California Family Minute

by Ron Prentice,
Chief Executive Officer

Active response to government leadership is at an all-time high. People aren’t happy, and while Wall Street and other metropolitan areas are being “occupied,” Californians are using many mechanisms in an attempt to regain power being lost through political shenanigans.

For instance, by passing the Voters FIRST Act, Californians believed they were taking the power of redistricting out of the hands of the Legislature and giving it to a balanced and unbiased commission. But since the new commission made the final district maps public in August, two lawsuits and one referendum have been filed in an attempt to overturn proposed districts that many believe favor Democrats even more than before. In fact, some analysts believe the new districts may eliminate the last bit of control Republicans may have, by filling more seats with Democrats and creating a supermajority (67%).

Union leaders are especially concerned about another initiative - called Stop Special Interest Money - that will likely appear on the 2012 June Primary or November General Election ballot. Nearly double the number of necessary signatures was submitted to the state, and if the people pass the initiative it would significantly reduce unions’ political war chests. For example, the states of Idaho and Utah passed similar laws that reduced union political monies by more than 80%. 

Seeing the special interest initiative coming, the Democrat-controlled Legislature lent a hand to the unions by gutting and re-writing the contents of Senate Bill 202 just before the legal deadline to submit bills. The “new” SB 202 disallows initiatives to appear on any ballot other than general and special ballots. Specifically, SB 202 would keep initiatives off the primary election ballots, which historically favor stronger conservative turnout. The bill’s language also postpones the Legislature leadership’s promise to bring a budgeted “rainy day” savings fund to the people for a vote. The vote was to take place in June 2012, and it will now be moved to November 2014.   

In response, a referendum has been filed to repeal SB 202. Referenda are much more difficult than initiatives due to the abbreviated timeline - the same number of signatures is required but just over half the number of days is allotted. But if enough signatures can be gathered to qualify the referendum for the ballot, then SB 202‘s implementation may be put on hold, and the Stop Special Interest Money initiative just may appear on the June 2012 primary ballot, in spite of all the devious legislative manipulations to please the unions.