The Great Conservative Suicide Pact

The Great Conservative Suicide Pact

Free markets only work when their benefits are broadly distributed. You wouldn’t know that from the kind of proposals that conservative idea factories are pushing out these days.


Joel Kotkin
Updated 07.14.19 11:30AM ET Published 07.12.19 11:07PM ET

Republicans have been celebrating their good fortune as Democrats vying for the presidential nomination propose free medical care for undocumented people and the elimination of private health insurance, and open borders, not to mention reparations for slavery and the near-term elimination of fossil fuels. Add it up, and it may be enough to keep Doctor Demento in the White House for four more years.

Those same Republicans, though, have said little about free-market policies that undermine their own middle-class base while bolstering the very forces that are arrayed to wipe the GOP off the political map.

Call it a conservative suicide pact and you won’t be far off. Conservative free-market fundamentalists with disproportionate influence on GOP policy are advancing plans that would divorce capitalism from the small property owners whose pieces of property secure the system’s popular support.

Start with the suburban middle class families who make up GOPs historic base, and remain its bulwark. The expansion of homeownership, from 44 percent in 1940 to 63 percent in the 1960s, keyed the GOP’s post-New Deal resurgence as ethnic groups who had always voted Democratic now had something to protect, albeit sometimes with a racial agenda, thanks to an economic system that had helped them reach their aspirations.

Yet many free-market conservatives in places as diverse as Minneapolis and Oregon are now embracing efforts to eliminate single-family zoning, as conservative analyst Randall O’Toole has noted.

That includes California State Senator Scott Wiener’s effort to force high-density on residential areas by allowing fourplexes on virtually any parcel, which produced one of the strangest alliances in recent political history. Free market advocates—many of them funded by the Koch brothers—linked arms with left-wing and green activists reprising the arguments made in the Soviet Bloc against middle-class single-family neighborhoods. Victoria Fierce, one of the leaders of the YIMBY pro-density lobby in California, has even argued that density is better since it promotes a “collectivism”—as beloved by Bolshevik town-planners.

The bill failed, at least this year, due to popular opposition from the grassroots in both Republican and Democratic-controlled areas.

A few free-market activists, notably Market Urbanism’s Scott Beyer, admit the inconsistency of backing bans on single-family zoning while the construction of such housing in the suburban periphery is prohibited. To be sure over-restrictive local zoning plays a role in raising prices, but the chief culprits have been “urban growth boundaries” and other measures that tend to increase land prices throughout an urban area. Wherever such policies are in place, housing costs tend to be considerably higher.

For the left, the assault on single-family homes at least makes political sense. The decline of homeownership among millennials could create a permanent renter class, with little stake in capitalism. They would logically back the progressive left in their quest for government housing subsidies and rent control.

All the right gets is more money to a few big-money funders, who hope that by devastating ownership they could create a Wall Street-dominated “rentership society.” This vision, widely shared by some tech firms, would see people remaining renters for life, enjoying their video games or houseplants when not coding or doing “gig” jobs. Eventually this whole generation will curse conservatives, rightly, for undermining their bourgeois aspirations while pimping for those of the investor class.

This isn’t the only place where the free-market right has embraced the tech oligarchs. When Senators Jeff Hawley (R-MO) and Mark Warner (D-VA) proposed legislation to curb the oligarchs’ control and sale of our personal information, a virtual chorus line of right-wing groups—R Street, AEI, Heritage, Cato, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute—rose to Big Tech’s defense.

Most of these think tanks, not surprisingly, now get funding from the likes of Google and Facebook. Conservatives like Hawley, as well as many progressives, understand the threat posed by ceding control of the internet to a handful of quasi-monopolies—but many libertarians don’t see anything wrong with a few ultra-rich people controlling the internet, just like they don’t see anything wrong with them owning most property.

This principled inanity is even more remarkable given that the five tech giants—now the world’s five wealthiest companies—have been “de-platforming” conservatives and others who offend their ideological sympathies. Google, as a new article in American Affairs suggests, is rigging the algorithms that control search to favor not just their commercial interests but also their ideological predilections.

By backing the oligarchs, free-market ideologues are needlessly serving as what Lenin called “useful idiots”.

Rather than try to appeal to investors and tech moguls, the GOP’s best hope lies in rebuilding its identity as the party of middle-class homeowners—a group that tends to vote far more heavily than renters. Libertarian positions on issues like open borders, housing and the internet may sound great in think tanks or college campuses, but they are not popular among middle-income people who care about their businesses and communities.

Rebuilding that identity will require changes not only for the free-market right, but also many Trumpettes. By every measurement the GOP is losing support among demographically ascendant millennials and minorities; eventually the party will run out of old white people. Voters will only continue to reject the socialist alternative if they feel a stake in the capitalist system. Traditional right-wing social policies, such as the extreme anti-abortion laws in Alabama, do not play well with socially moderate voters in the burgeoning Sunbelt and Midwestern suburbs.

The good news for Republicans is that the Democratic Party seems hopelessly committed to an expanding state, open borders, the promotion of dense rental housing and ever more lavish subsidization of ever larger segments of the population. To win, the GOP must appeal to an increasingly diverse base of middle-class taxpayers who, after all, will be forced to pay for the generosity of “free” college, cancelled student debt and the absurdly expensive Green New Deal.

Rather than speak about abstract concepts of “liberty” or the beauties of Austrian economics, the salvation of capitalism and conservative politics lies with addressing the specific class interests of those who either possess their own property or have a reasonable hope that they or their offspring may do so in the future. The current strategy of seeking to undermine the daily life of suburban homeowners, as well as supporting those committed to silencing conservative thought, represents an exercise not only in futility but, ultimately, self-destructionThe Great Conservative Suicide Pact

Free markets only work when their benefits are broadly distributed. You wouldn’t know that from the kind of proposals that conservative idea factories are pushing out these days.

‘Fungibility’ means there’s no free lunch

‘Fungibility’ means there’s no free lunch

By Dan Walters | May 26, 2019 | COMMENTARY, DAN WALTERS



Let’s talk about “fungibility” – the economic concept that one unit of a commodity may be interchangeable with another.

That’s true if the commodity involved is something like a bushel of corn or a barrel of crude oil. But in politics, the commodity is money and fungibility means that a dollar is a dollar and if it’s spent on one thing, it’s not available for another thing, no matter how it may be spun to the public.

One of countless examples is Assembly Bill 11, which would recreate city redevelopment programs that the Legislature abolished earlier in this decade. Redevelopment’s downside, which led to its demise, was that incremental property taxes generated in redevelopment projects were withheld from other local governments, such as counties, and school districts.

At its zenith, redevelopment was diverting about $5 billion per year and under the state constitution, the state had to make up the property tax losses to schools, about $2 billion a year. AB 11, which is now on hold, would direct the incremental taxes from redevelopment into low-income housing and the state, as in the past, would have to make up tax losses to schools by shifting funds from other state programs.

Measure EE, a highly controversial parcel tax measure being proposed by Los Angeles Unified School District, is also a wonderfully misleading example of fungibility.

An early version of the measure prohibited using its revenues for “funding long-term healthcare or pension liabilities,” but the wording was changed to a less specific prohibition on “funding legal settlements and liabilities.”

Regardless of the weasel words, “legal settlements and liabilities” certainly include the district’s inescapable legal obligations for pensions and other benefits. Moreover, by underwriting other district expenses, the new taxes would indirectly pay for those fast-growing benefit costs, thanks to fungibility. It’s just a semantic exercise to fool voters.

Sacramento’s city government is also in the throes of a terrific fungibility squabble.

Last year, at the behest of Mayor Darrell Steinberg, city voters passed Measure U, extending a half-cent sales tax that was due to expire and adding another half-cent to the levy.

Steinberg insisted that the extra half-cent, raising perhaps $40 million a year, would be “a real game changer” that would finance affordable housing, shelters, services for the homeless, job training in low-income communities and small business incentives.

Independent analysts, including this column, pointed out, however, that by the city’s own estimate, its mandatory payments to the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) are expected to increase from $81.6 million a year to $129 million by 2023, thus consuming the additional $40 million a year that Measure U would generate.

This year, City Manager Howard Chan, in proposing a new budget, essentially said that the money should be available to cope with rising pension costs, earning him a public tongue-lashing from Steinberg.

“If we keep the second half-cent (of new Measure U revenue) in the general fund, every penny will go to pension and salaries,” Steinberg said. “All of the money will be gone, and so will the increased public safety that we promised in this budget.” However, the mayor also acknowledged that if voters had been told that the extra taxes would be needed for pensions, they would not have approved them.

Steinberg wants to pledge the extra revenue to repay a proposed $400 million community improvement bond, but that would mean it would not be available as CalPERS demands for higher pension payments, thus requiring cuts in other city services to make up the shortfall.

That’s fungibility. There is no free lunch, despite politicians’ efforts to persuade voters otherwise.

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Why California’s Legislature Gets EVERYTHING Wrong

Housing and Transportation: Why California’s Legislature Gets EVERYTHING Wrong

Politicians don’t have to buy homes at today’s prices, and don’t have to drive during rush hours

By Edward Ring, May 1, 2019 2:30 am


California, the welcoming sanctuary state, has a population on track to break 40 million by the end of this year. Its highway system was designed to handle a population of 20 million. Its cities, bound by legislated “urban containment,” are 3.5 million homes short of what would meet current housing needs. As a result, commuters spend hours stuck in traffic, and millions of homeowners endure indentured servitude to mortgages on ridiculously overpriced homes.

None of this had to happen.
California is only five percent urbanized

There are many reasons it has come to this, but two causes stand out, because if they were corrected, the problems would be solved in a few years. The first is obvious but very tough to counter – there is a conventional wisdom that most of these damaging policies are necessary to save the planet. But upon examination, almost none of the ones with the worst consequences for housing and transportation were environmentally necessary.

With respect to housing, the environmentalist boogeyman was alleged “sprawl.” But California is a vast, spacious state at 163,696 square miles, including tens of thousands of square miles of semi-arid wasteland that could easily be brought to life if used for housing. California is only five percent urbanized.

If that allocation were just increased by half, to a mere 7.5 percent urbanized, ten million new residents could live in new homes on half-acre lots. It is absurd to think there isn’t enough land in California to accommodate this sort of development, which, in any case, would never be that expansive.

The problem with urban containment policies, set to get worse with the likely passage of SB 50, is the lack of balance. Increasing housing density in the urban core of cities is normal and inevitable. It is part of the natural evolution of all cities. But doing that without also permitting the outer footprint of cities to expand is destructive. Population growth that the urban core can’t absorb overflows into tranquil residential neighborhoods and destroys them. It ruins established low density communities, making them fodder for predatory investors and government rehousing schemes.

Environmentalists counter that housing must be near the jobs, and jobs must be near the housing. Notwithstanding the historical amnesia that must be making them unaware of how jobs and housing naturally flow to wherever new land development occurs, these objections ignore the future of transportation. There is no transportation conveyance more versatile than wheeled vehicles, no transportation conduit more versatile than roads.

What are quaintly still referred to as “cars” are on the brink of stupefying transformations. Vehicles over the next few decades will evolve to drive themselves, “convoy” in “hyperlanes” at very high speeds, operate as on-demand shared vehicles, public and private mini buses and full size busses; some of them will be mobile offices, conference rooms and hotel rooms; some of them will even fly. There is monumental folly in allocating funds for light rail and high speed rail, when the car of 2050 will be as dissimilar to the car of 1950 as an eagle is to a fruit fly.

There are other arguments for roads over rail. The supposedly lighter environmental footprint of rail is overstated, since it has to exist as an entire parallel transportation network that still requires cars and roads for anyone to get to the rail stops, or get to their destinations after they disembark. And the supposedly heavier environmental footprint of cars diminishes every year, as we enter the electric age, as cars become far more energy efficient, as their AI facilitates heavier road density at speed, and as more people share them.

As for other enabling infrastructure, it’s time that anyone willing to challenge the environmentalist fallacies that preclude development of civil assets such as roads, water projects, and nuclear power plants also challenge the supposed financial obstacles. One of the primary reasons California doesn’t have billions each year to spend on infrastructure is because, statewide, they’re pouring over $30 billion each year into state/local public employee pension funds – an amount set to double by 2025. Then, of the nearly $800 billion that California’s 83 state/local pension funds have invested, less than 10 percent is invested in California. Require 10 percent to go into public/private revenue bonds to finance infrastructure. Problem solved, assuming the money could be spent on bulldozers instead of bureaucrats.

There’s another cause for California’s failure to build homes and roads, however, one that’s rather elusive but even more fundamental. California’s liberal elites, nearly all of them aging boomers, are immune from the consequences of their voting patterns. These liberal voters never saw a piece of environmentalist legislation they didn’t like. Meanwhile, they’re all living in the homes they purchased well before the politicians they supported passed all those fine sounding, high minded laws.

This liberal immunity is challenged by SB 50, a law that threatens to fill wealthy liberal enclaves from Palo Alto to Brentwood with fourplexes filled with Central American migrants, living on public assistance. The horror! But don’t hold your breath. If SB 50 and similar legislation passes, those fourplexes will indeed be coming to a detached, single family home neighborhood near you, but they’ll skip the zip codes where the residents can afford attorneys. Why bother, when just up the road there’s a nice lower middle class block we can bust?

One cannot stop wealthy liberals from hiring lawyers to stop in its tracks anything they love conceptually enough to vote for, but not enough to suffer personally. But there is something that can be done. Repeal Prop. 13. Make every homeowner in California pay property taxes based on the current assessed value of their homes. That’s never going to happen, thank God. But the reason it will never happen is not what you might expect. The reason is because Democrats know that if they ever overreached that much, they would turn millions of voters into Republicans overnight.

The bigger shame is that the only reason these liberals aren’t conservatives is because they don’t have to live with the consequences of liberalism. They don’t have to buy homes at today’s prices, and as retirees, they don’t have to drive during rush hours. If they did, they might think more carefully about where their money is going, and they might question more urgently the environmentalist moralizing that served as the pretext for wasting so much of it.





Edward Ring

Edward Ring is a political and financial analyst, working primarily with start-up and early-stage organizations. In 2013, he co-founded the California Policy Center, a free-market think tank based in Southern California.

California Has Become America's Cannibal State

California Has Become America's Cannibal State

 

BY VICTOR DAVIS HANSON APRIL 10, 2019

CHAT 341 COMMENTS

In this Oct. 1, 2018 photo, Stormy Nichole Day, left, sits on a sidewalk on Haight Street with Nord (last name not given) and his dog Hobo while interviewed about being homeless in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

For over six years, California has had a top marginal income tax rate of 13.3 percent, the highest in the nation. About 150,000 households in a state of 40 million people now pay nearly half of the total annual state income tax.

The state legislature sold that confiscatory tax rate on the idea that it was a temporary fix and would eventually be phased out. No one believed that. California voters, about 40 percent of whom pay no state income taxes, naturally approved the extension of the high rate by an overwhelming margin.

California recently raised gas taxes by 40 percent and now has the second-highest gas taxes in the United States.

California has the ninth-highest combined state and local sales taxes in the country, but its state sales tax of 7.3 percent is America's highest. As of April 1, California is now applying that high state sales tax to goods that residents buy online from out-of-state sellers.

In late 2017, the federal government capped state and local tax deductions at $10,000. For high earners in California, the change effectively almost doubled their state and local taxes.

Such high taxes, often targeting a small percentage of the population, may have brought California a budget surplus of more than $20 million. Yet California is never satiated with high new tax rates that bring in additional revenue. It's always hungry for more.

Scott Wiener, a Democratic state senator from San Francisco, has introduced a bill that would create a new California estate tax. Wiener outlined a death tax of 40 percent on estates worth more than $3.5 million for single Californians or more than $7 million for married couples.

Given the soaring valuations of California properties, a new estate tax could force children to sell homes or family farms they inherited just to pay the tax bills.

Soon, even more of the Californian taxpayers who chip in to pay half of the state income taxes will flee in droves for low-tax or no-tax states.

What really irks California taxpayers are the shoddy public services that they receive in exchange for such burdensome taxes. California can be found near the bottom of state rankings for schools and infrastructure.

San Francisco ranks first among America's largest cities in property crimes per capita. The massive concrete ruins of the state's quarter-built and now either canceled or postponed multibillion-dollar high-speed rail system are already collecting graffiti.

Roughly a quarter of the nation's homeless live in California. So do about one-third of all Americans on public assistance. Approximately one-fifth of the state's population lives below the poverty line. About one-third of Californians are enrolled in Medi-Cal, the state's health care program for low-income residents.

California's social programs are magnets that draw in the indigent from all over the world, who arrive in search of generous health, education, legal, nutritional and housing subsidies. Some 27 percent of the state's residents were not born in the United States.

Last month alone, nearly 100,000 foreign nationals were stopped at the southern border, according to officials. Huge numbers of migrants are able to make it across without being caught, and many end up in California.

A lot of upper-middle-class taxpayers feel that not only does California fail to appreciate their contributions, but that the state often blames them for not paying even more -- as if paying about half of their incomes to local, state and federal governments somehow reveals their greed.

The hyper-wealthy liberal denizens of Hollywood, Silicon Valley and the coastal enclaves often seem exempt from the consequences of the high taxes they so often advocate for others. The super-rich either have the clout to hire experts to help them avoid such taxes, or they simply have so much money that they are not much affected by even California's high taxes.

What is the ideology behind such destructive state policies?

Venezuela, which is driving out its middle class, is apparently California's model. Venezuelan leaders believed in providing vast subsidies for the poor. The country's super-rich are often crony capitalists who can avoid high taxes.

Similarly, California is waging an outright war on the upper-middle class, which lacks the numbers of the poor and the clout of the rich.

Those who administer California's plagued department of motor vehicles and high-speed rail authority may often be inept and dysfunctional, but the state's tax collectors are the most obsessive bureaucrats in the nation.

What is Sacramento's message to those who combine to pay half the state's income taxes and have not yet left California?

"Be gone or we will eat you!"

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author of the soon-to-be-released "The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won," to appear in October from Basic Books. You can reach him by e-mailing authorvdh@gmail.com.

Do You Ever Get the Feeling They Want Us Gone!?

Do You Ever Get the Feeling They Want Us Gone!?

KENNETH S. ALPERN 21 MARCH 2019

ALPERN AT LARGE--Looking at the outgoing flight of Californians to other states (particularly the middle class, and of all political and racial and socioeconomic backgrounds), and how both Sacramento, Downtown Los Angeles (and other major city counterparts in San Francisco, San Diego and elsewhere) are doubling down on stupid, silly, untenable ideas that make no environmental sense ...
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... do you get the idea that they want us gone? Not necessarily dead, because they reeeeeeally want our tax dollars, but gone. Just gone. Replaced. Sayonara. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

And I don't just mean Republicans and Independents, but any Democrat who values hard work, critical thinking, and allowing a person to make his/her own fortune and profit by their lifetimes of exhausting, never ending work.

1) SB 50, created by the same Wiener that pushed SB 827 last year (and was killed in committee when a horrified state learned about it), pretty much rejects and ends all city/local control, to say nothing of the laws of physics and biology. So why is it being pushed?

Because they want us gone. You. Me. That neighbor who worked hard their whole life, and was hoping to keep some of their hard-earned money but want something of the neighborhood preserved.

2) Homeless proliferation is out of control, and despite lots of local city/county money to help the homeless, we keep having policies that reward HAVING the problem and not FIXING the problem. And we're lumping in people who DO want help and those who DON'T want help.

And we're also lumping in people who are just "fine" with urinating, defecating, and leaving their drug paraphernalia on the sidewalk, your backyard, etc. Geez, Ken, you might be thinking, that makes it sound so bad...but it IS bad. So why are the ridiculous policies and inaction being pushed, with the police told to "stand down" on the homeless?

Because they want us gone. You. Me. That neighbor who just wants access to his/her sidewalks accessible, hates urban blight, and contributes mightily to help the homeless through both taxes and via private charities.

3) Affordable housing is worse than ever, and virtually ALL of the new housing is going to rich, Silicon Beach/Valley and Chinese/other foreign investors, with FEWER housing opportunities for the middle class being built. Why don't the powers that be outlaw foreign nationals from buying homes (ditto for condos and apartments) like they did in Mexico, Canada, New Zealand and other nations?

Because they want us gone. You. Me. That neighbor who bought his/her home after Proposition 13, is struggling to pay his/her taxes and working more jobs to make ends meet, has no clue as to how his/her children will afford a house here, or even a condo or apartment, and is wondering if retirement can ever be affordable.

They want us GONE. Not DEAD (well, maybe dead, after we've given up our lifetime of earned taxes), but GONE.

And THAT is how we are supposed to be rewarded by our own and our parents' lifetimes of stress, charity, and generosity after we built and still strive to build the Golden State.

They want us GONE.



(CityWatch Columnist, Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D, is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties, and is a proud husband and father to two cherished children and a wonderful wife. He is also a Westside Village Zone Director and Board member of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Outreach Committee, and currently is Co-Chair of both its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure and Planning Committees. He was co-chair of the CD11 Transportation Advisory Committee and chaired the nonprofit Transit Coalition and can be reached at alpern@marvista.org. He also co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr. Alpern.)

-cw

Survey says half of Bay Area residents want to leave California

8 comments

Residents fret about housing, cost of living, and social media

By Adam Brinklow Feb 20, 2019, 12:23pm PST

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Photo bykropic1/Shutterstock

The SF office of Chicago-based public relations firm Edelman released its annual California Trust Barometer, which surveyed 1,500 California residents (including 500 from the Bay Area) about attitudes on technology, the economy, and the state of the state.

Like last year, Edelman found that a majority of Californians polled—53 percent—say they are considering moving out of the state, citing the cost of housing and the overall cost of living as the most likely reasons.

The survey does not specify how Bay Area residents feel about their future prospects in the Golden State. However, an Edelman spokesperson tells Curbed SF that after examining only the Bay Area sample, it appears the region split right down the middle this year, with 50 percent of those polled “considering moving away because of the high cost of living.”

Related

If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?

That figure leaps to 66 percent among Bay Area millennials polled and 63 percent among parents with kids under the age of 18.

Also in the Edelman sample:

• Among Bay Area residents, 76 percent say housing is a “very serious” issue for the state, up from 72 percent statewide.
• Sixty-eight percent agree with the statement, “[B]usinesses make large profits while draining our local resources and straining our infrastructure. They owe it to the public to contribute more to solving our local problems.” Statewide it’s 63 percent.
• In the Bay Area, 57 percent say that they trust the tech industry to do the right thing. However, that figure plummets to 34 percent when asked about social media. That means overall trust in tech is up since last year (when 54 percent agreed with the same question) while faith in social media remains essentially interchangeable with last year’s dismal results.
• Even more intriguing: When Edelman asked tech workers in the Bay Area specifically what their biggest concerns are about the tech industry, only 43 percent said they’re concerned that the industry is driving up the cost of housing. The biggest concerns: lack of privacy and data security threats, which tied for first place with 57 percent each.
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You can read the full results of the Edelman California survey here.

Strip clubs and Big Tech find common cause in California labor fight

Strip clubs and Big Tech find common cause in California labor fight

By JEREMY B. WHITE

02/07/2019 08:02 AM EST

Technology companies and strip clubs have something in common: they’re both trying to shape California’s approach to the future of work.

A California Supreme Court ruling last year expanding the ranks of workers who should be considered employees — rather than independent contractors — has launched one of the state’s premier policy disputes.


Major tech companies and business allies want to blunt the decision, arguing it will upend the modern economy. Organized labor is backing CA AB5 (19R) to enshrine the ruling in law, contending that the gig economy is depriving workers of the pay and benefits that undergird stable employment.

Now strip club owners have joined the fray, warning that disrupting the status quo will hurt dancers by cutting into their take-home pay and ossifying once-flexible work.

Adult actress Stormy Daniels, in the news recently for suing Donald Trump over a nondisclosure agreement related to her allegations of an extramarital affair, has waded into the issue on behalf of company called Déjà Vu that owns dozens of strip clubs in California and more nationwide.

In a Los Angeles Times op-ed, Daniels argued it would hurt strippers to classify them as employees. (The company retained her as a spokesperson in October, a capacity in which she also joined a protest at the Louisiana statehouse over a law barring adults under the age of 21 from working as strippers).

“As independent contractors, we can perform when, where, how and for whom we want. If we are classified as employees, club managers would be empowered to dictate those conditions,” Daniels wrote, adding that “we need to be able to work when we want, where we want, making reliable money paid at the end of each shift.”

Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego), who is carrying a bill to cement the Dynamex ruling’s classification test in law, dismissed Daniels’ argument as part of an effort by strip clubs to "to try and get an exemption for something that most people don’t think deserve one."

“Clearly there’s a lot in there that is basically pretending to be from the perspective of the dancer when it’s truly the perspective of the club owner," Gonzalez told POLITICO. “I didn’t think that was an honest discussion."

Disputes over stripper employment status have a long history. Déjà Vu spent years embroiled in a labor dispute with dancers who said clubs had violated wage and hour laws by incorrectly classifying them as independent contractors. A Michigan judge in 2017 approved a $6.5 million class action settlement, which the company appealed. A New York judge ruled in 2013 that dancers at a Manhattan club had been improperly classified as independent contractors and were due minimum wage.

"It’s been a prolific abuse of the law for clubs all across the country," said Jason J. Thompson, an attorney who has repeatedly sued Déjà Vu. While he acknowledged that some dancers meet the definition of independent contractors, "the vast majority of dancers do not line up with the Stormy Daniels experience: they are captive to one club, they are employees."

The new California labor standard has spurred more labor unrest. California Judge William D. Claster ruled last summer that the California Supreme Court’s standard applied retroactively to dancers at Imperial Showgirls in Anaheim who were suing over wages, subsequently ruling that they should be considered employees.

A representative of Déjà Vu, who gave his name only as Ryan in an email, said that “women should have the undisputed right to choose on their own how they want to be paid for selling their own nudity,” adding that dancers who are accustomed to taking cash home after working are flummoxed by seeing standard payroll withholding take a bite out of their earnings, noting that shifting labor classifications impose “significant costs” to clubs in taxes, benefits and transitioning to the new model.

“Effectively, they are earning the same percentage of total income as before in most cases, but more of it is actually going toward taxes and costs,” the spokesperson said.

The attorney representing the women in the Anaheim case, Shannon Liss-Riordan — a leading combatant in gig worker clashes who also led a class action misclassification lawsuit against Uber — argues otherwise. She is also representing dancers who are challenging Déjà Vu in California, saying in a complaint filed in San Diego last week that the company has engaged in "illegal retaliation" by reclassifying workers and cutting their wages “far beyond any amount that would be arguably justified to offset their increased costs in classifying the dancers as employees.”

“They didn’t need to slash their pay when they made them employees. What the dancers are unhappy about is many of them are walking out each night with hundreds of dollars less than they were making before,” Liss-Riordan told POLITICO.

Liss-Riordan argued that a common thread links disaffected Uber drivers and dancers demanding better pay.

“There are a lot of similarities between these cases and cases in other industries that we’ve been litigating,” she added. “Companies use the misclassification to reduce their labor costs, they use the misclassifications to shift expenses onto workers that employers usually bear.”

My turn: Cities are committed to addressing housing shortage

My turn: Cities are committed to addressing housing shortage

Guest Commentary | Feb. 5, 2019 | COMMENTARY, HOUSING, MY TURN

GUEST COMMENTARY: Find out more about submitting a commentary.

By Carolyn Coleman, Special to CALmatters

As a recent California transplant and the head of an association of nearly 500 cities, I am in awe at the diversity of California communities.

Whether it’s geography, climate, ethnicity or economy, the Golden State is unique. Yet there is a critical challenge that binds California’s communities: the unaffordability of housing for many of our residents.

Addressing this crisis demands bold solutions, hard discussions and open minds. A diverse group of interests must come to the table and, yes, that includes California’s cities.

We agree with the fundamental problem: there aren’t enough homes being built. And cities play an important role in increasing supply.

While cities don’t build homes, we do lay the groundwork for housing by planning and zoning new projects in our communities. This is a transparent process that involves input from residents, detailed environmental documents, and approval of projects consistent with our plans.

In other words, cities set the table for new housing construction. And we should be held accountable to ensure we’re doing our part.

Over the past two years, the League of California Cities has strongly supported passage of legislation and ballot measures to streamline the housing approval process, and to increase funds for affordable housing through Propositions 1 and 2 on last November’s ballot.

We are willing to explore legislation to ensure that building fees, architectural standards and parking requirements are reasonable, and that new subdivisions planned by cities include zoning for multi-family units and access for homebuyers in all income ranges.

We cheer Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal to allocate nearly $2 billion for housing tax credits, moderate income housing and other affordable housing resources. We also support the governor’s proposals to accelerate Proposition 1 and 2 funding, and to provide grants to local governments to develop plans, conduct permitting and to zone or rezone to meet our housing needs.

But since Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature eliminated redevelopment in 2011, local governments have lost billions of dollars in funding for affordable housing.

We strongly support the effort by Sen. Jim Beall of San Jose and Assemblyman David Chiu of San Francisco to begin a serious conversation about restoring a more robust form of property tax increment financing for housing and associated infrastructure in our downtowns.

Over the past two years the Legislature has passed nearly 30 new laws, many focused on addressing various aspects of the local housing planning and approval process, including strong new accountability provisions that authorize $10,000 per unit fines for local governments that deny housing consistent with their local plans.

Cities do not build homes. Home builders, the housing market, the availability of tradespeople, building mandates and other factors are largely responsible for where and how homes get built.

Even after local governments approve housing construction, there is no guarantee that housing will be built.

In fact, new research soon to be released by UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs will show that cities and counties have zoned land for the construction of 2.8 million homes. And a 2018 Construction Industry Research Board report listed more than 450,000 new homes under construction or approved. Because of market forces, however, they will not be built for five years.

As such, it is reasonable to expect cities to do their part by planning, zoning and approving housing projects, and to minimize delays, costs and barriers to construction. It is not reasonable to penalize cities that are meeting their responsibilities but where builders decide not to build.

Recent lawsuits between the state and the city of Huntington Beach are unfortunate. But hopefully they ultimately lead to collaboration and resolution between both sides and a recognition that we can make more progress when cities and the state work together.

We can boost housing supply without abandoning the values of public transparency and civic engagement that are central to building strong communities.

This housing crisis is indiscriminate, gripping all of our communities. Cities are a part of the solution.

Carolyn Coleman is the League of California Cities’ executive director, ccoleman@cacities.org. She wrote this commentary for CALmatters.

How the Mighty have Fallen by following Regional Government

Susan Adams Marin County Supervisor,ABAG Vice President voted out of office when the people of her district discovered that she recommended her community for a Priority Development Area and then denied it.  He duplicity to the voters was repaid with recall campaign and landslide loss in 2014.

Steve Kinsey, Marin County Supervisor, MTC President resigned in 2016 while the subject of massive breach of ethics for 200+ meetings with developers while also serving on the California Coastal Commission. He was sued for $5 million dollars but settled for a lower amount with taxpayers footing the bill. 

Jake MacKenzie,  Rohnert Park Councilman current MTC chairman ,  de throned on 1/22/2019 after his fellow councilpersons discovered that he had failed to report about the CASA Compact which may cost his community $15 million dollars in housing funds.  He then did not report back the concerns of his community to ABAG where he also serves on the CASA Committee.

But wait, there's more....

The president of ABAG who signed Plan Bay Area in 2014, Mark Luce, Napa County Supervisor lost his re-election bid in 2016 for unknown reasons. He is in Africa on a journey of self discovery at last report.

LESSON: Represent the best interests of your local community and be honest and transparent in your dealings lest you "get the boot". Serving only regional interests is the shortest path to political oblivion.

Gavin Newsom’s keeping it all in the family

Gavin Newsom’s keeping it all in the family

By Dan Walters | Jan. 6, 2019 | COMMENTARY, DAN WALTERS

Ties among the Brown, Newsom, Pelosi and Getty families date back three generations.

Gavin Newsom will be the first Democrat in more than a century to succeed another Democrat as governor and the succession also marks a big generational transition in California politics.

A long-dominant geriatric quartet from the San Francisco Bay Area – Gov. Jerry Brown, Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – has been slowly ceding power to younger political strivers.

Moreover, Newsom is succeeding someone who could be considered his quasi-uncle, since his inauguration continues the decades-long saga of four San Francisco families intertwined by blood, by marriage, by money, by culture and, of course, by politics – the Browns, the Newsoms, the Pelosis and the Gettys.

The connections date back at least 80 years, to when Jerry Brown’s father, Pat Brown, ran for San Francisco district attorney, losing in 1939 but winning in 1943, with the help of his close friend and Gavin Newsom’s grandfather, businessman William Newsom.

Fast forward two decades. Gov. Pat Brown’s administration developed Squaw Valley for the 1960s winter Olympics and afterward awarded a concession to operate it to William Newsom and his partner, John Pelosi.

One of the Pelosis’ sons, Paul, married Nancy D’Alesandro, who went into politics and has now reclaimed speakership of the House of Representatives. Another Pelosi son married William Newsom’s daughter, Barbara. Until they divorced, that made Nancy Pelosi something like an aunt by marriage to Gavin Newson (Nancy Pelosi’s brother-in-law was Gavin Newsom’s uncle).

The Squaw Valley concession was controversial at the time and created something of a rupture between the two old friends.

William Newsom wanted to make significant improvements to the ski complex, including a convention center, but Brown’s Department of Parks and Recreation balked. Newsom and his son, an attorney also named William, held a series of contentious meetings with officials over the issue.

An eight-page memo about those 1966 meetings from the department’s director, Fred Jones, buried in the Pat Brown archives, describes the Newsoms as being embittered and the senior Newsom threatening to “hurt the governor politically” as Brown ran for a third term that year against Ronald Reagan.

Pat Brown’s bid for a third term failed, and the Reagan administration later bought out the Newsom concession. But the Brown-Newsom connection continued as Brown’s son, Jerry, reclaimed the governorship in 1974. He appointed the younger William Newsom, a personal friend and Gavin’s father, to a Placer County judgeship in 1975 and three years later to the state Court of Appeal.

Justice Newsom, who died a few weeks ago, had been an attorney for oil magnate J. Paul Getty, most famously delivering $3 million to Italian kidnapers of Getty’s grandson in 1973. While serving on the appellate bench in the 1980s, he helped Getty’s son, Gordon, secure a change in state trust law that allowed him to claim his share of a multi-heir trust.

After Newsom retired from the bench in 1995, he became administrator of Gordon Getty’s own trust, telling one interviewer, “I make my living working for Gordon Getty.” The trust provided seed money for the PlumpJack chain of restaurants and wine shops that Newson’s son, Gavin, and Gordon Getty’s son, Billy, developed, the first being in a Squaw Valley hotel.

Gavin Newsom had been informally adopted by the Gettys after his parents divorced, returning a similar favor that the Newsom family had done for a young Gordon Getty many years earlier. Newsom’s PlumpJack business (named for an opera that Gordon Getty wrote) led to a career in San Francisco politics, a stint as mayor, the lieutenant governorship and now to the governorship, succeeding his father’s old friend.

He’s keeping it all in the extended family.

California’s late votes broke big for Democrats. Here’s why GOP was surprised

California’s late votes broke big for Democrats. Here’s why GOP was surprised

John Wildermuth and Tal Kopan Nov. 30, 2018 Updated: Nov. 30, 2018 8:55 a.m.

Paul Ryan called California’s election system “really bizarre.” Late “harvested” votes led to GOP losses around the state.Photo: Cliff Owen / Associated Press

California Democrats took advantage of seemingly minor changes in a 2016 law to score their stunningly successful midterm election results, providing a target for GOP unhappiness that is tinged with a bit of admiration.

Some Republicans have cast a skeptical eye on Democrats’ use of “ballot harvesting” to boost their support. The idea’s backers say it’s just one of several steps California has taken to enable more people to vote.

Few people noticed when Gov. Jerry Brown signed the changes in AB1921 into law two years ago. In the past, California allowed only relatives or people living in the same household to drop off mail ballots for another voter. The new law allowed anyone, even a paid political campaign worker, to collect and return ballots — “harvesting” them, in political slang.


The change was strictly a public service, said Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, author of the bill. The old rules, she said, “simply provide yet another obstacle for individuals attempting to vote.”

Republicans didn’t agree, and the measure passed the Legislature on a largely party-line vote.

They felt the hit on Nov. 6 — and in the days after, as late-arriving Democratic votes were tabulated and one Republican candidate after another saw leads shrink and then evaporate. This week, a seventh GOP-held congressional seat flipped to the Democrats, leaving Republicans controlling a mere seven of California’s 53 House districts.

In Orange County alone, where every House seat went Democratic, “the number of Election Day vote-by-mail dropoffs was unprecedented — over 250,000,” Fred Whitaker, chairman of the county Republican Party, said in a note to supporters. “This is a direct result of ballot harvesting allowed under California law for the first time. That directly caused the switch from being ahead on election night to losing two weeks later.”


Some national Republicans expressed befuddlement with what was happening to their party in California. In an interview with the Washington Post, House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin called California’s election system “really bizarre” and said he couldn’t even begin to understand what ballot harvesting is.

“We were only down 26 seats (nationally) the night of the election and three weeks later, we lost basically every California race,” he said. “Point being, when you have candidates that win the absentee ballot vote, win the day of the vote, and then lose three weeks later because of provisionals, that’s really bizarre.”

However, this was no spur-of-the-moment effort by the Democrats, said Shawn Steel, the California GOP’s delegate to the Republican National Committee.

“This was not done at the last minute,” he said. “It started the day after Jerry signed” the bill.


Rep. Jeff Denham of Turlock (Stanislaus County), one of the House Republicans who saw victory slowly turn to defeat after election day, agreed with Ryan Thursday that California’s count should go more quickly. “Counting ballots two weeks after the vote is something that Californians shouldn’t have to put up with,” he said.

But in an earlier interview after it was clear he’d lost, Denham said the GOP had been slow to adapt to changes in California’s election system.

“One of the lessons that the GOP needs to learn out of this election cycle is how to work within all of the new rules, same-day voter registration, motor voters,” Denham said. “There have been a lot of changes in laws that I think have caught many in the Republican Party by surprise. You can’t just run a traditional campaign as you did before.”

He added, “If one party’s harvesting ballots, both parties need to do it.”


Across the state there were reports of groups collecting ballots and dropping them off at polling places and election offices.

“We certainly had that going on here, with people dropping off maybe 100 or 200 ballots,” said Neal Kelley, Orange County’s registrar of voters. “We also had voters calling and asking if it was legitimate for someone to come to their door and ask if they could take their ballot” and deliver it to the polls.

For Democrats, the ballot harvesting was all part of a greater effort to get out the vote from their supporters, particularly from occasional voters.

“We beat Republicans on the ground, fair and square,” said Katie Merrill, a Democratic consultant deeply involved in November campaigns. “Many of the field plans included (ballot harvesting) as an option to deliver voters or their ballots” to the polls.


Those efforts involved identifying voters who might support Democratic candidates and ignoring those who wouldn’t.

In one Orange County household, for example, both the husband and wife were longtime Republicans, said Dale Neugebauer, a veteran Republican consultant. Democratic volunteers came by the house four times, each time asking to speak only with their 18-year-old daughter, a no-party-preference voter, and asking if she wanted them to pick up her signed and completed ballot.

That’s a perfect example of the “thorough and disciplined” ground game the Democrats used, said Merrill.

“We were not wasting time talking to people who weren’t going to vote for Democrats,” she said.


Many of those harvested ballots arrived in the waning days of the election, adding to the flood of votes that couldn’t be counted on election day. And those late ballots broke heavily for the Democrats.

“Absolutely, ballot harvesting played a very significant role,” said Neugebauer, who worked most recently for Orange County Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, another Republican who lost his seat. Democrats had “a huge advantage by executing a plan to gather ballots from voters.”

“I have a little bit of professional admiration for how well the Democrats executed their plan,” Neugebauer admitted.

While the late vote tally typically favors Democrats, the partisan advantage this year was staggering.

Editor's Note:   Maybe this is the explanation of the weird results with late returns in Marin County elections.  If so, "voter harvesting" is a cheap trick that undermines the democratic process.

Longtime Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa) talks to reporters on Election Night in Costa Mesa, Calif., on Nov. 6, 2018. (David McNew/Getty Images)

‘Ballot Harvesting’ Helped Flip Seven US House Races in California After Election Day

BY WILLIAM PATRICK

December 4, 2018 Updated: December 4, 2018

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Recent changes to state election law have transformed California’s election system into one that’s no longer decided on Election Day, but in the weeks after.

The changes, specifically to mail-in ballots, led to Democrats flipping seven U.S. House seats after Nov. 6, and Republicans crying foul over the newly legalized practice of “ballot harvesting.”

Speaking to the Washington Post on Nov. 29, outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) said the string of lost elections “defies logic.”

“We had a lot of wins that night, and three weeks later, we lost basically every contested California race. This election system they have, I can’t begin to understand what ballot harvesting is,” Ryan said.

In 2016, the California Legislature passed AB-1921, a measure that altered the state’s vote-by-mail procedures to allow any third party to collect and turn in another person’s completed ballot. Previously, only close relatives or someone living in the same household could collect and return someone else’s ballot.

The seemingly slight adjustment allowed for activists and political parties to deliver ballots to targeted would-be voters, solicit a completed ballot, and return it to a voting site without a secure chain of custody. While the upside is increased voter participation, the risk of fraud and coercion is more than a partisan concern.

At least 16 states expressly regulate ballot harvesting, or ballot collection, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Some states limit who can turn in another person’s ballot, while others ban the practice entirely.

In 2016, Arizona passed a law making the collection of early voting ballots by political operatives a felony after it led to voter fraud. In 2012, a presidential election year, a political advocacy group—not directly affiliated with a campaign—was collecting ballots while its members were posing as election workers.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the Arizona ban, but it was later upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the single-party run state of California, unlimited ballot harvesting, combined with other post-Election Day ballot-counting provisions, revolutionized the state’s midterm elections with the results skewing exclusively for Democrats.

Those additional provisions included allowing mail-in ballots to be counted up to three days after Nov. 6, loose guidelines for accepting provisional ballots, and extended deadlines for absentee voters to be notified of mismatching signatures on ballots and voter-registration records so they could be fixed. Mismatching signatures also can be a telltale sign of fraud.

According to election returns, more than 40 percent of the state’s 12.5 million total votes were counted after Nov. 6—a striking development, considering mail-in ballots were once intended to assist those who couldn’t physically vote in a polling booth due to disability, infirmity, or residing out of state, such as overseas military personnel.

Ron Nehring, former chairman of the California Republican Party, characterized the development as an abuse.

“Mail voting has completely warped California elections. We don’t have Election Day. We have two election months: the month ballots are out in the field, and the month after, while they’re all sorted out. No courage to fix this,” Nehring tweeted Nov. 26.

In one case, two-term incumbent California GOP congressman David Valadao was firmly ahead of his Democratic opponent, T.J. Cox, by 6,000 votes, or 8 percent, after polls closed Nov. 6. The Associated Press declared Valadao the winner of the rural District 21 race, but later retracted the announcement. After Election Day, ballots continued pouring in for Cox until he finally defeated Valadao by 843 votes–three weeks later.

On Nov. 29, Ryan said, “when you have candidates that win the absentee-ballot vote, win the day of the vote and then lose three weeks later because of provisionals, that’s really bizarre. And so I just think that’s a very, very strange outcome.”

Alex Padilla, California’s secretary of state, responded on Twitter, “in California, we make sure every ballot is properly counted and accounted for. That’s not ‘bizarre,’ that’s DEMOCRACY.”

Ground zero for California was Orange County, where Republicans lost every incumbent seat in the longtime Southern California conservative stronghold.

After polls closed Nov. 6, Orange County Republican Mimi Walters was ahead of Democrat Katie Porter by 6,200 votes. But Porter ended up winning the race after a tidal wave of post-Election Day ballot-counting. The same fate befell GOP Rep. Jeff Denham in District 10. Other Republican House losses included Steve Knight, Dana Rohrabacher, and Diane Harkey.

One of the more curious results occurred in District 39, where Orange County hopeful Young Kim, who would have been the first Korean-American woman elected to Congress, saw her sizable Election Day lead morph into a 3.2 percent loss after Nov. 6.

Republican Congressional candidate in California’s 39th District Young Kim (R) is surrounded by supporters and media as she arrives at an election night event in Rowland Heights, Calif., on Nov. 6, 2018. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)

Shawn Steel, California’s committeeman for the Republican National Committee, reacted to Kim’s stunning loss in a Nov. 27 editorial.

“How does a 14-point Republican lead disappear?” Steel asked. “Merciless and unsparing, California Democrats have systematically undermined California’s already-weak voter protection laws to guarantee permanent one-party rule.”

But ballot harvesting isn’t just a suspicious tactic for California’s Democratic political machine to use against Republicans. According to the investigative news website Washington Babylon, California Democrats have been harvesting ballots against each other in primary elections.

In a Dec. 28, 2017, interview, long before the November midterms, Democratic state assembly candidate Ron Birnbaum said he was the victim of ballot harvesting conducted by his Democratic primary opponent, Wendy Carrillo.

“Third parties, such as campaigns or paid field operations, can now bother or cajole or potentially intimidate voters into giving them their ballots. The most susceptible to this intimidation are those least likely to know how to report it or protect themselves from it. There is very little to stop tampering with ballots, vote-buying or even discarding of ballots,” Birnbaum said.

“Ultimately, this is a non-partisan issue in that it helps candidates with more resources have an easier time winning elections, regardless of affiliation. That said, the [vote-harvesting] bill was passed on virtually a party-line vote in the legislature,” he added.