(California) Three anti-state-employee ballot measures cleared for signature-gathering stage

[warrior1]

I got this in an email:




The Secretary of State has given the OK for three proposed ballot measures to begin their signature gathering stage. If enacted into law by the voters, they would:

increase the minimum retirement age
impose a punitive tax on retirement income
eliminate collective bargaining rights for public employees.

The initiatives were put forward by Lanny Ebenstein, president of the Santa Barbara Tax Payers Association, who is looking to make a name for himself by trying to reduce the hard-earned rights and benefits public employees have fought for and won over many decades.

The proposals are bad for public safety and horrible for public employees who have sacrificed greater pay for a decent retirement. Ultimately, these measures would reduce the quality of employees that will seek public-sector work and lead to huge vacancies in most governmental agencies.

CSLEA is a member of an organization known as the Labor Coalition, which is fighting to keep these initiatives from ever reaching the ballot. You may have seen signature-gatherers outside your local grocery story or big box retailer trying collect enough registered voters on a petition to qualify measures for the ballot. Those signature gathers usually are not volunteers and are paid based on the number of signatures they collect.

Generally, the going rate for a signature is a $1.25 to $1.50 each and all three initiatives need more than 800,000 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot. Since many signature-gatherers falsify names and addresses, proponents generally have to collect around 1,200,000 signatures in order to make the necessary quota for qualification. This problem increases the cost of qualification to about $2.5 to $3.5 million per initiative.

We do not know if Ebenstein will be able to raise the resources necessary to qualify his three initiatives or to run a campaign to get them approved by the voters. Nevertheless, the Labor Coalition is developing a full blown effort to stop these measures in their tracks.

Here are the summaries of the ballot initiatives that we are tracking that have been cleared for circulation:

1502. (11-0022)
Increases Retirement Age for Teachers, Peace Officers, and Other Public Employees. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.
Summary Date: 09/06/11 | Circulation Deadline: 02/03/12 | Signatures Required: 807,615
Proponent: Alan Oliver Ebenstein c/o Lanny Ebenstein [phone]
Increases the minimum retirement age to 65 (or 58 for sworn public safety officers) for members of the California Public Employees' Retirement System and the California State Teachers' Retirement System, including for teachers, nurses, police officers, firefighters, and other public employees. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: In the long run, possible reductions in state and local pension and retiree health costs. The magnitude of the savings would depend on a variety of legal, implementation, and behavioral uncertainties and would be offset to an unknown extent by increases in other state and local employee compensation costs. (11-0022.)

1501. (11-0021)
Increases Income Taxes on Teachers, Nurses, Police Officers, Firefighters, and Other Public Employees for Pension Income. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.
Summary Date: 09/06/11 | Circulation Deadline: 02/03/12 | Signatures Required: 807,615
Proponent: Alan Oliver Ebenstein c/o Lanny Ebenstein [phone]
Increases income tax rate by 15% for annual pension income between $100,000 and $149,999, and 25% for annual pension income over $150,000, on income received by teachers, nurses, police officers, firefighters, and other public employees from the California Public Employees' Retirement System and the California State Teachers' Retirement System. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Possible increase in state revenues from a new tax on certain public employee pensions. Over the long run, these revenue gains would be offset by decreases in other state and local revenues and increases in some state and local costs. (11-0021.)

1500. (11-0020)
Eliminates Collective Bargaining Rights for Teachers, Nurses, Police Officers, Firefighters, and Other Public Employees.
Summary Date: 09/06/11 | Circulation Deadline: 02/03/12 | Signatures Required: 807,615
Proponent: Alan Oliver Ebenstein c/o Lanny Ebenstein [phone]
Eliminates collective bargaining rights for teachers, nurses, police officers, firefighters, and other public employees. Prohibits state and local public agencies from recognizing any labor union or other employee association as a bargaining agent of any public employee. Prohibits state and local public agencies from collectively bargaining with public employee unions or employee associations. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Potential state and local government employee compensation savings. The amount of savings would depend on future compensation decisions by state and local governments. (11-0020.)

The full text of each can be found in the Initiatives and Referenda Cleared for Circulation section on the Secretary of State’s website by clicking here.

[leftstreet]

1. K&R

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Don't you love ALEC?

They are so cute and pro American...

:sarcasm:

It will end one way or the other...but I fear it won't be pretty.

Go on ass holes...you want a real class war? Don't cry when you get the real deal m'kay?

[warrior1]

3. anything

that would get passed would be challenged in court, but it's just a drag always being blame for something that was caused by other people. State works are not the problem.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. We both know that

But this is walker by another name...locally we are fighting that too, and cute friendly guy to business is now running for mayor too.

[marginlized]

5. Santa Barbara Tax Payers Assoc. = almost by definition the top

10% of wealth in the country. Or am I just thinking of Montecito? Who can even afford to live there? They're declaring war on the fire fighters who keep those dry hills from going up in smoke? On the health care professionals who drive the ambulances when one of them has a stroke or falls and can't get up? That's shooting yourself in the foot.