CA Senate

Can Senate Republicans Make CA More Affordable?

April 28, 2016 By Matt Fleming 1 Comment

Senate Republicans packaged their best policy proposals on Tuesday, a series of bills aimed at helping veterans, seniors, homeowners and renters as well as parents and students.

Jean Fuller, the Senate Republican leader, pointed to California’s high rents, high poverty rate and high tax burden as ills helped by these bills — a “first step” in helping make the Golden State more affordable.

Fuller cited damning stats: CNBC ranked California the 5th most expensive state to live in the country in 2015, average monthly rent is 50 percent higher here than in the rest of the country, 40 percent of Californians are living at or near the poverty line and Californians have one of the highest tax burdens in the country.

And earlier this month, the American Legislative Exchange Council gave California one of the worst economic outlooks in the country.

“Senate Republicans united around a very positive agenda that gives voice to Californians being left behind by their own Capitol,” the Bakersfield Republican said.

“There is no question that California has become a very expensive place to live,” Fuller added.

Fuller did not explain how the proposals would be paid for (nor did her office provide an estimate of how much the package would cost). Instead, Fuller said the government should focus on the “most disabled” and the “most vulnerable populations” as a top priority, adding that state revenues have increased steadily over the last few years.

“If the priorities are carefully weighed, I think we do have enough money, especially when we’ve had extra resources come in in the last couple of years,” Fuller said.

Package of Bills

The 11 bills center on tax breaks and proposals focused on encouraging access to work, education and homeownership.

Access to work: One bill restores MediCal coverage for one free pair of eyeglasses every other year for those who fail the DMV vision test. Another bill provides $100 standard allowance for CalWORKs welfare-to-work participants, as well as an allowance for education costs.

Education: One bill provides a tax deduction for college expenses, while another creates a sales and use tax holiday for school supply purchases. A third bill would create a tax deduction for education savings accounts.

Homeownership: There’s a renters tax credit, a bill to eliminate property tax inflation for senior and disabled veterans, and one that would do that same for senior citizens. There’s two proposals giving a property tax exemption for disabled veterans. And there’s a proposal to encourage a homeownership savings accounts that would help first-time homebuyers with a down payment.

Navigating the Senate

Unveiling an agenda at a press conference, however, is far easier than carrying the bills through the Legislature for a Republican caucus with virtually no power. They face a Sisyphean task of getting the bills through a Democratically-controlled Legislature, where they are a mere seat away from irrelevancy — below the dreaded one-third threshold.

According to Bill Whalen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, Republicans in the Legislature face three legislative options. The first is to have an idea embraced by Democrats, which could carry the bill to the governor’s desk. The other two are either the bill is dead on arrival or it gets a hearing and then fizzles out.

“There’s three outcomes, two of which are negative,” said Whalen, who served as chief speechwriter and director of public affairs for former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson.

After voters amended the Constitution in 2010 to require only majority approval of the state budget (as opposed to two-thirds), Republicans lost a yearly opportunity to leverage legislation as their numbers in both chambers are only slightly above one-third.

“For a few weeks anyway, Republicans had a lot of relevance in the process,” Whalen said, adding that now Republicans’ leverage is now mostly reserved for Constitutional amendments.

This article was originally published by CalWatchdog.com

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: CA Senate, Jean Fuller, poverty, Veterans

Free Rides Program for Drunk CA Senators Withers Under Public Criticism

June 9, 2015 By Jon Coupal 3 Comments

Ancient Greek historian Herodotus tells us that when the Persians decided a matter while drunk, they made a rule to reconsider it when sober.

Recent news from Sacramento tells us that the state Legislature may have adopted at least the first part of the Persian ritual. Members of the Senate were recently issued cards with a phone number they could call 24/7 when inebriated, so they could be picked up at whatever location and be driven home by a Senate employee. When the program became public last week, it withered under public ridicule and the Senate leadership responded by attempting to quietly put the genie back in the bottle by canceling the free service to lawmakers late Friday afternoon.

However, if the “drunks ride free” cards are no longer valid, the questions raised by this elitist perk remain.

The program was probably a defensive reaction to the bad publicity stemming from the drunken driving arrests of four lawmakers in the last five years, but it makes one wonder: How serious is this problem? If taxpayers were expected to pay for this service, should money also be spent providing counseling or detox to those members of the Legislature who drink in excess? Perhaps these cards were a tacit admission that some legislators have a drinking problem,which may boost the argument that some have been making that drug testing should be required for elected officials. Just last year such a bill was introduced in the Florida Legislature.

Some will say that safety should be the primary concern, and they would be right, but aren’t our elected officials bright enough to call a cab when they are tipsy? Perhaps they don’t like dipping into their $142-a-day in tax free expense money, which they get on top of the highest legislative salaries in all 50 states. And considering their ability to influence government policy, is it fair to say that it is most likely that the drinks they consume are not paid for by them but by favor seekers?

Although the cost to taxpayers for the free ride program was relatively small – we have a state budget of $170 billion – it is another symbol of the arrogance of the political class when dealing with other people’s money. It is the same kind of thinking that allowed the Senate President Pro Tem to spend nearly $30,000 in taxpayers’ money on his “inauguration” held at the Los Angeles Music Center.

However, whether members have been drinking or not, sober judgement in the Legislature seems in short supply. Currently, under consideration are bills that would boost the California yearly tax burden by $132 billion, according to an analysis just released by the California Taxpayers Association. Just one bill, Senate Bill 8 by Robert Hertzberg, would extend the sales tax to services, like auto repair and gardening, and cost taxpayers a whopping $122.6 billion a year, says the State Board of Equalization. If all these bills were to pass, it would increase the annual tax liability for every man, woman and child in the state by nearly $3,500.

With all these tax increases coming down the pike, it is the taxpayers who may be tempted to take up drinking, although if lawmakers get their way, alcohol along with everything else, may soon cost more. On thing is for sure, there will be no “free ride” for taxpayers.

Jon Coupal is president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association — California’s largest grass-roots taxpayer organization dedicated to the protection of Proposition 13 and the advancement of taxpayers’ rights.

Originally published at HJTA.org

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: CA Senate, Drunk driving, HJTA.org, Jon Coupal, Taxpayers

CA Senate Passes Bill to Raise Legal Smoking Age to 21

June 5, 2015 By James Poulos 7 Comments

Adding another bill to its reputation as a trend-setting Legislature, Sacramento has taken a big step toward raising the statewide smoking age to 21. By an overwhelming tally of 26 to 8, the state Senate voted to prohibit sales of tobacco products to those aged 18-20.

By the numbers

According to the bill’s supporters, the ban would be instrumental in dramatically reducing not only teen smoking but smoking in general. “Sen. Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, said he introduced the bill, SB151, out of concern that an estimated 90 percent of tobacco users start before age 21,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

That statistic emerged from a recent Institute of Medicine study making the rounds in policy circles. Researchers suggestedthat “teen smoking could be curbed by 12 percent if the age limit was raised to 21,” as LAist noted, “making it harder for minors to find somebody to buy cigarettes for them.” In real numbers, the study concluded, the age-21 limit would ensure “more than 200,000 fewer premature deaths nationally for those born between 2000 and 2019.”

Although critics have pointed out that people older than 18 are adults eligible to be drafted and bound to signed contracts, the Times observed, momentum has gathered to raise the legal smoking age for reasons unrelated to consistency in the treatment of individual rights and responsibilities.

Tobacco-related illness has long represented a significant chunk of aggregate health care costs. For policymakers, that problem grows more serious the more those costs are shifted onto government and taxpayers. “Tobacco-related disease killed 34,000 Californians in 2009 and cost the state $18.1 billion in medical expenses, according to studies by UC San Francisco,” according to the Times.

A developing trend

Some evidence of the policy’s likely impact has accumulated in states where the smoking age was previously hiked. “Although most states set the minimum age at 18, Alabama, Alaska, New Jersey and Utah set it at 19, and some localities have set it at 21,” according to The Washington Post. “Higher age limits seem to correspond with lower smoke rates in these states; Utah and New Jersey also have among the lowest smoking rates in the country, No. 1 and No. 5, per Gallup, while Alaska has the most improved, and Alabama is somewhat of an outlier in the South, as it’s not among the states with the highest smoking rates, like its neighbors Mississippi and Louisiana.”

California could be the first state to deny tobacco to under-21s. But other western states could swiftly follow suit. According to KPPC, “Legislatures in Oregon and Washington are considering similar bills and lawmakers in Hawaii have passed a bill and sent it to the governor.” Among the localities setting the legal age at 21, Hawaii County has been joined by New York City.

Next, vaping

Traditional tobacco products were not the only ones on the state Senate’s chopping block. SB140, introduced by state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, also passed handily, on a 24-12 vote.

As the San Francisco Chronicle reported, that bill “would include e-cigarettes in the definition of tobacco products in order to prohibit the devices from being used at workplaces, schools and public places, just as tobacco products are under the state’s Smoke Free Act. SB140 would also make it a misdemeanor to provide e-cigarettes to minors.”

The tandem advance of the state Senate’s anti-smoking and anti-vaping bills raised the prospect that the two approaches would converge in the near future, raising the vaping age to 21. “California bans the sale of e-cigarettes to anyone under 18,” the Chronicle observed, “but Leno said young teens still have access to them and they are becoming increasingly popular among middle and high school students.” If Hernandez’s bill were to pass before Leno’s, vaping would automatically be restricted in the same manner as traditional cigarette smoking.

Originally published by CalWatchdog.com

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: CA Senate, cigarettes, E-cigarette, Ed Hernandez, Legislature, Sacramento, Smoking, Vaping

Anti-Taxpayer Forces Hit New Low in Special Election

March 10, 2015 By Jon Coupal 1 Comment

Last November’s election saw some of the most craven political tactics ever seen in California. Fearful that they would lose the two thirds supermajority in both houses, many anti-taxpayer candidates – usually Democrats – attempted to portray themselves as friendly to taxpayers and in favor of Proposition 13 when, in fact, the exact opposite was true. Perhaps the worst example of this was the race between Proposition 13 ally Janet Nguyen and Jose Solorio for a Senate seat in Orange County. Democrats were so fearful of losing this seat that Governor Brown unleashed radio advertising claiming that Solorio was the candidate who would protect Proposition 13. Thanks in large part to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association Political Action Committee, voters were informed that Nguyen was by far the superior candidate over the proven tax-and-spend Solorio. Thankfully, she won the election handily receiving more than 58% of the vote.

Well, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, here we go again.

Next week, on March 17th, voters in the East Bay area of Northern California will decide who will fill a state senate seat. Or, more likely, they will pick two candidates who will face one another in a runoff election. In this race, there are three viable candidates – all Democrats. The lone Republican candidate, Michaela Hertle, dropped out of the race and threw her support behind Steve Glazer, a moderate pro-business Democrat who appears to be a good fit for this fiscally conservative, socially moderate district.

The problem is that Glazer is hated by powerful public sector labor organizations. From their view, he had the audacity to oppose a BART strike – which inconvenienced tens of thousands of Bay Area commuters – and, even worse, he said he would not support a change in Proposition 13’s rules regarding property owned by businesses.

Labor organizations would like nothing more than to prevent Glazer from being one of the top two vote getters next week. If that occurs, then the only candidates appearing on the ballot in the May runoff election would be two tax-and-spend, labor compliant, left leaning Democrats. For Proposition 13 supporters, this is the worst case scenario.

So, rather than tell the truth about their anti-taxpayer agenda, the labor organizations have financed an expensive mail campaign in favor of the Republican who has dropped out of the race. This may seem crazy, but the goal here is to confuse Republican voters into voting their party as opposed to a moderate Democrat who actually has a chance to win.

This strategy reveals two things. First, powerful public sector labor organizations will stop at nothing to advance their narrow interests. Second, they recognize – as do most political observers – that Proposition 13 and the interests of taxpayers still resonate powerfully in California.

While the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association PAC has not endorsed a candidate in this special election, we reserve the right to do so in the runoff election. But one thing is certain. Of the candidates, Steve Glazer appears to be the most sympathetic to the issues of concern to California taxpayers – including the preservation of Proposition 13. At a minimum, he is the least beholden to unions. And in this state, that is saying something.

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: CA Senate, HJTA, Jon Coupal, Legislature, Special Election, Steve Glazer, taxes

Sen. Leno’s “Income Inequality” Lost Cause

February 20, 2015 By Michael Saltsman 3 Comments

California’s minimum wage is set to rise to $10 an hour on January 1^st of next year. But for Senator Mark Leno (D-San

CA State Senator Mark Leno, D-San Francisco

Francisco), this already-dramatic wage hike isn’t nearly dramatic enough.

Citing an “income inequality crisis,” Sen. Leno has called for a minimum wage increase to $11 an hour in 2016, followed by another jump to $13 an hour in 2017. Unfortunately for the senator, the evidence suggests a hike in the base wage will do very little to solve this crisis — and might even make it worse.

San Francisco, which Sen. Leno represents, has one of the highest minimum wages in the country — and one of the country’s most dramatic gaps between the rich and the poor. (One analysis last year compared the city’s inequality level to that in a developing nation.) City voters in November resolved to fix this problem by approving a proposal to raise the city’s minimum wage even higher, to $15 an hour, by 2018.

Thus far, the looming $15 minimum wage only seems to be worsening the city’s inequality crisis. Several small business owners have been forced to close their doors as a consequence of the coming cost hike, hindering their own entrepreneurial dreams and those of the people they employed. This trade-off isn’t unique to San Francisco. If you’re an employee working at a business with small profit margins, your employer will be faced with one of two difficult choices when the minimum wage goes up: Either raise prices, or cut labor costs by reducing staffing levels or employees’ hours.

If the wage goes up and the terms of your employment don’t change, you may be better off; if you lose job and your co-workers do, too, then you’re most certainly worse off. That means Sen. Leno’s plan for a statewide $13 minimum wage will create winners and losers in the entry-level workforce. Unfortunately, a team of economists writing in the Journal of Human Resources discovered that the “losers” from a wage hike — employees who are pulled below the poverty line, or at least closer to it, as a consequence — outnumber the “winners.”

Put differently: Instead of redistributing income from the top 1 percent, Sen. Leno may unintentionally redistribute it among the bottom.

The Senator’s office has pointed skeptics to comforting studies from a team of ideological researchers at the University of California-Berkeley, suggesting that the negative impact of a higher minimum wage in California—both on the city level, and statewide–would be minimal or nonexistent. But the Berkeley team’s estimates are looking less and less credible in the face of real-world evidence.

In San Francisco, for instance, one bookstore reported that the $15 minimum wage would cause a fatal 18 percent increase in operating costs—90 times greater than what UC Berkeley projected for city retailers. And in Oakland, where the minimum wage is rising to $12.25, restaurants are reporting price hikes of up to 20 percent—far greater than the 2.5 percent that the Berkeley team predicted.

These real-world examples are no doubt unsatisfying to the most dedicated ideologues, and it’s unsurprising that one of the Berkeley researchers insinuated employers might not be telling the truth. But spin like this only goes so far, especially in the face of real flesh-and-blood employees who no longer have jobs.

If Sen. Leno is serious about reducing income inequality and increasing opportunity, he owes it to the California residents who need those opportunities to examine the best way to help them. That starts by acknowledging that we should judge public policy by its outcomes rather than its intentions.

Michael Saltsman is research director at the Employment Policies Institute

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: CA Senate, Legislature, Mark Leno, Minimum Wage, san francisco

CA Senate Oversight Committee Scrapped by de Leon

December 19, 2014 By James Poulos 4 Comments

In a curious action, new state California Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, has scrapped the government oversight office created by his predecessor, former Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento. The move has swiftly earned de Leon a fresh round of criticism.

Steinberg himself was not shaken up about the news. He expressed confidence that similar work would be done in some other way, according to the Sacramento Bee. “I have every confidence that Kevin is committed to oversight, but there are many ways to do it,” he said. “This is the way I chose to do it and I’m sure he will have his way.” Steinberg’s oversight office was funded directly through the office of the president pro tem.

Personal priorities

That was an expense de Leon clearly did not wish to maintain, despite his willingness to throw a lavish party this October for his swearing in as president pro tem. Many critics, the Los Angeles Times reported, found the bash an “inappropriate extravagance at a time when the state Senate is struggling to shake off the taint of corruption scandals and regain public trust.” Earlier this year, three Democratic state senators were indicted on federal corruption charges.

The celebration’s $50,000 tab was not covered by de Leon himself. Instead, the California Latino Legislative Caucus Foundation, which recently attracted five-figure donations from AT&T and Chevron, footed the bill.

De Leon’s approach to spending was recently on display in his shakeup of the state Senate staff. “Last month, de León laid off 39 employees, including staff who wrote bill analyses, did research and performed secretarial duties,” the Bee reported. A shoeshiner, paid a yearly wage of $13,000 “to provide information to Capitol visitors,” also was let go. Staff costs for Steinberg’s oversight office ran to about $380,000 yearly.

De Leon’s choice to trim budgetary costs by reducing staff, however, has not attracted much attention or scorn. The same cannot be said for his elimination of the Senate’s government oversight office.

Blowback

Steinberg’s oversight office produced a high volume of reports that made a substantial impact. As the Bee reported:

“Investigations found that a lack of scrutiny allowed sex offenders to treat drug addicts at state rehab clinics; that California’s mortgage lender foreclosed on homeowners who were current on their loans; that redevelopment agencies spent money without adequate accountability; and that tax breaks had cost the state $6.3 billion more than anticipated. Other reports made recommendations for curbing fraud in the home health care system and found that an illogical bureaucracy made it hard for regulators to detect fraud in state child care programs. The findings were frequently used as the basis for Senate oversight hearings and also led to new legislation.”

The office’s track record has led some political observers to raise eyebrows and pen editorials calling de Leon’s judgment into question. De Leon’s handling of the issue has left Democrats vulnerable to criticism for trying to return to business as usual following this year’s spate of humiliating scandals, as recent editorial in the Los Angeles Daily News suggested:

“In a further testament to ethical tone-deafness, Senate Democrats have chosen to revive their annual Pro Tem Cup, the golf event and major party fundraiser at Torrey Pines that has charged special-interest representatives up to $65,000 to trade strokes with lawmakers. The event was canceled this year because it wouldn’t have looked so good with Senate Democrats Leland Yee, Ron Calderon and Rod Wright facing ethics charges.”

In another coincidence of timing, cops in de Leon’s district have been handed a new oversight body. In the wake of serious ethics charges of their own, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was put under civilian oversight by the Board of Supervisors, as the Times reported.

And in a second coincidence, the de Leon controversy has unfolded at the same time as a similar one in the federal government, although this time it’s Republicans mainly involved.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, revealed he’ll take a less pugnacious approach to the House Oversight Committee than the chairman he is replacing, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

In 2012, Issa’s actions led to the House of Representatives holding Attorney Gen. Eric Holder in contempt of Congress over the Fast and Furious weapons scandal.

This article was originally published by CalWatchdog.com

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: CA Senate, Darrell Steinberg, Kevin de Leon, Legislature

CA GOP Eyes Special State Senate Election

November 24, 2014 By James Poulos Leave a Comment

Aside from preventing Democrats from again nabbing two-thirds supermajorities in the California Legislature, the Nov. 4 national GOP electoral wave did little to change the political dynamic here. With two years to go before the 2016 elections, Golden State Republicans have gained an opportunity — though not a lot of time — to focus on the keys to a stronger performance.

Between now and then, the California GOP may be able to use focus groups and internal polls to test certain themes, issues and talking points. Nevertheless, elections have a special value in helping parties refine their message and build momentum.

And until 2016, the most important election in the state for Republicans may well be the special election to replace Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, in the state Senate. Gov. Jerry Brown will set a date for the election soon after DeSaulnier officially resigns from his current office.

Musical chairs

On Election Day, Nov. 4, DeSaulnier prevailed in his effort to replace retiring Rep. George Miller in the 11th Congressional District. After his victory, DeSaulnier took pains to point out that “civic illiteracy and complacency” had nonetheless gotten him down — in other words, low turnout.

Although depressed voting numbers didn’t hurt DeSaulnier, he understood as well as any California Democrat that Republicans in the state often benefit from the phenomenon. Sure enough, in the race to replace him, Republicans may be competitive for that reason as well as others.

That’s why Mark Meuser — a Republican attorney from Walnut Creek and no stranger to DeSaulnier — has jumped into the race, announcing recently he hopes to prevail in the special election for the soon-to-be-vacant 7th state Senate District seat, which encompasses most of Contra Costa and Alameda counties.

As the Antioch Herald reported, Meuser’s campaign will likely focus around economic themes — not just jobs in the abstract, but the dynamism of small business and innovation. “The spirit of entrepreneurs in California is as strong today as it was during the gold rush,” Meuser announced on his campaign site. “It needs an advocate in Sacramento, and Meuser wants to be that advocate. Ensuring that our communities stay strong — and grow stronger — requires a long-term vision for future generations, and Meuser has that vision.”

Meuser is best known as the Republican who ran for that same seat in 2012, losing to DeSaulnier. Then, Meuser won 38.5 percent of the vote, with DeSaulnier getting 61.5 percent. This time around, expectations have changed — in part because more than one Democrat also is angling for the seat, and there will be no incumbent.

Healthy competition

As the Contra Costa Times reported, two well known and influential Bay Area Democrats are expected to throw their hats in the ring: re-elected Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla, D-Concord, and term-limited Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo. With the state Capitol teeming with Democrats drawn from the well-to-do power corridor between Sacramento and San Francisco, there are more ambitious politicians than there are elective offices for them to fill.

Bonilla and Buchanan are both credible candidates sure to appeal to voting Democrats. It is less clear, however, whether either has the ability to turn out Democrats in large enough numbers to deal another loss to Meuser — particularly if they have to campaign against one another, and not just Meuser. According to California law, if no candidate gets 50 percent-plus-one of the vote, a runoff election then is held.

As the Antioch Herald also reported, both Democrats will be influenced in their decision-making by California’s particular rules restricting length of terms in office. Whether serving in the Assembly or state Senate, legislators are capped at a total of 12 years in both houses, according to Proposition 28, which voters approved in 2012. But it only applies to those elected to office after its passage.

Yet “because Bonilla was elected before June 5, 2012, she is restricted by the previous term limits, approved in 1990, which limited legislators to three terms in the State Assembly and two terms in the State Senate. Since the election will be past the half-way point in DeSaulnier’s term, if elected, she will serve less than two years, allowing her two more full terms for a total of close to 10 years. The same would apply to Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan.”

Looking forward

The 7th is not the only state Senate District soon to be up for grabs as a result of a special election. Similar circumstances have also created upcoming vacancies in the 21st District and the 37th District, where Republican state Sens. Steve Knight and Mimi Walters, respectively, were elected to the U.S. Congress. No date for an election has been set. But these are seats in heavily Republican districts, so the makeup of the Senate won’t change.

And on Dec. 9, an election will be held to replace Democratic state Sen. Rod Wright in Senate District 35. He resigned after being convicted in a corruption scandal. If necessary, a Feb. 10, 2015 runoff will be held. According to Ballotpedia, “Louis L. Dominguez (D), Isadore Hall, III (D), Hector Serrano (D) and James Spencer (R) will face off.” As Wright got 76.5 percent of the vote to 23.5 percent for Republican Charlotte A. Svolos in the 2012 election, one of the Democrats is almost assured of victory, meaning this race also won’t change the party makeup of the Senate.

Given the familiar faces and competing ambitions at work in the presumptive 7th District race, however, Republicans may likely be tempted to use Meuser’s and the other two campaigns to road-test strategies that could pay dividends in 2016. If races can be targeted where Democrats compete, turnout is low, and seasoned Republican candidates can deliver a well-tailored message, the California GOP could see a better return on its investments. However, with 2016 being a presidential election year, turnout likely will be high, which would benefit Democrats.

Ultimately, the success of such an approach could hinge on whether the Nov. 4 elections did not quite capture the full extent of voter frustration with Democrats; and on how President Obama’s recent amnesty plays out among all groups of voters.

This article was originally published by CalWatchdog.com

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: CA Legislature, CA Senate, Mark DeSaulnier, Susan Bonilla

A Few Good Fits for Desperately Hungry Republicans

November 9, 2014 By Steven Greenhut 4 Comments

PHOTO BY RBERTEIG

The wave that swept Republicans back into power in blue states such as Colorado, Maryland, Maine, and Massachusetts didn’t quite reach California, the state that once produced Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. In fact, every Republican candidate for statewide constitutional office lost. Governor Jerry Brown creamed his Republican opponent—and Brown didn’t even run a campaign. Democrats maintained strong majorities in both legislative houses. So why are California GOP officials so giddy about how the election played out?

Two reasons come to mind. First, Republicans won three critical state senate races and stopped the Democrats from holding a supermajority in that body. Election night results looked good for Republican prospects in the state assembly, too, though the final counts in two races will determine whether the GOP prevents a Democratic supermajority in the lower house. Democrats need at least two-thirds of those seats to meet the state constitution’s threshold for passing tax increases. Republicans, as a rule, oppose every new tax increase in a state that already has the nation’s highest individual income-tax rate.

Second, while it still has no idea how to win a statewide election, the California GOP has figured out how to win in targeted districts—even in some that lean Democratic. In the last legislative session, Democrats lost their supermajority in the state senate after scandal drove three legislators from office. One was convicted of voter fraud and perjury, and two others face federal corruption charges. But Republicans chose not to focus on Democratic foibles. Instead, under the leadership of former state senator Jim Brulte, the party put its resources into a handful of winnable races.

Sacramento-based GOP political consultant Jeff Randle said that the Republicans “had to show incremental progress [Tuesday] night and we did that by winning with really good candidates.” Randle, who helps recruit viable candidates through the Trailblazers program, credited the party’s successes to its newfound emphasis on “finding candidates that match their districts.” The best example may be Senator Andy Vidak, a Spanish-speaking cherry farmer from the San Joaquin Valley. Though Democrats enjoy a 20-point voter-registration edge in Vidak’s heavily Latino district, voters in the politically moderate farm region tend to favor independence. Vidak, a cowboy hat-wearing conservative populist, beat his Democratic rival, Fresno school board trustee Luis Chavez, by 10 points.

Republicans also held a senate seat that many pollsters and professional political operatives predicted they would lose. Anthony Cannella, the former mayor of the San Joaquin Valley city of Ceres and son of former Democratic state assemblyman Sal Cannella, prevailed in part by drawing union support away from his Democratic challenger, Shawn Bagley. And Republicans scored a key win in ethnically diverse and politically competitive central Orange County, where county supervisor Janet Nguyen won a state senate seat in a race in which Republicans effectively tapped Asian support. Asians now represent 12 percent of California voters, and they turn out in higher percentages than many other ethnic groups. So Nguyen was another GOP candidate who matched well with her district.

In the assembly, the Republicans did well in all but one of their targeted races. In the eastern Bay Area, the socially moderate Catherine Baker took a hard line on public-employee unions, strongly opposing the 2013 Bay Area Rapid Transit strike in a district that spans Orinda and Walnut Creek east of the Berkeley Hills to the Tri-Valley—in other words, a district full of voting commuters hard hit by two four-day work stoppages in July and October of last year. Pending a final count of absentee and provisional ballots, Baker leads Democrat and union activist Tim Sbranti in the contest for an open assembly seat. Retired police officer Tom Lackey unseated the Democratic incumbent in the Palmdale area, and Korean-American Young Kim, a former staffer for veteran Republican congressman Ed Royce, ousted incumbent assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva, 56 percent to 44 percent, in northern Orange County.

One could argue, however, that the Democrats should never have held some of these seats in the first place. “It’s true Republicans did well, but that’s only because Democrats overreached so far,” said Grant Gillham, a political consultant and former Republican staffer. “You’re living in an alley, eating out of garbage cans and you find half of a Big Mac and you think you’ve hit the jackpot. That’s the situation with Republicans now,” he said, jokingly. He’s got a point, but half a Big Mac is looking pretty good to a desperately hungry party.

This piece was originally published on by City Journal.

Steven Greenhut is the California columnist for U-T San Diego. Write to him at steven.greenhut@utsandiego.com.

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Andy Vidak, Anthony Cannella, CA Assembly, CA Senate, Election 2014, Midterms, Supermajority