Poizner targets Whitman's media dodging

Guess what? Electronic signatures aren’t new to California politics. In most counties of this state, records of voter registration are kept in electronic form. So when the clerk’s office checks to see if your pen-and-paper signature on an initiative petition matches the signature they have on file, the signature they’re comparing it with is an electronic one.

I learned more about this through reading the fascinating court filings in the case of Ni v. Slocum, a new lawsuit that asks a superior court judge in San Mateo County to find that an electronic signature on the marijuana initiative – Michael Ni signed it electronically with the touch screen of his iPhone – is valid and should be counted. The county’s chief elections officer, Warren Slocum, ruled the signature invalid.

A scheme by legislative leaders to torpedo Prop 14, the open primary initiative on the June ballot was revealed this week in a Sacramento Superior Courtroom.

It’s no secret that political insiders are opposed to open primaries. They see the idea as a threat to their power and influence over what happens in the Capitol. That’s why it wasn’t surprising to see them ramp up their calculated attacks on the open primary as voters begin to become more aware of the idea.

What was surprising, however, was the blatant audacity of insiders who this week tried to engineer a last-minute, total rewrite of the title and summary of Proposition 14, one that included absurdly prejudicial language designed to deceive voters and kill the measure.

While many elected officials, members of the media, and members of the general public have expressed outrage over the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Citizens United, the real danger of that decision lurks beneath the surface. The decision, which allows corporations to use general treasury funds to make ads that support or oppose candidates for elected office, has been widely criticized as giving corporations a larger voice in elections. There can be little doubt that the Court’s decision will do just that.

However, the truly dangerous part of the decision is not its outcome; it is instead the way that the Court decided the case.

Citizens United is a conservative non-profit corporation which sought to air a movie on Video-On-Demand critical of then-Presidential Candidate Hilary Clinton during her primary election battle with now-President Barack Obama. When it brought its case to the Supreme Court, Citizens United brought forth a narrow challenge, claiming that a portion of Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (commonly known as McCain-Feingold) was unconstitutional only as applied to it. Citizens United had abandoned its much broader claim which asked the Court to declare a provision of McCain-Feingold to be unconstitutional as applied to everyone.

Voters beware: A group of California Democratic lawmakers is attempting one of the most cynical power-grabs in recent memory. The goal is to overturn voter-approved Proposition 11 in order to give themselves the authority to redraw their own district boundaries and choose the voters they want to represent.

Two years ago, California voters ended this inherent conflict of interest by passing Proposition 11. The initiative established an independent citizens commission to draw new legislative districts following the 2010 census. The new process is transparent and will reflect the state's political and ethnic diversity. That's why good government organizations such as California Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, and AARP joined the Chamber in championing this initiative. It's also why political leaders spent millions of dollars opposing the initiative.

When it comes to redistricting, $2.7 million may trump $280,000.

The $2.7 million is what Charles Munger, a Palo Alto Republican, has anted up to qualify a “Son of Prop. 11” redistricting measure for the November ballot.

The initiative is simple enough. It allows the Citizens Redistricting Commission created by the 2008 initiative to also draw the lines for California’s congressional districts after this year’s census.

The $280,000, on the other hand, is what Democratic politicians and their allies have put aside for a November initiative that would kill Prop. 11 entirely, putting redistricting back in the hands of the Democrat-run Legislature.

Most of that money comes from California Democrats who are either in Congress or who want to be in Congress – that would be Karen Bass, who has given $50,000 to the initiative. But under Prop. 11, only legislative districts will be redrawn by the committee. Munger’s measure, though, would take redistricting out of the comforting hands of the Legislature and give it to a multi-partisan commission that won’t care nearly so much about putting more California Democrats in Congress.

The findings announced yesterday by Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor on AB 32’s impact on unemployment in California confirmed what many of us have known for a long time – the regulations imposed by AB 32 will cause California to lose more jobs. With California facing its worst jobs crisis since the Great Depression, we don’t have the luxury of a wait-and-see approach to AB 32, the greenhouse gas law that will smother job creation, raise costs for consumers, and destroy businesses across our state. It’s time for decisive action to correct AB 32, a law that will only make it harder for California families to make ends meet.

That’s why I support the California Jobs Initiative. This initiative, which is currently seeking signatures to qualify for the ballot, will stop all rulemaking and regulation under AB 32 until California’s unemployment rate declines to the level it was when AB 32 was adopted. I am proud to be the only candidate for governor that has endorsed this initiative and called for AB 32 to be completely halted until our economy is back on track and Californians are back to work.

In pushing a bill to prevent furloughs for nearly 80,000 state workers, Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg argued a number of furloughs were counter productive. He pointed particularly to the tax collectors under the Board of Equalization and the Franchise Tax Board. According to a report, Steinberg argued that the furlough savings of $65 million in salary paid to these employees was more than offset by the loss of $465 million in unpaid taxes these workers would collect if they were on the job.

I don’t know how this calculation was made. Seems odd, though. When these workers were working full time was all that uncollected tax revenue accounted for? With rates of return described by Steinberg, we should offer overtime to the tax collectors. At that rate, they could probably collect enough revenue to solve the budget deficit in no time.

But let’s be less cynical. Let’s accept Senator Steinberg’s assertion that furloughs limit productive workers from doing the jobs they are supposed to do in improving the difficult condition of the state.

Amid the wreckage of California’s economy and our diminishing competitiveness, one California character trait abides: innovation and the prospect of cashing in on it.

According to a survey by the research firm VentureSource, fully 33 of the top 50 venture capital-backed firms (two-thirds), and 15 of the top 20, are located in California, a striking reminder that intellectual capital and innovation start right here. And since many of these firms are spinning off from research undertaken at our great universities, this drives home the importance of investing in a strong public university system for the future health of our economy.

The other take-away: only three of the 33 California firms are involved in what’s known as “clean tech.” In fact, more venture-backed firms were involved in health care than any other sector except technology. California has been a leader in health care innovation for decades, spinning off jobs and advancing medical treatments. But the equipment used to produce DNA sequencers, implantable devices for neurological disorders, or innovative orthopedic products (to name the technologies from just three of these top venture-backed firms) would not qualify for the proposed tax incentives aimed at the favored green sector.

Californians, meet your next governor.

Let’s call him Jerry Schwarzenegger.

As former California Gov. Jerry Brown officially rolled out his 2010 campaign for governor this week, he was confronted by questions about how a new Brown term in the stateh ouse might be different than his first, an entertaining if unfocused eight-year stretch from 1975 to 1983.

But in trying to reassure voters that he’s learned lessons, Brown looked and sounded like an older, Zen version of the unpopular incumbent, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who can’t run for re-election because of term limits.

Cross-posted at NewGeography.com.

For more than one-third of a century Jerry Brown has proved one of the most interesting and original figures in American politics--and the 71-year-old former wunderkind might be back in office in 2010. If he indeed wins California's gubernatorial election, the results could range from somewhat positive to positively disastrous.

Brown is a multi-faceted man, but in political terms he has a dual personality, split between two very different Catholic figures from the 15th century: Machiavelli and Tomas de Torquemada. For the sake of California, we better hope that he follows the pragmatism espoused by the Italian author more than the stern visage of the Grand Inquisitor.

Like a good Jesuit, Brown certainly can be flexible. Back in 1978, for example, he worked against Howard Jarvis' Proposition 13, which capped real estate taxes. But once the measure was passed, Brown embraced it as his own. Indeed, he was so enthusiastic about the tax-cutting measure that Jarvis actually voted for Brown's re-election late that same year. A month after the vote a Los Angeles Times poll revealed most Californians thought Brown actually supported 13.