It's a recurring theme almost every election year here in California: some voters, many of them progressive, proclaim a "no on everything" stance on the ballot propositions. Intended as a protest at the flawed initiative process, this approach is little more than unilateral disarmament in the face of a concerted right-wing, corporate-funded effort to destroy California's prosperity and democracy. Instead of making a really futile and stupid gesture that won't help fix California's woes, progressives need to make intelligent choices on the November ballot - some of which involve a Yes vote.

I've been having this discussion on Facebook with several friends this past week, but one of the most prominent exponents of the "no on everything" approach is Markos Moulitsas. He's mentioned this many times on Daily Kos, with one of the clearest articulations coming in January 2008:

My default position is to vote "no" on all of them (except for the ballot initiative to eliminate the ballot initiative, I'd vote "yes" for that one). Is there a really good reason I should consider casting a "yes" vote for any of them? For those of you following Golden State politics closely, please chime in.

Update: Thanks for the advice guys. I'm sticking with "no" on everything. I hate ballot box budgeting and changes to the state constitution make me leery. So while I was as conflicted as the community on 92, since it's a worthy cause, any conflict is resolved toward the negative.

This is one form of an argument that usually goes something like this: "it's the legislature's job to make laws, not the voters'. I'm going to vote no on everything because I don't want the system to get screwed up even worse."

There's no doubt that the ballot initiative process in California is flawed and needs reform. But to vote "no" on all initiatives, regardless of their content, is to declare unilateral disarmament in the middle of a political war. A no vote on all initiatives, even progressive initiatives, hands victory to the right-wing and the corporations when it comes to progressive initiatives that are usually difficult to pass.

The fact is that the initiative process, like the United States Senate, is massively flawed but is also part of our politics. We cannot simply refuse to fight because we don't like the process. Just as no sensible progressive would suggest we boycott US Senate elections this fall in a protest against the failure of the Senate to address this country's problems, no sensible California progressive should suggest we surrender the ballot initiative fight in a protest against the flaws of that process.

Like a vote for Ralph Nader, or a decision to not vote at all, a "default no" on ballot propositions is a particularly pointless act of political protest. It does not do anything to help improve the state legislature, because as Joe Mathews and Mark Paul have very ably explained in their new book /California Crackup/, the legislature is broken not just because of the initiative process but because of things like the 2/3rds rule and other systematic problems that cannot be addressed solely by initiative reform.

Further, the "default no" approach is flawed because it so often hands victory to corporations when progressives refuse to support progressive policies that can only be enacted at the ballot box. In 2006 and again in June 2010 some form of public financing went onto the ballot, and in June it suffered a particularly close defeat. Any progressive who voted No on Prop 15 because they take a "default no" on the initiatives helped hand a major victory to corporations while undermining one of the most important progressive goals we have today: public financing of elections.

The November 2010 ballot provides a textbook - and very important - example of how a "no on everything" vote undermines not only progressives, but actually blocks an effort to fix the legislature so "they can do their jobs" and hopefully lead to fewer flawed ballot measures.

Proposition 25 would restore majority rule to the budget process. It would end the 2/3rds requirement to pass a budget, which has led to crippling gridlock in Sacramento as budgets are routinely delayed not by weeks but by months as right-wingers use their veto power conferred on them by the 2/3rds rule to undermine progressive proposals and further worsen an already broken budget and government.

Someone taking a "default no" approach to the November 2010 initiatives would therefore be prolonging the gridlock in the legislature and would be joining such progressive leaders as Chevron, the California Chamber of Commerce, Meg Whitman, the Howard Jarvis Association, and Tom McClintock in defeating a proposal that would restore some progressive power and help enable further reforms to fix the legislature. In this case in particular, a "default no" from any progressive becomes worse than futile - it becomes a /de facto/ vote for right-wing policy.

We can see other examples of this on the November 2010 ballot. Prop 24 would hike taxes on large corporations by closing a tax loophole created in the 2008 and 2009 budget deals. Are progressives seriously going to oppose that? Prop 21 would guarantee the long-term future of state parks as well as freeing up hundreds of millions of dollars each year to the general fund. Why would progressives oppose this, and put state parks at jeopardy of being sold off to private developers?

Good progressive political activism is that which engages in the fights that are before us, while also making long-term plans to improve the battlefield itself. We absolutely must reform the initiative process, as part of a broader fix to California's broken government. But we won't get there with the unilateral disarmament of a "no on everything" approach to ballot propositions. Progressives need to get informed and make the right decisions.

Thankfully, there are resources out there to help you. The Courage Campaign - where I work as Public Policy Director - has produced a Progressive Voter Guide that you can get by clicking that link or by texting VOTECA to 30644. It includes recommendations on the ballot propositions from Courage Campaign, CREDO Action, and a range of other major statewide organizations.

There's no excuse for handing a victory to the right-wing and the corporations by voting no on important progressive propositions like Prop 21, Prop 24, and especially Prop 25. Let's make sure that progressives make the right choice this election, instead of giving up the fight and letting the enemy win by default.

Ballots for the November election are already hitting voters' mailboxes - meaning it's time for progressives to make their decisions on the nine ballot propositions. And the Courage Campaign, joined by our friends at CREDO, are here to help!

As with the November 2008 election and the June 2010 primary election, the Courage Campaign - where I work as Public Policy Director - has produced a Progressive Voter Guide. This year we've partnered with CREDO to bring the guide to you. It includes Courage Campaign and CREDO recommendations on the nine propositions, as well as the recommendations of other statewide progressive groups such as the California Democratic Party, the California Nurses Association, the California Federation of Teachers, the California League of Conservation Voters - and of course, Calitics. (We'll have more on the Calitics proposition endorsements in a separate post later this week.)

You can click here to get the guide as a PDF and send it to your family and friends. You can also get a mobile version of the guide sent to your phone by texting VOTECA to 30644.

One of the primary reasons Californians - and progressives in particular - don't vote in these primary elections is a lack of information about the choices on the ballot. By providing this voter guide, we're providing information - and that translates to voter turnout.

So please download the voter guide, or get it sent to your phone, and share it with your family and friends.

There's been some discussion of Markos Moulitsas's new book, American Taliban, with some DC bloggers claiming that Markos overstates the case and that you can't really compare American conservatives and the Afghanistan Taliban. Here's Matt Yglesias trying to make that argument:

So, yes, the Taliban is misogynistic and so are most religious traditionalists. And, yes, the Taliban is nationalistic and so are right-wing political parties in most democracies. And, yes, the Taliban is enthusiastic about war-fighting as a way to achieve policy aims and so is Bill Kristol. This is all true and somewhat important. But it’s also true that American progressives and American conservatives are peacefully coexisting in a functioning republic, whereas the Taliban is waging an extremely violent military campaign against its ideological antagonists.

Sorry, Matt, but this "peaceful coexistence" claim doesn't take into account the violence being committed in the name of right-wing oppression. We can look to the Central Valley to see two recent and frightening examples of the American Taliban in action, both from the city of Madera.

As reported by KFSN TV in Fresno, a Planned Parenthood clinic in Madera was firebombed on Thursday - just days after a similar attack was made on a local mosque:

Madera's Planned Parenthood clinic is closed Thursday after someone firebombed it with a Molotov cocktail. The FBI is investigating this case as it continues to search for clues in an attack on a mosque last week on the other side of town....

Madera Police do not have anyone in custody but a spokesperson with Planned Parenthood says she has a good idea of who it might be.

"I believe it's extremists who are, want to make a statement." said public affairs director Pasty Montgomery.

This attack comes just one week after someone targeted a local Muslim mosque across town. Investigators found a brick thrown through the window and anti-Muslim signs posted on the walls.

Across California, various acts of hate, whether a firebombing of a Planned Parenthood clinic or a protest against a proposed mosque in Temecula, are on the increase. Even in a state where abortion rights are enshrined in our Constitution, those who provide abortion services and the women who seek to use them have to go through a lot of security procedures to protect against what should rightly be called terrorism.

When a fellow Californian such as Markos goes to the trouble of describing not only these violent acts, but also the troubling worldview behind them that is fundamentally like the worldview shared by the Taliban, their work ought to be embraced and spread as a valuable rallying point against these extremists. Otherwise what happened in Madera last week will become more common, and more violent.

Carla Marinucci takes a look at how the four major statewide candidates would create jobs and, although she provides a good discussion of the details, her article seems to miss the bigger picture.

Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina's approach to job creation is quite different from that of Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer. These differences have a number of aspects, but can be boiled down to this:

Brown/Boxer believe that the government has a clear role to play in creating jobs by providing by investing in both working people and in creating the 21st century infrastructure they need to prosper - whereas Whitman/Fiorina believe mass unemployment and further concentration of wealth in the hands of the small elite that already dominate the economy will provide "growth," even at the expense of our basic social and physical infrastructure.

Here's how Marinucci describes the Whitman/Fiorina approach:

Republicans Whitman and Fiorina, two former CEOs, decry what they say has been California's unfriendly business climate and call AB32 a job killer. They emphasize tax cuts and regulatory reforms to help small and large businesses and argue that they have direct experience creating jobs.

Both Whitman and Fiorina are calling for voodoo economics tax cuts - slashing capital gains and other taxes for the wealthy in the belief, in spite of the evidence, that this will create jobs. In fact, all it will do is fuel the collapse that is starting to occur, especially since Whitman and Fiorina both oppose new government spending and have pledged to make deeper cuts to core government services.

They both also pledge mass layoffs, a tool they employed at their own companies to try and produce more profit. In Fiorina's case it failed; in Whitman's case the success is more uneven. Either way, in a state with over 12% unemployment, mass layoffs - whether of public or private workers - is an extremely bad and reckless idea.

Further, both Whitman and Fiorina believe we should actively undermine efforts to position California for the 21st century economy. Whitman doesn't want to fund the high speed rail project and like Fiorina believes that action on climate change, which creates and sustains a green jobs economy, is bad - both preferring to instead prop up the failed 20th century economy and the oil companies that are vehemently opposed to new innovation.

In contrast, Brown and Boxer both prefer to invest in working Californians and in the infrastructure and policies needed to spur a 21st century economy. As Marinucci describes it:

Democrats Brown and Boxer argue for green-tech and clean-energy jobs that they say represent California's best hope for employment for decades to come.

They say their government experience is a plus. Brown said he put Californians to work in his two terms as governor as the state led the way in alternative energy. Boxer touts her efforts to secure funding and jobs for major projects such as BART extensions, and her co-authorship of legislation to give small businesses more access to credit, capital and tax advantages.

There's more to it than just that, of course. Boxer voted for the stimulus and to extend unemployment benefits, both of which have helped many Californians avoid the worst during this long recession - whereas Fiorina has said she opposes both and would have done nothing at all to help the unemployed and the suffering, instead focusing her efforts on making the rich richer.

Jerry Brown's jobs plan is fundamentally oriented around positioning California for the 21st century, pledging to accelerate development of clean technologies from solar panels to high speed rail, while ensuring our schools have the support and resources they need.

The choice this November could not possibly be clearer. Whitman and Fiorina are determined to channel even more wealth and power to their CEO friends, at the expense of the jobs and prosperity the rest of us desperately need. Brown and Boxer are proposing to continue investing in us and in our infrastructure so that California is well-positioned for the 21st century.

Yesterday the San Diego Union Tribune ran two dueling columns on Prop 23, which would destroy California's green jobs economy and efforts to address global warming. The anti-Prop 23 article, by John Reaves of Citizens Climate Lobby, was a good articulation of the reasons why Prop 23 would be so damaging.

The pro-Prop 23 article, by Bryan Bloom, made a number of deeply flawed statements that need a strong rebuttal. So that's what I'm going to do here, to start off the week. Much of his argument is of the typical "government taxes and regulates too much," but Bloom adds some other pieces that should be dealt with more directly:

A California State University study estimates an average family cost of about $3,900 per year, a small business cost of about $50,000 per year and a total loss of output in the range of $180 billion in order to comply.

But what of the cost of doing nothing? Bloom and Prop 23 backers assume that the cost of doing nothing is zero - that if we "suspend" AB 32, then we save all that money.

This is not so. Climate change costs us all a lot of money already, from higher firefighting costs and home insurance premiums to lost jobs in the wineries and agricultural industries when their work is disrupted by extreme weather events. San Diegans should be concerned about rising sea levels, which won't come cheap.

Bloom's analysis also ignores the fact that AB 32-spurred innovation will help us save money through the development of more efficient uses of energy. California has already led the way on this. Our air pollution laws, the nation's strictest, have dramatically slashed (though by no means eliminated) smog, while also helping spur innovations that save us money at the pump or save on our electrical bills.

Bloom's op-ed also relies on a flawed Legislative Analyst's Office study of AB 32, which I debunked at Calitics a few months back. In fact, there is considerable evidence that AB 32 has already fueled the growth of a green jobs and clean energy economy in California that is one of the only bright spots in our otherwise dismal economic picture.

That dismal economic picture is used by Bloom as justification for "suspending" AB 32:

That’s why so many voters and small businesses are supporting Proposition 23, which would temporarily suspend costly AB 32 regulations until California’s unemployment rate reaches 5.5 percent for four consecutive quarters, a threshold reached numerous times in recent years, according to the state’s Employment Development Department.

Notice how Bloom fudges the numbers: "numerous times in recent years." That's because the truth is damning. Since January 1975, the 5.5% for four consecutive quarters threshold has only been met *three times* - and for short periods:

1. November 1988 to August 1990
2. February 2000 to July 2001
3. April 2006 to September 2007

If you believed that climate change was a serious problem, it wouldn't make any sense to support this proposal, which would have action on climate change move only in fits and starts.

And that's even if it were to move at all. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, even if job growth matched the four fastest years of growth during the '00s bubble, we wouldn't be at 2007 levels of employment - required under Prop 23 to revive AB 32 - until April 2021 when you account for population growth. Prop 23 would likely "suspend" AB 32 for *eleven years* - and that's under the best-case economic recovery scenario.

Bloom also argues that California can't solve global warming on its own:

California produces only a tiny fraction of the world’s greenhouse gases. Without the rest of the world following AB 32-like rules, California could reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to zero and still have no impact on global warming.

Of course California can't eliminate global carbon emissions on our own. This is obvious and not in dispute. But neither was that the point of passing AB 32. As was widely acknowledged in 2006, AB 32 was passed to kickstart a national and, eventually, global effort to force reduction of carbon emissions. If Prop 23 fails, it will be a huge signal to Congress that real action on climate and energy is popular with voters. Bloom and other right-wingers are actively trying to stop California from providing progressive leadership by destroying AB 32 before it can spread.

Ultimately Bloom's argument rests on a defense of the status quo - that everything is just fine in California, and that all AB 32 offers is higher costs. It only makes sense if you do not believe global warming is a serious issue. If you do, it does not make sense to support Prop 23, as it will ensure California does absolutely nothing to prepare for it or build a more sustainable economy to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Last weekend's Netroots Nation event was a fantastic opportunity for the Courage Campaign to convey its knowledge and leadership to the broader online progressive community. We participated on three panels, and were actively engaged in discussions and events all weekend long.

In case you missed these panels, or were unable to attend Netroots Nation, here are the live streams of two of the three panels:

California's Challenge: From "Failifornia" to Progressive Laboratory (with Robert Cruickshank): http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/8443890

Organizing the Equality Movement in the Obama Era (with Rick Jacobs): http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/8460661

The third panel, on "Political Persuasion," was not filmed.

US Senator Barbara Boxer brought her "Jobs for California" tour to Monterey this morning, where she fired up the crowd with a very strong and robust defense of her record in the Senate, her role in bringing jobs back to California, her plans to improve and speed up economic recovery - and some damning attacks on her opponent, Carly Fiorina.

Boxer has been touring the state touting the jobs created by the stimulus act, which Fiorina opposed. Yesterday she was in San Francisco at the Doyle Drive project which is getting under way this year thanks to $100 million in stimulus money. Fiorina has been attacking the stimulus, which has been conservatively estimated to have saved or create 150,000 jobs in California.

Fiorina's entire campaign plan, in fact, appears to be geared around calling for higher unemployment. Fiorina's spokeswoman Julie Soderlund said the jobs created by the stimulus weren't worth it, and at today's Monterey event about five Fiorina supporters showed up with signs reading "Government Jobs aren't Real Jobs."

Boxer's speech this morning, which was both lively and fiery, took direct issue with Fiorina's arguments. Boxer challenged Fiorina to come with her to Fresno later in the day where she would be meeting with police officers whose jobs were saved by the stimulus, or go with her to the project building the fourth bore of the Caldecott Tunnel, where private sector jobs are being created with public funds.

Boxer also slammed Fiorina's own record on jobs. Fiorina has opposed ALL jobs bills that have come before the Senate, including extension of unemployment benefits. And of course, Fiorina laid off 30,000 workers at H-P, a company she ran into the ground and was fired from in 2005. Fiorina memorably called offshoring "right-sourcing" and said "there is no job that is America's God-given right anymore" - an indication that she is totally uninterested in actually creating jobs here in California.

In contrast, Boxer made her own job creation solution clear. She said her plan has three key elements: 1) rejecting Prop 23 and protecting California's ability to lead the recovery through green jobs, 2) using transportation projects from highways to high speed rail to put people back to work, and 3) stop the corporate offshoring of American jobs.

Boxer strongly opposed Prop 23, which would repeal AB 32, calling it a "job killer." As to the deficit, Boxer drew loud cheers when she said that Bush's tax cuts for the rich and his two wars were responsible for undermining the work she and President Clinton had done to produce a surplus in the 1990s.

In fact, that last argument could be Boxer's secret weapon. Boxer was there in the Senate in 1993 when she helped pass President Clinton's jobs and deficit reduction bills. By 2000 there was a record $230 billion surplus, which Bush promptly destroyed through his reckless tax cuts and destructive wars.

The 1990s economy wasn't perfect - far from it. In fact, Carly Fiorina was perhaps one of its highest-profile products, and one of its most obvious failures. But there's no doubt that Boxer helped produce a budget surplus and real economic growth and job creation in the 1990s.

Judging by her tour of California this week, Boxer is more than ready for the task.

Photo: Lynne Frey, Monterey County Democrats

We're starting to get a better picture of what will and will not be on the November 2010 ballot. Back on New Year's Day I thought we might be facing a "ballot initiative thunderdome" but now it looks like it'll be a bit less of a Hobbesian war of all against all come November.

Here's what has already qualified, according to Secretary of State Debra Bowen's office:

• $11 billion water bond

• Cannabis legalization

• Extending Prop 11 commission to redistrict Congressional seats

• State parks funding initiative

• And as of today, an initiative to finally ban state raids on local government funding.

(Unfortunately, the sequence of qualification means cannabis legalization won't be Prop 20, unless the Legislature itself puts one more initiative on the November ballot.)

Several initiatives are pending signature verification:

• Majority vote budget

• Closing recent corporate tax loopholes

• Extends 2/3 rule to cover fees

• Eliminates Prop 11 commission

• Dirty Energy Proposition (AB 32 repeal)

Assuming these qualify, and the deadline is later this week, that would mean at least 10 initiatives for the November ballot, double the number we had in June. Four of them would involve different sides of the same issue - one initiative would roll back the 2/3 rule (for budgets), another would extend it to fees. One would eliminate the Prop 11 commission, another would extend its purview to Congressional races too.

Some initiatives we thought might be on the November ballot aren't going to be there. One of these is the parental notification initiative - perhaps after 3 consecutive defeats the anti-choice, anti-woman forces are finally having trouble getting people to take them seriously.

Another one that didn't make it is the term limits extension initiative.

And of course, other high-profile reform efforts appear to have stalled out for 2010, including the constitutional convention and the California Forward reform package.

It's always possible that, as in 2009, the final budget deal will include reforms or constitutional changes that need to be approved by voters, so we could see a couple more initiatives for November.

But overall, the ballot initiatives will continue the theme of corporations trying to rewrite state law for their own benefit (water bond and dirty energy prop) from the June 8 election. It will also give voters very clear choices on how to proceed with reforming our state government, and will finally start the process of rolling back our ridiculous and costly "law and order" policies with cannabis legalization.

It should certainly be an interesting battle on November 2.

As the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico intensifies, the rest of the oil industry is sitting on the sidelines. Instead of helping clean up the Gulf, many of them are busy spending their money trying to pollute California.

15 oil companies have combined to spend about $2 million to undermine our anti-pollution laws by trying to place a repeal of AB 32 on the November ballot. Led by Valero, Tesoro, and Occidental, they prefer undermining California's effort at creating clean energy and green jobs to helping clean up after what their industry has done in the Gulf.

The Courage Campaign - where I work as Public Policy Director - doesn't think that's right. We are today launching a campaign to demand that instead of spending $2 million to the attack on California's anti-pollution laws, the CEOs of Valero, Tesoro, and Occidental instead pledge to spend $2 million on Gulf cleanup and restoration. You can add your name to our letter and show these oil CEOs that we're not going to stand for their attack on our environment.

During Hurricane Katrina, Wal-Mart helped fund relief and recovery efforts, so there is precedent for other industries getting involved. Yes, this is BP's responsibility. But the oil industry as a whole helped undermine the regulations and enabled the Deepwater Horizon disaster to occur.

In fact, while entire industries are being destroyed, thousands made jobless, and unknown numbers of animal and plant life are being killed, Valero and Tesoro gave another $400,000 to the Dirty Energy Proposition on May 19.

It's time California stood up to these big oil companies and told them to get their priorities straight. Click here to sign our letter, which we will deliver to the CEOs of Valero, Tesoro and Occidental.

Below is the email we sent to our members today.   Read More »

In looking at the disparate results of the June 2010 election, there are two themes that stand out to me:

1. Republicans will do what they are told by their corporate masters. Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina won their primaries because they spent an enormous amount of money to tell Republicans that they should vote for CEOs because they're smarter than everyone else and more likely to beat the Democrat this fall. That's it.

Joe Mathews has a good take on Whitman's victory, but it really does come down to her money. Same for Fiorina. Both dominated the messaging and TV airwaves with their ads, and did so early and often.

But it's not only the money - it's who they are. The Republican Party is the party of big corporations, with a voter base that believes big business can do no wrong. Look at the maps: Props 16 and 17 did very well in the Republican-friendly counties of Southern California. Prop 16 went down in the Central Valley partly because of voter anger at PG&E over the smart meters, but in SoCal where PG&E is unknown, Republicans said "sure, let's give corporations whatever they ask."

2. Corporations can be beaten. For the rest of California, however, unlimited corporate power is not seen as a positive thing. Letting them dominate and distort our elections with their money is rightly seen as a huge problem, whereas to Republicans it's business as usual.

The defeat of both Propositions 16 and 17 is a *major* victory for progressives whose importance cannot possibly be underestimated. PG&E spent $40 million to pass it. The opposition? They spent $100,000. But with groups like the Courage Campaign (where I work as Public Policy Director) pitching in to help educate and organize voters, we were able to mobilize progressive activists to get the word out about this bad proposition, turn out to the polls, and make sure Prop 16 went down. Prop 17's story was very similar, with opponents being outspent 10 to 1.

We weren't able to beat Prop 14 or pass Prop 15. The voters really do want major political change, and don't yet understand the benefits of public funding. But Prop 15 did much better than Prop 89, which suggests victory for clean money is near.

As we go into the fall campaign season, the arc of this election is now clear: it is a battle between corporate wealth and populist democracy. Our victory in Prop 16 and Prop 17 show how we can win that battle. Time to build and organize to win again in November.

There is a very clear theme to today's election: will corporations take over California's politics, or will the voters stand up in defense of their democracy?

This theme appears again and again and again in races across the state, from the governor's race on down to the ballot propositions and state legislative races. Corporations and the CEOs that used to run them are convinced that their money will be enough to sway voters to give those corporations and CEOs much more power over our wallets and our elections. A massively underfunded, but broadly-based progressive coalition is fighting back, and in some of the key races, the outcome is far from clear.

We can see the stark contrast emerging in both the Senate and governor's races. Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, the likely Republican nominees for Senate and governor, are both former CEOs of large Silicon Valley corporations. Both are extreme right-wingers who believe that government's job is to help corporations dominate our economy by crowding out new innovations and competition, avoid their tax burdens, and undermine our regulatory protections.

But that battle won't be decided until November. Today, there are some key battles over corporate power that *will* be decided, primarily regarding the statewide ballot propositions.

Proposition 15 must pass. As I wrote earlier this spring, it allows for the expansion of clean money in California, repealing a ban on public financing and setting up a test case for the Secretary of State race in 2014.

Corporate capture of government through unlimited donations is largely responsible for the economic and political problems we face. The only way to get out of that is to restore financial power over politicians to the people. We already pay their salaries. Why not have the state pay for their campaigns - especially when in this case, the money actually comes from lobbyists and not taxpayers?

California's political and economic crisis will not end until we have kicked corporate money out of our elections. Prop 15 is the necessary first step toward that broader recovery and reform.

Prop 15 is also a clear reaction against Propositions 16 and 17. Put on the ballot and funded by PG&E and Mercury Insurance, respectively, these propositions make use of outright deception in order to undermine our democracy (in the case of Prop 16, requiring a 2/3 vote for the public to create their own power systems) or undermine our consumer protection laws (in the case of Prop 17, enabling auto insurers to get around Prop 103 and charge customers much higher premiums for a lapse in coverage). If these pass, then many other corporations will take note, and start funding their own propositions to undermine our democracy and our laws so they can make more money at our expense.

But that's not all. Prop 14 would change the way our primary elections work, sending the top two candidates on to the general election ballot in the fall regardless of party. Not only would this shut out smaller parties, it would in many places extend a party primary into the general election - mostly Democratic races. In these "November primaries" there will likely be a progressive candidate and a corporate-funded candidate, and the thinking goes that the corporate-funded Democrat will get Republican votes and defeat the progressive, shifting the Democratic Party to the right and making it more subservient to corporate power.

You can read more about those propositions at the Courage Campaign and CREDO Action voter guide, which you can also receive on your mobile phone by texting VOTECA to 30644.

Apparently Carly Fiorina believes she has the Republican US Senate nomination locked up, because now she's going after Barbara Boxer in this ridiculous ad airing on TV stations across California.

The ad features Carly Fiorina saying "Terrorism kills - and Barbara Boxer's worried about the weather." In other words, Fiorina thinks global warming is nothing more than mere weather, that its potential to flood part of the Bay Area, devastate our wine and agricultural industries, worsen fires, and produce statewide water shortages is just mere weather.

Fiorina's attack is intended to mock Boxer's statment that climate change is a national security issue. But do you know who else sees climate change as a national security issue?

The Pentagon:

The National Intelligence Council, which produces government-wide intelligence analyses, finished the first assessment of the national security implications of climate change just last year.

It concluded that climate change by itself would have significant geopolitical impacts around the world and would contribute to a host of problems, including poverty, environmental degradation and the weakening of national governments.

The assessment warned that the storms, droughts and food shortages that might result from a warming planet in coming decades would create numerous relief emergencies.

“The demands of these potential humanitarian responses may significantly tax U.S. military transportation and support force structures, resulting in a strained readiness posture and decreased strategic depth for combat operations,” the report said.

Fiorina's attack shows not only that she is anti-science and apparently supportive of the crippling effects of global warming on California's economy - but that she is also totally delusional about the threats facing this country. She is, in short, as unfit to be in the US Senate as she was unfit to be the CEO of Hewlett-Packard.

She's Silicon Valley's Sarah Palin. No wonder the former Alaska governor endorsed Fiorina.

The San Francisco Chronicle's article on the Alameda parcel tax for schools vote posits a false choice. The article by Carolyn Jones makes it sound as if Alamedans have to decide between their schools and their businesses. In reality, the choice is between good schools and strong businesses on the one hand, and bad schools and declining business on the other.

If it passes, many small business owners, already struggling with the recession, say they'll be forced to close, stripping Alameda of its mom-and-pop charm. If the measure fails, the district's superintendent warns that half the schools in town would close.

"If this doesn't pass, all bets are off in Alameda," said Encinal High School Principal Mike Cooper, a fifth-generation Alamedan. "We're watching the collapse of public education. We've been trying to make this work, but something's got to give."

Business owners agree that at this point, all bets are off.

"If this passes, then God help us, there'll be no end," said Ed Hirshberg, who owns numerous commercial properties in Alameda but lives in Oakland. "The schools want more money from us, but the problem is there's no money available."

The article goes on to make it clear that to most Alameda residents, good schools are the foundation of the community. And that makes sense - people want a good future for their kids, want them to be educated, want them to have opportunities and a better life. Only a sick and demented human being would choose profits over that better life for their kids.

Alameda businesses should want that as well. If Alameda schools close, it could trigger a flight of parents with children to other districts that have not been so reticent to fund their schools. And Alameda businesses will suffer as a result, when their prosperous customers, especially those with families, leave.

So the complaints of Alameda businesses are misguided. The parcel tax is necessary for their own survival as well as that of their own community. However, Alamedans do have a very good point when they say it should never have come to this:

The 9,500-student district has managed to scrape through the past few years, but with the latest round of state cutbacks, the district now finds itself on the precipice of disaster, Superintendent Kirsten Vital said.

"It's devastating and abysmal," she said. "We're looking to Alameda voters because the state of California is not funding education as it should."

That is exactly right. Because of Republican opposition to taxes, schools and students have been punished with massive cuts. Of course, poll after poll after poll shows that big majorities of Californians will support new taxes to prevent cuts to schools. If Sacramento wanted to stop cities like Alameda from having to raise local taxes, they could do so by proposing or even enacting a statewide tax increase on the wealthiest Californians and the largest businesses to support schools. It *will* pass.

It's time for the defenders of public education in California to make this move. CTA has been planning to bring the corporate tax breaks to the ballot, but that's just $2 billion a year. The public is willing to approve much more, especially if the upper income tax brackets of the Pete Wilson era were restored, especially if the corporate tax rates of the 1980s were restored.

Of course, one wonders if Alameda businesses that are complaining about the Measure E proposal support these kind of solutions. If not, it's time they did so, because their survival depends on California restoring and improving the funding we give to our schools. There's no justification for being cheap with our children's future.

Facing a growing revolt over his previous budget cuts, including the devastating cuts to public schools, Arnold Schwarzenegger's May Revise 2010 takes a very different approach to insane and reckless spending cuts than was proposed back in 2009. Understanding this difference is key to defeating him.

In 2009, Arnold's cuts hit everyone, and hit everyone hard. Well, everyone except the rich, who Arnold believes should be immune from being asked to contribute to solving the budget crisis. The middle-class saw services cut, particularly schools. State parks were slated for closure, and local government funds were stolen.

In response, a backlash has formed here in 2010 on all fronts. Proposals such as AB 656 (oil severance tax for higher ed) and the simply brilliant Stop the Cuts video starring Megan Fox and denouncing education cuts are just two pieces of a much broader public revolt against education cuts that's brewing. Another overt cut to education would have turned that revolt into a major political force that would threaten the low-tax privileges of the wealthy.

And while schools are still getting hit - they need restored funds, and without federal stimulus aid Arnold's 2010-11 budget is a /de facto/ cut to schools below their 2009-10 allotment - Arnold isn't cutting any deeper, realizing that a middle-class revolt against Republicans and against budget cuts would be very bad for the right-wing shock doctrine agenda.

Similarly, state parks are going to get full funding, after a year where mass closure was proposed. That mass closure fueled a state parks initiative, based on a John Laird proposal, that would increase the vehicle license fee to fund state parks AND let Californians go to the parks for free. Another cut to the state parks budget would have guaranteed that initiative's success (it's likely to pass anyway), just as another raid on local government funding would guarantee passage of a new initiative to permanently ban state raids on such local funds.

And all of this has begun to fuel widespread public support for rolling back the corporate tax breaks that were scandalously demanded and won by Arnold during the 2008 and 2009 budget deals. Worth noting, of course, that Meg Whitman wants to enact similar tax breaks should she become governor.

What this shows is that the way to counter a right-wing shock doctrine is to reject it, say "no" and organize people to fight back at the ballot box. Facing this revolt, Arnold has taken a very different approach to his 2010-11 budget: *hurt the poor.*

Now it must be said that it's not just the poor who will suffer under this budget. But the budget cuts are quite obviously calculated to hit those Californians without a voice, who are seen as marginal, whose funding can be cut with the least public outcry. The elderly who will lose some or all of their IHSS benefits and the children who will lose health care services are not necessarily "poor"; those cuts will hit the middle-class as well.

But the biggest cut, the elimination of CalWORKS, is designed to wedge the middle-class and the working- and underclass apart from each other. It's a replay of the "demonize the poor" tactic that worked so well for Reagan in the '80s and Republicans in the '90s. Arnold is implicitly telling the middle-class "either you screw these poor families or we're cutting something you want" and counting on the middle-class to react the same way they did in the '80s and '90s - by saying "go ahead, we won't stop you."

CalWORKS is itself a shell of its former self. Cuts in 2008 and 2009 have already reduced the maximum grant to a lower number than a family could receive in 1989, despite the fact that the cost of living is much higher today - and despite the fact that we're in a recession. The elimination of CalWORKS and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families is going to cause widespread suffering among many families, especially to children, and will make it more difficult for many Californians to find work, dragging down our state's economic recovery and in turn worsening the budget deficit.

We can't fall for Arnold's wedge. Arnold is shifting tactics because he's scared of us - scared of the public reaction against three years of austerity. Now is the time to ramp up the attack on that austerity, to move beyond tired old Reaganite claims that there's some difference between the needs of the middle-class and the needs of the poor. Many middle-class families have benefited from the very safety net programs Arnold now proposes to cut or eliminate, and many more middle-class families benefit - at their jobs and businesses - from less fortunate families having at least some state assistance.

One of the scariest things to a Republican - especially a corporate Republican like Arnold Schwarzenegger - is an alliance of the middle-class, the working-class, and the poor against their policies that favor the rich. Austerity budgets are merely reinforcing the fact that those groups see they have common interests, especially as 30 years of neoliberal economics have begun to obliterate the old divides between the non-wealthy classes as everyone is watching their standards of living fall, watching their future evaporate before their eyes.

We've got Arnold on the run. Now is the time to come together to defeat him and his budget plans for good. Californians want prosperity, not austerity. Let's give it to them.

Later today Arnold Schwarzenegger will release his "May Revise" of his proposed 2010-11 state budget. It is going to be an extremely cruel and destructive proposal. But it will be defended as a necessity given the economic times and the resulting collapse in tax receipts.

That is precisely the *wrong* kind of thinking to use at this time. This latest round of Hooverism will be an economic catastrophe for California, in addition to the human toll it will take. If California does not embrace new revenues to fund the services and jobs we need to produce economic recovery, then California faces a catastrophic slide into a prolonged depression.

The problem we face is that few in Sacramento or in the media have adapted their thinking to this new crisis. They're still locked in the outdated thinking of the last 30 years, which says that if we just cut back on spending, somehow economic recovery will magically appear, and that the spending cuts have no relationship to said recovery.

But it is extremely difficult to see how there can be any economic recovery if we've laid off 30,000 teachers and raised tuition at public colleges and universities to unaffordable levels, destroying the education of an entire generation. The same goes for taking away health care from children and the elderly - someone has to pay those costs, and if it's coming out of family budgets, that reduces their ability to spend money and therefore acts as a drag on the economy.

Austerity budgets like this are inherently deflationary. They make it harder, not easier, to produce economic recovery. They make it harder, not easier, to deal with California's debt problems, small as they are.

And they will merely worsen future budgets. It's no accident that this is the fourth summer in a row where budget cuts are being seriously proposed. The cuts begun in 2007 have produced a downward spiral, where the economy worsens due to lack of state support, causing deeper declines in tax revenues and therefore exacerbating the budget shortfall.

In a situation like this, someone has to pay to close the gap. Arnold Schwarzenegger believes it must be the poor, the sick, the young and the old who must pay. Why? In order to prevent the wealthy and the large corporations from paying.

By closing corporate tax loopholes and raising other taxes on those with high incomes, California can just about close the entire $20 billion deficit expected to be announced today. We can close it without making any further cuts to schools and health care services. We can close it without causing long-term damage to our economy.

The usual argument, of course, is that such tax increases will cause large employers to not hire workers. I'm skeptical that would be the case, and the evidence suggests it won't be the case. In 1991 California pushed through billions in tax increases. It didn't prevent economic recovery from taking hold soon thereafter, and didn't prevent the 1990s boom from taking place. In April 2009, taxes went up in California, and it did not worsen the recession, nor has it prevented a slow and halting recovery from beginning.

But there's a more fundamental issue that needs to be dealt with regarding the question of taxes and jobs. The current budget process, where taxes on large corporations are kept at all-time lows and forcing devastating cuts to services, favors the big businesses over the small ones. It's those small businesses that need our support. Those are the businesses that create jobs, that keep money in the community and in the state, and that ultimately will provide the basis of a 21st century economy in California.

California isn't Greece. We don't need to follow this road to ruin. Instead, by rejecting the concept of spending cuts as well as the specific cuts that will be proposed today, we can begin to provide economic recovery to California and position ourselves to lead the 21st century economy while providing prosperity for everyone.

In the wake of the Arizona immigration law being signed by their governor, California Republican and US Senate candidate Tom Campbell was quick to announce his support for the law, putting him significantly out of step with public opinion in California and indicating a willingness to let his fellow Californians be subjected to unfair violations of their civil liberties and random searches based on racial profiling.

So the Courage Campaign decided to let Tom Campbell know that Californians didn't agree with his stance. We joined Rev. Eric Lee of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the California of Federation of Teachers to ask our members to sign a letter to Campbell asking him to withdraw his support for the Arizona law and pledge to not bring such a law to California.

Just a few hours after we deployed our email, Campbell responded directly to us via email:

Had you contacted me, I would have urged you not to fan the flames of this controversy, as you have chosen to do. Your language is inflammatory in the highest degree.

We are all bound by the same federal laws. No state or city has the right to exclude itself from the application of federal law. And if a state wishes to ask its law enforcement agents to help enforce federal law, I don't see how we can object. After all, the federal government has done a terrible job of enforcing the laws against illegal immigration.

Under Arizona's law, and under the Constitution as interpreted by Chief Justice Earl Warren in Terry v. Ohio, in 1968, police officers have the right to ask individuals when they have reasonable grounds for suspicion of a law violation. Racial profiling does not constitute reasonable grounds. That was always clear in the new law; but changes adopted yesterday by Arizona make it even more clear. Another change makes even clearer the intent of the original law, that the stop must be for violation of other laws, such as a moving violation in traffic.

Californians, especially, ought to watch the experience of our neighbor state before rushing to condemn it. Like Arizona, California, too, has been burdened by the federal government's unwillingness to enforce existing laws, and our nation's sovereignty. "Sanctuary cities," setting themselves up as immune to federal law, are no more legal than the efforts of "nullification" of federal law tried by southern states before our country's civil war. And when the federal government fails to enforce the law, it is us, the citizens of the border states, who pay the price. We ought to be free, therefore, to take steps to assist federal enforcement of our nation's sovereignty, and its borders.

There's a lot of problematic and flawed arguments here, as Rick Jacobs, Chair of the Courage Campaign, Rev. Eric Lee, and Kenneth Burt, Political Director of the CFT explained in their response letter emailed to Campbell this afternoon:

While we may not agree with you on the specifics of Arizona’s SB 1070 and California “sanctuary cities,” we can surely agree that both policies were the result of failures at the federal level.

After reflecting on the fact that you had 10 years and either a Republican President or Republican Congress with which to fix this growing problem, we decided to give you the benefit of the doubt and research the matter further.

What we found is that in your ten years in Congress, you did not produce comprehensive immigration reform. By failing to lead on this vitally important economic and national security issue, you were part of the problem.

The letter goes on to demand Campbell own up to his failures and apologize for creating this ugly situation:

It seems to us you're trying to use your own failures as an excuse to lend your name and credentials to an indefensible law, while pandering to extremist elements with hopes that it will help you win an election. But facts, and your own record of outright failure to lead on the issue of immigration, speak much louder than election year pandering.

So now we are calling on you, formally, to apologize to the people of California and America for abdicating your responsibility to fix our immigration system when you had the chance.

The letter also takes issue with Campbell's other justifications for the Arizona law:

As for SB 1070, you also suggested in your email that "Californians ought to watch the experience of our neighbor state before rushing to condemn it." It seems to us that Californians unfortunately have a lot of experience with using immigration status as a basis for racial discrimination. We know the division and pain it causes, and therefore have a strong basis to condemn Arizona. That's why a growing number of Californians, including faith leaders, are calling for Arizona to repeal its law.

You also view the application of legal authority by law enforcement officers from a perspective of privilege. African Americans across the nation, and now Latinos in Arizona, have been victims of documented racial profiling for decades. "Reasonable suspicion" allows for police officers to subjectively determine whether to pull-over or stop a "suspect". This law is similar to the law enforcement policy that allows police to shoot if they "feel in danger". This is nothing more than "shoot first, ask questions later". Already Californians are being targeted by Arizona authorities -- just two weeks ago a U.S. citizen from Fresno with dark skin was pulled over and arrested by Arizona police for not having his birth certificate on him.

In other words, racial profiling is already a serious problem. Arizona already settled a lawsuit with the ACLU over rampant racial profiling, and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is a noted defender of racial profiling. This is the behavior Campbell is enabling.

We haven't heard back from Tom Campbell on this most recent letter. But no matter what his response, now isn't the time to let up. Sign your name to the Courage Campaign/CFT letter and show Tom Campbell that California won't stand for his defense of the indefensible.

Below the fold is the email we sent to our members:   Read More »

Is the Tranquillon Ridge offshore drilling proposal dead? That's the word coming out of Sacramento today as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger told reporters that he will no longer support the project. From KQED's John Myers, who has really established himself as one of the state's leading reporters, going from moderating the Whitman/Poizner debate last night to being the first to report on this scoop via Twitter:

Big news. Schwarzenegger officially removes support for Tranquillon Ridge oil drilling project..based, he says, on Gulf oil spill.

Schwarzenegger says of Gulf spill: "That will not happen in CA." His rejection of T-Ridge probably kills the project.

Schwarzenegger's rejection of the T-Ridge oil project also means an extra hole - $200 mil - in the #cabudget that he'll need 2 fill.

"Why would we want to take that risk?" Schwarzenegger says in response 2 reporter's question about abandoning T-Ridge oil project.

Similarly, Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado told his Assembly confirmation hearing he wasn't likely to support Tranquillon Ridge. A spill there would have devastated much of his former State Senate district's coastline. Maldonado now has a seat on the State Lands Commission, and now that he's joined by his BFF Arnold in opposing T-Ridge, it's very unlikely the proposal will go anywhere anytime soon.

But is John Meyers right - is T-Ridge dead? Meg Whitman has supported offshore drilling recently, but with the Louisiana spill she might be joining Arnold in reconsidering that support.

It remains to be seen whether PXP, the Texas oil company backing Tranquillon Ridge, will abandon their plans. It also remains to be seen whether EDC, the Santa Barbara environmental group that has controversially agreed to back the Tranquillon Ridge project, is reconsidering their stance in light of the Gulf disaster that has already brought back memories of the 1969 spill in Santa Barbara.

It's obvious now that the offshore drilling bubble of public support has burst, and not a moment too soon. Offshore drilling was always an unusually bad idea, a destructive way to avoid the need to develop alternative, renewable, clean energy to power economic recovery and prosperity in the 21st century. Let's hope Arnold's abandonment of support for T-Ridge means the proposal finally dies.

UPDATE: The Sacramento Bee has some good quotes from Arnold:

"I think that first of all, it's clear that we have to make up that $100 million a year that we (would) make from that," he said. "But if I have a choice between the $100 million and what I see in the Gulf of Mexico, I'd rather just figure out how to make up for that $100 million."...

"I think that we all go through the endless amount of studies and research and everything, and before you make a decision like that, you are convinced that this will be safe," the governor added. "But then again, you know, you see that, you turn on television and see this enormous disaster and you say to yourself, why would we want to take that risk?"

It's one of those rare, rare moments, but Arnold is absolutely right. Why on earth would California want to take this risk? Offshore oil drilling is a dangerous and now obsolete practice that belongs in the past. We need to hold a firm line against it and ensure that existing rigs come down as soon as possible.

Arizona has gone off the deep end. California's neighbor, and a home for many ex-Californians, has passed and Governor Jan Brewer has signed a radical and extremist bill, SB 1070, that legalizes racial profiling and implements a host of unconstitutional rules that abrogate civil liberties and subject anyone not carrying proper identification to immediate arrest.

The backlash to SB 1070 is already underway. Presente.org is organizing a a boycott of Arizona, which I've joined. I have a lot of family who live in Arizona, but I'm not going to subject myself to a police state to visit them; they can come to California.

The picture at right, of Governor Brewer's signing announcement, tells you all you need to know about what is happening here. Despite the fact that people with brown skin lived in Arizona *long* before anyone with white skin, and despite the fact that Arizona has had a long heritage of Latinos predating US conquest, and despite the fact that Latinos and Native Americans and other non-whites have lived there up to the present, a vocal minority of Arizona's white population has decided that being brown in Arizona is a crime.

Using "illegal immigration" as justification, Republicans led by Russell Pearce are waging a war against a people who are as Arizonan as they are, against a "culture" that is indigenous, not foreign. Here's what Pearce had to say to NPR in 2008:

Invaders, that's what they [undocumented immigrants] are. Invaders on the American sovereignty and it can't be tolerated....

Pearce claims illegal immigrants are responsible for much of Arizona's crime and he admits to feeling uncomfortable with the way society is changing in Arizona. He attributes it partly to Mexicans' and Central Americans' "way of doing business."

"Drive around parts of Phoenix. I get calls all the time and it's not that they're Hispanic, it's because the culture is different. The gangs are bigger. There's more violence, kidnappings are way up," he says.

This conflation of "illegal" with "Hispanic" is by no means new, even though there are lots of Irish undocumented immigrants in the US. What Pearce represents is the very same phenomenon we're all too familiar with here in California: white anxiety at the fact that their country was never as white as they believed, and is becoming steadily more diverse. Blaming "illegals" is merely an easier way of couching one's racism.

This is especially true in private conversations. Just as one can very easily find anti-Latino racism expressed in white Orange County households, you can find it even more commonly expressed in white communities in Arizona. This is exacerbated by the fact that a lot of Arizona whites moved there from California in search of a less diverse, more white place to live.

As anyone with any knowledge of California history ought to be aware, Arizona is merely following a trail the Golden State blazed long ago. In the 1850s during the Gold Rush, Anglo Californians harassed, attacked, killed, deported, and took the land of Latinos, whether they were native-born Californios or people who came here to seek wealth in the gold fields.

Over the next 150 years racism persisted, only to be dramatically reinforced when Proposition 187 was passed by 2/3rds of voters at the November 1994 election. Prop 187 was ultimately ruled unconstitutional by the courts, and it led to a shift of Latinos away from the Republican Party and towards Democrats in California that has never been reversed.

Today's Republican Party remains every bit as anti-immigrant and anti-Latino as it was in 1994. The two candidates for the GOP gubernatorial nomination, Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner, have spent weeks airing TV ads trying to outdo each other in immigrant-bashing. Steve Poizner wrote in his new book that "From an intellectual standpoint, I absolutely know not to expect Silicon Valley-type caliber ambition and smarts from East San Jose schoolkids," most of whom are Latinos.

We can expect California Republicans to use Arizona's SB 1070 as a model for similar bills they will almost certainly push this year in the Legislature. California Democrats still hold enough seats to block this, but we have to continuously reinforce to them the fact that Californians opposed these kind of anti-immigrant laws.

It's also a powerful argument for the federal government to get off its ass and finally act on comprehensive immigration reform. Californians Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer would do well to act quickly, to ensure that no other states follow Arizona's unconscionable and horrific lead.

Oh, and we might want to put up some signs on Interstate 10 in Blythe warning eastbound travelers that they're about to enter a police state.

By the way: Sign the act.ly petition to have CalPERS divest itself of investments in Arizona companies and Arizona real estate. Let's make AZ regret this.

Some big news has been breaking on the anti-AB 32 front in recent days. After Valero got hit by the combined efforts of the Courage Campaign and CREDO Action with our Boycott Valero campaign (note: I work as Public Policy Director for the Courage Campaign), as well as the No on Valero effort, they appear to have called for reinforcements.

As noted in the LA Times story on our Boycott Valero campaign, Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum is now part of the coalition trying to undermine AB 32, having donated $300,000 last week to the repeal effort. Oxy was joined by a Missouri think tank, the Adam Smith Foundation, which gave $498,000 to the repeal last week despite having just $30,000 in annual revenues the last two years.

The Courage Campaign has already been fighting Valero and Tesoro, the original oil company backers of the anti-AB 32 initiative. The entry of Oxy and the Adam Smith Foundation (and whoever their real backers are) into the fight shows that our Boycott Valero action is having a powerful impact. Now, on the eve of Earth Day, is precisely the moment to step up our efforts and show these oil companies we won't let them destroy California's environment or our economic future.

That's why the Courage Campaign is launching a fundraising drive to help us build out our campaign to defend AB 32 from the oil companies. We've sunk a *lot* of time and energy into this campaign in the last 3 weeks, and it's becoming clear that we need additional resources to sustain our efforts in the face of the oil company onslaught. Can you donate $25 or more to help us keep up the pressure?

Launching the fundraiser is Rick Jacobs, chair of the Courage Campaign, who knows a little something about Occidental. He was an executive there in the 1980s, working as chief of staff to the CEO and eventually becoming the youngest vice-president in the history of the company. He later left Oxy because he felt they were not being responsible to their shareholders, and today devotes his time to the Courage Campaign as an unpaid Chair, holding corporations and politicians accountable to the progressive values most Californians share.

Jacobs slammed Oxy's participation in the anti-AB 32 effort, in an email to Courage Campaign members across California:

After the first "oil shocks" of the 1970s, I remember being heartened that Oxy was focusing on finding alternatives to oil. Eventually, however, oil became so cheap Oxy stopped that research.

So when I saw that Oxy was joining Valero to kill AB 32, I was disappointed but not really surprised. While the market now craves the green energy alternatives being fueled by AB 32, Oxy and its executives are prioritizing their obscene profits -- and dirty energy -- over our prosperity and environment....

This is David vs. Goliath. That's why it will take meaningful action this Earth Day to stop Oxy and Valero from killing AB 32.

Occidental, Valero, Tesoro, and the other backers of the initiative clearly believe that California's economy and environmental laws should give way to their relentless desire for unlimited profit. Yet oil companies are part of the past, represent a failed 20th century economic model that California has to shed if we are to rebuild prosperity in the 21st century.

AB 32 helps spur a green economy and clean energy jobs by incentivizing more efficient operations of oil companies. It doesn't shut down Oxy, Valero, or Tesoro. It just means they have to make some investments in reducing their carbon emissions. That's not so onerous.

Unfortunately, these folks have spent nearly $2 million to get the anti-AB 32 initiative on the ballot. We can't let them overwhelm grassroots progressive response. Please help us sustain and expand our campaign to stop the oil companies from destroying California's future.

Below is the full email Rick Jacobs sent to Courage Campaign members this morning.   Read More »

Later today the Assembly Rules Committee will take up the renomination of Abel Maldonado to be Lieutenant Governor.

For months now progressive Californians have argued Democrats have a duty to this state to confirm him. That's not because we like Maldonado, far from it. He is a reprehensible politician who has gotten where he is only by disreputable scheming at the expense of his constituents (I'm one of them) and at the expense of California's ability to fund its core services. Instead, he should be confirmed because it offers a priceless opportunity to restore majority rule to California.

Maldonado will have a few months as Lieutenant Governor, but it isn't likely to help him much for the fall. Either Gavin Newsom or Janice Hahn can paint him as an out-of-touch incumbent Sacramento hack, which is exactly what he is. I certainly hope he doesn't cast any stupid votes on the State Lands Commission or on the UC Board of Regents or CSU Board of Directors, but if he does it'll boost the candidacy of either Newsom or Hahn.

And in any case, there are bigger fish to fry: namely, Republican obstruction in the State Senate. Just as there is widespread agreement at the need to eliminate the filibuster in the US Senate at the earliest possible opportunity, we have to seize this chance to win a 2/3rds majority in the State Senate. At the CDP convention in LA last weekend most delegates and most Democrats who addressed the convention agreed that majority rule was essential to the state's future.

Well, here's their opportunity to provide it. Confirming Maldonado anytime after today means we can consolidate the runoff round of the special election here in SD-15 with the November general election. Democrats in this district are chomping at the bit to start working to put John Laird in the seat, especially us here in Monterey County. In fact, Monterey County will be ground zero in the fight for 2/3rds, since our other senate district, SD-12, can be flipped from red to blue by Anna Caballero.

This is an opportunity that cannot be missed. Maldonado is already on the Republican ballot for the LtG office, so we're going to face him in November no matter what is decided about his confirmation. We might as well get something out of it - and 2/3rds is the holy grail, the achievement that makes all other achievements possible. Yes, we still need to win 2/3rds in the Assembly, and there are some good candidates running across the state that can make it happen too.

But there's no sense in waiting to 2012 to elect a 2/3rds majority to the State Senate, especially with the unpredictable outcomes of Prop 14 and the redistricting commission looming. The Assembly should vote to confirm Maldonado - but not until tomorrow at the earliest.

Speaker John A. Perez voted against Maldonado (the second time - remember there were two votes that day in February, and he did not vote the first time), but since then has said there is a "pathway" for Maldonado to be confirmed. Let's hope they've found it.