September 2024 Ears Newsletter
Members celebrating Birthday’s in September
CJ O’Keefe Sept 4th
Roxanne Lindsay Sept 8th
Linda Caruso Sept 13th
Valerie Schooley Sept 29th
Wishing you both a wonderful year filled with the love of family and friends!
September 24th Member Lunch
Please join us for our next General Member meeting will be held at Black Bear Diner in Danville on Tuesday, September 24th at 11:30am. Our speaker will be one of our very own members, Julie Mobley, who will discuss Election Integrity and Counting Your Vote in Contra Costa County. Please click here for more information and to purchase your lunch online.
We will also hear from SRVUSD School Board Candidate, for Area 2, Karin Shumway and Assembly District 15 Candidate, Sonia Ledo.
Our Caring for America charity this month is Blue Star Moms, Chapter 101, serving the San Francisco East Bay Region and is located in Danville, CA.
The Mt. Diablo Republican Club annual fundraiser is September 11th, 2024. Their keynote speaker will be Tom Del Beccaro who will be discussing his new book, “The Lessons of the American Civilization.” Please click here for more information.
9/11 Remembrance Ceremony at Oak Hill Park
The Exchange Club of the San Ramon Valley is hosting their 23rd Annual Remembrance Ceremony at Oak Hill Park on Wednesday, September 11th from 5:30 to 6:30pm. The keynote speaker will be Lance Corporal Brian Vargas, US Marine Corps. He will share his message of hope after being shot by an enemy sniper in Iraq. Learn about his journey and new technologies designed to make those who serve safer! To learn more please check out their website.
Local Candidate Meet & Greet ~ October 10th at 5:30pm
Our Club is hosting a Local Candidate Meet and Greet, featuring Renee Morgan (Town of Danville, Town Council), Katherine Piccinini (CD 10) and Joe Rubay (AD 16) on October 10th from 5:30 at The Growler in downtown Danville. Please come meet your local candidates!!
2024 Election Information
Please review our website tab, Election 2024, for candidate and ballot measure information provided by our very own member, Jeanne Solnordal, who is also the CFRW Legislative Analyst. CFRW Legislative updates can be found here.
CAGOP ~ Virtual Election Integrity Training
Join the Election Integrity Team and dedicated patriots like you for our virtual election integrity training program on Zoom. With your help, we can protect the vote and make sure every legal vote is counted properly. Sign up today to join our CA Election Integrity Team.
Voter Education Training: Sept 12th - 12-1pm; Sept 17th - 5-6pm; Sept 21st - 10-11am; Sept 25th - 10-11am; Oct 3rd - 5-6pm; & Oct 7th - 5-6pm
Ballot Harvesting & Curing Training: Sept 12th - 5-6pm; Setp 19th - 5-6pm; Sept 23rd - 5-6pm; Sept 27th - 12-1pm; Oct 1st - 5-6pm; & Oct 5th - 10-11am
Poll Observer Training: In-Person Vote Locations: Sept 11th - 10-11am; Sept 16th - 5-6pm; Sept20th - 12-1pm; Sept 24th - 5-6pm; Sept 28th - 10-11am; & Oct 2nd - 10-11am
Poll Observer Training: County Elections Office: Sept 14th - 10-11am; Sept 18th - 10-11am; Sept 26th - 5-6pm; Sept 30th - 5-6pm; & Oct 4th - 12-1pm
LOOKING FOR OFFICERS FOR 2025!!!
Those of you who have been to our recent meetings have heard our plea for help from you, the members, to please consider stepping up and taking one of the several vacant offices on the Board.
Our Nominating Committee members, Erika Coday, Paula Knapp and Julie Mobley were approved at our May member meeting. They are beginning their search for members to step up and usher in a new group of leaders for the San Ramon Valley Republican Women Federated Club. We thank, Liz Summer, Dee Thompson, Elaine Kowalik and Mary Zellhart for their service in our Club and their mentorship of those willing to succeed them in their roles. Your nominating committee members will be contacting all active members and asking them to step up and take the opportunity to serve our Club by being an officer. If you are contacted please give serious thought on taking this step. We cannot continue as a Club without a full slate of officers so give this some serious thought! Our future as a Club depends on you, the members!
WREATHS ACROSS AMERICA
Please mark your calendar for Saturday, December 14th at 11am for National Wreaths Across America Day at the Alamo Cemetery in Danville. This heartfelt ceremony is followed by the placement of remembrance wreaths on the over 250 known veterans’ interned at the Alamo Cemetery. The San Ramon Valley Republican Women Federated has been the driving force behind this event since 2014. Please view our sponsorship webpage for more information and to support our goal of ensuring every veteran interned at the Alamo Cemetery receives a veteran remembrance wreath.
SENATOR ALVARADO-GIL IS RIGHT. THE DEMOCRATIC SUPERMAJORITY ISN’T WORKING FOR CALIFORNIA.
SEPTEMBER 2, 2024
When a politician switches parties in California, it usually only goes one way – to the Democrats. When that happens, Democratic politicians tell us they simply saw the error of their ways. They’ve come into the light.
The reality is, it’s just politics. State Sen. Bill Dodd switched parties the year before he ran for, and ultimately won, a Democratic-held Assembly seat. Assemblyman Brian Maienschein switched from R to D as his formerly red district began to turn blue.
It’s probably a smart political move where Democrats have a sizable registration and fundraising advantage over their Republican opponents. But that’s what made it so surprising when Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil of Jackson announced she was switching parties – to become a Republican.
“In the past two years that I’ve been working in the Senate, I have not recognized the party that I belong to,” Alvarado-Gil said during an appearance on Fox News. “The Democratic Party is not the party that I signed up for decades ago.”
The reality is, the then-Democrat won the Republican-leaning Fourth State Senate District because six Republicans split the primary vote, and two Democrats made it through to the general election. It seems unlikely that she would win reelection in 2026 as a Democrat.
It’s just politics. But then again, that all sounds a lot like the crisis of conviction we’re told to believe when it happens the other way, doesn’t it? She saw the light! Certainly, Democratic leaders applauded Alvarado-Gil’s principled stance, right? Don’t count on it.
Instead, she was stripped of all her committee assignments, accused of betraying her constituents (who are majority Republican) and was kicked out of the Legislature’s Latino Caucus.
Whether you believe her or not, it does take guts to leave the party in power and take the slings and arrows for it. Plus, at least one thing she said is absolutely true.
“The status quo under a supermajority Democratic rule in the legislature is simply not working for this state,” she said.
The supermajority controls every step of the legislative process and yet they still rush through bills without reading them, pass them with fiscal impacts they do not know and when procedural rules meant to enforce good governance get in their way, they just circumvent them with tricks and pretenses.
One of these is the so-called gut-and-amend, which involves taking an existing bill, gutting it of all its language, and amending it into an entirely new piece of legislation.
Another trick is performed by passing stacks of blank bills with no language in them at all, except for a single line of placeholder text.
For example, after the budget is negotiated in secret by the governor and legislative leaders, the agreed-upon provisions become “amendments” to these blank bills. Those are called “trailer bills.” There are no hearings in policy committees and no opportunity for amendments or debate. There’s simply an up-or-down vote on each of them and they go to the governor’s desk.
Further, this opaque process rewards holding back important, and controversial, legislation until the last minute. Why argue when you can simply bypass the process in the waning days of the session? To see the rush of bills passed under the cover of darkness on the last day will make your head spin.
The new Republican from Jackson is right, the supermajority is simply not working for this state. California desperately needs legislative reforms that enhance transparency and that allow both citizens and legislators in the minority party meaningful participation. If Marie Alvarado-Gil fights for that, she’ll be bringing some much-needed sunshine to disinfect Sacramento’s grimy process. Maybe she has seen the light.
Jon Coupal is president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.
ROB BONTA DELIVERS A BLOW TO BALLOT MEASURE TRANSPARENCY
AUGUST 26, 2024
In a few short weeks, California voters will have the opportunity to reject several bad ballot measures which threaten their financial security. The worst of these by far is Proposition 5 because it would lower the vote threshold for local bonds from two-thirds to 55%. The two-thirds vote requirement for local general obligation bonds has been in the California Constitution since 1879 as a protection for property owners against excessive debt that must be repaid in the future, sometimes for decades.
The fact that Prop. 5 reduces the vote threshold is a material fact that voters should know in order to make an informed decision when they cast their ballots.
For statewide ballot measures, the California Attorney General is responsible for preparing a title and summary as well as the ballot label, which is the question that is presented to the voters. The ballot label is the only ballot material that is seen by every voter. Its importance cannot be overstated.
In apparent recognition that the reduction in the vote threshold for local bonds is the central purpose of Prop. 5, the Attorney General acknowledged this proposed change in law for both the title and summary yet, incredibly, not the ballot label even though it easily could have been included without exceeding the 75-word limit.
Here’s what the ballot label says: ALLOWS LOCAL BONDS FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE WITH 55% VOTER APPROVAL. LEGISLATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Allows approval of local infrastructure and housing bonds for low-and middle-income Californians with 55% vote. [Fiscal Impact not included].”
The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (HJTA) concluded that the omission constituted a violation of the Elections Code and filed a legal action in the Sacramento Superior Court which has jurisdiction over such ballot language disputes. Not surprisingly, the trial judge, Honorable Shelleyanne Chang, ruled in favor of HJTA finding that the failure to describe the existing vote threshold rendered the ballot label “misleading.”
She correctly declared that the reduction itself is the “chief purpose” of Proposition 5 and the Attorney General has a duty to inform the public of a measure’s “character and purpose.” She further explained that a voter might be misled into thinking that the measure “increases” the voter approval requirement from a majority vote to a 55 percent vote.
Judge Chang also rejected the Attorney General’s argument that he was entitled to presume that the voters know existing law and should therefore fully understand Proposition 5 from the language as written. But vote thresholds in California vary significantly depending on the issue. Local special taxes have a different threshold than general taxes and school bonds have an entirely different threshold. To suggest that typical voters know what the current vote threshold is for local general obligation bonds is baseless, especially when few politicians know what they are.
Regrettably, Attorney General Bonta filed an appeal in the Court of Appeal for the Third Appellate District. There, the court reversed Judge Chang’s well-reasoned opinion and concluded that it was within the A.G.’s “discretion” to exclude a critical fact in the ballot label.
Ironically, in agreeing with A.G. that he could assume that voters would know what the current law required, the Court of Appeal also exposed its own ignorance. In its opening discussion of Proposition 5, the court states, “Since the adoption of Proposition 13 following its passage in 1978, local bonds and taxes to support those bonds generally must be approved by a two-thirds vote of electorate.” That’s wrong. The two-thirds vote requirement for local bonds has been a part of the California Constitution since 1879!
Although disappointing, the loss for taxpayers in the Court of Appeal, especially after the victory in the trial court, highlighted the recurring issue of how the ballot material process has been horribly politicized by the Attorney General. That could help in educating voters as to what Proposition 5 really does and the importance of voter education, especially when facing deceptive ballot material.
Jon Coupal is president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.
CALENDAR
SEPTEMBER
Sept 1st National Little Black Dress Day
Sept 2nd Labor Day
Sept 8th Grandparent’s Day
Sept 11th Patriot Day
Sept 17th Constitution Day
Sept 22nd First Day of Fall
Sept 24th SRVRWF General Member Meeting at Black Bear Diner in Danville; Julie Mobley will discuss Election Integrity
OCTOBER ~ Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Oct 1st International Coffee & Homemade Cookies Day - YUMMY!!!
Oct 10th SRVRWF Local Candidate Meet & Greet Event at The Growler in Danville
Oct 14th Columbus Day
Oct 17th International Pasta Day
Oct 27th Navy Day
Oct 31st Halloween