Tax evasion: In order to collect more money, California turns to crimes

Senate Leader Kevin de León is a good guy, but he’s working on a bad idea.

Unless California is trying to break the Guinness World Record for tax evasion, it’s hard to see what will be accomplished by the plan put forward by de León to get around the new federal tax law’s limitation on the deduction for state and local taxes.

“This is legal,” de León insisted told the Los Angeles Daily News, and he could be right, right now. But there is plenty of evidence to suggest that he won’t be right for very long.

The plan, now introduced in the state Senate as Senate Bill 227, would create something called the California Excellence Fund within the state’s General Fund, and if taxpayers chose to make donations to that special fund, they would receive a credit against their state income tax liability equal to the amount of their donation.

The state would end up with the same amount of revenue, but the taxpayer would be better off because donations to the California Excellence Fund would be considered charitable contributions, deductible on federal tax returns. This would get around the new $10,000 limit on the deduction for state taxes.

The IRS will no doubt challenge this, and anyone stupid enough to try this will end up in the quagmire known as federal tax court.

 

Managing a Successful Government Affairs Program

By Chris Micheli

Managing a successful government affairs program requires managing multiple component parts of an organization focused on advocating the interests of a company, labor union, or trade association. It is similar to being the campaign manager of a political campaign or the coach of a football team.

In other words, it requires overseeing and coordinating all aspects of the government relations effort for the organization. For example, it may require that you manage one or more in-house lobbyists, as well as analysts and others who support the direct lobbying activities of the organization.

It may also require managing contract lobbyists, as well as those who support the advocacy efforts such as those engaged in grassroots support, public affairs or public relations, and even campaign expenditures, such as through a political action committee. These contracted workers must be hired for their expertise and level of service, as well as to fulfill the needs of the lobbying efforts.

Determining how to deploy in-house and contract lobbyists is always a critical role for the government affairs program administrator. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of those on your lobbying team is required because that will be key to how these individuals should be utilized.

In determining which lobbyists to use, pose some of these questions: What policy expertise do they have? Which political connections do they maintain? What skills are needed? What type of personality is required to deal with decision-makers or opponents?

Overseeing the grassroots and media teams is also a critical role because of the need to understand how the public relations and grassroots coordinators are properly working to support the lobbying efforts. These indirect lobbying components can help or hurt the direct lobbying work if not done properly.

In addition, there must be coordination regarding the right messaging and when, how and by whom that messaging is delivered to elected and appointed officials and their staff. A poor messenger can doom a positive message; a negative message can be better received by a strong messenger. The governmental relations professional will know how to best deliver the right message at the right time.

Another vital component of a successful governmental relations program is effectively managing a PAC, which requires ongoing solicitation efforts to ensure a sound budget for the PAC, as well as determining which elected officials to support, how much to contribute to them, and when to make the contributions.

Of course, handling the calls and requests for campaign contributions is yet another role of the person who oversees the PAC. Some PAC administrators works with a committee to make decisions, such as board members, while others may run the PAC operations with less formal input. Nonetheless, it is important that the contributions strategy comport with the overall advocacy efforts.

All the lobbying program begins with understanding and articulating the organization’s advocacy goal and how you plan to achieve that goal. In other words, what is your objective? What is your strategy for achieving that objective? And what tactics will you use to achieve that objective?

In doing so, the government affairs professional will have to decide what tools are at his or her disposal, such as the use of in-house lobbyists and contract lobbyists, whether there is a budget for a public affairs firm or a grassroots firm, and the role of the media in the lobbying campaign.

Finally, an effective government relations program often involves working with or running a lobbying coalition. Is your organization the best one to coordinate efforts by the coalition? If not, you will need to find an appropriate group or individual to manage the coalition’s lobbying efforts. Such a coalition could involve other organizations, other lobbyists, and even other public relations or media personnel.

Managing a government affairs program requires good management skills, policy and political knowledge, and a desire to achieve the goal of the organization or coalition. And it requires an ability juggle multiple duties and issues to ensure that the collective efforts are successful.

Chris Micheli is a Principal with the Sacramento governmental relations firm of Aprea & Micheli, Inc. He serves as an Adjunct Professor at McGeorge School of Law in its Capital Lawyering Program.

Overview of the California Rulemaking Process

By Chris Micheli

California has over 200 State agencies, departments, boards, and commissions that make public policy through their authority to adopt regulations. A list of State agencies that have adopted regulations can be found on the website of California’s Office of Administrative Law (OAL). OAL’s website also provides direct access to the California Code of Regulations (CCR), which is organized under various subject matter titles, of which there are 28 titles.

California’s Administrative Procedure Act (APA) contains required procedures for rule-making and administrative hearings conducted by all of these agencies and departments. The APA is found at Chapter 3.5, 4 and 5 commencing with Section 11340 of Part 1 of Division 3 of Title 2 of the Government Code. In addition, there are regulations governing the APA found at CCR Title 1, Sections 1 – 120. The OAL’s website includes checklists used by OAL to review regulations, as well as their publications including California Rulemaking Law under the Administrative Procedure Act.

Generally speaking, the authority of State agencies and departments to adopt policy (i.e., rulemaking) is defined and restricted by the authorizing statute. Statutes usually prescribe each agency’s authority to adopt policy; and, it is an established principle of administrative law that an agency cannot exceed its legally-prescribed authority to regulate. On the other hand, many statutes confer broad powers to some state agencies regarding matters that directly affect the general public.

There are opportunities for interested parties to be informed, observe and participate in rulemaking activities of State agencies and departments. In particular, interested parties have significant access to the rulemaking activities of state agencies by virtue of the APA. For example, every state agency is required to annually adopt a “rulemaking calendar” that is published on their website. Moreover, agencies establish interested parties mailing lists for notices of rulemaking activities by that agency or department.

California law requires every State agency to satisfy the basic minimum procedural requirements established by the APA for the adoption, amendment or repeal of a regulation, unless the agency is expressly exempted by statute. According to the OAL, “California courts have long recognized that under the Constitution the Legislature may by statute delegate quasi-legislative powers to a state agency in the executive branch, so long as adequate standards are provided to guide the agency.”

The agency develops four required documents during the preliminary activity stage which are needed to initiate the formal rulemaking process: the express terms of the proposed regulation (i.e., the proposed text), the initial statement of reasons, the fiscal impact statement, and the notice of proposed rulemaking. These documents are initially filed with the OAL and then published by the agency.

Next begins the 45-day opportunity to submit written, faxed or e-mail comments on all or any part of a proposed rulemaking when the notice of proposed rulemaking is published in the California Regulatory Notice Register. The notice of proposed rulemaking is also mailed to interested parties and is posted on the rulemaking agency’s website.

According to the OAL, “a regulation must be easily understandable, have a rationale, and be the least burdensome, effective alternative. A regulation cannot alter, amend, enlarge, or restrict a statute, or be inconsistent or in conflict with a statute. “

Under the APA, an agency has an option as to whether it wishes to hold a public hearing on a proposed rulemaking. However, if an agency does not schedule a public hearing, and any interested person submits a written request for one within 15 days prior to the close of the written comment period, then the agency must hold a public hearing. Because of this requirement, an agency usually schedules a public hearing at the outset.

The APA requires a rulemaking agency to consider all relevant information presented to it during the comment period before adopting, amending or repealing the regulation. After the initial public comment period, the agency will often decide to change its initial proposal either in response to public comments or on its own.

Before a rulemaking agency adopts regulatory changes, it must mail a notice of opportunity to comment on those proposed changes along with a copy of the text of the proposed changes to each person who has submitted written comments on the proposal, testified at the public hearing, or asked to receive a notice of proposed modification. The agency must also post the notice on its website.

A rulemaking agency must summarize and respond on the record to timely filed comments. The summary and response to comments demonstrate that the agency has considered all relevant material presented to it before adopting, amending or repealing a regulation. An agency may respond to a comment in one of two ways. According to the OAL, “the agency must either (1) explain how it has amended the proposal to accommodate the comment or (2) explain the reasons for making no change to the proposal. An agency’s summary and response to comments are included as part of the final statement of reasons.”

Thereafter, the agency must transmit its rulemaking file to OAL for review within a year from the date that the notice of proposed rulemaking action was published in the CRNR. OAL then has 30 working days in which to review the rulemaking record to determine whether it demonstrates that the rulemaking agency satisfied the procedural requirements of the APA.

Specifically, the OAL reviews the rulemaking file for compliance with the six standards of review: Authority, Reference, Consistency, Clarity, Nonduplication, and Necessity. OAL may not substitute its judgment for that of the rulemaking agency with regard to the substantive content of the regulations.

California’s rulemaking process is set forth in the APA and accompanying regulations promulgated by the OAL. There are numerous instances along the way that interested parties can participate in the rulemaking process including pre- and post-formal activities. For example, parties can meet with state agency staff prior to a regulatory project commencing to provide input before the agency staff begins drafting any regulatory changes. Many agencies and departments utilize an “interested parties process” to review draft rulemaking projects prior to commencement of the formal OAL process.

Even after the agency or department has completed the rulemaking process, there are opportunities to be involved such as with the OAL review, appeal to the Governor’s Office, or even challenging the rulemaking in court. As such, the rulemaking process is relatively transparent in California and affords consideration of the comments of interested parties.

Chris Micheli is an attorney and lobbyist with the Sacramento governmental relations firm of Aprea & Micheli, Inc.

California business groups embrace tax increases

Four years ago, business leaders financed a multimillion-dollar campaign to oppose an initiative to raise income taxes on California’s highest earners. The same year, the California Chamber of Commerce was featured prominently in television advertisements against a ballot measure to increase the cigarette tax.

Now, with new versions of both the income and tobacco taxes on the statewide ballot, money from the business community isn’t there and neither is the same level of opposition. Instead, many business groups are reluctantly resigned to an extension of the higher income tax rates and, in some cases, are even promoting the cigarette tax hike.

Business leaders say their response to the Proposition 55 income tax extension and Proposition 56 tobacco tax increase has buoyed the chances of both measures passing. But they also contend that their positions say more about the specifics of the measures than any fraying of the traditional coalition between Republicans, taxpayer groups and business leaders against tax hikes.

“We absolutely will fight to the death on any future tax increases,” said Rob Lapsley, president of business executive group California Business Roundtable, whose organization is neutral on Proposition 55.

Yeah right.

Source: Why business groups aren’t fighting California’s tobacco and income tax hike initiatives – LA Times

#SiliconValley wants to help California voters decide who dies and who dosen’t

We’re rich…we’re beautiful…and we’ere here to help.

As voters weigh two dueling death penalty measures on the Nov. 8 ballot, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into the effort to end executions in California, saying they want to see the practice abolished both in the state and across the U.S.

Some have long been active practitioners of so-called conscious capitalism, giving to social causes and ballot measures in support of issues such as education and the environment.

This year, the death penalty debate has generated heavier funding and drawn in some first-time donors, as contributors say they see potential for change amid waning public opinion of capital punishment.

Public support for capital punishment was at its peak nationwide in the mid-1990s, when 80% of Americans favored the death penalty in murder cases.

Support has since fallen to 49% percent of Americans — the lowest in more than four decades, according to a Pew Research Center survey released late last month.

The latest tally, a survey by the Field Poll and the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, found 48% percent of 942 likely voters supported Proposition 62, as opposed to 37% that didn’t. Another 15% were undecided.

Proposition 66 received less support, with 35% reporting they were inclined to vote “Yes,” 23% who said they would vote “No” and 42% who are undecided.

Source: Why Silicon Valley is pouring money into efforts to repeal California’s death penalty – LA Times

Leaked @HillaryClinton emails target California Ag, #Gerawan Farming

Hillary Clinton agreed to help United Farm Workers in its conflict with Fresno-based Gerawan Farming, according to internal campaign emails exposed this week by WikiLeaks.

A Feb. 22 email explains the pledge that Clinton made as part of a deal for UFW’s political endorsement against then-party rival Bernie Sanders.

The email stated she earned their endorsement by the end of the meeting.

The email was from Lorella Praeli, Clinton’s Latino outreach director, to traveling press secretary Nick Merrill.

In a 7 p.m. email on Feb. 21, Merrill said Clinton had just met with farmworkers for an hour in Palo Alto and that it was a positive experience.

Praeli expanded the next day with highlights from the meeting, at the end of which Clinton earned UFW’s endorsement.

“She was asked to help in the dispute between the UFW and CA-based Gerawan Farming,” Praeli wrote. “She said (she’d) do everything possible.

“After the meeting, she had a private conversation with Arturo and expressed caution b/c of campaign.” Arturo Rodriguez is president of UFW.

During the meeting, Clinton also discussed her support for comprehensive immigration reform, protection for undocumented immigrants through executive actions like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, overtime for farmworkers in California and access to health care for the undocumented.

Dan Gerawan, co-owner of Gerawan Farming, said: “When the UFW trades political endorsements for ‘help’ to suppress worker ballots, the UFW calls it First Amendment political speech. When Gerawan workers petition the ALRB (California Agriculture Labor Relations Board) for the right to vote, the UFW calls it an unfair labor practice.”

Read the whole story at: Leaked Clinton emails include pledge to help UFW in fight with Gerawan Farming – Fresno Bee

#California #liberals panic over possible @realDonaldTrump win

A year ago, as the presidential campaign swung into high gear, no one in either major political party — except Donald Trump — took seriously the possibility he might win the Republican nomination for president.

Turns out Trump was right; everyone else was wrong. It didn’t matter how much he lied: The fact checking service Politifact finds there’s significant untruth in 84 percent of what Trump says publicly, but he’s expanded his likely voting base from about 30 percent of Republicans during the early primary season to at least 40 percent overall. (Hillary Clinton’s falsehood rating: 63 percent.)

That’s a huge achievement, demonstrating his adherents don’t much care what he says. They figure after years of watching his television reality show, they know him and what he means, even when he’s lewd.

Meanwhile, some recent polls show Democrat Hillary Clinton winning New York by a 20 percent vote margin and California by at least 17 percent. Sure, she consistently has had a small overall edge over Trump in national polling, but with so much of her support coming from just two states, she could win the popular vote but lose in the Electoral College if Trump wins battleground states like Ohio and Florida by thin margins, still getting all their electoral votes.

So despite revelations of past vulgarity and misogyny, victory for Trump is possible, even if oddsmakers give Clinton better than a 70 percent chance of winning.

Read more at: What a Trump win could mean for California: Thomas Elias

Apparently hospitals in California need to be forced to report superbug infections

State Sen. Jerry Hill said Monday that he plans to introduce a bill to require California hospitals to report when patients are infected with lethal superbugs.

Apparently they have to be told to do this. So it should tell you where hospitals are on the money trail.

The Los Angeles Times reported recently that state officials estimate that 7,500 to 9,000 Californians die each year from infections acquired inside hospitals — a projection that some experts say is too low.

More on this story at: Hospitals in California would have to report superbug infections under planned legislation – LA Times

California Democrats setting up to eviscerate the @CaGOP…again

The California Republican Party is about to get clobbered again.

Thanks to a complete lack of effort to attract new voters, the GOP’s share of registered voters has dipped to scarcely a quarter while those of Democrats and declined-to-state voters continue to swell, with the latter now just three percentage points behind Republicans.

Moreover, it’s a presidential year, which means a higher voter turnout that favors Democrats, especially as they gleefully use Donald Trump as a club to batter GOP legislative and congressional candidates.

Democrats gained two-thirds supermajorities in both legislative houses in 2012, but lost them two years ago, when voter turnout plunged to a record low.

They need two more Assembly seats and one more in the Senate to regain their supermajorities, and there are enough shaky GOP-held districts to make it possible in at least one house.

FYI all you “Principled Conservatives” and “County Club Republicans”, you can’t have a two-party system without two parties.

Read more at: California Democrats could regain supermajorities in Legislature – The Sacramento Bee

The @NRA turns its back on California’s hapless 2nd Amendment advocates

The National Rifle Assn. has pretty much thrown up its hands and turned its back on California.

They have poured $4 million into fighting a Nevada initiative that would require background checks for firearms buyers but just $145,000 into battling a gun control measure in California.

The NRA isn’t stupid, they know a bunch of losers when the see them.

The NRA’s comparatively small investment in California has left the campaign against Proposition 63 at a major disadvantage.

True, but he hapless 2nd Amendment advocates in California have left the national organization with little or no choice. Spend millions and lose, or spend nothing and lose.

Perhaps the NRA has not jumped into the Proposition 63 fight in a bigger way because of polls showing its support, including a recent USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll that found the initiative favored by 64% of registered voters.

Source: NRA not putting up much of a fight against California gun control ballot measure – LA Times

Obamacare has been great — for California insurance companies

Some pretty funny stuff from the LA Times this morning:

Even as turmoil in insurance markets nationwide fuels renewed election-year attacks on the Affordable Care Act, California is emerging as a clear illustration of what the law can achieve.

The state has recorded some of the nation’s most dramatic gains in health coverage since 2013 while building a competitive insurance marketplace that offers consumers enhanced protections from high medical bills.

Californians, unlike people in many states, have many insurance choices. That means that even with rising premiums, the vast majority of consumers should be able to find a plan that costs them, at most, 5% more than they are paying this year.

And all health plans being sold in the state will cap how much patients must pay for prescriptions every month and for many doctor visits.

Along the way, the insurance companies are cashing in while you keep paying more and more and more. Obamacare is working great…just like it’s authors intended.

Source: Obamacare is no disaster. California is proving why – LA Times

When the #PoliceState does crimes, now they’ll face felony charges

Amid an ongoing controversy in the Orange County courthouse involving accusations of prosecutorial misconduct, a new law will ratchet up penalties for California prosecutors who tamper with evidence or hide exculpatory material from the defense.

Under the law, which was introduced by Assemblywoman Patty Lopez (D-San Fernando) and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday, a prosecutor can receive up to three years in prison for altering or intentionally withholding evidence that defendants might use to exonerate themselves. Previously, those acts were considered misdemeanors.

“I hear so many stories about innocent people across California, and across the country, who have been wrongfully convicted,” Lopez said. “I just hope that when people think the rules don’t apply to them, they will think twice before they abuse their power.”

Lopez said the legislation was not specifically inspired by events in Orange County. However, the controversy surrounding the office of longtime Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas spurred the bill’s advocates and informed the debate on the state Senate floor.

It’s about time!

Read the whole story at: Prosecutors who withhold or tamper with evidence now face felony charges

Party lines in the Legislature blur as business lobby bankrolls Dems

Many faces have changed, but much about the California Legislature remains the same as a decade ago: Lawmakers consider thousands of bills and other measures, which frequently pass or fail strictly along party lines.

But those lines were notably fuzzier in the just-completed session compared with a decade ago, legislative voting records show.

The shift illustrates a Democratic-controlled Legislature now slightly more open to Republican positions, particularly from the business lobby. It has led to the scuttling or softening of workplace legislation sought by unions and environmental proposals on climate change, groundwater and fracking.

In the session that ended Aug. 31, any two Republican and Democratic lawmakers cast the same floor votes about three-quarters of the time, on average. During the 2005-06 session, Democrats and Republicans voted the same way about 60 percent of the time.

Assembly vote agreement 80 percent and above

All that corporate PAC money flooding into Democrats is paying off.

Source: Party lines got a little fuzzier in Legislature’s 2015-2016 session – The Sacramento Bee

Another California gun lobby #EpicFail: ‘Veto Gunmageddon’ group fails to qualify referendum

Just how stupid are the gun lobbyists in California? One can only assume they’re pretty stupid.

Three days before the deadline, the head of a referendum drive aimed at overturning six new gun control laws announced it will fall far short of collecting enough signatures to qualify the measures for the ballot.

Barry Bahrami, who organized the drive, blamed apathy among California gun owners and difficult requirements for qualifying referenda.

Seriously? Barry, you screwed up so you’re blaming gun owners, the people who have pumped millions of their hard-earned dollars into California’s futile gun lobby over the last three decades? Seriously???

Qualifying a referendum is done all the time. The process is basic political blocking and tackling. The gun lobby just couldn’t handle it and now gun owners end up losers…again.

Bahrami said those involved in the campaign now will turn their attention to working towards drafting a possible initiative for the 2018 ballot to protect gun owners rights. Maybe they should hire someone who actually knows what they’re doing?

No doubt the gun lobby in California will screw this up too.

Source: ‘Veto Gunmageddon’ group fails to qualify ballot measures to repeal new gun control laws – LA Times

Are police officers too dumb to handle firearms?

Southern California police agencies regularly lose track of all manner of firearms, from high-powered rifles and grenade launchers to standard service handguns — weapons that often wind up on the street.

How dumb can you get?

A Southern California News Group investigation of 134 state and local police agencies from Kern County to the Mexican border found that over the past five years at least 329 firearms were lost by or stolen from law enforcement.

Dozens of these weapons wound up on the hands of criminals, and some were involved in crimes. In Northern California, a missing police gun was used in a suspected murder.

But the number of guns known to be missing or stolen is almost certainly a fraction of the actual number that have made the jump from police agency to street. Not every department audits its weaponry. If they did, they’d find they were missing more guns.

Maybe the police aren’t smart enough to be given the responsibility of handling firearms? Maybe they’re just too dumb?

Read the frightening details at: “If police departments were gun dealers, they’d go out of business for the way they keep inventory” – Los Angeles Daily News.

 

Ruthless @ElCajonPolice execute mentally ill African-American man

If you’re mentally ill, African-American, and in El Cajon, odds are good you’ll end up dead.

That’s what happened when El Cajon police officers met up with an African-American man earlier in the day.

The man has not been formally identified.

Chief Jeff Davis said a video taken by a bystander showed the incident but that the department declined to release it at this time.

One officer fired a Taser and another fired rounds from his handgun. No weapon was recovered at the scene.

The shooting sparked protests in the San Diego County city, with friends of the man’s family saying he suffers from a mental illness and did not pose a threat to the officers.

A crowd of about 30 people gathered at the shooting scene. By the evening, the crowd grew to about 100 people, including community leaders and members of local churches.

Most of the demonstrators voiced concerns that the shooting was racially motivated.

Police received three calls about a man acting “erratically” near a strip mall on Broadway near Mollison Avenue shortly after 2 p.m., El Cajon police Lt. Rob Ransweiler said. One caller told them the man was walking in traffic, he said.

El Cajon police officers are not equipped with body-worn cameras.

More at: Fatal shooting of black man by El Cajon police sparks outrage, protests – LA Times

Poll: Voters all over the place on tax measures

California’s likely voters solidly support a fall initiative to extend higher income taxes on top earners, while a separate proposal to boost state taxes on tobacco is clinging to a majority vote, according to a new survey released Monday.

The statewide Field/IGS Poll found Proposition 55, which would prolong for a dozen years 2012 income tax increases on some of the state’s highest-earning residents, was leading by 2-to-1 among likely voters, 60 percent to 30 percent.

Proposition 56, a bid to hike by $2 a pack state taxes on cigarettes, is drawing the backing of 53 percent of voters. Forty percent oppose the tax increase, and 7 percent remain undecided.

Get all the details at: California income tax hike has wide lead, fewer back $2-a-pack tobacco tax increase – The Sacramento Bee

Ruthless farmers sucking water out of the San Joaquin Valley aquifer at record levels

Drive through rural Tulare County and you’ll hear it soon enough, a roar from one of the hundreds of agricultural pumps pulling water from beneath the soil to keep the nut and fruit orchards and vast fields of corn and alfalfa lush and green under the scorching San Joaquin Valley sun.

Well water is keeping agriculture alive in Tulare County – and much of the rest of the San Joaquin Valley – through five years of California’s historic drought. Largely cut off from the supplies normally delivered via canals by the federal and state water projects, farmers have been drilling hundreds of feet into the ground to bring up the water they need to turn a profit.

Two years after Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill designed to limit groundwater pumping, new wells are going in faster and deeper than ever. Farmers dug about 2,500 wells in the San Joaquin Valley last year alone, the highest number on record. That was five times the annual average for the previous 30 years, according to a Sacramento Bee analysis of state and local data.

Source: Farmers say, ‘No apologies,’ as well drilling hits record levels in San Joaquin Valley – The Sacramento Bee

WTF? It’s about time: California lightens up on birth control pills

California will drop its prohibition on pharmacies providing any more than a three-month supply of birth control pills.

Gov. Jerry Brown has signed legislation allowing allotments of up to a year.

Seriously? We needed a law for this? WTF???!!!

Naturally, the bill was opposed by the California Catholic Conference and Association of California Life and Health Insurance Companies, according to a legislative analysis.

Brown signed the bill without comment. What is there to say?

Details at: California relaxes restriction on birth control refills – The Sacramento Bee

Feckless Shell Oil nailed for lying about environmental cleanup claims

The rats who run Shell Oil Co. have been nailed by a private whistleblower over false claims. Shell Oil Co. has forfeited a chance to collect up to $150 million from a state-run fund that reimburses oil companies for cleaning up leaking underground storage tanks.

Besides losing out on the potential reimbursements, Shell will pay $20 million in penalties under a settlement announced Friday by California officials, bringing the total cost to as much as $170 million.

The whistleblower will collect a portion of the $20 million.Shell and its Equilon Enterprises LLC subsidiary were essentially accused of double billing – collecting insurance proceeds and then submitting claims to a mammoth cleanup fund run by the State Water Resources Control Board.

“They were getting reimbursement for cleanup costs from an insurer,” said Andrew DiLuccia, spokesman for the water board. Under the settlement announced Friday, the state is disallowing claims by Shell covering 100 underground tanks, worth up to $150 million in potential total reimbursements.

Shell is the third oil company in the past two years to settle with the state over false claims allegedly submitted to the storage tank fund. The Shell settlement is by far the largest.

Read the whole story at: Shell Oil could lose millions over false California environmental cleanup claims – The Sacramento Bee

California’s brutal foster care system

California educators act like they care about children in foster care, but everybody knows they really don’t.

Recently, California education officials separated out the standardized test scores of the state’s foster youth — and advocates now have sobering proof of what they long suspected: These students are learning far less than their peers.

In 2014-15, the first year scores of the new, harder state tests were reported, 18.8% of students in the foster care system met or exceeded standards in English/language arts, compared with 44.2% of their non-foster peers statewide. In math, 11.8% of these students reached or beat the benchmarks, compared with 33.8% of non-foster students.

Foster students also had somewhat lower rates of participation on the tests. In English, 27,651 foster students — or 89.8% of those enrolled — were tested, as opposed to 96.1% of non-foster students. In math, that number was 27,475, or 89.3%, compared with 96.3% of their non-foster peers.

The low numbers, experts say, reflect the level of disruption in the lives of children in California’s foster system. Only two-thirds stay in the same school each year, according to a study  by the Center for the Future of Teaching & Learning at WestEd, a nonprofit educational research organization. One in 10 have attended three schools during the course of one year.

Read the whole story at: For the first time, California releases test scores for foster youth — and they’re not good – LA Times

Harris v. Sanchez…what’s the real story…?

Rep. Loretta Sanchez is either gaining ground on Kamala Harris in California’s U.S. Senate race or she’s dropping like a stone, according to two polls released on Wednesday.

A poll released by the Public Policy Institute of California found that Harris’ lead over Sanchez has narrowed. Among those likely voters surveyed, 32% favored Harris compared with 25% who supported Sanchez — a 7-percentage-point difference.

That’s down from the 18-point lead Harris had over Sanchez in the group’s poll in July.

But a new Field poll released earlier Wednesday found that 42% of likely voters in California favored Harris, compared with 20% who backed Sanchez — a 22-point difference.

That’s up from the 15-point lead Harris had over Sanchez in a Field poll in July.

So what’s the story?

See all the survey results at: Two Senate polls were released Wednesday — with very different results – LA Times

California’s insatiable lust for more tax money

Californians pay about $250 billion in state and local taxes each year, one of the nation’s highest tax burdens at 12-plus percent of our personal incomes.

That number is likely to go up in November.  Here’s a rundown on what’s at stake.

Source: California voters will decide hundreds of tax and bond measures – The Sacramento Bee

The worm turns for California dairy farmers…it’s about time

Dairy farmers, who for decades have leveraged their bought and paid for friends in the Legislature to keep competition from out of state dairies from cracking their virtually private market, are now in a panic.

They’ve met an opponent who will surely crush them. The California Air Resources Board.

California dairies anticipate regulations that would compel them to slash methane emissions by at least 40 percent by 2030, the target set by a bill awaiting Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature.

Dairy advocates say it’s a tall order. True, it’s much easier to block out-of-state competition in the Legislature than comply with the clean air laws that apply to everyone.

Brown’s administration, through the California Air Resources Board, has been weighing methane restrictions for the past two years. The agency in April published a report calling for a 75 percent reduction in dairy methane emissions by 2030.

Agriculture accounts for more than half of California’s methane emissions, making it an obvious industry for the air board to regulate as it tries to carry out Brown’s direction.

It’s hard to feel sorry for dairy farmers. They’ve been getting a free ride for a long time, all the while scalping consumers at the grocery store. It’s about time they lived by the same rules as everyone.

Source: The Sacramento Bee

Tampon tax stays on the books…sorry ladies

It’s hard to believe, but women buying tampons and parents buying diapers will continue to pay sales taxes on those items thanks to vetoes from Gov. Jerry Brown.

Both measures advanced to Brown on the strength of arguments that California needs to rethink its tax policy to reflect which items are most important to consumers.

Advocates of Assembly Bill 1561 argued that taxes on feminine hygiene products amounted to a tax on being a woman, given that women have little choice about buying such products. Supporters of Assembly Bill 717 likewise pointed out that parents are compelled to buy diapers.

They noted that California has exempted less indispensable consumer products, such as candy, from sales taxes. The measures passed the Legislature with bipartisan support.

Governor Brown was not impressed.

Source: The Sacramento Bee

Ag gave Brown no choice on farmworker bill

Farmers oppose Governor Brown’s High Speed Rail project. They also oppose his water diversion plans. Their opposition isn’t polite, or constructive…it’s simply hard-core in your face political brute force.

So it’s no wonder Brown, a onetime champion of farmworker causes, signed legislation granting agricultural workers the same right to overtime pay as other Californians.

Farmers gave him absolutely no reason not to.

The bill’s enactment marked a major victory for the United Farm Workers union – and a huge setback for industry interests.

Feckless Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had a chance to right this wrong, he refused and allowed the bigotry against farmworkers in California to continue. Brown has rightfully corrected that.

It’s about time California’s ag industry woke up.

Source: Fresno Bee

Toothless Prop. 59 asks voters to condemn a pay-to-play system Cali pols warmly embrace

Six years after Citizens United — the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that says corporations and unions have a First Amendment right to unlimited campaign spending — presidential candidates across the spectrum have condemned the campaign finance system it shaped.

“Corrupt,” says Bernie Sanders. “Pernicious,” says Hillary Clinton. “A broken system,” says Donald Trump.

The issue is getting extra attention in California because of Proposition 59, which asks if voters want the state’s elected officials to take steps to try to reverse Citizens United and related cases. It’s an attempt to rein in the influence of lucrative super PACs on elections.

But undoing Citizens United would require either amending the U.S. Constitution or a lawsuit that causes the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse itself. As an advisory measure, Proposition 59 is essentially an opinion poll that lacks authority to directly change the law.

Yet there is a certain irony in asking Californians to rebuke the nation’s approach to funding political campaigns. The very system allowed by Citizens United — in which corporations and unions spend unlimited amounts on independent advertising campaigns — has been accepted for much longer here in the Golden State.

Source: San Jose Mercury News

Putting an end to California’s “water rights” scam

Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration has made it clear that the holders of senior water rights, which date to the turn of the last century and before, are not immune to the demands of the environment and the realities of diminishing supplies of what they claim as their water.

We say good for him, it is about time.

The State Water Resources Control Board is preparing to release reports next week and later this month that will make clear to all parts of the state that they face an era of limits.

Sorry 1%ers, the free ride is coming to an end.

The Water Board is expected to spell out the amount of water that must flow down the once mighty San Joaquin River and its tributaries into the Delta out to the Golden Gate.

That means San Francisco, along with Modesto, Merced, Turlock and other holders of senior water rights, will be forced more directly into the discussion about how best to restore fisheries and ultimately the Delta.

The reports are part of efforts by Brown and his administration to stabilize the water delivery system that serves almost 40 million people, but was constructed when there were fewer than 20 million residents.

Environmentally sensitive residents of San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties have had the luxury of standing off to the side.

Then there is groundwater, the bank that farmers rely upon to irrigate their crops during drought. By Dec. 31, the state must publish a report that will detail the degree of overdrafting and what users must do to replenish the aquifer. Water to recharge groundwater must come from somewhere.

It all will lead to hard choices, less farming, higher costs and pressure to cut water consumption.

It is high time someone put greedy farmers and feckless 1%er environmentalists in their place.

Source: The Sacramento Bee

Judge slams Obama Administration, blocks fracking in California

For not wt least, there won’t be any fracking water in your food.

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the U.S. Bureau of Land Management from opening more than 1 million acres in Central California to oil drilling because the agency did not properly explore the potential dangers of fracking.

U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald sided with environmentalists who argued that the bureau should have addressed the possible impacts of hydraulic fracturing in an environmental impact statement issued as part of the formal process of opening public lands to drilling.

Instead, the 1,073-page impact statement mentioned fracking only three times and never discussed the controversial practice in depth, according to the judge.

He ordered the bureau to prepare a supplemental impact statement that includes fracking before the bureau moves forward on oil and gas development in the area, which includes federal properties in Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare and Ventura counties.

Environmentalists who consider fracking a threat to California’s strained groundwater supplies hailed the ruling.

“To be clear, the act of commissioning the CCST Report itself does not satisfy the Bureau’s obligations to take a ‘hard look’ at the potentially adverse effects of fracking,” Fitzgerald wrote.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

#BigTobacco panics, pours millions into anti-tax campaign

The campaign over a ballot measure that would raise the state’s tobacco tax by $2 per pack of cigarettes is shaping up as one of the most expensive among the long list of initiatives confronting California voters in November.

In August alone, the tobacco industry poured $20 million into fighting Proposition 56, which would increase the state’s tax on cigarettes for the first time since 1999 to $2.87 per pack, up from the current 87 cents, and impose comparable increases on other forms of tobacco.

The tax would raise $1.4 billion and be used to fund health care, prevention programs and research.

Several independent studies, as well as research by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that increasing the price of cigarettes reduces the demand for them, particularly among teenagers and young adults. The most common way governments increase the cost of cigarettes is through a tobacco tax.

The tobacco industry has already lost one major battle in California this year. In the spring, Gov. Jerry Brown signed bills raising the smoking age to 21 from 18 and putting e-cigarettes and other vaping products, many of them made by tobacco firms, under the same regulatory structure as tobacco.

Prop. 56 would also put vaping products under the tobacco umbrella, meaning the tax would also apply, for the first time, to e-cigarettes containing nicotine.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

California Legislators target farting cows

A leisurely drive down highway 99 or interstate 5 tells you it’s there. The air is acrid with cow farts near big dairy feedlots. Tons and tons of bovine gas hangs in the air. California’s crack team of environmental experts say it’s killing us.

Moving to expand California’s already-sweeping efforts to blunt climate change, lawmakers on Tuesday sent Gov. Jerry Brown legislation to limit methane from sources like landfills and dairies.

Much of the debate around climate change policies has focused on the climate-altering effects of burning petroleum. But gases known as “short-lived climate pollutants,” like methane, can have powerful effects even as they dissipate relatively quickly.

Under Senate Bill 1383, the Air Resources Board would have a mandate to cut such emissions by 40 percent. As with other climate bills, the measure had to scale a wall of resistance from oil industry groups and business associations.

But SB 1383 squeaked past the finish line with Brown himself making calls to members, marking the final climate fight of a session filled with them.

Members speaking in support of the measure framed it as a public health bill that would lengthen lives and combat ailments like asthma.

Landfills and dairy producers would bear much of the responsibility for making such reduction.

Raising dairy livestock also involves a fair amount of gas, some of it from belching and farting cows, and the measure would compel dairies to reduce the methane they produce by 40 percent as of 2030.

Source: The Sacramento Bee

In California, only chumps pay for their own healthcare

The illusion in the United States is that the vast majority of healthcare is paid for privately but researchers found that, at least in California, more than two-thirds of healthcare payments are made with public funds.

Between federal and state programs and tax subsidies, about 71 percent of healthcare in California is paid for with public funds, and researchers are questioning whether the winding list of sources is a better way to pay for healthcare than a single-payer system, according to a policy brief published online by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

Source: UPI

#BillCosby rape bill heading to Governor Brown

Gov. Jerry Brown will decide whether to eliminate California’s 10-year time limit to bring rape and child molestation charges after several women were precluded from bringing cases against actor Bill Cosby.

We hope he signs the bill.

A measure the Senate approved unanimously Tuesday evening would apply only to crimes committed in the future.

It would not allow Cosby’s accusers to seek prosecution for sexual assault they say he committed decades ago.

However the bill sets the proper path for prosecutors.

Democratic Sen. Connie Leyva of Chino says victims should always have the opportunity to seek justice after such violent acts.

Civil rights groups and public offenders opposed SB813, saying the bill does not address the root causes of victims failing to report sex crimes.

They are wrong. Rapists deserve no such protection.

Source: San Jose Mercury News

Farm lobby panics at the thought of having to pay farmworkers fairly

The Legislature on Monday sent Gov. Jerry Brown a potential historic expansion of overtime rules for farmworkers. Assembly Bill 1066 would provide time-and-a-half pay for farm laborers working more than eight hours a day or 40 hours a week, and double pay for those working more than 12 hours a day.

While agricultural business groups protested the legislation, warning of dire economic consequences for farmers and field hands alike, Fresno County grower John Chandler on Tuesday was expressing his own concerns.

“I’m disappointed by the outcome of the vote,” said Chandler, whose family’s Chandler Farms in Selma produces peaches, plums, grapes, mandarins and almonds. “I think it is going to have a negative effect on our farm employees. Our margins aren’t large enough to accommodate all that overtime. So growers are going to have to remain viable by keeping workers within 40 hours a week.

“From a farmer perspective, how do we survive as an industry that uses a lot of labor? What are we going to do?”

How about treat people fairly instead of like slaves Mr. Chandler?

Source: The Sacramento Bee

1%er Ag Elites Panic Over Fair Wages For Farmworkers Bill

The California Assembly on Monday sent Gov. Jerry Brown a hard-fought and historic expansion of overtime rules for farmworkers.

Wealthy farmers and other ag industry interests are scrambling to figure out a way to get Governor Brown to veto the bill.

Agricultural workers already receive some overtime pay under California law thanks to a 2002 state directive that entitles them to extra wages if they work more than 10 hours in a day or more than 60 hours in a week.

AB 1066 would expand that to bring it more in line with other industries, offering time-and-a-half pay for working more than eight hours in a day or 40 in a week and double pay for working more than 12 hours a day.

The pay boosts would kick in incrementally over four years, and the governor could suspend them for a year if the economy falters.

California has a long racist history of bigotry and oppression against farm workers. This debate exemplifies just how ferocious the aggression directed at immigrants really is.

Business groups quickly condemned the vote. “We are deeply concerned with the passage of AB 1066 today and the devastating impacts this bill will have on our small, independent farmers and the workers they employ,” said Tom Scott, state executive director of the National Federation of Independent Business.

Yeah, right. Paying people a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work will devastate the economy. Not really.

Source: The Sacramento Bee

California will continue to use gulags to hold prisoners

The Justice Department recently decided to phase out the confinement of federal inmates in private prisons, but tens of thousands of state prisoners — including 10,700 from California — will remain in the corporate-owned institutions that a government report has criticized over safety and security.

California has transferred prisoners to private institutions, some of them in other states, for more than five years to relieve overcrowding in state prisons, but state, and local, use of them is beginning to be questioned.

One California lawmaker has called for the state to stop sending inmates to prisons far from their families or California inspectors, and another legislator is moving to stop cities and counties in California from contracting with private prisons to hold federal immigration detainees.

State Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, chairwoman of the Senate’s Public Safety Committee and its budget subcommittee on Corrections and Public Safety, said California should terminate its contracts with private prisons in other states.

With no state employees at those sites, “we have no way of knowing what’s going on there,” Hancock said. Abuses have been reported at other prisons run by the same company, she said, and their location “makes it almost impossible for families to visit.”

Hancock, who will be termed out of office in January, said there’s not much the Legislature can do about the state’s use of private prisons. But lawmakers are considering a bill to end local governments’ ability to contract with prison companies for detention of immigrants.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

How legislators sold you out to #EpiPen for 30 pieces of silver

Pharmaceutical heavyweight Mylan, the latest poster child for drug-industry greed, finally stuck up for itself Thursday.

It argued that “the system,” not avarice, was to blame for the company jacking up the price of EpiPens, a common (and life-saving) allergy remedy, by over 400%.

“Look, no one’s more frustrated than me,” Mylan Chief Executive Heather Bresch declared on CNBC.

Wrong! No one in the drug industry scored more free cash than this lying asshole. Actually, millions of people — those with chronic medical conditions or other illnesses — are more frustrated than her.

Despite Mylan’s offer Thursday of discount coupons for some EpiPen users, the only system at work here is a cash-fat industry routinely preying on sick people. It’s a system that the drug industry will do whatever’s necessary to protect.

Mylan’s money-grubbing approach to EpiPens is only the latest example of a drug company mercilessly putting the squeeze on patients.

Source: The Los Angeles Times

Judge says go ahead, kill yourself, won’t suspend California’s right-to-die law

 

Go ahead, kill yourself…you’ve got the law on your side.

California’s right-to-die law for terminally ill adults remained in effect Friday after a judge rejected a group of doctors arguments that patients could be coerced to end their lives.

In response to arguments that the law could be exploited by unscrupulous relatives and others who could profit from a patient’s death, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Daniel Ottolia recited the measure’s safeguards.

They include requirements of diagnoses from two physicians that the patient will die within six months, findings of the patient’s mental competence, a series of oral and written requests from the patient and self-administration of lethal medication that a doctor has prescribed.

Ottolia refused to dismiss the group’s lawsuit. He said the doctors could represent the interests of future patients, but he denied an injunction to halt enforcement of the law, which took effect June 9.

California is the fourth state to pass a right-to-die law, following Oregon, Washington and Vermont. Note, all libtard states that put relatively little value on human life.

Source: The San Francisco Chronicle

Feds clear the way for California’s state-run IRAs

The U.S. Department of Labor adopted a landmark rule that lets states set up retirement accounts for private-sector workers who don’t have access to employer-sponsored plans, such as a 401(k).

The move could have a resounding impact on California, where the Legislature is on the verge of passing a bill that would create this type of state-run plan.

California is the largest of eight states that are working to create such plans, so the legislation has been closely watched.

Critics fear taxpayers could be on the hook if returns or participation fall short of expectations, something proponents say will not happen.

Nationally, about 55 million people, almost half the private-sector workforce, lack access to a workplace plan, according to AARP. About 7.5 million Californians do not have access to a retirement plan at work, according to an estimate from the the California Treasurer’s Office.

Under the new federal guidelines, states would have to design and run their programs; employers could have only “limited” involvement and could not put any money into worker accounts. The plan would automatically deduct contributions from the employee’s paycheck.

The state must design the program and choose investment options, but could outsource administration to a third party. Employers could have only limited involvement in the plan and could not put any money into worker accounts.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

California pension reformers are getting their hopes up, even though they should know better

Reformers are getting their hopes up again following a favorable state appeals court decision last week in a Marin County pension-spiking case.

It’s a great ruling. Several reform-minded commentators have referred to it as a “game changer.”

Here’s the sober reality: Public employees control the Capitol, run the major pension funds, are the main forces electing the governor and most statewide officials, and are treated deferentially in the legal system.

Every effort to roll back future pension benefits, or at least put them on a sustainable course, has been beaten back.

Even voter-approved initiatives ultimately are gutted by government agencies or the courts.

Unfunded pension liabilities — the future debt to pay all the current promises made to government employees — are the perfect “kick the can down the road” scam.

The dreadful debt numbers are obvious. But they don’t cause enough current problems to warrant taking on powerful union lobbies.

It’s easier for legislators to let future officials deal with the mess.

Source: The American Spectator

California looking to give your “voting experience” a complete makeover

Sweeping legislation at the state Capitol would make the future of California elections dependent on a major expansion of absentee ballots, one that would give local officials the power to close thousands of neighborhood polling places.

In their place, counties would open temporary elections offices known as “vote centers” sprinkled throughout communities, locations offering a wide variety of elections services including early voting and same-day voter registration as well as a limited number of in-person voting booths.

“We’re trying to make it easier for people to participate, given the complexities of modern life,” said state Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), the author of Senate Bill 450.

The bill faces an Aug. 31 deadline to make it Gov. Jerry Brown for his ultimate signature or veto.

Allen and SB 450’s supporters say the plan represents a significant rethinking of the election experience for Californians. They point out that the many complaints from voters during the June primary — including polling place mistakes and registration errors — are perhaps the best argument for why change is long overdue.

Source: LA Times

Transgender Californians get aggressive by engaging in preventative politics

One after another they stepped to the podium telling stories of liberation through transformation.

There was the man, in suit and bowtie, who once played college basketball on a women’s team. There was the woman, in a red lace dress, who said attaining a female physique was like “holding a prize in my hand.”

Gone were the anxiety, depression and thoughts of suicide that came with living in the male body that didn’t match her spirit.

The stories they shared at this press conference outside the state Capitol were part of a broader statewide effort to make Californians more familiar with transgender people and the discrimination they say they face.

Similar events have already taken place in Los Angeles, San Jose and San Francisco, with more planned for Fresno, Palm Springs and San Diego.

Videos about Californians who changed their gender are featured on a website, and a media ad campaign is in the works.

The $1.2 million Transform California campaign is attempting to sway public opinion long before Californians might ever vote on any ballot measure that could restrict rights—like access to bathrooms and locker rooms—now granted to people whose gender identity doesn’t match the sex on their birth certificate.

Call it preventative politics. Conservative groups have tried twice in recent years to put a measure on the California ballot that would require people to use facilities based on their assigned sex at birth. Both efforts fell short, but proponents are undaunted.

 Source: Long Beach Press-Telegram

Law-abiding gun owners get the back-hand from California politicians thanks to incompetent advocates

California legislators are congratulating themselves for legislation to curb police seizures of property from people who haven’t been convicted of crimes – and for a change, their celebration is justified.

Federal and state authorities have run amok on “civil forfeitures,” particularly in drug cases – seemingly more interested in enriching their agencies than in actually going after those doing harm.

The compromise legislation requires convictions before seizing assets of less than $40,000. It should have gone further, but that’s the best legislators could get from police and prosecutor groups.

However thanks to incompetent advocacy efforts from hapless 2nd Amendment organizations, current legislative session has bristled with measures to make gun ownership by Californians more difficult and/or more expensive, and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom is sponsoring a ballot measure that would go even further.

The same politicians who are patting themselves on the back for upholding the constitutional rights of suspected drug dealers vis-à-vis property seizures are more than willing to attack, if not violate, the rights of law-abiding gun owners with pettifogging restrictions.

Meanwhile advocates for gun owners flail away as their members rights atrophy away.

Source: The Sacramento Bee

Will the feckless @AssemblyDems kill overtime pay for farmworkers again?

On the floor of the California Assembly in June, lawmakers voiced passionate but opposing stances on whether to expand overtime pay for farmworkers.

They quoted scripture. They called upon their own experiences on family farms. They turned to the historic exploitation of black, Latino and Asian laborers in the fields.

The moment was historic for advocates and lobbyists who remember the movement to establish farm workers’ rights in the 1960s and ‘70s: Cesar Chavez walking alongside civil leaders and workers on a pilgrimage to Sacramento, Bobby Kennedy standing with farmworkers in Delano.

In those days, the emotional appeals occurred outside the state Capitol. In June, the fervor had moved to the Assembly chamber, where AB 2757, which would have phased in new overtime rules for agricultural employees was eviscerated by Democrats who were in the pockets of wealthy California farmers.

“I was devastated,” Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) said. “This is really about whether people who are doing the hardest, most backbreaking work are finally — after decades and centuries of being treated differently in California — going to be seen as equal under the law.”

Nope, not a chance. Democrat bigots took care of that.

Gonzalez revived the legislation two weeks later by amending an unrelated bill, AB 1066, that’s now pending in the Senate. The upper house, controlled by liberal Democrats who are generally supportive of farm worker rights, may consider the bill as soon as Monday.

But lawmakers say the most intense debate will once again unfold among Gonzalez’s Democratic colleagues in the Assembly, where the demographics have changed, but where powerful agricultural interests remain.

Farmer associations came up with the pathetic argument that the bill could backfire on tens of thousands of agricultural workers who could see their paychecks cut as farmers seek to avoid paying overtime by limiting work hours and hiring more workers.

Eight Democrats voted against the overtime pay legislation in June and seven abstained. These Democrats betrayed everything America stands for.

Source: Los Angeles Times

 

California’s 1%er’s Legislature

You’re a millionaire and you need some more millions? No problem, the California Legislature has your back. You’re a longshoreman looking for a  job, piss off!

California’s unemployment rate went up for the second month in a row, rising to 5.5% in July from 5.4% in June, according to state data released Friday.

In July the group of people looking for a job expanded by 60,100 workers, after increasing by 25,000 in June.

California’s jobless rate again was worse than the country’s as a whole — the nationwide rate was 4.9% in July.

Los Angeles County lost a stark 56,300 jobs in July.

In the last three months, California employers have hired a net 97,100 people, significantly fewer than they did in the same period last year.

July was also a bad month for the leisure and hospitality, government employer and mining sectors, which together cut a net 6,100 positions.

Source: The Los Angeles Times

More on California 2nd Amendment advocates epic failure

How could California’s 2nd Amendment advocates have failed so miserably? Lack of preparedness, a complete lack of understanding of the political environment they were facing, and total ineptness. That pretty much sums it up.

In adopting a sweeping package of gun control laws this summer, many California lawmakers focused on the sobering statistics — the large number of shootings that they say represent an “epidemic” of gun violence.

Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon also saw faces: those of his relatives, who were killed by guns.

During a recent Assembly session, the Democrat from Paramount acknowledged the personal toll that gun violence has taken on his family.

“None of us are immune from the tragedies that guns deliver every day in communities throughout our state,” he told his colleagues. “In my own family, five of my relatives have been shot. Three were killed.”

The dead include a teenage cousin, Armando, who was shot to death in 1997 near a food stand on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park, Rendon said later in an interview with The Los Angeles Times.

Nick Wilcox, co-chairman of the California Chapter of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, credits the Democratic leader with playing a role in getting a package of seven gun control bills approved by the Legislature in June and signed by the governor.

California’s clueless gun lobby completely ignored the obvious.

The bills included a ban on large-capacity magazines and semiautomatic rifles with detachable magazines, and a requirement that those who buy ammunition undergo a background check.

In passing the gun control measures, lawmakers cited sobering statistics: From 2002-13, some 38,570 Californians were killed by gun violence.

In just 2013, firearms were used to kill 2,900 Californians, including 251 children and teens. That same year, 6,035 others in the state were hospitalized or treated in emergency rooms for non-fatal gunshot wounds, including 1,275 children and teens.

The numbers have put the gun lobby’s favorite cliché “cold dead fingers” into a completely new context. Gun owners in California should be angry…very angry. Not at the politicians who voted against them, but at their own Sacramento advocates who completely and utterly failed them.

Source: The Los Angeles Times

Cali death penalty opponents continue to flounder

With surveys showing declining public support for capital punishment, opponents of the death penalty in California have expressed confidence in repealing it at the ballot box in November, after narrowly falling short four years ago. But a new poll released Thursday suggests voters may not go along.

The poll by the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, conducted online among a statewide sampling of more than 1,500 registered voters, found Proposition 62, which would replace the death penalty with a sentence of life in prison without parole, trailing 54.9 percent to 49.1 percent. The measure was opposed by majorities of both women and men, by all age levels except those between 25 and 34, and by all racial and ethnic groups except black voters, who were 60 percent in favor of the proposition.

The same poll found overwhelming support — 75.7 percent — for a rival measure, Prop. 66, that would seek to speed up executions by setting tight deadlines for court rulings, placing some limits on appeals and requiring many more defense lawyers to take capital cases.

The latest poll raises some doubt about whether Californians are ready to abolish capital punishment.

Voters approved the current death penalty law in 1978, expanding a measure that had been enacted a year earlier, over Gov. Jerry Brown’s veto. A measure to repeal it was defeated in 2012 by a 52 to 48 percent ratio. Most polls since then, in California and nationwide, have shown declines in support for capital punishment.

California has the nation’s largest Death Row, with nearly 750 prisoners. The state’s last execution was in January 2006, and the law has been on hold since then because of court rulings finding flaws in the lethal injection process and staff training.

Source: The San Francisco Chronicle

California’s electric car program — #EpicFail

California’s Zero Emission Vehicle program — which pushes automakers to sell an increasing number of electric cars, plug-in hybrids and fuel-cell vehicles in the state — has become a source of increasing concern to environmentalists, who say it risks falling short of Gov. Jerry Brown’s goal of having at least 1.5 million emissions-free vehicles on the streets by 2025.

“The program is in dire need of a tuneup,” said Simon Mui, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s clean-vehicle efforts in California. “It won’t be delivering as many vehicles as the state wants.”

According to an analysis by the the defense council, the program will lead to only 1 million cars by 2025 — well below the state’s goal.

Hmmm….and we were just getting comfortable with the idea of living in Libtopia.

Aware of the concerns, the Air Resources Board is considering changes. The agency plans to discuss the program’s future at a hearing in December.

No state has more electric vehicles than California, thanks in part to the air board’s insistence that automakers offer them here. Even so, in a state where officials consider emissions-free cars essential to the fight against climate change, the trend has been slow to catch on.

People like horsepower.

Since the current wave of electric vehicles hit the market at the end of 2010, about 223,700 electrics and plug-in hybrids have been sold in the state. That’s 46 percent of the nationwide total, but it’s less than 1 percent of all cars registered in California. With low gasoline prices, clean-car sales have remained sluggish.

So this is really about a gas tax CalNews.com readers. Hold on to your wallets.

Source: The San Francisco Chronicle

New gas tax on the way – 17 cents per gallon

Two Democratic lawmakers unveiled a $7.4-billion transportation plan late Wednesday, the latest effort to break through a yearlong logjam over the state’s funding woes.

The plan, highlighted by an increase of 17 cents per gallon in the gas tax, comes from Assemblyman Jim Frazier (D-Oakley) and Sen. Jim Beall (D-San Jose) in an attempt to unify the disparate proposals the pair had previously introduced in their respective houses.

The combined plan is more than double Gov. Jerry Brown’s $3.6-billion proposal, which calls for a 6-cent gas tax hike.

Republican lawmakers have previously shown little appetite for a tax increase, instead pitching a plan that would eliminate vacant state worker positions and reallocate existing dollars — including from the state’s climate change programs — toward transportation spending.

With just two weeks left in the legislative session, Frazier said he was open to calling lawmakers back in a November lame-duck session to resolve transportation funding.

Get ready to pay…it’s just a matter of time.

Source: The Los Angeles Times

Poll: Livid California voters target #BigTobacco, 1%ers

Livid California voters strongly favor ballot measures to increase tobacco taxes and extend a temporary income tax on the wealthy, according to a new poll.

The poll conducted by the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California at Berkeley surveyed 3,020 registered California voters through online questionnaires between June 29 and July 18.

Approximately 74.3 percent of California voters support Proposition 56, which raises taxes by $2 per pack of 20 cigarettes with equivalent raises on other tobacco products and e-cigarettes. The measure received bipartisan support, appealing to 80.5 percent of Democrats and 64.6 percent of Republicans.

Proposition 55, a measure that extends higher income taxes on individual filers earning more than $250,000, was favored by 65.3 percent of voters. More than 70 percent of black, Latino and voters between the ages of 18 and 24, believe the tax should be extended on top earners. Democrats favored the measure (78 percent) more than Republicans (46.2 percent).

We can’t blame people for slamming the tobacco industry or the feckless 1%ers. They both have it coming.

Source: The Sacramento Bee

Legislators totally screw distressed California homeowners

Senate Bill 907, which had won unanimous approval of the state Senate, died in just a few seconds.

As a result, millions of Californians with mortgages that are worth more than their homes got screwed.

Congress had declared that loan write-downs, short sales and other forms of mortgage relief would be free of federal income taxes. The California Legislature and then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger followed suit for several years, extending relief through 2013.

However, when Jerry Brown returned to the governorship, facing an immense budget deficit, he refused to continue the tax exemption for any relief actions since 2013, last year vetoing a bill that would have added two years to the window.

SB 907, carried by Sen. Cathleen Galgiani, D-Manteca, would have extended the tax break through 2016. She represents a region hardest hit by the housing meltdown and during one hearing cited her own underwater mortgage.

“Many years later, it still isn’t worth what I paid for it,” said Galgiani, adding that many Californians are in the same situation and “for us to hit them a second time is unconscionable.”

SB 907 never made it to Brown. Although it also won unanimous support in the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee, it was placed on the Assembly Appropriation Committee’s “suspense file” because of its cost – an estimated $95 million in lost revenue during its first year and $57 million in the next two years.

Last week, the appropriations chairwoman, Lorena Gonzalez, announced the fate of dozens of Senate bills, spending just a few seconds on each. SB 907, she said, would not be sent to the Assembly floor.

No reason for its demise was offered. To feckless California politicians, taxpayers are just a piece of meat.

Source: The Sacramento Bee

California’s Secret Legisalture

The “appropriations committees” of both legislative houses decreed, in a matter of minutes, the fates of nearly 500 bills Thursday.

The Senate Appropriations Committee acted on bills that originated in the Assembly, while Assembly Appropriations processed Senate bills – and friction between the two houses was evident in the outcomes.

Few real votes were taken. Mostly, committee chairs just announced bills’ fates, or ignored those being killed.

While dozens of bills died, some were amended extensively, although details of changes were not immediately revealed.

This is how your Secret Legislature really works.

 Source: The Sacramento Bee

Cali spares ‘Grim Sleeper’ serial killer’s life – by sentencing him to death

A serial killer known as the “Grim Sleeper” was sentenced to death Wednesday for the murders of nine women and a teenage girl that went unsolved for years as the body count grew in a poor section of Los Angeles haunted by the scourge of crack cocaine.

Lonnie Franklin Jr. was sentenced in Los Angeles County Superior Court after emotional family members of his victims spoke about the pain they had endured for decades.

The killings occurred over more than two decades during the crack epidemic, and community members complained that police didn’t seriously investigate because the victims were black and poor and many were drug users and prostitutes.

Franklin, 63, a former trash collector and onetime garage attendant for Los Angeles police, denied any role in the killings to investigators.

Prosecutors connected him to the crimes through DNA, ballistics, photos and the words of the sole known survivor, who managed to get away after being shot.

Everybody knows California never executes anyone on death row. So Franklin will die in prison.

Source: The Sacramento Bee

If you thought the collapse of Enron marked the end of Sacramento’s energy scams, you’d be mistaken

Gov. Jerry Brown is delaying a bid to link California’s largest electricity grid with one that operates in five other Western states, slowing a proposal that his administration favored as a way to shrink the costs of hitting his renewable energy mandate.

Brown sent letters on Monday to legislative leaders announcing that he wanted state agencies to take more time studying whether California’s Independent System Operator should link with the multistate grid managed by Oregon-based PacifiCorp.

Some advocates for the proposal had been urging lawmakers to approve the expansion before the end of the state’s legislative session this month. The ISO reaches about 80 percent of Californians through Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.

The plan met resistance from groups that feared California would inadvertently support PacifiCorp coal-fired plants by connecting with the company, as well as from public utilities who worried they’d be forced to pay higher fees to move power on transmission lines owned by the larger grid.

Source: The Sacramento Bee

Cali pols take a small step to stop asset forfeiture

Feckless law enforcement thugs and state Sen. Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) have reached a deal on legislation to limit the ability of police in California to permanently seize cars, cash, homes and other property from suspected criminals without a conviction, potentially paving the way for California to join the growing list of states that have reined in the practice.

Known as civil asset forfeiture, the tactic began in earnest as a response to the drug war in the 1980s, allowing law enforcement to fund their anti-narcotics operations by taking drug dealers’ property.

But a diverse group of critics, including immigrant and anti-poverty groups alongside libertarians such as billionaire Republican donor Charles Koch, have argued that the law has allowed officers to take innocent, impoverished residents’ property without providing enough recourse to get it back.

Under changes to Mitchell’s bill introduced Thursday, any property seizure in California worth less than $40,000 would now require a criminal conviction before police could take permanent action.

Seizures higher than that amount would still allow for a lower burden of proof, such as the standard used in civil cases.

The $40,000 threshold is an attempt to balance advocates’ desire that those in poverty don’t lose their property unless they’re convicted of wrongdoing and law enforcement’s interest in preserving its ability to go after large criminal enterprises, Mitchell said.

“It’s those private citizens who could not be convicted of a crime whose assets that we need to protect,” Mitchell said.As a result of the compromise, major law enforcement groups, including organizations representing police chiefs and district attorneys statewide, have dropped their opposition to the bill, SB 443.

Source: LA Times