Richard Bennett

The Mercury News ran an interesting story on California’s new child support collection system Sunday, highlighting the kinder, gentler tone:

There’s a new deal for about 15,000 Santa Clara County dads who have lost their driving privileges because they failed to pay child support: Make one month’s payment and drive away with your license.

The county will make that offer in December during a 25-day amnesty for non-custodial parents to get back their licenses, no matter how much child support they owe.

“It’s an olive branch to people who think that all we want to do is put them in jail, when all we really want them to do is pay their child support,” said Peter Dever, who started last month as Santa Clara County’s first child support services director.

The kinder approach comes as Santa Clara County joins the rest of the state in shifting the burden of collecting child support from the district attorney’s office to California’s Department of Child Support Services. The new agency is increasingly changing gears, from hounding “deadbeat” dads to working with “dead-broke” ones.

Even groups of fathers are beginning to voice approval. “The attitude when it was in the DA’s office was, that’s your problem,” said Steve Ashley of the Santa Cruz-based Divorced Father’s Network, which has 800 area members. “Now it’s, let’s see what we can do.”

Bottom line of the story was that dads like the new system, and moms hate it. This is kind of silly, all in all, because it skirts the real issue. Child support is awarded in each state by a unique state-wide formula that’s enshrined in law. California’s formula demands more of middle- and low-income parents (“obligors”) than the formulas of 45 other states. As long as this formula remains in effect, the system that collects money from the parents who spend somewhat less time with their children than their former partners will be fundamentally unjust and ineffective. The management of the new collections department knows the formula is excessive, and the actual needs of children can be met just fine by collecting less than the statutory amount.

This annoys a vocal minority of mothers, those who’ve become used to the state acting as a weapon with which they can cudgel their exes. Tough break, that.

The Chronicle has a story on the Riordan write-in campaign (Riordan write-in candidacy urged / Some think Simon may drop out of race)

But, “the guys who know Simon best say that he’s not the type of personality to get out of the race,” he said.

And Simon would be even less likely to bow out if Riordan was the person to get in. The former mayor encouraged Simon to run for governor — then jumped into the GOP primary himself. When Simon began overhauling Riordan’s fading campaign in the days before the March election, Riordan went on a personal attack, calling Simon a liar and a “sanctimonious hypocrite.”

“Simon is not going to get out of the way for Dick Riordan,” Spillane said. “The party’s conservatives would not let him get out of the way.”

Somebody needs to have a heart-to-heart talk with Simon.

One the prime beneficiaries of the California budget crisis is a museum complex in Riverside (Budget leaves state in deep hole / ‘It was a get-out-alive deal more than solving any problems’):

And Assemblyman Dave Kelly, R-Idyllwild, received permission to continue spending on a swimming pool in San Jacinto and for the Western Center for Archaeology and Paleontology, both in his district.

While the budget deficit is bad for most government-supported institutions, the payoff for Republican support keeps the Western Center in business. Classic.

The latest Field Poll on the California governor’s race shows some interesting and bizarre things. Undecided voters have increased from 16 to 22 percent since July. This number usually decreases as election day approaches and voters get to know the candidates and develop a preference. That’s not happening in this race, where voters get to know the candidates and don’t like either one of them.

Field asked a question that many of us have been wondering about ever since Gray Davis duped Republicans of Principle into nominating Simon over Riordan, to wit:

The Field Poll tested the latent support for the two losing candidates in the GOP primary ? Riordan and California Secretary of State Bill Jones ? in hypothetical scenarios of each being the GOP nominee against Davis instead of Simon.

The results show that if Riordan were the GOP nominee, the former Los Angeles Mayor would be leading Davis by a wide fifteen-point margin ? 49% to 34%.

A large proportion (31%) of Democrats supports Riordan over Davis in the current survey. Riordan also gets huge support (72%) from Republican voters when paired against Davis. Among voters who currently prefer Davis over Simon, nearly one in four (23%) would leave Davis and support Riordan if the latter were on the ballot.

So there you have it, folks — a lackluster campaign by two lackluster candidates, made possible by the Republican Death Wish that nominated Simon.

One way to jazz it up is with a Riordan write-in campaign, another prospect Field surveyed:

The Field Poll attempted to measure the impact that a write-in campaign for either Riordan or Jones would have on the election outcome. The results show that when Riordan is the suggested write-in candidate he gets 24%, while Simon, the official ballot-listed GOP candidate, would get 19%. Davis still leads the field, but his total vote (36%) is seven points less than the combined Republican candidate vote of 43%.

So the margin between Riordan and Davis isn’t all that much, especially if the Green candiate, Peter Camejo, were to siphon off more than the 3% he’s polling today. Camejo has kicked his campaign into high gear with some juicy attacks on Davis:

In a Sacramento Press Club appearance that smacked of his firebrand days as a college activist, Camejo spared little time before targeting Davis.

“How do you get Gray Davis to change 180 degrees in two seconds?” Camejo asked. “Tell him the check bounced.”

If Camejo could get to 10%, and Riordan were to enter the race as a write-in, we’d have some action; if Simon were to drop out, we’d have a new governor. Bill, dude, think it over and do the right thing.

The Chronicle has an interesting little story on low-income and no-income fathers and child support today (Father grows up / From deadbeat dads to role models — program has 100 grads) focusing on a soon-to-be-eliminated Richmond program that’s been successful at collecting child support. One of the model cases is Gerald Slaughter, a dad who earns nearly $35,000 and turns a healthy chunk over to mom each month:

Slaughter now pays nearly $1,000 a month for both children, with the payments taken directly from his paycheck. In addition, he has joint custody of his youngest daughter and helps care for her and her sister part of the week.

Let’s do the math: Slaughter gets no EITC or dependent exemptions, so his take-home pay is around $2500 per month. He has the same child-related expenses as mom, as both children spend significant time with him – one half time, the other nearly half-time. Nonetheless. 40% of his income goes to mom, and not to direct spending on the kids.

Now, class, tell us who’s the deadbeat in this picture?

Get your red-hot World Summit on Sustainable Development, 2002 materials from the US State Department web site:

Secretary Powell leads a high-level, inter-agency, U.S. delegation to the summit in Johannesburg, South Africa. The summit is being held August 26-September 4, 2002. The following provides reference information on U.S. initiatives, programs, and policies relevant to the World Summit on Sustainable Development. It will be updated regularly to include official statements, interventions and additional fact sheets and official texts.

Under Secretary Dobriansky explained to the anti-
American delegates today that the US is the world leader in sustainable development, thank you very much. It’s not clear that delegates were paying attention, however, as so many have over-eaten on steak, lobster, and caviar, not to mention hookers.

The discussion on the Berman/Coble P2P Hacking Bill and how to stop it is heating up, with posts from Doc Searls, Winer, Ed Cone, and John Adams.

Winer claims he’s not actually endorsed Grubb, but is interested in her campaign only to the extent that it might illustrate something about weblogs and politics:

I have never endorsed Tara as a candidate, and of course since I live in Calif I can’t vote for her, but so many people have inferred that I have endorsed her candidacy.

Basically, I am curious to see what she will do with the medium, and so far I am totally not disappointed.

Fair enough, but he’s tap-dancing.

Doc believes I was too cynical about the born-to-lose campaign of Tara Sue Grubb when I said:

Almost invariably, the tech people who wanted to get involved in my cause thought they could accomplish the task by writing e-mail to lawmakers and to each other, mainly the latter. So they spent their time creating web sites, model laws and mailing lists instead of doing real work. Promoting a Libertarian Party member for Congress does exactly what Knauss says it does — drains off resources of time and money that could be spent doing something real.

Rather than burning resources, he believes the Grubb campaign will energize the masses of Geekdom:

Howard Coble was running unopposed until Tara showed up. Sure she’ll lose, but in the process a lot more geeks will get involved in politics. At the very least they’ll fund and support what we hope will be exactly the kind of hard work Richard talks about.

Weblogs are sowing the seeds of countless grass roots movements. At least a few are bound to grow. Just watch.

John Adams has the same experience I do with losing campaigns, that they dishearten rather than energize, and he quotes from former Chicago Alderman Dick Simpson on this point (JZip):

“A final warning. Some people will encourage you, because you are an independent, to run an ‘educational campaign’. By this slogan they mean that you should find a candidate who will take strong stands on issues–one who has never been involved in politics, at least with any winning campaigns–and back him even though you know he will lose heavily. In theory, this candidate will make beautiful speeches [editor’s note: read here “write beautiful weblogs”] and slowly begin the political education process in your district. The sad thing is that education campaign enthusiasts are right about the campaign being educational, but fail to understand what it teaches. When a candidate gets only five or ten or twenty percent of the vote, the electorate concludes that it is stupid ever to back an independent candidate because it would just be throwing away votes.

“When politicians see such a result, far from being convinced to take a more courageous stand, it reconfirms their belief that they should not heed such radicals since they have no support in the community. Never run a campaign with the intent of losing. Run to win, thereby educating the electorate to the fact that good people can be elected and teaching officeholders to mend their ways. If you have a good candidate, organize well, and work hard, it should be possible to win. You won’t win every election, but you must make a creditable try. A winning campaign, to a much greater extent than any ‘educational campaign,’ will convince more people to pay attention to issues, lead more people to join in the political process, and help bring about desired policy changes.”

Voting is obviously a part of the political process, but it’s a small part, and one that doesn’t convey messages to candidates very well. Votes for a Libertarian are going to be interpreted mainly as protest votes against the Drug War, fine and dandy but not on point as far as vigilante action on the Internet and overly-broad copyright law is concerned. You make your message clear on the issues by writing it out and getting it in front of the lawmaker, either by writing directly to him, by publishing letters and op-eds in his local paper, or by writing for an audience that can relay your message to the candidate. Those seeking to change Coble’s mind would probably find they have better access and a better chance to make their case by working for the Coble campaign rather than against it. Try that one on for size.

The point is to treat Howard Coble as a human being who can be educated, and not simply as a fire-breathing monster who must be defeated at all costs; the latter position would be OK if there was a candidate with a realistic chance, but since there’s not, it’s not. Be reasonable.

Incidentally, the Ed Cone blog is trying to be reasonable, mainly. He’s a journalist writing for Howard Coble’s local paper, and he’s opened the public dialog on the P2P Hacking Bill in the district. He’s starry eyed about Grubb, and understates his own importance in all of this (isn’t that refreshing?), but he’s a journo with a blog on a mission. Cool.

The worst legislative acts generally come from an infrequently-formed coalition of religious conservatives and ultra-liberals. Since the only thing these groups have in common is a desire to get re-elected, the bills produced by their coalition can generally be counted on to protect the incumbency, to demagogue an issue pertaining to women and children, or to feather the bed of a special interest who contributes to both. The latest example is a bill allowing casino-owning Indian tribes to block development bordering their property. Here’s a story from the San Diego Union Trib: Sacred-sites bill passes Assembly

SACRAMENTO — In a decisive vote that appears to assure final passage, the Assembly yesterday approved a measure to give Indian tribes broad new discretion over sacred sites anywhere in the state.

The contentious legislation was amended substantially on Monday to address what most agreed was express tribal veto power over projects that threatened sites considered spiritually or religiously significant.

Whether the state’s more than 100 tribes retained an indirect veto spurred a fiery debate before the Assembly passed the bill on a 53-12 vote that split party ranks and reflected tribes’ growing political clout.

The only opposition to this bill came from the small number of moderate Republicans in the Assembly, folks like Charlene Zettel and Jay La Seur. The impact of the bill comes from the fact that “sacred site” is undefined.

The governor is reported not to like the bill, and he may veto it. I doubt Simon would have the balls to oppose the Religious Right part of this coalition, personally, so sometimes it’s good to have a venal, pro-business hardass in the corner office.