State of California

By Dan Aiello 

GUEST COMMENTARY – Advocates of universal access to higher education fear California voters, faced with two competing education tax initiatives will fail both, effectively abandoning the state’s historic commitment to provide access to higher education for all.

Prop 30 will provide funding to California’s K-12 schools, but additionally will fund the state’s university, state college and community college systems to offset state budget cuts that have already endangered access to the educational opportunities once guaranteed all qualified students by the state under its Master Plan on Education.

by Jeff Boone

COLUMN RIGHT – This November we will be asked to vote on Proposition-30, Governor Brown’s state ballot initiative to increase sales and income tax to help fund education and public safety.

If approved, Prop-30 will require an amendment to the California Constitution.  It will increase sales tax by .25% for four years.

VANGUARD ANALYSIS – Polling last week showed support for Proposition 30 had dropped to as low as 46 percent – still technically ahead in the polls, but conventional wisdom is that measures with less than 50 percent support, especially tax measures, are in trouble.

That means that K-12 schools will be hammered with six billion dollars in cuts, including about 3.7 million dollars locally – an amount that might be offset starting in July 2013 if voters in Davis approve the parcel tax Measure E that will not only renew previous emergency funding from 2011 but also add a contingency in case Proposition 30 goes down.

While many are focusing on the Presidential Election or the local school board and parcel tax elections, Proposition 30 may have the single greatest impact locally, not just on K-12 education but also higher education.

A complication is a competing tax measure from Molly Munger.  Most analysts downplayed the impact when polls showed that the wealthy attorney Molly Munger, who has spent more than $30 million on her campaign, was only getting in the low 40s in support as opposed to 51 percent for Proposition 30.

It has been a long time since California has been on the forefront of anything in this nation.  However, as many other states have moved to making voting more difficult, enacting draconian if not disenfranchising laws, California in the past week has moved in the other direction, enacting same-day voter laws, online registration, and other innovations.

In a press release, the ACLU announced, “California leads the nation in promoting voter access.”  They applaud a third voter access law which enables voter registration through the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

There have been past efforts to increase voter participation.  In my first election as an adult, my generation launched “Rock the Vote,” aimed at getting the participation of youth.  Later there was the Motor Voter Law that allowed people to register as they renewed their driver’s license.

Now, Secretary of State Debra Bowen, Senator Leland Yee and San Mateo County Chief Elections Officer Mark Church and the other 57 county elections officials have launched an effort that could be equally revolutionary, as it allows people to register to vote online.

Jose Granda, the oft-times critic of the Davis School District, tried to take his fight to the legislature on Tuesday.  His target this time was legislation sponsored by Assemblymember Mariko Yamada, which would close loopholes that became evident during March’s parcel tax election.

AB 1626 has already unanimously passed in the Assembly, but it encountered some opposition on Tuesday in the Senate Elections & Constitutional Amendments Committee as it passed on a party-line, 3-2 vote.

It has been a fascinating week in California politics.  We have a field poll release giving us interesting information about the state’s political landscape, and news at the end of the week suggesting Republicans are in denial while the Democrats are likely to eat themselves… again.