WILL THE REAL JOB-KILLERS PLEASE STEP FORWARD?

Political stereotypes were turned on their heads this week when Sen. Sheila Kuehl, one of the Legislature's leading liberal voices, went to bat for the state's military bases and her conservative, pro-business critics were put in the awkward position of resisting her attempt to accommodate the Pentagon's needs.

Kuehl has taken the lead in trying to accomplish in California what the National Governors Association identifies as the No. 1 thing states can do to keep their job-producing military bases from being put on the Pentagon's hit list for next year's round of base closures: protect them from urban encroachment.

It's a sensitive issue because unobstucted flight paths over open spaces are vital to the military's flight-training and weapons-research missions in California -- and the building and real estate industries figure the last thing California needs is another justification that growth-controllers can use to try to block development on some of those open spaces. Kuehl's original proposal would have created a "Southern California Military Greenway Commission" to look out for the interests of preserving the military's special use air space. Critics said the commission would have done for inland areas what the Coastal Commission has done for its coastal areas � that is, create a new regulatory hurdle to development.

In the face of heavy opposition, Kuehl backed off from that plan and now offers a far more modest idea: a requirement that all local agencies must notify and then, upon request, meet with military officials to discuss the effects of proposed developments on military operations and training. Even at that idea, the land-development industry squirms.

It did create a priceless moment at Wednesday's hearing of the Senate Local Government Committee after a lobbyist for the California Chamber of Commerce expressed concerns over Kuehl's proposal. In years past, the chamber has labeled dozens of Kuehl's bills "job-killers" and lobbied feverishly to defeat them. Following the chamber lobbyist's testimony, Kuehl closed her argument in support of the bill by saying, "We want the military to be able to continue � not only because it's necessary to national defense, but also because we want to keep our military bases in California... I think this is important to California jobs."

THE POLITICS OF THE PERSONAL

Much has been made of the term-limit era diversity of the California Legislature. In large part because of the mandated high turnover rate, a new generation of women, Latino, Asian and gay legislators has stepped forward to permanently change what had been since statehood a club almost exclusively for white, heterosexual men. Diversity for its own sake is a good thing, but what are its practical results in terms of decisions about public policy?

A marked example was provided last week before the Assembly Judiciary Committee, when Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, presented his bill to legalize gay marriages in California. Leno, one of two gay men in the Assembly, likely would never have brought the measure forward were it not for his personal experience. There were many liberals � straights and gays alike � who urged him to back off, saying that the state's domestic partner laws already provide a wide range of rights to gay couples and that to push the gay marriage issue in a volatile election year would just create a political issue that can be used against liberals.

Leno acknowledged those concerns, but was not persuaded by them, largely because of his own life experience:

"For many years, I thought, 'Why fight a war over words?' But then the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision (ruling the state could not discriminate against same-sex marriages) made me realize that if I'm going to fight for my rights, why should I fight for second-class rights?"

The fact that some in the gay community urged him to back off on the issue, he said, is reflective the cultural pressures they have felt their entire lives. "It gets in your body, your soul, your mind that you don't want to speak up, you don't want to make too many waves."

Adding her own story of personal poignancy was Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, D-Los Angeles, who testified before the committee. Goldberg is one of three lesbians in the Legislature. "I got married on March 8," she said, explaining that she and her life-long partner went to San Francisco to obtain a marriage license during the three weeks when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome was defiantly allowing the city to so act. "The biggest shock of my life was what changed. I thought nothing would change. I was absolutely wrong. People who've known me 20, 30, 40 years have been calling with their congratulations. It represents an acceptance of my life that has never been possible before."

Such personal advocacy for the issue is a direct result of the fact that the California Legislature now reflects a reasonably representative cross-section of its population. To be sure, the diversity leads to a lot of ideological friction among lawmakers, but it is democracy at its purest.

DON'T FORGET BUTTERFLIES AND CHAD

When former Democratic National Committee Chairman Joe Andrews walked into the auditorium at the California Secretary of State's Office on Wednesday, he said it felt as if he'd stepped in from "another planet."

On Andrews' planet, the biggest worries about voting rights and fair elections have to do with antiquated, error-prone voting systems that produce high rates of spoiled ballots and votes incorrectly cast. Andrews headed up the Democratic team overseeing the counting of contested ballots in Florida after the 2000 presidential election. For all the partisan acrimony that experience engendered, Andrews said the real problem was that on so many ballots the intent of the voters who cast them was just plain uncertain. "I sat there at those tables with people who were trying to do the right thing, Democrats and Republicans," he said. "The problem was, in so many cases, you just couldn't tell."

In the aftermath of that experience, the consensus in the nation was "never again." Subsequently, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act, and allocated nearly $4 billion to help state and county elections officials replace outdated polling equipment with computerized devices that make voting easier and reduce the incidence of error.

Recent months, however, have seen what Andrews called "the Naderization" of the issue. Progressive groups have suddenly rebelled against touch-screen voting systems, concerned with hypothetical problems of hackers who could corrupt the vote-counting software. In their zeal for perfection, he argues, these corporate-conspirarcy-fearing Naderites are seeking a return to paper-based systems that have a proven history of disenfranchising large numbers of minority and low-income voters.

"There was a 5-to-7 percent error rate on punch-card ballots in Florida," he said.

Andrews said that, while he understands why some are asking for a paper trail that could be used to audit computerized vote returns, a return to paper ballots would be a step backward. "If the piece of paper becomes the actual ballot," he said, "then what we've created with touch-screen terminals is a $1,500 pencil."

Andrews intends to testify before the Secretary of State's Voting Systems and Procedures Panel today. He said he understands he has become something of a "Nixon in China" figure � a Democrat defending the high-tech voting systems that arouse suspicion from so many in his party. The critics in his party need to develop some faith in the power of the marketplace, Andrews said. Manufacturers of voting systems are exactly "like people who build airplanes: They only make money if their systems are secure."

ONE DEGREE OF SEPARATION

It probably wasn't coincidence that progress on a workers' compensation compromise reform bill speeded up this month at about the same time that the California Teachers Association and children's advocated Rob Reiner announced that they were dropping their initiative that would have created a split-roll property tax that would have increased property taxes on commercial properties.

How could an initiative proposal to raise money for schools be connected to legislation to reform how injured workers are compensated for injuries on the job? Think about the cost of running initiative campaigns and who pays.

A week before the CTA dropped its initiative, I asked Art Azevedo, president of the California Applicants Attorneys Association, whether he was concerned about his side's ability to raise money to fight a workers' compensation initiative that had been threatened by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his political allies if a legislative compromise hadn't been reaced by last Friday. After all, I noted, organized labor already has its plate full on the fall ballot, fighting a referendum that seeks to overturn the landmark, labor-sponsored law that would require large and mid-sized California businesses to provide health insurance to their workers. Would labor have enough left over to also fight a workers' comp initiative that it saw as hostile to injured workers?

"Labor's got some distractions," Azevedo responded. "But so does the other side... If you really want to talk about something that's going to cost businesses money, look at that split-roll initiative."

When the CTA took the split-roll initiative off the table, it freed up potentially millions of dollars in campaign contributions from businesses. Had the need arisen, that money could have been diverted to the campaign for a workers' comp initiative. In the end, Democratic lawmakers insisted that they weren't bullied by the threatened initiative and that it could have been defeated with an aggressive campaign. But even Senate President Pro Tem John Burton acknowledged that the odds of its passage were at least "6-to-5" in favor.

As it worked out, now both sides � business and labor � will be free to concentrate all their resources and political fire power on the referendum over mandated employer-provided health insurance. It could well be the most interesting political campaign of the fall in California.

BACK FROM A STATE THAT MATTERS

I spent much of last week � spring break for Legislature, my kids' school and me � in Nevada, where I discovered that there is a presidential election coming up in the United States this fall.

If television commercials are the only place you get your news, that election will be kept pretty much a secret in California. But Nevada is one of the 18 "swing states" that political demographers believe will determine the outcome of the fall election, and that makes all the difference.

Over a few hours of watching baseball games on ESPN, I saw the same commercial from President Bush at least four times. It begins with a quick clip of the president saying that he authorized the ad, then shows a still photo of Sen. John Kerry. It goes on to allege that Kerry voted scores of times for various tax increases and describes the Democrat's positions on economic issues as "troubling."

Just in case you thought you were missing something by not living in one of those make-or-break states...

And speaking of Nevada and taxes, l of course had to endure the usual California-bashing from the natives. "Oh, those California taxes!" they proclaim. Too bad this came before I read of last Wednesday's update from the Tax Foundation, which annually ranks states on the combined burden of state and local taxes. It placed California 26th, with a state and local tax burden of 9.8 percent of income. And where was Nevada? Only one-tenth of one percent lower, at 9.7 percent and in 30th place. Maybe that state line is a lot thinner than most Nevadans think.