By John Hrabe

Anti-tax groups face a tall order this November. There’s priority one: defeating the competing multi-billion-dollar tax-increase plans of Gov. Jerry Brown and liberal activist Molly Munger. Both propositions will receive tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions from unions and special interest groups.

Even if both measures fail, Democrats have a backup plan to push tax increases through the state Legislature. State tax increases require two-thirds approval of both houses. Democrats are expected to be within just a handful of seats in the state Assembly. In past years, when Republicans held only a notch above one third of the seats, legislative Democrats have successfully picked off a few moderate Republican votes for tax increases.

Thanks to redistricting gains and a chronically underfunded opposition, Democrats are a lock to reach two-thirds control of the state Senate. “A candidate’s view on taxation will be the central issue in swing senate districts,” wrote Joel Fox, editor of Fox & Hounds and president of the Small Business Action Committee.  “A newly Democratic controlled Senate will vote for taxes from time to time. Especially if taxes are perceived to fall on someone else — that famous man behind the tree in the ditty, ‘don’t tax me, don’t tax thee’ tax the man behind the tree’.”

But, before you send a bigger check to Sacramento, consider an ironic scenario that could be taxpayers’ saving grace in 2013. Two even-numbered state senators running in two different congressional races could set off a chain reaction of events that would effectively block tax increases for most of the year.

State Senators Gloria Negrete McLeod and Juan Vargas, both of whom have records of supporting tax increases, have made their respective runoffs for the House of Representatives. If both pro-tax Democrats win their congressional races, their state Senate seats would remain vacant until they could be filled by special elections. The pair’s victories would reduce the Democratic caucus by two members and effectively erase Democrats’ two-thirds’ advantage.

“The vacancies do not change the threshold for the two-thirds requirement, which is 27 seats in the Senate,” confirmed Bernadette McNulty, chief assistant secretary of the Senate. In other words, taxpayers would be temporarily protected with the career advancement of the two pro-tax Democrats.

Vacancies Filled by Special Elections

Prior to being sworn into Congress, the pair would need to resign from the state Senate. Depending on how quickly Gov. Brown called a special election, it could take up to 120 days from the date of their resignation to fill the vacant seats. During that period, Democrats would need to pick up additional Republican votes for tax increases. In 2011, it took approximately 16 weeks for then-Assemblyman Ted Gaines to fill a vacant state Senate seat.

Both Negrete McLeod and Vargas hold safe Democratic seats, so it would be only be a matter of time until Democrats regained their supermajority control of the state Senate. However, it would likely be a zero-sum game for legislative Democrats. Every seat picked up by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, could be a direct loss for Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles.

After all, the strongest contenders in an abbreviated campaigns would be members of the state’s lower house, who have built-in name identification and a proven fundraising network. In the process of filling Senate seats, there could be vacancies in the state Assembly. More importantly, every member of the Assembly to move up to the Senate would trigger another special election process and potential four-month delay.

Howard Jarvis Taxpayers: ‘Appreciate Any No Vote’

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the state’s leading anti-tax group, says that when it comes to tax increases, any no vote is a good vote.

“While our first choice is a responsible Legislature that recognizes that taxes are too high, not too low, in the real world we appreciate any ‘N0’ vote, even if that vote is the result of a vacancy,” explained Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. “California already ranks at or near the top in tax burden, and taxpayers are grateful for any advantage that helps level the playing field.”

He added that the goal of Proposition 13 “was not to make tax increases impossible, but to create a system that required taxes to be approved with a strong consensus based on clear, demonstrable need.”

An Empty Seat: The Best Representative?   

Not all Republican leaders see the vacancies as a positive development for California, conservative philosophy or the Republican Party.

“If one’s over-riding interest is a narrow definition of tax policy, then, yes, I suppose an empty seat might be preferable to one filled by a hard-line anti-tax conservative who might question the narrow edict of The Pledge in the interest of pursuing the larger strategic priorities,” said former Republican Assemblyman Roger Niello, who broke ranks with his caucus in 2009 to support Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s $13 billion dollar tax hike. “But with the tax pledge (and this could apply to others, too), the rigid dogma attached to it has elevated a no tax policy to an over-arching strategy.  That is true dysfunction.”

Niello added that conservative philosophy involves more than just taxes and includes “such things as personal responsibility, free market economy, limited government, effective and efficiently focused government responsibilities and local control.”

Top Two Primary Turns Senators into Strong Challengers

So how likely is it that 2013 turns into another year of special elections? For starters, the pair of Democratic state senators must win their congressional races. Both are plausible candidates; one is almost guaranteed.

Vargas, who is running for the open 51st House seat, faces only token opposition from Republican challenger Michael Crimmins. In the June primary, Vargas’ vote share was more than double that of Crimmins. Altogether the Democratic field combined for more than 70 percent of the vote.

Meanwhile, Negrete McLeod’s road to Washington is more difficult. She is challenging fellow Democrat Rep. Joe Baca in the 35th House district. In the June primary, Baca finished first with 45 percent of the vote. Negrete McLeod wasn’t far behind, trailing by only 2,500 votes or 8.5 percentage points. The only other candidate, the Green Party’s Anthony Vieyra, pulled in nearly 19 percent of the vote.

The Top Two primary system could also bolster Negrete McLeod’s chances. There’s likely to be little difference between the Democrats’ voting records in Congress. Republican voters without a Republican on the ballot might be encouraged to support Negrete McLeod, if for no other reason than to temporarily block state tax increases.

State Senate Campaigns: Central Issue Taxes

Of course, this unexpected turn of events also relies on Democrats first taking a supermajority of the state Senate. Most Capitol insiders believe the State Senate is a lost cause for California Republicans, who spent more than $1.2 million on a futile attempt to advance a referendum on the Citizen Redistricting Commission’s Senate maps. Ultimately, that money could have been spent to bolster the campaigns of the party’s three swing candidates in the 5th, 27th and 31st districts.

Democrats need to win just one of three swing state Senate races this cycle in order to reach the all-important two-thirds threshold. Those three seats are the 5th Senate race between Bill Berryhill and Cathleen Galgiani; the 27th Senate race between Todd Zink and Fran Pavley; and the 31st race between Jeff Miller and Richard Roth. 

In addition to the two Democrats, another state senator, Republican Doug LaMalfa of Oroville, has a free shot at Congress. He holds a safe Republican seat and has signed Americans for Tax Reform’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge.

By JOHN HRABE

Back to the campaign drawing board for California Republicans.

The California Supreme Court recently upheld the maps drawn by the California Citizens Redistricting Commission.

The immediate fallout: State Sen. Sam Blakeslee, R-San Luis Obispo, told his hometown paper that he wouldn’t seek reelection, due to the unfavorable maps approved by the court. In another swing seat, Republicans have yet even to field a candidate. State Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Moorpark, announced that he wouldn’t seek reelection in order to run for a new seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

If Republicans lose both state Senate seats, their Senate caucus will be reduced to fewer than 14 members, the all-important two-thirds threshold that gives Republicans the ability to block tax increases. At 13 Republican and 27 Democratic state senators, Democrats in the Senate could vote to impose infinite tax increases.

“It’s going to be seriously difficult for Republicans to stay above one-third in the Senate because of this,” California Republican Party Chairman Tom Del Beccaro complained to the Mercury News. “It puts the two-party system in the Senate in jeopardy.”

$2.1 Million Dollars for Useless Referendum

Republicans can now put a cost on their defeat: $2.1 million.

According to its fourth quarter campaign finance report, the Republican group Fairness & Accountability in Redistricting spent a whopping $2.1 million on its effort to put the new state Senate maps to a vote in November. The committee collected $1.7 million, or 80 percent, of its funding from the California Republican Party. That’s money that a cash-depleted party could have invested into voter registration programs for the three competitive state Senate districts.

“The CRP already spent a few million dollars on the referendum and varied lawsuit, all this while one of their best senate candidates, Jeff Miller, has no million-dollar voter registration program and can’t even afford a new URL,” observed the January 30th Redistricting Partners newsletter.

But it didn’t have to end this way for Golden State Republicans. Not if they’d followed the old maxim: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Lesson One: Research redistricting commissioners and use legislative strikes wisely.

Propositions 11 and 20 gave legislative leaders of both parties the power to strike up to two names from the final applicant subpool of redistricting commissioners. Republican leaders could have spent a few thousand dollars on opposition research reports on the backgrounds of redistricting commissioners. Or they could have spent just a few hours cross-checking applicants against the state’s campaign finance database. Had anyone at the California Republican Party done a few hours of research, they’d have discovered several campaign contributions by two commissioners.

Back in July 2011, CalWatchDog.com first reported on two redistricting commissioners’ partisan histories and campaign contributions. Commissioner Jeanne Raya failed to disclose four contributions totaling $1,000 made on behalf of her business to a state political action committee.  State law requires commissioners to disclose any civic, political or charitable donations of $250 or more.

Commissioner Gabino Aguirre made three campaign donations to Democratic candidates for state office. In November 2008, Aguirre contributed $100 to Ferial Masry, the Democratic nominee for the 37th State Assembly District. A year later, he made a $200 contribution to Gloria Romero, a former Democratic state senator. Aguirre also has extensive ties to a redistricting special interest group, the Central Coast Alliance United for A Sustainable Economy (CAUSE). The progressive social justice organization submitted its own redistricting maps for the Central Coast. It’s no coincidence that Blakeslee and Strickland’s seats, which are now likely to flip to the Democrats, are both on the Central Coast.

With just a little bit of research, Republicans could have made an educated decision to strike Raya and Aguirre. But Republican legislative leaders didn’t want to spend the money. One high-level staffer described Republican legislative leaders’ approach to the redistricting process as “an inexcusable reluctance to spend the resources to research the background of the commissioners.” Another senior staff member for a Republican legislator put it simply, “The truth is we’re idiots.”

While neither staffer wanted to be identified by name, one Republican political consultant openly defied party leadership in an attempt to save the GOP from itself.

“When you start the process telling people not to be involved and then end the process complaining that others were too involved, you have created your own emergency,” wrote Matt Rexroad, a partner with Meridian Pacific, in his rant for Capitol Weekly. “The issue that really galls me is that Republicans can cry foul all they want, but legislative leadership made it very clear that they did not want any Republican consultants to engage on redistricting.”

Lesson Two: Focus on the flawed process, not self-interested outcomes.

If they had been consistent in their objections, Republicans could have convinced the public that the redistricting process was flawed.

Republicans were right: the redistricting process was corrupted by special interest groups. Background research could have helped expose Aguirre, but the full extent of his partisan activities couldn’t have been fully brought to light in time for the legislative strikes.  That’s because Aguirre’s last and most egregious contribution, a $100 check to Democratic Assemblyman Das Williams, posted to the Secretary of State’s website nine days after the Bureau of State Audits completed its background check.

Williams had a vested interest in redistricting. Yet the commission took no action to disclose this potential conflict of interest or sequester Aguirre from Williams’ region. They did the opposite. Aguirre was put in charge of overseeing the Central Coast mapmaking.  He promptly adopted the maps suggested by his friends at CAUSE.

Jerry Roberts and Phil Trounstine, who have been highly-critical of the Republicans’ redistricting referendum, questioned the cause of Willliams’ redistricting good fortune. “When you look at Williams’ new 37th Assembly district, which is about as safe for him as can be, along with the new 19th SD, the future of the hyper-ambitious young pol looks bright indeed, whether he sits still for two more, two-year terms in the Assembly, or jumps into a 2012 race that could bring two four-year terms in the senate. Coincidence? You be judge,” the CalBuzz team wrote back in August.

Republicans didn’t concentrate on this message, in part, because they liked the configuration of the State Assembly maps. They also ignored the Voting Rights Act violations with the congressional maps because those were favorable to high-ranking House Republicans. Instead, Republicans voluntarily swapped a message about the flawed process for a pity-party about losing one-third control of the State Senate.

Lesson Three: Don’t look a gift commissioner in the mouth.

Redistricting Commissioner Mike Ward, an Orange County chiropractor with no prior involvement in state politics, demonstrated a more coherent message than Republican political pros.

“The Citizens Redistricting Commission has certified maps that are fundamentally flawed as a result of a tainted political process,” Ward said at the commission’s August 15 press conference. “This commission simply traded the partisan, backroom gerrymandering by the Legislature, for partisan, backroom gerrymandering by average citizens.”

Then Ward did what you’re supposed to do when you object to a corrupted process: he voted against all of the proposed maps. He didn’t cherry-pick maps based on those that would help his political party. The Senate referendum quashed Ward’s message about the flawed process. If the process was corrupted, why only challenge one set of four maps? Republicans’ inconsistent message impressed upon the press, public and ultimately the State Supreme Court that the referendum was motivated by partisan interests.

Lesson Four: Courts are influenced by public opinion.

Republicans’ last error with its redistricting message came with the referendum lawsuit. Republicans turned the lawsuit into a legal argument about the rule of law, the right to referendum and the will of the voters.

“In the law, the word ‘stay’ has a clear meaning. To ‘stay’ an action means to stop that action. The most authoritative legal dictionary of American law defines ‘stay’ as, ‘To stop, arrest, forbear.’ To ‘stay’ an order or decree means to hold it in abeyance, or refrain from enforcing it.” Black’s Law Dictionary, at 1267 (5th ed. 1979).

Assemblyman Don Wagner wrote in the Flash Report, “Thus, because the petition is ‘likely to qualify,’ the Supreme Court was directed by the Constitution to ‘refrain from enforcing’ the Commission’s Senate maps. In short, the California Constitution, with a simple, four letter word of indisputable meaning, stays or stops the use of the Commission lines until the people have their say on those lines at the ballot box.”

Legally, Wagner may be right. But, who cares? Not even the Supreme Court cared about legal precedents or Black’s Law Dictionary when public opinion stood on the other side.

Said the court’s unanimous opinion, “The Commission-certified Senate districts also are a product of what generally appears to have been an open, transparent and nonpartisan redistricting process as called for by the current provisions of article XXI.” In other words, the Court was influenced by press accounts and public opinion when deciding what to do with the redistricting mess.

In their stories about the court decision, neither the Los Angeles Times nor Sacramento Bee included a word about the corrupted process. Mike Ward was left out completely.

By the end of the redistricting scandal, Republicans had so badly muddled their message that there was no longer any reference to a corrupted process.

(Related: 10 Ways to improve the Citizens Redistricting Commission.)