CalPERS Board Member Goes Rogue

December 10, 2015 By CPR Editors 1 Comment
Calpers headquarters is seen in Sacramento, California, October 21, 2009. REUTERS/Max Whittaker

Calpers headquarters is seen in Sacramento, California, October 21, 2009. REUTERS/Max Whittaker

A member of the CalPERS board has gone rogue, using public records laws to get documents from the agency while facing warnings that it is unacceptable for him to criticize staff at board meetings. Ed Mendel has details at Calpensions.com:

As one of 13 CalPERS board members, J.J. Jelincic presumably has some authority. But last June and July, he filed Public Records Act requests to force CalPERS to give him weekly reports from its federal lobbyists, much like any member of the public.

CalPERS tripled its federal lobbying force last year from one all-purpose firm, the Lussier Group, to three separate lobbying representatives for retirement policy, investment and market regulation, and health care issues.

Jelincic wanted to see what CalPERS was getting for its increased spending. So he asked for the weekly reports from the lobbyists, as specified in their contracts. But the rest of the board had decided monthly reports, also specified in the contracts, are enough, and Jelincic’s informal request was denied.

The unusual Public Records Act requests by a board member helped trigger a CalPERS governance committee discussion last month of “board member behavior” that was clearly aimed at Jelincic.  … In addition to filing the Public Records Act requests, Jelincic was criticized by other board members for “disparaging” staff in public and taking more than his fair share of time at board meetings by asking questions.

Board targets only member who challenges staff

CalPERS’ actions got two much more savage takedowns at Naked Capitalism, a popular niche website dedicated to exposing improper and unethical behavior by large financial institutions and corporations and the government agencies which regulate them. Susan Webber, a 35-year veteran of Wall Street and high finance, writes for the site under the name Yves Smith. Among her allegations:

  • CalPERS board routinely tries to hide basic information about what its doing, apparently at the behest of its staff, which doesn’t like outside scrutiny.
  • CalPERS ignores state laws on taking testimony at its meetings and uses security guards to intimidate individuals who ask difficult or multiple questions.
  • CalPERS is trying to break Jelincic’s will by hassling him. Some specifics from Webber:

[Some video of last month’s] Governance Committee meeting clearly shows that the board, aided and abetted by [fiduciary counsel Robert] Klausner, is in the process of establishing a procedure for implementing trumped-up sanctions against Jelincic, presumably so as to facilitate an opponent unseating him in his next election. But Jelincic’s term isn’t up until 2018, so from their perspective they are stuck with an apostate in their ranks for an uncomfortably long amount of time. Part of their strategy appears to harass him into compliance with the posture the rest of the board, that of ceding authority to staff and conducting board meetings that are largely ceremonial. …

The board ganging up against Jelincic comes straight out of The Peter Principle. One of its corollaries was “hierarchical exfoliation,” in which organizations expel both poor performers and notable outperformers, the latter because they make everyone else look bad. Jelincic, the lone board member willing to do his job, must be tarred and feathered for his crime of showing the rest of the board up. …

[It] is particularly unseemly that the board member who has been the most aggressive in pushing the illegal notion that CalPERS can and should sanction Jelincic over filing Public Records Act requests is Priya Mathur, who has been fined repeatedly for violating state ethics laws.

Jelincic has history as CalPERS maverick

This isn’t the first time Jelincic has tangled with other board members and top CalPERS officials. The Sacramento Bee reported in April on one contretemps, involving limits put on his voting to avoid conflicts of interest because his full-time job is as a CalPERS investment officer.

In 2011, Jelincic was officially reprimanded for alleged sexual harassment of co-workers in CalPERS’ investment office. But he denied the allegations and called the sanctions “politically motivated.”

But Jelincic’s campaign biography and website doesn’t focus on his maverick ways. Instead, they emphasize his history as a union leader, including time as president of the California State Employees Association. Strong union support helped him first win his seat on the CalPERS board in 2009.

Originally published by CalWatchdog.com

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Assisted Suicide Takes Step Forward in CA Legislature

June 7, 2015 By James Poulos Leave a Comment

NeedleWith doctors’ groups divided, legislation that would authorize assisted suicide cleared a key hurdle in Sacramento, triggering a fresh round of controversy.

Senate Bill 128, the so-called “End of Life Option Act,” was introduced earlier this year by state Sens. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, and Bill Monning, D-Carmel. Modeled on an Oregon law governing physician-assisted suicide, SB128 set out a series of conditions that would legalize but limit the practice.

Retooled after it initially stalled, the bill has now passed through the state Senate appropriations committee. “Backers of the assisted suicide proposal made some changes to the bill to gain more support after it initially met with strong opposition from hospitals, doctors, anti-abortion organizations and disability rights groups,” Reuters reported. “As currently written, it allows hospitals and medical providers to refuse to comply with a patient’s wish for assisted suicide, and also makes it illegal to pressure or manipulate people into ending their lives.”

The bill’s final language required that medication be self-administered by a mentally competent patient diagnosed by two physicians with six months or less to live, according to California Healthline.

Deepening controversy

One key to the bill’s committee clearance, Reuters noted, was the California Medical Association, which “still opposes the concept of assisted suicide” but “removed its formal opposition to the bill.”

Yet this attempt at a compromise position has left many palliative doctors unsatisfied. Among those supportive of assisted suicide, some have argued that all patients should have a right to avoid discomfort at the end of life — an objective even diligent palliative care cannot always meet.

Others, arguing against the practice, insisted that affirmatively ending patients’ lives was an unnecessary and crude response to the discomfort of death and dying. Newport Beach doctor Vincent Nguyen told Southern California Public Radio that patients’ typical fears — “about pain, losing control or being a burden on family — can be managed with spiritual and emotional counseling and pain medications, all of which are part of the palliative care toolkit.”

Dr. Ira Byock, a palliative care physician in Torrance, went further. Contrary to their wishes, he warned, the chronically ill often “spend their last weeks in intensive care units, hooked up to life support,” according to SCPR. “To address this problem, he says that all doctors — from medical students to veteran practitioners — should be required to have training in end of life conversations.”

A moral shift

As SB128 came one step closer to becoming law, analysts began a closer look at how much popular support the bill might attract. As has long been the case on high-profile and hot-button issues, California has been seen as a bellwether in the struggle over how the law treats those who want to die.

Despite gathering momentum to legalize assisted suicide, public opinion has remained split. But in-state and nationwide, data suggested an ongoing shift in mores that benefits how SB128 is perceived. “Nearly seven in 10 Americans (68 percent) say doctors should be legally allowed to assist terminally ill patients in committing suicide, up 10 percentage points from last year,” Gallup reported. “More broadly, support for euthanasia has risen nearly 20 points in the last two years and stands at the highest level in more than a decade.”

The shift has left opponents pivoting to warn that even relatively narrow authorizations of the practice would lead to ever-broader accommodations down the road. “In the Netherlands, after many years, legal assisted suicide for the dying has evolved into death on demand, with six out of 10 doctors admitting to killing a patient who was simply ‘tired of   living,’” wrote  Jacqueline Harvey of Euthanasia Prevention International at National Review. “California is approaching that slippery slope.”

Originally published by CalWatchdog.com

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High-Speed Rail Report Fraught With “Issues” and “Risks”

March 14, 2015 By Kathy Hamilton 6 Comments

Risk, time and money remain the major problems for the construction of California’s high-speed rail project. That’s seen in the biannual Legislative Report of the California High-Speed Rail Authority released this month, as required by law.

The report is a serious attempt of the CHSRA to let the California Legislature know the true status of the program. It includes four pages of “Issues” and 13 pages of “Risks.”

The CHSRA highlighted the project’s groundbreaking, which occurred on Jan. 6:

“The event highlighted the work that is already underway in the Central Valley on Construction Package 1 (CP 1), and underscored the Authority’s commitment to advancing the program on multiple project sections concurrently in order to deliver statewide mobility and environmental benefits sooner.”

However, as CalWatchdog.com noted at the time, the groundbreaking was more appearance than reality, as progress on the project continues at a slow pace. 

The report was enthusiastic. “Crucial to the start of heavy construction, 105, or 28 percent, of necessary parcels have been delivered to the DB [Design Build] contractor,” it said. But that also means 72 percent of the parcels still have not been delivered.

The March 3 Los Angeles Times also reported, “The contractor building the first segment of the California bullet train system said Monday it is seeking compensation for delays in the project and is not likely to start any major construction until June or July — months later than state officials said just weeks ago.”

Lawsuits

The report took up the lawsuits against the project:

  • “In December 2014, the Authority and the City of Bakersfield announced that they had reached a settlement agreement to dismiss the city’s California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) lawsuit.”
  • “In February 2015, the Authority announced that it had also reached a settlement agreement with Coffee-Brimhall LLC, a developer entity that owns land in Bakersfield.”
  • The CHSRA acknowledged the five remaining lawsuits concerning the Fresno to Bakersfield segment: “While the Authority continues to work with its stakeholders and partners through the remaining CEQA lawsuits, the Surface Transportation Board’s approval of the project section’s environmental document in July 2014 allows the Authority to move forward with construction-related activities within the project section up to 7th Standard Road.”

The future of these lawsuits and other CEQA cases may be determined by a case before the California Supreme Court called Friends of Eel River v. North Coast Railroad Authority. The Legislative Report explained:

“A stay is requested to allow time for the California Supreme Court to decide the Friends of Eel River v. North Coast Railroad Authority case which is currently under review. In Eel River the Court will decide whether CEQA is preempted for a publically owned railroad that is under the jurisdiction of the Surface Transportation Board. Eel River will have implications in the CEQA cases filed against the Authority.”

Electrical connectivity    

Another issue involved the California Public Utilities Commission. The matter was included in the Legislative Report’s lawsuits section, but not in all aspects. According to the CHSRA:

“On March 21, 2013, the PUC issued the Order Instituting Rulemaking (OIR), at the request of the Authority, which initiated a rulemaking proceeding. The stated goal of the OIR was to ‘determine whether to adopt, amend or repeal regulations governing safety standards for the use of 25kv electric lines to power high-speed trains.’”

Under actions taken, the CHSRA wrote:

“The Authority has reached agreement with all parties to the proceeding on all terms of the General Order. The Authority presented the settlement General Order to the PUC on January 26, 2015. The General Order is currently pending adoption by the PUC, with an anticipated adoption at the March 2015 PUC Commissioners meeting.”

However, the CPUC must conduct an environmental report for electrifying the project, which could in fact have implications for the project.  Permits at the earliest are not expected until 2017.  According to the CPUC Report:

“The Initial Operating Segment of the High Speed Rail line is Madera to Bakersfield with a targeted operation date of 2022. This requires electrical connectivity at least 2 years prior, with permits to construct facilities by 2017. To grant such permits, the Energy Division needs to start work no later than 2014-2015 to complete environmental review (usually takes at least a year) and permit review by mid-2017” 

It is not a simple process. The CPUC report described the required involvement of the CPUC, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and the CHSRA for the purpose of carrying out environmental review.

New lawsuit

Absent from the CHSRA’s Legislative Report is the newest suit, filed on Feb. 9, against CalTrain, the Bay Area commuter system. The suit was filed by the city of Atherton, the Transportation and Education Defense League and the Community Coalition on High-Speed Rail.

Among other things, the lawsuit, as CalWatchdog.com reported at the time:

  • Seeks to force the board to acknowledge the impacts CalTrain’s project, and the closely associated high-speed rail project, will have on the San Francisco Peninsula. Specifically, it questions the effect of electrification for the high-speed rail project will have on the peninsula.
  • Asserts that, by 2040, CalTrain will not be able to accommodate more passengers. Surplus capacity that would otherwise be available to run more CalTrain trains would instead be committed to the high-speed rail project.

Kit Fox

The CHSRA Legislative Report also did not include its alleged violation of the National Endangered Species Act involving the San Joaquin Kit Fox, at least not directly. As CalWatchdog.com reported last month:

“The environmentalist group Defenders of Wildlife labels it ‘one of the most endangered animals in California.’ 

“On Jan. 26, the Sacramento office of the Fish and Wildlife Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior sent the CHSRA a letter about the kit fox’ habitat in the project’s 29-mile-long Construction Package 1. The letter charged the CHSRA and the Federal Railroad Authority with causing ‘the loss of nine acres of suitable habitat for the San Joaquin kit fox, located outside the project footprint … and the destruction of a potential San Joaquin kit fox den.’”

Although not addressing the Kit Fox directly, the CHSRA’s Legislative Report said as a retroactive response:

“The Authority released an RFP for Habitat Mitigation Services in January 2015. The habitat mitigation services will satisfy environmental approvals and federal and State permit requirements related to habitat for federally and State-listed endangered or threatened wildlife and wetlands and waters of the United States…. With the habitat mitigation services contract in place, anticipated in spring 2015, the federal and state regulatory agencies will have the mitigation assurances needed to issue permits for CP 2-3 and CP 4.”

Cap-and-trade

Finally, the lawsuit over using $250 million of cap-and-trade money to build the high-speed rail project also was not disclosed in the Legislative Report. As CalWatchdog.com reported:

“TRANSDEF charged that cap-and-trade revenues, according to AB32, only can go to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. TRANSDEF President David Schonbrunn said in the statement, ‘The claimed GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions reductions are a very expensive fantasy,’ because the California High-Speed Rail Authority depends ‘on $30 billion of project funding that the Authority doesn’t have and can’t get.’” 

In sum, although the CHSRA included a great deal in its latest Legislative Report, it also did not include some important information. However, outside the report, it is lawsuits, the state’s financial position and the facts on the ground that will determine the project’s fate.

Originally published by CalWatchdog.com

Kathy Hamilton is the Ralph Nader of high-speed rail, continually uncovering hidden aspects of the project and revealing them to the public.  She started writing in order to tell local communities how the project affects them and her reach grew statewide.  She has written more than 225 articles on high-speed rail and attended hundreds of state and local meetings. She is a board member of the Community Coalition on High-Speed Rail; has testified at government hearings; has provided public testimony and court declarations on public records act requests; has given public testimony; and has provided transcripts for the validation of court cases. 

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New Bill Could Raise Legal Smoking Age to 21

February 7, 2015 By James Poulos 5 Comments

Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em — maybe.

A new wave of anti-smoking legislation is wafting through the halls of the state Capitol. And it’s been more than four years since former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger folded his cigar “smoking tent” on the Capitol grounds.

First out of the pack is a bill that would boost the smoking age statewide to 21 years from the current 18. Tapping into longstanding fears concerning children and public health, legislators have teed up a stronger political conflict around health care costs and personal responsibility.

State Sen. Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, is the author of Senate Bill 151, an expansion of the so-called Stop Tobacco Access to Kids Enforcement Act, or STAKE.

Existing law prohibits the furnishing of tobacco products to, and the purchase of tobacco products by, a person under 18 years of age. According to the new bill’s language:

“A person is prohibited from making various promotional or advertising offers of smokeless tobacco products without taking actions to ensure that the product is not available to persons under 18 years of age. Existing law also requires the State Department of Public Health to conduct random, onsite sting inspections of tobacco product retailers with the assistance of persons under 18 years of age.”

SB151 revises those provisions such that Californians under 21 years of age are covered. And it authorizes random compliance inspections of retailers by the State Department of Public Health.

In a statement, Hernandez cast his bill as essential to preventing children from becoming addicted to cigarettes. “We can no longer afford to sit on the sidelines while big tobacco markets to our kids and gets another generation of young people hooked on a product that will ultimately kill them,” he said.

Defining children upward

But the Sacramento Bee reported something about SB151 on Hernandez’ own website. The site quotes the California branch of the American Lung Association saying 90 percent of smokers begin before they turn 19.

Critics of raising the smoking age also point out that people age 18 can vote, join the military and get a driver’s license without parental permission. And although the drinking age in California is 21, that’s because drunkenness can cause immediate harm to others, especially through car accidents.

Although the numbers does not make a strong case for Hernandez’s level of concern, the numbers likely don’t matter to his legislation’s fortunes. According to the Los Angeles Times, SB151 already counts the support of the American Cancer Society, the California Medical Association and, importantly, the American Lung Association.

The Times reports, “Smoking contributes to the deaths of more than 40,000 Californians each year, according to Kimberly Amazeen, vice president for the American Lung Association in California. She said 21,300 California kids start smoking each year.”

Targeting e-cigarettes

As the Washington Times notes, legislation similar to SB151 has failed elsewhere across the country, including in Colorado, Maryland, New Jersey and Utah. California, however, boasts a stronger anti-smoking constituency and a more effective anti-smoking lobby than those states.

In yet another demonstration of many Californians’ preference for prohibition, state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, has introduced an anti-smoking bill of his own. SB140 would restrict “vaping” e-cigarettes to the same extent that smoking traditional cigarettes is restricted.

As the Bee reports, Leno’s rhetoric focuses on the addictive qualities of smoking in the same manner as Hernandez’s. Leno said in a statement:

“No tobacco product should be exempt from California’s smoke-free laws simply because it’s sold in a modern or trendy disguise. Addiction is what’s really being sold. Like traditional cigarettes, e-cigarettes deliver nicotine in a cloud of other toxic chemicals, and their use should be restricted equally under state law in order to protect public health.”

Although e-cigarettes are demonstrably safer than traditional cigarettes to smokers and bystanders, the science is secondary to the cultural politics that surround vaping.

As the San Francisco Chronicle observes, “California bans the sale of e-cigarettes to minors, but other efforts to legislate them have failed. State Sen. Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, originally proposed stronger restrictions in 2013, but the language in her proposed bill was watered down to ban e-cigarette sales in vending machines and was defeated in an Assembly committee last year.”

E-cigarettes are widely seen as both a popular substitute for traditional cigarettes and as a more tempting option for people who would not consider taking up traditional smoking. That tension helps account for the push for increased regulation and for the failure of recent legislation to meet its mark.

Originally published at CalWatchdog.com

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Endargered Fox Could Halt High-Speed Rail in Its Tracks

February 4, 2015 By Kathy Hamilton 12 Comments

The California High-Speed Rail Authority faces a new obstacle on its railroad track to construction: the endangered San Joaquin kit fox. The environmentalist group Defenders of Wildlife labels it “one of the most endangered animals in California.”kit fox

On Jan. 26, the Sacramento office of the Fish and Wildlife Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior sent the CHSRA a letter about the kit fox’ habitat in the project’s 29-mile-long Construction Package 1. The letter charged the CHSRA and the Federal Railroad Authority with causing “the loss of nine acres of suitable habitat for the San Joaquin kit fox, located outside the project footprint … and the destruction of a potential San Joaquin kit fox den.”

The nine-acre land take violated the federal Endangered Species Act “and its implementing regulations.”

The contractor allegedly expanded outside the approved footprint of the Merced-to-Fresno Section for staging building materials and machinery. These project-related activities included:

  • “grading the first few inches of soil to level the surface”;
  • “installation of earthen berms for containment and stormwater pollution control”;
  • “installation of road base and other measures for dust control”;
  • “installation of a perimeter fence for security”;
  • “mobilization of equipment and materials.”

The CHSRA is working under a tight time frame to spend the $3.5 billion in federal money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and any delay would be unwelcome at this stage.

The CHSRA must turn in to federal authorities its bills for the project by March 2017, six months before the Sept. 2017 deadline to spend all the money. So the deadline now is just over two years away.

‘Better job’

CHSRA spokesperson Lisa Marie Alley told the Fresno Bee the kit fox issue was a minor problem. “I think this is an example,” she said, “in undertaking one of the largest infrastructure projects in decades in this country, to make sure that we’re streamlining and coordinating with all of our partners. We are looking for ways to do a better job in the future.”

And the Los Angeles Times reported that, despite the FWS letter, “the effect of the violations may be limited. The wildlife service said that the rail authority and its partners had initiated a formal consultation on the project, which was the ‘appropriate’ action, and that no fines were being considered.”

The kit fox habitat also could be moved to a different location by the CHSRA, “which wildlife service officials deemed adequate in an email exchange over the weekend.”

Rushed project

But opponents saw the FWS letter as a major problem for the project. Aaron Fukuda is a key litigant in a new lawsuit against the project and co-founder of Citizens for California High-Speed Rail Accountability.

“When you rush a project,” he said, “you don’t have your plans ready, you use shoddy engineering and you hire the least technically competent contractor you get these sorts of incidents, which I believe is simply the first of numerous to take place. The Authority will try and minimize the importance of this. However, it clearly highlights the rough road ahead.” 

Doug Carstens is an attorney suing the CHSRA for filing an insufficient environmental report for the Fresno-to-Bakersfield section of the project. He said:

“In the Authority’s haste to begin construction, they and their contractors have violated the federal Endangered Species Act.  Without a permit, they destroyed nine acres of suitable habitat, including collapsing a potential San Joaquin kit fox den without a permit.  The Federal Fish and Wildlife Service should be commended for calling on them to comply with the ESA and reinitiate consultation.  But the Authority never should have let the damage happen.” 

Validation

Jason Holder is an attorney who represented litigants challenging the environmental reports for the Merced-to-Fresno section of the project. Now he represents Kern County in pending litigation on the Fresno-to-Bakersfield Section concerning the environmental reports. He said:

“The notification letter from the Fish and Wildlife Service validates what close observers of the HSR Project have been saying for several years now — that you cannot conduct legally sufficient environmental impact analysis based on only a ’15 percent’ level of design

“The Rail Authority’s ‘design-build’ approach, where the agency completes only a general level of design for purposes of environmental review and permitting and the contractor refines the design post-approval, is simply inadequate. 

“Commenters noted during the EIR/EIS [Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement] process for the Merced to Fresno Section that the vague level of project design precludes full assessment of its environmental impacts.  They pointed out that the design omitted critical details, including, among other things, the specific locations of construction staging areas.  Now, the ramifications of the inadequate level of design are beginning to come to light.  Here, because the Authority did not identify staging areas, the contractor selected the two sites with no agency guidance or oversight. The result: a major violation of the federal Endangered Species Act and the potential to further delay Project construction.”   

Holder concluded, “This is a case where the proverbial chicken, or here the endangered kit fox, has come home to roost.”

Penalties 

If the critics are right and the charges of environmental violations are severe, the penalties imposed on the project could be severe. The Endangered Species Handbook of the Animal Welfare Institute detailed:

“Stiff penalties may be imposed for violations of the Endangered Species Act.  Felonies may be punished with fines up to $50,000 and/or one year imprisonment for crimes involving endangered species, and $25,000 and/or six months imprisonment for crimes involving threatened species.  Misdemeanors or civil penalties are punishable by fines up to $25,000 for crimes involving endangered species and $1
2,000 for crimes involving threatened species.  A maximum of $1,000 can be assessed for unintentional violations.  Rewards of up to $2,500 are paid for information leading to convictions.” 

However it turns out, the FWS letter is another twist in the long and winding road of attempting to start the controversial project.

Originally published on CalWatchdog.com

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Sacramento Aims To Police The Police

January 15, 2015 By James Poulos 3 Comments

After a politically punishing year for law enforcement departments from Los Angeles to New York, California legislators are riding the wave of controversy, drafting a spate of bills that would use the power of state government to assert more control over how police officers do their jobs.

The move exploits an unusual situation that has developed in Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration. When it comes to criminal justice, Brown’s attention is largely consumed with “realignment” — his effort to satisfy a series of court orders on prison crowding by shifting inmates, costs and responsibilities from the state’s prisons to county jails.

But Attorney General Kamala Harris sees police conduct as central; in her inauguration address, she drew special attention to what she called a statewide “crisis of confidence” in law enforcement, driven by a “string of injustice” running through urban and minority communities.

There have been bumps in the road even for Harris, however. “While Harris’ office recently launched a plan to investigate and improve bias and use-of-force training for law enforcement, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights has criticized her for pushing back against demands for an independent prosecutor to handle cases of police brutality,” ThinkProgress observed. Politically unable to fully rebuke or embrace Brown’s realignment plan, Harris has also struggled to steer clear of the controversy that surrounds it.

But with Harris now a formidable 2016 contender for the U.S. Senate seat to be vacated by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., state legislators face a moment of opportunity, support and attention historically rare for would-be police reformers.

A unified front

With plenty of ideas to go around, Sacramento Democrats are able to push for their own particular proposals, while maintaining a cohesive approach to policy. Assembly Bill 86, drafted by Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, takes advantage of Harris’ influence and sympathy. As NBC San Diego reported, the bill “would create a law enforcement panel, likely within the state Attorney General’s office, to study each case of a California police officer fatally shooting someone and write reviews or issue recommendations.”

Other legislators have focused on related pieces of legislation. According to U-T San Diego, Assemblyman Freddie Rodriguez, D-Pomona, is at work on two key bills.

The first, an early draft of AB69, would mandate police body cameras throughout the state. (Steve Soboroff, president of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, has taken an early lead implementing the technology.)

The second, AB71, would expand federal data collection on California crimes. Currently, U-T reports, the Justice Department gathers self-reported data from law enforcement on “civilian deaths in police custody, including race.” AB71 “would expand that data collection to include non-fatal shootings and injuries sustained by police officers.”

At the same time, Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, is advancing AB66, designed to create a unified set of standard practices for body camera use in California police departments. Body cams are already in use in Weber’s district. So far, the city has already introduced 300 cameras into central and southeastern San Diego.

Up for grabs

For Republicans, the political landscape surrounding policing offers risks and opportunities. In California, the GOP’s overarching position could well be up for grabs.

Nationally, Republicans have begun to adopt a more clement attitude, thanks in part to striking figures that show crime at significant lows. As Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, told The New York Times, “There are a lot of ideas — prison reform, policing, sentencing — being discussed now that wouldn’t be if we hadn’t had this drop in the crime statistics.”

The Senate’s leading unorthodox Republicans, such as Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rand Paul, R-Ky., carry considerable favor among California’s libertarians and libertarian-leaning Republicans. Paul is considered a contender for the GOP nomination for president in 2016.

In the absence of a strong stance from within the state, Lee and Paul’s support for prison reform could supply California Republicans with adequate political cover to advance some proposals of their own.

This article was originally published on CalWatchdog.com

 

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The Upside of Low Voter Turnout

December 2, 2014 By John Hrabe 1 Comment

This election, your vote counted double.

“When it’s 50 % turnout, your voting power is doubled #math,” Paul Mitchell of Political Data Inc., the state’s top political data firm, tweeted on Election Day.

Increased voting power — it’s one of several upsides to the state’s record low turnout in this month’s gubernatorial election. With fewer than 75,000 ballots left to count statewide, turnout is expected to top out at 42 percent — the lowest for a general election in California’s history. Of the state’s 38 million residents, just 7.5 million registered voters cast their ballots. That comes out to one in five people deciding who will lead the largest state in the nation for the next four years.

California’s abyssal turnout rate demolished the previous record for worst turnout in a general election. In 2002, just 50.57 percent of registered voters chose between Republican businessman Bill Simon and then-Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat.

It wasn’t unexpected. The June 2014 primary turnout of 25.2 percent set a new record for the lowest voter turnout for any statewide election in California; the previous low was 28.2 percent in June 2008.

The low turnout has inspired a round of news stories about how to improve civic participation. “Democracy works better as more people participate,” incoming Secretary of State Alex Padilla told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Excitement around the particular candidates drives much of the turnout, and that’s hard to legislate.”

KFBK recently asked, “What should California do about low voter turnout?”

The question presupposes low turnout is a problem in need of fixing. For starters, California’s voter turnout isn’t evenly distributed throughout the state. In tiny Sierra County, the second-least populous county in the state, 73 percent of registered voters cast their ballots in the Nov. 4 election. That’s more than double Los Angeles, the most populous county in the country, where 31 percent of registered voters participated. Another half-dozen counties — Nevada, Mariposa, Amador, Alpine, Plumas and Marin — all had turnout of 60 percent or more.

2016: Bumper year for ballot measures

In addition to increased voting power for high-propensity voters, the state’s record-low turnout in 2014 will lead to a bumper year for ballot measures in 2016.

“If voters were a bit underwhelmed by the measures on the California ballot … just wait for the 2016 election,” wrote Joel Fox, publisher of Fox and Hounds Daily, one of the state’s top business and political websites. “Already there is talk of potential initiatives on legalizing recreational marijuana, public pension reform, minimum wage increases and a basket full of tax hikes. The machinations around the tax issues could be most compelling just because so many are being considered.”

A recent memo from a top-notch public affairs firm based in Sacramento made the case that 2016 could break records for the most number of ballot measures on a single ballot.

“The historically low turnout in the 2014 general election will dramatically lower the number of signatures required to qualify ballot initiatives in 2016,” wrote Rick Claussen, Ned Wigglesworth and Aaron McLear of Redwood Pacific Public Affairs. “But the lower signature threshold and extended collection window very likely will make qualifying initiatives far less expensive than ever before, potentially producing a very long ballot in 2016.”

The threshold for qualifying a ballot measure is based on participation in the previous gubernatorial election. Initiative statutes require valid signatures from at least 5 percent of the total votes cast for governor at the last gubernatorial election, while initiative constitutional amendments require at least 8 percent. Based on current figures, that would lower the signature requirement from 504,760 valid signatures to 365,000.

In other words, just 2 percent of registered voters can get a measure on the ballot — or less than 1 percent of residents in the state.

As CalWatchdog.com’s Chris Reed argued, “That is good news for those considering taking on public employee unions in 2016 with ballot measures putting limits on government pensions or scrapping state laws allowing teachers to receive lifetime tenure after less than two years on the job.”

The Marijuana Policy Project, which is pushing for the legalization of marijuana throughout the country, is optimistic about California in 2016.

“This year’s election was a large step forward, but the 2016 election will be a huge leap toward ending marijuana prohibition in this country once and for all,” Rob Kampia, the organization’s executive director, said in a statement after the election.

Redwood Pacific’s memo outlined other changes to the initiative process that will alter the 2016 political landscape. Under a law passed in 2011, all ballot measures arising from signatures are considered on the general election ballot. Additionally, in 2014, the legislature approved Senate Bill 1253, which will extend the signature gathering period by an extra month, add a public review period for title and summary, and require a legislative informational hearing when proponents collect 25 percent of the necessary signatures.

“For a relatively small investment, a proponent can force a legislative hearing on their initiative,” McLear told CalWatchdog.com.

The low threshold won’t last forever. As KQED’s John Myers recently pointed out, “The new low bar for initiatives will last only for two election cycles.”

Probolsky Research: “Surprises may be the norm”

It’s no coincidence that California’s record-low turnout was matched by a record number of legislative upsets. An incumbent Democratic state lawmaker hadn’t lost reelection in 20 years. This year, four incumbents lost reelection, including Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra’s shocking defeat to long-shot Democrat Patty Lopez.

One of California’s top polling firms expects more upsets, courtesy of low turnout and the Top Two elections system.

“Surprises may be the norm,” said Justin Wallin, COO/CMO of Probolsky Research. “Voter behavior is more likely to mimic what we have seen with our jungle primaries, wherein candidates in large fields of contestants can’t rely so heavily on their ballot language.”

Wallin believes candidates need to “ensure that voters arrive at the ballot box intending to vote for them, otherwise they are likely to just get lost in the crowd.”

This article was originally published on CalWatchdog.com

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Biggest solar farm eclipsed

November 22, 2014 By John Seiler 15 Comments

 

 

Solar_eclipse_1999_4_NR wikimediaSolar was supposed to be the key “renewable energy” powering California away from dirty old fossil fuels and into the Radiant Future. A 2011 law Gov. Jerry Brown signed mandated 33 percent renewable energy by 2020, now just a little over five years way. He actually said when signing the law, “I didn’t get my name, Gov. Moonbeam, for nothing. I earned it!”

It’s not turning out that way.

The latest:

“LOS ANGELES (AP) — The largest solar power plant of its type in the world – once promoted as a turning point in green energy – isn’t producing as much energy as planned.

One of the reasons is as basic as it gets: The sun isn’t shining as much as expected.

Sprawling across roughly 5 square miles of federal desert near the California-Nevada border, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System opened in February, with operators saying it would produce enough electricity to power a city of 140,000 homes.

So far, however, the plant is producing about half of its expected annual output for 2014, according to calculations by the California Energy Commission.

It had been projected to produce its full capacity for 8 hours a day, on average.

The commission cited reasons for the low generation: “Factors such as clouds, jet contrails and weather have had a greater impact on the plant than the owners anticipated.”

That reminded me how the Soviet Union, during its 74 years of existence, every year suffered crop failures for which it blamed “bad weather.” Yet its farms in pre-socialist times, especially the rich earth of Ukraine, had been “the breadbasket of Europe.”

As Wayne Lusvardi has reported on our site, the failure of renewables to generate up to expectations has forced the state to rely on out-of-state fossil fuel power (natural gas and coal) and Warren Buffett’s hydropower.

Shocking costs

All of that, plus a dysfunctional distribution left over from the 2000 Electricity Crisis, means shockingly record high costs for ratepayers. The San Diego Reader reported:

California residential electricity rates are the highest in the nation — by far. A major reason is that the California Public Utilities Commission, the so-called regulator, schmoozes Wall Street, promising to keep the profits of the state’s publicly held utilities — Sempra Energy, Pacific Gas & Electric, and Southern California Edison — higher than utility profits elsewhere. Those profits come out of ratepayers’ pockets.

So Californians have the worst of both capitalism and socialism: crony capitalist (not free market) price structures and socialist generation mandates.

This post was originally published on CalWatchdog.com

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Obama poised to accelerate CA’s rolling amnesty

November 20, 2014 By James Poulos 7 Comments

Many Americans across the country have expressed uncertainty or alarm about president Obama’s executive action on immigration, which he will announce today.

However, in California, where millions of illegal immigrants live, a semi-formal version of state-level amnesty has been gathering steam for years. Despite dogged opposition by Republican and Tea Party activists, Sacramento’s slow-motion legalization of the undocumented has paved the way for the White House’s planned moves to receive a much smoother reception than in other state capitols.

Still, the exact details of Obama’s intended actions remain murky, and even among libertarian-leaning immigration doves, his assertion of sweeping executive powers has hit against fierce criticism. Indeed, as the Washington Post noted, the president himself previously disavowed the constitutionality of what he may now have resolved to do — insisting he was “not a king” and could not “just suspend deportations through executive order.” Californians have not been immune to the sense of ambiguity surrounding Obama’s shifting immigration policy.

Apprehension and expectations

In an interview with the San Jose Mercury News, one illegal immigrant described his discomfort in emblematic terms. Ernesto Perez — a 44-year-old father of four who has spent 19 years residing illegally in the United States — told the paper, “Obama is the only hope we have right now. Because three of my kids live with me, I’m always afraid that I will be separated from them. They need me. We need each other.”

Perez’ long undocumented stay underscored just how lax California has been in prosecuting illegal immigration, and for how long. His personal uncertainty, however, confirmed what millions of legal and illegal residents have known about president Obama for years: his willingness to deport. Critics from the left, such as Bill Moyers, have slammed Obama for breaking records with over 2 million deportations during his time in office.

That’s why illegal immigrants in California have depended so much on the Golden State’s incremental approach to legalization. Through a battery of state laws and regulations, Sacramento has given undocumented residents several protective paths toward the kind of status that makes it harder to deport.

With taxpayer money, access has been opened to educational loans for college, legal representation in juvenile court proceedings, driver’s licenses and the practice of law without a Social Security number. The California Supreme Court ruled in January that Sergio Garcia, an illegal immigrant who duly passed the California Bar Examination, could not be prohibited by the state from practicing law; Gov. Jerry Brown authorized Garcia’s license soon thereafter.

A push from activists

California activists dedicated to full legalization have used the state’s legal landscape as a justification for pressing president Obama for sweeping changes. In a typical statement making the rounds, California Immigrant Policy Center director Reshma Shamasunder urged Obama “to move on executive action and end unjust deportations that have caused the separation of families, as quickly as possible. Given the stalling we’ve seen in Congress for so many years, we hope he is bold in his action and covers as many people as possible.”

As KQED reported, California’s rules helped swell the immigrant population to its current level, with about half of the children in state claiming an immigrant parent and one in four residents claiming foreign birth. Although legal immigrants have not pushed in a collective way for swift and full amnesty, Latino voters have consistently shown support for some kind of expanded “path toward citizenship,” as policymakers in both major political parties often put it.

For their part, Republicans have warned of consequences if Obama opts against enforcing the immigration laws on the books. Michael Steel, the spokesman for Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-OH, adopted the colorful language characteristic of today’s media relations officials, “If ‘Emperor Obama’ ignores the American people and announces an amnesty plan that he himself has said over and over again exceeds his Constitutional authority, he will cement his legacy of lawlessness and ruin the chances for congressional action on this issue — and many others.”

Rhetoric or reality? With the president’s announcement on amnesty coming tomorrow, the fireworks will begin in earnest. The new, Republican-dominated Senate is seated in January, added to continued GOP control of the House.

Obama is leaving office in two years due to term limits. So in the new year, jockeying to be his replacement will intensify in both the Republican and Democratic parties, with his amnesty possibly the top issue out of the starting gate.

This piece was originally published at CalWatchdog.com

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CA Gun Dealers Challenge Handgun Ad Ban

November 15, 2014 By John Hrabe 1 Comment

 

 

gun wikimedia SIG pro semi-automatic pistolSecond Amendment advocates say California is infringing on their First Amendment rights.

On Monday, four California gun dealers filed a federal lawsuit challenging a nearly century-old law that bans the display of handguns in store advertisements.

Under state law, it’s perfectly legal for a gun-control supporter to use images of handguns in a protest outside of a gun store. But if a gun store were to put the same sign in its store window, it would be a violation of state law.

States California Civil Code § 26820, which was first enacted in 1923:

“No handgun or imitation handgun, or placard advertising the sale or other transfer thereof, shall be displayed in any part of the premises where it can readily be seen from the outside.”

This isn’t a case of hypothetical free speech scenarios. Earlier this year, a Central Valley gun dealer was cited by the California Department of Justice for breaking the law by displaying a handgun in its window. Tracy Rifle and Pistol, the San Joaquin County firearm retailer that was cited by the Department of Justice in September, points out the obvious content-based speech restriction.

“I run one of the most heavily regulated and inspected businesses in existence, but it’s still illegal for me to show customers that I sell handguns until after they walk in the door,” said Michael Baryla, the owner of Tracy Rifle and Pistol. “That’s about as silly a law as you could imagine, even here in California.”

Gun stores speak out

One Fresno gun dealer and plaintiff in the case, PRK Arms, told KMPH Fox 26 News’ Erika Cervantes that the lack of proper signage can be confusing for customers.

“We actually get quite a few calls throughout the week from people asking if we sell handguns,” Elijah Smedley, the store’s general manager, told KMPH. “If you look around, there’s plenty of them here. The product itself is not illegal in any way, so why should advertising be illegal?”

Smedley pointed out the obvious double standard.

“You can advertise for just about anything else that you sell,” he said. “There’s grow shops, there’s dirty magazine stores, there’s all kinds of things out there that you can advertise for the exact item you’re selling. Yet, for some reason, handguns are taboo.”

First Amendment scholars join case

Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor who is considered one of the country’s foremost experts on the First Amendment, has joined the case on behalf of the plaintiffs.

Free Speech movement Berkeley“The government generally may not ban advertising of lawful products — indeed, of constitutionally protected products — on the grounds that such advertising is offensive, or stimulates consumer interest in such products,” Volokh explained on his legal blog at the Washington Post.

In addition to a double standard for gun owners and gun control advocates, there’s a double standard for weapons. In California, it’s legal for gun dealers to display images of shotguns and rifles on their premises, but illegal to display an image of a handgun. The multiple content-based restriction has helped the gun dealers enlist other constitutional experts in the case, including top-notch attorneys Bradley Benbrook and Stephen Duvernay.

“The First Amendment prevents the government from telling businesses it disfavors that they can’t engage in truthful advertising,” said Bradley Benbrook, lead counsel for the plaintiffs. “This case follows a long line of Supreme Court cases protecting such disfavored businesses from that type of censorship.”

A spokesman for Attorney General Kamala Harris, the lead defendant in the case, declined to comment about it to CalWatchdog.com.

State’s clever gun rights advocates target vulnerable laws

The lawsuit is only the latest effort in a series of savvy moves by the state’s leading Second Amendment advocates. Unable to slow the endless series of new gun-control bills proposed each legislative session, the California Association of Federal Firearm Licensees, Calguns Foundation and the Second Amendment Foundation have turned to lawsuits and public-records request to overturn laws. And when the mainstream media ignore their achievements, CA-FFL shares its victories directly with its nearly 40,000 Facebook fans.

In August, a federal judge ruled that California’s 10-day waiting period on gun sales violated the Second Amendment rights of certain groups of gun owners. The plaintiffs in the case were represented by Calguns Foundation and Second Amendment Foundation.

2nd amendment , us govt. pictureThe group has also exploited the state’s public records law to obtain information about the uneven administration of conceal-carry permits. In 2011, Calguns Foundation believed then-San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey was failing to comply with California’s conceal-carry laws. Under state law, all agencies that have the authority to issue firearm permits must create and publish a written policy on the process. Thanks to a public records request, the group proved that the sheriff had selectively enforced the law and awarded permits to politically-connected applicants.

San Francisco wasn’t an isolated case, but a part of Calguns’ program to enforce compliance with the law. A similar 2010 request filed by Calguns with the Ventura County sheriff’s office was denied. Calguns was forced to file a lawsuit, which it won.

Whenever it can, California’s gun-rights advocates are looking to form broad-based political coalitions.

“Since we started our Carry License Initiative, Calguns Foundation has had the great pleasure of supporting and, where possible, collaborating with fantastic open government groups like the First Amendment Coalition and CalAware on matters relating to public records and meetings,” said Brandon Combs, one of the masterminds behind the effective political strategy.

A copy of the complaint can be viewed here.

This article was originally published on CalWatchdog.com.

 

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