Proposition 25: Legislators Must Police Themselves?

Back in June 2010 California voters passed Proposition 25. That measure, named the "Majority Vote for the Legislature to Pass the Budget Act," lowered the threshold required to pass a budget from two-thirds of both state legislative houses to a simple majority of both houses.

But the initiative did more than that: It also stated that if lawmakers do not pass a budget on time they will not get paid until they do successfully do. Politically, it was smart move to sell the measure to the public by saying something like, "legislators shouldn't get paid if they don't do their jobs." That's true, but that little provision was really just there to sweeten the deal.

As it turned out in the summer of 2011, lawmakers did not pass a balanced budget on time after Governor Jerry Brown vetoed their initial plan. State Controller John Chiang, relying on Proposition 25, then stopped paying legislators' salaries. All told they lost less than two weeks of pay.

In an unwise public relations move, legislators sued, claiming that Chiang did not have the authority to stop legislators from being paid and a Sacramento Superior Court judge tentatively agreed last week. In essence the ruling said it is legislators who have the authority to stop pay, not the State Controller. Based on a separation of powers issue that may well be the correct legal decision, it is hard to imagine that the voters thought legislators would be policing themselves when they voted for this initiative.

Finish reading this post on KCET.org. 

L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa: The Next U.S. Secretary of Transportation?

Last Wednesday when Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa delivered his state of the city address he largely avoided the main topic facing the city: the budget. That came on Friday in the unveiling of his budget, which included a proposal with significant layoffs.

The mayor's speech focused on transportation, and what may be his key achievement, the passage of Measure R. That measure, passed in 2008, includes a temporary half-cent sales tax slated to expire in 2039. It pays for transportation infrastructure throughout Los Angeles County. The tax, for instance, pays the construction and expansion of the region's rail system and maintenance of the highways. All of that work creates over 400,000 new jobs.

Now the mayor is pushing to eliminate the sunset provision of Measure R. That would make the tax increase permanent.

Beyond Measure R, the mayor also focused on America Fast Forward, a bill that would create a loan program from the federal government to local entities and agencies constructing roads and rails. The plan is in the transportation bills awaiting passage in the House and the Senate.

Finish reading this post on KCET.org. 

Campaign Contributions: What Are They Good For?

Do you know who your L.A. County Supervisor is? Most people don't. These little known elected officials wield an enormous amount of power, controlling the nation's largest local government.

In Los Angeles County we have five members of the Board of Supervisors. These five individuals represent portions of our 10 million-person county. The number of people residing in one district outnumbers the number of people who live in more than a dozen small states. These powerful politicians face little competition in elections. Incumbents are rarely challenged. It has been more than three decades since an incumbent lost.

So if incumbents face little, if any, competition at the ballot box, do they nonetheless raise campaign funds?

The answer is a resounding yes. One purpose, the main purpose, of raising campaign funds is to allow candidates to effectively advocate for themselves. Put another way, the idea is that campaign money allows candidates to get their messages to the voters.

But members of the board of supervisors have little need to persuade voters to vote for them, they have no challengers. Yet they -- in particular Don Knabe, Michael D. Antonovich and Mark Ridley-Thomas -- are amassing large campaign war chests, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Who gives campaign contributions to candidates all but guaranteed to win? Not surprisingly those who have business before the county. Knabe, who is running unopposed, has raised more then $350,000 from developers, contractors, and builders, among others. Antonovich has also raised more than $350,000, and much of this campaign cash similarly came from developers and contractors. Ridley-Thomas has outraised both Knabe and Antonovich, raking in almost $450,000.

Should Political Bloggers Have to Disclose Payments From a Campaign?

If you are reading this post, then you, like me, may get most of your political information online. You may also have a number of favorite political bloggers. You may appreciate their voice, perspective, point of view, or just find them entertaining.

Most of my favorite bloggers have a particular perspective, and it is rarely hidden. I neither expect nor crave blogs devoid of opinion.

You, like me, may know a little background on your preferred bloggers. It helps me to evaluate how much weight or credibility I will give to a certain argument to know, as we say, where the author is coming from. What I likely don't know, however, is whether that blogger is paid by a political campaign. Ann Ravel, Chairwoman of the Fair Political Practices Commission, the state's political watchdog agency, would like to change that.

If Ravel's proposal becomes law then California would become the first state to provide such information to the public.

The freedom of the expression is one of the most important, if not the most important, right enumerated in the United States Constitution. With very few exceptions, people should be able to say whatever they want, and the public should be able to listen to whomever they want. The same is true, with equal or greater force, for members of the press, whose function is to provide information to the public. A government that censors political speech by some speakers would and should be repugnant to our sensibilities.

However, this proposal does not limit the amount of information the people can disseminate or the public could receive. Rather it would just tell us something about who is speaking, thus providing the public with more information.

Finish reading this article on KCET.org. 

We the Corporations?

This post originally appeared in the Los Angeles Daily Journal. You can read the entire post by clicking here.

While the Republican presidential nominee and the ultimate victors of contests throughout the nation may be unknown, one thing is clear: the 2012 election will break campaign fundraising records. This is the first presidential election since the Supreme Court's fateful decision in Citizens United v. FEC. Since that decision, there has been a proliferation of campaign spending, most notably by so-called "Super PAC" organizations. These are independent-expenditure only political committees. Republican-backed Super PACs have already raised $81 million to date this election cycle. (Interestingly, only 17 individuals account for contributing nearly half of that amount to Super PACs.) Because of regulations promulgated under the internal revenue service, contributions by certain non-profit organizations to these Super PACs can remain undisclosed, and therefore hidden from public view.

So how did we get to this place of largely anonymous, largely unlimited campaign spending? The Court's decision in Citizens United, while surprisingly incremental in some ways, opened the doors for the record-breaking spending we are now seeing. In Citizens United, the Court essentially came to two conclusions. First, the Court said that speaker-based identity restrictions are impermissible. This means that if a restriction cannot be validly imposed on an individual, then it similarly cannot be imposed on a corporation. Second, the Court found that independent expenditures are not corrupting. So go ahead and spend $100 million in support of your favorite candidate (or against that candidate's opponent). As long as your expenditure is "independent" it cannot corrupt, according to our nation's highest court.

Although it may seem abundantly obvious, there are a number of reasons why for-profit corporations - artificial entities made up of individuals - should not be treated as the same as individuals in the campaign finance context. While certain non-profit corporations are essentially voluntary political associations, and therefore restricting their speech raises important political expression and association concerns, the same is not true of for-profit corporations.

Most campaign finance restrictions present First Amendment questions that ask the Court to analyze the speaker's interest in spending money, the public's interest in hearing campaign speech, and the government's interest in restricting the speaker from spending that money. In the case of corporate electoral speech, the interests of each of these groups weigh in favor of restrictions. In addition, the interests of another group, which the Court routinely discounts - those who speak but not by spending money - also favors regulation.

Political Watchdog Agency Steps into Mountain Lion Kill Controversy

This is a tale of the many dangers of mountain lion hunting -- kind of. Okay; not really, but how often do I get to use the phrase "mountain lion hunting" in the first line of blog posts about California governance and politics?
Recently Dan Richards, the head of the Fish and Game Commission, apparently did what one would expect the head of that commission to do: go hunting. Richards did what hunters do best; he killed an animal. And not just any animal, a mountain lion.

"But isn't that illegal in California?" you may ask. Well, yes, informed reader, it is. However, it is legal in Idaho where Richards' hunting expedition occurred.

How did Richards get to Idaho? Who paid to get him there? Well, now we get to the part of our tale that leads us back to the main topic of my posts: governance and politics. Richards received the guided hunting trip as a gift. The gift was apparently worth almost $7,000. Richards has since paid for the cost of the trip, a decision that seemed to coincide with media coverage concerning his controversial excursion. His decision also came after a complaint was filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC), California's political watchdog agency.

Finish reading this post on KCET.org.

Saving L.A.'s City Budget: More Taxes or Bankruptcy?

Last week Miguel Santana, Los Angeles' Chief Administrative Officer (i.e. our city's budget honcho), issued a report about the state of the city's finances. The city currently has a $222 million budget deficit. That number is only expected to increase in the next few years.

The report painted a dismal picture: While revenues have fallen, costs -- specifically costs of paying employees -- have not.

The city has cut close to 5,000 jobs in recent years, but it is still living beyond its means. The question is how the city will pay the bills. The report recommends taxes, potential layoffs, and farming out certain city services (like management of the zoo and the convention center) to private companies. An unsurprisingly contentious proposal suggests that we study different ways to provide for ambulance transport in the city. Read this as meaning different ways of hiring private companies. Currently the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) provides such services. Four out of five calls to the LAFD are for medical emergencies. Would this be a smart economic move or a public health tragedy?

Finish reading this post on KCET.org.

Should Victims of Kinde Durkee be Able to Raise Money From Maxed-Out Donors?

Here is one of my recent posts on KCET.org

Last week disgraced Democratic campaign treasurer Kinde Durkee pleaded guilty to defrauding California politicians out of approximately $7 million. Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein lost over $4.5 million in campaign funds.

Feinstein wants to go back to the original donors to replace her lost funds. The problem is that many of these donors have already made campaign contributions to Feinstein of $2,500, the maximum legal limit. Even for those donors who have not maxed out on their contributions, this poses a problem for Feinstein. If a donor gave $2,000, the most they can now contribute is $500.

In a draft opinion issued by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) last week the federal agency signaled that it would reject that request. The agency will vote on Thursday regarding Feinstein's request.

Feinstein is not only heavily favored to win the election, but she was also able to loan her campaign $5 million after the Durkee scandal broke. What if that was not the case? What if we were talking about a candidate in a competitive race without the personal resources to loan her campaign money? Should that candidate be able to go back to original donors?

Finish reading the post.

"New ballot to greet voters in state's June primary"

I am quoted in this article in the SF Chronicle by Wyatt Buchanan regarding open primaries.

Another likely impact is more hotly contested general elections, said Jessica Levinson, a visiting associate clinical professor at Loyola Law School who is involved in political reform work. That's because districts with high numbers of people registered to one party could see two candidates from that party duke it out in November.

"Whereas before it was clearly going to be the Republican or Democrat who walks to victory after the primary, now I think ... there will be a real dogfight in the general," she said.

We the Corporations?

Here is an except of an OpEd that I authored, which ran on 4/4/12 in the Daily Journal. 

While the Republican presidential nominee and the ultimate victors of contests throughout the nation may be unknown, one thing is clear: the 2012 election will break campaign fundraising records. This is the first presidential election since the Supreme Court's fateful decision in Citizens United v. FEC. Since that decision, there has been a proliferation of campaign spending, most notably by so-called "Super PAC" organizations. These are independent-expenditure only political committees. Republican-backed Super PACs have already raised $81 million to date this election cycle. (Interestingly, only 17 individuals account for contributing nearly half of that amount to Super PACs.) Because of regulations promulgated under the internal revenue service, contributions by certain non-profit organizations to these Super PACs can remain undisclosed, and therefore hidden from public view.  

Prop 28: Will New Term Limits for California Lawmakers Make a Difference?

As regular readers of my commentaries know, I am no fan of term limits. On a basic level I dislike laws that force people out of their jobs for no other reason than that they have held a post for a certain number of years. Do a wonderful job, do a terrible job, it doesn't matter, you're out.
I also think California's term limit law is yet another example of a ballot initiative which succeeded at the ballot box but failed in application. Term limits mean our lawmakers lack experience and seniority and lobbyists increasingly have power over those lawmakers. Lawmakers are also constantly looking for their next job. Term limits don't create citizen legislators; they create a merry-go-round that politicians get on and off depending on when they are termed out.

Term limits have certainly not caused all that ails California, but they surely have done little to help.

Finish reading this article on KCET.org.