UC Berkeley students lobby in Sacramento for bill to tax oil to fund public higher education

A group of UC Berkeley students joined forces with supporters from various California colleges and universities Thursday morning to lobby for a state Senate bill that aims to reduce tuition at California public institutions of higher education.

About 20 UC Berkeley students were among the 70 supporters who went to Sacramento to bequest members of the Senate Education Committee to support  Senate Bill 1017, which would impose a tax on oil and gas extracted from California soil. The revenue from the tax would be funneled into an endowment — established by the bill — that would generate funds for California public higher education. The proposal ultimately aims to stabilize tuition and roll costs back to 2008 levels.

“We all teamed up and went into the meeting, where we pretty much lobbied,” said UC Berkeley junior Elias Saigali. “I think it was very effective.”

Those who attended the Senate hearing had the opportunity to vocalize through testimony either their support of or opposition to the bill. According to Saigali, about 60 people spoke in favor of the bill — including students and supporters from the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, a grassroots organization that aims to empower ordinary citizens to take action in their communities.

“Our physical persistence showed that students really care,” Saigali said. “It’s a way for them to understand what we’re going through. It’s important to us.”

Also at the hearing, representatives from the Western States Petroleum Association enumerated their qualms. Particularly, they argued that the legislation would cost the oil industry about 10,000 jobs and would raise gas prices.

SB 1017, which was introduced two months ago by State Senator Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, has long been supported by a coalition of UC Berkeley students. The bill is a development of both Senate Bill 241 — a former iteration of SB 1017 that failed to pass in committee last year — and the California Modernization and Economic Development Act. Authored by UC Berkeley senior Harrison “Jack” Tibbetts, CMED is of similar sentiment to SB 1017 and, in fact, inspired the bill’s provision of an endowment fund.

In a February interview, Tibbetts said SB 1017 could generate upward of $5 billion for higher-education funding in California. He added that California is the only major oil-producing state that doesn’t impose a tax on extracted oil.

On Thursday, SB 1017 passed the preliminary vote in the Senate Education Committee. As a result of this, the state Senate Governance and Finance Committee will review the bill May 9.

“My hope is that if this does pass, it will inspire students to take legislation into their own hands,” Tibbetts said. “There is more to being reactionary. You can actually lead the discussion.”

 via: http://www.dailycal.org/2014/04/24/uc-berkeley-students-lobby-sacramento-bill-tax-oil-fund-public-higher-education/

California Senate Committee Stands up to Big Oil, Passes SB 1017

 The California State Senate Committee on Education stood up to the big money of Big Oil and took a step forward in the fight to end California’s status as the only oil and gas producing state in the nation to not tax the extraction of energy resources. SB 1017 could raise more than 2 billion dollars for California’s underfunded public universities and community colleges, devastated health and human services programs, and state parks.

Check out www.BigOilBeacon.com to see how Big Oil tries to buy big influence in Sacramento. Let’s end Big Oil’s free ride by passing SB 1017!

via: http://www.california-partnership.org/2014/04/24/california-senate-committee-stands-up-to-big-oil-passes-sb-1017/

Meet The Companies That Just Promised To Pull 60 Million Dollars From Private Prisons

Three investment groups announced this week that they will divest from the two major private prison corporations that constitute a massive share of America’s prison-industrial complex.

Scopia Capital, DSM, and Amica Mutual Insurance have all pledged to remove their collective investments of about $60,000,000 from the Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO Group — the two prison companies that own 75 percent of the nation’s private prisons. The decision to divest comes on the heels of pressure from Color Of Change, a racial and economic justice advocacy group that ran a campaign asking a total 150 companies to stop investing in the private prison industry.

“In accordance with the principles of the UN Global Compact, with respect to the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights, the pension fund has divested from the for-profit prison industry,” DSM President Hugh Welsh said in a Color of Change statement. “Investment in private prisons and support for the industry is financially unsound, and divestment was the right thing to do for our clients, shareholders, and the country as a whole. DSM is committed to good corporate citizenship and operating in a way that contributes to a better world.”

Sixty million dollars is actually a drop in the bucket for GEO and CCA. The groups together earn over three billion dollars annually on private prisons, and even more on immigrant detention centers. But the move signals a growing distrust in the ballooning private prisons industry, which grew by “approximately 1600% between 1990 and 2009,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Other groups have previously reportedly divested, as well, but this may be the largest single successful divestment campaign.

“It’s an important first step,” said Carl Takei, the private prison expert in the ACLU’s National Prison Project. “To the extent that investment firms are committing themselves publicly to divestment, that is a very important step. To the extent that investment firms are deciding that private prisons are a bad investment, that’s even more important.”

CCA lost four of its prison contracts with states last year — and that combined with slowly falling imprisonment rates may actually make private prisons not just morally questionable but financially unstable, Takei pointed out.

“We’ve started to turn the corner on mass incarceration and if that’s something that makes private prisons a bad investment, that’s important,” Takei added. He said that if investment firms chose to divest for ethical reasons, it is “an important first step,” but that “the financial reasons justification would be huge.”

Studies have found that private prisons spend millions on lobbying to send more people to jail for longer periods of time. The facilities are often rife with abuse and neglect, too; accusations against the companies range from wrongful death to bad sanitation and even forcing a woman to give birth in a toilet. They do no favors for states that support them, either; Idaho was one of the places that ended its contract with CCA after the company handed over a $1 million settlement for falsifying staff hours and leaving mandatory monitoring spots unattended.

Californians like Common Core education, finance overhaul

Two major changes in California's public education system - adoption of "Common Core" academic standards and giving extra money to school districts with large numbers of poor and/or English learner students - seem to have gained favor with the state's residents.

A new poll by the Public Policy Institute of California tested the two changes now underway, along with a number of other education-related issues.

The poll found that 69 percent of adults support the Common Score approach to teaching, a system that's being adopted by a majority of the states as a way of ensuring that students leave public schools with skills in a variety of areas.

The change has been controversial, especially in other states, with those on the political right complaining that it will lead to federal control of school curricula. The concept was promoted by a bipartisan coalition of governors to replace the state-by-state determinations of what should be taught, how instruction should be given and how academic progress should be assessed.

The PPIC survey found that support was over 50 percent among all political subgroups but Democratic support was highest at 72 percent, while that among Republicans was 60 percent and among independents, 61 percent.

The change in school financing was championed by Gov. Jerry Brown on the theory that poor students and those not fluent in English need special attention to close what educators have called the "achievement gap."

The state Board of Education is finalizing regulations on how the Local Control Funding Formula is to be implemented, and there has been some criticism of the regulations that they leave too much discretion in the hands of local school officials. But Brown, citing the principle of "subsidiarity," has endorsed local discretion.

The PPIC poll found that 53 percent of all adults, and 57 percent of parents of public school students, are confident that the money will be spent wisely, and higher numbers, 68 percent and 71 percent respectively, believe the extra money will improve academic performance by the targeted kids.

The poll also tested support for Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg's push for universal pre-kindergarten, which would cost about $1 billion a year when fully implemented, and, like other polls, found very strong support for the concept - 73 percent among all adults and 80 percent among students' parents.

About 40 percent of adults surveyed were aware that California ranks below average on per-pupil school spending and 46 know that it's also below average in academic test scores.


PHOTO: At right, Maiya Miller, 8, hugs Principal Shana Henry on the first day of school at Pacific Elementary school in Sacramento on September 3, 2013. The Sacramento Bee/Renee C. Byer

via: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2014/04/californians-like-common-core-education-finance-overhaul.html

California voter registration: ‘No party preference’ increase, Republican decrease

A voter fills out her ballot during early voting before the 2012 presidential election at the Gila County Recorder's Office in Globe, Ariz., on Oct. 26. Voter registration data published by Secretary of State Debra Bowen Tuesday show 17,660,486 Californians are registered to vote and of that number more are registered as “no party preference” compared to the last gubernatorial primary.; Credit: Joshua Lott/Reuters/Landov

Voter registration data published by Secretary of State Debra Bowen Tuesday show 17,660,486 Californians are registered to vote and of that number more are registered as “no party preference” compared to the last gubernatorial primary.

No party preference voters comprised 21.06 percent of the state’s total registered voters, a slight increase from 20.1 percent in April 2010.

Republican voter registration in California also had a notable change, from 30.8 percent of the total in 2010 to 28.5 percent.

The voter data is included in a 60-day report of registration, which reflects data across California’s 58 counties gathered 60 days before the June 3 statewide primary election.
Alpine, the California county with the smallest amount of eligible voters—881—had the highest voter registration, with 86.7 percent of the eligible voter population.

Tulare County had the lowest voter registration, with almost 53 percent of its 255, 378 eligible voters registered.

Of the eligible voters in Los Angeles County, the largest county in the state, 80.1 percent of them were registered to vote, according to the data.


“The clock is ticking and the May 19 voter registration deadline will be here before you know it,” said Secretary Bowen, the state’s chief elections officer, in a statement. “If you aren’t one of the 17.7 million Californians already registered to vote, take five minutes at the newly designed RegisterToVote.ca.gov which is now offered in 10 languages.”

via: http://www.scpr.org/news/2014/04/22/43693/california-voter-registration-no-party-preference/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+893KpccSouthernCaliforniaNews-Politics%2FpublicAffairs+%28KPCC%3A+Politics+News%29

Bids to shorten prison terms get bipartisan support (and opposition)

WASHINGTON — For decades the Republican Party prided itself for being tough on crime, often putting Democrats on the defensive by pushing for longer, mandatory sentences for convicts.

In 1988, that hard-line stance helped sink the presidential dreams of then-Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, who was blamed in Republican TV ads for having released convicted killer Willie Horton as part of a weekend furlough program. (Horton failed to return after a furlough and went on to commit robbery and rape.)

But now, as the U.S. Senate prepares to take up the most far-reaching changes in years to federal sentencing and parole guidelines, some conservative Republicans are flipping sides, driven by concerns about the rising cost of caring for prisoners and calls for compassion from conservative religious groups seeking to rehabilitate convicts.

A surprising number of high-profile Republicans are working arm in arm with Democrats on legislation to shorten jail terms and hasten prisoner releases. At the same time, in their own reversal of sorts, key Democrats are arguing against the legislation in its current form.

"It's a little counterintuitive," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a conservative former judge who is co-sponsoring a proposal to let tens of thousands of inmates out of federal prisons early if they complete rehabilitation programs.

Though prison sentencing was once a clear divide between the parties, politics around the issue have shifted in recent years, blurring old lines, he said. "This is one of those subjects there isn't any clear partisan divide on," Cornyn said in an interview.

Now that the drug-fueled crime wave that began in the 1960s and lasted through the early 1980s has abated, public opinion polls indicate that crime ranks well below the economy and other issues on the public's list of concerns.

But mandatory-minimum prison sentences and other tough-on-crime measures passed during that era have led to a surge in prison populations in state and federal facilities, causing costs to skyrocket. There has been an 800% increase in the federal prison population in the last 30 years, gobbling up a third of the Justice Department budget.

As a result of the growth, deficit hawks in the Republican Party began to rethink the issue. Nearly a third of the states, led by conservative Texas, have passed reforms to relax their sentencing laws in the past several years.

"Republican governors are seeing that they have to do something about corrections costs," Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said in an interview.

At the same time, evangelical Christians, partly led by the prison ministries set up by Watergate felon Chuck Colson, are helping to make the once-discredited goal of prisoner rehabilitation popular with the religious right.

"The 'lock them up and throw the key far away from you'" philosophy of old has gotten politically stale, Whitehouse said.

As soon as this month, the Senate is expected to take up legislation that combines two bills that easily passed the Judiciary Committee. One cuts in half mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, and the other makes it easier to win early release. The combined measure would also make retroactive a 2010 law that reduced sentences for those previously convicted of possessing crack cocaine.

The legislation has attracted strong support from Republican conservatives such as Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas. "I think it's a mistake for people to assume that all conservatives or all Republicans have the same view in this regard, that we should kill them all and let God sort it out," said Paul Larkin, a criminal justice expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington.

Sentencing nonviolent offenders to decades in prison is "costly, not only in dollars but also the people involved," Larkin said. "Sending someone to prison for a long time is tantamount to throwing that person away."

But the new politics of crime remain complicated, with some old-line Republicans still opposed to the proposals. "Do we really want offenders like these out on the streets earlier than is the case now, to prey on our citizens?" Iowa Sen. Charles E. Grassley said in a recent Senate speech, referring to the bill to ease mandatory-minimum sentences. Grassley, however, supports the early-release proposal.

In a twist, some key Democrats are also opposed to the efforts to relax mandatory minimums and allow early releases, while others remain on the fence. Facing a Republican campaign to seize control of the Senate this fall, Democrats are concerned about appearing soft on crime, a vulnerability that has haunted them in the past.

At least five Senate Democrats are fighting for their political lives in November, and proponents of the measures are not sure how many of them might vote against the bills, possibly jeopardizing passage.

"The ghost of Willie Horton has loomed over any conversation about sentencing reform for over 30 years," said Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), cosponsor with Lee of the mandatory-minimum cuts. Even Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) has voiced concerns about the early releases. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), another senior member, is also opposed to the current proposal. And Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a liberal Democrat from New York who for years has cultivated a tough-on-crime profile, is working to diminish some of the reductions in mandatory sentences.

Feinstein objected to the bill because it would allow the early release of prisoners who complete certain rehabilitation programs with no individual assessment of how dangerous a prisoner might be.

But Durbin predicted that changes to his bill currently being negotiated with Schumer and Republicans would lead to passage of the package in the Senate.

Legislation to make some of the same changes has also been introduced on a bipartisan basis in the House. But House Judiciary Committee Chairman Robert W. Goodlatte (R-Va.) has so far taken a go-slow approach, using a task force — which he said will continue to meet for months — to examine the issues.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-sentencing-politics-20140421,0,1398195.story#ixzz2zXuJHn6C

Jerry Brown pushes his plan for state reserve fund

SACRAMENTO — Raising the stakes in his campaign to strengthen California's finances, Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday called a special session of the state Legislature for next week to consider a new plan to save money and pay off state debt, an election-year pitch that he must make to lawmakers without the benefit of a Democratic supermajority.

Brown's proposal is aimed at cushioning the state against recessions and calming its turbulent fiscal waters. It would require Sacramento to capture spikes in revenue and either save the money to prevent budget cuts during a downturn or pay off debt and cover long-term liabilities such as public pensions.

"We simply must prevent the massive deficits of the last decade, and we can only do that by paying down our debts and creating a solid rainy-day fund," Brown said in a statement.

California voters approved the creation of a rainy-day fund in 2004, but it has mostly sat empty amid persistent budget crises.

Brown's move forces lawmakers to address the issue more publicly while burnishing his own credentials as a financial steward for California. It is also his first major test of the new political landscape in the Legislature, where multiple criminal investigations have cost Democrats their two-thirds majority in the state Senate.

The governor needs some GOP support for his measure because it is a constitutional amendment that requires a two-thirds vote for passage, and Democrats are now shy of that threshold. If the proposal passes, it would go before voters inNovember.

Republicans have wanted a rainy-day fund that functions differently from the one Brown proposes, and the governor risks a political black eye if they don't go along. But the special session offers Republicans a way to collaborate across the aisle on an issue likely to have broad public appeal.

"There's a huge opportunity for Republicans to demonstrate they are willing to join us in the interest of long-term stability for this state," Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles) said in an interview.

The special session convenes April 24, concurrent with the legislative session already under way.

The GOP plan for new reserve-fund rules, which passed with bipartisan support during a 2010 budget standoff, includes spending restrictions that Democrats find objectionable.

That measure is already scheduled for the November ballot. Brown's plan would replace it.

The leader of the Assembly's Republicans, Connie Conway of Tulare, warned that the GOP would be wary of any plan that does not sufficiently limit lawmakers' ability to dip into reserves.

"Republicans will oppose any effort to replace the strict proposal that is already before the voters with a faux rainy-day fund scheme," Conway said in a statement.

Still, there are signs that Republicans are willing to work with the governor.

Assemblyman Jeff Gorell (R-Camarillo), the top Republican on the Assembly budget committee, said in a statement that "changing circumstances require a new look at the measure." He added: "Although the devil is in the details, the conversation is going in the right direction."

Senate Republican leader Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar), whose caucus members Brown will need to win over for his plan to be successful, also praised the governor's interest in the issue.

"It's just common sense for California to put away money during the 'boom' years to avoid future tax increases and spending reductions in the 'bust' years," he said in a statement. 

"However, we are mindful that legislative Democrats have undermined similar efforts in the recent past."

It's possible that Brown could face a challenge from his own Democratic Party. Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) said there was no need for lawmakers to pass a new reserve plan until later in the year.

"Constitutional Amendments must be done right, not rushed," he said in a post on Twitter.

Brown's proposal would create a new budget mechanism that kicks in when there is disproportionately high revenue from capital gains taxes, which can rise and fall sharply with the stock market. The governor and Legislature could then choose whether to save the extra money in the reserve fund or use it to chip away at long-term costs such as public pensions and maintenance projects.

"Both of them are absolutely critical to the state's future," said Brown's finance director, Michael Cohen. "But how you balance them in a particular year is really what elected officials are elected to do."

The fund could grow to 10% of general-fund spending under Brown's plan and would be accessible to lawmakers only after the governor declared a financial emergency.

Brown's latest budget proposal includes $1.6 billion for the reserve fund and $1.6 billion to pay off bonds used to balance the budget during the recession.

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-brown-legislature-20140417,0,5769485.story#ixzz2zGKAPAT7