Experts Expound

“The payroll deduction proposal will be on the Nov. 2012 ballot. Unions hate it, businesses love it. In some cases, it also bars state contractors from contributing to candidates’ political committees. What’s your take?”

In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny: Of course you know, this means war.

This version is different from others because it bans corporate contributions, too.  That alone may put it over the top this time. Look for unions to spend big (as usual to beat it) but the editorial boards across the state just might buy it. This measure will continue to get between 45 percent and 55 percent of the vote … but it just needs to pass once.

It tries to do too many things and because of that will not be upheld upon challenge. Nevertheless, if they could have controlled themselves and limited it to stopping the “payroll deduction for political contributions” issue, it would have been simple enough to understand and might have passed. Many SEIU members hate the contribution, but are afraid not to make it.

It’s a big lie. It proclaims to limit corporate contributions, but since corporations don’t use payroll deductions it has no effect on them at all, but silences only workers. Exposing that lie will be the key to beating it.

If there’s one thing that unions will go to the mattresses for, it’s payroll protection. The only thing this initiative will do is inspire hordes of Democrats to come to the polls next November. The Republicans think they like this initiative, but wait until all the other GOP measures get voted down because the unions organized against this one. Dumb.

I don’t like it.  This is just another feeble attempt at controlling campaign spending, but every campaign spending law has a loophole and led to unintended consequences.  The current restrictions have moved the election landscape away from candidate-run campaigns to independent expenditures that have no accountability.

 
It’s just another attempt by the right to shut down union political activity. Similar measures have been on the ballot before and have gone down both times. This one will lose, too.
Forced political giving is never a good idea, but they lost me when they restricted the political speech of contractors.

Until such time as Brown and the Legislature stop their occupation of taxpayers the state will be in decline. Hollywood stars are changing their state of residence to avoid high California taxes, and more and more employers and people who can earn their living (taxpayers as opposed to tax takers) are leaving.  

This should be the third strike for this Republican Party fantasy. This needs a June primary in a gubernatorial year and Divine intervention to get up to the 45 percent mark, and it will get neither.

 Andrew Acosta, Elizabeth Ashford, A.G. Block, Mark Bogetich, Barry Brokaw, J Dale Debber, Peter DeMarco, Mike Donovan, Jim Evans, Kathy Fairbanks, Jeff Fuller, Rex Frazier, Ken Gibson, Evan Goldberg, Deborah Gonzalez, Sandy Harrison, Bob Hertzberg, Jason Kinney, Greg Lucas, Mike Madrid, Nicole Mahrt, Steve Maviglio,  Adam Mendelsohn, Barbara O’Connor, Bill Packer, Kassy Perry, Jack Pitney, Adam Probolsky, Tony Quinn, Matt Rexroad, Matt Ross, Roger Salazar, Dan Schnur, Will Shuck, Ralph Simoni, Sam Sorich, Ray Sotero, Garry South, Kevin Spillane, Robin Swanson, Angie Wei, Rich Zeiger