WHY SHOULD BIDEN CHOOSE HARRIS FOR VEEP?

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JUNE 12, 2020, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“WHY SHOULD BIDEN CHOOSE HARRIS FOR VEEP?"

          For months, California’s Democratic U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris has campaigned hard to convince presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joseph Biden he should make her his vice presidential running mate.

          The ever-ambitious, well-spoken and fast-on-her-feet Harris fits into many categories Biden openly seeks to match: She’s black, female and could appeal to foreign-born voters as the daughter of an immigrant. She would likely overwhelm the ever-meek current Vice President Mike Pence if and when they debate. In case of a loss, she would hold onto her seat in the Senate.

          But many political analysts believe that’s as far as it goes.

          For Harris also has political downsides. For one thing, she won’t get Biden many votes or states he would not otherwise win. He has California’s 55 electoral votes in the bag before the campaign really starts, holding a 30-point lead over President Trump in the latest polling. And he already dominates among African American voters.

          Harris sandbagged Biden in the first Democratic debate last year, unexpectedly scorching him for being soft 40 years ago on school busing for desegregation. Her surprise attack derailed Biden’s early momentum, which took more than six months to recover.

          In her only seriously contested statewide California race, Harris won by the narrowest margin of any major officeholder here in decades. While still serving as San Francisco’s district attorney in 2010, she barely beat Republican Steve Cooley, then the top Los Angeles prosecutor, in their run for state attorney general – during a Democratic California sweep. Harris won by less than 1 percent (74,000 votes out of 9.6 million cast), the outcome in question until a month after the vote.

          This despite several political blunders by Cooley, who insisted that if elected, he would collect his six-figure Los Angeles County pension while drawing another six-figure salary as attorney general.

          On the face of it, Harris might have some appeal to progressive, Bernie Sanders-style Democrats. But that lasts only until they look at her record.

While a district attorney, Harris backed a proposed law enabling prosecution of parents whose kids were habitually truant from school. This could have disproportionally affected people of color and the poor.

          As attorney general, she appealed when a federal judge in Orange County ruled the death penalty unconstitutional in 2014. And a federal appeals court found her office willfully hid exculpatory evidence in the case of a stepfather accused of abusing his stepdaughter. As a result, the stepfather remained in prison long after Harris moved on to the Senate, despite evidence his stepdaughter repeatedly lied.

          Trump and Pence would likely not attack Harris for much of this, but would certainly highlight her very close past association with former San Francisco Mayor and state Assembly Speaker Willie Brown.

          Then there’s the question of whether Biden could trust 

Harris after her debate surprise attack. Yet, other vice presidents 

have been chosen despite previous attacks on their future bosses or 

their close associates: George H.W. Bush famously called some 

Ronald Reagan proposals “voodoo economics” and Robert F. 

Kennedy despised Lyndon Johnson, yet Bush and Johnson became 

vice presidents and later presidents. Even Biden at one 

time disparaged Barack Obama.

          Biden, aware he can seem hesitant and even occasionally 

confused, has pledged to run with a woman, but must choose one 

widely considered ready to step into the Oval Office on short 

notice.

               “The advantage of Harris is that she might be seen as very independent and outspoken in her own right, which could be a plus with a candidate or a president like Biden,” said Arnold Steinberg, a former Republican consultant who recently has advised ballot proposition campaigns. “She might upstage Biden at times, but her persona and most of her record are solid.”

                   The real question is whether Biden – and later the great mass of American voters – will consider Harris as prepared to be president as senators like Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts or Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

                   It’s Biden’s decision and it will come soon, but Californians can be sure of one thing: Whether or not Harris gets the nod, she has a long career ahead, in California and maybe nationally.

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

TWO-YEAR WAIT FOR CHANCE AT REAL PROPOSITION 13 CHANGE

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE:  TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 2018, OR THEREAFTER


BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

  “TWO-YEAR WAIT CHANCE AT REAL PROPOSITION 13 CHANGE”

          No law is more important to lifestyles in California than Proposition 13, the landmark 1978 law that limits property taxes to 1 percent of their 1975 values or 1 percent of their latest sale prices, with only very small annual increases.

          Now homeowners, renters and business owners alike can rest assured it will be at least two more years before there’s any meaningful change in the 40-year-old law, which passed with a 63 percent majority.

          Proposition 13 is the reason senior citizens who have held onto their homes for decades can stay put if they like, not worrying about taxes escalating right along with their property values. It’s one thing – maybe the only thing – keeping rents from rising to completely unaffordable levels. And it’s the main element keeping California taxes from topping the national rankings.

Because of those wide financial implications, Proposition 13 may be a key to many elements of life in California.

          But there have always been two fundamental inequities built into this law: One is the fact that property taxes remain almost stable as long as an owner holds onto a home or piece of commercial property, changing only when that property is sold. This means newer buyers pay far higher taxes for nearly identical assets. The second is the requirement that residential and commercial properties be taxed at the same rates.

          Advocates of more funding for public schools and other local services have long contended this second rule means Proposition 13 keeps businesses from paying their proper share of those costs, even though business property tax revenue has risen at a similar pace to what’s levied on residences.

          The idea of a “split roll” taxing commercial property more than living quarters arose within less than two years of Proposition 13’s passage. But the idea never went anywhere much and there has been no vote on it outside obscure legislative committees.

          But a split roll initiative is circulating right now, with sponsors in the School and Communities First Coalition including the California League of Women Voters. But that group has reportedly cut the fee it pays petition circulators for valid voter signatures from $3 to $2, probably assuring they won’t gather the needed 585,407 names until after the deadline for reaching this November’s general election ballot.

          So a vote on this key Proposition 13 change won’t happen until November 2020, in an election expected to draw very heavy turnouts at least in part because today’s presumption is that President Trump will be up for reelection.

          A large vote, expected to be predominantly Democratic in California, would up the prospects for passage of a measure that’s perceived in many quarters as anti-business.

          Few doubt it would raise somewhere between $6 billion and $10 billion in new property taxes for schools and local governments at a time when many face struggles with pension-driven deficits or their prospect.

          But there will still be some Proposition 13 action this year. California realtors have placed a measure on the November ballot allowing over-55 citizens to move anywhere in the state and keep their current tax level if they buy a new home for the same or a lower price than what they’re selling. There’s also a formula keeping property taxes down for them if they buy something more expensive.

          Seniors can already do most of this within some counties, but not all.

          But this would be a fairly minor change for Proposition 13, while a split-roll would be major surgery. The split-roll attempt is spurred at least in part by a 2015 survey of 104,000 likely voters which found 75 percent in favor of withdrawing Proposition 13 protections from non-residential property.

          Business groups led by the state’s Chamber of Commerce and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. (named for the co-author of Proposition 13) will surely fight strongly against that change.

          As Joel Fox, former Jarvis association chief, wrote the other day, “The business community will know the wolf is coming and will act accordingly.”

          Together with Trump’s presence on the ballot, that could make 2020 the most exciting election year California has seen in decades.

                  

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     Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net

PENSION-CHANGE MEASURE INEVITABLE NEXT YEAR

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JUNE 12, 2015, OR THEREAFTER


BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

      “PENSION-CHANGE MEASURE INEVITABLE NEXT YEAR”

          It was inevitable once the number of signatures needed to put a constitutional amendment initiative on the statewide ballot dropped by 300,000 following last fall’s election:

          A measure to change the pension system governing many California public employees will be voted on in November of next year.

          Equally unsurprising are the identities of its two major sponsors: former San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed and ex-City Councilman Carl DeMaio of San Diego, who has failed in runs for mayor and for the congressional seat now held by Democrat Scott Peters.

          The exact content of the initiative is not yet certain, although both politicos say they may have their measure ready as early as next month for review and titling by state Attorney General Kamala Harris, who likely will share the ballot with the initiative as she runs for the U.S. Senate.

          Given what Reed and DeMaio have done via local ballot propositions in their own cities, it’s a virtual certainly their measure will contain something forcing public employees at the state and local levels to increase their contributions to pension funding. It will also most likely give local governments the power to renegotiate with unions the pension benefits paid for future work, while leaving all vested benefits in place. And it might set up 401(k)-style accounts for some future public employees, rather than fixed benefits paid through CalPERS, the California Public Employee Retirement System.

          When Reed tried to put a measure much like that on last fall’s ballot, he ran afoul of the attorney general, who must write an objective summary and title for every initiative before petition circulators begin seeking signatures.

          Harris’ summary said the 2014 Reed measure would “eliminate constitutional protections” for some workers, including teachers, nurses and law officers. Reed strongly objected to this description, but it was upheld in court and the effort went nowhere.

          Now, with the petition signature threshold for proposed state constitutional amendments down from 807,000 to 504,000 because of last fall’s low voter turnout, Reed and DeMaio are working to craft something Harris-proof.

          “Some of the San Diego and San Jose policies will be included,” Dan Pellessier, president of a group calling itself California Pension Reform, working with Reed and DeMaio, told a reporter. “But we have to make it hard for Harris to make this look like a dirt sandwich, as she did before.”

          That’s a challenge, because no matter how they try to sugar-coat it, Reed and DeMaio will be trying to take money from public employees either at the front end, via increased contributions, or at the back end, via reduced payouts or a change away from fixed benefits for new employees.

          Something, however, has to be done. For even after the reforms pushed through by Gov. Jerry Brown early in this decade, many of the state’s 130 public pension systems are unhealthy, underfunded. In 2013, then state Controller, now Treasurer, John Chiang reported 17 plans were underfunded by at least 40 percent, 45 per underfunded by 20 to 40 percent and 22 more had shortages of 20 percent or less.

          Altogether, the state’s unfunded pension liability had risen to $198 billion from $6.3 billion in 2003.

          “Rising salary and pension costs for state and local government workers have outpaced the…new tax revenues generated by (the 2012) Proposition 30,” DeMaio claimed in an essay.

          One result is that CalPERS will soon begin raising assessments of cities and counties to help meet their pension obligations, administered by that agency in most cases.

          “It is clear that politicians in Sacramento are not serious about reforming unsustainable pension benefits,” DeMaio said. He complains that public employee pensions far outpace those in the private sector, where fixed-benefit plans are mostly a thing of the past, enjoyed by many of the currently retired, but a mere fantasy for most of today’s workers.

          The challenge for DeMaio and Reed lies in crafting a plan that doesn’t renege on promises and contracts previously agreed to, while still saving money. That’s a very tall order. 

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    Elias is author of the current book “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It,” now available in an updated third edition. His email address is tdelias@aol.com

BOXER VULNERABLE, BUT SO ARE REPUBLICAN SENATE HOPEFULS

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JUNE 1, 2010, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“BOXER VULNERABLE, BUT SO ARE REPUBLICAN SENATE HOPEFULS"

Just about a month ago, one of the leading political rating services in Washington, D.C. lowered Barbara Boxer’s reelection status from “likely” to “leaning.” This was one indicator of the general and seemingly perpetual sense that the three-term Democratic U.S. senator is vulnerable.

Even at a Los Angeles dinner where President Obama helped raise $3 million for Boxer’s reelection drive, her vulnerability was the dominant theme.

One reason is that she has not been advertising, while all three of her would-be opponents have been on the air with commercials that constantly blast her "arrogance" and label her a “typical big-spending Democrat.” They often claim her strong environmental bent makes her an obstacle to job creation.

But those three Republicans – former Congressman and ex-Stanford Law School Prof. Tom Campbell, onetime Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina and termed-out Orange County Assemblyman Chuck DeVore – have vulnerabilities of their own. And longtime Boxer campaign manager Rose Kapolczynski has never been bashful about bashing her opponents.

Perhaps the most vulnerable of the GOP trio is Fiorina, fired by H-P’s board of directors in 2005. The labor unions at the core of Boxer’s support enjoy reminding reporters that Fiorina presided over layoffs of more than 20,000 workers when H-P took over the Houston-based Compaq computer firm, providing small severance. But when she was fired, they note, she took home a “golden parachute” often said to have amounted to $40 million.

But that’s the least of Fiorina’s problems in the dogfight for a seat in the Senate. During her tenure, Middle East agents of H-P illegally sold sophisticated electronics to Iran. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department along with German and Russian authorities are also now investigating whether H-P executives paid nearly $11 million in bribes to win a $47.5 million computer sales contract in Russia. Such a payment would violate federal laws prohibiting U.S. companies from bribing foreign officials.

Only rarely has a former executive of a company involved in such cases run for major office while the allegations were unsettled. And no one in that situation has ever been elected to a top office.

Fiorina strongly denies any knowledge of either alleged violation. And the company says that “To suggest Carly Fiorina or any other senior executive in Palo Alto (corporate headquarters) then or now was knowledgeable of these alleged activities is wrong and not supported by the facts.”

But if the actions took place and Fiorina didn’t know, as she and the company insist, there’s the question of whether her executive oversight was adequate.

Campbell, too, would have to deal with history if he’s the nominee. As often as he’s tried to explain it and apologize for it, there is no doubt he wrote a 2002 letter questioning whether a Florida university should fire an ethnically Arab professor who later pleaded guilty to providing goods and services for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group.

Less than a year before Campbell wrote that letter, NBC’s “Dateline” program aired videotape of the professor, Sami Al-Arian, proclaiming phrases like “Let us damn America” and “Victory to Islam” and “Death to Israel.”

Campbell, the most genteel of men, says he didn’t know of this before he wrote that letter and there’s no reason to doubt him. But the incident does raise questions about how much research he does before acting. The combination of the Al-Arian incident and an early spring anti-Campbell TV commercial in which the Iowa-based American Future Fund called him a pro-tax politician would surely eat into conservative enthusiasm for Campbell. No Republican can win in California without fired-up conservative backing.

DeVore would surely have that kind of support. But the reserve Army lieutenant colonel’s record in the Legislature has been so consistently hard-line conservative, opposing virtually all spending and environmental measures, that he would have trouble winning over the moderate Democrats and independent voters Republicans need to win top-of-the-ticket races in this state.

So yes, Boxer is vulnerable, as she is the first to admit she always is. But her potential opponents are probably no better off. Which means that no matter what any rating service might say, she’s still the clear favorite to win reelection.

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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

FEINSTEIN FARM JOBS BILL MAY LEAD TO IMMIGRATION FIX

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JUNE 12, 2009, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
"FEINSTEIN FARM JOBS BILL MAY LEAD TO IMMIGRATION FIX"

There's a slowdown all along the Mexican border. Border Patrol agents caught fully 27 percent fewer illegal immigrants trying to sneak into the United States between November 1 and April 30 than during the same six months a year ago.

Some of this slowdown stems from intensified enforcement efforts ranging from expansion of the physical and electronic border fence that's growing daily. The Department of Homeland Security's E-Verify program, allowing employers to tell quickly whether job applicants enjoy legal immigration status, also is a factor.

But America's economic miseries are behind most of the slowdown. Construction, hotel and many other categories of jobs often taken by illegal immigrants have dried up, so there's less of a magnet for people coming here.

In this climate, one employment category steadily features surplus, untaken job openings: agriculture. California farms don't have the kind of worker shortage they suffered two years ago, when many crops rotted on trees and vines for lack of labor to pick them. But many still report they're short of reliable workers and would like two things to correct a situation that has caused them to fallow more than 500,000 acres of fertile farmland for lack of hands to plant and pick crops:

Assurance they can keep bringing back experienced workers (many of them illegals) for seasonal jobs, and a paperwork speedup in the federal H-2A program that allows some farm workers to enter legally on temporary visas.

Now comes Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein with a plan to fix these problems. "In a sense, this might set a pattern for overall immigration reform," she said in an interview. Feinstein would allow illegal immigrants already here to achieve temporary legal status if they can prove they've worked at least 150 days in each of the last two years or 100 days in each of the last five. She would allow no more than 1.35 million such legalizations (families of legalized workers could also apply). After three more years of steady work (at least 150 days per year), the former illegals and their families could apply for green cards conferring permanent legal residency.

Before giving green cards, though, Feinstein's bill would assess a $500 per person fine for breaking the law by entering America illegally. It would also demand that immigrants prove they are current on all taxes and have clean criminal records.

Her proposal is co-sponsored by 16 other Democratic senators. Conspicuously absent is Republican John McCain of Arizona, who carried a wider-ranging immigration reform and amnesty bill during the year before he became his party's 2008 presidential candidate. An identical bill in the House is co-sponsored by Democratic U.S. Rep. Howard Berman of Los Angeles and Central Valley Republican Reps. George Radanovich of Mariposa and Devin Nunes of Visalia, among many others.

This plan is backed by most regional and national agriculture organizations, including the Western Growers Assn., the Dairy Farmers of America and the National Council of Agricultural Employers. The United Farm Workers union also is aboard.

But opponents call the measure just another amnesty plan that would eventually grant illegal immigrants access to all U.S. jobs even though they in effect jumped the line for entering this county legally. There's also the claim this would allow farms to keep exploiting the cheap labor of illegals who can't protest.

"These workers are here," Feinstein said. "Yes, there are enforcement issues, but we know this much for sure: if there are questions over whether workers will be allowed to come back in future years, they will simply stay here, legally or not, and won't return home when it's off-season for farm jobs."

Feinstein acknowledges the farm labor shortage of two and three years ago is less severe now, partly because many illegal immigrant workers are back in field work, their jobs in construction and other areas gone. "That's just a short-term thing," she says. "The long-term shortage is still there. We have billions of dollars a year in lost production right now, we have California farmers leasing land in Mexico to grow crops and we are importing more foreign produce because of it, which comes with certain health hazards."

When it comes to wages, the Feinstein measure would freeze the federal Adverse Effect Wage Rate, which requires California farmers to pay legal seasonal workers in the H-2A program at least $9.72 per hour. This rate would stay the same for three years after her bill becomes law, if that happens. The AEW rate, of course, does not apply to illegals, who often receive the state's minimum wage of $8 per hour, or less.

The bottom line: Feinstein's bill would probably solve farm labor shortages for years to come and provides a balanced model for the wider-ranging immigration reform that President Obama says he wants. But its fate in Congress is completely uncertain, because of that buzz word "amnesty."
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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net