With 100 percent of precincts “partially reporting,” according to the California Secretary of State, here are the results:

Senate District 7:

• Orlinda Mayor Steve Glazer (pictured on the left), 32.8 percent.
• Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla, 24.9 percent.
• Former Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, 22.6 percent.
• All are Democrats. Glazer and Bonilla will face off in a May 19 runoff election. Rounding out the field were Michaela M. Hertle, a Republican, 17 percent; and Terry Kremin, a Democrat, 2.8 percent.

Senate District 37:

• John Moorlach (pictured above on the right), a former Orange County Supervisor, 51.4 percent.
• Assemblyman Don Wagner, 45.1 percent.
• Naz Namazi, 3.5 percent.
• All are Republicans. Because Moorlach got a majority, there will be no runoff — pending any unlikely changes in the vote tallies.

Senate District 21:

• Former state Sen. Sharon Runner, a Republican, ran unopposed. As CalWatchdog.com reported in January, Runner declining to seek reelection in 2012 due to a life-threatening autoimmune disease. After a double lung transplant, she was proclaimed a “walking miracle” and now has successfully reclaimed her Senate seat.

Glazer

Glazer, as CalWatchdog.com reported yesterday, is a major ally of Gov. Jerry Brown, having been the top political strategist for Brown’s 2010 gubernatorial bid and Proposition 30, Brown’s $7 billion tax-increase initiative in 2012.

The state’s public-employee unions fear Glazer would bring Brown’s pension-reform penchant to the Senate. But union support was split, as the California Federation of Teachers backed Buchanan, while the Democratic Party organization mainly backed Bonilla.

For the May 19 runoff, it is likely that union forces will join and back Bonilla against Glazer.

This looks to be a close-fought race over the next two months. Hertle, the Republican, had urged her supporters to back Glazer, yet she still got 17 percent. Add that to Glazer’s 32.8 percent, an the total is 49.8 percent, tantalizingly close to a majority.

Then add together Bonilla’s 24.9 percent and Buchanan’s 22.6, and the total is 47.5 percent, also close to a majority.

Of course, the actual tally will be affected by many other factors, including voter turnout, different sets of voters in May than March, Republican reaction to not having one of their own on the ballot and the conduct of the actual Glazer and Bonilla campaigns.

With the Republican Party still struggling in California, it is races like this that show how democracy is bifurcating the Democratic Party to give voters a choice on state policies.

The election in Senate District 7 continues to shape up as a significant one for the future of the Democratic Party, the state Senate and California.

Moorlach

Moorlach is best known for warning in 1994 about Orange County’s impending bankruptcy as he ran for county treasurer-tax collector against incumbent Democrat Bob Citron. Moorlach pointed to risky investments of county funds, but was not heeded.

Shortly after Citron won the election that November, the county’s finances collapsed, Citron resigned and the county Board of Supervisors appointed Moorlach in his place. Citron later pleaded guilty to six felony counts of financial fraud, although not for personal financial gain.

In the year’s campaign, Wagner pulled in three times the campaign cash as Moorlach, according to the Orange County Register. Several flyers sent to voters by Wagner painted Moorlach as a greedy supervisor who goosed his own county pension. The website TheRealMoorlachRecord.com — labeled at the bottom, “Paid for by: Don Wagner for Senate 2015” — attacked him for similar themes as the flyer: “Career politician John Moorlach doesn’t like it when you talk about his record. He’d rather voters focus on what he says, not what he does.”

It attacked Moorlach for “rasing fees,” which Moorlach pointed out where for county services, such as parks, for which the tab otherwise would have been picked up by taxpayers.

The Wagner attacks didn’t stick. When he ran for supervisor in 2006, Moorlach was attacked for the opposite reason by local public-employee unions: for seeking to reduce their pensions. He was opposed by union-backed Stanton Councilman David Shawver, but easily won the election.

On the Board of Supervisors for eight years, Moorlach was known for warning of the dangers of excessive spending, especially for pensions.

Republicans, of course, are in the minority in the Senate. But Moorlach’s fiscal expertise still will be valuable as pensions become even more important in the coming years.

It’s too early to tell in two special elections for the California Senate. CalWatchdog.com will have more extensive coverage tomorrow. But here are the early returns:

For state Senator for the 37th District, according to the Orange County Registrar of Voters, John Moorlach leads with 49.7 percent and Don Wagner with 44.8 percent; both are Republicans. Two other candidates split the rest.

For state Senator for the 7th District, according to the California Secretary of State, Steve Glazer leads with 30.5 percent, followed by a near tie between Susan Bonilla at 24.6 percent and Joan Buchanan at 22.8 percent; all three are Democrats. Two others candidates split the rest.

In both races, if no candidate gets 50-percent-plus one votes, a runoff will be held May 19.

Looks like it will be a long night for the candidates and their supporters.

In the third state Senate election, for the 21st District, Republican Sharon Runner is unopposed.

That’s what the winners are going to need in today’s St. Patrick’s Day election for California state Senate District 7.

Long-brewing tensions among Democrats have come to a head in a bitterly fought race. The candidates seek to replace Steve DeSaulnier, who resigned after his election last November to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Five candidates are running in this primary election. Unless one candidate gets 50 percent plus one votes — almost impossible in this race — the top two will face off in a May 19 runoff.

The Democratic Party has helped corral most unions behind Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla, D-Concord. Former Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo, has secured the support of the California Teachers Association.

But with neither woman willing to drop out, Orinda Mayor Steve Glazer well could wind up with enough support to make it into the top two. Glazer’s extensive resume in Democratic politics has been eclipsed by his recent willingness to support reform in areas fiercely guarded by organized labor, including pension and education issues.

A fourth Democrat, Terry Kremin, is on the ballot but is expected to get few votes.

Adding to the strangeness, every Republican candidate who entered the race later dropped out, except one. Michaela Hertle, a business woman, remained on the ballot — then endorsed Glazer.

That created an opportunity for rival Democrats to attack him as a virtual DINO — a Democrat in Name Only — despite his rock-solid credentials as a career party strategist.

As a result, Republican fortunes in District 7 have been reduced to possibly becoming a kingmaker — or unmaker — for Glazer. And Democrats have been forced into an embarrassing conflict over wedge issues that won’t go away anytime soon.

High stakes

The contest has quickly been cast as part of a decisive battle between labor and business interests for influence over California Democrats. Glazer has become a lightning rod for that controversy in recent years.

In a boon to all Democrats, Glazer was the top political strategist for Gov. Jerry Brown’s 2010 gubernatorial bid and Proposition 30, Brown’s $7 billion tax-increase initiative in 2012.

But then, as Ben Adler at Capital Public Radio noted, Glazer “helped elect business-friendly Democrats on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce and called for a ban on public transit worker strikes. So unions spent big to defeat him in an Assembly race last year.”

That race resulted in a Republican win, despite an 8-point lead in registrations among Democrats. Glazer came in third in the June primary. In the November runoff, Republican Catharine Baker became the first Bay Area Republican in the state Senate in two decades, defeating Democrat Tim Sbranti, 52 percent to 48 percent.

Stuffed with ambitious, rising Democrats, California labor interests haven’t always been able to consolidate their support for a single candidate. In District 7, that potential problem has come into sharp focus.

Dirty politics

With so much perceived to be on the line, some Democrats haven’t hesitated to push the envelope in defeating Glazer, who inevitably will attract the support of a significant number of Republican voters.

In one recent move, a Democrat-led political action committee appeared to campaign disingenuously for Hertle in order to draw votes away from Glazer. “The Asian American Small Business PAC has reported spending $46,380 on research, polling and mailing on behalf of Michaela Hertle,” according to Political blotter.

Glazer retorted on Monday, “It’s gutter politics. There’s no Asian American in the race, and the Republican has withdrawn and endorsed me. It’s clearly an attempt to confuse the voters and smear me.”

Then the PAC printed and distributed pro-Hertle flyers bearing the distinctive Republican elephant symbol — an unauthorized use of a trademarked image. That led to a trademark infringement lawsuit from the California GOP.

In a statement, the CAGOP noted its cease-and-desist warning flagrantly was ignored by the PAC, leaving Republicans little choice but to seek injunctive relief in court:

“Deceptive ads like these mislead voters and misinform them about the positions and endorsements of the California Republican Party,” said California Republican Party Chairman Senator Jim Brulte (Ret.). “It’s egregious on the part of a Democratic Political Action Committee to intentionally deceive Californians with its use of well-known Republican images.”

This is part of a general theme on which CalWatchdog.com has been reporting. With the California GOP in such a weak condition, and only starting to pick up a little steam, it was inevitable fractures would develop in the majority Democratic Party.

Throw in a close ally of Brown, a popular governor with a history of opposing too much spending and being unpredictable, and the 7th District’s three-way race might just portend the future of California electoral politics.

Between now and then, the California GOP may be able to use focus groups and internal polls to test certain themes, issues and talking points. Nevertheless, elections have a special value in helping parties refine their message and build momentum.

And until 2016, the most important election in the state for Republicans may well be the special election to replace Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, in the state Senate. Gov. Jerry Brown will set a date for the election soon after DeSaulnier officially resigns from his current office.

Musical chairs

On Election Day, Nov. 4, DeSaulnier prevailed in his effort to replace retiring Rep. George Miller in the 11th Congressional District. After his victory, DeSaulnier took pains to point out that “civic illiteracy and complacency” had nonetheless gotten him down — in other words, low turnout.

Although depressed voting numbers didn’t hurt DeSaulnier, he understood as well as any California Democrat that Republicans in the state often benefit from the phenomenon. Sure enough, in the race to replace him, Republicans may be competitive for that reason as well as others.

That’s why Mark Meuser — a Republican attorney from Walnut Creek and no stranger to DeSaulnier — has jumped into the race, announcing recently he hopes to prevail in the special election for the soon-to-be-vacant 7th state Senate District seat, which encompasses most of Contra Costa and Alameda counties.

As the Antioch Herald reported, Meuser’s campaign will likely focus around economic themes — not just jobs in the abstract, but the dynamism of small business and innovation. “The spirit of entrepreneurs in California is as strong today as it was during the gold rush,” Meuser announced on his campaign site. “It needs an advocate in Sacramento, and Meuser wants to be that advocate. Ensuring that our communities stay strong — and grow stronger — requires a long-term vision for future generations, and Meuser has that vision.”

Meuser is best known as the Republican who ran for that same seat in 2012, losing to DeSaulnier. Then, Meuser won 38.5 percent of the vote, with DeSaulnier getting 61.5 percent. This time around, expectations have changed — in part because more than one Democrat also is angling for the seat, and there will be no incumbent.

Healthy competition

As the Contra Costa Times reported, two well known and influential Bay Area Democrats are expected to throw their hats in the ring: re-elected Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla, D-Concord, and term-limited Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo. With the state Capitol teeming with Democrats drawn from the well-to-do power corridor between Sacramento and San Francisco, there are more ambitious politicians than there are elective offices for them to fill.

Bonilla and Buchanan are both credible candidates sure to appeal to voting Democrats. It is less clear, however, whether either has the ability to turn out Democrats in large enough numbers to deal another loss to Meuser — particularly if they have to campaign against one another, and not just Meuser. According to California law, if no candidate gets 50 percent-plus-one of the vote, a runoff election then is held.

As the Antioch Herald also reported, both Democrats will be influenced in their decision-making by California’s particular rules restricting length of terms in office. Whether serving in the Assembly or state Senate, legislators are capped at a total of 12 years in both houses, according to Proposition 28, which voters approved in 2012. But it only applies to those elected to office after its passage.

Yet “because Bonilla was elected before June 5, 2012, she is restricted by the previous term limits, approved in 1990, which limited legislators to three terms in the State Assembly and two terms in the State Senate. Since the election will be past the half-way point in DeSaulnier’s term, if elected, she will serve less than two years, allowing her two more full terms for a total of close to 10 years. The same would apply to Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan.”

Looking forward

The 7th is not the only state Senate District soon to be up for grabs as a result of a special election. Similar circumstances have also created upcoming vacancies in the 21st District and the 37th District, where Republican state Sens. Steve Knight and Mimi Walters, respectively, were elected to the U.S. Congress. No date for an election has been set. But these are seats in heavily Republican districts, so the makeup of the Senate won’t change.

And on Dec. 9, an election will be held to replace Democratic state Sen. Rod Wright in Senate District 35. He resigned after being convicted in a corruption scandal. If necessary, a Feb. 10, 2015 runoff will be held. According to Ballotpedia, “Louis L. Dominguez (D), Isadore Hall, III (D), Hector Serrano (D) and James Spencer (R) will face off.” As Wright got 76.5 percent of the vote to 23.5 percent for Republican Charlotte A. Svolos in the 2012 election, one of the Democrats is almost assured of victory, meaning this race also won’t change the party makeup of the Senate.

Given the familiar faces and competing ambitions at work in the presumptive 7th District race, however, Republicans may likely be tempted to use Meuser’s and the other two campaigns to road-test strategies that could pay dividends in 2016. If races can be targeted where Democrats compete, turnout is low, and seasoned Republican candidates can deliver a well-tailored message, the California GOP could see a better return on its investments. However, with 2016 being a presidential election year, turnout likely will be high, which would benefit Democrats.

Ultimately, the success of such an approach could hinge on whether the Nov. 4 elections did not quite capture the full extent of voter frustration with Democrats; and on how President Obama’s recent amnesty plays out among all groups of voters.

Tom Torlakson supports a status quo in which an average of 2.2 of the state’s 275,000 public school teachers are fired each year for incompetence — a figure so ridiculous you barely need to add context. It shows the public school system is run for the adult employees, not the students.

Yet as he seeks a second term as state superintendent of public instruction against reformer Marshall Tuck, Torlakson continues to pretend he doesn’t like horrible teachers in the classroom and did something about it.

As he has done throughout his campaign, Tuck condemned Torlakson’s appeal of a Superior Court judge’s ruling in Vergara v. the State of California, overturning laws creating tenure in two years, governing dismissals and requiring layoffs by seniority. Those laws, he said, “have led us to a situation where we can’t have an effective teacher in the classroom” and are “crushing the hopes” of the state’s most challenged students. …

Torlakson agreed that when “teachers are not up to it, move them out” and said that he wrote and helped pass a law this year making it easier to fire “ineffective and abusive teachers.” The bill, AB 215, by Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo, dealt primarily with teachers charged with abuse, not poor performance.

That’s from John Fensterwald’s coverage of the final forum between the two Democrats running for superintendent. I’m glad he mentioned Torlakson’s, er, disingenuousness, but he was on the kind side. AB 215 has nothing — nothing — to do with getting rid of incompetent teachers. Fensterwald’s use of “primarily” to describe what the bill is focused on gives Torlakson a bit of cover he just doesn’t deserve.

At a little bit after the 51-minute mark of a forum in Los Angeles last week with state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson and challenger Marshall Tuck, the candidates are asked a question from the audience about the Vergara ruling, which is described as holding that state tenure laws are so harmful to low-income students that they violate the Constitution. Should the state accept the ruling, appeal it or work out a settlement in which tenure laws are amended but not scrapped?

Tuck succinctly says the state should accept the ruling and work to fix broken policies hurting students.

But when it’s Torlakson’s turn to respond, he ducks the substance of the Vergara ruling, misrepresents Gov. Jerry Brown’s position, misrepresents the legal arguments made in the state’s appeal and tells a huge whopper about the teacher discipline bill enacted this year — all in a little over a minute. Here’s my transcription of Torlakson’s comments:

We have a fundamental disagreement. I am for kids. I’m for low-income kids. I’ve been a fighter spending my whole career for those kids and their future.

I did say we should appeal that decision because I think it is fundamentally flawed. it’s wrong on the facts. It’s wrong on the law. The governor and the state board of education agreed. We’ve asked the state attorney general to file an appeal and bring it to a higher court level.

I believe job protections giving teachers a chance to have a hearing if they’re on a proposed layoff list to have them have a chance for a fair hearing having experienced teachers do that.

Teaching is a tough job. Not everybody is cut out for that work. I know that. And what we are looking at is how do we move teachers who can’t make it out of the profession faster.

And I helped with a law this year that was signed in by Governor Brown that will expedite the process of removing abusive teachers and ineffective teachers from our schools in it. It’s a tough job, but we should allow teachers to move forward and get rid of the ones who can’t make it and then the others have a chance through … we’re being cut off.

Sigh.

Gov. Jerry Brown did not reject the idea that tenure is bad for minority kids. In his recent debate with Neal Kashkari, he tiptoed around the issue.

In her appeal, Kamala Harris did not reject the idea that tenure is bad for minority kids. She questioned Judge Rolf Treu’s legal reasoning.

Finally, it is absurd for Torlakson to argue that a bill triggered by the difficulties Los Angeles Unified faced in firing a teacher who fed semen to his students has anything to do with targeting ineffective teachers. It’s not just absurd; it is, to use a technical term, a lie.

Here are the first three sentences of AB 215, the teacher discipline law Torlakson crows about:

Existing law prohibits a permanent school employee from being dismissed, except for one or more of certain enumerated causes, including immoral or unprofessional conduct. This bill would also include egregious misconduct, as defined, as a basis for dismissal. Existing law requires the governing board of a school district to give notice to a permanent employee of its intention to dismiss or suspend the employee, together with a written statement of charges,
at the expiration of 30 days from the date of service of the notice, unless the employee demands a hearing. This bill would additionally apply the above to egregious misconduct.

I look forward to the education beat reporters jumping on the plain evidence of Torlakson’s dishonesty. Maybe I’m naive, but I really do. The deceit is too obvious to miss or ignore.

California’s Bay Area suffers the third worst traffic congestion in the nation, behind Honolulu and Los Angeles, according to USA Today. That congestion occurs despite Bay Area Rapid Transit‘s 104 miles of track taking nearly 400,000 people off of the roads each weekday.

So when the BART unions went on strike twice last year, the Bay Area’s normally bad congestion turned into a gridlock nightmare.

“Freeways have choked to a standstill,” reported the AP on July 2, two days into the first strike. “Lines for ferry service tripled, and boats were crammed to standing-room only. Buses were stuffed with riders who felt fortunate to be on board as many commuters were literally left in the dust when buses zoomed by without as much as a honk or an explanation.”

$73 million hit

Commutes that normally took a half hour became two-hour slogs. Many workers arrived late and/or left early or just stayed home altogether. As a result, each day of the strike cost the Bay Area at least $73 million in lost worker productivity, according to a Bay Area Council Economic Institute estimate.

“The Bay Area economy is suffering, along with hundreds of thousands of commuters,” said Jim Wunderman, Bay Area Council president/CEO in a July 2 statement.

That suffering has translated into strong opposition to allowing BART strikes, according to an Aug. 2 BAC poll. Seventy percent oppose allowing BART strikes, including 62 percent of Democrats and 60 percent of those who belong to a union or have a family member in a union.

Steve Glazer, a candidate for Joan Buchanan’s termed-out 16th Assembly District seat, capitalized on the angst. He spent weeks at BART stations throughout the Bay Area collecting thousands of signatures on anti-strike petitions.

“A strike will cripple our economy, hurt workers getting to their jobs, and limit access to schools and health care facilities. This is wrong,” Glazer said in a Sept. 20 statement. “I support state legislation to prohibit public transportation workers from striking. Strike bans exist in other states. Transit systems in New York, Massachusetts, Chicago and Washington have restrictions against strikes.

“The impact of a strike against a regional transit system like BART will be felt across the state.  This is not an issue that should be in the hands of individual transit boards. We need a statewide law prohibiting transportation strikes.”

Union threats

While Glazer was a hero to many beleaguered commuters, the Democrat said he has become a lightning rod for union hatred.

“They have made it clear to me that I’ll never be elected to any public office ever again in my life,” Glazer told KGO radio. “One union leader came up to me within hours after I announced my petition effort and said, ‘You put nails in your coffin.’

“So they’ve made it clear that I’ve made a huge miscalculation, that they don’t want to talk about the merits. They’ve made clear that it’s personal, and it’s political, and will affect anything that I choose to do in the future.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, there has been little, if any, backing for Glazer from other Bay Area politicians.

But Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, said in an Oct. 23 statement marking the end of the second strike that something needs to be done to fix the system:

“This strike was devastating for commuters throughout the Bay Area, and could not go on any longer. The current system failed the Bay Area. The commuters faced nightly uncertainty, and daily congestion, as this contract dispute continued. This must not happen again. I have gone through at least five BART contract negotiations in my time as an elected official from the Bay Area – clearly the process is not working. We owe it to the commuters to fix this.”

DeSaulnier chairs the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee, which he said was “investigating how other metropolitan areas around the nation avoid this kind of situation. After conducting the investigation, the committee will pursue every possible remedy to ensure this never happens again. We will continue to work with affected stakeholders to find lasting solutions.”

Bill would ban transit strikes

While DeSaulnier’s committee continues its investigation, Senate Republican Leader Bob Huff of Diamond Bar pushed ahead recently with Senate Bill 423. In addition to prohibiting public transportation workers from striking, his bill would have:

• Repealed statutes governing public transportation labor disputes, including requirements governing labor relations when a strike is threatened.
• Proscribed penalties and sanctions for employees and unions that participate in, cause, encourage or condone strikes.

“It’s hard to think of a reason why an entire region should have to endure this kind of mass shut down,” Huff told the Senate Public Employment and Retirement Committee on Jan. 13. “Many public services are considered essential: police officers and firefighters, for example. Strikes are prohibited for this very reason. They are critical for the public on a day-to-day basis. The reliability of public transit should be no different.

“California has 1.3 billion transit trips per year governed by some 400 transit authorities. The reliability of these public transportation resources should be and must be protected. SB423 will protect transit riders and ensure these services are reliable by prohibiting union leaders from striking. The recent BART strike demonstrates how important public transit is in California. And if we are going to rely on mass transit, then we need to make mass transit reliable.”

Huff added that his bill is based on similar strike-ban legislation in New York.

“Other states have recognized how important this is,” he said. “Even in the Bay Area, a beacon of liberal politics, upwards of 70 percent support a ban on transit strikes.”

But none of those 70 percent made it to the hearing. Huff brought no witnesses, and no one else spoke in favor of SB423.

Unions defend right to strike

Labor unions, however, showed up in strong numbers to argue against the bill, which they see as an assault on their collective bargaining rights.

“What the bill fails to recognize is that the collective bargaining process is very intricate,” said Michael Bolden, representing the Service Employees International Union. “It’s supposed to have a lot of give and take on both sides. What it also does not recognize is the history or underlying rationale of why a strike may be considered by a bargaining unit. It also fails to recognize what a labor union will consider prior to even calling a strike.

“What the bill is is extremely punitive. It confers rights upon an employer while essentially turning a blind eye to what an employer could or could not be doing during the process of collective bargaining. We firmly believe that, if this right is going to be taken away, it should be bargained away at the collective bargaining table. It shouldn’t be legislated.”

Kaitlin Vega, legislative advocate for the California Labor Federation, argued that Californians’ quality of life would be reduced if the ability to strike was taken away.

“California today faces the greatest level of inequality that we have ever seen,” she said. “In our view that is largely due to the diminished ability of workers to come together to engage in collective bargaining up to the point of withholding labor, which is always the last resort. But these collective bargaining rights have been essential to workers improving conditions, and really to the building of the middle class.

“And today we see such historic wage inequality. It makes it hard to understand why there would be further proposals to strip workers of their rights to collective bargaining. Especially because this bill would retain the ability of an employer to impose a contract, to lock workers out, to replace workers who go on strike. The employer would be left with all of their weapons at their disposal. And yet the workers would have no recourse. And that to us just seems fundamentally unfair and wrong.”

AFSCME: Ability to strike helped build America

Willie Pelote, representing the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, argued that nothing less than America’s future is at stake.

“Collective bargaining was a process that helped us build America,” he said. “And when you’re doing something like building America, you have differences of opinion from time to time. And then to come to the Legislature and ask to take away those taxpayers’ right to have those differences of opinion from an organization that was sitting on over a billion dollars. And then to hammer their workers into the ground, and ask them as citizens that live and reside in those communities and raise a family to take less while they are sitting on a reserve of over a billion dollars.

“And then to come here and ask you to give them the right to do that even more. It’s unconscionable. We are in opposition to this bill. It’s wrongheaded and headed in the wrong direction. We want to continue to build America. And it’s about time to let us go back and do that. Because that’s what we do best, build America.”

Committee chairman Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose, acknowledged that something needs to be done to break the cycle of strikes and strike threats. But he argued against Huff’s bill, calling it an “extreme, kind of far-end way of dealing with it. I think it’s a complicated issue. We have a lot of local governments with, for example, binding arbitration for their police and fire. I think there can be more discussion how we can maybe mediate or resolve strikes in a more favorable way than the BART situation.”

The three committee Democrats then killed SB423 with a 3-2 vote against it.

Democrat hardball

Huff issued a statement after the bill’s defeat, blaming it on political hardball by Democrats:

“Perhaps this bill should have been heard first in the Senate Transportation Committee, since it’s all about making sure our transit systems actually work for the public. But instead it was sent to the committee that focuses on the concerns of public workers. That should tell you something about the priorities of the majority party.”

Vowing to continue pursuing “the idea of protecting residents against crippling public transit strikes,” Huff added that other legislators have indicated they will introduce similar proposals in the coming months.

By Chris Reed

A bill that would prevent expedient, irresponsible school districts from issuing insane “capital appreciation bonds” that can’t be paid off early and that cost, over the long term, 10 to 20 times as much as the amount borrowed has had an interesting journey in Sacramento. It passed the Assembly unanimously only to be subject to an attempted hijacking in the Senate. As I wrote three weeks ago …

“The analysis of the reform bill by the Senate Education Committee’s top consultant, Kathleen Chavira, reads as if it were written by the firms that make fortunes by touting CABs. The analysis never cites a single example, such as Poway, that shows the bonds’ gigantic long-term cost — the factor driving the reform push. Instead, Chavira recapitulates process arguments about taking away flexibility from districts and describes the reforms as ‘punitive.’”

As John Fensterwald details on EdSource, the measure ended up surviving with most key provisions intact. In negotiating with state senators, Assembly Education Committee Chair Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo, played a key role in staving off Chavira and school administrators who want to continue to use CABs in order to avoid making tough decisions.

Much-bigger bond abuses tolerated — so far

But if Buchanan believes what she said about CABs — such borrowing “violates a basic principal of capital financing that ties the life of the financing to the life of an improvement” — then she should tackle a much-bigger abuse of school bonds, something that amounts toa systematic attack by school districts on the integrity of general obligation bonds, as I detailed for Cal Watchdog last fall.

By Chris Reed

On Friday, I noted that the state budget scrum always involved a series of hardball power plays that exposed as fiction the idea that the California Democratic Party and the most powerful forces on the state’s political left stood for “social justice.”

The trigger for this observation were the reports that unions were staying silent about pushes to restore the cuts in social services disproportionately used by the poor and the needy. Why all this balking? All the public employee unions are entering contract negotiations. The leaders of the dominant faction of the party of “social justice” define social justice as more money for them.

Over the weekend saw another example of hardball power politics that reflected I’ve-got-mine attitudes, not a desire for social justice. The issue was Jerry Brown’s push to award slightly more money to schools that have high numbers of English-learner students. If you buy the widespread but very disputable theory that more money means better schools — as the social justice types almost always do — then a slight divergence of funds to struggling students is a no-brainer. Rich districts have more fat in rough times than poor districts. Poor kids need more help, etc.

When ‘social justice’ = bringing home the bacon

But that’s not what “social justice” means to Democrats from west Los Angeles County or the Bay Area or any district with a well-regarded school district or two. For these Democrats, suddenly social justice means bringing home the bacon, the Sac Bee reports:

Gov. Jerry Brown had hardly finished presenting his annual budget revision last week before state Sen. Ted Lieu lit up on Twitter with a burst of criticism of a major part of the plan, a bid to shift more state aid to poor and English-learning students.

‘Instead of working together to help all kids,’ said Lieu, D-Torrance, Brown’s funding formula ‘pits teacher against teacher, community against community, parent against parent.'”

Senate President Darrell Steinberg, D-Status Quo

The article goes on to note that skeptics include Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo, and Senate President Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento. More:

“In many ways, resistance to Brown’s proposal to overhaul California’s school financing system is a function of simple math.

“Though a majority of California’s more than 6 million schoolchildren live in urban and rural districts expected to benefit from Brown’s proposal, all but a handful of lawmakers who will vote on the measure represent at least one school district identified by the Department of Education as a potential loser. …

“Brown was on the defensive last week, laboring to ‘clarify some common misperceptions’ about his plan. He said the most controversial part of his proposal — to provide money to especially needy districts at the expense of wealthier ones— would amount to just 4 percent of total spending, with the rest distributed on a per-pupil basis partly to all students and partly to disadvantaged students statewide.

Gov’s idea — Dems help disadvantaged — meets reality

This is funny — the governor forced to downplay the cost of a model “social justice” proposal to win over Democratic lawmakers. Still, at least while doing so, Jerry Brown delivered a seemingly mild observation that actually amounts to a pointed zinger.

“Asked if he thought he had done enough to mollify resistant lawmakers, Brown said, ‘I think the idea in a Democratic Legislature of helping the less advantaged is very persuasive.'”

One would think. One would think. At least if one were dumb enough to still believe that California’s elected Democrats believe in the 1960s version of social justice, not the shabby modern iteration.

What I wrote a few years back about Sacramento remains as starkly true as ever:

“When times are bad, unions pressure Democrats to always make social services for the poor be the first target of budget cutting, preserving public employee compensation by any means possible.

“When times are good, they pressure Democrats to save extra revenue for them. In the revenue boom that lasted from 2003-2007, social services spending went up by barely the rate of inflation, while spending on schools (teacher unions) and prisons (guard unions) went up at least four times as fast.”

Representing just whose interests?

Is that what rank-and-file Democratic voters want?

Doubftul. Very doubtful.

By Chris Reed

The California Teachers Association’s decision to quickly endorse a bill that would make it easier to fire depraved teachers was depicted in initial accounts as reflecting the CTA’s understanding that its image took a beating last year when it orchestrated the defeat of similar legislation.

The June power play came as more details kept trickling out about the disgusting events at Miramonte Elementary School in Los Angeles Unified, where teacher Mark Berndt fed his students semen, but LAUSD ended up deciding it had no choice but to pay him $40,000 to get him off the payroll.

“The teachers association customarily takes weeks to analyze bills and seek the approval of member councils before announcing their positions on bills. But the union is sensitive in the wake of horrific allegations of sexual abuse by a handful of teachers. In opposing [Sen Alex] Padilla’s teacher-dismissal bill last year, the union was characterized as protecting abusers over victims.”

That’s from John Fensterwald’s story, which depicted the new bill by Assembly Education Chairwoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo, as being nearly as strong as Padilla’s bill.

Follow-through far from sure thing

But everyone should keep an eye on how AB 375 changes as the session goes along. Democrats have a history of promising to clean up after the excesses of their key supporters, only to never follow through:

“Consider what happened in 2003.  Early that year, a series of sickening media reports detailed how several L.A. area law firms, especially the Trevor Law Group, filed thousands of frivolous suits against small businesses such as restaurants, dry cleaners and car repair shops, many run by immigrants or minorities with a poor grasp of English and a lack of awareness of their legal rights. The suits, which were allowed under the state’s Unfair Competition Law, would allege minor technical infractions of various state codes and demand payments from $6,000 to $26,000 to drop the suits.

“Attorney General Bill Lockyer probed the scam, corroborated the media reports and denounced the suits as a despicable extortion scheme. L.A.-area Latino Democrats, especially Lou Correa of central Orange County, pushed hard for reforms.

“But the trial lawyers pushed back. And fearful of offending a key source of Democrats’ campaign funds, Democrats didn’t just cave and block reform measures. They actually offered a bill that would have exposed the small businesses being sued to even bigger court judgments — in other words, giving the extortionist law firms an even bigger club to threaten business owners.

“The Unfair Competition Law only ended up being fixed by a 2004 initiative.

“So anyone who believes Democratic lawmakers will quickly do the right thing here — or allow the right thing to be done — should keep this history in mind.”

That’s what I wrote in 2009 in reaction to a Democratic lawmaker’s promise to launch an aggressive cleanup of abuses in the In-Home Supportive Services, an SEIU darling. There were reforms, but they were pushed through by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, not Democrats in the Legislature.

So be wary, very wary, of what AB 375 will be like when it it sent to Gov. Jerry Brown. In its heart of hearts, the CTA hasn’t changed. It still likes teacher protections so extreme that a vile human being who fed semen to 6-year-olds not only couldn’t be quickly fired, he pocketed $40,000 in return for quitting.

In its heart of hearts, the CTA was willing to let epileptic schoolkids die if union nurses weren’t hired to administer life-saving medicine to the kids.

In its heart of hearts, the CTA is as cold-hearted in pursuit of its interests as any public organization I have ever seen.

I expect my cynicism to be confirmed in coming months. A leopard can’t change its spots.