The Ghost of Prop. 13 continues...

As the housing slumps continues to worsen, a looming $10 billion state budget deficit awaits the Governor and Legislature.[Link] I wonder, whatever happened to the campaign promise by Governor Schwarzenegger to eliminate the structural deficit problem? It is apparent that this problem still exists:

The analyst said $2.7 billion of the state's reserve fund will be eaten up by lower-than-expected tax revenue through next summer. The state will take an additional $1 billion hit on falling local property taxes from shrinking home prices. Additionally, the state must make up for lower property tax revenue so schools will remain fully funded. [Link]

So now that the Governor is face with projected deficits for the remainder of his term, it will be interesting to see which Arnold Schwarzenegger takes the lead in solving this problem. Is it going to be good Arnold who works on a bipartisan basis to comes up with a solution that includes both taxes increases and budgets cuts, or are we going to see the bad partisan Arnold who is only going to propose budget cuts? Which one will it be?

GOP Dirty Rotten Scoundrel - Dead On Arrival!

The GOP's attempt to steal 20 - 22 of California's 55 electoral votes is going down in flames. Their attempt to "reform" only our great state is a blatant attempt to steal the 2008 presidential election. California, like 47 other states, awards all of its electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the most votes. In the last four elections, all of California's electoral votes have gone to the Democratic nominee.

According to the LA Times, the reasons for the early demise of this ballot initiative are the lack of funds, and the resignation of two of its original backers.

If any similar measure should ever be considered in the future, it must be done across all 47 states. I suggest that we start with Texas and Florida!

Call me cynical, but I don't trust the GOP. If they can't win hearts and minds, they'll cheat! So watch out for their next dirty trick!

Better Luck Next Time...

The LA Times is reporting tonight that the supporters of the scheme to change the way California awards its electoral votes are pulling the plug on their effort to qualify an initiative for the June 2008 election. [Link] So much for the GOPs attempt to game the system here in California.

UPDATE:

Here's the [Link] to the LA Times article this morning detailing the departure of two key consultants from the initiative effort.

Wither San Diego? Part I

Democrats have held the majority in Sacramento for over a decade and in that time; San Diego has not been well served.

With the introduction of term limits, the Speaker’s Office has become a revolving door. The exodus of qualified policy staff, and the state of the Speaker’s Office of Majority Services (SOMS), went from being the “Praetorian Guard” to the Keystone Cops in a rather short period of time.

As such, the thinking among Sacramento Democrats became very short term and cyclical focused on the following question: What do we need to do to maintain the majority and the Speaker for the next cycle?

In this environment, the survival of the status quo became paramount. Thus deal-making takes on an increasing prominent role. Therefore, anyone or any region which could disrupt the current balance of powers needs to be placed in check or gotten out of the way, at least until the next election cycle in over.

As the second largest city in the state, I have wondered why, San Diego is not treated as such in Sacramento. IMHO, here’s one reason: It makes sense for the leadership in Sacramento to marginalize areas like San Diego, San Jose, and the Inland Empire at the expense of promoting Los Angeles and the Bay Area.

The obvious answer is that there are more Democrats in these two areas so they deserve the lion’s share of the spoils. I won’t argue that, but I would challenge the assumption that the other areas should fall by the wayside.

San Jose is bluer than San Diego and the I.E. is wall-to-wall red, which is why I think San Diego deserves attention as the next battleground.

What makes San Diego so special? We are the largest city in California with a Republican mayor. There is a very good chance of a gay Republican being elected to city council and the Republican candidate for State Assembly in the 78th district is a Latino former police chief. In a nutshell, San Diego is in danger of becoming the launching pad for the next generation of Republican statewide candidates.

We need all the help we can get, and this requires Sacramento Democrats to get out of the box they’ve placed themselves into and actually start doing things differently, to challenge Republicans in this area. The standard response is that’s what the party is for.

As a San Diegan who has watched Sacramento air-drop staffers and pour money into the 78th AD over the last three election cycles all to be destroyed by an above average Republican operation, all I can think is that if Sacramento wants to win here, they’re not lacking in resources or money. What they seem to lack is the temerity to try something different.

From a negotiating perspective, I can’t help but think it makes perfect sense to keep San Diego on the outs. So long as San Diegans are fighting for control of their own city and county, they won’t look to the Assembly or State Senate for much. It’s almost as if Sacramento is willing to surrender San Diego and other places like the I.E. as wastes of money in poor campaign operations, while they shore up Democrats in safe seats elsewhere in the state.

So where does this leave those who life in the fastest growing areas of the state? I guess in the hands of the mega-churches, which seem to be the only body doing any outreach of significance.
-TQ

Florida in 2000. Ohio in 2004. California in 2008?

From the folks that brought you the 2003 Recall election, now comes their latest endevor. It is an attempt to reallocate some 20 of California's 55 electoral votes to next year's GOP nominee.

Here is how it works. Quite simply their plan is to place an iniative on the ballot for next June's election. If the iniative passes ... WhamO! Califorinia's winner-take-all system of adwarding of its electoral votes, gets replaced by a new system for awarding electoral votes based on the vote for each of the state's 53 CDs and the remaining 2 electoral votes awarded to the overall winner of the statewide popular vote. How does that sound?

Great ... especially, when you consider that George Bush lost California by over 2 million votes to Al Gore and then as a "wartime president" turned around lost California a second time to John Kerry by 1.2 million. Why try and nominate a candidate that would appeal to a majority of Californians? When you can rely on good 'ol malapportionment to do part of the job for you.

It is bad enough that California has only 55 electoral votes, when you consider that its population is approximately equal to the following states: Connecticut, Iowa, Mississippi, Kansas, Arkansas, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, West Virginia, Nebraska, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, Wyoming and the District of Columbia, which together have 101 electoral votes.

I guess this is what the modern GOP has come to. If you can't disenfranchise voters (i.e. Florida 2000), or rigged the election (i.e. Ohio 2004), then their is always the tried and true way of malapportionment. Well at least we have done away with the 3/5s rule.