But the same correlation doesn’t extend to the perception of President Barack Obama, who received high marks, and the direction of the country, which a 54-percent majority sees headed down the wrong path. 

Brown and Obama polled nearly the same — 56 and 57 percent approval, respectively — with Democrats largely in support of both executives and Republicans largely disapproving.

Brown hasn’t dipped below 50 percent in the Field Poll since October 2012, when the state was still dealing with a budget crisis. For his part, Obama has consistently polled higher than Brown over the years. 

Depends on who you ask

The partisan split tells a different tale. While Democrats support Brown with a 74 percent approval rating, only 33 percent of Republicans approve. The split widens for Obama, who drew an 80 percent approval rating from Democrats and only 18 percent from Republicans.

Californians love California

But while Californians are more supportive of Obama than Brown, they are much more optimistic about the direction of the state compared to the direction of the country.

Fifty-two percent of Californians think the Golden State is on the right path, while only 34 percent think the country is headed in the right direction. In fact, the perception of California’s path has been steadily increasing since the 13-percent low point in 2010.  

What are they doing in Washington?

Californians’ perception of the country’s path has been far more volatile, hitting 45 percent in 2009, 24 percent in 2011, 42 percent in 2012 and 35 percent in 2014. And a majority of Californians haven’t thought the country was on the right track since 2002. 

The partisan split in perception continues with the direction of the country. Democrats are much more optimistic in both instances, with 66 percent saying California is on the right path and 44 percent approving of the country’s direction.

Republicans, meanwhile, pan both the direction of the state and country — 29 percent approval and 14 percent approval, respectively.

Sanchez — a Democratic congresswoman from Orange County — is hoping to cobble together enough votes from a mix of Latinos, Republicans, independents and Democrats to carry her past Democratic Attorney General Kamala Harris, the frontrunner.

Harris won first place in the June primary by a wide margin — 40 percent to 19 percent — with the vote split between 34 candidates. Polling released Friday gives a clearer picture of how the two candidates stack up head to head, showing Harris in a comfortable, yet surmountable, lead.

And while the polling suggests Sanchez still faces significant difficulties winning over Republicans, Hugh Hewitt, a popular conservative radio host from Orange County, endorsed her on his show on Thursday, giving Sanchez her second high-profile Republican endorsement since the primary.

Polling

To win, Sanchez will likely need around a third of Democrats, the vast majority of Latinos and more than half of independents and Republicans to cast their ballots for her.

A Field Poll released Friday showed Harris with a 15-point lead (39 percent to 24 percent). The good news for Sanchez was that 22 percent of respondents were undecided, the bad news was that 15 percent — a large portion of which were Republicans — said they’d vote for neither.

Harris led among voters in nearly every category, including among Republicans, independents and Southern California voters (Harris is from the Bay Area).

Sanchez, however, had a strong lead among Latinos, a nice lead among voters ages 18 to 39, and a slight lead among voters making less than $40,000 annually.

Republicans

Perhaps the most troubling data point for Sanchez was the 31 percent of Republicans who said they wouldn’t vote in the Senate race, essentially saying they would just skip over that race on the ballot without one of their own to choose from.

Mike Madrid, a Republican consultant who specializes in Latino issues, said he doubted the Republican undervote will be as “significant as other Democrat demographics” and believes Sanchez has a chance to win in November.

“I think there’s a very real shot,” Madrid said. “Difficult, certainly; but absolutely possible.”

Fragile coalition

Sanchez walks a fine line in appealing to Latinos and Republicans, as the former is increasingly dissatisfied with the latter.

And she can’t veer too far to the right and hope to win a large chunk of Democrats or vice versa. After all, Sanchez is still a partisan Democrat and has strong support from Democratic lawmakers and constituencies, including unions. 

While some Republican insiders have reached out to Sanchez, introducing her to donors and voters behind closed doors, few are willing to make overt displays of support. 

Endorsements

Republicans like Hewitt who have come out in support of Sanchez give cover to other Republicans who may have a tough time voting for a Democrat by finding her to be the moderate candidate, or at least the lesser of two evils.

The Libertarian-leaning Orange County Register Editorial Board endorsed Sanchez during the primary (while Republicans were still in the race), primarily for voting against the Iraq War in 2003, for voting against the PATRIOT ACT (which expanded the federal government’s use of surveillance against U.S. citizens), and for opposing the 2008 bank bailout.

Hewitt called her the more “moderate” of the two candidates and said he would occasionally find consensus with Sanchez in military and defense issues — Sanchez sits on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee. 

“You and I are not going to agree a lot, but occasionally, we’re going to agree on Armed Services and some Defense appropriation issues,” Hewitt told Sanchez on air Thursday. “I’m not going to agree with your opponent ever.”

In June, Richard Riordan, the former Republican Mayor of Los Angeles, endorsed Sanchez for her opposition to the Iraq War and for her ability to work across the partisan aisle to pass legislation. 

Congressional Quarterly recently listed Sanchez as one of the 25 most influential women in Washington, for being a “debate shaper and swing vote.” For the majority of her nearly two decades in Congress, she’s been in the minority party, meaning most accomplishments have been made with an element of compromise.

“I’ve known Loretta Sanchez for many years, she is tough and not afraid to take a stand on important issues,” Riordan said at the time. “(Sanchez) knows how to work with Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.”

Sanchez actually used to be a Republican, dating back to high school in Anaheim. But similar to Latinos today repulsed from the Republican Party by its presumptive presidential nominee, Sanchez switched when she heard former Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan warn of the “illegal invasion” of Mexicans coming across the country’s southern border, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Uphill climb

Even if Sanchez can unite behind her Republicans, Latinos, independents and leftover Democrats, she still faces an opponent in Harris who has statewide name recognition and the full backing of the Democratic establishment, which in California has so often proven to be enough. 

For every play she makes for one group, she risks alienating voters of another group. Democratic consultant Steve Maviglio said, for example, attacking Harris, the attorney general, as being soft on crime was a decent strategy, but risks losing appeal among progressives.

And despite Sanchez’s moderate profile as a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Caucus and her independent streak on larger issues, she still has a fairly liberal voting record in the House.

“It’s an uphill climb,” said Maviglio. “What credentials does Loretta Sanchez have to appeal to Republicans? She’s been a partisan Democrat in the House. Is she less liberal than Kamala Harris? Only by a hair. That’s not a convincing argument.”

CalWatchdog Morning Read – April 15, 2016

By CalWatchdog Staff

Hello, everybody! A California appeals court on Thursday reversed a two-year-old landmark decision that upended teacher tenure laws.

The Vergara case challenged several state laws establishing layoff procedures based on seniority, dismissal procedures and how tenure (permanent status) was awarded. Presiding Justice Roger Boren decided the plaintiffs failed to show how the tenure laws “make any certain group of students more likely to be taught by ineffective teachers than any other group of students.”

“It is clear that the challenged statutes here, by only their text, do not inevitably cause poor and minority students to receive an unequal, deficient education,” Boren added.

The ruling is a big win for unions and is likely to be appealed. CalWatchdog has more.

In other news:
– In honor of Tax Day (which is Monday), a new Field Poll says that 54 percent of Californians think their income taxes are too high. Unsurprisingly, that sentiment is more popular with Republicans (80 percent said they pay too much) than Democrats (only 42 percent said they pay too much).

– Income taxes generate roughly two-thirds of the state’s revenue. Nearly 90 percent of that comes from the top one-fifth of taxpayers ($91,000 annually and above), which is the only group of taxpayers whose average income has increased over the last twenty years, reports The Sacramento Bee.

– Two more state lawmakers are asking for UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi to step down in response to several unflattering stories by The Sacramento Bee about outside positions she held and a six-figure effort to scrub the Internet of negative details of an 2011 pepper-spraying-of-students scandal. CalWatchdog has more.

– The legislature approved $176.6 million “to conduct testing and cleanup of lead contamination in the neighborhoods surrounding the closed Exide battery recycling plant in Vernon,” reports the Los Angeles Times.

Assembly:
– Gone ’til Monday at 1 p.m.

Senate:
– Gone ’til Monday at 2 p.m.

Gov. Brown:
– No public events scheduled.

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com
Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp
New followers: @POLSAnnapolis @Perdi5en5

Read more

A whopping 71 percent favor spending more money to fix the roads. A smaller number, 48 percent, favor building new roads; but that’s still higher than the 35 percent opposed to new roads.

But voters split evenly — 49 percent in favor, 48 percent against — when asked if they want to pay 10 cents more per gallon to “improve the condition of state roads and highways.”

Democrats most favor the higher tax levy, at 63 percent affirmative. Republicans oppose it, with 64 percent negative. Given the higher Democratic registration in the state, that should drive the poll in the “yes” camp.

Except the decisive factor is the increasing share of voters who are “No party preference/other.” They clock at 45 percent in favor of the higher tax, 53 percent opposed.

Californians believe, with 76 percent affirming, that “Californians pay more in gasoline taxes compared to most other states.” As the Field Poll noted, in this they are correct:

“at 63.79 cents per gallon, Californians currently pay the second highest combined state and federal gasoline tax rate in the nation, behind only Pennsylvania. The national average is 48.23 cents per gallon.”

No car monitors

A new proposal in California is to pay for roads by miles driven, rather than directly taxing gas purchases. According to the San Jose Mercury News, Gov. Jerry Brown and other officials are looking at the idea.

But for now, state voters want to push the idea off a cliff. The Field Poll found 66 percent opposed, and only 30 percent supported the proposition to:

“Install an electronic device on motor vehicles to measure the exact amount of miles you drive to enable the state to assess a for road funding based on the number of miles people drive instead of charging for gas taxes at the pump.”

Democrats, at 59 percent opposed, were nearly as opposed as Republicans, at 74 percent. No party preference/other was in the middle, exactly at the 66 percent opposed of all those asked.

That’s actually up a little, from the 10 percent to 13 percent approval given Congress from 2010 to 2014.

Approval for Democrats in Congress clocks at 35 percent, which one would expect in a state with much larger Democratic voting registration than Republican. GOP members of Congress get just 23 percent approval.

Indeed, the approval numbers here are similar to party registration, with 43 percent registered Democrats and 28 percent registered Republican. Knock five to eight points off the registration numbers for each party to get the approval for Congress.

As to Republicans taking control of the U.S. Senate last November, giving them majorities in both houses of Congress for the first time since 2006, California Democrats are especially disapproving; 71 percent view it negatively. State Republicans take the opposite view, with 73 percent approving.

Overall — including Democrats, Republicans and those of other parties or no party — 49 percent don’t like GOP control of Congress, with 37 percent approving. That, too, represents the general Democratic leanings of Californians.

The poll was conducted Jan. 26 to Feb. 16, so it only reflects the preliminary jousting in Congress between the parties; and between the GOP leadership and Democratic President Obama. As wrangling over the federal budget and other controversies progresses, the numbers may change.

In the Field Poll released today, the last before next Tuesday’s election, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown holds a commanding, 21-point lead over Republican challenger Neel Kashkari, 54 percent to 33 percent.

Brown has conducted scarcely any campaign at all, largely paying for TV ads featuring him touting Proposition 1, the $7.5 billion water bond measure; and Proposition 2, for a stronger rainy-day fund.

The Brown Magic, under the slogan, “California is back!” has transcended a national trend of voters revolting against governors in states with sluggish economies. Also today, the Wall Street Journal featured a front-page story headlined, “How the Economy Is Stoking Voter Anger at Incumbent Governors.” Subhead, “Despite rising consumer confidence, Republican and Democratic governors struggle in Florida, Colorado, Michigan and Connecticut.”

Nowhere in the article are Brown and California mentioned. Yet California’s economy, despite surface appearances and soaring Silicon Valley, is sluggish at best. Its unemployment rate in September was 7.3 percent, fourth worst among the states — and higher than all four states featured in the Wall Street article.

And California’s poverty rate, when the cost of living is taken into account, remains the nation’s worst.

Kashkari has tried to cash in on such realities, such as by spending a week as a homeless person. But nothing has caught on in a battle against an incumbent governor who learned state politics at the knee of his father seven decades ago.

Superintendent of public instruction

The major race up for grabs is for the officially non-partisan office of superintendent of public instruction. The two candidates, incumbent Tom Torlakson and challenger Marshall Tuck, are neck-and-neck at 28 percent. Both are Democrats. Torlakson comes from the currently dominant teachers-union faction in the party, while Tuck comes from the newer faction of education reformers.

Undecideds come in at a high 44 percent, compared to just 13 percent undecided in the governor’s race.

The party breakdowns also are pretty close. The most interesting one is that Torlakson gets just 28 percent, the same as overall, among his fellow Democrats, not a good sign. Tuck does drop 4 points, to 24 percent, among Democrats. But the undecideds rise to 48 percent.

Basically, even his fellow Democrats — supposedly the party of his major union backers — aren’t keen on keeping Torlakson around.

Among Republicans, Tuck is ahead, 32-25, with 43 percent undecided. Given that this likely is a “Republican” year for voting — with Democrats not having as much reason to turn out at the polls — that could be good news for Tuck.

Among the increasingly large “No party preference” section of the electorate, Torlakson gains his largest lead, with 31 percent. Although Tuck holds his own, at 28 percent, with 41 percent undecided.

The race for this office may be the principal beneficiary of the Top Two reform, which voters passed as Proposition 14 in 2010. Although the superintendent’s office is non-partisan, party identification still creeps in strongly.

Under the old system, several candidates would be on the Nov. 4 ballot, one of them a Republican with little chance of winning in a Democratic state.

But Top Two cut out all but two candidates, both Democrats, allowing Tuck to challenge an incumbent who otherwise would have been entrenched.

Lieutenant governor

The race for lieutenant governor sees Republican challenger Ron Nehring pulling within 10 points of incumbent Democrat Gavin Newsom, 47-37. Newsom is best known for having suggested his post should be abolished if it wasn’t given more duties.

A Newsom victory would set him up as a major contender to succeed Brown in 2018. In February, he came out questioning the high-speed rail project dear to the governor’s agenda and heart. It might be a way to distinguish himself from the governor.

Nehring is a former state GOP chairman who, as with other down-ticket Republicans, has found it difficult gaining traction in a heavily Democratic state headed by a popular Democratic governor.

Attorney General

Incumbent Attorney General Kamala Harris, a Democrat, enjoys a 13-point lead over her GOP opponent, Ron Gold, leading 49-36.

An easy Harris win would position her as the major contender with Newsom for the governor’s spot in 2018. She also has been touted as a top candidate to replace outgoing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

And both Harris and Newsom, after their expected victories, would be well positioned to run for Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer’s seat should she decide not to run in 2016.

Controller and Treasurer

Republicans have put much hope in Ashley Swearengin, the Fresno mayor running for controller. Although she is doing better than other Republicans on the ballot, she’s still falling short. Democrat Betty Yee, a member of the Board of Equalization, is ahead by 8 points, 44-36, with 20 percent undecided.

Likewise, the treasurer’s race sees Democrat John Chiang, currently the state controller, ahead of Republican Greg Conlin by 11 points, 46-35, with 19 percent undecided.

Insurance commissioner

The insurance commissioner’s race has gained increasing importance because of Proposition 45 on the ballot. It would give the commissioner approval over medical insurance rates.

Incumbent Democrat Dave Jones is ahead of Republican challenger Ted Gaines by 12 points, 45 to 33 percent, with 22 percent undecided.

Summary

In sum, if the Field Poll numbers hold, Republicans still haven’t found a way to gain traction against Democrats in the Golden State.

On the positive side, the GOP this time definitely has a different look than in the past, especially with Kashkari and Swearengin. Gone are the high-profile candidacies of the mega-wealthy Arnold Schwarzenegger and Meg Whitman, who left in their wake nothing for the party to build on but bad memories — and, in Arnold’s case, a legacy of record deficits and tax increases.

In their place are candidates willing to get out and fight it out in the trenches to build a new party. It’s a start.

If it wins, that means health insurance rates also will be going up, now down. That’s because some insurance companies won’t be able to make a profit if their rates are kept artificially low. So they’ll pull out of the state. Reduced competition will force rates up — and those who can’t pay will go into Obamacare.

Something similar happened about 15 years ago to workers’ compensation insurance. The state wouldn’t let insurance companies make a profit, so they left. That turned more than 50 percent of work comp insurance over to the state fund until bipartisan reform, passed by the Democratic Legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in 2004 restored balance.

But things are different in the case of overall health care. That’s because it already was reformed, in 2010 with the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare.

The Field Poll also just found that 56 percent of Californians backed Obamacare and its state implementation, Covered California; 35 percent were opposed.

Of course, that’s before the massive spikes in premiums scheduled for the future, as Troy Anderson reported yesterday on our website.

Single-payer

But what I think all of this is heading toward is a single-payer, socialist system for California. Advocates have said it’s the only way to keep costs down. Even Schwarzenegger provided his own version in 2007, although it was criticized even by the left for its complications and high cost.

We’ll probably end up with something like the Canadian plan, with costs kept down by forcing people into long lines, sometimes till they’re dead, as even the New York Times reported.

Canada also bans most alternatives to the government system. That seems unlikely to happen here. So there still will be non-government medicine in California, just outside the socialist system and very expensive. The leftists in Hollywood and Silicon Valley who favor socialism for everyone else still will be able to pay for the best care with cold hard cash.

There will be alternatives for the middle class: Save your money and pay cash for health care elsewhere — Mexico, Singapore, India. Time to make sure your passport is in order.

The lack of public support for the strike is striking in that the union is arguably the state’s most sympathetic public employee union. The union says that 99 percent of its food workers, custodians and respiratory therapists are income-eligible for some form of public assistance, which it contrasts with the bloated salaries and lavish benefits provided to top UC administrators.

Despite the clear income inequality among the 190,000 faculty and staff at the University of California, a majority of Democrat elected officials have failed to publicly comment on the upcoming strike.

High-paid BART employees undermined low-paid UC workers

Since last summer’s strike by Bay Area transit workers, Democrat politicians have become fickle friends of organized labor.

Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “among the best-off in the country,” the 2,300 BART mechanics, custodians, station agents, train operators and clerical staff earned an average base salary of $71,000 per year plus $11,000 in overtime pay. That was before the union received a 15.38 percent pay increase over four years in exchange for increased pension contributions. Previously, BART paid both the employee and employer pension contributions.

Several Democrat leaders, including Assembly candidate Steve Glazer, publicly opposed the strike, signaling an intraparty split on labor issues.

“The prospect that well-paid Bay Area Rapid Transit system workers with lavish benefits and little-known perks might inconvenience rich white-collar liberals in the San Francisco area,” wrote CalWatchdog’s Chris Reed, “has finally triggered an intraparty battle of the kind that California Democrats have somehow managed to avoid for decades.”

Field Poll: Public sours on unions

Following that bruising battle at BART, for the first time, Californians have a negative view of organized labor. Last December, a Field Poll found that a plurality of registered voters said that unions “do more harm than good.” Forty five percent of those surveyed viewed unions negatively, a 16-point swing in just two years.

Union approval has even fallen among union households. Thirty one percent of union households have a negative view of unions, a huge increase from the 18 percent result reported in March 2011.

“It seems like they keep winning the battles,” Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo said back in December when the poll was released. “The question becomes, ‘Are they moving the public in the direction where they may lose the war?’”

That first casualty in the war against unions are the low-paid service workers at the University of California. Earlier this month, AFSCME 3299 released a  list of elected officials throughout California who “have united in support of AFSCME 3299’s pursuit of a fair contract settlement with UC.” Just eight state legislators were included on the list.

Even former union members are jettisoning their union credentials. State Sen. Norma Torres, D-Pomona, who recently launched her third campaign in three years, wasn’t among the small group of state legislators to publicly back the lowest-paid workers at the University of California. Her absence was noticeable given that she’s a former member of AFSCME. Since being elected to the Legislature, Torres has distanced herself from the union by omitting her union activities from her official biography.

Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez stands with UC workers

Not all Democrats are shunning labor unions out of political expediency. Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, a former secretary-treasurer of the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, has repeatedly offered support for UC’s lowest-paid workers.

“UC continues to disregard the well-being of its lowest wage workers,” said Gonzalez, one of the eight Democrat legislators to publicly stand up for UC workers. “It makes no sense for the Legislature to continue to write the UC system a blank check while they continue to increase the wages of those at the very top, while leaving our service workers to be subsidized by taxpayers through safety net programs.”

She added, “All work is dignified and all workers should be accorded respect by our public university system.”

In addition to Gonzalez, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who serves on the UC Board of Regents, has voiced his support for AFSCME 3299 on various social networks. The union adds that more members are silently with them.

“Whether on picket lines, phone lines, in letters or in statements to the press, the overwhelming majority of the state Legislature’s Democratic Caucus has stood shoulder to shoulder with AFSCME 3299 members throughout their struggle for fairness and dignity at the University of California, and we are deeply grateful for their support,” AFSCME 3299 said in a statement. “We are equally grateful to the members of the GOP Caucus who have stood with us.  Our fight is not a matter of right and left, but right and wrong.”

96 percent of UC service workers and patient care workers voted in favor of the strike authorization. AFSCME 3299 represents 8,300 service workers and 13,000 patient care technical workers.

The eight legislators who publicly back AFSCME 3299

• State Senate Majority Leader Ellen Corbett
• Assembly member Marc Levine
• Assembly member Paul Fong
• Assembly member Jimmy Gomez
• Assembly member Lorena Gonzalez
• Assembly member Shirley Weber, Ph.D.
• Assembly member Rob Bonta
• Assembly member Reggie Jones-Sawyer

So it was inevitable that Californians would turn against the state’s powerful public-sector unions. When you’re on top and people become dissatisfied, you inevitably become the scapegoat.

California supposedly is “prosperous,” which it certainly is for Silicon Valley billionaires and public-sector unionized workers. But California also has the country’s highest poverty rate, as a U.S. Census Bureau study revealed last month.

A new Field Poll…

“finds the proportion of voters believing unions do more harm than good has increased ten points, from 35% to 45%, while those believing unions do more good than harm has declined six points from 46% to 40%. Thus, there has been a net sixteen-point swing in voter sentiment from the positive to negative side over this period.”

That’s a sharp decline in less than three years. Currently, the opinions are 40 percent favorable to 45 percent unfavorable.

Transit worker strike

Here’s another finding:

“California voters are split almost evenly on the issue of whether public transit workers should be allowed to strike when their leaders are unable to reach agreement with management on a new contract. Statewide 47% believe they should continue to have this right, while 44% think they should not.”

And dig this. The Bay Area is by far the state’s most liberal area. Californians generally are slightly favorable to public transit workers’ right to strike. But…

“One significant exception to this relates to voters in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. While a slightly larger proportion of Bay Area voters views labor unions positively than negatively overall, by a 52% to 41% margin they oppose allowing public transit workers the right to strike.”

The reason, obviously, is the BART strike in July, which snarled transportation throughout the Bay Area. Even liberals get ticked off when they can’t get to work.

Other factors

Meanwhile, other factors militating against the unions include the ongoing pension crisis, which contributed to the municipal bankruptcies in Vallejo, Stockton and San Bernardino; and the possible bankruptcy in Desert Hot Springs.

And the most powerful union in the state, the California Teachers Association, has to take at least some of the blame for the state’s students’ continued performance near the bottom of national testing. The influx of new money to education from the Proposition 30 tax increase, and from Gov. Jerry Brown’s shifting of money from rich to poor schools, is unlikely to change that — especially with the new national Common Core standards dumbing down testing. The problem isn’t a lack of money, but a lack of competition, and of choice for parents.

The teachers’ unions also continue to stifle even modest reforms to reduce the scandals of teachers abusing students.

Can Republicans take advantage of this dissatisfaction with unions so identified with the state’s Democratic Party? Only a little. The GOP’s brand remains too sullied.

But that means the Democratic Party will suffer fissures, with black and Hispanics especially upset at the public schools failing, year after year, to educate their kids. With money flowing in and Republicans irrelevant, who but the unions can take the blame?

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of articles on the propositions on the November ballot.

Oct. 8, 2012

By Dave Roberts

Proposition 30 is either a vital lifeline for budget-ravaged schools and social services. Or it’s unnecessary taxation by a government with a record of wasting money that will accelerate the exodus of residents and businesses out of state. It would increase sales taxes a quarter cent; and boost income taxes up to 3 percentage points on those making $250,000 or more a year. The top income tax rate would rise to 13.3 percent, the highest state rate in the nation.

Those were the contrasting views of numerous Democrats, liberals and education officials supporting Prop. 30, and a couple of Republicans and a taxpayer advocate opposing it at the Assembly Budget Committee’s recent informational hearing.

The latest Field poll showed Prop. 30 losing support, with just 51 percent saying they will vote for it, down from 54 percent in July. Forty percent believe they are already over-taxed.

Prop. 30 is expected to generate about $6 billion annually for four years beginning in 2013, after which the sales tax hike expires. The income tax hike on top earners continues for three more years after that. The actual amount generated could be a couple billion dollars more or less than $6 billion, depending on how the economy is doing, according to legislative analyst Mark Whitaker. The Legislative Analyst’s Office does not factor in the ramifications of residents and businesses leaving the state as a result of higher taxes.

Prop. 30 is competing on the ballot with Proposition 38, an income tax hike on nearly all Californian earners lasting 12 years that is projected to generate about $10 billion annually in initial years, with most of the money slated for schools. If both propositions receive a majority of votes, only the one receiving the most votes would take effect.

League of Women Voters

Arguing in favor of Prop. 30 at the committee hearing was Trudy Schafer, representing the League of Women Voters of California.

“Californians recognize that education and other services like health care, child care, the courts have all been cut to the bone,” said Schafer. “Prop. 30 begins to move California toward financial stability and adequate funding for all the services that we want from our government. We can’t continue to cut vital public services like schools and public safety. After years of such cuts, our schools, our universities, public safety services and others are at the breaking point. We just can’t continue to do this and still keep an economy that is strong, well informed, well educated for the next generation.”

School funding has been cut $20 billion in the last four years, resulting in 30,000 teacher layoffs, according to Schafer. She warned, “If Prop. 30 is not enacted, schools would be forced to shorten the school year, lay off thousands more teachers, increasing class sizes perhaps by another 20 percent, stop buying textbooks and increase community college tuition even more. So we need to stop those things.”

Jarvis group

Making the case against Prop. 30 was David Wolfe,  representing the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. He argued that calling Prop. 30 a “temporary” tax hike is deceptive because it lasts seven years and it’s likely there would be an effort to extend it at that time, as occurred with the failed Prop. 1A tax extension effort in 2009. Wolfe also pointed out that Prop. 30 would do nothing to solve California’s problem of unpredictable levels of tax revenue from year to year.

“Prop. 30 will not fix our progressive income tax system that created our current structural budget problem,” he said. “In fact, by adding three new brackets to the seven already in place it makes the problem worse. Already the top 144,000 taxpayers in the state, the top 1 percent, pay 37 percent of the total personal income tax revenue that the state receives. And this is a problem that Proposition 30 does nothing to address. Everyone knows that the number one problem with California’s tax structure is volatility. And even the governor admits that Proposition 30 makes this volatility problem much, much worse.”

Wolfe argued that raising income taxes on those making $250,000 or more will hurt small businesses, which typically file their taxes as personal instead of corporate income. “This is something we can ill afford with 2 million Californians out of work right now,” he said.

California doesn’t exactly have a strong track record in spending tax dollars wisely, Wolfe noted.

“It’s very difficult to justify a $50 billion tax increase when one considers the amount of wasteful spending and lack of reforms that have been uncovered just this year alone,” he said. “Let’s start with high-speed rail. The Legislature authorized this year that $6 billion worth of bond money at an interest cost to taxpayers of $300 million a year go to build not a usable segment but a piece of track between Bakersfield and Merced.”

Wolfe also cited pension reform that is estimated to save $30-$50 billion over 30 years when the state’s unfunded pension liability has been estimated at $500 billion. “We would argue this is not reform, this is window dressing,” he said.

And he mentioned the budgetary “rainy day fund” that was supposed to be on the 2012 ballot but instead was moved to 2014 after Democrats reneged on their agreement. There’s also the $54 million parks department slush fund that no one knew about while parks were threatened with closure.

“We can’t even manage the money that we have available,” said Wolfe. “And now taxpayers should give $50 billion more? No way.”

No new money

Ironically, although Prop. 30 is touted as helping schools, “it will actually provide no new money for educational programs,” he said. “And although it supports Prop. 30, this was clearly articulated by the California School Boards Association.”

Howard Jarvis has run a radio ad making that point and quoting the CSBA.

But Dennis Meyers, CSBA assistant executive director for governmental relations, told the committee that its words were taken out of context. “Proposition 30 is good for public schools; they are much better off with it than without it,” he said.

However, Meyers acknowledged that Prop. 30 won’t in fact provide new funding, but instead would simply restore some of the funding that has been cut in recent years.

“Without Prop. 30, schools are 14 percent below the amount of funding they received in 2007-08,” he said. “With Prop. 30, we are 9 percent [below]. It begins to build back what we lost over the last five budget cycles.”

One of the main points of contention in the two-hour Assembly committee hearing focused on whether California’s government is actually spending more currently than it has in the past. Brian Nestande, R-Palm Desert, said the budget cuts have been overstated because many are only temporary.

“They are almost illusionary because they happen one year to the next and then go right back,” he said. “Your overhead stays the same, basically. But as far as spending overall, spending is up overall. I’m not going to argue that these aren’t hard choices. But the point of fact is that if you factor in the use of special funds, it’s $20-30 billion more than it was a couple years ago. Federal monies, tens of billions of dollars more. Money that the state spends from the federal government, from special funds, from our general budget is up every year since I’ve been here. That’s just a fact.”

That assertion threw the Democrats on the committee into a tizzy. One after another cited cuts to schools, the courts, health care and a plethora of social service programs, which are all paid out of the General Fund.

But Nestande is correct about the increase in overall spending, according to figures from the state Department of Finance. Total state spending in the 2012-13 budget is $225.4 billion. That includes $91.4 billion in the General Fund, $39.4 billion in special funds, $11.7 billion in bond funds and $82.9 billion in federal funds. It’s true that General Fund spending is down from its high of nearly $103 billion in 2007-08. But total spending is at an all-time high. It’s now $31 million, or 16 percent, higher than the state spent in 2007-08, and has more than doubled in the past 14 years.

Nestande argued that what’s really needed in California is an overhaul of the tax system, moving toward a consumption tax.

“Economists agree, right or left, a consumption-based tax is the best taxing system for an economy,” he said. “You get more revenue into the state by allowing the economy to grow and not having this disproportionately heavy income tax, heavy sales tax, which harms the economy and inhibits growth and inhibits revenue to the state.”