The FlashReport gets a shout-out from the Wall Street Journal (sorry Spence, you got written out!):
Talk about election officials being hoisted by their own political petard.
Facing a forced career change next year under the state’s term-limits law, California Senate President Don Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez have fast-tracked a ballot initiative that would allow them to stay in office. While the measure would ostensibly toughen the term limits law, it would also create a special "transition period" that would let 80% of today’s sitting legislators delay their departure. "The practical effect of the measure would be to allow more lawmakers… to stay in office longer," concluded a San Francisco Chronicle analysis.
Armed with a highly favorable ballot summary crafted by Democratic Attorney General Jerry Brown, the two legislative leaders appeared to be well on their way to hoodwinking the electorate. But this week it became clear that those in charge of gathering signatures to put the measure on the ballot — mostly paid mercenaries and public employee union members — may have slacked off on the job. County voter registrars are reporting that an unusually low number of signatures are passing muster during sample checks. Los Angeles County, for example, is clocking in with only a very low 59% validity rate.
While it’s still likely the measure will qualify for the ballot, registrars now are contemplating a laborious manual check of the million-plus signatures, a process that might not be completed by the late September deadline to allow the measure to qualify for the February presidential primary ballot. If not, the measure would have to go on the June primary ballot, when parties nominate candidates for Congress and the state legislature.
But there’s a fly in the political ointment: Candidates for state legislature must file for re-election in March. None of the termed-out legislators would legally be eligible to file. They’d have to seek other employment.
There is another way to make sure the Perata-Nunez employment extension proposal makes it on the all-important February ballot. A two-thirds vote of the legislature can override any obstacles and place it there. But minority Republicans would be in a position to exact enormous concessions for supporting the initiative, including perhaps a redistricting commission that would draw more competitive seats or even a major overhaul of state budgeting practices.
Even if the Perata-Nunez plan makes it before the voters in February, the latest desperate maneuvering may finally cause the public to gag. "A lot of voters may ask themselves why these people just can’t go into the private sector and find work," says Jon Fleischman, who broke the story of the signature meltdown on his political blog FlashReport.org.