The meaning of the special election: Marty Hittelman

The meaning of the special election
by Marty Hittelman


The May 19 Special Election has come and gone, but the results may not be easy to interpret. For one thing, each political persuasion (including mine) can find something in the results to validate their own beliefs. The anti-tax ideologues didn't even wait for the results of the May 19 special election to begin spinning. According to them, the defeat of Propositions 1A through 1E was due to the California electorate’s enduring anti-tax feelings.

There is plenty of evidence to dispute such a simplistic conclusion. The bulk of the "No" campaign came from public sector unions and their community allies determined to prevent further cuts to California's vital social services—the government programs that help make our society livable.

Indeed, traditional allies and adversaries were jumbled together on both sides, and a confused electorate is one that tends to vote “no.”
Polling shows that the hardcore anti-tax vote is pretty much constant, representing about 20% of the electorate. Clearly this was not sufficient to defeat the initiatives.

Another factor in assessing the election is that most voters did not bother to vote. While typical of a special election turnout, this phenomenon suggests voters did not believe the ballot measures represented a real solution to the problems of closing the state’s structural budget gap and funding essential public services.

We can reasonably surmise these proposals were defeated for a variety of reasons. But the clearest lesson should be that the people of California did not support a state budget process that occurred behind closed doors, involving only the governor and the legislative leadership, who dumped a half-baked mess of virtually incomprehensible ideas on the voters and said, here, you solve it. Proposition 1A, in particular, was so convoluted that even its advocates couldn't explain it clearly.

If an open, democratic budget process had occurred, 1A and the other propositions never would have made it to the ballot, because their tortuous logic and flaws would have been made all too apparent.

Now the propositions have been defeated and the ever-shrinking Republican legislative minority still possesses just above one third of the votes, leaving them in the same position that forced the special election: the driver’s seat. California’s archaic (from 1934) and nearly unique (just two other states) constitutional requirement for a two-thirds legislative vote for passing the state budget means the legislative Republicans are a classic example of “tyranny of the minority.”

Throughout the campaign the governor maintained, with typical disregard for facts, that these measures would “fix the state budget.” They were never going to. The Democratic Legislative leaders had a more plausible, but equally cynical argument: you had to vote for this package, because there was “no alternative,” due to Republican ideological unity and intransigence.

In the coming days we will see if the Republicans can take their responsibility to govern seriously, or stay stuck in the same reverse gear that brought them massive defeat in the last election and a shrinking share of California’s electorate. If they can’t change, Assembly and Senate Democrats should take a small portion of their political war chests and go out to the Legislative districts that have changing demographics. Enough of these districts now exist that a well-organized voter registration and election campaign leading to the November 2010 election could force the hard line anti-taxers below the magic one-third threshold.

Another alternative: go directly to the ballot to ask the people of California to understand what nearly every other state's citizens do: that our Legislature should practice democracy by majority rule.

The past few decades have seen an unfortunate redistribution of this country's wealth upward. The richest one percent own more than one third of our combined wealth. Recent polls show that large majorities support increasing taxes on the rich and closing corporate tax loopholes to keep California livable. This should give courage to our political leaders. But expediency is not why the governor and Legislature should focus on progressive taxes to solve the budget problem; rather, they should do it because it is their job to clearly explain the links between taxes and the important services they fund, and because it is the right thing to do.
Hittleman is the President of the California Federation of Teachers. Not to be confused with the CTA.

California budget crisis

No on 1 A
Yes on 1 B.
Last year California had a serious budget crisis, over 34 billion in missing revenue. The legislature and the governor passed some temporary tax increases and made harsh budget cuts to get us through this year. Propositions 1 A- 1E, would continue this budget “solution” for a total of 4 years. However, the state, like other states continues to fall further behind. California is at least $21.3 billion behind at this time even with the increased taxes and budget cuts.
No on Prop 1 A
Since 2002 the CSU has lost almost $1 billion in state funding. Students have been charged more fees to make up the losses. Prop. 1A places a spending cap on the state budget that will make these cuts permanent. The CSU budget will not be restored to the levels of 2002 and tuition will continue to rise. The UC Board of Regents and the CSU Board of Trustees have already voted to increase tuition for the Fall by 10%.
Prop 1A would actually make it more difficult for future governors and legislatures to enact budgets that meet California's needs and address state priorities. It would amend the state Constitution to dictate restrictions on the use of funds put into the reserve and limit how "unanticipated" revenues can be used in good years. It could lock in a reduced level of public services, including university education, by not taking proper account of the state's changing demographics and actual growth in costs.
Yes on 1 B
California's k-12 education system is in large part in crisis because it is underfunded. Contrary to the wishes of the voters, politicians continue to fail to adequately fund our schools. Legislators only have a 23% support in the public. When comparisons include cost of living, California ranks 47th out of the 50 states in per pupil expenditures. Our schools are suffering. This is unacceptable.
California, and most other states, have a budget crisis as a result of the national economic crisis – significantly a banking crisis. The robber barons of finance capital have stolen the money, they have looted the treasury and our pensions and now they want to return to business as usual without any significant reform of the economic system. Just give them more tax payer money to bail out the banks.


The severity of the national and international economic collapse has created budget shortfalls for state and local governments. Economist Dean Baker, says "Since many states are required by their charters or constitutions to balance their budgets, states will end up using federal stimulus dollars to offset these shortfalls." It currently looks as if much of the stimulus package will be used to back fill state budget shortages which sharply limits the potential success of the stimulus.

Additional recommendations

Prop 1C: NO –State Lottery (borrows from future lottery funds).
.Prop 1D: NO –Cuts funding for children’s services such as health care.

Prop 1E: NO –Cuts funding for much needed mental health services.

Proposition 1 A

Prop. 1A -- Frog Soup, Anyone?
You know the story of the frog who is thrown into a pot of water. If the water is too hot at the beginning, the frog jumps right out. But if the water is comfortable enough at the beginning, but then the temperature is slowly increased, the frog will stay in the water until it is boiled alive. That's exactly what Californians will be doing if we vote for Proposition 1A -- slowly, but permanently destroying public education and public services in California.

Proposition 1A, and all of the little attachments, is bad for our schools and bad for the people of California. Whatever short-term benefit we get from the state's budget-rescue package pales in comparison to the long-term disasters that await education and other important programs which are supported by the state.

I'm having a hard time getting the "spending cap" to make sense in my mind when I also realize that there's no "human-dignity floor," or a level of human-needs services that we also agree never to go below. We've already cut many of our state programs so severely that the next step is to eliminate many vital programs altogether. The state budget is already rigged so that it's impossible to get new revenues and new programs in place, so every cut is permanent.

The other dynamic is that the fastest growing part of the budget is prison funding, carrying with it a host of mandated funding increases. With mandatory sentencing laws and 3-strikes laws on the books, along with federal court mandates to dramatically improve its abysmal prison health care program, the prison-funding part of the budget can only increase. Which means that with a spending cap, the rest of the budget can only go down.

And, we're locking in the spending cap at a shockingly inadequate funding level. Our schools are already the most poorly funded schools in the country. Sure, the temporary pay-off in Prop. 1B will keep us at 48th or 49th out of 50 states for a few years, but that's as good as it will ever get! Mental health programs have already been decimated, and Prop 1E will take more. Prop. 1D is going to tap into children's services. We're robbing our own kids, and this is the best we can do?

I'm also deeply dismayed that my own union, CTA, is endorsing this package. Remember the good ole' days when CTA used to fight against Schwarzenegger's hare-brained ideas. Thankfully, the California Federation of Teachers is opposing Prop. 1A, and so is the California Nurses Association, SEIU and an expanding group of other wiser labor unions.

California needs a better deal. Let's scrap California's budget process altogether, with its un-democratic two-thirds majority requirement for new funding, get rid of Prop. 13, and write a new state constitution.

Please vote no on 1A.
From: Thomas Morse. The Teacher Lounge.