Tag Archive for: California one-party state

California’s One-Party State, the Blue Wave Machine

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As the electorates in political battlegrounds across America endure what may be weeks of turmoil, in California the post-election environment is that of a mature one-party state. The population is quiescent, having at last count rejected President Trump by a more than two-to-one margin.

In California, it doesn’t matter that only 11.5 million votes have been reported, when 21 million voters received mailed ballots. The ruling party has everything working in its favor.

The Republicans had to scrap for every donation, with most GOP donors considering California a lost cause and sending their money out of state. The Democrats, on the other hand, had mega-donors willing to spend any amount, joined by public sector unions that, year after year, collect and spend nearly $1 billion in dues from government workers.

This outrageous financial disparity—all the more decisive because of its perennial, unceasing reliability—pays for a trained field army of public sector union activists who are mustered by the thousands every election season and joined by activists, often paid, from California’s powerful network of environmentalist and social justice pressure groups. There is absolutely nothing remotely comparable on the Republican side.

This translates into ballot harvesting on an epic scale, but it also translates into superior messaging. Political consulting and public relations are a lot like professional baseball. The best players get hired, at astronomical rates, by the richest owners. In California, the A-Team works for Democrats, because year after year, the Democrats throw down more money. A lot more money.

Election observers with decades of experience in California politics are shaking their heads. Nothing is known. There’s a record turnout, but how many people is that? In 2016, 14.2 million Californians cast a ballot. How many of those 21 million mailed ballots will be returned and counted? That will eventually be known, but don’t hold your breath. The California State Legislature has deemed that any ballots postmarked by November 3 can be received up to 14 days later, November 17.

But in California, why worry? In the one-party state, elections are a formality, sort of like they are in places like North Korea. The only difference is North Korea’s tyranny is overt and brutal, whereas California’s remains more akin to Huxley’s Brave New World, with Sexophones and Soma lulling the voters into believing whatever they’re told to believe.

As it is, from the results so far, the one-party state may actually pad its dominance in the state legislature. Half of the state senators face reelection this year, and of the 20 seats, GOP candidates are only leading in two races, with both of those too close to call. One of the brightest GOP Senators, John Moorlach, may be headed for defeat. His story exemplifies what Republicans are up against.

Moorlach, the only certified public accountant in California’s state legislature, made the mistake of explaining to that handful of financially literate Democratic senators (a few do exist) how to reform public sector pensions before they bankrupt the state. For that, and despite his strong record of support for law enforcement, Moorlach earned the enmity of the prison guards union, which poured money into the campaign of his Democratic opponent. Moorlach stepped on the wrong toes, and in California politics, that’s a sure path to oblivion.

Republicans at this point are not doing any better in the state assembly races, where all 80 seats are up for grabs. Only 19 of those races currently show a GOP candidate in the lead, and 13 of those are too close to call. Most of the races aren’t close at all. In four of them, there isn’t even a GOP candidate on the ballot, thanks to California’s “top-two” primary system.

While Republicans have picked up a few congressional seats elsewhere in America, not so much in California. In 2018, the year Tom Steyer and the public sector unions perfected ballot harvesting, California’s share of the state’s whopping 53 congressional seats dropped from a paltry 14 to an abysmal seven. As of noon on November 4, Republicans led in 10 of them, not exactly a complete claw back. And of those 10, only three, the 4th Congressional District held by the redoubtable Tom McClintock, the 22nd Congressional District held by the great Devin Nunes, and the 23rd Congressional District held by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, have been called. The rest are cliffhangers.

When it comes to early returns versus final returns, California’s Republicans have little cause for optimism. Harvested ballots, due to the far more professional and pervasive harvesting operations of the Democrats, tend to skew heavily Democratic. They also tend to get counted late. The wild card remains the cache of mailed-in ballots, where some GOP optimists claim the majority of ballots mailed at the last minute came from seniors who skew Republican.

If there is any reason for hope in California, it is with respect to some of the state ballot initiatives.

California’s voters have the ability to pass laws and constitutional amendments, and they voted on 12 of them this election. Notable among these were Proposition 15, which would raise property taxes, and Proposition 16, which would resurrect racial preferences in hiring, college admissions, and state contracts, and Proposition 21, which would allow statewide rent control. Early returns show all three of these losing, which means Californians haven’t totally lost their minds.

Early returns also show voters approving Proposition 22, which would allow rideshare app drivers to continue to work as independent contractors. But even this is a mixed bag. The only reason it may pass is that Big Tech companies spent more than $90 million to promote it, yet in the initiative they wrote and put onto the ballot, they were unwilling to protect the rights of other independent contractors, such as court reporters, real estate appraisers, translators, caregivers, and countless others.

And on the other hand, it looks like Californians will not approve Proposition 20, which would have restored stronger penalties for property and drug crimes. How Californians expect to get their streets back, when they’ve effectively legalized theft and the distribution and use of hard drugs, is anybody’s guess.

All in all, there isn’t much good news coming out of California today.

And will any of it hold up? In 2018, early returns had Democrats trailing in all but one of the GOP-held seven districts they eventually flipped. More recent evidence of how ballot harvesting favors Democratic candidates and causes in California comes from the March 2020 primary, in an analysis of nearly 100 local tax and bond proposals. Early results had 33 percent of local bonds and 31 percent of local taxes leading, whereas final counts showed 39 percent of local bonds and 48 percent of local taxes being approved by voters. Nearly every contest deemed too close to call in the early tallies ended up passing in the final count.

And while Californians in March 2018 did not approve new local taxes and bonds in the percentages they’ve done historically, the Democratic machine just keeps putting them on the ballot until they do get passed. This November, nearly 300 were on the ballot.

The lessons from the 2018 general election and the 2020 primary in California seem to be that ballot harvesting favors Democrats, mail-in ballots are a wild card, and every political advantage that can possibly be deployed—money, professional consulting, paid foot soldiers, and support from all forms of media—overwhelmingly favors Democrats.

California is a blue wave machine. Melded with the corrupt big-city Democratic machines in their urban strongholds from Minneapolis to Atlanta, and with the complicity of every co-opted American institution, they are going to be tough to stop.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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Fighting the One-Party State at the Local Level in California

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It isn’t a partisan observation to say that California is a one-party state. It’s just stating a fact. The Democratic Party controls all the levers of political power in California. Consider the evidence: GOP registration is down to 23 percent of registered voters. There is a Democratic “mega-majority” (75% or more) in both chambers of the state legislature. The GOP only holds 7 out of 53 congressional seats. Democrats occupy every state office from Governor on down. The GOP hasn’t elected a U.S. Senator to represent California since 1988. Democrats control the city councils and boards of supervisors in almost every city and county. There are roughly 10,000 elected positions in California, from school boards to utility commissions and special districts, and Democrats run candidates and have professional funded campaigns for all of them, all the time.

The reasons that California is a one-party state are also not hard to understand. For this as well, the evidence is overwhelming. Virtually every financial special interest in California supports Democrats. Public sector unions, which are almost exclusively supportive of Democratic candidates and causes, collect and spend $800 million per year. California’s high tech industry, commanding mind-blowing wealth, is solidly Democratic. California’s wealthy and influential entertainment industry is solidly Democratic. The media establishment in California is also solidly Democratic, wielding priceless influence over voters. And as if that weren’t enough, politically active billionaires spend amazing sums of money in California to support Democrats.

It takes BIG money to control California politics, and the Democrats have it: California’s own Tom Steyer spent $45 million on CA ballot measures in 2012 and 2016. Steyer spent $60 million on U.S. congressional races in 2018, including several in California. New Yorker Michael Bloomberg spent an estimated 80 million on 24 battleground congressional races, and won 21 of them – including 3 in California. These and other major donors coordinated efforts with PACs supported by public sector unions to flip seven congressional seats in California in 2018 and increase their majorities in both chambers of the state legislature.

It takes hundreds of millions per year to win in California; the Democrats always have that kind of money, and the Republicans never do.

Californians Want New Ideas

A critical mass of Californians are realizing Democrats have failed them, and this, too, is not a partisan observation. There is ample evidence of how one-party rule has failed. There are now over 150,000 homeless living in permanent encampments on the streets of California”s cities. Among these unfortunate individuals are drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally ill, and criminals. Some of them urgently need help, others need to be incarcerated, but permissive laws and unrealistic regulations prevent action. Instead, voters are conned into paying for “affordable” public housing that costs, on average, over $500,000 per unit. The cost to build houses is prohibitive because of expensive permits (and endless delays in getting them), excessive fees, and a shortage of land where no shortage ought to exist because of “greenbelts.”

The litany of one-party state failure is endless. Taxpayers fund expansion of light rail despite low ridership, instead of upgrading California’s roads and freeways. Californians pay among the highest prices in the nation for gasoline, electricity, and natural gas. Californians endure water rationing because the one-party state won’t make effective investments in infrastructure. Californians are driven from their homes and some of them are killed because of wildfires caused by the one-party state’s negligence and misguided regulations, not “climate change.” Californians are forced to send their children to failing K-12 public schools, and when it’s time to send them to college, they will face an unaffordable tuition burden in order to pay for the population explosion of non-teaching administrators.

The one-party state has made life in California unaffordable and unfair, and the political system is rigged. But there are ways to fight back. Regardless of party affiliation, local elected officials, and citizens through the initiative process, can pass measures that have broad populist appeal. Here are examples of nonpartisan reform that are feasible at the local level.

Examples of Local Government Reforms

(1) Curb Corporate Cronyism: One way to get at this is via a “Fairness in Business” ordinance. The city council in Yorba Linda recently approved this ordinance, which  “shall prohibit any subsidy or business incentive from being provided to one business for their gain without the same subsidy or business incentive being given to all businesses.”

(2) Attack Corporate Welfare: A related measure could attack corporate welfare via a “Taxpayer Protection Resolution.” This measure would use the gift clause in the California constitution as the legal basis to minimize if not eliminate tax incentives and subsidies. The operative language would be “Government shall not expend, loan, or allow the use of public resources, nor use its taxing power, in aid of any individual, association, corporation, or other private party, unless such expenditure, loan, or use is for a public purpose, supported by consideration, and over which the public entity exercises continuing control.”

(3) Form an Independent Fire Department: California’s cities can emulate the experience of Placentia, which withdrew from the Orange County Fire Authority, with OCFA scheduled to be effectively replaced by mid 2020. According to Voice of OC, Placentia expects to save $28 million over the next 10 years by forming its own fire department and privatizing the paramedics services. Restoring local control over firefighting and emergency response services offers a huge opportunity to right-size pay, benefits, and work rules that have been a major factor in crowding out other services in California’s cities.

(4) Require Transparency in Local Government: Adopt a “Civic Openness in Negotiations” ordinance. Several California cities have passed ordinances that are helpful during negotiations with public employee unions to adopt or renew labor agreements. Key elements of COIN ordinances are the following: require an independent contract negotiator and an independent contract auditor, require public disclosure of offers and counteroffers, require elected officials to disclose all relevant communications, and allow for public disclosure and time for comments prior to final contract approval. Why hasn’t this always been the law?

(5) Get Retiree Health Insurance Spending Under Control: Right-size retired employee health insurance subsidies. In 2015 the City of Glendale decided to no longer guarantee that retirees would pay no more than active employees for their health insurance, by no longer subsidizing the higher premiums that typically apply with older participants. As noted in Glendale’s 2017 Annual Financial Report: “In October 2015, the City Council approved unblending medical insurance premium rates between active employees and retired employees effective June 1, 2016. Accordingly, City’s actuarial liability decreased from $214 million as of 6/30/2013 to $16 million as of 6/30/2016.

(6) Keep Taxpayer Funds Out of Political Advocacy: Regulate use of city or county expenditures on “public information campaigns.” California’s public officials have sought to raise local taxes and fees through “information” campaigns designed to appeal to local voters. These are thinly veiled, barely legal forms of political campaigning. Make them explicitly illegal, through a measure that states, among other things: “This city/county will not use public money – either internally, through its own staff and treasury, or externally, through the hiring or use of outside vendors – to engage in public education; public opinion polling or studies; or communications intended or may seem to be intended to determine the outcome of political campaigns.”

(7) Pension Reform: Two major cities enacted pension reform in the past decade, San Jose, and San Diego. Both of these reforms were relentlessly attacked in court by attorneys representing public sector unions, but significant reform elements remained in effect. Some of the key reforms include: Restrict what qualifies as pension eligible compensation. Move new employees onto 401K plans. Set a maximum percent-of-salary limit on city contributions to pensions. Change age of eligibility for pension benefits. Reduce maximum allowable cost of living adjustments to retiree pensions. Cap amount of pension eligible final salary. Assign “disability” retirement awards to independent panel. Discontinue “supplemental” pension payments to retirees.

Using the Initiative Process to Enact Local Reforms

While a city council of county board of supervisors can enact local political reforms, the initiative process offers a method to bypass the local elected officials. Getting a measure onto local ballots in California is still a fairly straightforward process.

Local Initiative Process:

  • Draft ballot measure and submit to City Attorney
  • Verify signature petition meets state and local legal requirements
  • Publish legal ad within 10 days of receiving title & summary
  • Gather signatures – typically 10 percent of registered voters
  • Collect 50 percent more signatures than you need (15 percent)
  • Submit signed petitions within 180 days of getting title & summary
  • City has 30 business days to verify signatures
  • If City doesn’t enact measure, it goes before voters in next election

While all of the already listed reforms can be enacted by a governing body or by a vote of local residents, doing it by initiative actually has some advantages. Most notable, a citizen’s initiative cannot typically be overturned by a city council or board of supervisors, it can only be repealed by holding a referendum asking voters to repeal what they’d previously approved. Since the one-party state can almost always retake control of a city council or county board of supervisors where the political reformers temporarily gained a majority, the initiative route implements a solution that can be more durable and lasting.

The following examples of political reforms via the local initiative process are actually being tried in California. In North Los Angeles County, a group of volunteer activists have placed several ballot measures before voters that if approved would repeal various local tax increases, usually utility taxes. In Oxnard, a group of volunteer activists are attempting to place a slate of linked initiatives on their local ballot, a tactic which makes sweeping changes possible in one election cycle.

(1) Repeal Local Tax Increases: Sample language can be quite simple, as shown by this example from a repeal measure placed on the April 2018 ballot in Sierra Madre: “Shall the City of Sierra Madre adopt a measure repealing the City’s Utility Users Tax in its entirety?” Political reformers who succeed in getting these proposals onto local ballots should prepare for a creative counterattack in the form of an “Advisory Measure” placed adjacent to the repeal on the ballot, asking voters “if the tax repeal passes, should the City Council eliminate paramedic services, reduce and outsource police services and library services, reduce code enforcement, and fire suppression service…”

(2) Place several reforms on the ballot at once, such as was attempted in Oxnard with the following five ballot measures: Fiscal Transparency and Accountability Act, which would make the city treasurer, an elected official, the head of the finance department. Keeping the Promise for Streets Act, which would deny the city certain sales tax revenue if it fails to maintain streets to specific levels. Term Limits Act, which would limit the mayor and council members to no more than two consecutive four-year terms. Open Meetings Act, which would require city meetings to begin no earlier than 5 p.m. and allow public speakers no less than three minutes to comment. Permit Simplicity Act, which would reform the permitting system with training, new guidelines and an auditing process that would lead an applicant to obtain a permit in one business day.

Other Ways to Fight for Nonpartisan Political Reform in California

To state the obvious, it is impossible to provide a comprehensive list of political reforms that can be enacted at the local level in California. A few additional noteworthy items are: reform the binding arbitration process, resist the ongoing assault on charter schools, defend the right of public employers to speak openly to employees about the costs and benefits of union membership, fight to enforce the Janus decision, and raise public awareness about the harm government unions are doing to our democracy.

The political landscape in California, unfortunately, cannot be significantly changed without state legislation or state ballot initiatives. Absolutely crippling, cruel legislation passed in Sacramento by the uni-party has brought California to the brink of becoming a feudal state, and only statewide rolling back of these laws will result in dramatic change. But citizens initiatives that work at the local level can also work at the state level. It just takes a lot more signatures to get it done.

State Initiative Process:

  • Draft ballot measure and submit to Attorney General
  • Get title & summary, begin signature gathering period
  • File petition with election officials in all 58 counties
  • Statute or referendum 5% (623,212), amendment 8% (997,139), of votes cast for governor in most recent election
  • Collect 30-50 percent more signatures than you need
  • Submit signed petitions within 180 days of getting title & summary – must be submitted by county
  • Petitions must be submitted six months prior to November election

This is a daunting undertaking, which is why most state ballot initiatives require millions in funding to pay for professional signature gatherers, attorneys and consultants. And then, if the initiative is qualified for the state ballot, additional tens of millions must be spent to run a campaign in a state with 20 million registered voters, spanning seven major television media markets.

There are exciting new ways these costs can be driven way down, way down, by using the latest online technologies and by viral networking of disgruntled, disenfranchised activists. Millions of these people still live in California, and all of them want to do something to save their state. But a good first start for reformers is to attack on the local level, where they have a chance to marshal sufficient forces to prevail.

This article originally appeared on the website California Globe.

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