How different would California look with Proposition 32’s passage? To imagine, it’s not necessary to focus on a Golden State without the legacy of its unions, but rather to think of a California in which only the rich and powerful have a say in Sacramento and in the polling booth.
“It will have a devastating effect,” says John Logan, director of Labor Studies at San Francisco State University, of Prop. 32’s impact. “California would be transformed as a state.”
On environmental issues alone, Prop. 32 stands to roll back decades of progress in making California a global leader in green policy-making.
“You don’t have to go very far back to find likely examples of how it would change California,” Logan says, adding that Prop. 32 would remove labor’s voice from nearly all political conversations.
That voice is not always confined to lobbying efforts in the state legislature.
» Read more about: If Proposition 32 Passes: A Not-So-Green Golden State »
This Thursday the L.A. Library Foundation’s ALOUD program hosts a panel discussion about the possibility of thawing America’s internal cold war in political discourse. The Advancement Project‘s Connie Rice joins U.C. Irvine Professor Rick Hasen (this year’s go-to man on political polarization), along with KPCC immigration correspondent Leslie Berestein Rojas, Young Republican leader Nicole Stygar and USC/Norman Lear Center chair Marty Kaplan to answer the question, “The Voting Wars: How Do We Move Beyond Partisanship and Polarization—or Should We?”
The discussion promises to be lively and enlightening – with the delicious possibility of shouting matches and chair-throwing. (Just kidding.) Like voting itself, the event is free, but reservations are necessary by visiting ALOUDS’s site or calling (213) 228-7025.
Mark Taper Auditorium-Central Library, September 20, 7:15 p.m.
» Read more about: Poles Apart: Can Consensus Exist in America? »
Who says that Occupy Wall Street – whose national protests so changed the American conversation about economic inequality — was a passing fad? Today, to mark the one-year anniversary of the takeover of Zuccotti Park, where OWS was born, demonstrators gathered in New York’s financial district to sing the movement Happy Birthday – and to get arrested.
Reports the New York Daily News:
“A crowd of about 50 barged into the lobby of the JPMorgan Chase building and demanded to speak to bank officials. About eight of them were arrested.
‘We’re here protesting financial terrorism. The financial mafia,’ said Yates McKee, 32, as he was loaded into the back of a police van.”
And, in the spirit of OWS’s not-for-profit anniversary, author Charles Degelman tells Frying Pan News he is offering Kindle downloads of his 1960s-protest novel, Gages of Eden,
» Read more about: Anniversary Gift: Free Book During "Occupy" Celebrations »
On Monday, September 17, RePower LA will be joined by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, City Council members, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power general manager Ron Nichols, and others at the site of a South L.A. home undergoing an energy efficiency upgrade.
City leaders are now touting the programs, initially proposed by the RePower LA coalition, which are upgrading small business facilities and the homes of those struggling in the current economy. The customers reduce their energy use and save money, L.A. reduces its reliance on dirty coal-fired power plants, and members of our hardest-hit communities are able to access good career path jobs through the Utility Pre-Craft Trainee program of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 18.
With such win-win-win potential, it is good to see LADWP and city leaders embracing energy efficiency as a central pillar of L.A.’s future.
Writing in a Daily News op-ed,
» Read more about: City Leaders Tout RePower LA's Energy Efficiency Programs »
“Hi. I’m a volunteer with the We Buy Local campaign here in Long Beach.”
So begins the conversation with undecided voters about the Long Beach living wage measure on the November ballot.
Most Long Beach hotel workers live, work and shop in the city. And if the hotel living wage passes, they’ll have more money to put into the Long Beach economy.
More than 100 volunteers and supporters gathered last Saturday to pick up information packets and start knocking on local doors. It was hot in the church classroom where they assembled, but the mood was electric.
More than 140 small business owners are supporting Measure N, as are local religious leaders and city council members Suja Lowenthal and Steve Neal.
College students and retired folks, LGBT activists, Cambodian youth organizers, religious leaders and politicians were all excited to be working together to change conditions for the city’s 2,000 hotel workers and to shake up the political environment in Long Beach.
» Read more about: Living Wages Would Boost Long Beach's Economy »
Today Frying Pan News launches a series of investigations into Proposition 32, a measure on the November ballot that, if passed, would drastically alter the political landscape in California. “Killing the California Dream” will shed light on Prop. 32’s backers and their motivations; analyze how major public policy decisions would be affected if Prop. 32 passes; and document how corporate money historically has run counter to the interests of most Californians, among other things. The series will run through the November 6 election.
“If Proposition 32 passes, corporate donations will flat-out dominate politics in California,” said Steven Mikulan, editor of Frying Pan News. “We’ve launched this investigative series to provide California voters with the facts about who is behind the measure and how the passage of Prop. 32 would enable corporations to determine policy on everything from health care, pensions and workplace safety to the environment, education and consumer protection.
» Read more about: Frying Pan News Launches Series on Proposition 32 »
Click image to enlarge.
» Read more about: Lalo Alcaraz: Proposition 32's Grassroots Supporters »
As pundits constantly remind us, when it comes to the national elections, it’s the economy, stupid.
But the parameters of the debate about our dire economic straits has been disappointingly narrow, leaving out some of the most pressing issues facing tens of millions of Americans.
If national leaders are serious about reviving the economic fortunes of our struggling middle class, the unemployed and the growing ranks of the working poor, they would do well to take a long, hard look at the new report, “10 Ways to Rebuild the Middle Class for Hard-Working Americans: Making Work Pay in the 21st Century.” Released today by a consortium of two dozen organizations across the country, the report is a clarion call for a set of policies that are largely off the radar screen of both major parties. This deafening silence notwithstanding, the prospect of a true economic recovery that restores the promise of broadly shared prosperity is nearly inconceivable without the adoption of most of these proposals.
» Read more about: A Prescription for Middle Class Recovery »