For a little while today, we all forgot that Democrat Bob Hertzberg is no longer the Assembly speaker or even an elected official. (Read the full story here.)

Three days after he officially bowed out of a state senate bid against Sen. Fran Pavely, D-Augoura Hills, Hertzberg was in Walnut Creek stumping for his favorite constitutional amendment, the Government Performance and Accountability Act written by reform group California Forward.

Hertzberg was the main event at Contra Costa Supervisor Karen Mitchoff’s luncheon speaker series on Thursday at the Marriott Hotel in Walnut Creek.

He is undeniably entertaining and he made performance-based budgeting sound like something everyone should run out and buy today. He cracked jokes. He was passionate. He didn’t bury us in technical details.

But the best part of his speech was his story about how he met billionaire Nicolas Berggruen, the founder of the state’s other big reform organization, the Think Long Committee for California.

Click here to watch video of Hertzberg’s comments.

But the story has it all. Mysterious call from a stranger. Overnight flight to Panama. A scruffy but brilliant uber-rich guy.  Aboarding a private plane with an unknown destination.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen has announced the numbers for the two measures set to appear on the June 5 ballot, and interested Californians now can submit arguments to be considered for inclusion in the state’s official voter information guide.

Here are the ballot measures, with their official titles and summaries as written by the state attorney general’s office:

Proposition 28 – Limits on Legislators’ Terms in Office. Initiative Constitutional Amendment. Reduces the total amount of time a person may serve in the state legislature from 14 years to 12 years. Allows a person to serve a total of 12 years either in the Assembly, the Senate, or a combination of both. Applies only to legislators first elected after the measure is passed. Provides that legislators elected before the measure is passed continue to be subject to existing term limits. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: No direct fiscal effect on state or local governments. (09-0048)

Proposition 29 – Imposes Additional Tax on Cigarettes for Cancer Research. Initiative Statute. Imposes additional five cent tax on each cigarette distributed ($1.00 per pack), and an equivalent tax increase on other tobacco products, to fund cancer research and other specified purposes. Requires tax revenues be deposited into a special fund to finance research and research facilities focused on detecting, preventing, treating, and curing cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and other tobacco-related diseases, and to finance prevention programs. Creates nine-member committee charged with administering the fund. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Increase in new cigarette tax revenues of about $855 million annually by 2011-12, declining slightly annually thereafter, for various health research and tobacco-related programs. Increase of about $45 million annually to existing health, natural resources, and research programs funded by existing tobacco taxes. Increase in state and local sales taxes of about $32 million annually. (09-0097.)

People can submit arguments for or against any measure, and those selected for the official ballot guide will be on public display from Feb. 21 through March 12.

State law gives first priority to arguments written by the initiative’s proponents, and then to bona fide citizen associations, and then to individuals. No more than three signers are allowed to appear with an argument or rebuttal to an argument. Ballot arguments can’t exceed 500 words and rebuttals can’t exceed 250 words; all submissions should be typed and double-spaced, and can be hand-delivered to the Secretary of State’s Elections Division at 1500 11th Street, 5th Floor, Sacramento, California 95814; faxed to (916) 653-3214; or emailed to VIGarguments@sos.ca.gov. If faxed or emailed, the original copies must be received within 72 hours. The deadline for ballot arguments is 5 p.m. next Tuesday, Feb. 7; the deadline for rebuttals is 5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 16.

Two state reform groups with disparate timelines have combined forces and resurrected a budget  initiative using what every successful ballot measure needs: Cash.

With matching $3 million pledges, eccentric billionaire Nicolas Berggruen and his Think Long Committee will join California Forward, a reform organization led by former Contra Costa Supervisor Sunne Wright McPeak and former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg.

The Think Long Committee last week announced it would postpone its reform initiative until 2014 and California Forward has struggled to find the money to put on an expensive statewide signature gathering effort and mount a campaign.

The merger’s baby is the Government Performance and Accountability Act and its target is the November 2012 election.

The act requires state and local governments to produce budgets that spell out in detail the expected results from every dollar spent and publish an annual account of their performance.

It also allows local governments to band together, write a community strategy plan and if the legislature approve it, the local partnership will receive regulatory relief to carry it out.

“It’s a reboot,” McPeak told 250 community, business and political leaders gathered in Concord today for the Contra Costa Business Council’s annual daylong conference. “California needs a new operating system.”

Read on for the full release. Read the rest of this entry »

The California Supreme Court will issue its written opinion at 10 a.m. tomorrow on a challenge to last year’s state Senate redistricting, it announced minutes ago.

That challenge, filed in early December, asks the court to decide whether the old or new state Senate district map should be used for this year’s elections if a proposed referendum seeking to overturn that map qualifies for the ballot.

The court is grappling with what legal standard or test it should apply in determining whether a referendum is “likely to qualify” under a state constitution section dealing with when plaintiffs can seek relief from the judiciary. It also must decide whether it has the authority to hear such a petition before the referendum has qualified for the ballot, or even before anyone can deem it likely to qualify.

The parties made their oral arguments at a 75-minute hearing Jan. 10.

A Republican-backed group called Fairness and Accountability in Redistricting has gathered signatures to place the challenge referendum on the ballot, but those signatures won’t be tallied until late February – halfway through the nominating period for state Senate races.

The California Citizens Redistricting Commission contends the new map it drew should be used immediately because that’s was the will of the voters and because it meets federal standards. FAIR contends using the new map wouldn’t be fair to voters who are exercising their legal right to challenge it.

ADDITION FROM LISA V:

For folks who want to watch the count tally of the GOP’s ballot initiative that challenges the state Senate maps, click here.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you’ll see a number in red. That’s how many valid signatures have been counted so far. They need to reach 504,760 to make it onto the November ballot.

The Think Long Committee for California – a panel of experts funded by an itinerant billionaire that had developed plans for tax reform and a citizens’ oversight committee – will delay putting its plans to voters from 2012 to 2014.

The committee, which released its report in November, issued a statement today sying it has been “vigorously discussing and developing a viable action plan and timeline for implementing our broad range of proposals ever since.”

“Consistent with our collective view that California needs to think, plan and act for the long term, we’ve been guided by the cardinal rule that it is far more important to get our reforms done ‘right’ than ‘right away,’” the committee said.

The committee had proposed broadening the state’s tax base while raising $10 billion per year in new revenue by extending the state sales tax to services such as auto repair, dry cleaning, legal work and accounting (but not health care or education), while lowering the sales tax on goods, reducing personal income tax rates and reducing the corporate tax rate.

It also proposed creating an “independent, impartial and nonpartisan” Citizens Council for Government Accountability. That council would have 13 members — including nine named by the governor — to oversee government functions and conduct long-term planning. It would have power to place measures directly on the ballot without collecting signatures, and to have the secretary of state publish its comments and positions on measures in the state voters’ guide. It also would have the power to subpoena witnesses and documents.

Members of the committee include former Gov. Gray Davis; former Assembly speaker and San Francisco mayor Willie Brown; former U.S. secretaries of state Condoleezza Rice and George Shultz; GOP power broker Gerald Parsky; Google Chairman Eric Schmidt; and many others. Committee founder and funder Nicolas Berggruen had promised to put up at least $20 million to convince voters to implement these plans as ballot measures in 2012.

Although the proposals had seemed to meet with muted, if not negative reactions from many current politicos, the committee’s statement today says it was “gratified by the overwhelming interest from elected leaders in both parties, including Governor Brown, stakeholders and everyday citizens in these bold, broad-based changes.”

California is “hungry for real reform and are more willing than ever to support a sweeping plan that is fair and will put an end to California’s perpetual financial volatility and suffocating wall of debt,” the committee said.

“At the same time, we recognize the practical constraints of the 2012 election calendar – and have come to the conclusion that it will take more time to perfect these proposals, eliminate unintended consequences and provide every stakeholder and everyday Californians a meaningful voice in that process,” it said.

And so the committee will keep trying to sell the plan with hopes of putting it to voters on the November 2014 ballot.

“In the meantime, a high-turnout election is a terrible thing to waste. California voters deserve the opportunity in 2012 to begin the long process of reforming state government,” the committee’s statement said. “Therefore, in the coming days, we will be announcing our intention to partner with other organizations by generously supporting one or more reform measures that have already been filed for the 2012 elections, consistent with our Blueprint.”

The statement doesn’t specify which measures the committee will back.

The committee said it also will co-sponsor the California Economic Summit in May to develop a statewide job creation and competitiveness implementation plan; support regulatory reform, including that of the California Environmental Quality Act, to maintain the state’s environmental leadership while speeding up permissions for job-creating projects; and work with the governor and other state, federal and local officials to create “plug-and-play” pre-permitted zones to attract new investment to California.

UPDATE @ 3:40 P.M.: Gov. Jerry Brown just issued this statement: “Think Long is doing very important work and I look forward to working with them on the critical issue of more permanent tax reform.”

A national good-government watchdog group is launching a coast-to-coast campaign to have voters urge Congress to reverse the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and limit political spending by amending the U.S. Constitution.

Common Cause’s “Amend 2012” campaign will aim to place initiatives on this November’s ballots – either by gathering petition signatures or through legislative action – that would urge Congress to act. A constitutional amendment will take years to pass, coming far too late to stem the tide of money that’s already flooding this year’s election, but organizers say this effort at least will give outraged voters a voice and inject the issue into November’s vote, forcing candidates to take a position on it.

The effort initially will focus on signature-gathering drives in Colorado, Montana and Massachusetts; that might expand to Arizona, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio and Washington.

Derek Cressman, Common Cause’s Sacramento-based western regional director, said California’s size and schedule make it “an awfully steep lift” to gather enough signatures in time to put such a measure on November’s ballot. Instead, the campaign is exploring having the state Legislature or local governments do so.

“We’re in effect creating a road map for voters to demand a national referendum on reversing Citizens United,” Common Cause board chairman Robert Reich – the former U.S. Labor Secretary and current University of California, Berkeley professor – said on a conference call with reporters this morning.

“Reform is not going to happen from the inside because the insiders all benefit from the current system,” Reich said. “It’s our view that it will take a constitutional amendment to take our country back and restore confidence in our democracy.”

The proposed amendment would affirm that only people – not corporations – are people, and that campaign spending can be limited.

Common Cause President and CEO Bob Edgar said Americans all across the political spectrum “have lost faith in Washington, they don’t think the government works for them anymore.” It’s that “need to be heard above the noise” that first fueled the Tea Party, and more recently the Occupy movement.

“I’d like to think we’re part of the ‘Occupy Democracy’ movement,” Edgar said.

“Undoubtedly, the protestor momentum is part of this,” Reich agreed, noting he has spoken at several Occupy events in recent months; among them was the Nov. 15 Occupy Cal event on Sproul Plaza. “What I hear over and over again is that we have to take back democracy.”

Edgar said gathering petition signatures or lobbing state legislatures to put measures on state ballots will be “a true grassroots effort, built from the bottom up” but also will carry costs. “We don’t have enough, we need more money, we are raising money” to support this campaign, he said.

But he said he’s confident that super PACs’ exorbitant spending as this year progresses will help loosen people’s wallets. “As more people get to know of the concern, more resources will be coming forward.”

Just a few weeks into the presidential primaries, Reich noted, “we’ve already got super PACs run by the candidates’ friends and former staffs spending millions. All this is making a mockery out of our campaign laws and contribution limits, and it’s undermining democracy.”

I thought I’d seen every possible suggestion for breaking California’s legislative logjam and making lawmakers more beholden to the people, from top-two primaries to redistricting to docking lawmakers’ pay to a part-time Legislature.

But this is a new one on me: Increasing the Legislature’s size almost a hundred-fold.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen today announced that the proponent of just such a plan can start circulating petitions for his proposed ballot measure. Here’s the Attorney General’s official title and summary:

LEGISLATURE EXPANSION. LEGISLATIVE PROCESS. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Increases size of Legislature almost 100-fold by dividing current Assembly and Senate districts into neighborhood districts such that each Assemblymember represents about 5,000 persons and each Senator represents about 10,000 persons. Provides for neighborhood district representatives to elect working committees the size of the current Assembly and Senate, 80 Assemblymembers and 40 Senators. Gives working committees the legislative power generally, and sole power to amend bills, but requires approval by appropriate vote of the full membership in each house for passage of any non-urgency bill. Reduces legislators’ pay and expenditures. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Decreased state spending on the Legislature of over $180 million annually. Increased county election costs, potentially in the range of tens of millions of dollars initially and lower amounts annually thereafter. (11-0067.)

Proponent John Cox has until June 1 to collect valid signatures from at least 807,615 registered California voters in order to qualify the measure for November’s ballot.

Here’s a clip of Cox explaining his idea:

This is the same John Cox who was an under-the-radar Republican presidential candidate in 2006-07, with a long history in Chicago law, real estate and conservative rhetoric; he’s now living in Rancho Santa Fe, and last month showed up on Newt Gingrich’s California finance leadership team.

An initiative just cleared for signature-gathering today that would increase the size of the state legislature by 100-fold. And no, that’s not a misprint.

The measure calls for creating neighborhood-based elected Assembly districts for every 5,000 people and Senate districts for every 10,000 people. Today, a senate district has 1 million people.

Interestingly, analysts say operating the new legislature would cost taxpayers less; the measure includes reduced pay and other costs. But it would drive up election costs by tens of millions of dollars.

I can hear the sound of political consultants rubbing their hands together already.

Read the Secretary of State’s release below.

Legislative Process Initiative Enters Circulation

Legislature Expansion. Legislative Process. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.

SACRAMENTO – Secretary of State Debra Bowen today announced that the proponent of a new initiative may begin collecting petition signatures for his measure.

The Attorney General prepares the legal title and summary that is required to appear on initiative petitions. When the official language is complete, the Attorney General forwards it to the proponent and to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State then provides calendar deadlines to the proponent and to county elections officials, and the initiative may be circulated for signatures.  The Attorney General’s official title and summary for the measure is as follows:

LEGISLATURE EXPANSION. LEGISLATIVE PROCESS. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Increases size of Legislature almost 100-fold by dividing current Assembly and Senate districts into neighborhood districts such that each Assemblymember represents about 5,000 persons and each Senator represents about 10,000 persons. Provides for neighborhood district representatives to elect working committees the size of the current Assembly and Senate, 80 Assemblymembers and 40 Senators. Gives working committees the legislative power generally, and sole power to amend bills, but requires approval by appropriate vote of the full membership in each house for passage of any non-urgency bill. Reduces legislators’ pay and expenditures. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Decreased state spending on the Legislature of over $180 million annually. Increased county election costs, potentially in the range of tens of millions of dollars initially and lower amounts annually thereafter. (11-0067.)

The Secretary of State’s tracking number for this measure is 1540 and the Attorney General’s tracking number is 11-0067.

The proponent for this measure, John Cox, must collect signatures of 807,615 registered voters – the number equal to eight percent of the total votes cast for governor in the 2010 gubernatorial election – in order to qualify it for the ballot. The proponent has 150 days to circulate petitions for this measure, meaning the signatures must be collected by June 1, 2012.

 The initiative proponent can be reached at (847) 274-8814.

 To sign up for regular ballot measure updates via email, RSS feed, or Twitter, go to www.sos.ca.gov/multimedia.

 To view this and other Secretary of State press releases, go to www.sos.ca.gov/admin/news-releases.htm.

How better to build support for a millionaires’ tax than to pick on one of California’s most annoying millionaires?

So they must’ve thought over at the Courage Campaign, which launched this video this afternoon:

“We love Ms. Kardashian’s sense of style and we know she gets lots of attention,” Courage Campaign founder and chairman Rick Jacobs said in a news release. “Now we want to catch her eye and ask her if she’ll support our tax proposal which asks the rich to pay their fair share in our state. Why not? After all, California’s middle class continues to suffer from endless budget cuts, and we hope to catch Ms. Kardashian in the holiday spirit.”

Seems like a win-win for the would-be taxers. If she agrees with them, it’s a high-profile celebrity endorsement. If she doesn’t, it gins up some blue-collar outrage.

For what it’s worth, I do see that Kim Kardashian is registered as a decline-to-state voter.

The Courage Campaign is a member of the Restoring California Coalition, which is pushing one of the many tax-hike proposals seeking a place on next November’s ballot. The coalition last week touted poll numbers it claims show is most popular among voters and so has the best chance of passing.

With a blizzard of tax-hike measures vying for slots on next November’s ballot, a coalition of labor and progressive groups said today that polling shows their “millionaire’s tax” is the most popular.

So popular, in fact, that proponents say everyone – including Gov. Jerry Brown, who has a different plan of his own – should support it as the only one that has a chance of passing.

The Restoring California Coalition – comprised of more than two dozen groups including unions such as the California Federation of Teachers and progressive groups such as the Courage Campaign – last week submitted to the Attorney General’s office a proposed measure that would hike taxes on income over $1 million by 3 percent and over $2 million by 5 percent. The coalition says this would raise about $6 billion per year, to be spent on K-12 and higher education; services for seniors and the disabled; child care; police and fire services; and roads and bridges.

California Federation of Teachers President Joshua Pechthalt told reporters on a conference call today that the plan “does not put it on the backs of working families and middle class families who have been suffering, particularly during this economic downturn,” and “resonates with the growing awareness of economic and tax inequity that we’ve seen in recent months.”

Pollster Ben Tulchin said he has interviewed nearly 5,000 likely November 2012 voters in several surveys this year and conducted 16 focus groups around the state, finding strong support for such a measure.

Voters’ perceptions that the rich have gotten richer while the middle class has struggled in recent years, and that the rich don’t pay their fair share in taxes, surged from May to October, perhaps due to rhetoric coming from the Occupy movement, the White House and other quarters, Tulchin said.

He said his October survey found 73 percent of voters are open to raising taxes on the wealthy in order to restore funding to essential services that have been cut, such as education, health care and public safety, while 24 percent said they’re not and 3 percent said they don’t know.

When read a title and summary for their proposal that the proponents believe is similar to what the Attorney General’s office will prepare, 67 percent said they would tend to vote yes – including 37 percent who gave a definite yes – while 24 percent said they would tend to vote no, with 15 percent a definite no. “I have never in my career seen such strong numbers for a title and summary poll for a proposed ballot measure,” Tulchin said.

Support for the plan is at 84 percent among Democrats, 68 percent among decline-to-state or third-party voters, and 45 percent among Republicans, he said. “The fact that it can draw bipartisan support puts it with the best chance of winning.”

In contrast, only 36 percent (14 percent definite) said they would vote for a plan including a 1 percent sales-tax hike and a 0.25 percent income tax hike, while 62 percent are opposed (with 45 percent a definite “no”). “That dog won’t hunt,” Tulchin said.

And the idea – advanced last month by the Think Long Committee – of lowering the state’s sales tax rate for goods but extending the tax to services such as dry cleaning, auto repair, accounting and law say 40 percent support (16 percent definite) and 45 percent opposition (26 percent definite). Tulchin called that “another dead end.”

Lots more, after the jump…
Read the rest of this entry »