CVF in the News
Below are excerpts from news stories and commentary highlighting CVF's work or featuring comments from CVF staff and board members. Archived CVF in the Media stories are also available.
A look into the upcoming California elections.
KPBS, January 9, 2011
Excerpt:
CAVANAUGH: First of all, when is the California primary this year?
ALEXANDER: Oh, that's a good question. It would be the first Tuesday in June. And that would know -- I'm just looking at my calendar. We should know these things. That would be June 5th. Yes. June 5th.
CAVANAUGH: Now, back in 2008, if I remember correctly, we had a California primary in February. It was part of what they were calling super Tuesday.
ALEXANDER: Right.
CAVANAUGH: Why did that change?
ALEXANDER: Well, California has experimented with our primary for the last several presidential elections. And we traditionally have had a June primary. But we moved it to first March back in 2000, we had a March primary in 2004, trying to get California to have a voice in the selection of presidential candidates. And the March primaries were still too late for California voters to weigh in on the presidential primary selection process. So California tried something new in 2008, and we had a bifurcated primary, where we had the approximate presidential in February. But we had the rest of the contest still on the ballot in June, which saw a really abysmal turnout. So that was probably one of the main reasons. It was very expensive to split the primaries, and even though it gave California a voice, it really cost the state a lot in terms of money. And we saw that really poor turnout in that primary. So I think that was one of the main reasons the state went back.
CAVANAUGH: Now, in June, we have a new open primary. How does that change things for voters?
ALEXANDER: It's going to change a lot of things for voters. And that's another thing. Not only have we varied the date of our primary, but we've changed the rules around in our primaries for the last several election cycles. And so this is something new again for voters. We have basically an open primary system that gives more choice to everyone in the primary. But less choices in November. Basically what happens is for the first time, it won't matter what party you're registered to, if you want to vote for a candidate of another party, you can crossover and do that. And you can vote for --
CAVANAUGH: So Democrats can vote for a Republican in our primary? For a Republican presidential nominee in June?
ALEXANDER: No, this applies to all contests except the presidential.
CAVANAUGH: Oh, okay.
ALEXANDER: And also party central committee contests. So it's very confusing. I talked to our local registrar here in Sacramento today about what their plans are for implementing this, and basically what voters and counties will stay across the state, there will be one ballot that has everybody on it, except for the presidential candidates and the federal committees. It'll have the major and minor party candidates for all the partisan contests for legislature and Congress. Then there will also be an additional ballot card for democratic voters to vote in the democratic primary for president. Republican voters to vote in the Republican primary for president. So the party primaries for president will still be able to be reserved just for voters of those parties, unless those parties decide to open up their primaries and allow voters of other parties or independent voters to vote in a presidential partisan primary, which the Democratic Party has done in the past, but the Republican party does not do.
CAVANAUGH: I see.
ALEXANDER: So it's very complicated. (full story)
Technology failures prompt criticism of secretary of state
By Will Evans, California Watch, December 20, 2011
Excerpt:
The latest technology snafus to hit Secretary of State Debra Bowen's office have added to growing frustration from registrars and watchdog groups, who say Bowen has been unresponsive to their concerns.
The server crash that brought down California’s campaign finance disclosure database for more than two weeks now also has incapacitated the state system for validating new voter registrations.
This, on top of a years-long delay in creating a new voter registration database, as well as other elections issues, has ratcheted up the criticism directed at Bowen, who's in her second term.
"Sometimes, I feel like we’re having to knock really hard on the door and scream that we’re out here and need time and attention and guidance and leadership," said Gail Pellerin, president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials. "It’s been really hard to get a seat at the table."
Bowen acknowledged the latest technology problems have been "extremely frustrating," but said she has always worked closely with county officials and advocates to formulate policy and fix problems.
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California has access to federal funding to create a new statewide voter registration database, but that process has been marred by years of delays. Bowen's office fired the contractor on that project last year and is still working to find a new one. The system isn't expected to be in place until 2015. Bowen blames the problems on the state's procurement process.
Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, draws a connection between the various technological setbacks.
"Technology projects have appeared to have stalled out in the secretary of state's office," Alexander said. "The situation cries out for leadership."
Alexander helped write a study by the Pew Center on the States that gave low marks to California for its lack of online lookup tools for voters. Alexander said she and several other organizations recently tried to meet with Bowen to discuss a proposal for an online tool allowing voters to find out if and where they are registered. The meeting request was denied, she said.
"It’s very discouraging," Alexander said.
Bowen said 24 out of California's 58 counties, representing about 80 percent of the population, already provide a registration lookup tool, and "there's just no reason to duplicate that effort."
"It was my judgment that with extremely limited resources that we should focus on the longer-term solutions with online voter registration," Bowen said. (full story)
California website's glitches block online tracking of campaign donations
By Torey Van Oot, Sacramento Bee, December 15, 2011
Excerpt:
With just six months until the June primary election, campaign cash is starting to flow to candidate and ballot measure committees.
But for much of the past two weeks, technological difficulties have blocked the public's ability to track the transactions online.
Cal-Access, the 12-year-old portal for filing campaign finance and lobbying reports, has been down for all but 30 hours since Nov. 30.
Although staff at the secretary of state's office have been working since Monday on three separate approaches to try to restore access, Secretary of State Debra Bowen said Wednesday it's unclear when the site will be back up and running.
"We want to get it up as soon as possible, but we also want to complete the fix that will be the most stable over time," Bowen said.
In the meantime, lobbyists and political committees are reverting to the paper filing system they used for years before the 1999 creation of Cal-Access, submitting reports via mail, by fax or in person. Members of the public can call, email or visit the secretary of state's office to access the information.
But with fundraising for 2012 ballot measures and candidate campaigns ramping up, the repeated failures of the state's only online disclosure database for campaign and lobbying reports is troubling for advocates.
"The public needs access to this data sooner rather than later," said Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation. "We're heading into another legislative session, (and) there's going to be a lot of contested legislative and congressional races."
Bowen said that while she hopes her staff's efforts will keep the online database in place through the election, a permanent fix will require a complete overhaul. (full story)
Report: Maryland Has Nation’s Second Best Election Website
City Biz Lists, December 9, 2011
Excerpt:
Maryland has the second-best state election website in the nation, according to a report by the Pew Center on the States.
The report - represented on the Pew Center's website by a series of interactive charts and lists - ranks election websites based on how easily they can be used, how easy it is to search for information, and what kind of basic information was included. Maryland's two election sites got a score of 84 out of 100, behind only Montana.
"I do think the site reflects the election agency's dedication to serving voters," said Kim Alexander, the president and founder of the California Voter Foundation, and the lead researcher on the study.
The study looked at only each state election website and the information presented there. It did not consider campaign finance disclosure websites. Alexander said that the study's criteria came from a group of experts working on behalf of the Pew Center, the California Voter Foundation, the Center for Governmental Studies, and the Nielsen Norman Group. (full story)
California trails in online tools for voters, study finds
By Nicholas Riccardi, Los Angeles TImes, , December 8, 2011
Excerpt:
Why would you want to be in Minnesota in November rather than in sunny California?
Because Minnesota has far better online tools for voters than the Golden State, according to a new study from the Pew Center for the States.
"While many other states have made great progress in recent years utilizing the Internet as an effective and efficient tool to help voters engage in elections, California is lagging behind," Kim Alexander of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, which helped write the report, said in a statement.
The study found California was one of only two states that failed to give all its voters five basic online tools. (The other state was Vermont.)
The report dinged California and the secretary of state's office for giving voters no way to check their registration status, polling place, requirements to register or instructions on using special voting equipment for people with disabilities. Some counties do make such information available to voters online.
California was also criticized for providing its voter information in PDFs rather than more user-friendly HTMLs. (full story)
California’s election web site needs work
By Lisa Vorderbrueggen, Contra Costa TImes, December 8, 2011
Excerpt:
A Pew Center Center on the States’ study on election web sites found California’s in need of improvement.
Click here to read the full study, called “Being Online Is Not Enough.”
The Golden State scored below average and while researchers found some good stuff, the state is shy on key look-up tools offered elsewhere. Here’s a summary of they had to say about www.sos.ca.gov/elections and www.voterguide.sos.ca.gov:
California provides rich and detailed voting information for users, but offers none of the five recommended lookup tools, reducing its overall score. Improved navigation and content organization can help voters find needed information.
The California Secretary of State’s office operates the sites evaluated. The tools include voter registration status, polling place, ballot information, and absentee and provisional ballot status.
The California Voter Foundation, Center for Governmental Studies and the Nielsen Norman Group participated in the project.
While many other states have made great progress in recent years utilizing the Internet as an effective and efficient tool to help voters engage in elections, California is lagging behind,” wrote California Voter Foundation
director Kim Alexander. “At CVF, we are working with a number of individuals and organizations to promote a statewide voter registration status lookup tool and hope that someday soon California voters will have as
good, if not better access to modern election tools as voters in other states.” (full story)
State of Florida’s elections site scores well in Pew Center report
By Peter Schorsch, Saint Peters Blog, December 8, 2011
Excerpt:
Being Online Is Still Not Enough provides state-by-state reviews and analysis based on detailed criteria of election websites for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It also includes recommendations for improving each site
to better inform voters, and provides a list of best practices adopted by many states to maximize their election office’s online presence. This report follows Pew’s initial 2008 study, Being Online Is Not Enough.
Assessments were based on three categories: content, lookup tools, and usability. Roll your cursor over the map below to see each state’s overall score, and scores broken down by category. (full story)
Vast majority of Santa Clara County voters opted to vote by mail
By Jessica Parks, Peninsula Press, November 16, 2011
Excerpt:
Santa Clara County voters last week were split on labor issues, school board members, council candidates and a composting facility. But there was one choice an overwhelming majority agreed upon: voting by mail.
Of the 44,403 votes cast Nov. 8 in Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Orchard School District and Sunnyvale School District, more than 80 percent came via mail-in ballots, according to county election results.
Kim Alexander, founder and president of the California Voter Foundation, said it’s common to see a higher percentage of mail-in ballots in low-turnout elections. “I think that’s because there are about 3 [million] to 4 million people in the state who vote in every election, and many of those people are voting by mail,” she said.
Presidential elections, on the other hand, draw a larger number of occasional voters, who are less likely to register as permanent absentee voters.
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Oregon and Washington now conduct all of their balloting by mail, a change that proponents say has reduced costs and boosted turnout.
Alexander said that system wouldn’t work for California. “We’re not Oregon or Washington. Our electorate is far more diverse,” she said. “There are a lot of people who benefit from poll-worker assistance.”
She also pointed out that Oregon has a “unified statewide voting system,” whereas in California, instructions and procedures can vary by county. Even policies set at the state level are sometimes implemented differently from one polling place to another, she said.
Santa Clara County’s Nov. 8 turnout would seem to indicate that absentee ballots increase voter turnout — the county got back 41.8 percent of the absentee ballots it distributed, while only 25.3 percent of non-absentee voters actually made it to their polling place.
But a recent study by the Pew Center on the States found that a mandatory vote-by-mail system in California would reduce an individual’s likelihood of voting by 13.2 percent, and have an even stronger dampening effect on urban and minority voters.
Critics of all-mail balloting also note that voters can confirm that their ballot was received, but they can’t always confirm that their vote was counted. They say many ballots have been misplaced in the mail, arrived after election day, or been disqualified because the voter did not sign the envelope.
In the 2008 primary election, 4.8 percent of absentee ballots submitted in Santa Clara County were not counted, according to data on the Secretary of State’s website. In the general election that followed, that rate dropped to 1.6 percent. Statewide, the percentages of uncounted absentee ballots for those elections were 2.5 and 2.8, respectively.
Absentee voting is “beneficial to those voters who are using it, but it’s not the solution for everyone,” Alexander said. Her foundation advocates a hybrid approach to election reform, both improving accountability in the absentee voting system and boosting efficiency in polling places. (full story)
KCRA 3 Examines 'Occupy' Protesters' Voting Records
KCRA.com, Novemebr 2, 2011
Excerpt:
Occupy Sacramento protesters have been expressing their anger at the government's priorities by protesting in Cesar Chavez Park and refusing to leave afterhours.
As of last week, 50 people had been arrested, some several times, according to the Sacramento Police Department.
KCRA 3 requested voting records for those people from Sacramento County.
Records provided by the Assistant Registrar of Voters confirmed nearly half, 24, are registered to vote in Sacramento County.
Of the protesters who are registered to vote, most have voted on average, two times in the past five years.
Some protesters admit they have never voted.
"I don't believe the system works," said Christina Kay, an Occupy Sacramento protester.
Other protesters, such as Mark Bradley, said they have never missed an election.
"I believe it's important that if I am going to express my opinion, that I ought to back that up with voting," Bradley said.
Kim Alexander works to increase voter participation. She said, in her experience, these voting records are typical.
"I really think that for most people who aren't voting in California, it's not that they are hardcore non-voters, they simply are busy."
Other registered voters watching the Occupy movement said they think the protesters should be voting. (full story)
I. In Focus This Week
By M. Mindy Moretti, Election Line Weekly, October 13, 2011
Excerpt:
With the stroke of a pen from Gov. Jerry Brown, California recently once again legalized online voter registration providing an additional opportunity for more than six million residents of voting age to register to vote.
California law already allows for online voter registration, however the process on the books before the new legislation was approved was contingent upon the completion of the state’s federally approved voter registration database — VoteCal.
While the state does have a statewide voter registration database, the current system does not make it possible to fully register to vote online. Tired of waiting for the state’s fully federally compliant statewide voter registration database to come online San Francisco Senator Leland Yee introduced SB 397 which would allow counties to offer online voter registration now.
“This is an important first step toward fully upgrading California’s voter registration, making use of better technological tools to make the voter registration process more accurate, less expensive, and more efficient,” said David Becker, director of the Pew Center on the States’ Election Initiatives.
Under SB 397, citizens will input their voter information online and the county elections office would use the voter’s signature from the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to verify authenticity. That signature can be matched against the voter’s signature at the polling place.
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When online registration is finally available in California, there will be multiple benefits. In addition to getting more people accurately registered to vote, one of the biggest impacts of the new law will be cost savings. Kim Alexander with the California Voter Foundation said that the cost savings are “potentially enormous.”
Research by the Pew’s Election Initiatives indicates that there are substantial cost savings that result from online registration.
“For instance, in Maricopa County, Ariz., where they’ve had online registration for almost a decade, it costs them only an average of 3 cents to process each online registration, as opposed to 83 cents to process a paper registration, and they’ve reduced their printing costs by 75 percent,” Becker said.
According to Becker, as a result of these kinds of savings, jurisdictions that have implemented online registration have recouped their initial investment in around two years or less.
Alexander said another cost savings may be found on provisional voting.
“California has more provisional voting than any other state - in 2008 it accounted for one third of all provisional ballots cast nationwide! One fifth of those ballots [issued in California in 2008] were not counted because those voters were not properly registered,” Alexander said.
One area of concern about the new online voter registration law is what impact not having a statewide voter registration database could have on the registration process.
Alexander said that California is one of only nine states that lacks a registration status look-up tool for voters and without that tool, there could be problems with the new online system.
“I'm concerned if we implement online registration without an accompanying registration status lookup tool then many people will end up reregistering when they actually don't need to, and this will lead to extra, unnecessary work for counties processing those registrations,” Alexander said.
The state has already applied for a federal grant to help pay for the process and representatives from the secretary of state’s office are working with their counterparts in the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles to create the new online process. (full story)
Editorial: Initiative process deserves reform
Visalia Times-Delta, October 12, 2011
Excerpt:
Anyone who has voted in a statewide election in California knows that the initiative process has become corrupted from its noble intentions.
Now there is hard evidence.
According to "Democracy by Initiative," a report by the Center for Governmental Studies, the initiative process has been taken over by special interests and big business to promote their interests. In addition, various nonprofit and citizen watchdog groups have found that California's initiative process has strayed a long way from the populist reform adopted by the state under Gov. Hiram Johnson 100 years ago.
In the beginning, initiatives were used sparingly to correct corruptive abuses by government itself. Now they promote specific causes and values, often for the advantage of big business or special interests.
According to "Democracy by Initiative," a report by the Center for Governmental Studies, two-thirds of all ballot initiative contributions came in amounts of $100,000 or more in 1990. By 2006, two-thirds of all contributions came in amounts of $1 million or more.
"Ironically, we're sort of back where we started when Hiram Johnson started the initiative process," said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation. "It's dominated by the very special interests he sought to overcome through the initiative process."
Many specific remedies have been proposed to reform the initiative process. It's time some of those were tried. The process is subverting the legislative process, and it's only getting worse. (full story)
At 100, California Direct Democracy Gets Facelift
KCRA.com, October 10, 2011
Excerpt:
Political watchers gathered in Sacramento on Monday morning to mark the 100-year anniversary of California's initiative process and discuss the potential impact of legislation recently signed by Gov. Jerry Brown.
Brown signed SB 202 by Democratic Sen. Loni Hancock of Berkeley on Friday. The law moves all statewide initiatives and referendums to November general elections ballots. Previously, such votes also could take place during primary elections in June.
"I think it's a significant change," said Kim Alexander, of the California Voter Foundation.
Alexander was one of about 50 people who attended a day-long conference on the initiative process at the Sheraton Grand Hotel in downtown Sacramento.
In signing the bill into law, Brown said it "restores the original understanding" that initiatives were to be considered at a general election and involve more people.
Alexander said that may be true, but added that the November-only rule could also have unintended consequences.
"Rather than looking at eight measures in June and 10 measures in November, people are going to end up with 18 measures on one ballot," Alexander said. "And that could be very challenging for voters." (full story)
Corporations, wealthy dominate initiative process
By Judy Lin, San Jose Mercury News, October 9, 2011
Excerpt:
California's initiative process was intended to give people a way to arm themselves against corruption, whether it was from lawmakers in the Capitol or the special interests that controlled them.
But in the 100 years since former Gov. Hiram Johnson rallied against the corrupt politics that permeated state government, corporations and wealthy individuals have adapted to California's initiative process—and in some years dominate it—by qualifying ballot measures that benefit them.
Insurance, oil, pharmaceutical and utility companies are among the well-funded interests that have spent tens of millions of dollars in recent years to promote their causes through California initiatives. In 2008, for example, Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens' company contributed 98 percent of the $22.8 million spent to promote an initiative regarding the use of natural gas in vehicles, a move that would have benefited the billionaire's business interests. Voters rejected it.
In the June 2010 primary, the only two initiatives not placed on the ballot by the Legislature were funded primarily by two corporations—Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and Mercury Insurance. The largest donation given to any one initiative campaign came from Hollywood producer Steven Bing, who gave $48 million in support of Proposition 87, an unsuccessful alternative energy initiative on the November 2006 ballot.
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According to "Democracy by Initiative," a report by the Center for Governmental Studies, two-thirds of all ballot initiative contributions came in amounts of $100,000 or more in 1990. By 2006, two-thirds of all contributions came in amounts of $1 million or more.
"Ironically, we're sort of back where we started when Hiram Johnson started the initiative process," said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation. "It's dominated by the very special interests he sought to overcome through the initiative process."
Mercury Insurance illustrates how narrow interests have laid claim to the process.
In 2010, the company sunk $15 million into Proposition 17, an attempt to overturn state law banning auto insurance companies from considering a driver's insurance history in setting rates.
While that measure failed, Mercury Insurance Chairman George Joseph has donated nearly $8.1 million to a political action aiming to place a similar initiative on the ballot next June. American Agents Alliance, which runs the PAC, says the proposal will allow customers to receive a discount for having consistent coverage in the past and is allowed in almost every other state. (full story)
Era of Reform May Lead to More Changes in Sacramento
By Joe Moore, Valley Public Radio, October 4, 2011
Excerpt:
One hundred years ago this month, California’s experiment in direct democracy was born with the introduction of the ballot initiative and referendum process. Now, a century later, Californians are again looking at new ideas to fix what many feel is a broken system in Sacramento. So what might the next 100 years have in store?
If you take a moment to compare California of 2011, to that of 1911, the differences are huge. Back then, the state was home to only 2 million people, and Hollywood, industrial scale agriculture and Silicon Valley simply didn’t exist. But there’s also some striking similarities to the present day, at least politically.
“I think that the state capital is just as much controlled by special interests today as it was one hundred years ago. It may not be one single interest, but the rules of the game have not changed,” says Kim Alexander, president and founder of the California Voter Foundation.
“It still takes a lot of money to run for office, the capital is filled with lobbyists, and the legislative docket is filled with bills from lobbying groups and industries. It was true 100 years ago and it’s true today.”
Back then, Sacramento was controlled by the powerful Southern Pacific Railroad. California voters responded to the situation by electing a reform minded governor, Hiram Johnson, who led the charge to let citizens take lawmaking into the own hands. The result was the initiative, the referendum and the recall.
In the past ten decades, thousands of initiatives have qualified for the ballot, and while a relatively small number have actually become law, the process remains popular.
“Most Californians think that the initiative process does a better job of making policy tha the governor and the legislature,” says Mark Baldasarre, President and CEO of the Public Policy Institute of California. In the PPIC’s most recent public opinion poll, released last month, sixty two percent of Californians say they are satisfied with the initiative process. Compare that to the state Legislature, which gets an approval rate of just 26 percent.
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In the new PPIC poll, six in ten voters supported the concept of changing the current limit of eight years in the State Senate and six in the Assembly, to a total of twelve years in any of the two houses. A initiative to that effect has already qualified for the 2012 ballot.
Even the initiative process itself is not without its problems and potential fixes.
“The problem is we’re making initiative policy in a vacuum, and voters aren’t really being given the full picture, the way the Legislature is when they pass a budget. They’re looking at the whole budget, the whole state and all the programs. Voters are just looking at one proposal at a time,” says Alexander.
She says there are proposals in the Legislature that would help voters weigh the cost of initiatives in advance. Other reform suggestions involve the way measures qualify for the ballot, to reduce the reliance on paid signature gatherers.
“We have a very short qualification period and we haven’t changed that in the 100 years of California’s initiative process. There could be a different approach where we give proponents more time to gather signatures so they don’t have to be so dependent on money.”
Jim Boren says he’d like to see more transparency in the process to determine legal and fiscal problems with initiatives before Californians vote on them. “I’d like to see a system where if an initiative is qualified for the ballot it that has to have Legislative hearings so you could find out the problems in it,” says Boren.
But regardless of the changes that may come to state government in the coming years, one thing is certain, California’s century old initiative process isn’t going anywhere.
As Alexander says, “Californians have a love hate relationship with the initiative process. We love to complain about it but don’t you dare talk about taking it away.” (full story)
After 100 years, does California's initiative process need a tune-up?
By Timm Herdt, Ventura County Star, September 24, 2011
Excerpt:
Paul Jacob, president of Virginia-based Citizens in Charge Foundation, may be the fiercest defender of direct democracy in America. He's helped organize more than 150 petition drives in 47 states, and feels so strongly about the righteousness of the initiative process that he risked going to prison by defying an Oklahoma law prohibiting the use of paid signature-gatherers in that state.
When Jacob comes to California, he feels right at home. He gives the state's initiative process an A grade.
"The essential thing is that there be a chance for people to represent themselves," Jacob said. "Most states get a D or an F. California has a very robust process."
Bruno Kaufmann, president of the Initiative and Referendum Institute Europe, has studied direct democracy around the world, especially in Switzerland, where direct democracy dates to the 14th century and was the inspiration for California's system. When he looks at California, he shakes his head.
"It may be the only place in the world where I would recommend less, not more, direct democracy," he said. "The California process is not about solving conflict. It's an inflexible way of dealing with constitutional affairs. What you have is the hammer and not the screwdriver."
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But voters have proved to be a hard sell. They rejected the prohibition of alcohol four times and twice shot down the legalization of marijuana for recreational use. They sided with the medical profession over public hysteria by voting down a plan to eliminate compulsory vaccinations and, 65 years later, to quarantine people with AIDS. They also said no to assisted suicide.
"Only one out of three initiatives has passed," noted Kim Alexander, founder and president of the nonprofit California Voter Foundation. "Voters really have pretty high standards."
Jacob, Kaufmann and Alexander were among the panelists at a forum — titled "How do we put people back in the initiative process?" — sponsored by the civic engagement group Zócalo Public Square last week in San Francisco.
Most initiatives don't deal with such emotional topics as those cited above. Rather, most address issues at the intersection of people and their government: taxes, spending priorities and the rules that govern elections and the legislative process.
Over the last 35 years, Californians through ballot initiatives have restricted property taxes, required a two-thirds vote of the Legislature for tax increases, established legislative term limits, set a floor for spending on K-12 education, approved the borrowing of money to pay for parks and stem cell research, and set aside untouchable pots of funds to pay for early childhood development, after-school programs and services for the mentally ill.
Critics say all these stand-alone measures have had the cumulative effect of tying the hands of legislators in dealing with the state budget and contributed to the dysfunction of state government. (full story)
Patt Morrison Asks: Balloteer Kim Alexander
By Pat Morrison, Los Angeles Times, September 17, 2011
Excerpt:
 |
What's a nice girl like you doing in a mess like this?
I love elections; I grew up with elections. My dad ran for Culver City City Council when I was 7. Election night, we had a big party and my dad was the underdog and someone was on the phone getting the numbers and I [wrote] the numbers on the chalkboard. To me, politics has been about community service.
You also learned about the political version of trick or treat.
Someone showed up at the door with a $500 [campaign contribution] check. For a Culver City election, that was a lot of money. My dad sent him away. He said: "I don't know that man, I don't want to know him and I don't want him to think I owe him anything." My first lesson in how money in politics works!
We have former Secretary of State March Fong Eu to thank for banning pay toilets -- and for the California Voter Foundation?
[It was] an offshoot of the secretary of state's office, to raise charitable funds for extra voter outreach. By 1993, it was [defunct], out of compliance with various tax filings. In college I'd worked for Gary K. Hart when he ran for Congress. It was grueling: high stakes, consultants, opposition research -- that stuff is really unpleasant. I wanted to be for all the voters, not just some of the voters. So this opportunity to restart the California Voter Foundation fell into my lap.
Even voter registration has become politicized. Someone on a right-wing website wrote that it is "profoundly … un-American'' to register welfare recipients to vote.
It's unfortunate. In a lot of the world you're automatically [registered] when you become 18 and you're a citizen. Here we have this extra hurdle.
Across the country, voting rights are not shared among all Americans. In California there's a variety of practices between the counties, an unevenness. That's a big problem.
You almost weren't allowed to vote in 2008.
They told me my polling place had moved. I got my sample ballot and went back and said, "This is my polling place." They were turning other people away.
Elections are run as if they're one-day sales. We run polling places for 12, 14 hours, staffed by people with very little training working very long hours on a job they only do once or twice a year. We should have people vote over several days in an environment staffed by well-trained people. I think about elections year-round; most people only think about them for maybe two months. It's hard to sustain the momentum to implement election reform.
What kinds of problems have you encountered at other polling places?
In 2006, when the electronic voting battle was raging, I went in with a crew from [the PBS] "Newshour" to a polling place in Stockton, with cameras. It was complete chaos. [A poll worker] hadn't shown up; they literally had pulled someone in off the street to help. All these security seals on the electronic voting machines, poll workers just tore [them] off, because they didn't know what they were doing.
I went to another polling place in the same county that afternoon without the cameras. I gave them my card and they thought I was some government official. The poll worker opened the machine up at to show me the paper trail spool – exactly the opposite of what they were supposed to do.
The biggest fiasco I witnessed was paperless electronic voting in March 2004. We found out that San Diego County bought its equipment from Diebold before it was even certified by the state or the federal government. The second largest county in the state. They deployed thousands of voting machines and more than half [in] their polling places were not operating at some point during [election] day. People were literally told to go home and come back later when maybe the machines would be working.
Voting is a constitutional right, but some states demand that voters show official IDs, to stop fraud. Critics say that's about suppressing the vote.
It's a solution in search of a problem. There's this myth of voter fraud.You see hardly any instances.
First-time voters [already] have to show ID when they vote. When you sign the poll book, you're doing so under penalty of perjury. I'd like a happy medium where maybe you don't show a photo ID but some [document] with your name on it. (full story)
California set to move its presidential primary back to June
By David Siders, Sacramento Bee, July 29, 2011
Excerpt:
Tired of presidential candidates treating California like an ATM, raising vast sums of money here but spending it in states where campaigns cost less and matter more, state officials four years ago agreed to hold the 2008 primary in February.
The early date, they hoped, might focus more attention on the Golden State. "Now California is important again in presidential nominating politics," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said at the time.
But more than 20 other states moved their primaries up, too, and California, if not the afterthought it was in previous elections, was marginalized yet again.
Now, Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to sign legislation moving next year's presidential primary back to June, consolidating it with the statewide primary election.
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Fong's bill would return California's presidential primary to June, where it lasted for decades before being moved to March in 1996 and 2000. The February vote in 2008 was the earliest in state history.
Turnout in that election was historically high, but without the presidential candidates at the top of the ticket in June, turnout for the statewide primary plummeted.
Critics in 2008 said the switch to February was motivated at least in part by lawmakers' hope that a proposition to alter the state's term limit rules could pass in time for termed-out lawmakers to file for re-election.
Debate about Fong's bill has not been without political overtones. With Obama in the White House, the presidential primary next year matters to Republicans far more than Democrats.
"The Democrats right now, I think, will feel a little bit differently four years from now, because they already have their nominee," Strickland said. "I guarantee you four years from now the same state Legislature – different players, obviously, because of term limits – will argue to move it forward."
Kim Alexander of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation hopes they don't. Holding one primary instead of two is less confusing for voters, she said. If Brown signs the change, she'd like California to stick to it.
"From the voters' perspective, the one thing you can anticipate about primaries in California is that it won't be the same as last time," Alexander said. "What benefits voters is consistency, and we do not have that in California." (full story)
Americans Elect backing effort for nonpartisan Web-based presidential convention
By Torey Van Oot, Sacramento Bee, July 28, 2011
Excerpt:
Voters dissatisfied with choosing between President Barack Obama and his Republican challengers next year could find themselves turning to the Web to pick the nation's next commander in chief.
A national effort has emerged to hold a virtual convention in June 2012, when the major party nominees will be all but decided, to select an alternative, bipartisan ticket to run on the November ballot in all 50 states.
Americans Elect, which is organizing the drive, says it is committed to creating a nonpartisan process that will use the Internet "to give every single voter – Democrat, Republican or independent – the power to nominate a presidential ticket in 2012."
The Washington, D.C.-based group takes a major step today toward making its vision a reality as it starts submitting 1.6 million voter signatures to California election officials in an attempt to ensure that the candidates chosen through its nominating process will appear on the state's ballot.
The group's chief operating officer, Elliot Ackerman, called the movement "an effort to elevate our political discourse and get our politics into a position where it's really solution-oriented."
"There's a lot of Americans that feel they're a bit more nuanced than the prescriptive positions that the two parties offer right now," he said.
Observers say an outside choice – and a 21st century system for choosing nominees – could appeal to voters fed up with partisan gridlock in Washington, pointing to the stalemate over the debt ceiling as elected officials' latest offense. And unlike in 1995, when the Reform Party launched by Ross Perot gained ballot access across the country, the current effort can rely on the networking capabilities of the Internet and social media to deliver its message and drum up support.
"Their effort is debuting at a perfect time. ... There is a spirit of independence, political independence, within American politics that this group may successfully tap into and provide a constructive path for people looking for alternatives," said Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation. (full story)
Vote-by-mail service under threat in budget cuts
By Lisa Vorderbrueggen, San Jose Mercury News, July 26, 2011
Excerpt:
California's beloved vote-by-mail system will remain largely intact, despite
state legislators' raid on its relatively small pot of dollars.
County election clerks say they likely will scrape up the $33 million the
state sliced from the budget for elections.
Permanent vote-by-mail allows voters to sign up once and automatically receive ballots. Under the old system, voters who wished to vote by mail requested a ballot each election.
Nearly half of the 10.3 million residents who cast ballots in November did so through the mail. The percentage topped the halfway mark in most counties, offering further evidence that voting by mail has become an indispensable feature for many.
However, the fact that the fate of permanent vote-by-mail service rests with each of California's 58 counties now that the state suspended reimbursement is prompting voting rights advocates to rekindle their calls for a stronger state role in elections.
California's decentralized election system means counties could "decide to eliminate the permanent vote-by-mail option," said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation. "Voter access is already uneven from county to county, and the suspension of the mandates is only going to make it worse.
"What do we tell voters when they want to know if they can vote by mail?"
California law mandates that counties offer permanent vote-by-mail, but the law also requires the state to pay for it.
With no state funding, counties may opt out -- although it appears none plan to do so. (full story)
With Brown in office, Democrats renew efforts for ballot initiative reform
By Will Evans, California Watch, July 25, 2011
Excerpt:
One hundred years after California adopted the ballot initiative process, legislation to reform it is steadily making its way through the state Legislature. Reform proponents hope they have a new opportunity to change the process with Gov. Jerry Brown, after previous efforts were vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
A bill that would ban signature gatherers from getting paid per signature is waiting on Brown's desk. Another bill, which would have paid signature gatherers wear a badge to distinguish them from volunteers, passed the state Senate on a party-line vote and was slightly amended in the Assembly.
Yet another bill would require that the top financial backers and opponents of ballot measures be disclosed on the ballot pamphlets voters receive. Senate Democrats also passed that bill over Republican opposition.
"The playing field is different because we have a new governor," said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation. "There’s good reason why lawmakers are having a second go at (these) bills."
State Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Walnut Creek, who wrote the badge bill and funding disclosure bill, said abuse of the initiative system is one of the biggest problems in California governance.
His bills are "baby steps to getting the general public to realize that the initiative process has been hijacked by moneyed interests on the left and right," he said. "It's just transparency."
Opponents say the reform effort is a power grab by Democratic legislators who want to make citizen legislating harder (full story)
For redistricting commissioners, what's a conflict of interest?
By Timm Herdt, Ventura County Star, July 20, 2011
Excerpt:
In the spring of 2010, when he applied to become a member of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, Gabino Aguirre of Santa Paula described himself as a "community activist" who had been an "advocate for a variety of causes."
Aguirre survived the rigorous screening process conducted by the State Auditor's Office and was ultimately chosen as one of 14 commissioners selected from a pool that originally included 25,000 applicants.
Now, with the commission poised to adopt political district maps that are certain to displease many Californians, Aguirre, one of five Democrats on the panel, has become the subject of sharp attacks from Republican Party leaders who accuse him of being a community activist who has been an advocate for a variety of causes.
The attacks raise anew questions that the State Auditor Elaine Howle struggled with in 2009 as she developed guidelines and regulations for the selection of commissioners, a task with which she was charged under Proposition 11, the initiative that created the independent redistricting process.
Kim Alexander, president and founder of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, said she believes the auditor "struck the right balance" in disqualifying those whose political connections were so strong as to make them potentially beholden to a particular party or politician while at the same time keeping the process open to those who had been engaged in civic activities.
"No one involved in crafting this commission expected you to have applicants who had zero political involvement in their history," she said. (full story)
Delaware courts: Chris Tigani campaign finance case runs into weak laws
By Jeff Montgomery and Maureen Milford, June 10, 2011
Excerpt:
Christopher J. Tigani's guilty plea to federal election-law violations has highlighted the fact that Delaware has some of the weakest such laws in the nation.
Federal prosecutors this week said their investigation of Tigani's crimes also led them to evidence of violations of state election laws by others. That evidence has been turned over to the Delaware attorney general, who said he will appoint an independent counsel.
Any investigation, however, will be up against state election laws that are so weak that many longtime observers say no one has ever been prosecuted under them.
National public-interest groups and surveys have repeatedly tagged Delaware's campaign- finance reporting law as anemic.
In 2008, a multiyear national study by a group funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts gave Delaware its lowest failing grade, and pointed out that the state was one of only two that lost ground since 2003.
The report pegged Delaware as having one of the nation's sketchiest campaign-finance disclosure systems, citing omissions of details about contributors, delays in release of last-minute contributions until after elections, and severe limitations on public record review capabilities.
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Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, said Delaware should have little trouble improving.
Failing grade
The foundation, supported by the Pew Center on the States, published a series of reports that found Delaware in the minority of states allowing only voluntary electronic filing of campaign reports. The group gave Delaware a grade of "F," and ranked only Alabama, the Dakotas and Wyoming lower. Wyoming has since adopted major reforms and expanded access to records.
"Voluntary programs are good, but they're not good enough," Alexander said. "Unless there's a requirement, you won't see a lot of data online in a form that's user-friendly."
Peter Quist, a researcher with the National Institute on Money and State Politics, found in a 2010 report that 35 states require donors to list employers or occupations -- provisions that can help track patterns of giving -- and 41 provide systems that allow some degree of searches of contributors.
GLBT and business groups want downtown and Midtown to have just one city council member
By Cosmo Garvin, The Sacramento News & Review, May 05, 2011
Excerpt:
In Sacramento we think about “the grid” as a distinct area, geographically and culturally. It’s where Sacramento’s night life is centered, where you find the great neighborhoods of century-old Victorians and equally old trees. It’s the home of an expanding restaurant district, a thriving gay and lesbian community, and where Second Saturday has taken root.
But when it comes to political representation at City Hall, Midtown and downtown are downright balkanized.
Consider Steve Hansen’s neighborhood, Alkali Flat. His address is in city council District 1, represented by Angelique Ashby. “But if I walk one block, I’m in a different district,” he explained—specifically District 3, represented by Councilman Steve Cohn. “But I’m still in the same neighborhood.” A few blocks south and he’s in another council district entirely, Councilman Rob Fong’s District 4.
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That dilutes the political power of central city residents, or so the argument goes.
“If the person living across the street from you has a different council member, you can’t go together and say, ‘Hi, we’re your constituents.’ The political clout of the central city just doesn’t exist,” said Kim Alexander, director of the California Voter Foundation. She used to live in the Poverty Ridge neighborhood (around 21st and T).
While downtown gets lots of attention for its flashy projects and high-profile issues like the rail yards and K Street, it’s harder for neighborhoods to get the care and feeding they need, adds Hansen.
“Everybody wants to be there when there’s a groundbreaking. Nobody wants to be there when there’s a break-in,” he said.
Hansen and the other members of the redistricting commission will meet every Monday evening at City Hall until the end of June. You can go to the city’s website for agendas, and to watch video of past meetings. The city also provides software tools for citizens to experiment with and even submit their own proposed district maps. The deadline for citizen map submissions is May 16.
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Cohn said another problem with unifying the central city is that right now it has three council members with a stake in the grid’s success. Change the lines, and the central city’s lone council member may find themselves the lonely vote for the interests of the urban core.
“The other council members might look at the central city as just one other district,” says Cohn.
Still, Cohn is open to the idea. “I’m up in the air right now,” Cohn said, but added, “If we’re going to do it, I think my district would make the most sense,” said Cohn, explaining that District 3, which already contains the biggest chunk of Midtown, may be best suited to take on the other grid neighborhoods.
But maybe Rob Fong in District 4 wants to hold on to his piece of downtown, or would rather have all of it. Or perhaps Sandy Sheedy in District 2 would like to see her north Sacramento district slide across the river and snatch up the downtown rail yards.
Kim Alexander believes the redistricting process ought to be taken out of city council members’ hands.
“Fundamentally, it’s a conflict of interest for politicians to draw their own council districts and then vote on them.”
This year, the citizens redistricting panel—which actually started with Councilman Kevin McCarty and Mayor Kevin Johnson, in a rare moment of agreement—is an attempt to give the public more input. But it remains to be seen whether unification of the central city will fare better than it did 10 years ago.
It ought to, Alexander says. “Midtown is the public face of Sacramento. It’s the social and cultural center of Sacramento. We need to make sure they can effectively represent their community.” (full story)
Editorial: Online voter registration system is long overdue
The Sacramento Bee, May 01, 2011
Excerpt:
Think about 6.4 million people. That's more people than live in 34 of the 50 states. It's also the number of Californians who are eligible to vote but are not registered.
Individuals are most directly responsible for shirking their most basic civic duty. But California's top election official, Secretary of State Debra Bowen, has a role.
Bowen, a Democrat, won a second four-year term in November. Now, she is running in a special election for a congressional seat in Los Angeles County left vacant when Jane Harman stepped down.
While she has her eye on Washington, Bowen has some unfinished business here in Sacramento, most notably bringing California's voter registration system into the computer age.
Bowen, a cautious person, last year canceled a contract with a software company that had agreed to create a voter database that would allow Californians to register to vote online.
But six months after winning re-election, the secretary of state and the Department of General Services have failed to put a new contract out for bid. The delay is unacceptable.
Kim Alexander of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation gathered some statistics:
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California is one of two states that do not have an online tool for voters to look up their polling places.
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California is one of only nine states without a statewide tool allowing voters to check on their registration status.
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California is the only state that has not fully complied with the federal Help America Vote Act, passed by Congress after the 2000 presidential election debacle in Florida.
The Legislature approved online registration in 2008, to no avail. Clearly frustrated with delays and excuses, some lawmakers are plunging ahead with their own solutions. (full story)
Burn the wagons
The Economist, April 20, 2011
Excerpt:
California in the 21st century faces a question that would fascinate the classical and Enlightenment thinkers who influenced America’s founders. Most of them stipulated that participatory democracies must be small. Their populations should be culturally homogeneous. And they must be virtuous.
California, though, is the most populous and diverse state in America, and no more or less virtuous than any other modern society. The historical achievement of America’s federal constitution was to create a republican structure that would preserve liberty and stability even in a large and diverse society. The price was to make democracy indirect and less participatory. Can California avoid paying that price?
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The executive branch, in turn, must become more accountable. It might seem, but is not, paradoxical that this means electing fewer statewide and local officers and giving them more power. “I currently have 22 people I elect to represent me at all levels of government, and I can’t name them—and I’m president of the California Voter Foundation,” laments Kim Alexander, an expert on voter education. Ideally, Californians should elect just one statewide executive, the governor, and let him appoint the other seven. The people can then re-elect or fire the governor for his choices.
The recommendations above are essentially the same as those The Economist made in 2004 when it last examined California in a special report. It is encouraging that some of these steps (such as redistricting and open primaries) have already been taken, others are well under way and yet others are attracting increasing support among the policy elite. (full story)
Brown's Countdown, Day 27: Absentee ballots on Jerry Brown's chopping block?
By Torey Van Oot, Sacramento Bee, February 5, 2011
Excerpt:
Nearly 5 million voters chose to cast their ballots by mail when Gov. Jerry Brown was elected in November, representing almost half of all votes cast in the statewide contest.
Now election officials are warning that a piece of Brown's budget proposal could put the increasingly popular form of balloting, and the integrity of the voting process, in jeopardy.
As part of his plan to close a projected $25.4 billion deficit, Brown wants to stop reimbursing local governments for the costs of complying with various state laws, including the 1978 law that gives all California voters the option of casting their ballots by mail.
Department of Finance officials have scored roughly $32.6 million in savings by not paying the tab for several years' worth of reimbursement claims for specific costs associated with six election mandates. They include establishing a permanent absentee voter system, extending the voter registration window to 15 days before an election and processes for registering voters.
Ending the reimbursements makes the associated laws optional for local governments in the coming fiscal year.
County election officials are still assessing the actual impact Brown's proposal would have on election departments and voters if adopted by the Legislature, but California Association of Clerks and Election Officials President Gail Pellerin called the move "not a wise policy."
"Everyone is going to have to take a cut, everyone is going to have to give a little bit, but I think suspending these vital programs voters have come to rely on is not a good direction," said Pellerin, the Santa Cruz County clerk.
Department of Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer cautioned that suspending the mandates does not necessarily mean counties will suspend the services.
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Kim Alexander, founder and president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, said failing to fund the mandates could compound the existing problem of "uneven access to the voting process at the local level."
"Given how little money counties have already to fund elections, it would be a huge blow," Alexander said.
In Sacramento County, the funding loss would be an estimated $800,000 to $1 million in the next fiscal year, according to Sacramento County Registrar of Voters Jill Lavine.
"It definitely will add to the stress if I have to find another million dollars in my budget just to maintain the level of service I have right now," she said.
Still, it could cost more to communicate the changes to voters and accommodate increased traffic at polling places, Lavine and other election officials said.
Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association, said while he thinks the state should reimburse counties for costs it forces on them, there are some cases in which removal of mandates could have a beneficial effect.
"In many instances, the state mandates things that the local governments don't want to do and sometimes the local governments find a cheaper way to do it," he said. "If there's a removal of the mandate and counties can revert to the old way of voting, there might be a better way to (provide those services)."
And some say the more costly policies, including the absentee voting and permanent absentee list laws, still merit review.
"I know the way it's working right now is not in everyone's interest and is wasteful," Alexander said, noting a report that found more than 23 million absentee ballots have been lost or never returned since California created a permanent vote-by-mail system in 2002.
It is not certain whether all – or any – counties would revert to the pre-mandate laws, such as enforcing a 29-day registration deadline or providing absentee ballots only to voters unable to vote in person because of illness, handicap, religious conflict or absence from the precinct on Election Day (full story)
Cheaper, popular mail-in ballots worry critics
By Deia de Brito, California Watch, December 23, 2010
Excerpt:
Californians are mailing it in.
Results from the Nov. 2 gubernatorial election – which had the highest turnout since 1994 – show that ballots cast by mail made up 48 percent of total votes. During the 2006 gubernatorial election, only 41.6 percent of voters cast ballots by mail.
The increasing shift to vote-by-mail ballots is a positive sign for many election officials. They say it increases voter turnout and is considerably cheaper than the cost counties pay for regular voters. But critics argue the true cost of the system may be higher than reported by its boosters. They also say election officials need to take a closer look at the social costs, such as how the mail-in system affects homeless voters.
Gail Pellerin, president of the Association of Clerks and Election Officials, said that in Santa Cruz County, where she serves as county clerk, regular voters cost the county $10 while vote-by-mail voters cost $3.
Costs are lower because of less staff time and fewer equipment costs. Plus, the state refunds counties the costs of sending out and counting vote-by-mail ballots – another major incentive for local governments to promote voting by mail.
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Since California adopted its permanent vote-by-mail program in 2002, the number of such voters has increased dramatically. In the 2002 primary election, only 4 percent of registered voters were permanent vote-by-mail voters. In the 2010 primary election, 35 percent of registered voters had signed up to vote permanently by mail, according to recent figures [XLS] from the secretary of state.
Kim Alexander, founder of the California Voter Foundation, a nonprofit based in Sacramento that encourages voter participation, said that despite its popularity, not enough is known about the effectiveness of mail-in voting. “How many ballots are going out, how many are coming back, how much extra work are they creating for election officials?” Alexander asked.
The vote-by-mail system is supposed to make it easier on election departments by allowing voters to turn in their ballots before Election Day, but a large number of vote-by-mail voters turn in their ballots at the last minute.
In San Francisco, 87,747 ballots were returned before Election Day, and 56,881 were returned on Election Day. In Alameda County, 150,000 vote-by-mail ballots were returned before Election Day and 90,000 on Election Day, according to election officials.
“It takes more time for us to process the ones that come in on Election Day – that just adds to our workload,” said Dave Macdonald, registrar of Alameda County, where the vote-by-mail turnout was more than twice as high as at the polls. “We had a lot of staff after Election Day to process all the vote-by-mail ballots.”
Nevertheless, he said, "I think if you talk to most registrars in California, most us are pretty big fans of vote-by-mail."
Every election, a high percentage of voters return the vote-by-mail ballot they requested. But a large number of ballots are wasted – printed, mailed and then never used. Since the permanent vote-by-mail system was instituted, 23 million ballots sent out to potential voters have been either lost or never returned to election departments.
"I’ve seen a lot of ... ballots not connecting with voters," Alexander said. “We had lots of people calling us on Election Day saying, ‘I lost my vote my bail ballot, how do I vote? I don’t want to be a permanent vote-by-mail voter – how do I get off of this? I never got my ballot – can I still vote today? Am I registered to vote today?’”
In a 2005 survey by the California Voter Foundation, 44 percent of non-voters said they were registered to vote – but not at their current address. About one in four said they were eligible but unregistered because they moved around so much that it was difficult to stay registered. (full story)
Voters don't trust each other, find ballot confusing
By Joshua Emerson Smith, California Watch, December 1, 2010
Excerpt:
Despite feeling generally enthusiastic about the November election, voters for the first time in one major California survey said they don't trust their fellow voters to make the right decisions.
According to a survey released yesterday by the Public Policy Institute of California, less than half of voters say they’re confident others will make the right decisions on Election Day. Only 35 percent said they had a "fair amount of confidence" in other voters, while an even smaller slice of the electorate – 9 percent – said they trusted other voters "a great deal."
Combined, this was the lowest level in the history of the PPIC poll.
Despite questioning the discretion of their neighbors, most voters said they were happy they had the choice to vote on the ballot measures, and two-thirds were satisfied with the initiative process in general.
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One reason why people may not have had confidence in their fellow voters might have had less to do with the initiative process in general and more to do with the complexity of this year’s measures.
Kim Alexander, president of the nonprofit California Voter Foundation, said this was one of the most challenging ballots she’d ever seen.
“Usually there are a number of straightforward measures that we would consider to be water cooler fodder.” With the exception of Proposition 19, she said, “the rest of them required the voters to have a pretty detailed understanding of existing California law and public policy in order to make an informed choice."
While Proposition 19, which would have legalized the recreational use of marijuana, didn’t sport the technical jargon or detail of some of the other initiatives, it may have been a hard choice for some voters.
Prop. 19 [PDF] would have left it up to “local governments to authorize, regulate, and tax various commercial marijuana-related activities.” And it would have reserved the right, “whether or not local governments engaged in this regulation,” for California as a state to “regulate the commercial production of marijuana.”
The pro-legalization camp was vehemently split over this ambiguity. A sizable number of people make and have made their livelihoods growing and selling pot in California for decades. And many were afraid the loose language of Prop. 19 would usher in an era of expensive growing permits squeezing out all but big business.
Eleven percent of people who voted no said they favor legalization in general, a significant number considering the measure went down by only 6 points.
Alexander says that traditionally polls say voters trust the initiative process more than the legislative process. “If that’s no longer true we need to have a serious discussion about initiative reform,” she said. (full story)
Lottery selects group to draw Calif. district maps
By Don Thompson, San Jose Mercury News, November 18, 2010
Excerpt:
One of California's biggest political-reform efforts in decades took a major step Thursday after initial members of a redistricting commission were selected in a random drawing.
State Auditor Elaine Howle used a spinning wire basket and ping pong-style lottery balls to choose the first eight members of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission.
Those members in turn will select the final six members of the commission by Dec. 31. The 14 member-commission is charged with drawing new state legislative and congressional districts by Aug. 15, in time for the 2012 elections.
Voters removed the responsibility for drawing legislative boundaries from the state Legislature by passing a 2008 ballot initiative. They expanded the commission's scope in this month's election by adding congressional districts.
Supporters of the independent commission hope it will lead to more competitive districts that will give all candidates a fair shot at winning, thus reducing the partisanship in Sacramento and in the congressional delegation California sends to Washington.
"That's what this is all about," Howle said. "It's about the people of California having the opportunity to draw the lines for their districts."
The eight people selected Thursday include three men and five women. Four are Asian, two are white, one is black and one is Hispanic. Five of the eight come from Northern California, the others from the southern part of the state.
By design, three are Republicans, three are Democrats and two are from neither major party. The final panel must include five Democrats, five Republicans and four voters registered outside those parties.
"It seems like it's a very diverse group," said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, a nonprofit that helped devise the final selection procedure.
The eight were narrowed from an initial list of about 30,000 applicants. (full story)
Redistricting picks to shape future elections
By Timm Herdt, Ventura County Star, November 14, 2010
Excerpt:
On Thursday in an auditorium of the building that houses the offices of the secretary of state, State Auditor Elaine Howle will conduct the most consequential lottery in California history.
At stake will not be millions of dollars or a financial jackpot of any kind. Each of the eight winners will receive only a temporary, modestly compensated state job — but one that carries with it the authority to define California’s political landscape for the coming decade.
The lottery will culminate a painstaking, byzantine selection process that since February has narrowed a pool of 30,000 civic-minded applicants down to 36 finalists.
Along the way, the finalists have had to meet conflict-of-interest qualifications, write essays, solicit letters of recommendation, agree to have their personal and financial information posted on the Internet, submit to interviews that were webcast live and, finally, subject themselves to being blackballed by Democratic and Republican leaders in the Legislature.
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Among those eliminated in that final process was Greg Freeland, a political science professor at California Lutheran University and president of the board of the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE), a community advocacy group based in Ventura.
Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, has closely followed the selection process from the outset. She called the provision to allow legislative leaders to winnow down the list “the most interesting component of the application process.”
Since both Republican and Democratic leaders were certain to be suspicious of any possible potential bias among any of the finalists, Alexander said, the process “built in the Legislature’s partisanship as a safety valve. I think it’s brilliant. It was a clever way to have a final ferreting-out process.”
After the first eight members are chosen by lottery they will collectively select six more from the pool of finalists to complete the 14-member commission. The two-step selection process was designed to ensure the final panel is geographically and ethnically diverse. The final six must be selected by the end of the year.
By law, the panel must consist of five Democrats, five Republicans and four from the pool of independents and minor party members. They will be paid $300 for each day they are engaged in holding hearings or otherwise conducting commission business.
The final maps must be approved by at least nine of the 14 members, including affirmative votes from at least three members of each pool.
When it was created by Proposition 11, the commission was given until Sept. 15 to complete its work. However, the passage of Proposition 20 — which added congressional districts, as well as legislative districts to the commission’s work — moved up the deadline to Aug. 15. (full story)
Proposition 19 loses in California
By Mathew Hall, The San Diego Union-Tribune, November 3, 2010
Excerpt:
California voters rejected Proposition 19, the initiative that would legalize small amounts of recreational marijuana use statewide.
Fourteen years after approving marijuana for medical purposes, the state’s voters refused to make it legal for anyone 21 or older to grow, possess and use small amounts of pot. Possession would have been limited to less than an ounce, and cultivation to 25 square feet of private land, but marijuana would have remained illegal under federal law.
The measure would have allowed local governments to regulate and tax the commercial production, distribution and sale of pot to adults. Sales to minors would have been illegal, as would have possession on school grounds, use in public settings or smoking while minors are present.
It was being defeated by a wide margin late Tuesday night when none other than Gil Kerlikowske, the White House's drug policy director, weighed in.
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Critics contended that it would create a confusing patchwork of laws from city to city, encourage more youngsters to smoke pot and make roadways more dangerous. The opposition campaign’s website prominently displayed a crushed car alongside a school bus lying on its side. It was the first image a visitor saw.
Both campaigns highlighted the measure’s effect on drug cartels, with supporters saying it would drain a major source of their profits and opponents saying it would make them more deadly.
Last month, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a letter circulated by the measure’s opponents that if it passed, federal officials would vigorously enforce federal laws that make marijuana ille gal.
Holder’s comments on Proposition 19 came with three weeks left in the campaign, just days before Mexican officials announced the largest pot bust in the history of Baja California — nearly 296,000 pounds of seized marijuana.
At the time, the measure had attracted fewer campaign contributions than any other California ballot measure, according to an analysis by the California Voter Foundation. (full story)
The Changing Face of California Elections
KQED Radio, November 1, 2010
Excerpt:
The best guess on turnout for tomorrow's eleciton is that about 9.5 million Californians will casts votes. That's about 55 percent of registered voters, a low turnout but not an unusual one for a midterm election. One thing that is very different from past elections, though: fewer than half of those casting ballots will do it the old-fashioned way—by going to the polls. Instead, they're mailing their ballots in. As Kim Alexander, president and founder of the California Voter Foundation tells host Cy Musiker, that increasingly popular practice raises new concerns and challenges for both voters and voting officials. Also see: The California Voter Foundation's California Online Voter Guide.
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She says the biggest issue is with voters who don’t return their mail-in ballots until election day—when they can be brought directly to the polling place or county registrar’s office—or who simply lose their ballots. How widespread is the problem? As of Monday morning, an association of elections officials said many counties had received only about half of the absentee ballots they mailed out.
"A lot of these ballots are going missing," Alexander says. "So I think there's going to be a lot of voters showing up at their polling place tomorrow who were signed-up as vote-by-mail voters and don't have that ballot and still want to vote."
Those voters will be able to cast a provisional ballot on Tuesday if they go to their polling place. They should make sure that they receive a special envelope to place the ballot in and sign the envelope, so that the ballots can be processed specially.
"Election officials have to make sure that nobody is voting twice, so it takes a lot of extra work on the back-end of this process," Alexander says. (full story)
Millions of Calif vote-by-mail ballots unreturned
By Robin Hindery, The San Francisco Chronicle, November 1, 2010
Excerpt:
Millions of Californians have not yet returned their vote-by-mail ballots, and the flood of returns expected on election day could delay results in tight races, officials said Monday.
The state's 58 counties had reported receiving just under 3 million absentee ballots as of early afternoon Monday — less than 40 percent of the 7.6 million ballots requested statewide for the general election, according to the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials.
In some counties, vote-by-mail is expected to exceed in-person voting.
That means a huge number of last-minute returns will not be processed Tuesday, and the most competitive races may remain too close to call.
"The ballots are coming in later than average and there's more of them than average, which means more uncounted ballots on election night," said Contra Costa County Clerk Steve Weir, who estimated that one-quarter of his county's absentee ballots would not be included in Tuesday's tally.
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"When you issue 7.6 million (ballots), you're not going to get 7.6 million back," she said. "Ideally, there would be more at this point, but you take what you can get."
Experts say turnout this year will likely hover around 60 percent — similar to past midterm elections but significantly lower than 2008, when more than 79 percent of registered voters participated.
Counties started sending out vote-by-mail ballots the first week of October. Since then, almost all of the calls received by the nonprofit California Voter Foundation have been procedural questions about how to fill them out, said the group's president, Kim Alexander.
"Even though vote-by-mail continues to be popular, I expect more than half of the ballots will still be cast at the polls," she said.
Some voters may not have returned their ballots early because they lost them or filled them out incorrectly, Alexander said. (full story)
Cut the scare factor on Election Day
By Lisa Vorderbrueggen - Contra Costa Times, October 30, 2010
Excerpt:
Election Day need not scare the socks off you.
Here are some survival tips:
DON'T put your vote-by-mail ballot in the mail if you haven't mailed it yet. It may not arrive in time.
Ballots that land in the election office after 8 p.m. Tuesday will not be counted, so take your ballot to your polling place or drop it off at your county election office.
DO Google or deploy the search engine of choice. There are lots of nonpartisan websites that will help you navigate the ballot measures and link to the candidates' statements and online materials. For a set of useful links, go to California Voter Foundation at http://calvoter.org.
DON'T vote based on the appearance of a candidate on a paid slate mailer, those cards that say, for example, "Women's Election Education Guide" or the "COPS Voter Guide."
Private companies produce slate mailers for a profit. And while we're all for profits, candidates pay for that placement and they may or may not be endorsed, per our example, by law enforcement or teachers. (full story)
Voters poised to take the political spotlight
By Timm Herdt, Ventura County Star, October 30, 2010
When California makes the transition into the second decade of the 21st century in January, it will do so under the guidance of either the oldest governor it has ever had, a 72-year-old Democrat who seeks to return to the office he first held in 1970, or its first woman governor, a 54-year-old former eBay CEO who has never held an elected position at any level.
And when Californians tune into the nightly news next year to see how the new governor is handling the state’s challenges, they will be able to do so either while sipping a beer or, perhaps, taking a toke off a legal joint of marijuana.
Voter resources
California Voter Foundation: The nonpartisan group’s Online Voter Guide has information on the propositions, links to candidates’ websites and even a lively “Proposition Song” to help you remember what number goes with which proposition.
Ballot Initiative to Delay Carbon Cuts Loses Steam
By Jeffery Ball, The Wall Street Journal, October 30, 2010
Excerpt:
Among other prominent donors against Proposition 23: Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, who has given $1 million, and Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, who has given $700,000.
A spokesman for Mr. Gates said that his donation "is consistent with his advocacy for continued progress toward low-carbon energy."
Mr. Khosla, asked whether he will give more before Tuesday's vote, said: "The more the oil companies [spend], the more the no-on-23 people will."
It's not unusual for prominent California ballot initiatives to draw tens of millions of dollars in contributions, said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation. But among the nine initiatives on Tuesday's California ballot, Proposition 23 had attracted the most money as of Oct. 17, when the foundation last analyzed the numbers.
One important factor in the measure's fate may be a sentiment among many Californians that efforts to curb climate change help the economy more than they hurt it, said Mark Baldassare, president of the Public Policy Institute of California. In a September poll by the institute, 41% of likely voters said that "California doing things to reduce global warming" would result in more jobs, and 26% said it would result in fewer jobs. The margin of error was 3.6%.
That sentiment helps explain why drumming up voter support for the ballot measure has "turned out to be more complicated messaging than maybe the yes side had envisioned," Mr. Baldessare said. (full story)
Slow public access to campaign finance info
By Bob Warner, Philidelphia Daily News, October 27, 2010
Pennsylvania is among just 11 states that continue to allow unlimited campaign contributions. Its disclosure requirements are ranked around the middle of the 50 states, according to a comparative analysis supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts, run by the UCLA School of Law, the California Voter Foundation and the Center for Governmental Studies.
Its most recent study gave Pennsylvania's Department of State high marks for its campaign-finance website, allowing citizens to browse through candidate reports or look for donations to multiple candidates by a single contributor or employer.
But the Pew-funded researchers gave Pennsylvania failing marks for not requiring computerized filing by candidates and political-action committees - the main reason that last week's reports are not yet accessible to the public.
The Department of State has been paying about $35,000 for data-entry work to put campaign finance information on its website. It's enough to cover candidates and PACs based in Pennsylvania, but not out-of-state PACs that contribute to Pennsylvania candidates.
This year, that gap omitted Corbett's biggest contributor - the Republican Governors Association, which has given Corbett a total of just over $4 million.
The biggest contributors to the GOP governors' group this year have been out-of-state businessmen in hedge funds, energy, drugs and other industries.
The largest single donors were Paul Singer, a partner in the Elliot Management hedge fund of New York City, $994,000; Steven Cohen, of the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors, $500,000; Kenneth Griffen, CEO of the hedge fund Citadel Group in Chicago, $500,000; and investor Foster Friess, of Jackson Hole, Wyo., $250,000 to the GOP governors on top of a $100,000 donation directly to Corbett.
Also, John Paulson, a New York hedge-fund manager who made billions of dollars in 2008 and 2009 betting against subprime mortgage instruments, donated $250,000 to the Republican governors.
But none of this information is available on the state's website, because the Department of State has not been entering data from most out-of-state PACs. (full story)
Campaigning On The Cheap, Prop 19 Still Builds Buzz
By Richard Gonzales, National Public Radio, October 26, 2010
Excerpt:
California's Proposition 19 appears to be the exception to the rule that a ballot initiative needs several million dollars for expensive TV and radio buys to reach the state's 17 million voters.
Neither side in the battle over legalizing marijuana is raising or spending a lot of cash. And Proposition 19 is still getting plenty of "buzz" among voters.
Polls show the measure has plenty of name recognition. Nearly 9 out of 10 California voters know what Proposition 19 is all about. It would allow adults to grow up to 25 square feet of marijuana and possess up to an ounce. It also would authorize cities and counties to tax and regulate commercial cultivation and retail sales of pot.
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Salazar and other election experts say most campaign dollars are getting soaked up in the high-profile races for governor and the U.S. Senate, not to mention a half-dozen controversial ballot initiatives on taxes and climate change.
"All the other propositions on the ballot have some big money, big financial interests behind them. That's not the case with Prop 19 — we don't have a well-established marijuana industry in California," says Kim Alexander, who directs the California Voter Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works on democracy and technology issues.
Supporters of Proposition 19 say taxing recreational marijuana could bring $1 billion into California's coffers. (full story)
Insight: Sac Sheriff's Race / Kings' 25th / One-Rabbi Show / Proposition Song
Capitol Public Radio, October 25, 2010
Proposition Song The California Voter Foundation has recorded and released "The Proposition Song" to encourage people to vote and to help them remember the different props on the ballot. We'll hear it. (audio)
Region, state slammed by political ads
By Kevin Yamamura, Sacramento Bee, October 24, 2010
Excerpt:
In one half-hour newscast last week, Sacramento television viewers saw 15 campaign ads packed into three commercial breaks on Channel 3.
Among them: A U.S. Chamber of Commerce ad attacking Rep. Jerry McNerney for supporting the federal health care overhaul. An ad promoting Treasurer Bill Lockyer as a straight talker who offers voters "No Bull#*+!" A commercial praising Democratic congressional candidate Ami Bera for being a "fresh voice," countered in a subsequent break by a GOP-aligned American Crossroads ad tying Bera to "Obama-care."
With the November election approaching, campaigns are bombarding Californians with nonstop advertisements, nowhere more so than in a Sacramento market that contains some of the state's most competitive legislative and Congressional battles.
"It's wall to wall everywhere on broadcast and cable television," said Bill Carrick, a veteran Los Angeles-based Democratic strategist. "The clutter always drives everybody crazy. It drives media buyers crazy, it drives campaigns crazy and it drives voters crazy. But we have so much that gets on the ballot here that we have to deal with it as a reality."
Even in an era where viewers use devices to skip commercials and watch television on their computers, many campaign strategists believe broadcast television remains the quickest way to reach a broad audience. Late in a campaign, they feel pressure to match opponents' ads or risk having the message be one-sided.
"They lose their impact when the saturation is so great," said GOP strategist Dave Gilliard. "The people who could afford to advertise a little earlier before everyone was on the air had an advantage. Now it's difficult to break through, especially when most of the ads are negative in the last two weeks."
Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, said voters are struggling to wade through the advertising and noted that the ballot initiatives are particularly complex this year.
"What's interesting to me about this ballot is that the initiatives represent high stakes battles between interest groups that fought it out in the Legislature, and now voters are being asked to referee and reconsider the Legislature's decisions," Alexander said. "That's hard for most voters to do."
Spending this year may fall short of the nearly $500 million spent on initiative and gubernatorial campaigns in 2006. But the governor's race is already the most expensive in U.S. history with Republican Meg Whitman and Democrat Jerry Brown spending more than $188 million in the election cycle through Oct. 16.
The state has its most competitive U.S. Senate race in more than a decade, with $39 million in spending by Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and GOP challenger Carly Fiorina through mid-October. (full story)
Viewpoints: When do voters gag on campaign cash?
By Peter Schrag, Sacramento Bee, October 25, 2010
Excerpt:
Is there a natural spending "limit" in political campaigns, a point when more spending by a candidate or a ballot committee becomes counterproductive? We may be about to find out.
Thirty years ago, Daniel Lowenstein, who had been the first chairman of the California Fair Political Practices Commission, concluded that a disproportionate amount of money spent against a ballot measure was more likely to succeed than disproportionate spending in favor. If an opponent can confuse voters enough, they'll almost invariably vote no.
In the three decades since, the California initiative process – and Golden State elections generally – have become a playpen for millionaires, corporations, unions and other deep-pocketed interest groups.
With some exceptions – and always recognizing that almost nobody can qualify an initiative in California without a lot of money – their record has generally borne out Lowenstein's thesis. Big money prevails more often on the "no" side than on the "yes" side.
Conversely, the conventional wisdom holds that for both candidates and ballot measures, big money will almost inevitably distort outcomes in its favor. But is that more myth than reality?
We may never get a better test than this year's election – not only of Lowenstein's conclusion but of the wider possibility that spending too much, or at the very least, spending too much in a doubtful cause by the wrong people will turn voters against a big spender.
Should she lose, GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman would of course become Exhibit A. Even counting the union-funded independent expenditure campaigns against her, Whitman's spending, likely to approach $200 million before it's all over, will swamp Jerry Brown's ragtag campaign against her.
In her case, voters may not be turned off as much by the amount that she spent as by the shamelessness with which it's been done. Yes, issues, experience, party, political philosophy and candidate personality should make the crucial difference. But in this election, the differences aren't as glaring as the candidates pretend.
And then there are the ballot measures, particularly Propositions 23, 24, 25 and 26, all battles among economic behemoths – energy companies, the liquor industry, tobacco companies, the Chamber of Commerce, public sector unions – and the stakes, both for the behemoths and for the state, are considerable.
Proposition 23, the initiative primarily funded by out-of-state oil companies to set aside California's program to reduce carbon emissions, appears to be going down – in considerable part because its sponsors are now so well known. What's not generally known is that, according to numbers compiled from official campaign reports by the impartial California Voter Foundation, the opponents have far outspent the sponsors $27 million to $9 million. (full story)
It's Politics: It don't come cheap
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, October 22, 2010
In the past few weeks alone, Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has spent nearly $23 million - almost the same amount that her Democratic rival Jerry Brown has spent so far in his entire campaign.
According to the latest campaign finance disclosures released Thursday, Brown's campaign has raised a total of $37.1 million and spent $25.5 million, leaving him with $11.6 million for the final weeks of the campaign.
While Brown has received the financial support of unions across the state who did most of his bidding over the summer, his campaign's spending is a fraction of the $163 million Whitman has spent since she began her campaign a year ago.
Billionaire Whitman has contributed more than $141 million of her own money to the race, nearing the $150 million limit she has pledged to spend.
Have all those television commercials been worth it?
According to the latest Public Policy Institute of California poll, the spending hasn't produced a slam dunk for the political newcomer in November the way it did in the GOP primaries
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Meanwhile, the campaigns surrounding the measure to legalize recreational use of marijuana, Proposition 19, have garnered barely $3 million - $2.7 million from supporters and $200,000 from opponents.
The support has largely ($1.5 million) come from S.K. Seymour LLC, aka Oaksterdam University, aka "America's first cannabis college."
Despite that support, public interest in passing the initiative is falling. According to the PPIC 49 percent of voters are against legalizing marijuana, while 44 percent support it.
In you are into who is spending money on which initiative, the California Voter Foundation has a wealth of information on the ballot measures, including their financial backers, at www.calvoter.org. (full story)
Incumbent California secretary of state seeks another term to fulfill agenda
By Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times, October 20, 2010
Excerpt:
Reporting from Sacramento — Debra Bowen won election as California's secretary of state four years ago promising to turn the low-profile office into a more tech-savvy and efficient operation and to fix security flaws in the state's electronic balloting systems.
She garnered national acclaim for protecting the integrity of state voting, but the state's budget crisis, bureaucratic inertia and missteps by her office have stymied other initiatives.
The time it takes her office to process business filings has more than tripled, to an average of 58 business days. A project to allow online voter registration is four years behind schedule. And open-government advocates are grumbling ever louder that California's campaign finance reporting database, run by Bowen, is antiquated and unwieldy.
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She has had mixed success in improving Cal-Access, a database and website that allows Californians to see how much money political candidates are raising and spending and who is contributing it.
In Bowen's first year in office, 2007, a study by the California Voter Foundation gave the state's financial disclosure system an overall B+ grade, but a C- on ease of use and helpfulness to the public. A year later, the overall grade was an A and the usability grade improved to a B+, according to Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan foundation.
"California relative to other states did perform very well overall," Alexander said. But, she added, "There are a lot of problems with Cal-Access."
The system lacks some user-friendly features available on other websites, including the ability to call up on a single page summaries showing spending of all candidates in specific races, according to Robert Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles. (full story)
California Votes - Part Three
SOCAL Connected, KCET, October 20, 2010
Excerpt:
Next, if you're feeling "prop mania" this election cycle, you may have Paul Mandabach to thank. He's the man we've dubbed "The Godfather of Propositions." Mandabach is often credited with mastering the business of marketing propositions. He talks with anchor Val Zavala for a rare and candid interview. (video @ 20:30)
Propositions Raise 120 Million Dollars Combined
By Chuck Welch, Capitol Public Radio, October 20, 2010
Kim Alexander is president of the California Voter Foundation, the group that tracks proposition spending. She says it's hard to convince California voters to approve a ballot measure. Typically, about one in three initiatives passes.
Alexander says heavy spending in support of a proposition does not improve the chances of passage.
"You really have to convince voters to vote yes. Because the default is if you don't understand it or you're suspicious of what's really behind this measure, a lot of people simply vote no or they make skip the measure and simply move on to the next one."
Still, money is pouring into the ballot initiatives. Proposition 23, which would suspend California's green houses gas reduction law, has gotten the most money. Supporters of that measure have given almost 10 million dollars, while opponents have raised more than 27 million.
The poorest initiative is Proposition 19, the measure to legalize and tax marijuana. Supporters and opponents combined have raised less than three million dollars on that measure. (full story)
Wealthy donor's passion project is redistricting - but will voters care?
Caliifornia Watch, Mallory Fites, October 18, 2010
California's turbulent election history is spotted with the failed ambitions of wealthy donors who have funded ballot measures – pet projects that, however good the intentions, ended up rejected by voters.
This year, a couple from Palo Alto – physicist Charles Munger and attorney Charlotte Lowell – have joined this small crowd of rich individuals spearheading ballot initiatives as a personal passion rather than as passive donors. Whether they find success remains to be seen on Nov. 2.
Munger has contributed nearly $11 million from his fortune to support Proposition 20, which would require congressional districts to be drawn by a 14-member panel instead of by the state Legislature. He is also funding an effort to defeat Proposition 27, which would eliminate a citizens' redistricting panel now in place to draw legislative districts.
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Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, said she has seen numerous initiatives backed by wealthy funders come and go – mostly go.
"You can't win an initiative without money, but you can't win with only money," Alexander said. "It takes not only money but coalitions, grassroots support and a good organization."
It's easy to judge the motives of campaigns funded by, say, a public employee union or the Chamber of Commerce. But voters may ask themselves this year: Who, exactly, are Charles Munger and Charlotte Lowell?
Munger is a physicist at Stanford University, while his wife is a lawyer with the powerful New York law firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom. She graduated from Harvard Law School and the University of Notre Dame. They married in 1989, and their wedding announcement appeared in the New York Times. (full story)
How will California change if voters make marijuana legal?
By Daniel B. Wood, Christian Science Monitor, October 1, 2010
Excerpt:
In a street-level flat of offices off a downtown sidewalk here, computers hum, volunteers make calls, and James Rigdon explains why Proposition 19 – California's ballot initiative to legalize marijuana – should pass.
"The decades-long war on drugs has failed," says the field director of the Yes on 19 campaign. "It's still easier for a kid to get his hands on a joint than to get a beer or a cigarette. Sixty percent of drug cartels' money comes from marijuana sales. We need to take that away."
Several blocks away, Livina Hedgerow, kneeling in her garden, says Prop. 19 is a bad idea.
"This is just what we don't need," says the retired teacher. "Another legal drug for kids to get messed up on. It will lead them to worse drugs. It's just wrong."
The two comments frame the debate swirling in California over Prop. 19 and what the state would look like if voters make it the first in the nation to legalize, regulate, and tax the sale of marijuana.
Opinion polls show Yes on 19 holding the advantage with a little more than a month to go before the Nov. 2 election. Among likely voters, 47 percent support the measure, while 37 percent are opposed, according to a survey released Sept. 15 by Public Policy Polling. The poll's margin of error is 3.9 percent. Back on July 5, a Field Poll of likely voters had the opposition leading, 48 percent to 44.
As Election Day nears, the propaganda war is intensifying, with the two sides expecting that whatever happens in California is likely to be replicated elsewhere, eventually.
"The whole country and world are watching," says Kim Raney, vice president of the California Police Chiefs Association, which has come out against Prop. 19. "That's why it's absolutely critical that the public here have a serious discussion based on the facts without spin."
Fundraising surrounding the ballot measure has been relatively modest, says Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation. Prop. 19 proponents have raised almost $2 million, while opponents have brought in $95,100, she says. Moreover, about $1.3 million was spent to qualify the measure for the ballot. "This is a very low-budget campaign so far," says Ms. Alexander. (full story)
California's online voter registration plan on hold
By Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times, August 21, 2010
Excerpt:
Reporting from Sacramento — Arizonans can register online to vote, thanks to a system created by the state in four months at a cost of $100,000. Washington state did the same thing in seven months for $270,000.
But two years after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger authorized a similar system
in California, the project has stalled and is in turmoil. Officials say state
voters may not have access to paperless registration for four more years,
after a separate $53.4-million computer system modernization is completed.
Citing inadequate performance, Secretary of State Debra Bowen in May ended a contract with the consultant who had been hired to develop the updated system that is needed before online registration can be accommodated. The resulting delay will mean the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings.
Voter-rights advocates are frustrated that the effort to simplify participation in elections is not likely to be in place for the 2012 presidential contest.
"It's hard to understand why we are having so much difficulty doing something that other states have been able to accomplish," said Kathay Feng, executive director of California Common Cause.
Bowen and her staff share a "substantial'" part of the blame for the project's problems, said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., because ultimately it's Bowen's job to pick the right contractor, scale the project so it is feasible, tell the contractor what needs to be done and oversee the work.
Bowen said she had reduced the project's scale to keep costs down and took decisive action early when it appeared to be in trouble. She said she had to move cautiously because of the high stakes involved.
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There are 6.5 million Californians who are eligible to vote but not registered, according to Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, which promotes the use of technology to improve voter participation.
Currently, Californians can fill out a voter registration application online, but clerks must mail them a paper form to be signed and returned. The new system would allow a resident's digitized signature, on file with the Department of Motor Vehicles, to complete the registration without paper.
"California is the home of Silicon Valley, the heart of the high-tech revolution, and yet we are stuck in this 19th century voter registration system," Alexander said.
Each of California's 58 counties maintains separate voter files and uploads its entire voter database to the state system each night. Records of new voters cannot be entered directly into the state system, because it is not sufficiently consolidated with county databases.
The trend nationwide is to allow voters to go online to register to vote or change an address, according to Christopher Ponoroff, an attorney who has studied the issue for the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. Seven states besides California have projects in the works to follow Arizona and Washington, and several others are considering such a move, Ponoroff said.
Paper registration "swamps election officials, burdens taxpayers and creates a risk for every voter that human error — a misplaced form, a data entry slip — will bar her access to the ballot box," Ponoroff said in a recent report on the issue. (full story)
Residents seek to draw the lines on state government
By Timm Herdt, Ventura County Star, August 6, 2010
Excerpt:
Like most engineers, Henry Norton of Oak View likes to examine broken things and figure out how to fix them.
In recent years when Norton looked at his state government, he concluded one of its structural flaws was a system that allowed lawmakers to draw political districts which protected their interests and those of their political parties. Lawmakers elected from impartially drawn districts, he concluded, would improve the system.
After Proposition 11 passed in 2008, creating an independent redistricting commission of ordinary citizens, Norton said his friends issued a challenge: “Put your money where your mouth is.”
So along with about 25,000 other Californians, Norton submitted his name for consideration to become a member of the Citizens Redistricting Commission. He’s now one of 120 finalists remaining for one of 14 positions on the panel.
Today, a panel of three auditors from the State Auditor’s Office interviewed the first four finalists, kicking off a painstaking and remarkably open interview process that will continue every weekday through Sept. 9. By Oct. 1, the panel will submit to the Legislature a list of 60 individuals, kicking off the final stage of the selection process.
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Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, said the decision to webcast the interviews was controversial when the selection regulations were debated, because some believed those who interview later in the process could gain an advantage by watching and learning from earlier interviews.
That concern, she said, “was outweighed by the desire to make the process as transparent as possible.”
Indeed, transparency has been a hallmark of the selection process. All the applications — including personal essays, letters of recommendation and statements of economic interests — are available online for public inspection.
Norton, who retired after 30 years as a civilian engineer with the Navy, is one of two finalists from Ventura County. He is in the pool of 40 registered Republicans.
The other is Gabino Aguirre, a retired high school principal and member of the Santa Paula City Council. He is in the pool of 40 registered Democrats.
Aguirre, who grew up in a family of migrant farmworkers, said he believes that as someone “who has come up through the school of hard knocks,” he could bring a common man’s perspective to the commission’s work.
The selection process so far has worked out precisely as supporters of Proposition 11 had hoped, said Trudy Schafer of the League of Women Voters of California, a major backer of the redistricting initiative.
“I’ve just been hugely impressed by the kinds of backgrounds these people have,” she said of the remaining 120 applicants. “There’s such a depth of community work. We knew these kind of people were out there — people who are very active but not known to the power brokers.” (full story)
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