Max's November 2 California Voting Suggestions

In a few prior elections I’ve provided relatively informal election guides to my friends and family as a small service to those who may not follow the news, and particularly politics, as closely as I do.  Given that these midterm elections on November 2 are shaping up to provide a veritable cornucopia of answers to some of the fascinating open questions bouncing around in our nation’s collective consciousness (Can crazy Tea Partier candidates really win contested seats?  Will the first-time voters that Obama brought out in 2008 return to the polls this year?  Will a 7-1 Republican advantage in spending by third-party groups, fueled by the Supreme Court’s heinous Citizens United ruling dramatically shape the election outcome?  Will Texas oil companies and Koch Industries roll back California’s progress on building a clean energy economy?  Will pot be legal?)

To me, the overarching question facing our nation is whether we will meet the collective challenges we face with courage and a willingness to continue to trod towards the new direction President Obama has outlined for us, or whether we will return to the policies of the previous administration.  Make no doubt about it, this election is about fear versus courage, and the forces that benefit from the continued economic, social, and health-related misery of Americans have been working nonstop to stimulate that fear in our country.  It is about standing up and facing the challenges put before us (climate change, an economic recovery without jobs, ongoing fraud at the highest levels of our financial and banking sectors, resource scarcity, increasing foreign economic competitiveness, etc.) with a clear understanding that setting ourselves up for long-term gains and prosperity may require some short-term sacrifices. 

Okay, so on with the candidates and ballot propositions, with the propositions’ ballot language quoted in the text below:

Ballot Propositions

Prop 19 – Legalizes marijuana under California law but not federal law.  Permits local governments to regulate and tax commercial production, distribution, and sale of marijuana.  YES

This was a tough one for me, because while I’m not wholeheartedly in favor of legalization, as I believe there could be unintended consequences, and I don’t use the stuff personally, so I won’t be directly affected, but nevertheless, there are three reasons I’ll vote for Prop 19.  1) A vote against the “War on Drugs” that has been a massive failure at the federal level; 2) Potential extra tax revenue for the state – whether it’ll really be $2 billion as proponents have claimed is doubtful due to simple supply and demand issues (if there’s more pot available on the market and buyers no longer have to pay a premium to compensate their suppliers for the risks they run, prices will go down) however anything helps California’s budget at this point; 3) A vote against the “incarceration-first, maybe-rehab-later if we have the budget for it” mentality that reigns in this country – once we can treat addictions as the diseases they are, rather than as simple crimes, I believe that will lead towards a far more humane crime control policy.

Prop 20 – Redistricting of Congressional Districts.  Initiative Constitutional Amendment.  YES

Another tough vote, as the political support and opposition to this particular initiative is a by-product of California’s Democratic-heavy political leanings.  In 2008, California voters passed Proposition 11, which instituted a Citizens Redistricting Commission, taking the power to draw the lines of state Assembly and Senate districts out of the hands of the legislators themselves and placing it in the Citizens Commission.  Prop 20 would extend the power of the Citizens Commission to redraw the lines for federal Congressional districts as well – something the Democrats in the state are wholly opposed to, due to the fact that, with non-gerrymandered districts, Democratic seats could be put at risk.  As a Democrat, I’m obviously not terribly interested in seeing Democrats lose seats in Congress; but as a citizen, I believe that we need to force politicians to actually fight for their seats, not just win by virtue of the proportion of registered Democrats to registered Republicans in their districts.  This is an anti-incumbent protection act, and therefore, I wholeheartedly urge a YES vote.  For more on the Proposition 20 opposition’s fairly anti-democratic campaign, see this article from LA Weekly.

Prop 21 – Established $18 annual vehicle license surcharge to help fund state parks and wildlife programs.  Grants surcharged vehicles free admission to all state parks.  Initiative statute.  YES

This one’s fairly straightforward – if we want to have the state supply services, we have to pay for them, plain and simple.  Gov. Schwarzenegger had to cut a lot for our budget to pass this year, and a YES vote on this proposition would help restore some needed services, including state parks.

Prop 22 – Prohibits the state from borrowing or taking funds used for transportation, redevelopment, or local government projects and services.  Initiative Constitutional Amendment.  NO

This is another tough one.  I strongly disagree with the State government swooping in and taking funds that are earmarked for local governments and using them on State priorities, however, I also am opposed to placing more budgetary restrictions on the State government.  The amount of discretionary budget that the State has authority over has shrunken over the years, and I’m afraid that placing more restrictions could have far-reaching implications.  I support local governments wholeheartedly, but sadly, on this one I have to recommend NO.

Prop 23 – Suspends implementation of Air Pollution Control Law (AB32) requiring major sources of emissions to report and reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, until unemployment drops to 5.5% or less for full year.  Initiative statute.  NO

This is the one proposition I”m most concerned about, and I strongly STRONGLY urge a NO vote on it.  The Texas oil companies claim that stopping AB32 would create jobs, when the fact is, oil is a dying industry, particularly in California, where most of the oil has been extracted already.  If our economy is going to grow stronger, we need to ensure that we’re investing in new and innovative technologies, as that’s where the job growth is going to come from.  The LA Times ran an article today that essentially comes down to Valero (the primary oil refiner funding Prop 23) attempting to extort Californians for money: “But whatever the cost [of the regulations], [CEO] Klesse said, "it will all be passed through to the consumer. The companies aren't going to able to absorb this or they're going to go out of business."”  Of course, after being asked what happens if Prop 23 gets defeated, Klesse relents a bit: "We'll let the voters vote," he said."We're in business in California and it'll just continue. And we'll see what the actual regs look like, and then we'll take actions around them."

Let’s vote to stop the oil monopoly over our transportation sector – the oil companies couldn’t threaten us with such economic harm if our energy portfolio were diversified.  Let’s vote to send a message.  NO on 23.

Prop 24 – Repeals recent legislation that would allow businesses to lower their tax liability.  Initiative statute.  YES

Our state needs revenue, and everyone’s got to pay their fair share – yes, even businesses.  California’s already seen as an anti-business state, is this going to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for a lot of business owners?  Unlikely.

Prop 25 -  Changes legislative vote requirement to pass budget and budget-related legislation from two-thirds to a simple majority.  Retains two-thirds vote requirement for taxes.  Initiative constitutional amendment.  YES

It’s time to be done with the 2/3 majority for passing the state budget each year.  The process enables the Republican minority in the state Legislature to wield outsize influence in budget negotiations, which leads to individual lawmakers sneaking pet projects in as bargaining chips, and a generally wasteful process.  This proposition should have been on the ballot many years ago, but things are at a point now where it’s long past time to get rid of the special-interest welfare that is the 2/3 budget majority.

Prop 26 – Requires that certain state and local fees be approved by two-thirds vote.  Fees include those that address adverse impacts on society or the environment cause by the fee-payer’s business.  Initiative constitutional amendment.  NO

Reread that proposition again...”Fees include those that address adverse impacts on society or the environment cause by the fee-payer’s business.”  See, this is a backdoor way for big polluters and/or other businesses that may pollute to make it harder for communities that are affected by their pollution to charge them for it.  This reduces the autonomy of local governments and is a way for polluters to sneak in a way to not have to pay for their messes – the way BP was poised to do until President Obama intervened. 

Prop 27 – Eliminates state commission on redistricting.  Consolidates authority for redistricting with elected representatives.  Initiative constitutional amendment and statute.  NO

This is the evil twin of Proposition 20, plain and simple.  This is a ballot measure that was put on the ballot by the folks who have been gerrymandering California political districts for years (see the above LA Weekly article for more) and it is a direct effort by the federal Congressional delegation to wrest power from the hands of the Citizens Redistricting Commission, so they can continue to protect themselves from having to face real competition.  I may be a Democrat, but corruption is corruption.  Definitely vote NO on this one. 

 

Statewide Candidates

Okay, small disclaimer here: I follow politics pretty closely, but I will admit that when it comes to a lot of these candidates, I honestly don’t really know too much about them.  Rather than make statements about candidates, I just say to vote what your conscience tells you.  Below I’ll just run over my reasons for voting for the few statewide races I really DO know something about (and for expediency’s sake, I’ll only do the major-party candidates, so sorry third-partiers, I support your efforts, I really do!)

 

US Senate – Senator Barbara Boxer (D) vs. Carly Fiorina (R)

My Recommendation: Vote Boxer

Here’s the matchup: a longtime liberal California politician against a successful corporate CEO from Silicon Valley.  In this “anti-incumbent” mood the media keeps telling us our country is in, one would expect Californians to go for the businesswoman, right?

Now, what if I told you that that businesswoman had outsourced thousands of jobs while she was CEO of Hewlett-Packard?  Boxer hit this note with what I think is one of the most effective ads that I’ve seen in this LONG campaign season:

What happened to all of those workers laid off due to the merger of HP and Compaq, and those other workers laid off because Fiorina outsourced their jobs?  Well it’s certainly conceivable that they ended up on state unemployment rolls – it’s easy to claim you’re a “fiscal conservative” when you have the state to cover for the destruction you leave in your wake…Fiorina has that attitude in common with Wall Street: privatize the profits, socialize the losses.  And she’s a patriot how exactly?

Boxer, on the other hand, is the Chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, a position that gives her a major hand in shaping our country’s environmental priorities.  She is an avid supporter of a woman’s right to choose and for promoting the common good more generally.  I’ll be proud to vote for Boxer tomorrow. 

Governor – Attorney General Jerry Brown (D) vs. Meg Whitman (R)

My Recommendation: Vote Brown

This is Jerry Brown’s second go-round attempt as California Governor (he was Governor before California voters imposed term limits, so he can try again legally) and I strongly believe he’s a great choice for Governor.  Brown is off-the-cuff, a relatively fiscally conservative Democrat, and he also pioneered some visionary environmental policies in his time as Governor in the 1970s.  As he’s said recently, he’s old, and he’s not running for Governor as a stepping-stone to another office, but as an end unto itself.  This fact in and of itself gives me hope that he’ll be bold in his actions (as he doesn’t need to worry about future voters looking askance at his unorthodox approach to governing) and yet he’ll have the best interests of Californians in mind (again, not running for another office means he doesn’t need to please campaign donors, so he may well upset both the unions and the corporations). 

Beyond all of that, though, Meg Whitman would be a disaster for California.  Why is this woman running for office?  What does she want?  Who the heck is she really?  After spending $140 million of her own money on this campaign, Californians don’t really have any answers to those questions, and that speaks to a fundamental problem with Meg Whitman herself.  Some commentators have said that she hasn’t “connected” with voters, but I think there’s a simple lack of trust from voters, since it’s unclear what she’s even running for – many have suggested that she just wants to give herself and her rich friends a massive tax break by eliminating the California state capital gains tax (estimated at between $8 million and $40 million for eMeg) and it appears she didn’t bother to vote for 28 years of her life.  She’s flip-flopped all over the place in her policies from the Republican primary against Steve Poizner to the general election against Jerry Brown – after winning the Republican nomination, coming out claiming that she’s not that different from Brown on illegal immigration, but after it was revealed that her housekeeper of 9 years (whom she called a “part of the family”) to now last week claiming the maid, Nicky Diaz Santillan, should be deported.  I guess “family” ends when the political going gets rough, eh? 

So enough about this nastiness.  Meg Whitman is just not what this state needs right now, and Jerry Brown, while surely flawed, at least has a sense of public duty after all these years of service, and appears to have the right intentions in his heart.

Lieutenant Governor – Gavin Newsom (D) vs. Abel Maldonado (R)

My Recommendation: Vote Newsom

Secretary of State – Debra Bowen (D) vs. Damon Dunn (R)

My Recommendation: Vote Bowen

Debra Bowen has done some great things as Secretary of State, including attempting to revamp the state’s voting system and implement long-overdue reforms.  This may seem like a random office, but it’s incredibly important for the preservation of democracy and the security of our votes.

 

Controller – Controller John Chiang (D) vs. Tony Strickland (R)

My Recommendation: Vote Chiang

Chiang has shown some surprising backbone in fighting Schwarzenegger’s draconian cuts the past few years, and I think he’s got a good thing going.

 

For Treasurer, Attorney General and Insurance Commissioner, I really can’t say that I know enough about the candidates or their histories to make a strong recommendation either way.  Plus, this posting is getting way too long, and it’s late.  I don’t know if anyone will even bother to read this, but oh well, I wanted to at least get something out there for those who happen across this blog.

Vote well, all.

One more thing about the energy proposal...

President Obama made the announcement that I discussed in my previous post in front of an F/A-18 "Green Hornet", a combat jet that runs on a 50/50 blend of conventional jet fuel and biofuel.  The biofuel that the Hornet runs on is derived from camelina sativa, an oilseed that has been grown primarily in Montana after being brought over from Europe in the 1980s.  Camelina shows great promise as a biodiesel and biojet fuel feedstock, due to the fact that, in contrast to other biofuels such as corn ethanol and soybean biodiesel, camelina does not compete with food crops in its growth, harvesting, and production processes.  For every acre of corn grown to be used as ethanol fuel, that is an acre that is not being devoted to food production.  Multiply that scenario by the thousands of acres currently devoted to corn ethanol production and you have a scenario where the drive for energy is driving up the price of food, which I discussed in a post a bit over a year ago.

Camelina can be grown on "marginal" land, which refers essentially to non-farm-quality land, with minimum fertilizer and irrigation needs, so that the resource intensity of camelina development is far lower than resource-heavy corn production.  Thus, camelina and other second-generation biofuels show the way forward for biofuel development globally, a future where biofuel development is a sustainable enterprise that can coexist easily with food production processes.

I'm personally very excited about sustainable, domestically-produced camelina, due to the great national security risks that importing foreign energy presents to our country, and the fact that first-generation corn ethanol is simply not sustainable over the longer term from either an environmental or economic standpoint.  I produced a Powerpoint presentation and a research paper last fall about camelina that I have now posted on the right-hand column of the blog under "Recent Works," so if you have further interest in learning more about camelina and about biofuels more generally, I encourage you to take a look.

To drill or not to drill, that is the question, baby

President Obama announced a new energy policy proposal yesterday, which appears to have surprised both environmentalists and fossil fuel interests in that the proposal seeks to open vast new areas of US coastline for offshore oil drilling.  The new drilling is combined with new regulations and policies to invest significantly in green energy resources, including new auto regulations mandating higher fuel economy standards of 35.5 miles per gallon across a company's entire fleet of cars and trucks by 2016.

But ultimately, nobody's really paying attention to the higher fuel economy standards, despite the very positive climate benefits those standards will have, when the topic du jour is offshore drilling.  Did the President really just give in to the "drill baby drill" crowd?

Well, I would argue that the answer is yes and no.  The President has just deftly given the Republican party, and its oil and gas interest supporters, enough rope with which to hang themselves, policy-wise.  Take a look at the chart below, helpfully supplied by the NY Times:

Copyright 2009 New York Times

All of the state coastlines that are now opened to new offshore drilling have Republican governors, except for Maryland, Delaware, and North Carolina.  Meanwhile, the areas north of Delaware on the Atlantic side, and all of the Pacific coast will remain off-limits to drilling, with the environmentally sensitive Bristol Bay in Alaska that was opened for exploration by President Bush now closed off for at least seven years.

The way I read it is, if Republicans want to drill so badly then let them, for as others have noted, allowing them to do what they have claimed offshore drilling would do - completely solve America's oil needs indefinitely - will be shown to be false.  Offshore drilling, because it has been anathema to environmentalists, has been built up to mythical status among Republicans, when any responsible politician would admit that there likely won't be enough oil to supply the US for long, and even then, the new oil will not affect gas prices at the pump.  The government lease and exploration process will take years, and then the companies that purchase the leases will need to actually extract and refine the oil, so don't expect any new "homegrown" oil for at least 10 years.

But that scenario only plays out if everything goes smoothly on the political end of things, and when does that ever happen?

Access to oil and gas in South Atlantic waters also would probably meet stiff resistance from the coastal states unless Congress first enacts a plan to share the billions of dollars in potential revenue from lease sales and oil and gas development. And that's not easy.

Lawmakers from coastal states that would benefit have been pushing for that, but some other senators argue that proceeds from oil and gas resources in federal waters should go to the U.S. Treasury.

Here's the thing, the governors will likely take a lot of flak from environmental and concerned citizens' groups from within their states if they agree to allow the offshore drilling, no matter where on the political spectrum they are.  What would help the governors neutralize that criticism is the prospect of increased state revenues from oil and gas development to help their states, but Congress would have to approve those deals.  Politicians never like to give up "free" money coming to their states at the expense of other states, so it would be quite a battle between the interior-state politicians and the coastal-state ones over who receives the proceeds from oil and gas development.  Hmm, divide and conquer, Mr. President?

Then there's the idea that Americans appear to have that any oil that is drilled from US territory by a multinational corporation like Exxon Mobil will automatically be sold in the US.  This is just wrong.  Oil drilled in the US will be shipped to wherever the demand is greatest in the world, just as oil is now.  While the US is currently a major consumer of oil in the world, who is to say that the oil drilled here won't be shipped to China instead?  In a few years the Chinese economy will only have grown further, so it isn't beyond the realm of possibility.

So all in all, what should we take away from these developments?  I believe this report from Kate Sheppard at Mother Jones provides a clue:

Environmentalists are not just angry that Obama is giving away the store on oil and gas drilling, they also feel that he's basing his decision on a dubious premise—that more drilling will enhance the nation's energy security. The US currently imports 57 percent of its oil, according to the Energy Information Administration. The nation accounts for 23 percent of total world oil consumption, but has only 3 percent the world’s oil reserves within its borders. Drilling off every coast in the US won’t resolve that issue. Even the most productive portion of the area opened to drilling, the eastern Gulf, is expected to yield only 3.5 billion barrels of oil. The US consumes 19.5 million barrels of oil per day, which means that these wells would only produce about 180 days worth of oil. And at current global oil prices, recoverable American-produced petroleum isn't likely to be cost-competive. (emphasis added)

Did you catch that?  For any offshore drilling to occur in this country, the oil companies have to actually believe that there is enough oil for them to recover before they make any capital investments.  It's dubious whether a sufficient amount of oil exists in these newly-opened areas to make it worth the oil companies' while to drill.  And therein lies the rub - President Obama just gave the Republicans and oil companies the access to offshore oil wells that they've been clamoring for for years, and now they're going to have to work to roll back Americans' expectations of just how much oil there is within our borders.  Republicans will have to explain to Americans that just because oil companies now can drill offshore, gas prices will not drop back to $1.50/gallon, indeed:

"Where are the Republicans out there talking about how crude is going to go down" when drilling is allowed, "because oil certainly isn't reacting to it today," said Michael Masters, a hedge fund manager who's testified repeatedly before Congress that big inflows of investment dollars are driving up oil prices, not supply shortages. "It's not a supply and demand issue. ... Crude is detached from the fundamentals."

Masters is referring to oil futures markets, where speculators have notoriously been driving up the price of oil for years now, apart from any increase or decrease in production.

So Obama has managed (it appears thus far, anyways) to divide Republicans on oil drilling, while simultaneously putting them on the defensive regarding their previous claims of the amount of oil the US truly has within its borders.  With the Trojan Horse of offshore drilling, Obama managed to slip by the first increase in vehicle mileage standards in nearly 30 years, a move that on any other day would have provoked howls of protest from the Republican side of the aisle.  On balance, it appears that the positive environmental effects of the new vehicle mileage standards regulations may well outweigh the negatives of offshore oil drilling, but Obama was able to distract the other side (and much of the media) from noticing with the shiny, glossy offshore drilling announcement.

And as for the environmentalists, well I noticed a curious coincidence regarding two of the largest environmental organizations, the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, see if you notice a certain similarity:

"Is this President Obama's clean energy plan or Palin's drill baby drill campaign?" quipped Greenpeace Executive Director Phil Radford in a statement on Wednesday.

“Drilling our coasts will do nothing to lower gas prices or create energy independence,” Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, said in a statement. It will only jeopardize beaches, marine life, and coastal tourist economies, all so the oil industry can make a short-term profit.” (emphases added)

So both Greenpeace and the Sierra Club released statements, indicating that they were notified ahead of time about the drilling plans, and taking a look at their websites (Greenpeace, Sierra Club) there was either no mention of Obama's announcement on the Sierra Club website, or just a rather rote statement from Greenpeace's Executive Director.  If this plan were so terrible, wouldn't the greens be shouting into any TV camera they could find about how terrible it is?  Could it be that they're in cahoots with the President on a strategy to mollify the "drill baby drillers" while the actually environmentally progressive legislation gets passed in the background?  I think that the President and the enviros are betting that in the time it takes for any sort of viable oil drilling operations to get set up offshore, the US would have already begun the transition towards alternative fuels, obviating the need for major drilling operations at massive costs.  Also, the Bristol Bay area that has now reverted back to protected status in the Obama plan was a key sticking point with environmentalists, so it's not as though they lost out entirely.  But then again, I could be totally wrong.  I just find the curiosities of this particular announcement and the context surrounding it too intriguing not to try to suss it out.  Time will tell.