While maintaining a marked edge in legislative representation across the state, California Democrats notched a different but familiar distinction against Republicans in the 2016 election cycle, new data showed. Consistent with the results of previous races since the implementation of the so-called “jungle primary” law, Democrats spent far more in intra-party primary races than did GOP candidates. The pattern also held in contests for seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. 

High-cost competition

Under the current primary system, all registered voters can participate in a single “open” primary including all candidates regardless of party identification. The top two vote winners then square off in a general run-off election. Last year, according to tabulations made by Forward Observer, Democrats spent a total of $91,518,355 on 23 same-party races – 11 in the state Assembly, five in the state Senate and seven in the House, for an average of $3,979,059 per race. That compared starkly to the $2,784,596 spent by Republicans over four same-party races for state Assembly seats, an average of just $696,149. 

Fundraising among the two parties reflected the lopsided totals. Altogether, the Democrat candidates contending for the 11 Assembly seats “raised $49.4 million including independent expenditures, for an average of approximately $4.5 million per race,” Forward Observer noted. 

Among Democrats vying for one of the five same-party state Senate seats up for grabs last year, “candidates raised $23.3 million including independent expenditures, for an average of approximately $4.6 million per race,” while those pursuing one of the seven same-party races for seats in the House of Representatives “raised $33.9 million including independent expenditures, for an average of $2.7 million per race.” 

Unexpected consequences

For Democrats, therefore, the cost of winning seats has climbed steadily under the nonpartisan blanket primary system passed as Proposition 14 by California voters in 2010 – increasing by about $3 million from 2012 to 2014, then by more than $37 million from 2014 to 2016.

“Since the first implementation of Prop. 14 in the 2012 election cycle, there have been a total of 80 same-party races in California for seats in the state Senate, Assembly and U.S. House of Representatives – 60 races between Democrats and 20 between Republicans,” the Forward Observer report summarized. “In total, Democrats have spent a total of $197.4 million on same-party races since Prop. 14 first went into effect in 2012, compared to $34.5 million spent by Republicans. Democrats have thus spent $5.72 on same-party races for every dollar spent or raised by Republicans.”

Prop. 14 was billed as a way to help ensure greater quality and competition among candidates without regard to party affiliation and, implicitly, with a mitigating effect on large campaign war chests. But for Democrats, the new system has had the more pronounced effect on pitting party members against one another at cost – neither clearing the field for dominant candidates who can win clean or uncontested victories on the cheap, nor giving upstart or insurgent candidates a clear opportunity to shift power away from established or establishment-backed contenders. “In nine of the 28 same-party races in 2012 election cycle, the second-place primary finisher won in the general election,” the report noted. “In six of the 25 races same-party races in the 2014 election cycle, the second primary finisher won.” Showing a similarly disproportionate ratio, second-placers scored general election victories in just six of the 2016 cycle’s 27 same-party races.

In fact, over the past three election cycles, primary winners have fared better and better on the whole against their second-place rivals, whether despite their increased campaign fundraising and spending or because of it. The ratio of victorious second-placers decreased from nearly a third to about a fourth to just over a fifth. 

Perceived as the most vulnerable of the legislative Democrats who passed Gov. Jerry Brown’s gas and vehicle tax package by a razor-thin margin, freshman state Sen. Josh Newman, D-Fullerton, faced an intensifying campaign to turn him out of office, potentially depriving his party of the two-thirds majority that allowed them to pass Brown’s infrastructure bill in the first place. 

Targeted politics

“State election officials formally approved the recall campaign against Sen. Josh Newman of Fullerton on [May 8]. The recall is promoted by radio hosts Karl DeMaio of KOGO in San Diego and John and Ken of KFI in Los Angeles,” noted the Associated Press. “Recall organizers have until Oct. 16 to collect signatures from 63,593 voters.” 

Newman was singled out thanks to his narrow victory last year, in a district Republicans held before and believe they can reclaim with voter frustration on their side.” After besting favored Democrat Sukhee Kang last June, Newman squeaked out a surprise 3,185-vote win over Republican Assemblywoman Ling Ling Chang in November,” the Orange County Register reported.

“The seat had been held by termed-out Republican Bob Huff and the win gave Democrats the two-thirds majority they needed to pass tax increases without a single GOP vote. They took advantage of that on April 6, passing a $52-billion transportation package to be paid for by increased gas and vehicle registration fees. While there was one Democratic defection in the Senate, Democrats picked up the support of Sen. Anthony Cannella, R-Modesto, in exchange for $500 million in projects for his district.”

High stakes, big names

Although sinking Newman would be victory enough, DeMaio set his sights on breaking the two-thirds supermajority in Sacramento with room to spare. “After Newman is gone, DeMaio and his allies hope to pick off other Democrats, even those in rock-solid Democratic districts,” wrote Steven Greenhut at the Register. “He’s more than happy to help replace tax-supporting Democrats with those who oppose these transportation-tax increases. In fact, he doesn’t see this as a partisan issue at all, but as a ‘working-class families’ issue. And he doesn’t care who replaces Newman or others, as long as the new legislator opposes these increases.”

“No doubt, if Newman is bounced and the political lions start circling another vulnerable legislator, we might see a change in strategy within the Capitol herd. For now, Democrats and their interest groups are trying to protect Newman, as evidenced by recent comments by Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de Leon. This is an important seat for them given the implications for their supermajority, which is why even former President Barack Obama endorsed Newman in the November race.”

Lending an additional hand was Gov. Jerry Brown himself, who helped shore up Newman’s shaky fortunes by throwing a special event for the lawmaker. Brown “thinks it is unfair that some activists are trying to recall Newman for his vote favoring an increase in gas taxes to pay for road repairs,” the Los Angeles Times reported, citing top aide Nancy McFadden. “The Brown camp also is skeptical that opponents of the gas tax bill will be able to carry out their threat of qualifying an initiative to repeal Senate Bill 1 but are prepared to do battle if it makes the ballot.”

“It is unusual for him to do an individual legislator’s fundraiser because if he did one he would have do to lots, but Josh is under unfair attack and so the governor wants to make sure he knows that he’s got his back – that’s why he is stepping out and doing this for him,” McFadden said.

“Assemblyman Travis Allen, R-Huntington Beach, filed paperwork last week seeking a 2018 ballot measure to overturn SB1, a 10-year, $52.4 billion transportation funding bill narrowly passed by the Legislature in April,” the San Gabriel Valley Tribune reported. “The bill, also known as the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017, raises the state’s gas tax by 12 cents a gallon, boosts taxes on diesel fuel and imposes new annual fees on vehicles to tackle a road repair backlog exceeding $130 billion.”

Passion and pacing

“Jerry Brown’s decision to push through the largest gas tax increase in California’s history without the approval of voters demonstrated a complete disregard for ordinary Californians,” said Allen, the Los Angeles Times noted. “This ballot initiative will correct Brown’s failure and allow the people of California to decide for themselves if they want to raise their taxes.”

Hoping for an enduring grassroots reaction against the package, the assemblyman turned to disaffected state voters for support. “Allen launched a website asking for contributions of $5 to help him gather the 365,880 signatures from registered voters to place the repeal before voters. Allen can begin to gather signatures once the state attorney general issues a title and summary for his repeal,” according to the Sacramento Bee. “Allen is proposing a diverse stream of possible funding sources, including tribal gambling revenue, to replace the tax.” In addition to Allen, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association has considered moving forward with an initiative proposal, according to the Los Angeles Times. 

One potential limitation to Allen’s ambitions would be a relative inability to capitalize on the heat of the political moment. Because of the electoral calendar, the Bee observed, “the earliest the tax could be repealed is after the November 2018 election. Referendums, which allow the law in question to be halted until voters pass judgment on the repeal, cannot be used to repeal tax levies or measures that lawmakers passed with an urgency clause, such as the gas tax increase.”

The long game

Yet a series of retaliatory moves against lawmakers who voted for Brown’s infrastructure bill could keep the issue simmering as Allen forges ahead. “In Fullerton, three Southern California radio talk show hosts kicked off a campaign Thursday to recall state Sen. Josh Newman, a first-term Democratic legislator who barely edged out his Republican opponent in November, in retaliation for his vote,” the Washington Times noted. “The Los Angeles hosts, joined by Carl DeMaio of KOGO-AM in San Diego, drove home the point by launching their recall campaign at an Arco gas station.”

“They were backed by Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, who announced the formation Thursday of Californians Against Car and Gas Tax Hikes in order to target Mr. Newman, whose Senate District 29 is based in Brea.”

Even a successful bid to remove Newman could be enough to upset the precarious balance around the tax law. “The loss of one Democratic senator would cost Democrats their two-thirds senate supermajority, making it much easier for Republicans to fight tax hikes,” as the Tribune noted. But it would also damage the legitimacy of the tax deal, which would have faced an even steeper hurdle to passage without Newman’s vote. 

As Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration turns toward tidying up California’s complex and still-unsettled marijuana laws, the massive market for money made from the plant’s products has begun to attract attention from financial services companies that want to take advantage without taking on too much risk. 

“Though federally prohibited, marijuana is now legal in some form in 28 states and Washington, D.C. But most banks remain loath to accept pot business accounts out of fear of federal money laundering laws that can consider such deposits as illegal transactions,” the Sacramento Bee reported. “Efforts in 2014 by the United States Treasury Department to ease rules for financial institutions wanting to service state-licensed marijuana businesses largely failed to diminish the uncertainty.”

From meetings to markets

“Now California officials, led by state Treasurer John Chiang, are hosting an ongoing series of ‘Cannabis Banking Working Group’ meetings that look to identify policies under which ‘the cannabis industry may fully avail itself of banking services … that every other business in California enjoys,’ Chiang said,” according to the paper. “California’s marijuana industry, valued at more than $6 billion, is expected to produce as much as $1 billion in state taxes after 2018, when recreational pot dispensaries open to the general public. But a lack of accessible financial services – including the ability to deposit funds or handle credit card transactions – continue to be the norm for marijuana businesses.”

Businesses and bankers have been leery of the gap between state and federal marijuana law. “Federal crimes often conjure images of ‘interstate’ activity, but with regard to marijuana, the Supreme Court has clearly spoken that even purely intrastate marijuana is subject to federal criminal regulation,” as California Lawyer recalled. “In Gonzales v. Raich, the Supreme Court held that because of its ‘aggregate’ effect on the interstate market, even purely intrastate activity is subject to regulation under the commerce clause of the Constitution.” At the same time, the White House and Attorney General’s office have continued to suggest that enforcement of federal marijuana law could be strengthened from where the Obama administration left it. 

Reconciling rules

The proposed changes would streamline environmental policies, standardize the more liberal of the state’s licensing regimes, formalize background check and disclosure requirements for cannabis-based business owners, and eliminate a provision that would have required continuous California residency for those affected by the rules since the first day of 2015.

Accrediting workers

At the same time, the cannabis industry has seen its workers brought into the state’s regulatory mainstream. So-called budtenders at the River City Phoenix dispensary in North Sacramento have become among the state’s first state-certified cannabis pharmacy technicians, a certificate program “spearheaded by the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents 1.3 million members and began reaching out to dispensary workers about four years ago,” according to the Los Angeles Times. “The apprenticeship program is yet another measure of how cannabis is professionalizing at a breakneck pace. Another sign: the unionization of the cannabis workforce. The UFCW, which represents workers at River City Phoenix, has organized thousands of them in eight states.”

Losing customers

Part of the challenge to the status quo has been posed by so-called community choice aggregations, or CCAs – local power agencies that more municipalities have embraced or considered switching to, away from legacy power utility companies. PG&E and other established players have begun to worry that too many switchers could leave remaining customers saddled with costs they can’t or won’t bear, leading to a potential death spiral for the big utilities.

“The state is ambitiously pursuing a fundamental transformation of the electric system to achieve historic greenhouse-gas reduction goals,” PG&E wrote to the California Public Utilities Commission in conjunction with two other leading companies, asking in effect for new rules that would prevent a rush to the exits, according to the San Jose Mercury News. “At the same time, the move toward customer choice through community choice aggregation, as well as other retail choice options, is accelerating.” 

Heightening the sense of urgency around appeasing customers as the hot summer months approach, PG&E suffered a frustrating mass outage event in San Francisco last Friday. “The power failure affected almost 90,000 Pacific Gas and Electric Co. business and residential customers, leaving Union Square, the Financial District, the outskirts of Chinatown and several other neighborhoods without electricity just after 9 a.m.,” as the San Francisco Chronicle reported. 

Tire pressure

Seeking to amp up energy supplies without running afoul of Sacramento’s tightening environmental restrictions, state officials have meanwhile focused renewed attention around an unprecedented technology that would harness the weight of tires in motion to produce electricity. They agreed, the Chronicle reported separately, “to fund an initiative to generate electrical power from traffic, a plan that involves harnessing road vibrations with the intent of turning the automobile, like the sun and wind, into a viable source of renewable energy.”

“The technology is peculiar but proven. Devices that convert mechanical force into electricity are used in watches and lighters and are being tested for power generation on sidewalks and runways. A San Francisco nightclub has even leveraged the pulses of a dance floor to power its lights and music,” the paper added. “Gravely helped draft the proposal approved [April 12] by the Energy Commission’s governing board, which will direct $2.3 million to two independent road projects designed to test the viability of scaling up piezoelectricity. ‘Piezo’ is Greek for ‘squeeze’ or ‘press’ and refers to using pressure to create power.”

The several-million-dollar budget will be split between “a 200-foot stretch of pavement on the UC-Merced campus” and “a half-mile of highway to potentially harvest enough power for 5,000 homes,” Jalopnik observed, with the latter effort to be spearheaded by the Pyro-E company. To capture the energy, the lengths of road “will be filled with tiny piezo arrays stacked ‘like quarters’ in the road surface,” the site noted. “Some estimates suggest that as little as 400 cars per hour would be needed to make the system economically viable.”

Uncertain reach

Analysts have separated into two camps around Golden State real estate, one more bullish than the other. “Two recent reports — from Fitch Rating, a Wall Street credit reviewer, and Arch MI, a seller of mortgage insurance — attempt to gauge the stability of regional housing markets by tracking changes in real estate metrics vs. other economic measurements,” the Orange County Register reported. “Using a California prism, the studies draw wildly different conclusions. Fitch concludes California housing is among the most overvalued housing markets in the nation. Yet California is not on Arch MI’s list of riskiest places to own.”

“California was one of 10 states with overvalued housing by Fitch’s standards. Four states had the same pricing mismatch as California: Florida, Hawaii, Oregon and Utah. Next states on the dicier scale — 10 percent to 14 percent overvalued — were Arizona, North Dakota, Nevada and Texas […]. Idaho was in the worst shape at 15 percent to 19 percent overvalued. But Arch MI saw California with riskiness below the norm. California’s risk of falling home prices is ‘minimal’ or a 2 percent change of depreciation in the next two years. National risk by this math is 4 percent.”

Searching for answers

Along with an analytical split surrounding a possible housing bubble, residential options in California have been opening a gulf of their own. “California is one of the most unequal states in the country, and its housing market is similarly bifurcated, offering both multimillion dollar houses and rent-controlled apartments, but less and less of a foothold for people in the middle,” the American Interest observed. “This is a key reason so many working class families have left the Golden State in the past 25 years.” In a recent report issued by Bankrate.com analyst Claes Bell, “California ranked as the toughest state in the nation for first-time home buyers, who typically would be in the millennial age bracket of 18 to 34,” according to the Los Angeles Times. 

Policymakers grappling with the state’s compounded housing challenges have no shortage of plans to pore over — over 130 bills touching upon the issue, the Times noted. “Reams of statistics support the depth of the problem: California’s homeownership rate is at its lowest since World War II, a third of renters spend more than half of their income on housing costs and the state has nearly a quarter of the nation’s homeless residents — despite having 12% of the overall U.S. population,” the paper noted in a breakdown of some leading legislative contenders — which range from proposals to expand low-income rent-controlled units to increasing tax credits to pushing easier and less traditional permitting. 

Back to rent control?

The push toward increased rent control has been spearheaded by Assemblyman Richard Bloom, D-Santa Monica. “Bloom wants to repeal the state law known as the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, named after a moderate-leaning Democratic former state senator from the Central Valley and a short-time Republican assemblyman from Orange County,” the Sacramento Bee recalled. “During 1995, Jim Costa, now in Congress, and Phil Hawkins, who served just two years in the state Assembly, became the face of a disputed political campaign lodged largely by landlords and real estate interests to weaken – statewide – the ability of cities to pass strong rent-control laws. It came nearly two decades after the rent-control movement, born in cities like Santa Monica, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Berkeley, was spreading across the state.”

In core metro areas across California, rents have risen dramatically — in part reflecting an influx of wealthier residents to downtown urban neighborhoods, but also fueling a domino effect of hikes further down the affordability chain. “Statewide, average rents have increased 60 percent over the past 20 years. In 2016, median rents in the Bay Area and Los Angeles area ranged from $2,427 to $4,508, according to a housing report from the California Department of Housing and Community Development,” the paper added. “Nearly half of California’s households rent, and 84 percent of them are considered ‘burdened,’ spending 30 percent to 50 percent or more of annual income on rent.”

“Tech companies in San Francisco and San Mateo counties lost 700 jobs from January to February and tech employment has dropped by 3,200 jobs since hitting a peak last August,” the New York Times observed, citing chief San Francisco economist Ted Egan. “Venture capital has peaked and has been going down steadily since 2015,” said Egan. “A lot of the employment in our tech sector is in companies that are not profitable. If they can’t secure new venture funding, some of them run out of cash. If we see a real downturn in the tech sector we could be in a situation where the U.S. economy is doing better than San Francisco’s.”

For months, Bay Area businesses and investors have had to adjust to unfamiliar economic terrain. “The drop continues a year-long slowdown of the economic machine that powers Silicon Valley’s tech sector, leaving some startups resorting to layoffs and other cost-cutting measures to make ends meet,” the San Jose Mercury News reported. “But analysts say they’d better get used to it — investment activity isn’t going to return to the highs the industry saw in 2014 and 2015 any time soon. Instead, they say, the lower numbers represent a new, more sustainable normal as investors become more selective.”

High stakes

The Valley’s outsized importance to California’s economic fortunes has shifted expectations for tech nationwide. “Nationwide, the number of angel and seed stage funding rounds — which generally mark a company’s first fundraising efforts — dropped 62 percent in the first quarter of 2017 compared with the first quarter of last year,” the Mercury News noted. “Though startups closed fewer funding deals, the amount of money investors spent actually ticked up in the first quarter of this year compared to the quarter before — largely thanks to Airbnb raising $1 billion this year, and Instacart and online personal finance company SoFi each raising more than $400 million. Smaller, early-stage startups suffered most in the slowdown.”

But larger, established tech firms have encountered new problems, too — including fierce challenges in potentially huge markets, like the one for driverless cars, that are now crowded with heavyweight competitors. “Google’s lawsuit alleging that Uber straight-up stole its autonomous vehicle technology won’t go before a jury until October, but Uber already finds itself on dangerous ground,” according to a Wired report on the conflict. Last week, the magazine observed, “the judge presiding over the civil case said he might just grant Google’s request for a preliminary injunction, which could force Uber to rein in or even stop testing its robocar technology testing until the case is resolved.”

Pumping the brakes

Prognosticators have altered their outlook accordingly. “Extrapolating from Q1, the full year 2017 is on track to hit the lowest level in terms of dollars since 2012, and in terms of deals since 2011,” Business Insider noted. “But it’s not for a lack of money. In 2016, VC funds raised $41 billion, the best year in a decade. In Q1 2017, they raised another $7.9 billion.”

According to some analysts, the combination of big war chests for funds and more modest pathways for founders was likely to translate into slower but more sustainable growth. Eric Buatois, veteran venture capitalist at Benhamou Global Ventures, told Marketplace that while a crash was unlikely, a cooling-off period would probably help avoid a hard landing. “Like most people in Silicon Valley, Buatois doesn’t use the words ‘tech bubble’ or ‘bust’ when describing the recent tech economy. Instead, he describes it as ‘frothy,'” according to the program. “‘Froth’ is the Silicon Valley term for when startups are valued at much more than they’re worth. Unlike a bubble, froth doesn’t pop — it subsides. Buatois thinks that could be a good thing for Silicon Valley.”

Created to make California’s tax system work better, the Board of Equalization has found itself under a cloud of radical criticism, plunging it into a moment of extraordinary crisis. 

“At a chaotic budget hearing for an agency that collects a third of California’s taxes, two lawmakers said late Wednesday they don’t believe the Board of Equalization can be trusted to fix the accounting deficiencies and misuse of public resources that a recent audit described,” the Sacramento Bee reported. 

“I have no faith in the organization to adopt practices,” railed Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, who chairs the Assembly Budget Committee, according to the Bee. “You can adopt all the policies you wish. But I have zero faith that you will practice your polices because you have not demonstrated that.” His remarks, the paper added, “came at a meeting in which the Board of Equalization’s executive director refused to answer questions because he said he feared a lawsuit, Ting asked five state employees whether they leaked a copy of a critical audit to The Sacramento Bee and Ting read an anonymous email that accused the agency’s top lawyer of misleading him during the hearing.”

Official sanction

The heated controversy came to a head this month in the wake of a devastating state administrative report showing bad accounting of nearly $50 million in funds. “Citing a review that found widespread mismanagement at the state Board of Equalization, State Controller Betty T. Yee […] called for stripping the panel of responsibilities for tax administration and audit and compliance functions so it can focus on handling taxpayer appeals,” the Los Angeles Times explained. “Yee’s proposal came in response to an evaluation by the state Department of Finance that found board officials were improperly redirecting resources and employees to pet projects in their districts.”

According to the investigation, conducted by the department’s Office of State Audits and Evaluations, “concluded the elected tax board members are violating the California Budget Act, which requires that they get approval from the Department of Finance and notify lawmakers before they move revenue-generating staff such as auditors to other duties,” Bloomberg BNA reported. “The tax board also doesn’t keep track of staff hours or calculate the amount of lost revenue resulting from employees being redirected.”

“The violations skew the required information the board must provide to lawmakers under the Budget Act each year about costs and lost revenue collections due to those reassignments, the auditor said. Without accurate information about staffing, the Legislature can’t assess the effectiveness of the SBOE’s existing compliance efforts or be sure the tax agency’s cost-benefit ratios are accurate, the audit said.”

A tightening circle

The Board has weathered sharp criticism before, especially in recent years. But this time, few if any outside the Board itself have offered much of a defense. “In the 1990s, Gov. Pete Wilson, facing budget deficits, sought to merge the board with the Franchise Tax Board,” as the Fresno Bee editorial board noted. “Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took office in 2003 promising to blow up the boxes, and took aim at the tax boards. And yet the Board of Equalization survives because many legislators, thinking about the next election, hesitate to abolish an office that pays $142,577 a year.” 

For the Board, today’s trouble began in earnest two years ago, when heightened scrutiny from Sacramento began to close in. “Although the board was dinged in November 2015 when an audit by Yee’s office found that it mistakenly sent $47.8 million in sales tax revenue to the state’s general fund, the Finance Department’s newest audit revealed that the board has done little since then to stanch the bleeding,” Courthouse News observed. “The board is still struggling with its accounting, having revised its proposed allocation adjustment 11 times to correct for errors and omissions,” the site added. 

“The California Legislature passed Senate Bill 1 on Thursday night, raising gas taxes and vehicle fees in hopes of generating tens of billions of dollars to fix the state’s roads,” the Desert Sun reported. “The tax increases will take effect November 1 and new vehicle registration fees will begin Jan. 1, 2018. Fees on zero-emission vehicles will take effect July 1, 2020, according to the text of the bill.”

“Gov. Jerry Brown, who stumped for the bill in Riverside this week, said its language had been in the works for years. It squeaked through the Senate and Assembly on Thursday night, barely earning the required two-thirds votes in both houses.”

Getting to yes

To get there, Brown resorted to an uncommon amount of bargaining in close negotiations. “It wasn’t the sort of vote any politician likes to cast. So the measure’s success on Thursday relied on a collection of eleventh-hour sweeteners offered by Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislative leaders to reach the necessary two-thirds super-majority,” the Sacramento Bee observed. “Now that the dust has settled, it’s clear they doled out nearly $1 billion in district-specific transportation projects, with a popular commuter train system linking the valley and Bay Area headed to new locales. It also appears architects could get legal indemnity in construction lawsuits, and four Riverside County cities could see a budget boost. […] Rumors of other SB 1 vote-getting arrangements lingered in the Capitol this week.”

In risking criticism, Brown signaled a sharp judgment that last week’s deal was the best — perhaps the only — shot at getting a substantial tax-funded infrastructure package passed into law. “Similar proposals have languished for years, but Brown and legislative leaders set a quick-turn April 6 deadline for action, hoping to pressure a compromise before the Legislature’s spring break — ahead of big debates to come in 2017 on the state budget and hundreds of bills,” according to the San Francisco Examiner. “The side deals, which still require legislative approval, showed up in two changes to the budget bill language, with most of it made public at 4 a.m. on the day of the vote.”

Costly neglect

One reason for Brown’s sense of urgency was familiar to residents across the state: California has fallen woefully behind on infrastructure repairs and improvements. “Most of the money, about $33.7 billion, will pay for a backlog of infrastructure repair projects that has grown to $130 billion,” as The Hill reported on the deal. “The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that half the state’s roads are in poor conditions.” And, in a familiar pattern, Sacramento’s choice to proceed with the gas tax fueled speculation that other states in similar straits could quickly follow suit. “As infrastructure maintenance costs pile up, several other states are debating whether to raise gas taxes to deal with local projects,” The Hill added. “Louisiana legislators will debate a proposal to raise gas taxes in a special session beginning next week. The Republican-led Montana state House voted to raise taxes by eight cents per gallon in March, and the state Senate will take up the proposal this month.”

The impending change leaves Republicans on the outs — and residents unhappy with the prospect of even higher taxes on one of life’s staples in California. “If voters don’t like the tax, he says they can start a petition to get a referendum on the ballot, but that would require a lot of money and more than 1 million signatures. But supporters say it’s not worth it, so long as the 10-year, $52 billion measure goes to California’s ruined roads,”,” CBS Sacramento noted. “Either side you’re on, energy analysts say the tax will leave California with the highest fuel tax in the nation.”

Nearly 10,000 inmates could leave California prisons within four years, another consequence of the state’s long struggle with the judicial system over the way it incarcerates convicts. 

“As the state prison population comes close to exceeding a court-mandated limit, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is pursuing new regulations that aim to get more inmates paroled more quickly over time,” the Sacramento Bee reported. “The proposed rules, originating from voter approval of Proposition 57 in November and unveiled [March 24], would allow ‘nonviolent’ felons to first seek parole at the conclusion of the base term for their primary offense, before serving additional time for other charges and enhancements that can add years to their sentence.”

A vote’s consequences

Through Prop. 57, new regulations were slated to come into effect instituting a credit system for inmates hoping to reduce their sentences. “The main regulation is the credit earning system, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation,” KXTV noted. “For milestone completion credits, an inmate can earn them when they complete a specific education or career training program that’s also attached to attendance and performance requirements. Prop. 57 increases the amount of time an inmate can earn for these types of credits from six to 12 weeks per year.”

“Rehabilitative Achievement Credits are where inmates can participate in approved self-help groups or other activities promoting the rehabilitating or positive behavioral changes in an inmate. Inmates are able to earn up to four weeks of these credits annually. The last are Educational Merit Credits where inmates who successfully complete and achieve a GED, high school diploma, college degree or alcohol and drug counseling certifications.”

Working the numbers

Although the state’s prison population is closing in on the court-mandated limit of around 116,000, the new regulations must still be approved by California regulators. “If that happens, parole eligibility would change April 12,” KSBY noted. “There would be a public comment period. The early release would be phased in starting May 1, while the public review is underway. Final approval is possible by October.” In another shift, the Associated Press reported, the rules “would let the state phase out a long-running program that currently keeps nearly 4,300 inmates in private prisons in other states.”

That regime came under criticism last year as the federal government withdrew similar efforts. “California has transferred prisoners to private institutions, some of them in other states, for more than five years to relieve overcrowding in state prisons, but state, and local, use of them is beginning to be questioned,” the Chronicle reported last year. “One Bay Area lawmaker has called for the state to stop sending inmates to prisons far from their families or California inspectors, and another legislator is moving to stop cities and counties in California from contracting with private prisons to hold federal immigration detainees.”

Parole push

Continued pressure to limit action on some rules could come from law enforcement. “Police and prosecutors opposed the move for easier parole, arguing it would put dangerous offenders back on the streets too soon,” Voice of America recalled. “The new rules also change the process that prosecutors and victims use to object to early parole, doing away with lengthy formal parole hearings in favor of written statements. Prosecutors say victims have the right to be heard before any decision for parole is made.”

The new rule on parole “remains the top concern for the California District Attorneys Association,” San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe, the group’s president, indicated to the Associated Press. “Under the changes, prosecutors and victims would have 30 days to object in writing to the earlier paroles. It’s a much different process than the hours-long hearings used to consider parole for life-term inmates such as followers of cult leader Charles Manson, for instance, and the governor will have no role in the largely administrative decisions.”