By Jennifer Kerns

They were the Hostess with the mostest. The most labor headaches.

Last week Hostess Brands shut its doors after 82 years in business following a food fight with its bakers’ union over wages and benefits.

Citing concerns over finances, the company asked its bakers to take an 8 percent cut in wages for three years. After that, salaries would be bumped up 3 percent. Then an additional 1 percent a year in later years.

Hostess also sought to reduce its pension obligations and healthcare liabilities. In return, the workers would have received a whopping 25 percent equity stake in the company. And two union representatives would have been placed on the company’s eight-member board of directors.

The union said “No,” however, and 18,500 workers were fired.

As an excuse, maybe the unions will take the Twinkie Defense.

Shelf life

Several years ago, a colleague with whom I worked in the healthcare industry in Orange County wrote an article warning consumers about the unnaturally long shelf life of a Twinkie.  The story was met with much media attention and a cease-and-desist letter from the Hostess Brands corporation which vigorously defended its product.

Now Hostess has given up the fight. It seems the makers of the snack food that could nearly withstand a nuclear holocaust could not withstand another term of anti-market policies.

Who can blame them?

During his 2012 election bid, President Obama promoted “tax the rich” fiscal polices. And the president clearly has telegraphed which side of labor disputes he comes down on.

It was just over one year ago that the administration intervened on labor union matters at Boeing.  The National Labor Resources Board filed a complaint to block the company’s relocation of an airplane production line from Washington state to South Carolina because the Palmetto State enjoys right-to-work laws.

Although the dispute eventually was settled and Boeing opened its new facility, the dispute had one chilling effect: It signaled the brass-knuckles stance of Obama’s NLRB, which had gained Democratic majority status following the 2008 Election.

So, nevermind that noise you hear. It’s the crinkle of the wrapper on my last Twinkie as I bid adieu to a great American institution — and to an era gone by, when we respected the right of every American company to make dough, and got out of their way.

By Jennifer Kerns

Last spring, three Maryland co-workers won the Mega Millions lottery and, as the old saying goes, it couldn’t have happened to nicer people.

Lotto officials announced that three public school employees struck it rich with a $200 Million winning ticket. The trio called themselves “the three amigos” and were described by Lottery officials as “the kind of people you hoped would win.”  Apparently they had all struggled with bills in this down economy.

But one doesn’t necessarily need to buy a lottery ticket to win big. Forget Maryland.

If you’re a public school employee in California, chances are you’ve probably already hit the jackpot.

California ranks number one in the highest pensions for public employees — outranking even New York and New Jersey.  Here there are a whopping 856,000 teachers and other school personnel across 1,900 districts currently within the California State Teachers Retirement System. The average pension for each of those teachers in California is $1 million over a 20-year period. Which means we have created a “millionaire teachers” class within the California economy.

Some school administrators take home $200,000-per-year pensions. And as reported recently by the Associated Press, some of those administrators have taken advantage of a little-known retention plan to take lump sum cash payouts of $147,000 on top of those already-bloated pensions. These are the kind of winnings one could only get through a lottery — or, as we say in California, just your average day at the school playground.

Prop. 30

As if that weren’t enough, Californians are now being asked to approve yet another tax increase through Proposition 30, thanks to Gov. Jerry Brown and the teachers’ unions. However, even as the governor and his friends are selling this ticket to voters as a way to increase funding for schools, the California School Boards Association admits revenue raised from the governor’s ballot initiative won’t go to classrooms. It would actually go into California’s General Fund, making the odds very high that new revenue from Prop. 30 would go toward more bloated pensions and more government spending. After all, all government money is fungible.

In fact, David Crane asserts that 100 percent of the revenues from Prop. 30 will go to pensions (mostly due to investment shortfalls since the Great Recession).  You sure wouldn’t know it by reading the Prop. 30 propaganda. Crane, a Democrat, is a finance expert and a former economic adviser to then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Finally, speaking of lotteries, California’s own lottery once promised to save education.  The California Lottery has provided a whopping $24 billion to public schools since 1985, yet schools are still failing.

Why? Because time has proven that simply throwing money at a system won’t solve the problems.  Lawmakers haven’t trimmed the necessary fat from the budget and they haven’t allowed reforms — not even the simple act of allowing competitive bidding on services such as lawn care. And they’ve done virtually nothing on pension reform. To this day, classrooms continue to hang in the balance, relying upon the “lottery” that is our ballot box in order to find out where their next round of funding will come from.

Come Nov. 6, voters will determine whether or not they believe Brown’s Prop. 30 is not the winning ticket for California.

Jennifer Kerns is a taxpayer advocate and communications strategist.  Over the last 10 years, she has served as a media consultant to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, as an Assistant Secretary of State for California, as Senior Press Secretary for former Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, and as the former Spokeswoman for the California Republican Party. Kerns is the only Press Secretary to unanimously win every single newspaper endorsement for a Republican Statewide candidate in California. She can be reached at Jennifer@JenniferKerns.com. 

By Jennifer Kerns

California State University backers of Proposition 30 are violating state law by sending out emails pushing the initiative on the Nov. 6 ballot. It would raise up to $8.5 billion a year, which supposedly would prevent education cuts. University officials also are pushing a “No” vote on the Proposition 32 initiative that would restrict campaign contributions by unions and corporations.

CalWatchDog.com has obtained an email, posted at the bottom, showing the violations. The names have been redacted to protect the sources.

By Dave Roberts

In California, there are three certainties: death, taxes and the re-election of Sen. Dianne Feinstein. In 2006, she shellacked Dick Mountjoy by 24 points. In 2000, she trounced Tom Campbell by 19 points.

The grande doyenne of California Democrats has been in the Senate for 20 years and will turn 79 next month. She’s up for re-election and, short of serious illness or death, it’s likely she’ll still be in the Senate when she’s 85 and 91 if she wants.

So it’s not exactly a shock that prominent Republican congressmen like Darrell Issa, David Dreier and Dan Lungren have chosen to sit this one out. That has left the field of challengers to 14 Republicans, five Democrats and four minor party candidates — all of whom have zero to little electoral experience or name recognition. In a crowded field of nobodies, getting their party’s endorsement provides an advantage in winning the second spot in the new top-two primary system and its ticket to the general election in November.

The top two system was instituted by Proposition 14 in 2010.  Under it, the top two winners of June 5 primary will face off in November. No other candidates for U.S. Senate will be on the ballot. Assuming Feinstein is the top vote getter, that means just one other person will face her on the ballot, likely a Republican. Third party candidates will be shut out.

The function of the political parties has been reduced to official endorsements.

In March, the California Republican Party endorsed more than 100 candidates for a variety of offices, including for the U.S. Senate. “As the party prepares to be a vigorous contender in California’s first top two primary, we seek to promote the most competitive candidates in the field this primary season,” said Party Chairman Tom Del Beccaro in the press release announcing the endorsed candidates.

Elizabeth Emken won the GOP nod as the most competitive candidate to face Feinstein. However, the Danville autism advocate’s only electoral experience is finishing fourth out of four candidates in the 2010 Republican primary in Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney’s district. Emken received 16.7 percent of the vote. In a district that winds through four counties, Emken didn’t even win her own Contra Costa County, finishing second, just 270 votes ahead of the third-place finisher.

Such a poor showing might be understandable if a candidate were running a token campaign, placing her name in contention for publicity’s sake but doing little campaigning. But Emken ran full out in 2010, spending $456,404 — more than $200,000 of it from her own pocket. That equates to $40 per vote. At that rate Emken would need to raise more than $200 million to best the more than 5 million votes Feinstein gathered in 2006. As of March 31, Emken had raised just more than $300,000. Feinstein’s campaign treasury had more than $7 million on hand.

‘Most competitive candidate’?

So what makes Emken the “most competitive candidate” in the eyes of state GOP officials? One factor is that her senior communications advisor is Mark Standriff, who in January left his position after two years as communications director for the California Republican Party. “Mark has been a tireless member of our senior staff and dedicated himself to improving the CRP’s communications efforts by helping me reach more voters in more corners of our state,” California GOP Chairman Tom Del Beccaro said in a statement upon Standriff’s departure.

In an email interview, I asked Jennifer Kerns, who replaced Standriff as the California GOP communications director, whether it was helpful for Emken in getting the endorsement to have Standriff on her staff. Kerns did not address the question, saying simply, “He was free to consult with any campaign once he departed the CRP.”

Said Standriff in a phone interview, “The only thing it helped is that I am a professional communications director and somebody who has worked on campaigns for years and was able to put together a comprehensive package. I contacted no board members. Frankly, I wish I had that kind of power.”

Standriff said Emken’s experience two years ago in one district’s partisan Republican primary is not relevant to today’s statewide, top-two primary.

“You have to take everything that happened pre-Prop. 14 and throw it out the window,” he said. “All of these other candidates seem to think this is still a partisan primary, and it’s not. It’s open to everybody. That’s why you will see 24 different names on the ballot. So the Republican Party said, ‘Who do we think is the most electable, who has the best chance to get through June 5th and take on Dianne Feinstein?’ Everybody had the chance to present their financial package and show how much money they will be able to raise and present their positions. She’s the only one who has ever gone to Washington D.C. and stood up and said, ‘Enough is enough.’ And that’s a big thing.”

Kerns said Emken’s experience as an autism lobbyist was a major factor in her endorsement.

That was echoed by Jeff Corless, Emken’s campaign manager. He said, “She, unlike the rest of the candidates, not only has business experience and experience helping those truly in need, but also understands the legislative process from day one when she goes back to the Senate, because of her experience in advocacy for autism.”

Endorsement process

Perhaps it’s a case of sour grapes, but several Republican candidates who did not get the endorsement or chose not to participate in the endorsement process, with its $500 buy-in for consideration, have harsh words for the way things went down.

“I believe the Republican Party has committed fraud in its endorsement of Elizabeth Emken by doing so without providing an opportunity for all candidates to be heard,” said Dennis Jackson, an aerospace general manager from Rancho Cucamonga. “Due to the open primary, there were no party debates or any type of debate that was televised.

“I have been a voting Republican since 1968 and would destroy Elizabeth Emken in a debate or in a comparison of backgrounds that would best serve this nation. However, I was never contacted by the Republican Party about any meeting to review my candidacy, policies or background. In making the endorsement in such a manner, the party is playing king-maker and insulting the intelligence of the voters as well as attempting to silence the voice of the candidates that they never even took the time to meet. The party politics seem more in line with the Bolsheviks than the Founding Fathers.”

Disappointment

Also ticked off in Rancho Cucamonga is MBA student Dirk Allen Konopik, who said, “The California Republican Party’s leadership, to include Chairman Tom Del Beccaro, has been a constant disappointment; from their continuous failure to support viable candidates, to the unethical decision to charge U.S. Senate candidates $500 just to consider them for the CRP endorsement. I chose not to pay. It is now very clear to me, after ramping up our U.S. Senate campaign since January 2011, why the Democratic Party controls California. It’s because the CRP is inefficient, ineffective and corrupt. In my opinion, I would rather have the California Federation of Republican Women lead the CRP.”

Also critical is Orly Taitz, the Laguna Niguel attorney who has become known for challenging President Obama’s citizenship.

“The nomination process was a complete fraud, and a number of the candidates are considering suing the corrupt 24 board members,” said Taitz. “Two candidates … talked to the Chair of the Board Tom Del Beccarro and another board member, who told them that the meeting and discussion was just a formality, the decision was already made. So, the Board has collected several thousand dollars from candidates under false pretenses. They used this money to have a nice weekend at a nice hotel and announced the predetermined decision. They defrauded the candidates and the voters.”

Another unhappy candidate is Rick Williams, a Los Angeles attorney.

“I believe the California Republican Party acted improperly by engaging in a process to endorse one candidate in the United States Senate race from a field of 14 good Republicans running for the seat,” he said. “I declined to participate in their disgraceful process. I realized it was a sham and wanted nothing to do with it. The decision as to which candidate should represent the Republican Party against Dianne Feinstein is for voters to make — not a tiny group of insider political operatives at the state party who were trying to tilt the playing field.”

Nachum Shifren, a Santa Monica rabbi, believes the state party snub of his campaign may be an asset: “My chances are helped, since the GOP mafia and good ol’ boys club will never nominate or support a true conservative that threatens the status quo,” he said. “I am having success in precisely distinguishing myself from the other RINO candidates and those that simply won’t take on the difficult issues.”

Kerns dismissed the criticism of the endorsement process, saying, “We provided every candidate the opportunity to be heard, in writing, by phone, and in person. This was to ensure the fairest process.”

If party officials had decided to base their endorsement on the candidate with the best electoral experience, they would have chosen Greg Conlon, a Burlingame CPA.

“I probably have the best chance because I ran statewide in 2002 for state treasurer and received over one million votes in the primary and three million votes in the general election against Phil Angelides, an incumbent,” said Conlon. “Therefore, even though it was 10 years ago, some will remember the name and vote for me now.”

The GOP endorsement may ultimately be irrelevant to the outcome of this year’s election. It’s likely that whoever wins the primary from among the 14 largely unknown and inexperienced Republican candidates will become a sacrificial lamb led to the Feinstein slaughter in November.