Last week’s announcement by the California Public Employees’ Retirement System that it had strong

Sacramento Democratic insider Steve Maviglio and the Californians for Retirement Security – a union-backed group that opposes any effort to change public employee pensions – shared a Twitter post about how the news “should quiet pension bashers.”

But credit ratings agencies, actuaries and investment experts aren’t likely to see the news as reason to change their grim view of CalPERS’ medium- and long-term prospects. Even with the strong year, CalPERS still only has 68 percent of funds in hand to cover its pension obligations – a roughly $100 billion shortfall – and that’s based on a forecast of 7 percent annual returns that CalPERS’ own consultant said should be reduced to 6.2 percent.

Meanwhile, local governments around the state are in no mood for happy talk about the nation’s largest public pension agency. Their required CalPERS’ pension payments are soaring and appear likely to keep increasing for years to come – even if CalPERS achieves its 7 percent return goal. Aging public agency work forces are swelling the ranks of retirees and “smoothing” practices that phased in CalPERS rate increases over the last 15 years no longer offer much of a cushion to governments’ bottom lines.

Modesto official: CalPERS status quo will collapse

In May, Joe Lopez, Modesto’s acting city manager, said the city eventually wouldn’t be able to afford its CalPERS bill, which will nearly double over the next eight years.

“Ultimately there is going to have to be a substantial change made to the way the pension system is run,” Lopez told a City Council budget committee hearing, according to the Modesto Bee. “We can’t continue to rely, CalPERS can’t continue to rely, on revenue [from cities and its other public sector members to meet its pension obligations]. There is going to have to be substantial changes to the actual benefit packages if these are ever going to be sustainable.”

There are similar worries in many small cities around the state.

Last month, Chico Councilman Randall Stone – a financial planner – predicted CalPERS would eventually collapse as the benefits it paid out exceeded the money it was taking in.

The grim assessment was triggered by a report showing the city’s CalPERS bill will go up about $370,000 in 2018-19, $803,000 in 2019-20 and nearly $2 million in 2020-21 alone.

“I think generally speaking, the community doesn’t understand what a time bomb this is,” Stone told the Chico Enterprise-Record. “You should be screaming with your hair on fire from the rooftops.”

In May, the Bay Area News Group reported that three small East Bay towns – Pittsburg, Walnut Creek and Martinez – had to cut several agencies’ budgets for 2017-18 to pay their CalPERS bills. And these cuts are even before the large pending CalPERS hikes.

In March, the Ventura County Star reported on how local cities were reeling because of the CalPERS hikes. Tiny Port Hueneme’s pension bill went from $774,000 in 2014-15 to $1.3 million in 2017-18 and will reach $3.2 million in 2022-23 – more than quadrupling over an eight-year span.

SEIU leader: Pension shortfall like drought

But union officials have not expressed sympathy with struggling local governments. In a June 26 op-ed for the Sacramento Bee, Yvonne Walker, president of the Service Employees International Union Local 1000, mocked “doomsday predictions about California’s public worker pension funds.” She likened the recent poor CalPERS returns to the state’s drought, which came to an abrupt end this winter.

This analogy – and Walker’s long-term optimism – prompted a tart response from David Crane, a financial expert and former aide to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“No financial expert can present any real evidence showing that CalPERS can grow its way back from its current 63 percent funded ratio to anywhere close to 100 percent,” Crane wrote on the Medium website.

The 63 percent funded figure went up to 68 percent after CalPERS’ good returns were noted, but Crane stands by his dismissal of any optimism about CalPERS recovering from its current woes.

In fact, most of the larger defeats over the last year or so have been due to intraparty fighting. It was mostly moderate Democrats who last year weakened landmark environmental legislation, SB350. This year, they struck again when they initially killed a measure expanding overtime protections for farmworkers.  

In those instances, the moderates formed a majority with Republicans, which means both share the blame (or praise). But while Republicans often get blamed, the truth is that there aren’t enough Republicans to block most votes. It was Democrats solely who twice sank a Democratic bill expanding parental leave — once by a Democratic majority on a policy committee (possibly due to a grudge) and then a revived version was vetoed by the Democratic governor, Jerry Brown.  

What it takes

Democrats need to flip two seats in the Assembly and one in the Senate to get a supermajority — and it’s possible. With a supermajority, Democrats would have the power to increase taxes, override gubernatorial vetoes (which rarely happens) and change legislative rules without Republican votes.

Most bills require a simple majority, which means Democrats have more than enough votes most of the time. But a united bloc can be elusive in a state as large and diverse as California, where different members have different needs based on their districts.  

“Taxes and rules, that’s about it,” said Steve Maviglio, a prominent Democratic strategist in California. “And it’s rare that either party is a monolith. If Democrats win in competitive districts, they often will get a pass on tough votes anyway.”

They don’t always get a pass though. For example, Assemblywoman Cheryl Brown, an Inland Empire Democrat, faces tremendous opposition from a more liberal opponent in her re-election bid, largely due to votes that have riled environmentalists. Just as the opposing party tries to weed out incumbents in moderate districts, the more ideologically “pure” try to weed out centrists within the party.

The Democratic dividing line

The moderate caucus is mostly people of color, like Assemblywoman Brown. According to Mike Madrid, a Republican consultant who specializes in Latino issues, economic issues will be the dividing line in the Democratic Party — between moderate Democrats of color in blue-collar districts and wealthy, coastal liberals (mostly white and particularly in the Bay Area), who have outsized influence over policy in the state.

For example, the farmworker overtime bill was largely supported by members along the coast, despite most of the farms being inland. The bill was killed in the summer by the Republican/Moderate coaltion, but enough moderates (and one Republican) switched to support in the last days of the legislative session. 

“There’s a growing economic argument that is going to be made as we grow poverty, as income inequality continues to divide, as housing affordability becomes more and more out of reach and as our education program continues to disproportionately hurt kids of color — all of these are major substantive policy issues, which are fundamentally about the economy — there’s a growing disparity between white progressives and moderate Democrats of color,” Madrid said. “That’s going to be the dividing line.”

Bad for Democracy?

If Republicans do get relegated to superminority status, their reduced role could have greater implications for the fate of Democracy. 

“It’s not good for the health of a two-party system, since it marginalizes Republican members of the respective chambers,” said Mark Petracca, chair of the Department of Political Science at UC Irvine. “This marginalization means less buy-in to the policy making process and can result in even greater political polarization.”

Opportunity for Republicans

No matter how many Republicans are left in the Legislature after Tuesday (after all, they may hold or pick up seats as well), there’s an opportunity to regain some influence over policy making. They can work with the moderate Democrats on issues like education reform and economic development and improvement, as the strength of the moderates is proportionate to the size of the Republican caucus. They need each other, at least on certain issues, according to Madrid. 

“But they’re going to have to get out of their ideological box and come up with new and better ideas that address a changing California,” Madrid said of Republicans.

Veto overrides

While a supermajority does give one party in the Legislature the power to override a gubernatorial veto, it’s not likely to happen, at least not while there’s a Democratic governor. According to the One Voter Project, Republicans did propose the last attempted veto override, in 2012, which failed. The last successful override was in 1979, when Jerry Brown was governor the first time.

Well, maybe not always, as is the case with Assemblywoman Patty Lopez, a pariah in the Democratic Party since she knocked off Raul Bocanegra, a popular incumbent, two years ago. 

Up for re-election in 2016, the party didn’t endorse Lopez (rare for an incumbent absent a scandal), outside interests want nothing to do with her and her Assembly kin are almost nowhere to be found.

But she expects to be back in her office next year, stronger than ever. To her, nothing could be more challenging than her first term.

“I survived,” the thick-accented San Fernando Democrat said with a laugh in a recent interview with CalWatchdog, reflecting on her first term in office. “Believe it or not, the first year was hard.” 

Plagued by inexperience, a lack of connection with many of her colleagues and the loss of her mother, Lopez said the first term was hard just to stay focused. Distractions aside, she managed to author 38 pieces of legislation, 14 of which became law, including one to help conserve Monarch Butterflies and another allowing the use of clotheslines for many residents who want, or need, to save on utility costs.

Her biggest split with the party has been her opposition to high-speed rail, which is set to run straight through her district.

The clothesline bill was emblematic of her primary focus: Constituent services. Lopez reportedly doesn’t spend much time socializing in Sacramento. Instead, she’s at between six to eight community events a week in he district. She keeps only two staffers and an intern in Sacramento, while the large majority of her staff, a dozen or so, stay in her district office where she resolved 312 constituent cases since being in office. 

While all that won’t make her the subject of Robert Caro’s next book, it may be enough for re-election. According to Lopez, it was Bocanegra’s activities outside his district that made voters in his district seek new representation. Instead of campaigning for his own re-election, Bocanegra was on the trail with other candidates trying to help them (media reports suggest Bocanegra was aiming for speaker). 

“I feel like after two years if voters don’t know who you are, they don’t recognize your name, obviously you didn’t spend enough time in the district,” Lopez said of Bocanegra, who was also a one-term Assembly member. “If after two years, if people don’t feel you do anything, they’ll vote for the next person in line.”

Not a politician

Lopez is far from the typical politician. Born in Michoacán, Mexico, Lopez moved to the United States when she was 12. Her mother reportedly didn’t trust the government, so Lopez was not enrolled in school. It wasn’t until her twenties that she got a GED and took English classes. 

Lopez became a citizen in 2000. And while she had a few odd jobs, like working on an assembly line building home security alarms, her experience as an education activist ultimately led her to public office. 

Fearing budget cuts would threaten adult education, and believing Bocanegra, her assemblyman, wasn’t doing anything about it, she challenged him with little money and little support and ended up winning by fewer than 500 votes.

And that’s the short story of how Patty Lopez, who was once adoringly referred to as “The Mexican mom in office,” came to Sacramento.

Bad at fundraising

When a candidate from any party first considers running for office, his or her ability to raise money is the litmus test of viability. The most common criticism of Lopez is that she’s an abysmal fundraiser, something Bocanegra is not.

“Sometimes, they don’t see me as a really strong candidate, because I don’t raise a lot of money,” Lopez said. “I deliver service (to constituents) and I align with the party on major things.”

Democratic Party endorsements are made at the local level, where Bocanegra received 94 percent of the delegate votes in the district. It’s unclear if the party’s concerns were due to Lopez’s viability issue or loyalty to Bocanegra. But according to a party spokesman, the endorsement of a Democratic challenger of a Democratic incumbent is just politics as usual. 

“This race is getting attention because of the top two dynamic but contested Democratic races are nothing new,” said Michael Soller, a spokesman for the California Democratic Party. Soller did provide other examples of the party not backing an incumbent.

“The Democratic Party did her wrong,” said a high-level, Democratic staffer in the Legislature, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “She is everything they are supposed to stand for and they kicked her to the curb — very sad.”

Leadership

Campaign finance records show that a dozen or so legislators have contributed to Lopez, and she said that Assemblymembers Cristina Garcia of Bell Gardens, Susan Talamantes Eggman of Stockton and Adrin Nazarian of Sherman Oaks have offered help on the campaign trail. 

But while both Speaker Anthony Rendon and Majority Floor Leader Ian Calderon endorsed her and contributed to her campaign, neither has attended events with her in the district. 

“This race is a Dem on Dem race where both candidates are good votes for working families and immigrant communities and both have served in the Assembly,” said Rendon spokesman Bill Wong. “That said, the fact that (Rendon) maxed out to her and publicly endorsed her speaks for itself.”  

There’s a difference between endorsing with a max contribution, which doesn’t buy much in the expensive world of campaigns, and going on the trail with a candidate to help raise support and money. And while leadership may have given tepid support, there’s just not a big push to help Lopez stay in office — particularly in an election cycle where the president of the United States endorsed four Democratic legislative candidates.

“I cant remember the Caucus ever leaving an incumbent unprotected like this unless there was a scandal of some sorts,” said Steve Maviglio, a prominent Democratic strategist. “Then again, Bocanegra was a former member.” 

Money talks

Political parties can contribute unlimited amounts to candidates and outside groups can spend unlimited amounts in independent expenditures — so the lack of both is significant. 

Rendon can usually direct party funds to incumbents, except party rules prohibit funds from going to candidates who aren’t endorsed by the party. And if money talks, then the outside groups have said loud and clear they want Bocanegra.

According to a MapLight analysis of campaign finance records, outside groups of mostly business interests have spent $350,000 against Lopez and $1.4 million in support of Bocanegra, while only a pro-women’s group spent on her behalf — just $10,000. And this is where fundraising matters most: Lopez has raised only $133,000 this cycle to Bocanegra’s $1.07 million — money that goes to advertising and professional staff.

Lopez, for her part, doesn’t think fundraising is the measure by which she should be judged though. She’s been a good Democrat and a help to her constituents and she thinks that should be enough.

And voters will soon decide if that’s true. 

Not entirely unopposed, but the committee against a measure aimed at making legislative proceedings in Sacramento more transparent is unfunded and run entirely by the pro bono work of Democratic political strategist Steve Maviglio.

If approved by voters, the measure would amend the state Constitution to require that the Legislature make available online the final version of a bill at least 72 hours prior to a vote on either the Assembly or Senate floor.

It would also require videos of all open legislative meetings to be recorded and then posted online with 24 hours, and would allow individuals to record and share their own videos of open meetings.  

Maviglio has the political savvy to run the campaign — he’s working on two measures in support of the ban on plastic bags and against another measure to require voter approval for revenue bonds of $2 billion or more — but the money just isn’t there. 

“It’s an uphill battle to be sure because many donors have bigger fish to fry,” Maviglio said. “But this is a measure that voters don’t understand as evidenced by the extraordinary amount of money that billionaire Charles Munger (Jr.) is pouring into it.”

One donor is definitely interested

While the measure enjoys a broad coalition of bipartisan supporters, Munger, a Palo Alto physicist and GOP donor, has in fact bankrolled the effort thus far, giving nearly $7 million to the cause, according to campaign finance disclosures.

Maviglio has publicly taken shots at the measure when given the opportunity, most notably in the opinion pages of The Sacramento Bee.

In December, Maviglio pointed to the 2008 budget agreement, the 1959 Fair Housing Act, the 2006 climate change bill (AB32) and the 2014 water bond as tough votes taken without 72 hours notice. This measure, he argued, would subject iffy legislators to attacks from special interest groups and could derail the agreements.

But proponents of Prop. 54 say if a deal is a good one, it can be done with enough time for the public to know the details and which special interests, if any, are pulling the strings. And legislators, they argue, could feel assured they know what they’re voting on.

“Steve Maviglio is the ultimate political insider whose ‘committee’ opposing Prop. 54 has no members and has not reported any funding,” said Prop. 54 spokeswoman Mary Ellen Grant. “We can only guess that Mr. Maviglio opposes Prop. 54 because he believes the only way legislation can be passed in Sacramento is by continuing to keep voters in the dark.”

Is it necessary?

Frustration boiled over last month during the final days of the legislative session with last-minute deals that gave lawmakers little time to review the details.

One bill in particular, a measure to increase oversight of the California Public Utilities Commission, died because because CPUC officials requested last-minute changes and some lawmakers felt concerned there wasn’t enough time to vet the proposal.

Earlier this year, legislative leaders offered their own version of a similar proposal, but it was panned by Prop. 54 proponents who said it was “not palatable” and criticized lawmakers for waiting until 15 days before the deadline to begin negotiations. 

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

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

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

Polling

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

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

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

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

Republicans

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

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

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

Fragile coalition

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

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

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

Endorsements

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Uphill climb

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

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

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

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

Well, it’s not that simple. It’s a detailed process that amateurs likely long ago lost the ability to win on their own.

Preparation

Find some money: While the average citizen could run a ballot initiative campaign on a shoestring budget, it probably wouldn’t be successful. The cost of consultants, polling, campaigning and signature gathering is exorbitant — and yes, all that is necessary.

Finding an average cost of a campaign is difficult because it really depends on the issue, the year and the strength of the opposition, but proponents of the water bond in 2014, for example, spent $19.5 million that year.

And where does all that money go? To winning, hopefully.

Step 1: The first thing a proponent needs is the law’s language. This could be done by the individual, but it’s best done by a lawyer. The Office of Legislative Counsel will also help as long as a few simple requirements are met.

To get to the right language, several rounds of drafting the language and polling may have to occur. This is a time-consuming process, but it could mean the difference between success and failure.

“If you want to fly blind, which means no polling, no research at all, then you’re most likely going to lose,” said Barry Fadem, an attorney in the Bay Area who’s been working on ballot measures for more than 30 years. “Flying blind — thinking you know everything about how California voters are going to feel about a certain subject matter — is a really bad idea.”

Experts agree that this is the most important step. There’s a natural tendency to keep expanding on the idea, to bog down the measure with “Oh, and then…”

But simplicity is key.

“The more provisions you put in an initiative, the longer you make it, the more opportunity you give the other side to find vulnerabilities,” said Rick Claussen, a partner at Redwood Pacific. “Keep it as simple as possible.”

Title and Summary

Step 2: Once the language is set, it’s submitted to the Attorney General to prepare a circulating title and summary. Oh, and there’s a filing fee, which was set high enough to weed out less serious ideas.

The fee actually jumped from $200 to $2,000 this year in response to a failed idea that would have allowed the killing of homosexuals had it passed. But the fee is refunded if the initiative qualifies for the ballot within a certain period of time.

The AG will then send the initiative to the Department of Finance and the Legislative Analyst’s Office for a fiscal estimate, which they have 50 days to prepare.

Now there’s a 30-day public review process. Proponents can make amendments during this time, but the amendments need to be germane.

But the more the idea is reworked, the more it’s susceptible to challenges. Gov. Jerry Brown’s criminal justice ballot measure, for example, drew a challenge last week over an amendment, according to The Sacramento Bee.

After all that, the AG has 15 days after receiving the fiscal estimate from the Department of Finance and the LAO to send the title and summary over to the Secretary of State and back to the proponents — the date this is done is called the “official summary date.”

And once the title and summary is issued, some more polling is probably a good idea.

“Generally, the rule of thumb is if you come out of the gate with less than 60 percent, you should give up,” said Steve Maviglio, a Democratic strategist.

Getting Signatures

Step 3: The petition must follow a certain format — or else.

Step 4: Based on the summary date, the SOS will issue a calendar of deadlines. All the signatures must be gathered within 180 days from the official summary date, which also has to be done at least 131 days from the date of the general election.

How many signatures are needed? It’s based on a percentage of the last gubernatorial election, 5 percent for statutes and 8 percent for constitutional amendments. Because turnout was so low in 2014, the threshold for signatures is very low — that’s why there are so many initiative proposals currently trying to get on the November ballot.

The cost of signature gathering is unpredictable, with reports of prices as high as $5 per signature. The cost increases as the deadline approaches, so it’s best to start early and hire a good signature gathering company.

After the 25 percent mark has been reached, the SOS must be notified, which will in turn notify the Legislature. At this point, both chambers are required to assign the measure to the appropriate committees to hold joint public hearings. But the Legislature is not allowed to amend the measure or derail it.

Instead of campaigning during the signature gathering process, it’s best to be building the foundation for the campaign.

“Reaching out to coalitions, supporters, getting earned media, getting a strategy in place, getting endorsements, and get your opposition research if you can,” said Maviglio.

The Campaign

Step 5: And it’s probably no surprise there’s all kinds of rules, provisions and timelines in the signature verification process. Once the required amount is reached, proponents turn the signatures in to the appropriate county officials.

At this point, assuming the signatures check out, the initiative is eligible for the ballot (it’s technically not qualified for the ballot until the SOS deems it so on the 131st day prior to the election).

And now the campaign starts — the most expensive part — where yard signs and media buys and consultants, etc., try to carry the measure over the finish line.

“Submit the signatures, get a number and let the games begin,” said Maviglio.

While dozens of measures are vying to make it on the November general election ballot, one proposal is ready for the June primary — even though no one is campaigning for or against it.

Proposition 50 is a constitutional amendment empowering legislators to suspend other legislators without pay with a two-thirds vote of the respective chamber.

The measure is in response to three suspensions with pay in 2014: Democratic state Sens. Roderick Wright of Inglewood, Leland Yee of San Francisco and Ron Calderon of Montebello. Wright was suspended after being convicted of felony perjury and election fraud and the other two were suspended after federal corruption charges were filed.

The measure has a good chance of passing, as public perception of the Legislature took a hit following the rash of incidents in 2014 (in February of 2015, it rebounded a bit but was still in the low 40 percent range).

“From a voter’s perspective, it’s pretty straight forward,” said Kathay Feng, the executive director of the good government group California Common Cause. “There’s not much love for misbehaving legislators.”

Feng said some may question whether this measure violates the spirit of innocent until proven guilty, but others are sure this won’t be an issue.

“Guilty until proven innocent when it comes to legislators,” said Steven Maviglio, a Democratic campaign strategist, noting that the measure is “totally non-controversial.”

Politics and Process

The measure doesn’t have any opponents actively fighting it. But no one is pushing for it either. When contacted by CalWatchdog, former Democratic Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, who introduced the measure, deferred through an aide to sitting senators or the Senate Rules Committee for more info.

But sitting senators would refer it to an outside group to handle the campaign, yet no such committee has been formed. No one is campaigning for it.

“All of the people who were originally involved seemed to have left this as an orphan for somebody else,” said Feng.

If the measure’s passage is truly inevitable — a slam dunk — then there may be little need to push for it, especially in the absence of opposition. But some observers say it could be that the pressure is off now that no one is in trouble.

“Out of sight, out of mind,” said John J. Pitney, Jr., a Roy P. Crocker professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College. “The idea may regain currency if another legislator gets into major trouble, but until then it is in the political memory hole.”

The measure will appear on the June ballot because it is a constitutional amendment added by the Legislature. Measures that go through the signature gathering process can only appear on the November general election ballot — of which it appears there will be plenty.

How Else Can They Be Punished?

Besides suspension, legislators have other punitive actions they can take against lawmakers, although they are rarely used.

According to Alex Vassar, who runs the California political website One Voter Project, censure (it’s basically a public shaming by peers) was last used in 1982 to strongly condemn comments made about abortion rights protesters by O.C. Republican John G. Schmitz.

Expulsion, according to Vassar, was last used in 1905 against legislators colluding to solicit bribes (Wright was threatened with an expulsion vote). And members can also be stripped of committee assignments, which was used last with Yee, Wright and Calderon.

Sen. Bob Huff

2016 started with a bit of a bipartisan bump with Senate Pro Tem Kevin de León and former Senate Republican leader Bob Huff at center stage.

When the Senate reconvened two weeks ago, de León of Los Angeles and other Democrats unveiled an initiative to provide housing for the homeless. Huff, of San Dimas, was by his side, along with Costa Mesa Republican John Moorlach.

On Monday, de León joined fellow Democratic Senator Fran Pavley and others in Los Angeles to unveil legislation in response to the Porter Ranch gas leak. And again, Huff was right there.

While California politics are nowhere near approaching a post-partisan utopia, the two bipartisan events, plus the unanimous election of Anthony Rendon, D-South Gate, to be speaker of the Assembly started the election year off with a spirit of cooperation.

“People are sick of hyper-partisan politics — the average person,” Huff told CalWatchdog in his Senate office on Wednesday. “They want to see people solve problems, they don’t care whether you’re R or D.”

Win-Win

Besides achieving policy goals, there are mutual benefits to working together. De León — who was not available for comment — can show his pragmatic side by reaching across the aisle to address a Democratic priority. And Huff can expand his appeal and the Republican brand, which could help both his party in 2016 and himself in his race for Los Angeles County supervisor — where the homeless population has increased 12 percent over the last two years.

“It’s a win-win for both of them, with the added benefit of accomplishing sound policy,” said Democratic political consultant Steve Maviglio, noting that the 40-member Senate is often chummy. “Personal relationships matter. You’re seeing an extension of that cordial relationship play out now with these initiatives.”

With Democrats outnumbering Republicans in both chambers by a wide margin and with Republicans steadily losing registered voters every year, any gains achieved through bipartisanship would aid Republicans greatly.

“I think it’s a recognition that there has to be something more to Republicanism than opposition to tax increases,” said John J. Pitney, a Republican operative-turned-academic at Claremont McKenna College. “That’s all well and good, but if you want to expand the party’s appeal, you have to frame it in a way that voters outside the base are going to respond to.”

Walking the Line

And that’s the fine line Republicans must delicately walk — balancing bipartisan legislating with fealty to principles. According to Huff, the homeless initiative — which would repurpose existing funds to provide housing for some homeless — could help people while saving money and providing an opportunity to examine existing regulations and policies that may contribute to the rise in homelessness. “But in the meantime, you’ve got to deal with the reality that you’ve got tents popping up everywhere, and those are the ones fortunate enough to have tents,” Huff said.

Huff said that he hadn’t seen the details of the proposal yet, but liked the principles and said he’d like to work with the majority when possible.

“When you are the minority party and you can agree with the majority party, it’s easier to shape things and get things done then to say no,” Huff said, adding “I was a part of the party of ‘no’ in the beginning and I wanted to become more of a part of the party of solutions.”

Moorlach, who stood with Huff at the unveiling of the homeless initiative, is interested in solutions that don’t increase spending, but he is also reluctant to fully embrace the initiative until more details are provided. For him, the press conference was about learning about the proposal.

“The Senator helped repurpose similar funding in Orange County to improve homeless housing,” said Moorlach spokesman Tim Clark in an email. “For him, its a way to ensure that funds already appropriated are actually producing a measurable result.”

“We are about to begin a new chapter in the history of the Assembly,” Mayes said on the Assembly floor. “Why would we want to make the very first action in this new era an empty partisan exercise? Doing so would not serve the house or the state well. It would just be more of the same.”

Although he’s yet to be sworn in, Republicans are hoping that Rendon is someone they can work with, said Pitney, adding that a “purely partisan stance isn’t going to work,” given that in the last eight years, Republicans have slipped from 34.2 percent of registered voters to 28 percent.

“Without abandoning principles, they have to find a way of making sure the ‘R’ is not the scarlet letter,” Pitney said. “Working with someone like Rendon, who’s liberal but also a thoughtful and practical guy, that’s something that makes sense.”

A bipartisan group of pension reform advocates, led by former San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed and former San Diego Councilman Carl DeMaio, recently filed a statewide initiative for the 2016 ballot that would give voters a direct say on pension benefits. Dubbed the “Voter Empowerment Act of 2016,” the initiative would amend the state constitution to require voter approval of any new defined benefit retirement plans and place a 50 percent cap on government subsidies of retirement benefits provided to government employees.

“California’s politicians have chosen tax hikes and draconian service cuts to divert taxpayer money for unsustainable and indefensible government pension payouts, which is exactly why we must empower voters with this initiative to get reform done,” DeMaio said in a press release announcing the measure.

Voter Empowerment Act of 2016

In recent years, pension reform measures at the local level have been repeatedly stymied by the courts. After San Jose voters overwhelmingly approved a pension reform plan authored by Reed, a judge overturned the measure for violating the “vested rights” of public employees.

Under what’s been called the “California rule,” public employees have a constitutional right “not only to the amount of public employees’ pensions that has been earned by past service, but also to employees’ right to keep earning a pension based on rules that are at least as generous for as long as they stay employed.”

Last year, Ventura County taxpayers gathered thousands of signatures for a pension reform measure to have the county opt-out of the current defined-benefit system and replace it with a new 401k style plan. However, Ventura County District Court Judge Kent Kellegrew ruled that voters couldn’t vote to leave a pension system created by the state.

“This court concludes that the initiative process cannot be used for such a process,” the Ventura County decision stated.

That decision spurred Reed and DeMaio’s measure, which explicitly grants voters the power to decide pensions.

“State and local politicians, government agencies, and courts have blocked common-sense efforts to address this financial crisis,” the measure states. “Consequently, the need to empower voters and clarify their rights with respect to compensation and retirement benefits for government employees is a matter of statewide concern.”

The four major provisions of the proposed state constitutional amendment, which would take effect in 2019, include:

1. Requiring voter approval of any defined benefit pensions for new government employees;
2. Requiring voter approval of any increase in pensions for existing government employees;
3. Prohibiting any taxpayer subsidy of government retirement benefits in excess of 50 percent of the cost – unless voters expressly approve a higher contribution;
4. Prohibiting  politicians and government agencies from delaying, impeding, or challenging any voter-approved state and local ballot measures regarding compensation and retirement benefits.

With those provisions, governments would default to 401k style plans that would not require voter approval.

Rising Pension Obligations

By engaging voters in the pension decision-making process, the group hopes to contain the state’s growing pension liability. Proponents of the “Voter Empowerment Act of 2016” point to independent numbers which show the state’s pension liabilities have increased 3,000 percent in a decade. Last November, then-State Controller John Chiang (now state treasurer) pegged the state’s total unfunded pension liability from 130 public pension systems at $198 billion, a dramatic increase from just $6.3 billion in 2003.

“The cost of public employee pension benefits continues to skyrocket across California, crowding out funding for important services such as police, fire, schools and road repairs,” Reed said.

Other local leaders that will help Reed and DeMaio collect 585,407 valid signatures include, former San Bernardino Mayor Pat Morris, Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait, former Vallejo Vice Mayor Stephanie Gomes, and Pacific Grove Mayor Bill Kampe.

Ballot title and summary obstacles

Before the measure can make the ballot, it must clear the ballot title and summary phase. Last year, while DeMaio was preoccupied with his campaign for Congress against Rep. Scott Peters, Reed unsuccessfully tried to qualify a similar statewide pension reform measure. However, that effort stalled during the qualification stage over a dispute with Attorney General Kamala Harris over wording for the title and summary.

In addition to clearing the title summary hurdle, the proposed constitutional amendment will face intense opposition from hundreds of thousands of public employees affected by the measure. The law would apply to all state and local government agencies, including special districts, counties, cities, school districts and both state university systems. Employees are prepared for a fight.

“It’s exactly what we expected,” Steve Maviglio, a prominent Democratic consultant said, according to CalPensions.com. “It’s fraught with flaws, potential major implications for both existing and future employees and will likely result in years of litigation.”

The full initiative is available here.

The California Teachers Association has spent years depicting complaints about the costs of pensions as being driven not by, you know, math — but by the evil agenda of those doing the criticizing. The CTA routinely characterizes pension reformers as people who are somehow doing the 1 percenters’ bidding by torturing the middle class. If you are a politician or a public figure of any kind, unless your name is Jerry Brown, you don’t get to question pension red ink in the Golden State without being attacked personally.

So guess who else is worried about pension costs? The CTA’s parent group, the National Education Association. And it’s been worried for a long time about being overwhelmed by the ever-growing tab for its defined-benefits program — since at least 2007. The excellent @ReasonReform Twitter feed pointed me to this item by Mike Antonucci on the Intercepts blog, which monitors teacher unions:

“Almost exactly seven years ago, NEA found itself in a dispute with its retired employees because it was failing to fully fund its pension liabilities. The retirees received the support of the working staffers, and there were plans to picket the union’s Representative Assembly in Philadelphia that year.

“Faced with an embarrassing public relations situation, the union agreed to reach 100% funding of its obligations by 2021.

“After a recession, a weak recovery and unprecedented membership losses, NEA is in a bit of a bind fulfilling that promise. In 2010, it sought pension relief from Congress, bewailing how difficult it was to fund its defined benefit plans under current law. NEA government relations director Kim Anderson sent a letter to the House detailing the problems:

“‘And it is not just the plans that are jeopardized by this funding crisis:  many of NEA’s affiliated associations are being forced to postpone, curtail, or eliminate regular services, staffing, and capital improvements, often on top of increases in member dues. This is because, absent relief, the average NEA affiliate is facing the immediate obligation to make funding contributions equal to 37 percent of its payroll, just to maintain its defined benefit pension plan.'”

“With membership still falling and national dues levels stagnant, it seems NEA is trying to renegotiate that 2021 deadline.”

Join the club, NEA, join the club. As Antonucci writes …

“All of this was entirely predictable and, like state governments, NEA keeps hoping that some external force will make the impending catastrophe go away. So stalling is the preferred tactic.”

I’m going to try to get details on how the CTA’s internal pension plan is doing. Should be fun.