VOTERS SHOULD GIVE PROP. 28 A TRY

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 2012, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“VOTERS SHOULD GIVE PROP. 28 A TRY”

          The harm that California’s extremely short legislative term limits have done has never been more obvious and extreme than today.

          Here’s what happens because of Proposition 140, the 1990 ballot initiative that set strict limits of six years in office for members of the state Assembly and eight years for state senators and major statewide officials from the governor on down:

          Speakers of the Assembly, once the savviest of legislative veterans, are virtual rookies in office, young men (there have been two women, both very short-term speakers) who have achieved nothing in Sacramento beyond winning the votes of the majority of their party caucus. They never have time to establish an independent base either in fund-raising or any other aspect of the job, so they are dependent on labor unions, businesses and others who finance their campaigns and others. Not just dependent, but frequently craven.

          It’s not much better for leaders of the only slightly more stable state Senate.

          Term limits also spur all new legislators to begin immediately thinking about their next job, for holding public office can be addictive and once they’ve had one, most people want another. So they become complete toadies to the establishment of whichever party is theirs, rarely deviating from the party line.

Any who show some independence often are defeated in the very next primary election by those same party establishments. It’s a classic case of legislators having to go along to get along and assure themselves of a political future. Never mind what’s good for California.

          And yet, Proposition 140 remains one of the most popular laws on the books. Each of the several attempts to modify it just a little has gone down to smashing defeat.

        But there’s a new idea for change now before the voters, one that might solve a few of the problems term limits have plainly caused.

          This is Proposition 28 on the June 5 ballot .

          It’s a plan that would actually shorten the time anyone can stay in the Legislature, but extend the permissible stay in any one house. Very simply, the new limit would be 12 years in the Legislature, no matter which house one serves in.

          So an Assembly member could spend twice as much time there as now, if that’s what the voters decide, and a senator’s time could be 50 percent longer. But if politicians opted to stay that long in either house, they would not be able to move on to the other chamber when their terms are up. Rather, they’d have to go home or win a seat in Congress or run for statewide office or get some other job in the state capital. The Sacramento game of musical chairs might at least slow down.

          At the same time, lawmakers would at last have time to think about something other than their next offices. And since they would not be running for a new office, they’d have less need of party establishment support and thus might be somewhat more independent. One result might be some compromises of the sort common in the eras of Govs. Earl Warren, Pat Brown, Ronald Reagan and even at times in the administrations of Pete Wilson and Gray Davis.

          One thing the somewhat longer limits on service in any one house will not do is allow anyone to achieve the kind of status that legendary past speakers like Jesse Unruh and Willie Brown attained. Each held the office much longer than 12 years.

          Unruh is a case in point for what extended one-house service could accomplish. Many of his seminal legislative achievements in areas affecting racial discrimination and the environment came when he’d been in the Assembly between five and 10 years. By the time he’d been there 12, he was thoroughly immersed in power politics and less purely in the public interest, initiating a system where campaign donors contributed to him and he doled out money to his favored candidates.

          That cemented his power until he chose to leave the Assembly and run for governor against Reagan in 1970, which proved a debacle.

          So these new limits would not be long enough to allow anyone to become another “Big Daddy.” But they would allow some continuity in solving problems, something lawmakers have been unable to do very well in the 22 years since term limits began.

          All of which means voting for Proposition 28 would probably be a good idea. The current system doesn’t work well, and a smallish tweak like this might be just enough to set things on a better path.

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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 fourth printing. His email address is tdelias@aol.com

HYDROGEN HIGHWAY GRANTS FAIL THE SMELL TEST

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MAY 29, 2012, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“HYDROGEN HIGHWAY GRANTS FAIL THE SMELL TEST”

          Millions of dollars in “hydrogen highway” grants by a state commission are drawing cries of favoritism and collusion as they seem to guarantee that most refueling stations for the hydrogen fuel cell vehicles due to hit the road by 2017 will be owned by two large companies closely aligned with auto manufacturers.

          Very quietly, the California Energy Commission is letting carmakers – seven of the eight companies involved are foreign-owned – decide which proposals for building hydrogen stations get the grants, authorized by a law passed in 2007.

          So far, virtually all grants have gone to two corporations that deal in industrial chemicals including liquefied and compressed natural gas, among other products – the German-based Linde Group and Pennsylvania-based Air Products and Chemicals Inc. Recent grants to build the stations range from $1.4 million to $2 million each.

          “It’s unprecedented for these companies to decide how state money is spent,” says Jamie Court, president of the Consumer Watchdog public advocacy group. “It amounts to turning the keys of the state treasury over to large corporations.”

          Meanwhile, at almost the same moment the Energy Commission gave preliminary approval to its most recent $23 million in grants to Linde and Air Products, the state Public Utilities Commission agreed to a lawsuit settlement with NRG Energy Inc. Since 2010, NRG has owned most assets of Dynegy Inc., one of the major electric generators that bilked California consumers out of about $10 billion during the energy crunch of 2000 and 2001.

          The settlement has NRG building $100 million worth of electric car recharging stations it will own, thus assuring it will be the biggest owner of such stations for years to come. Given that leg up for NRG, it will be difficult for smaller companies to compete, a problem also set up by the Energy Commission policy.

          Both Linde and Air Products are members of the California Fuel Cell Partnership, which promotes development of hydrogen cars. Others among the 32 partners include the Energy Commission and the eight carmakers – Toyota, Daimler Benz, GM, Nissan, Hyundai, Chrysler, Honda and Volkswagen. That means the commission and the automakers have steered virtually all grants to their own partners. The partnership says all members pay the same dues, but won’t give an amount. The Energy Commission reports it paid  $87,000 to belong for 2012..

          “The grant process appears totally rigged,” says Court, noting there is at least the appearance of collusion between the partner companies.

          Another who believes there is illegal collusion is Paul Staples, president of Eureka-based HyGen Industries, which convinced 15 service station owners in prime locations across California to permit HyGen hydrogen pumps at their sites. These would look somewhat like today’s diesel fuel pumps.

          But HyGen has had only one site approved by a carmaker, a station in West Hollywood. So Staples didn’t apply for one of the recent grants, explaining that one station would not allow sufficient economies of scale in making hydrogen fuel from water. Linde and Air Products locations, meanwhile, won approval from their partner carmakers for the gas-tax-funded grants.

          “The collusion is as obvious as the nose on your face,” said Staples. “It would be funny if it weren’t so serious. Even the yearly dues are so high small companies need not apply.”

          The Energy Commission says it lets carmakers okay or veto refueling grant sites because they “possess confidential market data on potential early adopter fuel cell vehicle purchasers (like most hybrids, the first fuel cell cars will cost more than ordinary ones). On the basis of this confidential business information, (automakers) can identify…stations with the highest potential for high volume use.”

          It’s hard to see how any carmaker would rationally believe one approved site at the same address as an Air Products plant in industrial Wilmington, near the Los Angeles-Long Beach Harbor, would draw many car owners or why it’s worthy of $2 million in tax money. But that’s one grant approved by a car manufacturer and tentatively rubber-stamped in April by the Energy Commission.

          Both carmakers and the commission ignored proposed HyGen sites in places like San Francisco, Pacific Palisades, Sacramento and Newport Beach, locales where swarms of hybrids were bought soon after they first became available. Asked why the Wilmington site is better suited for state money, the commission said only that it never got applications for any of the others. But applications for them were not feasible since no carmaker would approve them. Catch 22.

          And yet, the commission insists “There is no evidence to support the allegation of (collusion)” between carmakers and their chosen grant recipients.

          The bottom line: Nothing will now undo the decision on electric car refueling stations. But there’s still time for the Energy Commission to wake up and stop letting carmakers decide who gets its taxpayer-funded grants.

         

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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

PARK-LIKE PARTNERSHIPS PROBABLY CAN’T HELP OTHER SERVICES

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MAY 25, 2012, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“PARK-LIKE PARTNERSHIPS PROBABLY CAN’T HELP OTHER SERVICES”

          The many thousands who regularly use the state’s large and varied park system were among the most distraught of Californians when legislators and Gov. Jerry Brown last year imposed cuts and closures on the system, with 70 parks scheduled for shuttering early this summer.

          Some of those closures will come right on schedule, but not all. Where parks fended off mothballing, it’s been in large part because of rare partnerships riding to the rescue, some involving cities and other government agencies, others depending on private foundations and donors.

          Among the saved parks is the Colusa-Sacramento River State Recreation Area, spared the shutdown ax for at least five years by a new operating agreement with the city of Colusa. The National Park Service stepped in to keep three Northern California parks open at least through this year, including Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park and the Tomales Bay and Samuel P. Taylor parks adjacent to Pt. Reyes National Seashore.

          The Los Encinos State Historic Park in the San Fernando Valley portion of Los Angeles survives for at least a year because of an anonymous gift and the Henry W. Coe State Park northeast of Gilroy stays open three years because the private, nonprofit Coe Park Preservation Fund will kick in $300,000 per year.

          One salient point stands out as these state parks (and there will likely be more such arrangements before the closures are due to occur) are spared from the budget ax that’s killing many curriculum offerings and increasing class sizes in schools from kindergarten to the college level, the same ax that threatens adult day care centers and the staffing of police and fire departments:

          The state park system took a cut of $22 million in the latest budget. Compared with the $1.4 billion that elementary and high schools have lost in the past two years, it’s a mere drop in the bucket. A sum like that has a big impact in parks mostly because the largest expense by far in parks usually comes when land is acquired. Money for park administration, where staff is spread thinly and there are relatively few maintenance and capital expenses, is just not as big as in other state programs. So grants from cities and foundations that amount to thousands of dollars – not millions – can have an impact.

          But when it comes to schools and social services, much more intensively staffed, grants of that size would be a drop in the bucket. It would take many millions to make restorations similar to what the donations are doing for some parks.

          Yes, cities in many parts of California pitch millions in for their local schools, and it makes a difference when they do that. Municipal money, for example, is one reason schools in cities like Palo Alto and Beverly Hills perform far above average. Private foundations also help out in some places.

          But there are no such foundations to support in-home health care for the frail elderly. As a result, the cuts made last year may send thousands of them to nursing homes, where their care will cost government more in the long run, while also putting experienced caregivers out of work.

          The same for prisons, where shifts of low-risk inmates to county jails and then to parole has cut budgets by more than $2 billion over the past two years. Don’t expect any foundations, private donors or nearby cities to step up with money to help restore those cuts. One reason: Prison users (read: convicts) don’t contribute to the local economy the way visitors to state parks often do when they buy lodging, food, souvenirs, gasoline and other services.

          There is no doubt the idea of state park partnerships – first proposed 15 months ago by Republican state Sen. Sam Blakeslee of San Luis Obispo – is working well for at least 10 percent to 15 percent of the parks chosen for closure.

          It’s an idea that can work when relatively little money is needed to keep a park or program going, but of little or no use in helping out the big-money services that eat up most California tax dollars.

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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. Read more Elias columns at www.californiafocus.net.

CSU: WE WON’T STOP PROFS' OFFENSIVE SPEECH AND WRITING

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MAY 22, 2012, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“CSU: WE WON’T STOP PROFS' OFFENSIVE SPEECH AND WRITING”

          California State University professors and other employees cannot engage in “discriminatory behavior, bullying or harassment,” nor may they display “offensive conduct of an unwelcome nature...”

          So says the Free Speech Handbook issued to every Cal State employee, faculty member and student.

          But if you examine both the recent and long-term behavior of the university’s most notoriously racist and anti-Semitic professor, his work labeled both anti-Semitic and “white ethnocentric” years ago by the Academic Senate on his own campus, you have to wonder why CSU bothers with the handbook at all. For if there’s one thing Long Beach State psychology Prof. Kevin MacDonald does, it is indulge in “offensive conduct.” It is certainly unwelcome to many.

          MacDonald, described on the website of the anti-racist Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as “the neo-Nazi movement’s favorite academic,” has long preached that Jews are genetically programmed to destroy western civilization, no matter how many diseases they have thwarted, as vaccines developed by American Jewish scientists like Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin do polio and as the German-Jewish scientist Ernst Chain did with his furthering the development of penicillin, no matter how many seminal discoveries have been made by the likes of Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud.

          MacDonald two years ago also became a director of the American Third Party, described by the SPLC as a “racist political party,” whose own website says it aims to “represent the unique political interests of White Americans.” Wrote MacDonald about his joining the party, many of whose members are reportedly racist skinheads, “Since the Republican Party is incapable of saving itself by adopting policies that would keep America a majority-white country, the long-term solution is a third party representing the interests of White America.”

          Most recently, MacDonald took to the airwaves on a talk show hosted by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke (appearing there at all would be considered offensive by many) to blast the unarmed Florida teenage shooting victim Trayvon Martin. “He’s got these, uh, gold-plated teeth, you know, these sort of bling they have, you know, which is a sort of marker of being involved in this sort of rap scene,” MacDonald told Duke’s audience. “It’s just complete deception to present him as this little angel.” Yet, there is little or no evidence other than his shooter’s word that the African-American Martin was the least bit threatening before he was shot.

          This was classic racial stereotyping by MacDonald, not couched in the more refined academic language he employs when writing about Jews. But never mind whether it was “opprobrious, flagrant, insulting or defamatory,” types of speech prohibited by the Free Speech Handbook.

          For even if it was, neither Long Beach State nor the overall Cal State system will do anything about it. That’s similar to the system’s stance on Cal State Northridge mathematics Prof. David Klein, who maintains a page on the college web server devoted not to math, but to calumnies against Israel (www.csun.edu /~vcmth00m/boycott.html). It's laughable to believe that taxpayers who fund the Northridge server intend it to be a platform for one-sided political rhetoric from a faculty member specializing in mathematical physics, teacher education and standardized testing.

          But the university insists. “We’re not able to discipline people for the content of their opinions,” said Mike Uhlenkamp, spokesman for the system, adding that faculty can put anything that’s not illegal on their state-funded blogs. “In MacDonald’s case, we could only look into this if he were speaking in some kind of official role. If he were to make those comments in his classes, we might be able to do more.”

          But MacDonald is very careful to avoid such rhetoric in class. “I agreed to not teach about race differences in IQ, even though it is a standard topic for the course I teach, because of direct pressure from the university,” he said in a 2010 email exchange with this column. “Quite simply, I would not be able to teach the course at all if I continued to teach that topic.”

          Meanwhile, Cal State will also do nothing about Klein. “He can post his opinions on his web page,” said Uhlenkamp. “We’re not in the mode of censoring.”

          All of which raises the question of what it would take for any professor to get fired. It also raises questions about why Cal State bothers to include anything about unacceptable talk and behavior in its handbook at all, since it plainly has little or no intention of enforcing what’s there now.

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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