CALIFORNIA ALMOST ELECTED MITT ROMNEY PRESIDENT

 

 by Chriss Street

 Democratic President Barack Obama has not had to campaign in California, because he is leading by 15 percentage points  according to the most recent Reason-Rupe poll.   But what if all 55 of California’s Electoral College votes were awarded to whoever wins the national popular vote?  

That almost happened this year, because Governor Jerry Brown signed the National Popular Vote bill.  Can you imagine the shock if the “Left Coast” was responsible for electing Mitt Romney the 45th President of the United States?

The United States has a form of indirect election that under Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution of the United States provides that the 538 electors, who represent individual states, elect the President of the United States.  The number of electors is equal to the total voting membership of the 435 Representatives and 100 Senators in the United States Congress, plus three members from the District of Columbia.  The first candidate that receives 270 Electoral College votes becomes President.

In the 2000 presidential election, Democrat Al Gore received 543,895 more popular votes than Republican George W. Bush, but Bush won the Presidency by a margin of 5 Electoral College votes after winning 537 more votes than Gore out of a total of six million votes cast in Florida.  Gore filed a lawsuit to have a Florida vote recounted.  The U.S. Supreme Court did hear the case, but ruled 5-4 in favor of Bush.

Gore and the Democrats howled that the election had been stolen.  Subsequently, Democrats made a national effort to reform Presidential elections in each state to require state Electoral College Delegates to be legally bound to vote for the candidate that won the largest popular vote total.

On August 8, 2011, Democrat Governor Jerry Brown of California signed into law the National Popular Vote bill.  At the time, the bill’s author, Assemblyman Jerry Hill, Democrat-San Mateo, stated that Californians are ignored by candidates “pandering exclusively to the battleground states,” and Governor Brown stated:

“California should not be taken for granted in presidential elections, and it seems logical that the occupant of the White House should be the candidate who wins the most votes … That is basic, fair democracy — and that’s why California has joined the movement for a National Popular Vote.”

California State Senator Doug LaMalfa, Republican-Richvale, angrily charged that the bill Brown signed rejected the “American tradition that protects the fabric of our country from fractionalization and mob rule.”

Mitt Romney is now strongly ahead by 5 percentage points in the national popular vote polls, but still trails Obama in the Electoral College vote.  According to the latest ABC News Poll,Obama has 237 solid Electoral College votes to Romney’s 191, with the remaining 110 Electoral College votes are up for grabs in the nine battleground states of Nevada, Colorado, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and New Hampshire.

For the National Popular Vote to become the law of the land a majority of the 50 states would have to pass legislation.  Democrats in only nine states have successfully lobbied for passage.  Had Democrats been more successful, Romney have already won.

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California Burning – State Controller Pounds California Municipalities

By Chriss W. Street

California State Controller John Chiang announced that the cities of Milpitas and Morgan Hill illegally tried to convert hundreds of millions of dollars of real estate, cash and investments that were required to be turned over to the State of California after  Governor Jerry Brown and the State Legislature passed Assembly Bill 1x 26, terminating all municipal

redevelopment agencies to help cover a $25 billion budget shortfall.  Before the Controller’s audits, the state had collected less than $400 million of the $3 billion they expected from the state’s 400 community redevelopment agencies.   The State Controller’s charges against two small towns are a home run for the state, but are a financial nightmare that will  pound cities and counties across the state.

Under the new state law, all redevelopment agencies were required to cease operations by February 1, 2012 and transfer their assets and liabilities into a "successor agency" under the direction of an independent oversight board.  The new agency would then sell their assets, pay-off their existing obligations, and then transfer the cash to their county auditor-controller for distribution to schools and other local agencies.  To make sure cities and counties that sponsored the redevelopment agencies didn’t grab the assets, the law made any retroactive transfers after January 1, 2011 illegal. 

Despite full knowledge of the law’s prohibitions, many of the redevelopment agencies’ sponsors converted the assets for their own use.  In response, the Controller began conducting 14 initial audits and announced the following results for the first two audits:

Morgan Hill transferred $88.6 million to the City and $19.8 million to their Morgan Hill Economic Development Corporation (MHEDC).  The City of Morgan Hill created the MHEDC and transferred the assets in March 2011, three months after Assembly Bill 1x 26 effective date.  The Controller’s review also found that the city council sat as the MHEDC Board when the transfers were made. 

Milpitas transferred $96.9 million directly to the City directly and $50.2 million to the Milpitas Economic Development Corporation (MEDC). The Controller’s audit established that the MEDC was established by the City Council two months after Assembly Bill 1x 26 effective date and the Board members were city council members.  The Milpitas also failed to transfer an additional $87.6 million of redevelopment assets to their successor agency, and requires that these assets also be transferred to the successor agency.

Following the audit, California State Controller John Chaing artfully stated:

"As redevelopment agencies complete their wind-down, I hope that this provides an opportunity for local economic development to be re-imagined with a greater emphasis on measurable performance, efficiency and accountability."

When it comes to imagination, the size of the charge backs against Milpitas and Morgan Hill far exceeded the dreams of the California Department of Finance’s, who had estimated that all 27 redevelopment agencies that paid only $6.7 million owed the state another $129 million.  At the time, Richard Keit, spokesman for San Jose, had complained bitterly about the Department of Finance’s initial estimate that the termination of his city's redevelopment agency would result in a $39 million bill:

            “It's already gone.  The state Department of Finance knows we don't have the         $39 million -- that we weren't hiding it.  It was all committed and now expended.”

Assembly Bill 1x 26 gives California finance officials the power to intercept municipal tax monies from cities and counties, but California Finance Director Ana Matosantos sent a letter last month to the 27 local governments saying the state would not withhold sales tax revenue or seek a penalty until September.  But now that audits indicated the state will score higher cash, Finance Department spokesman H.D. Palmer warned:

"We hope that we'll be able to resolve any differences between these successor agencies in an amicable manner.  That said; those tools were put into place to ensure that schools and cities and counties get the property tax that they are owed for that period." 

With investors, like Warren Buffett, dumping California's municipal  bonds after California sales tax revenue nose-dived by 33.5%, California is in survival mode.  The state is going to pound the California cities and counties for every penny they can get.     

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