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The union assault — covert and overt — on direct democracy
Nov. 30, 2012 By Chris Reed For decades, signature-gathering to win placement of measures on the local or state ballot in California has followed a basic script. Once proponents gathered some 30 percent more signatures than the minimum threshold necessary, they shut down operations, confident that their measure would easily make the ballot. But in the past three years, this script has been rewritten, at least when it comes to measures that threaten the interests of public employee unions or that target their supporters. This new norm amounts to a brazen and illegal union assault on direct democracy, which in California is the most significant check on their hegemony. In November 2009, an attempt to recall Assemblyman Anthony Adams, R-Claremont, never made the ballot even though proponents turned in 58,384 signatures –- 63 percent more than the 35,825 necessary to force a vote on whether Adams should be ousted. A random sample of 1,839 ballots had shown only 42 percent were valid. Adams was a darling of unions for providing a decisive vote in the Legislature in February 2009 for $12.8 billion in higher income, sales and vehicle taxes, breaking past promises to his constituents. This led KFI 640 AM’s powerful radio hosts, John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou, to push for a recall. In July 2010, a proposed initiative to force the outsourcing of more government services by the San Diego city government faced a similarly mysterious demise. Proponents, led by San Diego Councilman Carl DeMaio, turned in 134,441 signatures -– 39 percent more than the 96,834 needed. But a random sample of 3 percent of signatures showed so many duplicate signatures and ineligible signers that officials estimated only 74,732 were valid. In July 2011, a proposed initiative that would have changed the makeup of the San Diego Unified school board and likely weakened the local teachers union’s control of the board also failed. San Diegans 4 Great Schools turned in 129,283 signatures –- 39 percent more than the 93,085 needed. But a full hand count found that just 90,027 were valid –- with a stunning 11.4 percent of the signatures being duplicates. A leader of San Diegans 4 Great Schools expressed bafflement at this “aberration.” But in San Diego political circles, it was accepted as a given that local union members had monkey-wrenched both the 2010 and 2011 initiatives. Now, thanks to the just-aborted attempt by former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan to bring sweeping pension reform to the city of Los Angeles, unions have lost any plausible deniability. Two weeks ago, Paul Kim, a work-site organizer for Service Employees International Union Local 721 in Los Angeles, sent out an email to SEIU members with this admonition: “We need Union members hitting the streets signing Riordan’s petition with fake names/addresses and gathering retraction signatures from LA residents on our own petition. We need people power starting this Saturday.” On Nov. 20, after reports on the attempt to illegally manipulate the signature-gathering process, SEIU leaders quickly disavowed Kim’s email and declared it a “non-issue.” But given that Kim was rebuked by the SEIU only after his email became known to the media, it was hardly a persuasive disavowal. And to proponents of the measure, it was hardly a “non-issue.” On Monday, Riordan dropped his push for pension change, saying he no longer believed he could meet the Dec. 28 deadline he had set to gather 265,000 valid signatures –- even though public sentiment in favor of pension reductions is strong. Yet the Los Angeles Times’ article announcing Riordan’s decision didn’t even mention the SEIU email. And since then, there’s been scant follow-up on the Kim email or any effort by the mainstream media to connect the dots between what happened with the Adams recall, the San Diego outsourcing and school board petition drives, and the SEIU plot in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, in Sacramento, Senate President Darrell Steinberg is proposing to use Democrats’ new “supermajority” status to pursue initiative “reforms” that would potentially let the Legislature tinker with the wording and intent of ballot measures and have some sunset after 10 or so years. This has won praise from the usual suspects, starting with the Times’ George Skelton. Public employee unions have used their power to shape life in California for so long that students of the Golden State have grown to accept it as a given. But union critics at least have had the solace of knowing that direct democracy would always provide an avenue for the public to have its wishes honored. Now, however, direct democracy itself is in the union cross hairs, both openly and covertly, and one key tactic involves flagrantly illegal behavior. Nothing could make it more obvious that in California, union power has metastasized into something more akin to organized crime than organized labor –- or at least our old conception of organized labor. It is still possible for direct democracy to succeed, as it did in San Diego in June with the passage of a massive pension overhaul. But that was only because those guiding the well-financed push for signatures for the measure committed early on to verify every signature before turning in ballot petitions — a vastly more costly and time-consuming process than the old practice of just turning in 30 percent more signatures than necessary. Yet even the San Diego measure is imperiled because of an extraordinary effort by the state Public Employment Relations Board to have it thrown out in court for purportedly violating collective bargaining rights of public employees. It’s plain that unions and their allies will do literally anything to maintain their chokehold on California’s local and state governments.
Tags: corruption, direct democracy, George Skelton, Pension Reform, union power Comments(87) |
June 19, 2013
I guess Mr. Reed learned little from the last election.
Stop spamming Teddy.
Let’s not forget the $522,500 unions spent on the summer 2011 radio advertising campaign for “Californians Against Identity Theft and Ballot Fraud, supported by labor organizations.” It was meant to scare people into not signing petitions for proposed ballot measures such as paycheck protection, pension reform in the City of San Diego, and Fair and Open Competition ordinances in the City and County of Sacramento and the City of San Diego.
Union officials took credit for sinking the Fair and Open Competition ballot measure in the City of Sacramento with the radio advertising (and numerous other antics).
If you want the details on which unions gave the money and how it was spent, you can go to my web site:
http://laborissuessolutions.com/charts-from-the-investigative-report-on-the-summer-2011-radio-ad-campaign-by-union-front-group-citizens-against-identity-theft/
or see my FlashReport.org article:
http://www.flashreport.org/featured-columns-library0b.php?faID=2009102307301360
Yet even the San Diego measure is imperiled because of an extraordinary effort by the state Public Employment Relations Board to have it thrown out in court for purportedly violating collective bargaining rights of public employees.
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A ballot measure approved by the voters will not get overturned by the Public Employment Relations Board- a gov agency suing, they are not a court and the court will not side with them….IMO, the fact is courts are unpredictable, but it is a long shot..
courts are unpredictableoodle said–”courts are unpredictable”
I think what he means is — Poodle is unable to predict ANYthing! Because– he is 0 for 14 ™!
This massive illegal election fraud begats only one thing, violence. I am profoundly against violence. But when the voting process becomes so obvious in its fraud, people will start voting with their pitchforks. Its the welfare class that is going to be carrying the pitchforks, not the Republicans (they will have moved to arizona by then). When all the welfare class benifits are cut to pay for the immoral and gigantic pay and pensions of the public union class, watch out.
See the french revolution. Everybody loses then. Especially the unions.
Hondo…..
As noted in the past, the public union class in California and their families will be food for the welfare hordes. Pitchforks are the essential item to drag dinner into the middle of the hungry pack. Hatchets will be good to “split” for Dinner.
Chomp. chomp…
Direct democracy succeeded in November. Among other things, Prop. 32 was crushed, Prop. 30 passed by a wide margin and San Diego elected a Democratic mayor. But in the Dog’s wacky world, democracy only works when your side wins.
And hang in there, Ted. Being called a spammer by Rexie Boy is like being called ugly by a frog.
Thanks Steve– It hurt, but I will soldier on.
Poodle is unable to predict ANYthing! Because– he is 0 for 14 ™!
teddy, don’t ever again lecture me on hijacking the comments
steve from sacto says:
Direct democracy succeeded in November…….And hang in there, Ted. Being called a spammer by Rexie Boy is like being called ugly by a frog.
The unions out spent Prop 32 opponents by 5-1, hardly democracy.
And even Stevie is piling on old Rex. That made me cry Stevie, I thought we were friends
I recall you saying some pretty nasty things about me Rexie, like that I was a “union thug” and a “taker”, you know, the usual right-wing garbage. And I just can’t help piling on when you make it so easy.
For instance, it doesn’t seem to concern you that the Prop. 32 supporters got tens of millions from the Koch Brothers. Sounds like it’s OK for outside billionaires to meddle in our state’s politics, but California unions aren’t allowed to fight for themselves.
And of course, we have that wonderful Arizona secret PAC and its money-laundering scheme that was worthy of a drug cartel or organized crime syndicate. But as long as they support the right-wing, that’s just dandy.
What can’t go on, won’t.
Unions have been crooked from their inception. They are even more corrupt now and focused on raiding Public Treasuries since their membership has declined in the private sector. I have no opposition to private sector unions, other than their historic criminality and, yes, thuggery, but public sector unions should not even exist as it undermines the concept of selfless public service and forces the employee to serve two masters, when he should be serving the taxpayer who pays his freight. No one objects to the conditions of military employment and they have no union. Because there is an expectation of selfless service. Most folks have no problem spending the money to protect firefighters and the police. But the pensions going out have to match the money coming in. Unions and Government negotiating salary and benefits is two wolves and a chicken deciding whats for dinner. FDR was against public employee unions and he was right. Public servants cannot serve two masters. They work for the taxpayer, not the unions.
It is just too neat and clean that election results turn out so overwhelmingly for the corrupt. I think it would be interesting to follow a ballot from the printer to the voting booth to the counting board. Make that ALL of the ballots. I suspect there is a great deal of systematic fraud by the unions – anyone have the bucks to develop an investigation here?
The Koch brothers are the latest boogie men for the lefties and union thugs. Steve there is one thing that will doom your efforts. Eventually, you will run out of other people’s money.
Post of the WEEK — STEVE from Sacto!!!
The poor off topic poodle gadfly can’t keep up with ya!
Chris– It’s all a balance. Without labor unions employers’ greed and exploitation would run wild, we all know that. The right just likes to pretend that does not happen.
Discuss–
This tactic suggests that the people practicing it are afraid to compete openly and aboveboard in the marketplace of ideas. The unions are well-funded and well-organized to make their case to the voters of California and present reasons why ballot initiatives they oppose should be rejected. In general the electorate of California does not strike me as a wildly right-wing bunch. They just elected a Democratic super-majority to the state legislature.
So the only reason for this tactic is that the practitioners fear that they might not be able to convince voters to support their position. Rather than take their chances competing openly about big ideas, they’d rather poison the opponents’ attempts to ask the voters what they think. A rather sad commentary on what the political process has come to.
Ted Prof, it figures you are a prof. The labor unions you speak of are private sector, you know in the marketplace. This story is about government employee unions, there is no comparison. Show your lack of knowledge something I expect from profs these days.
I voted with my feet. I’ll be voting from Texas in 2014. One less productive individual being sustenance for the parasitic class. By the look on my coworkers faces some of them will be joining me soon.
unions and their activity should be banned…they are communists and most don’t even know it…when its bankruptcy time, the House of Representatives will say NO to a safe landing…let it crash hard.
Not to stop all the ad hominem fun, but isn’t there something, you know, illegal about the union doing this to Riordan’s petition? It sounds like an organized action to commit fraud. Where’s the RICO prosecution?
Greetings from your sister state of IL! We have also just given the Dems a super majority in both houses. See you in TX.
Quoting …”Two weeks ago, Paul Kim, a work-site organizer for Service Employees International Union Local 721 in Los Angeles, sent out an email to SEIU members with this admonition: “We need Union members hitting the streets signing Riordan’s petition with fake names/addresses and gathering retraction signatures from LA residents on our own petition. We need people power starting this Saturday.””
Paul Kim should be sentenced to a prison term of no less than 5 years.
Quoting … “Nothing could make it more obvious that in California, union power has metastasized into something more akin to organized crime than organized labor –- or at least our old conception of organized labor.”
Metastasized is an accurate description of Public Sector Unions … a CANCER on Society.
Hondo, I believe you make a good point. While I always figured that those receiving Welfare voted Democratic and for more spending because they pay no taxes and are recipients of much of that spending, and that Public Sector workers do so for a contamination of their outsized pensions & benefits, they really are distinct groups that will likely one day be on opposing sides.
As Hondo suggests, once the Businesses and Citizens WITH the ability to pay substantive taxes have move away, the Public Sector workers, now no longer being able to increase revenues to feed the pension monster, will resort to cutting such things as welfare expenditures to free up revenue for that pension monster.
And while those who pay big taxes (those with good incomes and assets) rarely resort to violence as they have too much to lose, it’s certainly not clear that will be the case when the Welfare recipients are pushed to the wall.
thorgodofthenorth says:
Ted Prof, it figures you are a prof
LOL..teddy the full tenuredprofessor of monronology
Well, yes, sometimes I am the professor….and others…the janitor. But the Poodle is always…
…wait for it…
0 for 14 ™!
It never gets old…
You people are all so naieve, you can’t distinguish the difference between union money which is a collection of funds donated by thousands of individual, middle class workers, and donations from wealthy people like the Mungers who tried to become the “Lords of CA” with their combined 80+ million. The Mungers had their clock cleaned, and you wonder why! We live in a Constitutional Republic where elected officials make the important decisions–the collective masses only know what they are spoon-fed by the pundits. Direct Democracy would be a disaster!
SeeSaw, Saying that … “union money which is a collection of funds donated by thousands of individual, middle class workers,” is quite ridiculous. Without doubt 95+% of all union campaign contributions come from mandatory Union DUES … certainly NOT “donations”.
SeeSaw— Shhhhhhh—- these folks think the Mungers are on their side….shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
It is a real stretch to claim that someone or some special interest who hires paid signature gatherers is engagingin direct democracy.
Over but now out: How is it NOT democracy? How is it different from an activist senior at a senior center gathering petitions to send to a congressman backing Social Security and Medicare? How is it different from a union organizing a precinct walk?
– John Seiler
It is a real stretch to claim that someone or some special interest who hires paid signature gatherers is engagingin direct democracy.
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LOL…I bet you didn’t say a WORD when the CTA did it for Prop 98 18 years ago.
Cal and Rex – I disapprove of the hired signature gathering industry regardless of who or what organization is paying for it. In my opinion, there is a difference between a mission-drive volunteer gathering signatures vs. a hired employee being paid to gather signatures, often on a per signature basis. The motivation of the two signature gatherers is different – one is cause-driven (to which I say “go for it”), the other is money-driven (to which I say “go find a productive job”). Same with slate campaign mailers which are paid advertisements camouflaged as though coming from some legitimate organization. What bothers me is seeing the democratic processes of petitioning our government and voting on candidates and public policy issues being manipulated by such processes as the paid signature industry and intentionally misleading/camouflaged endorsements and mailers. I am sure everyone posting here is intelligent enough to not be misled or fooled, but there are a lot of people who are vulnerable to such trickery, in my opinion.
OBNO: Right. The paid signature gatherers are working for a living, and most of them are not even well-versed on the subject matter of the petitition they are passing. I never sign anything that I do not have an opinion about–and I resent the signature gatherer saying, “Just sign, so it can get on the ballot–then the voters will decide”. Those signature gatherers are exploited by the sponsors–the one at my local Stater Bros. last year was only getting sixty-five cents per signature.
Campaign contributions taken from union dues are not mandatory, TL. Every union member has the option to prevent his/her dues from being used for political purposes. Describe it any way you want–it is collectively the middle class and the middle class is the group I support, politically. Furthermore, as I have said multiple times–the public sector retirees who get, what you consider, lavish pensions were upper management who did not need to belong to unions–they did their own negotiating with their employers, and many of them receive more in salary than the President of the United States. Whose fault is that? Certainly not the fault of the unions!
I say the supermajority that the Dems have in CA is fantastic and is the best thing that could have happened to CA. Along with passing Prop 30. The majority has spoken, we all now eagerly await the golden age of CA to be ushered in. You know as they say – people get the govt they deserve. Outside of the takers in CA there is a general consensus that CA governance is in the dumpster so guess what kind of govt CA gets. I for one intend to enjoy the supermajority circus over the next 2 years. CA antics have always been entertaining but now we should see even that get amped up. Rock on unions, show it to all of them. On to repeal of Prop 13
To unions and supporters of unions. Ignore the bashers and soldier on guys. Supermajority and prop 30 are great wins but set your sights higher now. Onward and upward. Repeal Prop 13. Set Greece as your role model and ignore the uninformed fools who claim Greece to be a failed stae. Little do they know. I say you should aspire to the great San Francisco experiment of the 70′s. Bring back that golden age maan, free healthcare and LSD for all. Free love. But this time scale it up. How about printing our own money and discarding the loser USD which is holding back the great potential of our state. Ooh I shiver at all the possible paths to greatness that lay ahead for our state.
SeeSaw, Balony. If that “option” (to not allow Union dues for campaign contributions) were serious, it would be a requirement it OPT-IN, not OPT-OUT.
And more nonsense, 85% of the middle class are not public Sector workers and THEY pay (and are still paying … even though you believe otherwise) for YOUR pension. You support ONLY the PUBLIC Sector Union middle Class, to the detriment of the other 85%.
I support all citizens of this country, TL, but I favor the middle class and the poor when it comes to political decisions–it is the demographic group to which I belong. Sorry, you have only opinions–not facts. And, you may not put words in my mouth. Who in the heck do you think purchases the products and services that are sold in this country? I and all of my public sector/public retiree cohorts support a large percentage of that business–otherwise there would be no sustainable economy at all. My pension did not begin for me, until I was 72 years old, and it is not lavish by any means! And, you are not paying one penny of it! Poor TL–a half-empty glass kind of guy.
SeeSaw, Since little seems to stop in your head, simply passing in one ear and out the other, I’ll repeat an earlier reply to you (from a different discussion):
The argument that … “the benefits the pensioners receive are put right back into the economy, benefiting society” is beyond pathetic. Would society benefit any less if the higher taxes needed to support your excessive pensions remained in the Taxpayers pockets to be spent BY THEM ?
Well guess what, TL. You evidently can’t see it, but as a human being, who has not one ounce of humility in that arrogant head–you are beyond pathetic!
SeeSAw, Now that you got that off your chest, how many MORE times are you going to repeat that crap that the high Public Sector pensions are beneficial to society ?
Probably as many times as you keep repeating your crap, TL.
By the way TL, I do not have a high Public Sector pension, but the one I do have is beneficial to society, because I pay the grocer, the dentist, and the restaurant owner, among many more. Those things are necessary for our economy, and I have no problem with other pensions or other workers having more money than I, unless it was illegally obtained. The more money other people have in their pockets, the better it is for the economy.
SeeSaw, You’re right, and those “other (Private Sector) people” would certainly have more money in THEIR pockets to spend if their taxes did not reflect the cost of the excessive pensions promised ALL Public Sector workers (including the lower paid).
Since “direct democracy” violates the very precepts of the “republican form of government” required of each state by our federal constitution, it is interesting that those who claim to revere that document support such anti-republican approaches to government at any level.
Hondo, and those supporting his view of welfare class turning on public servants are wrong. The money will not run out for a while because the govenrment will do the same thing that they did during this election. They were short of cash but did not want to trim public employee benefits/pay or welfare, so they figured out the next best thing – hold education hostage. Tell them that the money is for school (prop 30), then people want to support education, the money goes into the general fund and gets used as they want (public employees and welfare receipients get their share, schools are shortchanged). The next time more money is needed they will again cut schools, services for disabled, orphanages, etc., whatever people are emotionally sensitive to. The new money will go to the general fund and welfare and public employees will get their share. As for people leaving the state, most middle class people that work or have business in the state can’t, and you can rest assured that the public employees with their oversized pensions will be gone way before sh*t hits the fan. The wealthy will be gone too, they are generally not stupid, so you will eventually have the welfare class demanding more from the shrinking middle class, and that’s when the pitchforks (guns in today’s world) will come out. By that point it is too late to change anything. Keep in mind, that during the times of the French revolution the upper class could not escape with their wealth since most of it was in the form of land. Today’s wealthy and public employees can easily move their stocks/pensions anywhere in the world, so you won’t have that many of them left around once the pitchforks come into play.