Elections

Last March, the threat of a protest by the Occupy movement caused the Davis Monsanto Plant to close its doors.  Now, beginning early this morning, protesters, led perhaps by Cindy Sheehan, will be back attempting to shut it down once again.

One of the organizers of the event, Steven Payan of Occupy Woodland, said in a release late Sunday, “This is about hundreds of thousands of lives lost, deformed from chemicals and mass pollution to [the] environment and a company allowed to get away with it because of government ties, and massive lobbying dollars.”

The Republicans scored political victory of sorts today when their referendum to overturn the newly re-drawn Senate districts qualified for the ballot on Friday.

A few years ago, Republicans, believing that legislative districts had been unfairly drawn, joined with the “good government” folks who believe that partisanship is bad to create a citizens redistricting committee to replace what they saw as partisan cronyism.

The problem was that the lines shockingly still gave the Democrats an advantage, in fact, perhaps an even greater advantage than they had previously.

Republican strategist David Gilliard is leading the way.  He argued on Monday, “This is not an attack on the process – it’s an attack on the product.”

By holding an all-mail election, the election generated a somewhat higher turnout than similar off-year elections in past years.  The November 2007 elections that featured school board candidates and the Measure Q parcel tax had just a 32.8 percent turnout, and in 2009 Measure P had a 33 percent turnout. For the May 2011 Measure A vote, the turnout was 38%.

That is because, short of a court decision to call the citizen redistricting commission unconstitutional – which appears very unlikely – the voters are probably not going to willingly vote to turn the power back to politicians to draw district lines.

The weekend, the “Citizens Redistricting Commission” announced they decided to skip the publication of a second draft of redistricting maps.

One Commissioner, Cynthia Dai, told the media, “We were running up against the clock.  There’s a certain amount of time it takes to produce a map.”

There is an old adage in politics that I rarely subscribe to which is to be careful what you ask for.  After all you would be paralyzed if you adhered to that principle, unable to act.

Nevertheless, Republicans and some “good government” Democrats and Independents have been pushing the notion of the California redistricting panel hoping that perhaps there will be more competitive Congressional and Legislative districts in California.

While much of the focus on Monday remained at the top with the swearing in of new Governor Jerry Brown, one of the biggest offices will undoubtedly be the California Office of the Attorney General where San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris was sworn in, “vowing to ensure that state law is on the side of the people.”

What that means will be the question of the next four years, but Ms. Harris represents the last best hope for real reform in the criminal justice in California – a system bogged down with an expensive and over-capacity prison system, recidivism and ridiculous sentences for minor crimes.

The first time I saw Kamala Harris was in San Jose back in 2008 at the California Democratic Convention.  It was during the heat of the primary battle, and both of the top Democrat contenders sent representatives to speak on their behalf. 

Hillary Clinton sent Former President Bill Clinton.  Barack Obama sent a little known District Attorney from San Francisco, Kamala Harris.  She lightened the mood by poking fun of the disparity, pitting herself as the David to Bill Clinton’s Galliath.

The caveat, of course, is that things change in politics very quickly.  In 1994, California was not a blue state.  Pete Wilson had just been re-elected Governor by a wide margin, despite having extremely low opinion ratings.  Dianne Feinstein needed everything she had to hold off what was then a record spending by Michael Huffington.

The Republicans for the first time won the Assembly, although Willie Brown would nullify that advantage.  They won all but two of the partisan constitutional offices.  And they rode the coattails of Three Strikes and Prop 187 to victory.

From the start, the California Attorney General’s Race figured to be one of the most important races on the downside of the ticket.  The outcome of this race may, for example, determine what happens with the Proposition 8 challenges, where Steve Cooley would likely be able to find a way to get California back as a party on the defendant side and that would change everything.

Steve Cooley may also be inclined to join other AG’s across the nation in suing on Obama’s health care reform.  Kamala Harris, for all her flaws (and there are many), is a strong opponent of the death penalty and has been pushing for sentencing and recidivism reform.

As the campaigns in California were nearing an end, I ran a story on the Field Poll showing both Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer moving from close races to a big leads.  I pay particular attention to the Field Poll because it has long been regarded as the best of the statewide polls.

I spent a good amount of time in graduate school studying polling and following the debates over the proper way to poll.  I recall in the middle part of the decade there was a long debate among pollsters about what factors should be weighed and what factors should be measured.  In particular was the question of party indentification.

For much of the last decade, California has been ungovernable – beset by partisan polarization and hamstrung by a political system designed in another era.  The state was led by an inexperienced and at times temperamental Governor, and legislative leaders apparently never quite knew what they were going to get.

The result was not necessarily the record deficits we have seen, as those came more naturally from a collapsed economy.  The political stalemate, however, meant there was never a real or workable solution.

Democrats were licking in their wounds on Tuesday night, but frankly it could have been worse – a lot worse.  Republicans took the House, but Democrats have narrowly held the Senate.  The worst of the Tea Party candidates in Delaware and Nevada went down to defeat.  Even in Alaska the Tea Party candidate finished behind the write-in.

It was a different story in California.  The AP and most networks called it early for Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer, and then watched nervously as the Senate Race remained tight until late, with Fiorina at one point holding a very narrow lead.  But the exit polls were right and the projections held.

Democratic voters reading this ought to brace themselves for a rough night that is likely to rival 1994, if not exceed it.  Angry voters across the nation are poised to sweep out the incumbents yet again in large numbers – this time to the benefit of the GOP.

However, as I suggested last week, Californians ought to build that moat because the wave is not going to hit here.  Recent polling suggests that, while it may be true that Republicans will turn out in large numbers across the country and Democrats will stay home, there is little evidence that will happen in California.

Landmark global warming rules are set to start in January 1, 2012 under new rules released last Friday by state air regulators which would put roughly 600 of California’s major polluters, from oil refineries to power plants to factories, under mandatory limitations on the amount of greenhouse gases they emit.

The California Air Resources Board released guidelines that would establish a new cap and trade market that would allow polluting facilities to trade pollution credits to offset global warming.  For instance, tree planting could cover up to eight percent of their emissions limits.

Another proposition that perhaps has not received enough attention is Proposition 26, which would require supermajority voter approval for raising state and local fees by recategorizing them as taxes. This would set up supermajority voter-approval hurdles for what are now regulatory and impact fees that can be adopted by simple majorities of the State Legislature, city councils and boards of supervisors.

As written, Proposition 26 would recategorize many local government fees and charges as taxes, subjecting them to the approval requirements of special taxes, including two-thirds supermajority voter approval. With some limited exceptions, a tax would include any charge that provides benefits or privileges to those not charged.

Californians may want to a build a mote around the state, protecting it from the tidal wave that is about to hit the rest of the country.  Fueled by anger and frustration over a lingering economic downturn and a dysfunctional government, voters around the country are ready to turn out the incumbent party.  However, that does not appear likely in California.

The Field Poll this week shows Jerry Brown, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, opening up a 10-point lead over his Republican opponent Meg Whitman.