum on the leadership. And liberals and Democrats had problems with the narrow tailoring of the initiative. They would have gotten the 4% they needed to pass the thing; all they had to do was sign my pledge.

That said, I'm very excited with Darrell Steinberg as the new President Pro Tem; he's a solid progressive. As for the Assembly, if this part of the palace intrigue is true, there's going to be some serious pushback:

Meanwhile, very reliable sources tell me that Democratic Assemblymember Charles Calderon has been trying to put together a deal with the Republicans in the Assembly-who number 32 in all-and to cobble together at least 9 Democrats in the body to get to 41, the magical number to become Speaker.

If we have a Lieber-Speaker in the midst, that's not going to work out well, to put it charitably. This needs some attention.

Why I Can't Support Prop. 93

Today I'm headed out to the OC for the Democratic Party of Orange County annual convention, where I'm participating on a panel about the propositions on the California ballot on Tuesday. My opinions are this:

91: No
92: Yes
93: No
94-97: No

But I want to hone in on Proposition 93, which is the term limits initiative, and what I'll be speaking about today. In case you didn't know, Prop. 93 would reduce total time allowed in the State Legislature from 14 years to 12, but would allow lawmakers to serve that time in one chamber, in effect increasing their terms in the Assembly or Senate. And it would grandfather all current lawmakers into the system, essentially giving more terms to those in office right now, particularly the leaders in the Assembly and the Senate, who would otherwise be termed out.

I think that it's important to look at this in three respects: the short-term, the medium-term, and the long-term. In the short term, the Governor, who is supporting this proposition, has outright said that he endorsed it because "I don't want these guys to leave." The charitable interpretation of that is that he has a good working relationship with Speaker Nuñez and President Pro Tem Perata and doesn't want to jeopardize that. The uncharitable interpretation is that he's already housebroken these two and he doesn't want to housebreak anyone else. I am unfamiliar with the rule whereby the Governor gets to pick the leaders of the opposition party he wants to work with, so that disturbs me. But also it's important to look at what this good working relationship has yielded: a $14 billion dollar budget deficit, endless borrowing and passing debt onto children and grandchildren, the worst prison system in America with no leadership on how to address it, a failed health care overhaul with no alternative on the horizon, and so on. The bargains between the governor and the legislative leaders, and the entrenched power of that relationship is not beneficial for the citizens of the state, either, have not proven to be all that salutary. So before we extend it, we should think about the value of a less accommodationist leadership stance that rewards the fiscal inanity of the Schwarzenegger era.

Of course, that's a short-term look, the least important, in my view. But in the medium term, the rule that keeps current legislators in office does impact the real opportunities Democrats have to make meaningful gains in the legislature. Term limits are certainly not the only reform necessary in Sacramento, or even the most important. I think eliminating the absurd stranglehold the minority has on budgets and taxes by reducing the 2/3 requirement on those votes is of paramount necessity. And the only way we're going to get that is by actually getting a 2/3 Democratic majority in both chambers. And it's a realizable goal, considering the excitement in 2008 with our game-changing Presidential candidate who will bring new voters into the process, whoever it is. I think we can get 54 Assembly members and 27 Senators by 2010. But it'd be a hell of a lot easier if we can run Democrats in rapidly bluing areas in open seats, instead of against incumbents like Bonnie Garcia and Shirley Horton and Tom McClintock and Abel Maldonado. We have a much better chance of winning those seats and getting real budget reform and tax fairness if this proposition does not pass, and those lawmakers get termed out of office.

But we're told in all of the advertising and literature that we should really focus on the long term. Never mind the back door for sitting lawmakers, this is about a better and more well-prepared legislature for our future. Well, I hate to break this to everyone, but that statistically doesn't add up. Prop. 140, which set current term limits, passed in 1990. Before that there were no term limits at all. Yet the average length of legislative experience was 10 years. That's actually pretty much what it is today. And the reason is that California has a lot of structural churn in their legislature, and for good reason. You may have noticed that politicians are ambitious folks, and in this state there are simply a great deal more desirable political offices than in any other state. We have the biggest Congressional delegation, we have enormous cities with city and county boards of supervisors that wield tremendous power, and politicians desire those positions. The idea that suddenly all the ambition is going to be boiled out of lawmakers and we're going to be able to bolt them into their seats for 12 years is frankly not borne out by historical precedent. The case of Richard Alarcon is instructive. He was a state Senator who ran for mayor and lost in 2005, then he ran for Assembly in 2006, and after just getting there he ran for LA City Council in 2007. The mayor's office, and LA City Council are very desirable posts, and they drew him out of the legislature. And that's not because of restrictive term limits. I hear a lot of talk about how we are possibly going to lose Sheila Kuehl, my state Senator, from the legislature, and who is going to carry the banner of universal health care, and this is why we need to change term limits. Sheila Kuehl is leaving whether Prop. 93 passes or not. She wants to be on the LA County Board of Supervisors because she wants to be closer to home. Nicole Parra of Bakersfield just announced that she won't run again despite being eligible if Prop. 93 passes.

Another part of this is the fact that this only extends time in office if you make the decision, at the beginning of your career, to run for either Senate or Assembly, and then stay there. Right now, 85% of all State Senators have at least 2 terms of Assembly experience and only 2 have none. That's simply not likely to change, or else you're going to have a far MORE inexperienced State Senate than you do right now.

What term limits did accomplish is it got rid of the longtime Willie Brown types, the old hands who steered the legislature in their direction and maintained all the committee chairs through seniority. I don't see how giving Senators one extra term, or 3 in the case of the Assembly, is going to fix that. You're going to have the same legislative churn as ambitious pols seek better positions of prestige, and none of the benefits of a relaxed term limit structure, which is increasing institutional memory.

Now, personally I don't think there should be any term limits. Ultimately, the only limit should be we the people. But that has to be coupled with an overhaul in our campaign finance system, so that challengers have the opportunity to compete on a level playing field. I simply think there are better ways to reform the system than with something that fails what I believe should be the short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals of the California Democratic Party. So I can't support Proposition 93.

(Got through it all without mentioning leadership corruption or all the cash the pro-93 forces are sinking into deceptive ballot mailers and idiotic commercials like that one that basically goes "Support 93 or we'll get a Katrina here". Yay me!)

California Props All Going Down?

Propositions 93 and 94-97 face shaky polling in the final Field Poll. On Prop. 93, the term limits measure, 39% support and an identical 39% oppose, with 22% undecided. The support has decreased almost entirely because of Republicans. They used to favor Prop. 93, and as they've become more aware, they've switched to opposing it. Independents will be the crucial swing vote, and they too split evenly between favoring and opposing. Absentee voters are dead even, too, so neither side has a lot of votes banked.

What's really interesting is the question that says, "Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is advocating a yes vote on the term limits reform initiative (does/did) Governor Schwarzenegger's support of Prop. 93 make you more inclined to vote yes, less inclined to vote yes or (have/had) no effect on your vote?" 11% say it makes them more inclined, 9% says less, and a whopping 63% say it has no effect. Wow. I was hinting that Arnold wouldn't much matter on this legislative question but now we have some data.

On the tribal gaming agreements, Props. 94-97, 42% support and 37% oppose. When the question is just asked "Do you favor more or less slot machines at Indian casinos," 42% support and 43% oppose. So the agreements are in trouble, too.

I do think it's still a toss-up. Democrats and perhaps indies are going to get a lot of mail in favor of the measure. But the rule of thumb is that an initiative needs to be more out in front right now. Same with 94-97.

"I Really Want Some Of Those Guys To Stay."

When Arnold Schwarzenegger endorsed Prop. 93, some considered it the result of some deal on health care or some other quid pro quo. I thought it was much simpler than that.

Schwarzenegger has a good working relationship with Fabian Nuñez and Don Perata. He for the most part gets what he wants out of that relationship. Why would he want to change it for his last two years in office? The pessimist's view would be "Why would he want to housebreak someone else when these two are already housebroken?" The optimist's view is "He's moving forward on his agenda, why rock the boat?"

Arnold has now confirmed this, by the way.

Schwarzenegger said he has developed a "trust" with sitting legislative leaders and hopes to continue to work with them. The governor said he felt a loss when former Senate leader John Burton was termed out of the Legislature.

"I just got this groove going with this guy and we got to understanding each other and all of a sudden he's being ripped away," Schwarzenegger said.

The governor said he and current lawmakers would be better able to tackle major issues facing the state, from the budget crisis to the state's need for $500 billion worth of infrastructure improvements.

Besides, he said, "I really want some of those guys to stay."

It's a selfish view from the standpoint of Schwarzenegger (should the governor really be picking the majority leaders in the opposite party?), but perfectly coherent. He wants to continue the working relationship. In the short term, it's up to the voters to decide if that working relationship is good for California. I think the sum total of this site could be "Exhibit A," but your mileage may vary.

(As a side note, interesting how this experience vs. change question continues at the state level, no? Of course, we must wonder about the right kind or the wrong kind of experience.)

UPDATE: George Skelton channels me. And he essentially endorses Arnold's take. As I said, your mileage may vary.

Arnold Jumps Aboard The Prop. 93 Train

Well that's... interesting.

oftening his past opposition to changes to California's term-limits law, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is endorsing a February ballot measure that would allow many sitting lawmakers to run for office again this year rather than be forced to leave the Legislature.

Schwarzenegger, who as a candidate in 2003 supported California's existing term-limits law as a shield against "special interests" obtaining too much power, reversed himself in an essay released today that said the original law "went too far."

"Under the current system, our elected officials are not given the time they need to reach their full potential as public servants," Schwarzenegger wrote in an essay to be published in The Times on Tuesday. "Imagine what would happen if we told a big-city police chief or a sheriff he could stay in the job just long enough to start mastering it and then had to move on."

The op-ed announcing the endorsement is here, and it amusingly includes the line "It takes time to learn how to govern effectively." You said it, Arnold, not me. Also, considering you're in your fifth year, what's your excuse?

The No on 93 campaign is kind of freaking out about this, calling it the result of a "deal on healthcare." Obviously, they're a bit scared. This will help the Yes campaign, though I don't think it's decisive. But Schwarzenegger remains popular, particularly among low-information voters, and in what will be a relatively high-turnout election, his endorsement will certainly be an aid.

California Initiative Update

I just saw the first ad for Yes on 93 on cable; you can view it here. The No on 93 folks also have a couple ads cut; they're available here.

Unfortunately, it's going to be very hard for both sides to get their message out. Not only are we going to start seeing at least some resources from the Presidential candidates at some point, but the tribal gaming initiatives are due to swamp every other ballot measure and take all of the oxygen out of the room. I'm already sick of their ads.

On Friday, the Pechanga Band of Temecula, one of the big four tribes who stand to gain from passage of Propositions 94 to 97 and 17,000 new slot machines, contributed $30.8 million in support of these propositions. This brings the total to the yes on 94-97 campaign to $68 million dollars, dwarfing not only the amount raised by opponents who seek to overturn the legislature’s approval of the slot machine compacts. But all contributions made on the other ballot measures being considered February 5, 2008—including term limits.

This may be only the beginning of money spent, almost exclusively by the tribes on the yes side.

The second largest amount of money on ballot propositions in this cycle is on the “no” side of the Prop 94-97 gambling propositions, and most of it also comes from tribes—those who are not part of the arrangement with the four tribes. At least $11.5 million of the opposition funding comes from “Tribes for Fair Play” out of what appears to be $28 million raised in opposition. There is substantial money— millions each from race tracks and labor that make up the balance. A significant portion of the money raised by opponents was spent on qualifying the four referenda for the ballot.

Russo moved the number down to $54.5 million after further study. But that's still at least five times of what any other proposition has.

So it's unclear who this helps, but to the extent that people are thinking about the ballot initiatives at the polls, it won't be Props. 92 or 93, it seems.

One-Sided Negotiations

Boy, if you managed to stumble upon pages M8 and M9 of Sunday's LA Times yesterday, you sure picked up a great deal of information. On M8 was my Calitics buddy Robert's excellent critique of the Times' coverage of tax policy. And on M9 was a column by Anthony York of Capitol Weekly, which seeks to explain why legislative Democrats appear to be negotiating with themselves on health care reform. We learn that the Governor is basically holding his endorsement of Prop. 93 hostage in exchange for getting his way on health care.

Nuñez is scheduled to be termed out of the Assembly in November. If Proposition 93 passes, however, he could serve in the Assembly -- and presumably as speaker -- for six more years. If the measure fails, Nuñez would immediately become a lame-duck speaker, and talk of a successor would begin Feb. 6.

That's why he desperately needs Schwarzenegger's endorsement of Proposition 93. Most observers believe that voters will defeat the measure if it lacks the governor's seal of approval.

But Schwarzenegger's support comes at a price. The governor has consistently used Nuñez's desire to change the term-limits law as leverage in his negotiations with the speaker about healthcare reform, and it seems to be paying off.

We all suspected this was the case, but this appears to be more informed than opinion. So now we have a negotiation that's going to affect millions of Californians being predicated on the political career of one man. Nuñez is completely compromised, not only by needing to get a legislative victory to tout to the electorate, but by receiving the Schwarzenegger endorsement. Personally, I'm unconvinced that his endorsement is such a slam-dunk; it sure wasn't in 2005.

We see the direction that the negotiations have taken. First the Democrats were fully opposed to an individual mandate. Then they agreed to a mandate with cost controls (exemptions if coverage costs more than 6.5% of income). Then they'll drop that number. First the plan was that businesses would pay 8% in fees; then it became a sliding scale up to 6%; then it'll be down to 4, or 3, or really whatever the Governor wants. This is no way to negotiate. The Governor has absolutely no reason to budge off his numbers.

The Governor clearly cares about leaving a legacy on healthcare reform, and a smart negotiating strategy would tie that legacy to specifics that could not be compromised. But that's clearly not how it's being waged. And York even explains how a savvy negotiator could turn this right around.

If a (health care funding) plan ends up on the ballot, it would be a tough sell. All previous healthcare initiatives have been defeated. And with current budget forecasts for 2008 putting the revenue shortfall at $10 billion, an expensive reform plan -- some estimates put the price tag at $12 billion -- would face even more trouble. To win passage, Schwarzenegger will need help from unions and Nuñez. But if Proposition 93 fails in February, the lame-duck Nuñez could be ousted as speaker, losing his bully pulpit to campaign for reform.That would leave Republican Schwarzenegger as the face of a campaign relying heavily on unions and other Democratic-friendly groups while confronting stiff opposition from many business groups.

The Governor actually needs the Legislature as much as the Legislature needs the Governor. But that's not how the battle is being fought, because the Democrats have decided to put themselves in a position of weakness.

Prop 93: Prison Guards Reverse Themselves

(This is about the term-limits initiative hitting the state ballot in February. First in a series)

Unexpected, at least to me:

The state correctional officers union on Friday reversed its earlier support of the Proposition 93 term-limits initiative and is promising to "put in as much as it takes" to help defeat the measure championed by Democratic Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez of Los Angeles.

"We haven't determined the overall number yet, but we have not been shy in the past in spending money on causes we believe in," said Lance Corcoran, the spokesman for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association. "We're going to put in as much as it takes." [...]

In a prepared statement, CCPOA President Mike Jimenez said the union had changed its position because of the Legislature's failure to connect the term-limits measure to another proposal that would change the state's process for redrawing political boundaries.

Jimenez also ripped the Legislature's performance in the most recent session as "remarkable for the leadership's failures -- not its accomplishments -- on a wide range of issues."

I look forward to seeing angry screeds about what awful people the prison guards are on the California Majority Report. I'm guessing this is about that awful cave to Arnold on trying to build our way out of the prison crisis. Maybe if the Legislature showed a little leadership, they'd be getting some help in their incumbency-protection racket.

Horrible Numbers For Re-Animated Dirty Tricks

While the turnout model for a June non-Presidential primary is unknown, this should cheer people who don't want to see California's electoral votes stolen by an unbalanced dirty trick.

When voters are read the title and summary of the proposed initiative, a solid majority opposes the measure - 53 percent would vote NO if the election were held today and only one out of five voters (22%) support the initiative while a quarter of the electorate (25%) is currently undecided. This is one of the lowest levels of support we have ever seen in our polling for a statewide initiative in California.

It doesn't sound like this is a tilted poll designed to get a certain result. It sounds like the months of harping on this both through the netroots and in the media are having an impact. They may yet get this dud on the ballot, but we'll crush it on Election Day.

Of course, we wouldn't even be talking about this if it weren't for the splitting of the primary races allowing for a low-turnout election in the middle of the summer to be an inviting target for Republican dirty tricksters. The real reason for moving up the Presidential primary was not just to keep up with the Joneses and "make California heard" in the Presidential process - if that was the goal they're failing miserably - was to ensure that termed-out lawmakers could serve again in the Legislature, by putting the term limits change on the February ballot in time for them all to run again in June. And now that initiative is starting to falter. So the Legislature created the conditions for any number of pernicious Republican ballot measures because they wanted to stay in power - and now they may not even accomplish that.

The Nuñez Camp Pushes Back

Fabian Nuñez' spokesman came back from his Tuscan villa (I'm not making that up), and they all realized that they had to go after this growing story hard and push it back, so over the past two days they did. And they've regained their footing, so to speak.

But that's an argument about how he's handling the story. That has nothing to do about the essential veracity of it, or whether it's wholly necessary for the Speaker to accept every single invitation from a European who asks him to show up at their event, or whether it's respectful to say "I don't live differently from middle class Americans" when he has a giant loft downtown and a house in Sacto with over $8,000 a month mortgages between them, etc. The question is whether or not the trips are ethical and whether or not they are necessary.

Politically speaking, the facts are extremely simple. There's a major ballot measure on term limits coming up, and those opposed to it know they don't have as much money, and they can't win unless they go hard negative, so they did. Perata's got a rap sheet a mile long, so they had to knock the other guy that stood to benefit, a squeaky clean guy, off his perch. Only he wasn't all that clean before and he really isn't now. Now they're blowing it all out of proportion, demanding that the Speaker's wife release her list of clients and tax forms and really stupid stuff.

But initially, this didn't start as a smear campaign. People bothered to read public disclosure forms. And what they saw didn't make them particularly happy about how their government works. Now, the Speaker has offered that changes in California's campaign finance laws might be in order. 'Course, he's been saying we need redistricting for approximately the last 4 years in a row.

Here's the key quote:

"I think in the end what people need to understand is this: Every campaign expenditure that I have made either has a governmental purpose attached to it or a political purpose attached to it."

How's that different from "I think what people need to understand is that we do not torture"? There's no explanation beyond an assertion. And there's an explicit refusal to detail various expenditures beyond saying they have a purpose.

I see no reason to trust either side of this debate right now. I have little use for insider pols flattered by Europeans so much that they have to run over there every other week. "Trade missions" is a euphemism. They're junkets. Everyone knows it and they won't say it.

And by the way, the only one playing the race card in this whole thing is Fabian Nuñez:

Núñez also apologizes for saying the Times "tries to destroy important people including Hispanics," in an interview to air Sunday morning on "News Conference."

The largest criticism I've seen about this story has been on Latino blogs. It's absurd to suggest that this is about someone being Hispanic. It's about someone taking what he's given. I'm sure he sees nothing wrong with that because he believes it furthers the interests of California. I think it furthers the interests of Fabian Nuñez.

Fabian Nuñez Royally Screwed The Party

It really pisses me off that the Speaker has put himself and the Party in this position. $4 million dollars out of that "Friends of Fabian Nuñez" jet-setting travel fund came directly from the party. And now, the allegations in the LA Times have led to a formal complaint with the state's Fair Political Practices Comission for using campaign funds for personal expenses. I'm putting the text of the complaint here.

This is playing out in the context of February's term limits initiative, and indeed the complaint was filed by the executive director of the "CA Term Limits Defense Fund." But again, that doesn't make it false. Nuñez' reticence to provide some more disclosure in this case is DIRECTLY hurting party-building efforts. This is the Democratic poster child, now? A party that consolidates political power to the degree that Democrats have in this state always runs the risk of dragging themselves into a morass of corruption. This is an outgrowth of insiderism and a centralized target for special interests. Maybe it's good that this is happening, as it gives Democrats a chance to demand accountability and new leadership. But for the moment, it sucks.

UPDATE: The LA Times nails it. This is a full-fledged scandal now.

Nuñez still has no legitimate reason to keep from Californians just why, and on whom, he spent all that money. The fact that his staggering travel bills weren't paid by taxpayers does not end the discussion. He was on public time, even if not the public dime, and is living a tycoon's lifestyle only because his position as speaker makes him valuable to contributors who want to sway him. It's troubling enough that special interests are paying his bills. It's worse when he wants the public to simply trust, without explanation, that his $3,199 stay at the Hotel Parco in Rome had some nexus to his official duties.

The speaker asserted that he wouldn't have to rely on his $5.3-million "Friends of Fabian Nuñez" campaign account if he were independently wealthy. That's a non sequitur. If his expenditures were in fact related to legislative purposes, he wouldn't pay them out of his own pocket anyway, so it would make no difference if he were as rich as, say, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger [...]

By providing details on his expenditures, the speaker can put an end to speculation that his actions were anything other than in the best interests of California. Failure to do that simply enhances the perception that the Legislature is working for shadowy special interests who can afford to gather in France around an expensive bottle of Bordeaux.

The Hardening Narrative on Nuñez And Its Implications

Steve Lopez takes his whacks today.

"There's not too big a difference," Nuñez told Vogel, "between how I live and how most middle-class people live."

Hands down, it's the quote of the year.

I'm not sure what middle-class people Nuñez is talking about, but I'm worried that he's spending entirely too much time with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Could the speaker be talking about Brentwood's middle-class?

That's the kind of quote that haunts people throughout their political career. And Lopez connects it to fears of buying access that should worry all of us, especially in light of the special session.

It's the democracy we've all been waiting for in Sacramento. Gulfstreams, Louis Vuitton office supplies and nose-thumbing responses to inquiring constituents.

Given Nuñez's refusal to explain the specific purpose of his travels, Carmen Balber of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights is biting her nails, hoping Nuñez wasn't sampling fine wine with players who have pumped $5.3 million into the "Friends of Fabian Nuñez" campaign kitty.

"The first question that comes to mind is whether the health insurance industry was sponsoring the speaker's lavish trips, as he's now debating the future of the health market in California," Balber said.

She notes that Nuñez's travel fund has received $136,000 from health insurers and their lobbyists. And Nuñez is working with Schwarzenegger ($719,000 and counting from health insurers and their lobbies) on a health insurance reform bill that would require every Californian to buy coverage, but wouldn't require insurers to cap the cost.

Certainly the insurers would love to raise a fine bottle of red to the passage of such a bill, and Nuñez has been known to pop the cork on crushed grapes that run as high as $224 a bottle.

I think we have to look at the root causes of something like this. I believe it directly comes out of a static Democratic Party, with its extreme gerrymandering and zealous antipathy to primaries. Matt Stoller has an incredible post today about the broken market for Democratic primaries, and I think it's directly relatable to what we're seeing in California.

Let's go through why primaries are essential vehicles.

One, primaries create tremendous efficiencies for activists, concerned citizens, and outside groups. Spending inordinate amounts of time calling and writing Democratic members of Congress or advertising to get their attention, all to get them to do what they should be doing anyway is incredibly costly, and is a direct result of a lack of real political costs to bad faith actions that would be imposed by a healthy series of primary challenges. The lack of primaries is in effect a tremendous negative feedback loop for activism, dampening all of our focused energy as a piece of insulation does summer heat.

Two, democracy is a core Democratic value. The right to vote, and have that vote counted, is meaningful because it allows citizens to generate buy-in to their civic structures. This is as true within a party as it is within a country (and as true within a union, club, corporation, or church). It's no accident that the Democratic Party gained tens of thousands of new registrants in 2006 in Connecticut. Democratic structures make our party and our country stronger, whether that's by generating Democratic volunteer or donor lists in a hot primary that can be moved over to a general election or letting a festering intraparty fight get resolved by putting it to the voters.

Three, a lack of primaries disenfranchises Democratic voters. John Tanner, who has not faced a real race in years, or Lynn Woolsey, simply do not have to represent their constituents. They may choose to do so, but they do not have to. And their constituents have no recourse. Their constituents are cut out. In that case, why be a Democrat? Why volunteer for Democrats, or donate if the party itself isn't democratic?

Four, primaries are a check on calcification and corruption within the party. The only way to keep Congressional representatives responsive to party activists and voters and not corrupted by their control of the party is to have regular mechanisms for feedback by activists and voters. Joe Biden obviously should be challenged for his Senate seat in 2008, but it's not likely to happen, and this was true for Tom Carper and Dianne Feinstein in 2006.

All of these are key elements of the situation we're seeing in California. It's hard to keep activism high when the legislature in Sacramento seems like such a closed system, even to rank-and-file legislators. We have a Big Five and a Little One Hundred And Sixteen, and this is a discouraging development. There is also no excitement generated by Democrats throughout the state, no opportunities for registering new voters and bringing new ideas to the process. The legislators have little belief that they can be beaten once they first get elected, so they don't feel any need to respect the wishes of their constituents. And the end result is a calcified Democratic Party with a shrinking base, which has ceded much of the inland areas in the state and is concerned primarily with holding on to their fiefdoms. Plus, the opportunities for corruption and ethical lapses, as we see in this case, are amplified.

This is obviously a drastic reading of what goes on in the state. We have decent majorities and have passed some praiseworthy policies in recent years. But the ability to go further and do more is always suppressed, and political power is centralized among a select few. Just as there is a narrow establishment class in Washington that discourages inter-party debate and primary efforts, the same class exists in California, as the establishment appears to abhor the idea of even growing the majority by competing in "red" areas, let alone taking a hard look at the seats under Democratic control to judge whether there is an effective legislator working to advance our interests and values. This is not about purging the party and shrinking the tent, this is about saving the party from itself, as they are shrinking their own tent and dampening activism. The demographics are working for the party in many ways, but also against the party, as job growth moves inland into fast-growing areas like Riverside and Ontario in the south, and districts like CA-11 up north.

We are squandering an opportunity to build a strong legislative majority that can move forward real change by investing power in the hands of an unaccountable few and watching idly as they are tempted by powerful interests to use that power to do little more than protect the status quo. One of the few ways to change this paradigm is to support any efforts to make strong challenges in the primaries to hold these power brokers accountable. Another is to take a long look at the effort to entrench power further by changing the term limit law in a way to keep the leadership in charge for another 6-8 years. Regardless of whether or not you agree with term limits as an abstract concept, you have to ask yourself if it's advisable to create a situation that would again centralize power, calcify the party leadership and reduce efforts for real change.

(Obviously, meaningful campaign finance reform, which would remove the money barrier to contested primaries, is a great vehicle to kick-start this process.)

Just A Hardworking Guy From The Labor Movement

Somehow I think the Speaker's Office won't be too happy with this LA Times profile.

SACRAMENTO -- As leader of the California Assembly, Speaker Fabian Nuñez has traveled the world in luxury, paying with campaign funds for visits to some of the finest hotels and restaurants and for purchases at high-end retailers such as Louis Vuitton in Paris.

It is not clear how these activities have related to legislative business, as state law requires, because the Los Angeles Democrat refuses to provide details on tens of thousands of dollars in such expenditures.

The spending, listed in mandatory filings with the state, includes $47,412 on United, Lufthansa and Air France airlines this year; $8,745 at the exclusive Hotel Arts in Barcelona, Spain; $5,149 for a "meeting" at Cave L'Avant Garde, a wine seller in the Bordeaux region of France; a total of $2,562 for two "office expenses" at Vuitton, two years apart; and $1,795 for a "meeting" at Le Grand Colbert, a venerable Parisian restaurant.

Nuñez also spent $2,934 at Colosseum Travel in Rome, and paid $505 to the European airline Spanair.

Other expenses are closer to home: a $1,715 meeting at Asia de Cuba restaurant in West Hollywood; a $317 purchase at upscale Pavilion Salon Shoes in Sacramento; a $2,428 meeting at 58 Degrees and Holding, a Sacramento wine bar and bistro; and $800 spent at Dollar Rent a Car in Kihei, Hawaii.

The Speaker characterized these expenses as "not only justified but necessary for the decisions I need to make on a daily basis." And the evidence for that was... well, his say-so, having refused to supply the Times with any specifics. Fine by me, right, Isn't the word of a politician good enough? It does give pause, however, that Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata's expenses include no overseas travel for the last three years. But hey, they're in entirely different chambers of the same legislature, right?

Look, I've been to Asia de Cuba and managed to keep the check down to $250 or so, but I don't know how many were in Nuñez' party. Plus I was paying for it myself instead of out of my campaign kitty, so I guess I had more of a frugality incentive.

I will point out that this is an insulting and insensitive statement:

In the interview, Nuñez said he wouldn't need to use his $5.3-million "Friends of Fabian Nuñez" campaign account to offset travel costs if he were independently wealthy. The speaker's job pays $130,062 a year plus a tax-free $170 for expenses each day the Assembly is in session.

"There's not too big a difference," he said, "between how I live and how most middle-class people live."

What's the average salary of those who live in his district, which includes downtown LA, Boyle Heights, Maywood and Huntington Park? I don't think it's $130,000. That's an amazingly out-of-touch statement, especially in light of these revelations.

You can see a graphic of the expenditures here.

All I'll say is that I will not be nominating Speaker Nuñez for the Calitics ActBlue list, as he doesn't appear to need the money.

(and yes, the story is a term limits-related hit piece, but that doesn't exactly make it false)

Redistricting Looks Dead, Too

Arnold Schwarzenegger's official call for a special session covered the topics of health care and water, but not redistricting, as was suspected earlier. So, with no bill coming from the legislature yesterday either, redistricting is apparently dead for this legislative session. The major players appeared to agree on the broad principles of a reform, but the devil was in the details, specifically the makeup of the independent redistricting commission and whether Congressional districts should be included in that redistricting (Nancy Pelosi says a big no to that one). Dan Walters explains how this proposal's absence from the February ballot may impact the other major initiative on it:

Democratic leaders, it's evident, are mainly interested in persuading voters to modify term limits via a measure on the Feb. 5 primary election ballot and entertained redistricting reform only because Schwarzenegger, a longtime advocate of reform, indicated that he would not support, and perhaps oppose, the term limit measure were it not accompanied by a redistricting measure [...]

The decision to abandon reform may be good news for those who didn't want it, including Pelosi and most Democratic Party interest groups, but it may also make it more difficult for those same interests to persuade voters to change term limits because it raises the possibility of opposition from the popular governor.

Schwarzenegger was noncommittal Tuesday about what position he would take on changing term limits but it's highly unlikely that he'll endorse the measure, and he may oppose it. And with polls indicating that voters are somewhat ambivalent on term limit modification, Schwarzenegger's position could be critical to the outcome.

I don't totally buy that Schwarzenegger is a kingmaker in the initiative process - how did he do in 2005 - but clearly his opposition wouldn't help. I can't see him ACTIVELY campaigning against it, however, especially with his former advisor Matthew Dowd on the term limits reform team.

I remain skeptical that redrawing districts with any geographic specificity would change the partisan makeup of those districts in any meaningful way. People self-segregate and the broad changes in regions happen because of demographic shifts, not boundary-drawing. It's notable that the vaunted Texas redistricting "scheme" (which actually was correcting an earlier gerrymander) has produced just half the results that were expected.

Perata declined to take up the issue in a special session because it's not an urgent issue. He's right. In fact it would be dysfunctional to use 2000-era data to redraw districts in 2008. This should be taken up with a new governor after a new Census in 2010. And Pelosi shouldn't be so stubborn - many of her compadres don't need a 70% cushion in their districts, and furthermore it would be impossible to make places like the Bay Area or Lo Angeles vulnerable. Plus it's symbolically good for democracy not to have the legislators pick their voters.

Report: Term Limits Initiative Fails To Gather Enough Signatures, Will Miss February Ballot

The Flash Report had a Drudge-like breaking news item up last night that the term limits initiative scheduled for the February ballot was going to miss the number of required signatures needed to qualify. We've been calling around, and apparently this is pretty accurate. It's totally unconfirmed, and the Secretary of State can go to a hand count to see if they reached the requisite number. But right now, it's not looking good; a LOT of the signatures have been invalidated.

I'm honestly astonished. I thought you could accidentally gather enough signatures to get something on the ballot in California. I'm not sure where the ball was dropped here.

They can try again to make this term limits shift for the June ballot. But if they can't qualify for February, many current incumbents whose length of service would stretch due to the provisions of the initiative would end up termed out. This includes Speaker Nuñez and President Pro Tem Perata. I'd like to get a full list of the implications of this, but that won't happen right now. (ortcutt?)

This will make it easier for challengers to decide to run, so we'll see the June primary process take shape quickly if this works out this way. Quite a turn of events.

(The other question is, what happens to all the money horded for this initiative? I know a certain dirty trick that needs fighting...)