“Paper or plastic?”

Or, if you are shopping in California in the near future: “E. Coli cloth or E. Coli compostable?”

More than 60 cities and counties ... continue reading]]> Tweet

“Paper or plastic?”

Or, if you are shopping in California in the near future: “E. Coli cloth or E. Coli compostable?”

More than 60 cities and counties in California – roughly one-seventh and one-third of the Golden State’s municipal districts and population, respectively – have moved swiftly to ban plastic bags in grocery stores. Meanwhile, two statewide bans are maneuvering their way through the Sacramento legislative process. Despite being much ballyhooed legislation for their environmental and, oddly enough, pro-business merits, a closer examination of the statewide single-use bag bans reveals what these laws actually are superfluous, posturing and potentially, dangerous.

In today’s “Spotlight” are AB 158 (Democratic Assemblyman Marc Levine) and SB 405 (Democratic Senator Alex Padilla), which as amended will: a) ban single-use bags starting on January 1, 2015 for large stores and January 1, 2016 for smaller stores; and b) require that reusable bags made available for purchase meet various requirements as certified by the CalRecycle program administered by the state’s Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery.

Much like the various cities and counties who have instituted their own single-use bag bans, Levine and Padilla cite the environmental effects of making and disposing of the roughly 14 billion plastic bags Californians use annually.  The environmental, and more specifically the pollution, argument is not only emotionally charged, but also plays well in the environmentally progressive Golden State.  However, Sen. Padilla has taken the argument one step further by arguing that his legislation is pro-business as it simplifies business compliance – rather than multiple dozens of different ban policies, businesses will only have to comply with one.

There are two problems with this concept: the need isn’t valid, and the changes, if enacted, have unintended yet terrible consequences.

Based on a CalRecycle Statewide Waste Characterization Study, plastic grocery and merchandise bags account for just 0.3% of California’s total waste stream, which is 7% of the total the Senate Environmental Quality Committee suggests.   While proponents point to a 2009 CalRecycle study that shows just 3% of plastic single-use bags are recycled, that study only reviewed recycling in the official sense – i.e., plastic bags at recycling facilities.  This rate completely ignores self-recycling – i.e., the repeated use of plastic bags for reasons other than carrying groceries or merchandise. Just think about how often you re-use plastic bags after returning from your local grocer?

Proponents claim that banning the bags will prevent plastic litter.  Let’s ignore the fact, briefly, that plastic bag waste is actually very small and focus instead on whether a ban actually reduces plastic bag litter.  Litter studies show that plastic bag bans have minimal to no effect at all on the rate of plastic bag litter.  For instance, a year after San Francisco banned single-use bags, plastic bags comprised of 0.64% of the city’s litter, which statistically represents no change from prior to the ban. Finally, evidence of plastic bag ocean debris is highly mixed and inconsistent.  The Senate committee analysis argues that plastics (of which plastic bags is just one element) compose 60% to 80% of marine debris. However, environmental groups claim that plastic bags comprise of just 3%.

The litter and waste argument is just one part of the pollution problem, proponents claim; they also argue that banning plastic bags will reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil.  This is easily dispensed by the fact that the average plastic bag used by an American consumer is made from byproduct from domestic natural gas refinement.  As such, a ban wouldn’t reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil, but would eliminate one method of disposing of potentially hazardous natural gas byproduct.

Perhaps recognizing the environmental argument was flimsy, Sen. Padilla resorted to a different rationale to push his legislation: uniformity. Presently in California, businesses must comply with a piecemeal approach to bans. While at face value this problem makes sense, it actually is vastly overstated.  Megan McArdle’s quip while criticizing a national sales tax (whose proponents give the business compliance simplification argument as well) accurately sums up why the argument isn’t effective: “I mean, sure, hey, there’s all these different rates, but that’s what software is for!”

For large companies like Safeway, the additional marginal cost of this compliance would be minuscule.  For small stores, the likelihood of operating in different municipal zones with different rules is slim – if they do, the plastic bag ban is likely to be the least of their concerns regarding different municipal regulations.  And if Sen. Padilla truly were concerned about business compliance costs, wouldn’t a ban on plastic bag bans be both simpler and more pro-business?

The debate over the ban underscores the idea that legislation that stabs at problems that aren’t really a problem tend to succeed only in creating . . . more problems.  Both AB 158 and SB 405 push for the use of reusable bags, either washable cloth or compostable ones.  Let’s set aside the various regulatory requirements the bill places on the production and sale of such bags – which themselves also largely negate Padilla’s pro-business claims – and focus on the major and potentially dangerous problems these reusable bags create.

In the plainest of words, reusable bags can be disgusting and a public health hazard.

Multiple studies including one that examined reusable bags throughout California and Arizona as well as one that focused just on San Francisco have found extremely unsafe levels of E. coli and other dangerous bacteria living in reusable grocery bags.  For instance, in looking at San Francisco where the ban has been in effect, co-authors Jonathan Klick and Joshua Wright found that reusable bags resulted in a 46% rise in food-borne-illness deaths within San Francisco following the ban’s implementation.

To prevent this dangerous predicament, reusable bag producers recommend that users wash their bags after every use.  But that’s highly unrealistic: the San Francisco study showed that shoppers aren’t in the habit of doing that. And, again, it leads to unintended consequences: additional water consumption and introducing more laundry detergent pollutants to the local ecosystem. In short, the policy fix creates a daunting problem while fixing a non-problem.

Assuming plastic bag consumption does create a valid and noticeable policy problem – a negative social externality – Sacramento does have a more effective and more efficient tool at their disposal: a Pigouvian tax.  Democratic Senator Lois Wolk’s SB 700, which would institute a 5-cent tax per single-use bag with collected funds used for environmental projects, comes very close to a classic Pigouvian tax.  However, to be more effective and again, assuming an actual negative social externality does exist, the California State Legislature should amend SB 700 so that collected tax receipts are only used to clean-up single-use (particularly plastic) bag waste and litter. In its current form, SB 700 is just another tax to fund a pet project that is tangentially related to the perceived negative social externality.

At the end of the day, AB 158 and SB 405 aim to fix problems that are either overstated or invalid and would themselves create serious policy problems that would then require additional legislation.  Legislation for the sake of legislation never solves a policy problem and always creates more headaches – in this case, Sacramento adding more environmental bills to the compost pile.

Check-out the previous “Sacramento Spotlight”: A Cornucopia of Fracking Legislation

Follow Carson Bruno on Twitter: @CarsonJFBruno

This marks the first in a regular series examining legislation introduced by California lawmakers.

At first glance, minimum wage laws are popular concepts.  A recent Reason-Rupe ... continue reading]]> Tweet

This marks the first in a regular series examining legislation introduced by California lawmakers.

At first glance, minimum wage laws are popular concepts.  A recent Reason-Rupe poll found that 66% of Americans favor President Obama’s proposed 24% increase in the federal minimum wage to $9.00 per hour.  This matches the sentiment found in a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll (58% in favor) and a Pew Research Center/USA Today poll (70% in favor).  However, if educated about the effects of such policies, the public’s opinions shift; based on the Reason-Rupe poll (which asked a follow-up question stating one negative unintended consequence of minimum wage laws: employer layoffs), approval of a wage increase dropped to 37%.

In the “Spotlight” is AB 10, authored by Democratic Assemblyman Luis Alejo, which aims to increase California’s $8.00 per hour minimum wage.  The bill has four stages:

1) Increase the minimum wage 3% on January 1, 2014 to $8.25;

2) Increase it by 6% on January 1, 2015 to $8.75;

3) Increase it again by 6% to $9.25 on January 1, 2016, and;

4) Starting on January 1, 2017 (and every January 1^st thereafter), increase the minimum wage by the previous year’s California Consumer Price Index.

AB 10 would allow the California Industrial Welfare Commission to adjust the annual increase more than the California CPI, but would preclude it from decreasing (or increasing) the minimum wage in deflationary years.

Minimum wage laws all have the same intended goal: to reduce poverty. Proponents theorize that minimum wage increases will also boost employee morale thereby increasing business efficiency.  However, despite their initial popularity, such policies continue to fall short.

It isn’t surprising why on the surface such laws are popular. Last fall’s Measure D campaign in San Jose, which raised that city’s minimum wage 25% to $10.00 per hour, used emotional anecdotes to spur support and cast opponents as heartless individuals.  However, while pathos arguments are useful for campaigning, they provide little use in policy analysis.  Instead a logos argument examines the merits of a policy alternative and determines whether it is the best option available.

In order for minimum wage laws to reduce poverty, they must affect those in poverty.  As workers’ data complied by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics show, the predominant individuals represented in minimum wage jobs are teenagers and more broadly, those under the age of 25.  While workers under the age of 25 only make up one-fifth of the hourly-rate national workforce, they account for over half of the minimum wage workers.  Teenagers make up over 21% of the minimum wage workers while hourly rate workers over the age of 25 make up just 3% of minimum wage workers.

There is, also, no major variation in minimum wage workers between the races.  Only 5% of hourly rate African-American, Hispanic, or white workers are employed at or below the minimum wage (3% for Asian).   Minimum wage workers are, on average, teenagers (typically working their first job) and on average, are not below the poverty line.  As such, minimum wage workers are usually in a temporary economic position.

California, additionally, actually ranks among the bottom of the 50 states in terms of the share of its hourly rate workforce employed at or below the minimum wage (just 1.4% of its 8.8 million hourly rate workers).  Despite this, California has the 7^th highest statutory minimum wage (tied with Massachusetts), outpacing border-state Arizona and competitors like Texas, Florida, and North Carolina.  California’s $8.00 per hour rate also outpaces other progressive states like New York, New Jersey, and Minnesota.

AB 10 falls short in at least two regards:

(1) It would affect less than 2% of the state’s hourly rate working population;

2) As that population, on average, isn’t poor, AB 10 wouldn’t live up to its sales pitch of reducing poverty.

However, minimum wage laws do affect the labor market.  Basic economic theory illustrates that demand curves are downward sloping and supply curves are upward.  This economic relationship means that price floors (which minimum wage laws are) increase labor supply while decreasing demand for labor creating a surplus of labor.

While the basic theory is straightforward, there is debate surrounding the employment effects of minimum wage laws.  Princeton economists David Card and Alan Kreuger suggest that there is no “disemployment” effect, while others such as co-authors David Neumark and William Wascher have shown such effects.  In a more recent study (Jonathan Meer and Jeremy West), “disemployment” effects are shown to occur, but through reduced new hiring as opposed to layoffs.  However, because minimum wage workers are disproportionally younger workers, a majority of minimum wage studies show the “disemployment” effects are focused among the younger generation. Such studies have shown that a 10% increase in minimum wage rates reduces teenage employment by between 1% and 3%. This probably wouldn’t affect the overall state economy, since it’s such a small component of the greater workforce, but it still is a negative unintended consequence of minimum wage laws.

Minimum wage laws supposedly boost employee morale and as such, business effectiveness. However, AB 10’s increases would mean California would have among the highest minimum wage rates in the country.  According to CEO Magazine, California currently holds the title of “worst state for business in America” – a dubious honor the Golden State has held for eight consecutive years.  In addition, a recent California Chamber of Commerce climate survey shows that a whopping 73% of Golden State-multistate business owners consider California a more difficult business terrain than other states.  These business owners view the high cost of doing business in California – regulations, state and local taxes, healthcare costs, labor and housing costs – as the main drivers for California’s poor business climate.  AB 10 would increase one of these costs by 16% in just three years and then increase it again, annually, by an unknown amount. Not only would AB 10 drive up labor costs, it would also instill uncertainty into one of business’s major cost drivers.

Lastly, AB 10 would institute automatic rate increases.  Currently, 10 other states have automatic increases of some sort (typically pegging the rate to an inflation or cost of living formula) – four of which have higher current minimum wage rates than California.  However, the automatic adjustments eliminate one of business’s key cyclical adjustment mechanisms. Inflation allows businesses, particularly in economic hard times, to reduce its labor costs without actually having to cut pay or its workforce.  Yet, when law mandates pegging the minimum wage to inflation, businesses have one fewer adjustment mechanism available, and thus, they have to absorb losses through profit reductions or reduced hiring and/or layoffs.

However, minimum wage laws are not the only policy alternative available for poverty reduction and standard of living enhancement. For a long-term solution, advancing quality educational opportunity and achievement would work to reduce poverty as well as introduce many other positive externalities into California’s economy.

However, education reforms take years to filter into the greater society. For more immediate effects, the creation of a state earned income tax credit (EITC) would help those in poverty and not introduce market distortions.  An EITC is a refundable tax credit for tax filers below a certain income level. In effect, it is a negative income tax allowing those in need of assistance to receive additional income. Oregon and Washington join 21 other states that have their own EITC (in addition to the federal EITC). However, California’s other bordering states, Nevada and Arizona, don’t have such a tax credit. Neither do two of California’s top economic competitors, Texas and Florida.

Despite its apparent disadvantages, AB 10 likely will work its way through both liberal-dominated chambers of the state Legislature.  The question is: does Gov. Jerry Brown sign it into law or seek amendments? On one hand, Brown will feel pressure from Sacramento progressives to ensure that California isn’t eclipsed on this issue as other liberal states (New York, Minnesota, Maryland, and Hawaii) consider rate increases. On the other hand, Brown is up for re-election in 2014 and will have to defend that 50^th-best business climate in the country.

A wise move for Brown would be to substitute a California EITC in place of AB 10. He prides himself as a pragmatist. And, stripped of its emotional baggage, minimum wage increases don’t add up to practical policy choices.

Follow Carson Bruno on Twitter: @CarsonJFBruno

On Tuesday, California’s largest city went to the polls to narrow choices for its next mayor. What did that vote tell us about the state ... continue reading]]> Tweet

On Tuesday, California’s largest city went to the polls to narrow choices for its next mayor. What did that vote tell us about the state of campaigns in the Golden State?

It’s not good.

Here are three takeaways from the Los Angeles mayoral primary:

1)   The Big Chill. The weather in Los Angeles this week has been unseasonably cool; voter interest was sub-Arctic. Sure, history will be made in L.A. come May 21, when voters choose from the two Democrats who survived Tuesday’s first round of voting. City Controller Wendy Greuel would be the city’s first woman mayor. City Councilman Eric Garcetti would be the city’s first Jewish elected mayor (Garcetti’s mother is Jewish; his father, a former county district attorney, is of Mexican and Italian decent). That said, these weren’t scintillating choices in a town where charm and personality go a long way. Garcetti was president of the city council for six year. Greuel cut her political teeth working for former Mayor Tom Bradley. Solid resumes, yes, but dull. Add to the mix another candidate, Councilwoman Jan Perry, who was a product of the political machine and the choice for Angelenos wasn’t scintillating. Thus a paltry turnout of only 16%. In a city and county of 4.7 million registered voters, not a single mayoral candidate was able to top 100,000 votes. The good news: there is competition in Los Angeles at this time of the year that’s fraught with intrigue, drama and media attention. Unfortunately, it’s the Oscars – not city politics.

2)   No Ascent for King James. Actually, there was one candidate in this race who wasn’t part of L.A.’s political establishment: Kevin James, a Republican and former AM radio talk show host (not to be confused with the same-name actor). James was the lone mayoral candidate (once former Deputy Mayor Austin Beutner dropped out of the contest) bold enough to tilt at windmills and tap into everyday LA frustrations. Openly gay and an AIDS activists, he broke the Republican mold. What James couldn’t break was a third-place tie with Perry, meaning his “torch and pitchfork” base perhaps wasn’t as motivated as James anticipated. Another way to look at is the difference between 2013 and 1993 – the last Los Angeles chose a Republican mayor. The winner in that election, Richard Riordan benefitted from a change-ready electorate (it was the first time in 24 years that Tom Bradley wasn’t on the ballot) and an election dominated by the issue of crime. Present-day Los Angeles has loads of problems, but no one fresh wound like the 1992 riots, thus making it more difficult for an outsider like James to tap into voter frustration.

3)   A: Once Again, the Scarlet Letter. Last fall, Californians approved Proposition 30, a sales and tax increased pitched by Gov. Jerry Brown as a necessary means for plugging the state’s budget hole. Brown’s measure won by an unexpectedly large measure, prompting some to suggest that California had entered a new progressive era in which tax increases no longer were political road kill. That conventional wisdom may need some revision after Tuesday’s vote, in which Angelenos soundly defeated Measure A, a half-cent increase to the city’s sales tax. Last November, Prop 30 prevailed in part by making a hard emotional sale about schools. Measure A was little different in that is also tried to push voters’ buttons by cloaking itself in law enforcement. So why did Measure A go down in flames (it suffered a 10-point loss) while Prop 30 prospered (it won by over 10 points)? Proponents will vote low turnout (though a race dominated by Democrat candidates should attract tax-friendly voters). Also, there wasn’t the same tailwind as in November 2012, when President Obama was at the top of the ticket. Here’s yet another theory: having just raised rates at the state and federal level, with April 15 fast approaching, maybe an early March election isn’t the right time to be pitching yet another tax increase in economically-strapped Los Angeles.

How, then, to get the good people of Los Angeles better engaged in mayor elections? Try getting Ben Affleck on the ticket. Otherwise, with lackluster insiders dominating the ballots, Angelenos will continue to tell their candidates to “Argo f— themselves”.

“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can . . .”

And so, by invoking kid lit, did California Gov. Jerry Brown attempt ... continue reading]]> Tweet

“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can . . .”

And so, by invoking kid lit, did California Gov. Jerry Brown attempt to encourage state lawmakers to speed forward on high-speed rail – a grossly unfunded plan that requires a childlike innocence and naïvete believe it can actually work.

It wasn’t the biggest oddity in Brown’s State of the State address, which transpired Thursday morning in Sacramento. That honor would go to the Governor’s tortured delivery. It was herky-jerky, over-caffeinated and, because it lacked the calming presence of a TelePrompTer to keep the man’s head elevated and allow time for lawmakers to break in for applause, had the look and feel of an anxious protest outside the college dean’s office (something Brown might have done when he was governing back in the ‘70s, or attending Cal-Berkeley in the early ‘60s).

About Brown’s address: It lasted 24-plus minutes, which is a filibuster by Jerry Standard Time. He started with a polite warning to lawmakers not to go on a spending spree (talk about throwing a wet blanket on the affair). It wasn’t until the Guv ventured into education that he earned sustained applause. Then again, by speeding through his delivery, Brown didn’t give lawmakers much of a chance for an attaboy.

Brown’s policy? He wants to revamp future funding for California’s K-12 system – i.e., class warfare under the guise of better schools. Republicans will hate it (not that they’ll have a say in the matter); Democrats will have to weigh the merits of playing to their political base (Latinos and African-Americans) versus a possible backlash in California’s suburbs, which wouldn’t be rewarded as generously under Brown’s plan.

The stronger applause came during the Governor’s tough line on higher education – he’s against tuition hikes. Maybe he’s sending a signal: if there’s a budget surplus and you must spend it, send it UC’s and CSU’s way.

And now I understand why I’m a fan of keeping these speeches to 12 minutes or less: the second half of Gov. Brown’s speech. After brushing on economic growth and global warming, he dove quite literally into the deep end of the pool: California water policy. The Governor wants to dig two tunnels under the state’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Rover Delta (“yes it’s big,” Brown said, but so is the problem.”). His price tag: $15 billion. Environmentalists think it’s folly; as with last year’s tax increase, one wonders which Jerry Brown prefers – the plan, or knowing getting the plan enacted means defying political odds.

Finally, the sermon from the mount on high-speed rail.

France and Spain have it, Brown argues, so should California (one supposes the Golden State should havethree-hour siestas and revisit its anti-smoking laws). The Governor said he’ll “explore long-term funding options”. He could have easily as said: “No one knows how we’re going to pay for this.”

Here’s one clue: Morocco. It’s a dubious priority for an impoverished country with other needs – and only possiblethanks to loans and donations from other countries. Is this California’s future?

Having written a few of these speeches myself, I’m always struck not just by what was said, but what went missing.

In this speech, three things:

1)  Guns. Jerry Brown is a former state attorney general and, before that, a mayor of Oakland, one of America’s most violent cities. California, mercifully, hasn’t been host to a school massacre of late, but it suffers from the steady drip of inner-city homicide. On the same day that Dianne Feinstein, California’s senior senator, proposed a new assault weapons ban, not a peep out of the governor on the mayhem plaguing his state’s big cities. Strange.

2)  Immigration. In theory, President Obama will push for a reform package this year; Republicans may be willing to cut a deal. One area of compromise between the warring factions: keeping tech jobs in the U.S. Obviously, it’s a big deal to California and its vibrant tech sectors (Silicon Valley, L.A.’s Silicon Beach). Singling out Laurene Powell Jobs (Steve’s widow) for getting involved in the legalization debate would have been a nice touch.

3)  Heritage. 165 years ago on this day. James W. Marshall stumbled upon gold in the cool, clear waters of California’s American River (ironically, Marshall never struck it rich). You know the rest of the story – from the original 49ers to the Super Bowl 49ers, yadda, yadda, yadda. Such an anniversary is a rhetorician’s best friend – to remind folks of a fabled past, and to sketch a gilded future. Brown didn’t mention the landmark event. Instead, he dwelled of accomplishments of the past two years. His myopia was disappointing.

Where do we go from here? Pretty much where California stood before the State of the State: the state budget is in a better place than it was a year ago; big challenges (schools, infrastructure) may or may not be addressed in a state capital largely defined by short-termers, short-term thinking and fiscal short-sheeting.

Not a sorry state, but one that’s fragile.

Follow Bill Whalen on Twitter: @hooverwhalen

Though he’s long in the tooth (a 75th birthday coming in April) and long on the job (overall, 10 years and counting as California’s governor), Jerry ... continue reading]]> Tweet

Though he’s long in the tooth (a 75^th birthday coming in April) and long on the job (overall, 10 years and counting as California’s governor), Jerry Brown isn’t long on tradition.

For example, tradition dictates that a California governor delivers the State of State address soon after the new year begins, followed a few days later by the release of his budget proposal (California’s new fiscal year begins in July).

That’s not the case in 2013. Brown’s already unveiled his budget (highlights here and the 248-page summary here). Tomorrow, two weeks after the budgetary data dump, he’ll deliver the State of the State.

Nuts and bolts first, vision second. It’s not as strange a thought as, say, Martin Luther King sharing his “dream” with Oprah before the March on Washington. Still, there’s a sense of doing things backwards in Sacramento.

Then again, there’s good reason for the switcheroo.

Brown ran for governor in 2010 on a promise to bring order to California’s finance. Assuming he seeks a second term in 2014, the budget again will be at the heart of his message – not anything he references in a State of the State address. So why not lead with his strength?

Here’s another break with standard fare – the speech’s scheduled 9 a.m. kickoff. The only politicians on at that hour are retired – and selling reverse mortgages.

Back when I wrote speeches for another California governor, Pete Wilson, we planned the big address for late in the afternoon/early in the evening, with one goal in mind: crashing the local news hour (something local news outlets agreed to – but only reluctantly, after arm-twisting by our press office). Arnold Schwarzenegger, never one to shy away from airtime, did the same, though in his second term and sinking under the weight of sinking approval ratings he moved his address to a late-morning start.

But Brown? His speech will start earlier than Arnold’s a.m. visits to the podium. And he’ll butt heads with the likes of Rachel Ray, Kelly Ripa and Kathie Lee and Hoda. Meaning: Brown’s speech will only run on those stations that happen to be doing their local morning shows.

Then again, will Californians be missing much of anything?

Ordinarily, this should be a fun, curious speech to anticipate. Brown enters the third year of his first term, a pivotal moment for any governor hoping to extend his stay in Sacramento beyond a fourth year. Moreover, he’s riding high after his tax-raisingProposition 30 carried the day last fall. And with the budget allegedly in balance, Brown can speak about matters other than the state’s fiscal woes, which dominated his previous addresses (here’s what he said in 2012 and 2011).

Then again, these aren’t ordinary times in Sacramento:

1)  Lack of Drama. A reporter asked an interesting question the other day: when Brown gives his speech, will he see a challenger in the room? My thought: no. Republicans are in disarray; at this point, a challenge by a fellow Democrat is a career-killer (there’s no grassroots discontent with the governor; and good luck raising money against an incumbent who can wield punishment). Brown seems a safe bet for a second term – if he so chooses. But he’s also probably too old to seek the presidency in 2016 (he’d be 78 by then).  What it adds up to: the governor’s a bird in a gilded cage – secure as far as his day job in concerned, but he can’t soar beyond the California border.

2)  Lack of Ambitious Options. On Thursday morning, you can expect Brown to talk tough on guns and immigration and implementing health care. He’ll revisit California’s water challenges – balancing the competing interests of rural and residential California. Having spent quality time earlier this monthin the realm of academia, he’ll have a few things to say about revamping higher-ed in the Golden State. But doing things of an ambitious nature requires money the state doesn’t have. Knowing voters will be asked to sign off on an $11 billion water bond in 2014, does Brown think the public is willing to spend big on other projects (that would include high-speed rail). And that leads us to . . .

3)  Lack of Legislative Restraint? Forget about GOP lawmakers – they lack the numbers to block bills, budgets or constitutional amendments. In 2013, Brown’s biggest challenge comes from . . . his fellow Democrats and the over-inflated egos and ambitions and agendas that come with owning two-thirds supermajorities in both legislative chambers. Can Democrats keep their mitts off Brown’s proposed $1 billion budget reserve? Or the cornucopia of revenue that unexpectedly arrived in January? What happens if that surplus lasts through the budget’s May revision? Remember: California economic forecasting is an inexact science, especially with federal and state rates having changed at the end of 2012 – two months before the “balanced” budget materialized, California’s Legislative Analyst foresaw a $1.9 billion deficit). Any budget surplus leads to the question of what to do with it: spend, or pay down debts. Does California’s governor acknowledge this in the big speech, or save his powder for later this spring, when the budget dance actually begins?

In 2011, in his first State of the State, Brown lectured the Legislature on what he saw as its main responsibility – getting spending in line with revenue. In 2012, Brown chose a different foil: defeatists and naysayers who the school of thought thatCalifornia’s in decline.

It remains to be seen whom Brown singles out in 2013: theMaloof brothers or Phil Mickelson, for wanting to give up on California? Does he take it out on conservatives for . . . well, seeing red in a big blue state?

Is Brown smug and boastful given last November’s big ballot win?  Or, instead, does he adopt the cynic’s view: California’s recovery is fragile and the state’s budget is an easily toppled house of cards?

Even if Brown manages to keep his speech to its usual modest framework (his previous two State of the State addresses combined lasted all of 20 minutes), it’s a lot of mull over for so early in the morning.

Follow Bill Whalen in Twitter: @hooverwhalen

Californians will soon face a Democratic super-majority in Sacramento determined to further increase spending, raise more taxes, and make the state even more hostile to ... continue reading]]> Tweet

Californians will soon face a Democratic super-majority in Sacramento determined to further increase spending, raise more taxes, and make the state even more hostile to business and entrepreneurship.

In Washington, D.C., we’ll find a Democratic president and his Senate allies striving to apply California’s self-destructive policies to the rest of the nation. As state and national Democrats move us toward the fiscal abyss, we Republicans must find a path to prosperity and communicate it to our fellow citizens.

The recent election clarified the challenges we face. The first of these is to effectively counter the mainstream media’s caricature of our party. Echoing their Democratic allies, media pundits have always demanded that we purge “extremists” from the GOP. While extremists were previously defined as people who took a conservative position on family values issues, now even fiscal conservatives – those who simply argue against tax hikes or for spending reductions – are denounced as dangerous “Tea Party zealots.”

And of course, if we oppose taxpayer funding of abortion, they say we’re waging a “war on women.” If we don’t want to subsidize solar panels for the homes of rich elites, we’re “poisoning the environment.” If we don’t want to confiscate private property to make room for an extravagant high-speed train to nowhere, we want children to “breathe dirty air.” Their playbook is so predictable.

Meanwhile, in reality, we’re the party fighting to preserve individual liberty from increasing government encroachments that threaten the foundation of our republic.

Ironically, Republicans could gain immense support from the group widely viewed as the most pressing challenge – Hispanics. We’ve allowed the Democrats to define us negatively to Hispanics and other minorities, and we should pro-actively make the case for conservatism directly to these communities. Crucially, we need to explain to these groups why becoming shackled to government, as the Democrats want them to be, is typically a direct route to poverty. We also need to demonstrate that despite all their demagoguery, Democrats want to keep the broken immigration system, which is politically useful for attacking Republicans. This is shown by the Democrats’ failure to reform immigration in 2009-2010, when they controlled the House, the presidency, and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

Regardless of which groups we’re trying to reach, our efforts will have to overcome powerful opposition from public-employee unions. It takes a lot of money to get out a political message in today’s media market, and government unions have a seemingly endless supply of cash. Much of this money, of course, is taxpayer funds taken directly out of members’ paychecks and then used to pay for legions of foot soldiers for the Democratic electoral machine. The politicians who are elected with this support then obediently secure more money for the unions to use for pummeling Republicans, thus creating a fiscal death spiral.

It’s important to devise tactics and strategies to meet these challenges, but we should first concentrate on more fundamental issues of ideas and policy. No matter how great our outreach is, it won’t be effective if we’re promoting the wrong policies.

In conveying a message, we have a much harder job than our opponents do. It’s easy to be a Democrat, promising everyone that the government will take care of every want and need regardless of cost. Of course, that tendency got us where we are today. In California, towns are going bankrupt, our public pensions face hundreds of billions in unfunded liabilities, we have the worst credit rating of any state, and families and businesses are leaving the state in droves. Nationwide, we have a $16 trillion national debt that is growing by $1 trillion a year, and the government faces nearly $90 trillion of liabilities for entitlements and other programs. In short, both our state and national budgets are unsustainable.

The need for fiscal and individual responsibility, however, is a tough pitch to make as long as government checks continue to arrive in citizens’ mailboxes and public-employee dues keep funding big-government politicians – all while the media drink the Kool-Aid. To surmount these challenges, Republicans must have a clear and relevant message delivered with discipline, focus, and persistence.

*  *  *

In defining ourselves to voters, we need to clarify what exactly we stand for. During their 2012 convention, the Democrats summed up their big-government vision in a video that proclaimed, “Government is the only thing we all belong to.” We should have a clear opposing position. Here’s what I believe should be our party’s central vision:

We believe in the supremacy of individuals, their families, and their local communities – not the government. The government should not be revered, nor should it be expected to guarantee our happiness – it is a necessary evil that should exert authority over limited realms, especially national defense and international trade, as specified in the Constitution.

It follows that we Republicans oppose the centralization of power. Instead, we support a republic in which power is devolved to the most local level possible. To the greatest extent, federal officials should allow states to conduct their own affairs, while both state and federal leaders should allow counties, cities, school boards, and town councils to run their own communities as they see fit.

Finally, by advocating local control, Republicans defend family values. We support family-friendly community initiatives – creating parks, developing pre-school and after-school programs, and the like – at the local level, where these projects should be implemented and overseen by the people who directly pay for them and benefit from them. Republicans also believe that fiscal responsibility is a family value, and that the ruinous debt lassoed to our children by the government is not only irresponsible, it is immoral.

In short, what conservatives seek to conserve is our republic, upholding liberty and individual responsibility as the central principles of our nation.

*  *  *

In policy terms, Republicans should state our mission clearly. We need to specify what exactly we plan to do if voters entrust us with public office, drawing a clear distinction between state and federal responsibilities.

On the state level, I believe California Republicans should support five major reforms that will salvage our finances, improve the economy, and reverse the outflow of businesses and families from our state.

•  End the culture of corruption in Sacramento
  • Switch to a unicameral, part-time state Legislature.
  • Reduce the number of state legislators from 120 to 100.
  • Stop public employee unions from collecting dues without permission.
  • Overhaul the public employee pension systems, beginning with requirements for greater transparency and the kind of reporting standards required of private employers.
  • Eliminate public pension abuses such as spiking and double dipping.
• Boost energy development and invest in infrastructure
  • Allow drilling in state-controlled offshore waters.
  • Eliminate bureaucratic and regulatory obstacles to drilling and mining on non-federal land.
  • Increase economic growth and job creation by eliminating the global warming tax, also known as “cap-and-trade.”
  • Restart the San Onofre nuclear power plant and resist pressure to close the Diablo Canyon plant.
  • Cancel the high-speed rail experiment and use the savings to improve highways, roads, bridges, and other existing transportation infrastructure.
  • Work with the federal government to restore adequate water supplies to California farms and cities.
• Develop a taxpayer bill of rights that balances the budget and simplifies taxes
  • Replace the state income tax with a broad sales tax.
  • Strengthen the Proposition 13 cap on property taxes.  
  • Make the legislature more accountable by switching to a two-year budgeting cycle with a 3 percent emergency reserve.
  • Implement a hard budget cap, and limit growth in annual state spending to the inflation rate plus population growth.
  • Return more tax revenues to local, city, and county governments to fund police forces, fire departments, and local infrastructure.
• Streamline state bureaucracies
  • Sunset all non-elected boards and commissions in order to re-evaluate their effectiveness while eliminating duplicative boards.
  • Eliminate red tape on business to spur job creation and competitiveness.  
  • Restart the state timber industry to protect forests and cities from catastrophic fires.
• Decentralize and revamp the education system
  • Devolve more authority to local school boards and community colleges, and direct more education funding directly to school districts.
  • Require certain professors at state-funded colleges and universities, some of whom teach as little as 36 weeks per year and 12 hours per week, to teach one more class per semester.
  • Allow more parents to remove their children from failing schools by encouraging charter schools and expanding school choice initiatives, using successful school choice programs from around the world as models.

There are also five far-reaching reforms on the federal level that will begin to restore our prosperity:

• Overhaul the federal tax code
  • Simplify and reduce taxes on individuals, adopting only three rates.
  • Move all businesses, small or large, to a 25% tax rate and switch them to cash accounting with 100% expensing while eliminating all loopholes.
• Make entitlement programs solvent and reform healthcare 
  • Achieve universal healthcare through free-market reforms, including tax credits given directly to individuals to buy their own insurance.
  • Allow future Medicare patients the choice of converting their benefits into premium assistance used to buy a private insurance plan.
  • Allow future Social Security recipients to own their Social Security accounts.
  • Give states more authority to adapt their Medicaid programs to the needs of their residents.
  • Defund and repeal Obamacare.
  • Allow the sale of health insurance across state lines and end frivolous lawsuits by reforming medical malpractice laws.
• Make America energy independent
  • Allow new drilling in Alaska, offshore, and in the shale formation in the Rockies. 
  • Speed up the permitting process for nuclear power plants.
  • Stop the EPA from unduly obstructing the use of hydraulic fracking, the creation of new hydro projects, or access to coal mines.
  • Stop the federal government from subsidizing or providing loan guarantees to alternative energy projects. Instead, use income from new oil and gas development on federal lands to fund proven alternative energy projects chosen through competitive bidding.
  • Approve the extension of the Keystone XL pipeline.   
• Strengthen national defense and expand international trade
  • Protect the military from drastic cuts that would threaten our strategic interests.
  • Sign free-trade agreements to strengthen America’s relations with like-minded allies.
  • Insist our free-trade partners uphold the rule of law and meet all their responsibilities under free-trade accords.
• Fix the broken immigration system
  • Secure all our borders and ports.
  • Fix existing guest worker programs for agriculture workers and for those with advanced degrees. 
  • Allow illegal workers with no criminal record to apply for a work permit. Allow them to go through the normal citizenship application process if they return to their country of origin.
  • Give special consideration for citizenship to those here illegally who serve in the military, were brought to America as children, or who were here before passage of the Reagan immigration bill of 1986.

*  *  *

All good policy platforms need to be implemented with effective tactics and strategies. Tactically, to counter the unions, we’ll have to create a grassroots, bottom-up structure that emphasizes ground operations, voter registration drives, and other efforts at the precinct level. Too many GOP consultants recommend funding for commissionable TV and radio ads, refusing to recognize that these mediums are increasingly devalued by the Internet, TiVo, and other technologies. Furthermore, Republicans must demand that our own party’s candidates and representatives provide concrete proposals for action. Prospective state and federal lawmakers should explain which legislation they support or present their own initiatives for reform.

As for strategy, some Republicans may reason that we should simply wait it out and let the Left take the blame for our coming fiscal meltdown. I disagree. As Democrats spend America into oblivion, it’s up to us Republicans to save our nation from our own government. If we fail, our state and our country will be devastated – and there will be no solace in proclaiming from the wreckage that we were right.

Devin Nunes is the U.S. Representative for California’s 21st congressional district, serving the San Joaquin Valley since 2003.

After last month’s Republican setbacks at the polls, I was asked if I was going to continue in politics.

It was a fair question.

When I was ... continue reading]]> Tweet

After last month’s Republican setbacks at the polls, I was asked if I was going to continue in politics.

It was a fair question.

When I was chairman of the California Republican Party (2003-2007), the registration differential between Democrats and Republicans was the narrowest it had been since the 1930s.  When Arnold Schwarzenegger was re-elected to a second gubernatorial term in 2006, the GOP set modern California records for support among women and minorities.  Since then, the bottom has fallen out.

I would spend my energies elsewhere if: (1) the current leaders had California on the right path, or (2) California was unsalvageable. Neither is the case.

California clearly is on the wrong path.  Our education system is a disgrace. We’re looking up at Louisiana and Alabama.  Teacher unions force districts to turn down millions of federal dollars because they do not like the reforms the Obama administration requires. Many of our major cities are insolvent, if not bankrupt.  Anyone who tells you that Gov. Brown’s Proposition 30 solved our budget problems and/or ensured our schools will have enough money is lying to you (even the San Francisco Chronicle, hardly anyone’s idea of a conservative voice, labeled the ballot measure “a gimmick”). The truth is the forecast of the state’s budget moving into the black is built on a flimsy house of cards.  A more sober assessment comes from the California Budget Crisis Task Force, which has determined the Golden State’s debt and obligations to run anywhere from $167 billion to $335 billion.

Yet, the situation is not only salvageable. With strong leaders and the right policies, California can return to a position of leadership – and Republicans can play a key role in such effort.

First, the Republican brand issue is not California’s alone.  Since the end of the Cold War, Republicans have lost the popular vote in 5 of the last 6 presidential elections.  If the national party doesn’t join us in this effort, the likelihood of Republicans playing a major role in California is even more problematic.

Second, we need to listen, especially to people we do not agree with. If we do, we will hear there is not one American Dream – each American has their own dream.   After Ann Romney’s convention speech in Tampa, a single woman told me it was a good speech, but it didn’t speak to her or show an understanding of her concerns (indeed, per exit polls, President Obama received about 68% of single-women’s votes).  She noted women are getting married later – if at all – and, if divorced, they’re less likely to remarry. And our tone to all women needs to be different.  As a woman told me, “You guys remind me too much of my first husband!”

Third, principles are critical.  However, they must lead to bold, decisive action.   Without action, principles are just sentimental attachments to past glories.

For example, California’s Latino community is crying out for help in two key areas where Republicans are in total agreement: education and business.  They’re fed up with failing schools. In the last few years, I’ve witnessed parents start dozens of charter schools in Santa Clara County.  On a statewide basis, they compelled the state Legislature to enact a “Parent Trigger” law that gives parents unprecedented powers to turn failing schools around.  If it wants to be a viable entity, the California GOP needs to be in this fight.

No one has made a stronger long-term commitment to small business than the Latino community.  Of Latinos who form small businesses, approximately two-thirds form such businesses so their children will have a job when they grow up.  Again, we need to be in this fight.

The gating issue in the Latino community with the GOP is immigration. There, Republicans need to change their language.  If someone is caught speeding, they pay a fine; if they cause a serious accident, they may go to jail. The concept is the punishment fits the crime. There is no amnesty. Yet, if someone proposes penalties for undocumented immigrants, but such penalty does not include deportation, some yell “amnesty”!  This has to stop.

Undocumented individuals should be penalized for violating the law.  We should secure the border. However, we also must develop programs that give worthy undocumented immigrants a path to legal status, if not citizenship.

Our immigrant communities need help.  Personal involvement here will change lives – maybe even ours.

We also need to engage young adults (YAs) – they’re more important than any person we elect, or bill we pass.  They are our future.  To YAs, it’s no big deal if their teammate is differs in sexual orientation, or their class valedictorian doesn’t have legal papers.  YAs find it disturbing that their college friend wasn’t able to graduate because of rising tuition.  YAs thought we taught them to be inclusive, to judge people on their merits, to help the underprivileged fighting to achieve.  They ask:  “So how can the GOP take the positions it does?”  Even more challenging to Republicans, for YAs: political parties aren’t nearly as relevant to them as their technology-driven communities. Approximately 30% don’t belong to either major political party.

Yet, with YAs we have a vital ally on our side: math.  The government’s math does not add up.  Once YAs start having to pay the tab for the previous generations’ grievous mistakes, YAs not only will be carrying the banner on this issue – they will be leading the charge.

There also are numerous opportunities to build bipartisan coalitions.  For example, I was part of the effort led by San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed where Republicans, Democrats and the local business leaders joined together to pass groundbreaking pension reform by an overwhelming margin earlier this year.

The road we’re on is not sustainable.  The programs the current leadership in Sacramento supports are rooted in the 1930s, not the 21st Century.  Under their neglect, single women will be less secure and Latino graduates less prepared to enter the workplace. And, because of the debt burden we’re leaving the younger Californians, they simply won’t not be able to provide for their children the way their parent and ancestors did.

If California Republicans are going to lead, the banner needs to have bold colors – and carried onto the field by men and women who reflect California’s diversity, not a gated enclave. The party must show by its actions how it intends to shift power from the ossified education establishment to students and parents, help individuals succeed in the workplace so they can better provide for their families, and introduce a rising generation’s passion for technology to government, making it more responsive, flexible and efficient.

If California Republicans act on their principles, they’ll be relevant to the Golden State’s future. If not, the state party deservedly will be relegated to a chapter in the state’s history.

George “Duf” Sundheim, a Stanford graduate and Palo Alto attorney, served as chairman of the California Republican Party from 2003-2007.   

Mitt Romney’s loss of the Presidential election, which confounded expectations of many Republicans and the conservative news media, has set in motion a tidal wave ... continue reading]]> Tweet

Mitt Romney’s loss of the Presidential election, which confounded expectations of many Republicans and the conservative news media, has set in motion a tidal wave of commentary both from inside and outside the Beltway on what ails the Republican Party.

California deserves its share of blame.  After all, Romney lost nationwide by fewer than 4% (50.9%-47.4%) – much of that attributable to his 20% margin of defeat in the Golden State. Indeed, nearly two-thirds (64%)of President Obama’s victory-margin in popular votes nationally is attributable to California alone.

Let’s face facts:  California hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate or elected a U.S. Senate candidate since 1988.  Since then, only three Republicans have been elected to statewide offices on more than once occasion – Arnold Schwarzenegger, Pete Wilson and Bill Jones.  Some would scratch Arnold from that list, given that he famously rebranded himself as “post-partisan” and replaced a stable of Republican aides and appointees with Democrats for the last five years of his tenure.

This is just part of the long-term trend of declining Republican influence in California. Republicans have gone from 41-vote control of the State Assembly briefly in 1995 to a 55-25 minority, and from 15 seats to 11 seats in the State Senate, their lowest number in the upper house in 50 years. Add to that ledger a loss of four seats in the Congressional delegation, down to 15 – the lowest number of Republican seats held since 1961, when California had 23 fewer congressional districts. How low has the GOP sunk? Los Angeles County still has more than one million registered Republican voters, but only three partisan representatives with substantial portions of their districts in the county (one state senator; two assemblymen).

The California Republican Party (CRP) is in more trouble than almost every institution in California, except . . . California’s state government and local governments and the educational, transportation, pension and water delivery systems these governments purport to manage.  Though the New York Times has detected a glimmer of hope that the state government is on the road to recovery, it would be media heresy to find anything to cheer about the Republican Party’s chances.

GOP Rebounding and Repositioning

Can Republicans regain credibility and respectability, if not majority status again in California?  I don’t pretend to have a prescription for regaining political control in the short term, but there are some steps that Republicans can take to rebound and position themselves to attract support and achieve success when the Democrats’ policies drive California closer to bankruptcy and total dysfunction.

That would begin with:

1)  Politically Savvy Leadership. First, Republicans need to pick a respected and politically savvy figure to lead the state party.  At present, the party has lost the confidence of the donor community in Sacramento, Southern California and the Bay Area. Traditional Republican donors in these areas (conservatives as well as moderates) are eager to have a state-party leader who respects their views and doesn’t ignore them or take their views and their money for granted.

The business community also seeks such a state party leader. The business community has turned from supporting Republican candidates to finding “moderate” Democrats to support, a turn that was inevitable as the GOP continued to lose seats in the Legislature.  The business community’s flight has accelerated with the new Legislature’s Democratic supermajority control of the State Senate and State Assembly. That flight can be reversed.  The business community needs to buttress its defense against new anti-business legislation and business taxes the new Legislature will threaten to impose.  To do so, it will need to support Republicans in competitive Assembly and Senate districts in 2014 as a firewall for its “moderate Democrat” strategy.  The Party and the business community need to recruit viable candidates for those targeted Assembly seats that were lost this year that ought to be regained in 2014 when the incumbents won’t be aided by the 2012 Obama surge. Nationally, the Republican Party turned to Ray Bliss, an old-hand technician, to lead it after Barry Goldwater’s defeat in 1964. California Republicans turned to Dr. Gaylord Parkinson, the author of the famous 11^th Commandment (yes, he coined it – not Ronald Reagan), for such leadership in California.  California Republicans need to turn to another respected figure to help the state party recapture credibility and embark on steps that will need to be taken to restore the GOP’s brand and standing among California voters.

2)  New Technologies to Revitalize the Base. The CRP has lost its volunteer activist base that excelled at getting out the vote with effective door-to-door and telephone campaigns in the 1960s and 1970s. Some of this is due to an aging activist population and some to changes in the workforce (more women are working outside the home). To rebuild an effective turnout operation, the state GOP needs to engage its younger, tech-savvy generation to help build effective political networking through social media and the internet and help train its elders how to use these tools effectively – much as the Obama campaign harnessed technology to re-elect the president.

In California, Republicans have lost the edge on their Democrat competition at the voter-turnout game.  The proof of this is disappointing GOP turnout in the Inland Empire and Central Valley counties and Orange County – ostensibly, California’s Republican strongholds.

As the 2012 results showed, the CRP is leaking support on both its right flank and moderate flank.  On the right, some conservative voters are fed up with perceived Republican softness on budget, deficit control and immigration – and believe “there’s not a dime’s worth of difference” between the two parties. Net result: they stay home. Meanwhile, some Republican voters are dismayed by an alleged “Christian right” control over the party’s positions on social issues. Net result: they defect.

Regaining support among the disaffected right and disaffected center won’t be easy. While some think that the California GOP can re-attract these disaffected voters by concentrating on economic issues they might agree on, that may not work.  The Tea Party stood for many of the positions of those on the disaffected right, yet Tea Party influence on the 2010 election doesn’t seem to have pulled them back toward the Republican Party.  There’s no evidence that increased focus on economic and debt issues after the 2010 election pulled any of the disaffected moderates back either.

For a long time, the CRP has provided scant attention and resources to communicating its message and values to Bay Area and Los Angeles County voters. Over 1.5 million registered Republican voters reside in these areas, yet they seldom hear from the state party.  Not surprisingly, scarce resources have been spent from election-to-election only to turn out likely Republican voters in competitive races, and Republicans have had very few competitive races in these areas.  Hearing nothing from the party, voters in these areas hear only from the news media and Democrats – and, surprise, they’re not telling the Republican story. The state party needs to find ways to resume communicating to these isolated Republican voters. That means teaming with local GOP groups (the Los Angeles Lincoln Club; the Lincoln Club of Northern California), focusing on electing promising Republicans to local non-partisan offices and supporting ballot measures such as San Jose’s pension reform measure.

3)  Thinking Strategically, More Nimbly.  Two bad strategic decisions may have been most responsible for the crushing defeat of California Republicans at the polls in November.

In 2011, Legislative Republicans flirted with making a deal with Governor Brown on putting a tax increase measure on a special-election ballot.  The effort failed, in part because Brown was unable to deliver the big changes some Republican legislators had proposed – and, in part, because most legislative Republicans weren’t willing to make any deal involving taxes. However, the tax deal wasn’t to enact taxes, only to put a tax proposal up for special-election vote. Notwithstanding the fact that a similar special tax election resulted in the resounding defeat of three tax measures on the ballot in May 2009, Republicans gambled away that advantage by refusing to deal.  As a result, Governor Brown went to the ballot in November 2012 with a tax increase proposal that was worse in its details and effects than what he was bargaining to put on the ballot in 2011 – and seeking its approval from an electorate swelled by Obama supporters. Republicans failed to think nimbly and strategically about this, and the results proved to be tragically bad.

The other blunder: in 2011, Orange County conservatives and Republican activists wrote, circulated and qualified Proposition 32, the “Stop Special Interest Money” initiative.  Prop 32 targeted Big Labor’s political fundraising scheme whereby hundreds of millions annually are skimmed from government employee paychecks without their consent to fund unions’ political domination of California state and local governments.  Proposition 32 was qualified for the June 2012 primary election ballot where, it was believed, a smaller and more conservative electorate would enact it.  In August 2011, however, Legislative Democrats passed SB 202, which took all but two measures off the June 2012 primary ballot and pushed the rest, including Prop 32, to the November general election ballot. SB 202 could easily have been stayed from going into effect by qualification of a referendum against it – and papers were filed to start a referendum.  However, none of the affected parties chose to push the referendum and it died.  Over $50 million was spent to try to pass Proposition 32, yet a million or so that could have qualified a referendum against SB 202 couldn’t be found. Republicans and the business community failed to think strategically, the result being plenty of collateral damage (Prop 32’s, a boost to Gov. Brown’s tax initiative and the Democrats’ effort to earn legislative supermajorities).

4)  Engaging with California’s Latino and Asian Communities. The state party’s leadership needs to send peace signals immediately to Latinos and Asians, and seek common ground on Republican values issues that resonate with those communities. Tom Del Beccaro, the current CRP chairman, has made outreach to Latinos a priority, but the effort needs to get beyond public relations to real initiatives on education and immigration reforms.

The Republican group Grow Elect has actively promoted the election of Latino Republicans to non-partisan offices, helping elect some 21 to local offices in 2012.  These efforts must be increased, with party financial support. Former CRP Chairman Shawn Steel, whose wife Michelle is California’s highest-elected Republican (she’s a member of the State’s Board of Equalization), has promoted initiatives with the Asian-American community to raise the prominence of local elected Asian American Republicans as party spokespersons and Party committee members. This outreach should include Indian-Americans in Silicon Valley and the Central Valley.

California Republicans need to focus on education reforms that promote accountability and educational achievement that offer hope to Latinos, as well as other minorities, that their children will receive a quality education and job skills.  School choice and protecting the existence and growth of charter schools within the public education system should be promoted as alternatives to the dismal failures of union-dominated public school systems around the state.

Finally, Republicans in the Golden State need to get out front on immigration reforms, including those that offer temporary, renewable visas not only to expand the H-1B program for foreigners to fill high tech job openings but also for agricultural workers and immigrants in other fields where there is a certified need for workers.  The NAFTA treaty visa system, where Canadian and Mexican natives can get a visa if they demonstrate they have a job offer here, provides a model for such a program.  Republicans also need to embrace the equities of a DREAM Act that affords educational opportunities to the children of illegal immigrants who were brought to California by their parents and have no culpability for their parents’ actions, as well as the program that allows foreign nationals who serve in the military a path to citizenship as part of the nation’s historic welcoming hand to immigrants.

If red-state Texas’ Republicans can operate positively with these programs, why can’t California’s Republicans, many of whom look to Texas as a model for how to attain and keep political influence and relevance?

Chuck Bell is the longtime counsel to the California Republican Party and served as outside counsel to many California Republican elected officials. These views are his own and do not represent the views of any of his clients.

On the eve of last month’s election, Tony Quinn, a former legislative staffer and California political commentator, predicted President Obama would win California ... continue reading]]> Tweet

On the eve of last month’s election, Tony Quinn, a former legislative staffer and California political commentator, predicted President Obama would win California by 14 points, which has been the average California Democratic Presidential advantage since 1992.

Quinn had good reason to forecast a 14-point win: of the eight majors public polls conducted in October, the average presidential spread was 16 points. All of this spelled relatively good news for the California Republican Party.

Of course, the actual results were quite different.

Based on election results as of November’s end, Mitt Romney trailed President Obama by 2.9 million votes (or 23%); Republican Senate challenger Elizabeth Emken trailed incumbent Dianne Feinstein by 3 million votes (a 25% spread).

The unpleasantness continues down-ticket.  Republicans won just 38% of the statewide congressional vote, losing a net of 4 seats and underperforming their primary statewide vote by 2%, even after adjusting for the difference between primary and general election turnout. Meanwhile, Democrats made the necessary gains to reach a 2/3^rd majority in both the state Senate and Assembly – the first time that’s happened in California in over a century.

The exit polls offer some context for why the polls (and hence, the predictions) were off-mark.  Across the board, segments of the Democratic coalition have seen relatively large increases in the voter composition; meanwhile, traditional Republican demographics have decreased and the GOP has failed to expand their coalition. Of the estimated 13 million voters who turned out, 56% were white, down 10% from 2004.  Asians and Latinos made up roughly 33% of the electorate in 2012, versus just 25% in 2004.  The overall electorate was much younger than previous years, with 54% being younger than 45 years old compared to 49% in 2004.  Voters 65 years old and older represented just 13% of voters on November 6, 11% less than eight years ago.

More signs of a changing California electorate: 50% of voters in the 2012 election came from the suburbs, up 10% from 2004. Both independents (aka, “no party preference” voters) and Democrats gained compared to 2004 – bumps of 1% and 4%, respectively.  Meanwhile, Republican turnout dropped 5%. Part of the electorate composition is circumstantial to the specifics of this year’s election, but much has to do with the changing demographics of the state.  Since 2000, the Asian population has ballooned by 25% with the Latino population growing by 18%.  The state’s electorate has grown more diverse and more suburban. The Republican Party’s make-up? It’s whiter and more rural.

It’s not like the California GOP couldn’t see this coming.  Though Republican governors presided over Sacramento for the first eight years of the 1990’s and nearly one-half of the following decade, GOP voter registration was on a clear free-fall.  In the autumn of 1994, Republicans accounted for 37% of California’s registered voters.  Four year later, it stood at 35%. By 2010, Republicans had dropped to 31% of registered voters. As voters headed to polls in 2012, Republicans fell to just 29.4% of statewide registered voters. Based on trend lines, the California GOP will be looking at third-party status in as little as 9 years – some say sooner, maybe six years.

So, where does this leave the Grand Old Party at the polling booth?

The chart below provides an electoral comparison between Republicans and Democrats in California, Texas, and Virginia.  Using election results from a myriad of state legislative and executive races between 2006 and 2012, it shows the expected Republican and Democratic share of the vote for average candidates, as well as expected ceilings and floors for strong or weak candidates.

It should be no surprise that the average California Democratic candidate has a stronghold on electoral victory. Yet, if compared to the minority party in Texas, the California Republicans look to be in a slightly better position.  While the average Republican candidate receives 44% in California, the average Texas Democratic candidate only garners 41% of the vote.

While the ranges for the Democrats and Republicans in California are the same, the placement of the Republican’s ceiling and floor suggests the quality of the Republican candidate is significantly more important than the Democrat’s quality.  The Republican Party needs a strong candidate, while a weak Democratic candidate would start off with the necessary majority.  In this regard, Republicans should look to Virginia, where a strong Democratic candidate can beat his/her Republican opponent, despite the slight right-leaning tilt.

However, the Democrats in Texas and Virginia have an advantage that the Republicans in California do not: the presence of third-party candidates on the November ballot.  While a Democrat can pull off victory in Texas or Virginia with a plurality of the vote, a Republican candidate in California needs to win a majority of the November electorate. That’s because California’s new “top-two” system allows only the two leading vote-getters from the state’s June ballot to advance to November. As of right now, only an exceptionally unique Republican candidate could win statewide in California.

The interesting predicament of the California Republican Party extends further.  Just finding a strong gubernatorial candidate may not be enough to pull the other down ballot Republicans across the finish line.  The table below shows the two-party vote percentages for the Republican gubernatorial candidate, as well as the average for various other statewide offices – lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, state treasurer and controller – and the average of the aggregated statewide two-party percentage for State Assembly and Congressional elections.  It also depicts the differences between the down ballot average two-party vote share and the gubernatorial candidate’s percentage.

The table shows no strong relationship between the performance of the gubernatorial candidate and down-ballot races.  Take the examples of former California GOP Govs. Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger, each re-elected in a landslide (Schwarzenegger winning by a shade under 17%; Wilson by 14.5%). Wilson’s strength appears to have helped slightly in 1994, the year of the GOP’s “Contract With America”; Schwarzenegger’s coattails couldn’t overcome the growing anti-Republican California sentiment amidst the national Democratic wave in 2006. Still, down-ballot candidates performed better than gubernatorial candidate Dan Lungren in 1998 (Lungren losing to Gray Davis by nearly 20%).

All of this suggests that the individual races are largely independent of each other and more dependent on the political environment in California.  On average, down-ballot Republicans do about 3% worse than their gubernatorial candidate at the top of the ticket. If this were to hold true, then under the top-two system the Republican gubernatorial candidate would have to win 53% of the vote for the down-ballot Republicans to have a chance, which is about 9% better than the Republican’s expected average percentage.

A brief look at California’s voter population centers makes the Republicans’ struggle even more apparent.  The table below separates the state into seven regions and shows, as of October 2012, the region’s voter registration breakdowns.

With almost 5 out of every 10 votes coming from the southern coastal region of the state – Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange and Ventura counties – Republicans have to step up their competitiveness.  The more “Republican” regions – the Inland Empire, the Sierras, and the San Joaquin Valley – represent only 23% of the state’s registered voters and only 25% of eligible voters. Translation: there’s not much room for electoral growth.

The Republican Party’s troubles are best captured by Steve Cooley’s narrow 1-point loss in the 2010 Attorney General’s campaign.  Despite barely winning the Southern Coast and the Sacramento Valley – racking up double-digit margins in the Sierras, the Inland Empire, and the San Joaquin Valley, and maintaining reasonable margins in the Bay Area and Northern Coast – Cooley still fell 74,000 votes shy of victory.

After adjusting for the new top-two system, had Cooley turned his 7-point loss in the Central Coast into a narrow win and either incrementally closed the gap some more in the Bay Area or slightly increased his advantage in the Southern Coast, he would have won.  However, those adjustments would mean Cooley needed to flip between 97,000 and 116,000 voters (assuming the voter composition stayed the same), which is difficult as Democrat voter rolls outnumber the Republican’s by margins of close to two- to three-to-one in those regions.

The facts line up squarely against the GOP: California’s Republican Party continues to hemorrhage support statewide. Unless changes are made, it will continue to lose elections – circumstances that don’t make the Grand Old Party seem all that grand.

Carson Bruno is a Hoover Institution research analyst.

Two years ago, California stuck out like a sore blue thumb on America’s political landscape.

At the same time the nation was veering right – Republicans ... continue reading]]> Tweet

Two years ago, California stuck out like a sore blue thumb on America’s political landscape.

At the same time the nation was veering right – Republicans winning historically at both the federal and state levels – Californians paddled furiously to the left: Jerry Brown was returned a governor’s office he had occupied nearly three decades previously; Democrats won each and every of the eight statewide constitutional offices – only one of those contests being competitive (Republican Steve Cooley lost the state attorney general’s race by 0.8%; every other GOP candidate sustained a double-digit defeat).

As for last month’s results, it was more of the same – business as usual being bad news for a California Republican Party that’s in the business of trying to win elections.

To wit:

• President Obama carried the state without working up a sweat – further evidence that the Golden State is no longer red in a world minus the red menace. California has gone in the Democratic column in each presidential election since the Berlin Wall fell, versus 9 Republican wins – and only 2 losses, in 1948 and 1964 – in the 11 elections during the Cold War-era presidential votes (1948-1988).
• Dianne Feinstein won a U.S. Senate race for the fifth straight time, in the process collecting a record number of votes. Her opponent: Elizabeth Emken, whose previous campaign experience was managing to finish last in a four-candidate Republican congressional primary two years prior.
• Once all the votes were tallied, California Democrats emerged with two-thirds “supermajority” control in each of California’s legislative chambers, meaning they can sign off on state constitutional amendments and tax increases without need of a single Republican vote. That, in addition to Republicans getting evicted from the budget process – no two-thirds majority required – courtesy of 2010’s Proposition 25.
• Looking forward to 2014, there’s the question of finding an able-bodied Republican to challenge Gov. Brown, assuming he seeks re-election (he turns 75 in April). The only GOP hopeful to emerge to date: Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, whose candidacy has been likened to a suicide mission. Whoever gets the nomination, he or she will be on the wrong side of a political escalator: California has reached an all-time high of 18.2 million registered voters; the number of registered Republicans stands at 29.4%, down a full 2% from four years ago.
• Make that a search for able-bodied Republicans, plural. After winning 5 of 8 statewide constitutional offices in 1994, Republicans have won only 3 of 32 such contests in the past four election cycles (1998-2010).  Adding insult to injury: only 5 of those 20 losses would be deemed “competitive” (the margin of defeat being 4.1% or less).
• And, in image-conscious California, there’s the ongoing question of a toxic brand. As explained in the analysis that coincides with this introduction, the same party that spawned Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan is on a fast-track to being supplanted by independent voters in the next decade, as it struggles to make inroads with youth and minority voters and battles a stereotype of being non-mainstream.

There are two ways to look at the Republicans’ California woes.

• No reason for alarm, with the Golden State reflecting a phenomenon that Hoover media fellow Michael Barone describes as “one-party government”. In the aftermath of the 2012 election, America now has 25 states where the governorships and legislatures are Republican-controlled, versus 15 states in Democratic lockstep. California and Texas are the ends of these extremes – if you don’t like your current government, pack up the car and drive east or west on I-10.
• Every reason for alarm, with California a symptom of a larger Republican disease that haunted the GOP in its failed efforts to unseat Barack Obama and win control of the U.S. Senate: the search for winning ideas and compelling messengers. A generation ago, California led the way on taxation (1978’s Proposition 13, a precursor to Reagan’s presidential run two year later) and was a cutting-edge laboratory for state innovation (welfare and criminal justice reform, a balanced approach to environmental regulation). Of central concern to California Republicans moving forward: assuming the party develops an agenda, who does the talking? The national party has a deep bench of talent; the state party doesn’t.

In this installment of Eureka, we won’t offer an elixir for the California GOP’s woes. There are still plenty of dialogues to be had on these pages.

But we will begin with by addressing the topic from several wide angles. That includes:

• Carson Bruno, a Hoover Institution research analyst, examining a California electoral environment that’s grown hostile toward Republican candidates;
• Charles Bell, the state GOP’s general counsel, taking on the critics and making the case for what his party is doing right;
• Duf Sundheim a former GOP state chair, discussing the party’s need to broaden the base – especially with younger voters;
• Rep. Devin Nunes, a five-term Republican congressman from the San Joaquin Valley, outlining how the party can better compete for Hispanic votes.

We hope you enjoy these columns – and a topic that’s central to the future of politics in the Golden State.

My ... continue reading]]> Tweet

I have an op-ed in today’s Sacramento Bee, the subject being lessons learns from Governor Jerry Brown’s surprising win on Proposition 30 and what comes next for California’s chief executive.

My takeaways:

• In addition to being smart enough to shift Prop 30’s message from bailing out Sacramento to bailing out K-12 and higher-ed, Brown had the good fortune to slip into California’s Democratic “jet stream” – he received 615,000 fewer votes than President Obama, but 715,000 more than the “no” campaign. Such is the Democratic edge in California these days that there’s room to navigate – even on tax increases.
• With Republicans now on the short side of “supermajorities” in both legislative chambers (i.e., they can’t block tax increases if the Democrats go down that road), Brown’s real rivals in 2013 are . . . his fellow Democrats in the State Legislature. The governor’s promised not to turn the next legislative into a tax feeding frenzy – we’ll see if the decidedly more liberal legislators share that sentiment. Brown sees governing as paddling a canoe left and right, trying to stay in the middle. The State Legislature doesn’t. We’ll see if the two can coexist.
• So where does Brown go next? My suggestion: explore political reform. That would include revamping the state’s campaign finance laws, plus pursuing sunshine and oversight measures that would increase government accountability, begin the restore the public’s confidence in wayward Sacramento. It’s not as sexy as opening freeways and classrooms, but it does connect Brown to the governor who introduced direct democracy to California: the legendary Hiram Johnson.

Follow Bill Whalen on Twitter: @hooverwhalen

But a recent encounter with potential voters ... continue reading]]> Tweet

As his Proposition 30 hangs in the balance, California Gov. Jerry Brown continues an old-fashioned barnstorming campaign in its support.

But a recent encounter with potential voters in Southern California reveals that the challenges to the governor’s efforts are as much the media as the message. Specifically, voters are getting harder to reach through traditional “channels” (in this election, this has also been a problem for pollsters struggling to gauge public sentiment in a world transitioning from land lines to cell phones).

Speaking with folks at a coffee shop in San Diego during his Prop 30 tour, Brown asked whether they even knew about the measure.

Several patrons did not.

The governor followed up with a telling question: “Do you watch TV?”

When one woman in the group responded that she didn’t, Brown – as reported by The Los Angeles Times – “seemed exasperated.” He fired back: “That’s the problem. How do you reach the non-TV voter?”

Brown’s reaction shows an intriguing misunderstanding of the fundamental change underway in American viewing habits, but also demonstrates a fading view of how to influence opinion.

The way we watch television today – when we do – has become increasingly segmented and individually determined. When the governor won his first statewide election in 1970 (California’s Secretary of State) the top television shows were All in the Family, The Flip Wilson Show and Marcus Welby, MD. Because of the minimal channel-choices available to viewers in those days, advertisers could guarantee reaching nearly half of all television sets in the country. In today’s world of hundreds of channels, advertisers – including political ones – are likely to see only half that number for even the top shows.

Even more connected to the declining power of particular programs to deliver large audiences to political candidates is the unprecedented power of viewers to determine when and how they watch what can only loosely be called “television”.  Perhaps Gov. Brown would have been less surprised by the San Diegan’s response if he had seen the recent polling quoted in the New York Times, which found that “31% of likely voters had not watched television ‘live’ — that is, at the time it was being broadcast, as opposed to online or on a recording device — in the previous week.”

Recorded television and individually downloaded shows online allow viewers – and voters – to virtually eliminate television advertising.  This, in turn, is changing the way political campaigns treat their media buys. As Darrell M. West, director of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution opines in the same NYT piece:

“This will likely become the first truly digital election because so many people are not paying attention to live TV.” Campaigns are responding by targeting voters online through new “channels” from social media sites to highly sophisticated targeted email programs. The Obama campaign has become particularly expert in this, but as one of Romney’s senior digital strategists offers, “Our system is getting smarter every day as we learn more about these users.”

Getting back to Prop 30, which per the most recent Field Poll has a tottering 48% support, Brown’s idea that California’s governor can “educate” voters through 30-second television ads illustrates another challenge to politics in 2012. The vast majority of political advertising monies still go into television ads, but this may be more of a benefit to agencies and television stations than to the campaigns themselves. Particularly in advertising for propositions, most Californians sense the overwhelming self-interest of the sponsors or opponents in commercials – if we can even find out who they are. A highly regarded political scientist here in the state once confided to me: “I make my voting decision on ballot measures purely by the list of opponents and supporters. The side I like and identify with – I vote for them.”

The saturation of sound-bite advertising on ballot measures speaks to the need for a more deliberative process that helps inform voters to the real trade-offs involved in each measure. As I have written before, this is why I’m very intrigued by Oregon’s Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR), which not only convenes a “jury” of randomly selected citizens for a period of several days to learn about and “vote” on the measure they’ve studied, but it also itemizes the major arguments – for and against the proposition – that influenced their decision. This information goes into the ballot pamphlet to offer a “citizen’s view” of the measure.

Also helpful: the growing number of independent information websites providing balanced information on ballot measures. From California Choices’ excellent endorsement matrix to California Common Sense’s comprehensive overviews to the interactivity of the Living Voter Guide’s Pro/Con “Post-It” platform, which invites voters to write their own arguments about the ballot measures, there has never been more non-biased information about our propositions.

My guess is Gov. Brown’s political consultants are familiar with all these dynamics, but that information has not yet trickled up.

In the aforementioned San Diego exchange, Brown proposed his fallback approach to the “non-TV voter”: “Maybe an ad on rock ‘n’roll radio,” he said. Unfortunately for the governor, just as in television, online music streaming platforms like Pandora, Spotify, and Rdio (with Apple rumored to launch in early 2013) allow users to pay for music without advertising.

With time running out on the election, is there time for a Plan “C”?

Pete Peterson is executive director of Pepperdine University’s Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership