Tag: California

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Righteous Recalls

According to Ballotpedia​.org, a wiki-​based website created by the Citizens in Charge Foundation to track ballot initiatives, referendums and recalls, this year voters have already launched more than twice as many efforts to recall public officials than occurred all of last year.

In Flint, Michigan, voters were set to recall the mayor for corruption, mismanagement and more. Ten days before the vote, the mayor resigned. 

In Tuolumne County, California, voters removed an entire school board that failed to account for $16 million in bond revenue.

After failed attempts to remove mayors in Toledo and Akron, Ohio, the Akron city council is now trying to dramatically increase the petition signatures needed to start a recall.

In Kimberly, Idaho, a campaign to recall the mayor and two city councilors for jacking up utility rates fell short of the needed voter signatures. But now the police are investigating whether town officials illegally obstructed the effort.

In Cincinnati, no process yet exists for recalling officials, so the local NAACP is poised to launch a petition drive to establish one. County Republican leaders are “studying” the issue. The county’s Democratic Party chairman opposes recall, saying, “I’d hate to see a situation where the mayor could be recalled any time he made a controversial decision.”

That’s a straw man. Recalls have been used very rarely. Besides, none of our political problems stem from voters demanding too much of politicians.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability

My Favorite Fix

California is going bankrupt. Behind its economic trouble lies serious political dysfunction.

What to do?

To hear some Golden State legislators and experts talk, the problem can be blamed squarely on the people and their lawmaking power through the state’s initiative process.

While initiatives like Prop 13 and term limits may bedevil the Sacramento insiders, they remain popular among voting Californians. Voters don’t see handing over all power to the politicians as a magic solution.

Others suggest California is so ungovernable that it should be split into two, a North and a South California. Why? To make the insolvent state start completely anew. And to reduce the massive scale of decision-​making in what is by far our country’s most populous state.

I have a better solution, which more and more folks from across the political spectrum seem to be considering. I suggest doubling the size of California’s legislature. Or tripling. Or more.

California’s legislative districts are huge, dwarfing those in other states. The ratio of voters to Assembly reps is 455,000 to one. The ratio of state senators to constituents is 900,000 to one.

The balance of interests between citizens and their representatives is all out of whack. When constituencies grow too large, politicians feel answerable to no one.

Smaller districts give voters more relative power — and legislators relatively less. Now that sounds like the right track.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies

Treason and Terrorism and You

All tyrants love unlimited government. But do all advocates of unlimited government love tyranny? Well, recently major fans of big government sure have been blurting out their hysterical hatred for normal democratic disagreement.

Take Paul Krugman, New York Times rah-​rah boy for humungoid government. He recently referred to opposition to the cap-​and-​trade bill as “treason against the planet.” 

Treason, really?

Since the consequences of that policy for the food supply will almost certainly further raise worldwide prices, economist David D. Friedman asked whether Krugman himself isn’t committing some kind of murder: Because of policies Krugman pushes, thousands more will likely starve to death.

But if you think Krugman’s rhetoric is overblown, get a load of California Assembly Speaker Karen Bass. In an interview in late June, she objected to Californians who influenced their Republican representatives to vote against “revenue” — her word for tax increases. She said, and I quote: “I don’t know why we allow that kind of terrorism to exist. I guess it’s about free speech, but it’s extremely unfair.”

Yes, the Democrats’ leader in the California Assembly referred to that special feature of representative democracy commonly known as “free speech” as “terrorism.”

Krugman and Bass need an education on basic terms. I guess it’s up to us to provide it.

If this be treason — or terrorism — make the most of it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall too much government

The Color of Contempt

The good sense that California voters exhibited at the polls in May has been rewarded with continual attack and derision. 

Meg Whitman, former eBay CEO and Republican candidate for governor, recently said, “In many ways, the proposition process has worn out its usefulness.”

She’s criticizing the initiative, and she’s not alone.

Wrong target. California’s initiative process account for what little political sanity exists in the state. 

The problem is spendaholic politicians.

But politicians and pundits continue bashing California’s ballot initiative process. Anything to deflect attention away from the inability of politicians to prioritize.

Even The Economist has taken up the bludgeon. A recent story, headlined “The ungovernable state,” said of the voter initiative process:

At first, it made sense .… The state in 1910 had only 2.4 million residents, and 95 percent of them were white. (Today it has about 37 million residents, and less than half are white.) A small, homogenous and informed electorate was to make sparing and disciplined use of the ballot to keep the legislature honest, rather as in Switzerland.

Is The Economist actually suggesting that a multi-​ethnic electorate is incapable of democratic decision-​making? I think we are witnessing the insider class move from condescending disdain for the people to a full-​blown case of dementia.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall tax policy too much government

Prop 13 Declared Innocent

You hear it all the time: California’s in such a mess “because of Proposition 13.”

You probably wonder how that initiative, passed way back in the ‘70s, could be so key.

Well, it was the first of a long line of voter-​instigated tax limitation measures, and it made politicians ache with frustration. Politicians LIKE spending money; Proposition 13 limited, somewhat, their greedy quest for ever more money to spend.

But did it really unbalance California fiscal policy?

Chris Reed, writing in the San Diego Union-​Tribune, explains how nutty this charge really is:

[S]ince shortly after Prop. 13’s adoption, property tax revenue increased by 579 percent. That is not a typo. It went up 579 percent.

During the same span, population went from 24 million to 38 million — an increase of 58 percent.

Reed checked his numbers against the inflation rate, and found that “property tax revenue has increased by more than triple the combined rate of inflation and population growth.”

He did a little more checking and learned that property tax revenues went up faster than any other major revenue source!

So Prop 13 simply cannot be the reason for California’s impending bankruptcy. Though the measure limited tax rate growth, and helped homeowners, it did not unbalance the budgets. 

Humungous increases in spending did. Politicians need look no further than their own projects.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
judiciary

Help Is Not on the Way

Think twice before you save people about to lose their lives, at least if you live in California.

The state supreme court there just ruled that good Samaritans can be held liable if they cause or aggravate an injury while rendering emergency help if that help is not medical.

A 1980 California law protects persons who render emergency aid from just such liability. But in a recent decision, the high court divined that this protection only pertains to “medical” care.

Therefore, Lisa Torti is liable for damages for pulling her coworker, Alexandra Van Horn, out of a car wreck in 2004. Van Horn became a paraplegic as a result of the accident. Ms. Torti did not cause the crash, but she was reluctant to stand by to witness her friend die should the car explode.

In his dissent, Justice Marvin Baxter observes that the perverse result of the ruling is that a person “who dives into swirling waters to retrieve a drowning swimmer can be sued for incidental injury he or she causes while bringing the victim to shore, but is immune for harm he or she produces while thereafter trying to revive the victim.”

So, hide your identity when you rescue people in California. That way, when you save somebody’s life and he yells, “Who was that masked man? Because I want to sue!” — he’ll be out of luck.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.