Are They Qualified to be Attorney General?

Steve Cooley (Republican) and Kamala Harris (Democrat) have both been prosecutors. Both have both worked in local district attorneys' offices. But that is all they have done. Neither Cooley nor Harris has experience in civil litigation, neither of them have worked in the private or non-profit sector, neither have them have worked on energy or environmental issues, neither of them has been a judge or administrative law judge, neither of them have worked for a state agency, and neither of them have even worked in the other half of the state.

Given the broad responsibilities of the California Attorney General, their lack of relevant experience is striking. By comparison, I have significantly broader experience. I have worked for law firms, a non-profit, a state agency, and a major city. I have lived and worked in both Northern and Southern California. The following chart (based on information from the candidates' websites) shows the difference in experience between me, Cooley and Harris:

Candidates’ Experience	Peter Allen	Steve Cooley	Kamala Harris
Civil Litigation	X
Consumer Advocacy	X
Criminal Prosecution	X	X	X
Energy Law	X
Environmental Law	X
Financial/Securities Fraud Litigation	X	?	?
Judge or Administrative Law Judge	X
Telecommunications Law	X

Three Free Signs!

Here are three signs - choose which one you like the best or print out all three and post them in visible places.

Send them electronically to your friends!

Going Back For More?

The logic of much of the voting public, at least those responding to polls, escapes me. The Republicans (with assistance from the Democrats) blew up the US economy, in a big and ugly way. The Democrats (with resistance from the Republicans) have not managed to fix it. So now, according to various polls, people are going to vote for...Republicans?!?! This seems especially odd given that the Republicans are promising to run the economy the same way they did before.

This is like taking your car to the mechanic for a tune up, and he wraps it around a tree. So you take it to a second mechanic, but when he is having difficulty fixing it, or maybe is just taking too long, you take it back to the first mechanic. Who assures you he will treat it like he did before.

If you really thought the second mechanic could not fix it, wouldn't you take it to a third one, rather than back to the one who broke it in the first place? Maybe we should try that with elected officials as well.

Proposition 23 - The Job Killer

Jobs or the environment - that is the choice presented by Proposition 23, a ballot initiative sponsored mainly by oil refiners, which proposes to suspend California's greenhouse gas law, AB 32, until unemployment drops below 5.5% for a year. But that is a false choice. The choice we really face is about the short term versus the long term.

The argument for Proposition 23 is simple - limiting greenhouse gas emissions under AB 32 will cost money, and will likely cost jobs in industries that generate greenhouse gasses. Based on that logic, Proposition 23 would only allow implementation of the greenhouse gas reductions currently in California law if California unemployment drops below 5.5% (it is currently over 12%) for a year.

But if California unemployment stays higher than 5.5%, or even if it drops to 4%, but bumps up to 6% after three quarters, then California would take no action to reduce greenhouse gasses.

Under Proposition 23, regardless of why unemployment is higher than 5.5%, California would take no action to reduce greenhouse gasses. Even if unemployment is high because jobs are being lost due to climate change - think of ski resorts closing due to no snow, fisheries destroyed due to changes in water temperature, beach resorts and airports damaged by higher sea levels, redwood forests dying from heat, valuable crops lost due to extreme weather conditions, and rivers running dry - we still would take no action.

The logic of Proposition 23 is the logic that says don't limit logging until all the trees are gone, because limiting logging takes away logging jobs that could last a few more years, or don't limit fishing until all the fish are gone, because limiting fishing takes away fishing jobs that could last a few more years. But how many logging jobs are there when all the trees are gone? How many fishing jobs are there when all the fish are gone?

If Proposition 23 passes, the oil refiners and other carbon-intensive industries who are backing it may get to make their profits for a bit longer. But at what long term cost? What happens when California and the rest of the world start really suffering from the effects of climate change? The potential job losses could make us nostalgic for the time when unemployment was only 12%.

Is it worth gambling with our economy, our health, perhaps even our survival, so that a few large companies can squeeze out a few more profitable years? The short term benefits to Valero and Tesoro are not worth the long term costs to every Californian and every California business. Vote no on Proposition 23 - we cannot afford it.