In Los Angeles Superior Court, $2.8 million in fines had been collected and more than 28,000 driver’s licenses restored by the middle of December, according to a new KPCC report. The law passed in September after advocates for the downtrodden urged the Legislature to lessen the effect of some of the nation’s heaviest traffic violation fines.

Three measures, passed last session, provide relief to motorists in trouble:

• Senate Bill 85 requires counties to implement an amnesty program. Amnesty runs through March 31, 2017.
• Assembly Bill 1151 provides a way for drivers facing parking ticket fines to pay by installments.
• Senate Bill 405 allows drivers to contest fines before paying the fine by a set deadline and gives those in arrears more time to make good. The previous law made it difficult for drivers to contest tickets and added penalties for prolonged pay periods. Traffic tickets for $35 violations were turning into $200-plus fines once a state fee, a court cost fee and a county assessment were tacked on.

Now, though, the state and municipalities will have to deal with a loss of revenue.

Following the Money

The money ends up funding any number of government projects and enterprises, depending on the location, the issuing agency and the type of violation.

Source: Los Angeles Superior Court

The state attaches 20 percent onto any traffic ticket, of which 70 percent is distributed to a number of operations. Leading that is a restitution fund (32 percent) followed by driver training assessment (25 percent) — which pays for driver training in schools — and police training (24 percent). Eight percent also goes to the corrections training fund, which exists “for the development of appropriate standards, training and program evaluation.”

“California is unique in that traffic fees go to so many different funds as a revenue source,” said John Bowman, vice president of the National Motorists Association. “You just don’t see it to that degree in other states.”

Diverting portions of the revenue to things like officer training, he said, makes no sense.

“It seems logical that the proceeds of the fine should be tied to the nature of that fine.”

In some cases, cities and counties battle for the revenue. The city of San Jose in 2011 complained in a report that the $4 million it had been receiving for 50,000 violations has been tapped by outside government sources.

“Most revenue from traffic citations benefits the state of California and the county, not the city,” the report stated.

Legislative analysts found that amnesty would have no effect on local or state coffers.

But that seems unlikely, unless SB405 was simply a feel-good measure to make motorists feel like their representatives were offering them some relief.

“This sounds like a gesture,” said Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. “If a person feels they have a good chance to win in court, why wouldn’t they in the first place?”

But language in SB85 does give more money to state funds supported by traffic fines and fees:

The bill would, following the transfer to the Judicial Council of the first $250,000 received, increase the percentage of specified penalties to be deposited in the Peace Officers’ Training Fund and the Corrections Training Fund, which are continuously appropriated funds.

Source: National Motorists Association

California, with 13 million registered vehicles on the road, ranks second to Texas in the number of speed traps over the last five years, according to a recent study by the National Motorists Association.

The state also ranks in the top 10 based on speed traps per 1,000 of lane miles.

The crowd-sourced speedtrap.org website has tracked trouble areas and warned drivers since 1999.  Los Angeles tops the list of speed traps in the state with 57, with San Diego second with 48.  San Jose, Riverside and Fresno round out the top five.

For more information about how to qualify for the program, organized by county, see http://www.courts.ca.gov/trafficamnesty.htm

Steve Miller can be reached at 517-775-9952 and avalanche50@hotmail.com. His website is www.Avalanche50.com

The president also obviously wants to keep pointing out that, despite the beginning of the race to succeed him, he is not a lame duck. He said:

I’ve only got two years left, but two years is a long time … and two years is also the time in which we’re going to be setting the stage for the next presidential election and the next 10 years of American policy. I intend to run through the tape, and work really hard, and squeeze every last little bit of change and improvement into the lives of ordinary Americans and middle-class Americans that I can.

According to the Chronicle, he spoke before “about 60 donors at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser at the Russian Hill home of Sandy Robertson, a tech financier, and his wife, Jeanne.”

But the president’s ambitious agenda already is putting up a higher price tag for California. As the Chronicle itself also noted in an editorial on the president’s amnesty program:

The actions, which are being challenged in court, could delay deportation for millions of immigrants who have not attained legal status — hundreds of thousands of whom live in California.

Since current state law allows “deferred action” immigrants to apply for certain government services in health and human services, that would mean a new and potentially costly strain on those programs as well.

“The President’s recent executive action on immigration would have a highly uncertain fiscal impact on human services programs,” wrote the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office in a report about the state budget released on Thursday. The office also wrote similar language in a separate report on the state’s health care budget.

The programs for which these immigrants would be newly eligible include Medi-Cal, in-home health care services, and the Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants. CAPI is a state program that provides cash assistance to legal immigrants who are ineligible for Supplementary Security Income or disability assistance due to their immigration status.

The potential of adding hundreds of thousands of recipients to these programs is daunting, to say the least, and Gov. Jerry Brown hasn’t included any additional funding for this possibility in his current budget.

By John Seiler

Tony Quinn gets things partly right when he writes in a Fox & Hounds article, “Are Republicans Finally Learning to Count?“:

“But now some Republicans at last want to face that reality and make some changes.  I call them the Republicans Who Can Count.

“The Republicans Who Can’t Count were on full display in 2012. Presidential nominee Mitt Romney ran the most vitriolic anti-immigrant campaign in the primaries; Asian and Latino turnout and straight ticket Democratic voting in the general election was the highest in history. Some GOP legislators in battleground states thought the way to victory was to repress minority voting; African Americans turned out in states like Ohio and Florida at historical records.  GOP pollsters modeled a voter turnout that did not exist and ended up looking like fools on election day when a flood of Democrats showed up and dealt their candidates defeat after defeat.

“Now the Republicans who can count are moving to take over the party with a mission to stop alienating the fastest growing parts of the American electorate, and also to stop running fringe candidates whose only goal seems to be to turn off moderate voters.”

It’s true the GOP is having problems attracting Latino voters. It’s likely to continue to do so no matter what it does. Voting patterns generally are locked in for families and ethnic groups for generations. It’s hard to change them.

And he ignores an even bigger constituency: The Republican “base” that wants not to “reform” immigration, but to end it entirely. If they’re alienated, then the GOP can’t win, either.

The immigration restriction “base” for the GOP is like public-employee unions are for the Democrats in California. They’re the strongest faction. The only way to get around them is to lie to them.

McCain-Kennedy

Hence, Sen. John McCain co-sponsored the McCain-Kennedy immigration amnesty in 2005. He downplayed that in his 2008 presidential run. After he was wiped out by Obama that November, then re-elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010, he went back to pushing amnesty.

Just Tuesday, an “angry crowd” confronted McCain over his pro-amnesty agenda:

“Sen. John McCain defended his proposed immigration overhaul to an angry crowd in suburban Phoenix….

“McCain hosted two town hall meetings in Arizona, during which he defended his immigration plan to upset residents concerned about border security….

“During a heated town hall gathering in the Phoenix suburb of Sun Lakes, McCain said the border near Yuma is largely secure, but he said smugglers are using the border near Tucson to pump drugs into Phoenix. He said immigration reform should be contingent on better border security that must rely largely on technology able to detect border crossings.

“McCain said a tamper-proof Social Security card would help combat identity fraud, and noted any path to citizenship must require immigrants to learn English, cover back taxes and pay fines for breaking immigration laws.

“‘There are 11 million people living here illegally,’ he said. “We are not going to get enough buses to deport them.”

“Some audience members shouted out their disapproval.

“One man yelled that only guns would discourage illegal immigration. Another man complained that illegal immigrants should never be able to become citizens or vote. A third man said illegal immigrants were illiterate invaders who wanted free government benefits.

“McCain urged compassion. ‘We are a Judeo-Christian nation,’ he said. McCain’s other town hall meeting took place in Green Valley, south of Tucson.”

That’s the Republican “base,” and it’s not going away. I’m sure the “base” also was amused at getting a Sunday School lesson on “Judeo-Christian” morality for someone who, as noted, hid his position on amnesty during his 2008 campaign and his 2010 Senate re-election campaign. Oh, and he was part of the Keating Five banking scandal crooks.

Can’t win scenario

So, Republicans can’t win with the immigration restriction “base,” and can’t win without ’em. At about half the party’s strength, this “base” is far greater than any potential new Latino votes that might be garnered by embracing amnesty.

McCain himself got a scare. In 2004, McCain had no primary opponent. But in his 2010 Senate primary, challenger J.D. Hayworth grabbed 32 percent of the vote largely by pointing out McCain’s pro-amnesty record (see YouTube below). In pro-military Arizona, war hero McCain is Senator-for-Life. But a 32 percent challenge is serious.

Quinn also should have pointed out, as I often have, that since Reagan left, the GOP has run one dud candidate after another for president beginning in 1988: the Bushes, Dole, McCain and Romney. And their campaigns have been risible. Meg Whitman ran a better campaign than Romney.

The GOP’s only chance is for an overall federal and state government default to be blamed on the Democrats. Which is coming.

By John Seiler

I agree with my colleague Katy Grimes’ assessment that Mitt Romney easily won last night’s debate. He easily command over President Valium.

But the debate ignored an issue critical to California: immigration.

Romney won the primaries largely because he talked tough on immigration. He painted his main opponents, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry, as amnesty wimps. This went over big time with the party’s anti-immigration base.

As longtime Romney enthusiast Ann Coulter wrote last December:

“capitulate on illegal immigration, and the entire country will have the electorate of California. There will be no turning back….

“Massive legal and illegal immigration has already so changed the California electorate that no Republican can be elected statewide anymore. Not so long ago, this was a state that produced great Republican governors and senators like Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, S.I. Hayakawa and Pete Wilson. 

“If even Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, two bright, attractive, successful female business executives — one pro-life and one pro-choice — can’t win a statewide election in California spending millions of their own dollars in the middle of the 2010 Republican sweep, it’s buenas noches, muchachos. 

“Only Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney aren’t trying to sneak through amnesty for illegal aliens.”

By then, Bachmann was not a contender. So that left Romney.

Gov. Etch-A-Sketch

But on Monday, Romney flip-flopped on immigration — again. National Journal reported:

“Mitt Romney’s advisers have long insisted that economic doldrums—not immigration policy—would turn Hispanic voters toward the Republican nominee.

“But Romney’s decision to break his silence on allowing young illegal immigrants to stay in the United States reflects a shift in that failing strategy and an implicit admission that the increasingly powerful Hispanic vote could, in part, cost him the election.

“After months of mostly stonewalling about President Obama’s order to stop deporting children brought to the United States illegally by their parents, Romney told The Denver Post on Monday that he would not repeal those temporary visas. On Tuesday, his campaign said he would end the program for others if elected president.”

Actually, the Hispanic vote is only about 7 percent of the electorate. It routinely votes about 67 percent Democratic. Assuming Romney’s new position resonates among Hispanics, he might reduce that 67 percent to 60 percent — if he’s lucky. So, he would improve by 7 percentage points. Multiply that (.07) times a 7 percent electorate (.07) and  at most he would gain 0.35 percentage points.

Moreover, few of the expected pro-Romney Hispanic switch would be in swing states. Most Hispanics live in big Blue states (California, New York, Illinois) or Texas (Red state for now). Florida is an exception, because it’s a swing state with a lot of Hispanics. But most Hispanics there are Cubans, for whom there’s already a special law allowing relatives to come here as refugees from Castro’s communism.

Hispanics soon will be a much larger electorate. They’re 16 percent of the population now, but their population is younger, so they have more kids under 18 years old; and many are immigrants, legal and illegal, until they become citizens. But this isn’t the 2024 election; it’s the 2012 election.

Meanwhile, the white (“Anglo”) electorate still is about 65 percent of the national electorate. Probably at least half of them oppose amnesty. How many of them will be offended now that Romney supports amnesty? Probably a lot more than .35 percentage points. Many in Ohio, Iowa, Colorado and other swing states will stay home in disgust on election day.

It’s no wonder his adviser, Eric Fehrnstrom, said last March after Mitt had wound up his primary victories and secured the nomination, “Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch-A-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.”

Obama could have brought up amnesty as yet another Etch-A-Sketch Romney moment, but the president was napping.

Maybe immigration will come up in a later debate. But for now, this issue crucial especially to California is not even being discussed in this campaign.