State Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda, and 16 co-sponsors have introduced legislation that sounds like a bold move to address the high cost of housing. Glazer’s

The last time the rental tax credit was increased, in 1979, it set the credit at $10 per month for an individual filer and $20 a month for joint filers, with eligibility capped by total income. Senate Bill 1182 would increase the cap to $20 per month for individuals and $40 per month for joint filers. To be eligible, individuals have to have gross incomes of $40,078 or less and joint filers have to have incomes of $80,156 or less.

One-bedroom apartments routinely go for $1,700 or more per month in most metropolitan areas and the average home sale is above $500,000 in most of Southern California and over $1 million in the Bay Area. Glazer’s credit would mean that joint filers paying the average rent go from spending $20,160 in a year to spending $19,920 – a 1.2 percent savings. Individual filers paying the average rent would drop from $20,280 a year to $20,160 – a 0.6 percent savings. The percentage savings on a typical mortgage would be much lower.

In his news release announcing the legislation, Glazer noted attempts by the Legislature on many fronts to make it easier to build more housing, starting with streamlining regulations and giving qualified projects guaranteed approvals. He said these efforts could take years before they began helping Californians.

“None of those measures directed relief to the monthly budgets of struggling renters,” Glazer said. “The renter’s tax credit does.”

Three Republicans among co-sponsors

The news release listed these lawmakers, including three Republicans, as co-authors: Sens. Jim Beall, D-San Jose; Steve Bradford, D-Gardena: Bill Dodd, D-Napa; Cathleen Galgiani, D-Stockton; Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo; Ben Hueso, D-San Diego; Connie Leyva, D-Chino; Josh Newman, D-Fullerton; Janet Nguyen, R-Fountain Valley; Richard Pan, D-Sacramento; Anthony Portantino, D-Glendale; Richard Roth, D-Riverside; Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley; Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont; Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita; and Assemblyman Tom Lackey, R-Palmdale.

Glazer’s office said the higher renters’ tax credit would cost the state $230 million in annual revenue.

There are other restrictions on eligibility for the renters’ tax credit besides income caps, the Franchise Tax Board’s website notes. They include:

  – Tax filers need to have paid rent for at least six months for shelter that served as their principal residence.

  – The rented property was not on a parcel exempt from state property tax.

  – The property was not shared for more than six months with a parent or a guardian or any individual who could claim the tax filer as a dependent.

  – The tax filer was not a minor living with a legal guardian, parent or foster parent.

Glazer, 60, a former political and development consultant and aide to Gov. Jerry Brown, won a May 2015 special election to fill the final 19 months of Mark DeSaulnier’s state Senate seat after DeSaulnier was elected to Congress in 2014. He won a full four-year term in 2016.

The 2013 showdown ended with BART employees winning a 15.4 percent raise that the San Jose Mercury-News reported made them the best-compensated transit workers in the U.S. While the end to the strike made the public happy, critics said the deal would hurt BART’s finances in the long haul and didn’t do nearly enough to reduce the cost of benefits and perks with few parallels in public employment.

Now, promises to address these issues were put aside in the latest contract talks, which recently concluded with an extension of the previous deal for four years that also included cost-of-living pay hikes.

Forty-two local leaders praised the deal as a step in the right direction. But local media coverage — and some politicians — paint a different picture.

No-strike provision left out of deal

State Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda, called the deal a compromise he could live with for now. But he also told the Mercury-News that the deal didn’t address a range of important issues, starting with the urgent need for a no-strike clause to prevent the chaos seen in 2013. 

Orinda called on BART to withhold “cost-of-living increases from highly paid managers; undertake a salary survey of agency workers before the next contract talks; establish a capital fund so repairs and replacement parts can be paid for on an as-needed basis instead of by massive bond measures; release clear projections of retirement costs; … and commit to training replacement workers in the event of another work stoppage.”

Bay Area News Group columnist Dan Borenstein suggested the pact was irresponsible. The deal increased BART’s projected $400 million operating deficit over the next decade to nearly $480 million. Borenstein noted that negotiators raised no questions about some uniquely generous provisions:

• Retirement savings account: On top of pensions, workers also receive BART-funded retirement savings accounts. The annual district contribution for each worker is $1,869 plus 1.63 percent of salary.
• Health care coverage: Workers and most retirees receive full family health care coverage for $138 a month, regardless of the number of dependents.
• Work week: Train operators, station agents and other members of the Amalgamated Transit Union work only 37.5 hours per week, not 40.
• Leave time: BART workers receive up to six weeks paid vacation annually, of which they can cash out a week each year. They receive 12 days of sick leave, and can apply unused portions toward their pension service credit or cash it out. Plus they receive 13 paid holidays.
• Annual bonuses: Workers receive $1,000 annual bonuses for each year that ridership exceeds projections by 2 percent.

Were maintenance dollars used for compensation?

Borenstein, among others, has suggested that one reason the November bond is so big is that for years, normal BART maintenance may have been scaled back to pay for worker compensation. Such maintenance is considered crucial to keep infrastructure and rail cars in good shape.

What this wide-ranging criticism means for the fate of the BART bond is uncertain. In a February letter, 32 Bay Area elected officials seemed to link their support for a multibillion-dollar bond to hard guarantees of no future strikes. Now, many of these officials, starting with Glazer, are no longer taking that hard line.

But commuters may not be eager to support a bond after BART approved a contract that offers no protections against an encore of the 2013 disruptions they endured.

Correction: Due to a reporter error, an earlier version of this article mistakenly reported that Assemblywoman Catharine Baker supports the extension of Prop. 30 taxes. Baker does not, in fact, support the proposed extensions. 

Steve Glazer – bald, bespectacled and mild-mannered – doesn’t look like a revolutionary. But the politically moderate Democratic state senator from Orinda hopes to be in the vanguard of a centrist coalition in Sacramento that challenges the Legislature’s entrenched partisan divide and loosens labor unions’ grip on power.

“[When] I ran, a big part of it was to break down the power that exists in Sacramento,” said Glazer at a town hall meeting in San Ramon on Nov. 30. “There is no center anymore. It’s a polarized place, from the left and from the right. It’s unhealthy, it’s very unhealthy.”

“Everybody is afraid to try to occupy that center because you lose,” Glazer continued. “So, part of the reason that I got into this was to try to break it down, and say, ‘Look, I run, I lose, it’s OK.’ But it’s an unhealthy process.”

Glazer’s candidacy in a May special election sent alarm bells to Sacramento’s biggest power player, organized labor, which spent more than $2.7 million attempting to elect union-friendly Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla.

In that campaign a union front group played a dirty trick in an attempt to siphon votes from Glazer. Posing as an Asian-American business group, they sent mailers touting another Republican candidate, Michaela Hertle, but failed to mention she had dropped out of the race too late to have her name removed from the ballot.

“Maverick” status

Glazer touted his political maverick status to the standing-room-only crowd in the Amador Rancho Center, site of the recent town hall meeting.

“In my first week in office – the pro tem in the Senate [Kevin de León] is the top guy – I voted against four of his bills in my first week,” he said. “People said to me, ‘Steve, the Chamber of Commerce supported them.’ In the first week I voted against two of their top priorities on the floor of the Senate.”

He added, prompting laughter, “I can’t find anybody that’s really that happy with me.”

A question about why things don’t seem to get done in Sacramento prompted Glazer to elaborate on his view of Sacramento’s polarized, unhealthy atmosphere:

“Some of it is intractable and difficult to solve,” he said. “It’s because these interest groups are so powerful. When you have a choice to be made as an elected leader between what you might think is better for your community or the powers in Sacramento, what does that really mean?

 

“It means campaign contributions. It means the organizers that come into communities, they don’t live there, and influence the decisions that are made in that local community. It affects independent expenditure campaigns.”

For two months last spring those IE groups flooded mailboxes daily with mailers featuring Glazer’s face. Half praised him as a fiscal conservative and maverick willing to buck the special interests in Sacramento. The other half denounced him as a tool of business interests, including tobacco companies.

Score Card

Several legislative report cards affirm that Glazer is one of the most fiscally conservative, pro-business Democratic legislators in Sacramento.

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association gave him a “D,” which sounds bad, except that every other Senate Democrat but one (Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside) received an ‘F.’ Glazer voted with the HJTA 57.6 percent of 16 bills.

The California Taxpayers Association scored Glazer as voting with taxpayers only 50 percent of the time on targeted legislation. But that still made him the third most taxpayer friendly Democrat in the Senate.

Glazer did better on business legislation, according to the California Chamber of Commerce. He voted with business interests on 11 of 13 bills, which is the highest score among Senate Democrats. Most Democrats voted the Chamber’s way only three or four times on those bills.

After casting more than 1,300 votes in his six months in office, Glazer said one of things he’s most proud of is his 100 percent voting score from the California League of Cities. It was based on votes on 15 bills mostly dealing with local control but also with marijuana, economic development and affordable housing.

Local Control

As part of his crusade for more local control, Glazer is cosponsoring Senate Bill 799. It would raise a state-imposed cap on local school districts’ reserve funds. The union-backed cap was designed to free up school district funds for increased employee compensation, according to the Contra Costa Times.

“The whole school district cap issue happened because all the power was in Sacramento,” said Glazer. “Think about it. It’s not just about we here engaged locally concerned about your local control, your local choices.”

He continued, “They, excuse my language, they – how do I use better language? [audience laughter] – they stepped on every school district in the state. Every legislator made the choice to step on every school district in their district to create an artificial cap because of that power, that grip that exists in Sacramento on school policy. It’s very unhealthy, but it’s a great example.”

Several attempts to remove the cap failed this year, but six Democratic senators who voted for the reserve fund cap have signed onto Glazer’s bill.

Bipartisan Cooperation

In an example of the bipartisan cooperation Glazer is hoping to increase in Sacramento, the town hall was co-hosted by Republican Assemblywoman Catharine Baker. She recently celebrated her first anniversary in office after fighting a similarly expensive, divisive election campaign against a union-backed Democrat.

She received 51.6 percent of the votes in a district with 32 percent registered Republicans, and is the only Republican state lawmaker in the Bay Area.

Baker is more fiscally conservative than Glazer. She received a “B” from Jarvis and a 100 percent score from CalTax.

No one in the Assembly, including all of the Democrats, scored higher than Baker’s 86 percent on the League of Cities report card. She received the same score as Glazer from the Chamber.

All of that commonality, including overlapping districts, has engendered a mutual respect society with each legislator praising the other at the town hall and urging a new way of doing things in Sacramento. In Glazer’s words:

“It’s the center we are trying to build and occupy. Both of us here, we see the value of bipartnership, in partnering, in building that center so it will be more reflective of what we are here to represent.”

 

“We wish every place was like San Ramon, but it’s not. But we are trying to break it down. We are creating a cluster here that’s very unusual in the state. A Democrat supporting a Republican, a Republican supporting a Democrat.

 

“So we are creating a cluster here of independently minded representatives that is unique in California. It’s part of the excitement of what we do. We are trying to recruit to find more members like that who want to join our centrist party.”

Baker is moving a companion measure to lift the school district reserve cap, Assembly Bill 1048, through the Assembly.

A perfect storm

Although the trend has reached statewide, unions recently suffered their most painful blow in an East Bay race that Republicans strategically withdrew from. “Centrist Democrat Steve Glazer’s victory over more doctrinaire Democrat Susan Bonilla in a special election for a state Senate seat in the East Bay is just the latest, and perhaps most profound, evidence that public-employee unions are losing their control over the California Legislature,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

In that race, Glazer, a career Democrat and former adviser to Gov. Jerry Brown, drew vehement opposition from organized labor for his support of pension reform and his tough stance against striking workers at Bay Area Rapid Transit. As the pro-union left sided with Bonilla, Glazer scooped up more business-friendly Democrats — along with Republican voters, thanks to California’s open primary system. “The union issue was front and center in both races and voters in Democratic and Republican districts rejected union priorities,” concluded U-T San Diego’s Steven Greenhut.

A Republican pivot

Although, by ordinary measures, the outcome was an embarrassment for the GOP, Republicans were quick to declare a certain kind of victory. As Joel Pollack observed at Breitbart news, “Republican strategist Richard Temple told the Contra Costa Times that Glazer’s win was a ‘repudiation of union politics.’ For Tony Quinn of the Fox & Hounds blog, the race was also a revolt against political insiders, their endorsements and their junk mail. ‘This result shows there’s room for independent Democrats who don’t have to cower to labor,’ he adds.”

The rhetoric underscored how influential Republicans have found an opportunity to continue the party’s pivot away from immigration and social issues, which are often seen as playing especially poorly in the deep blue state. Even where unions appeared to be advancing, such as the fight over raising the minimum wage, opportunities have arisen for the state GOP to let its foes shoot themselves in the foot. In the latest instance, for example, “labor leaders, who were among the strongest supporters of the citywide minimum wage increase approved last week by the Los Angeles City Council, are advocating last-minute changes to the law that could create an exemption for companies with unionized workforces,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

Leadership questions

With Republicans looking to exploit the Democrat divide over labor issues, leading Democrats in Sacramento faced a sharp choice over how to respond. Party leaders’ frustration with Glazer has been clear. But they have not signaled how cold of a shoulder he will receive in the state Senate.

Some analysts have seen evidence that Democrats will seek to shore up their pro-business support by making Glazer welcome. As Dan Walters noted at the Sacramento Bee, “Marin County’s Marc Levine and Santa Monica’s Richard Bloom, two other Democrats who defeated union-backed Assembly incumbents in 2012 with business support (and Glazer’s indirect help), were not punished in that house.”

“Their wins hinted that when Democrats duel Democrats in relatively affluent, sophisticated areas, union support doesn’t guarantee victory, and business can engage effectively. Glazer proved it, and that’s the true import of his victory, given the perpetual war between business and liberal groups, including unions, over so-called ‘job killer’ bills and other legislation.”

In the wake of a tight first-round vote, Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla, D-Concord — the runner up to Orinda Mayor Steve Glazer — snagged the endorsement of the California Democratic Party in her bid to replace state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, freshly elected to Congress.

Formalizing its support even further, the Party has now cut Bonilla a sizable check to help defeat Glazer, as the Sacramento Bee reported:

“The California Democratic Party has contributed more than $73,000 to Bonilla’s campaign, state filings through Thursday show. It is the first time the party has spent significant money in an open race featuring two Democrats.”

A rare battle

The state Republican Party did its best to bow out of the race in the 7th Senate District, which former state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier has vacated upon his election to Congress. Although she dropped out of the race, Republican Michaela Hertle’s name remained on the first-round ballot. As a result, Hertle earned just 17 percent of the initial vote.

The absence of a viable Republican candidate helped create near-perfect conditions for a divisive struggle that could pit Democrats’ left wing against its center. Glazer, a business-friendly Democrat who recently served as one of Gov. Jerry Brown’s key advisors, took the lion’s share of the vote, but not enough to prevent a runoff election. “Glazer topped two fellow Democrats with 32 percent of the vote. He was followed by Bonilla of Concord with 24 percent and former Assemblyman Joan Buchanan of Alamo with 22 percent,” the San Francisco Chronicle recounted.

Big consequences

Typically, close runoff races have provoked bitter campaigns between rivals. This time around, the battle between Bonilla and Glazer has taken on an extra edge because of its potential impact on Democrats’ policy agenda in Sacramento.

Voters have been hit with an avalanche of mailers castigating one candidate or the other, often with so little context that local papers, such as the Contra Costa Times, have had to provide fact-checking breakdowns of which allegations hold the most water.

As the San Jose Mercury News pointed out, no matter how much the contending interests behind the candidates amp up outrage around the big issues dominating statewide politics, voters may well choose between Bonilla and Glazer based on their opposing positions on a more local issue: labor strikes affecting the Bay Area Rapid Transit metro system. Glazer, according to the Mercury News, has come out in favor of banning the strikes, while Bonilla would head them off by doubling down on negotiations.

But the bare-knuckle conflict has left no doubt that major fissures within the California Democratic Party are in danger of widening. “Bonilla sees high-speed rail as a necessary alternative to congested highways; Glazer sees it as a high-minded concept with no feasible funding plan,” the Mercury News noted. “Bonilla thinks voters should decide whether to extend Proposition 30 sales and income tax hikes; Glazer thinks they should sunset as originally intended.”

While unions and activists have shelled out seven figures to praise Bonilla and sink Glazer, Bee columnist Dan Walters has noted, corporate groups and private supporters have done the reverse — both struggling to tip the balance of power within the Democrat-controlled state Senate.

“Only 19 or 20 Democratic senators, just short of a majority, are reliable votes for the most contentious business-related bills, such as those on the CalChamber’s target list. The May 19 election could tip the balance either way. A Bonilla win would enhance the bills’ chances in the Senate, while a Glazer victory would make their passage even more difficult.”

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.

Steve Glazer, a former top adviser to Gov. Jerry Brown, recently explained the pressures faced by majority Democrats in the Legislature:

During a panel conversation on the impact of California’s top-two electoral system Friday, Glazer said Democrats who disagree with labor unions on school, budget and pension issues have been “demonized” by influential elements of their own party.

“The Democratic Party is controlled by some very powerful interests,” Glazer said at the forum, organized by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies, “and most Democrats who have ambition are intimidated by that circumstance.”

In his Assembly race last year, labor unions backing Democrat Tim Sbranti worked against Glazer, a more conservative Democrat, in the primary election. Sbranti advanced but was defeated in the general election by a Republican, Catharine Baker.

One theme we have advanced at CalWatchDog.com is that a one-party state eventually sees fissures develop in the majority party. That may be what we’re seeing happen here.

More “conservative” Democrats, such as Glazer — and at least on budget prudence, Brown — face the free-spending ways of more “liberal” Democrats, such as state Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon of Los Angeles.

Right now, Brown has the edge because of his long experience in California politics, dating back to the late 1930s when his father, Gov. Pat Brown, was a young and ambitious politician. Jerry Brown also understands that, in state politics, balancing the budget is the key to everything else.

But after Brown leaves state politics, his less experienced successors will not have that edge, and the “powerful interests” may grow yet more powerful.