In an environment where wealth inequality is a political issue, this piece makes the case that the best approach is not more government redistribution programs but rather having companies extending share ownership far more broadly. Author Mundell discuses an original way to encourage more widespread employee stock ownership.

, John Steinbeck, that great chronicler of the working class, mused that Americans never embraced socialism because the poor didn't expect to stay poor; they instead viewed themselves as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires."

Today, the mood is more somber. A working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that intergenerational mobility in the U.S. is on average no higher than in Europe. A recent Gallup poll found that Gen Z respondents were almost equally split on whether they view capitalism or socialism more favorably.

Decades ago, Congress made an earnest effort to head this off. With America’s wealth increasingly concentrated in companies, it forged a bipartisan consensus to incentivize companies to extend share ownership more broadly. By rewarding nonexecutive employee performance with company stock—in addition to wages—employees get a pro rata claim on all the future profits the firm earns. Wealth creation through equity ownership is profit sharing both now and in the future.

Imagine, for a moment, that instead of today’s gig workers and their companies being locked into a never-ending transactional dance over their status, that top-rated Uber drivers had the opportunity to earn stock in their company.

Yet despite research demonstrating mutual benefits for corporations, shareholders and employees, and elaborate government incentives (especially with ESOPs), broad-based employee ownership has barely migrated outside of Silicon Valley. Conventional wisdom points to the complexity of the ESOP program, but tinkering with it over time hasn’t helped, and meanwhile the need grows more urgent.

Before reaching for yet another government fix, shouldn’t we first see if a fully informed market can produce a solution on its own? Outside of ESOPs, there isn’t enough public reporting of employee ownership data, even for publicly traded companies. And that means there is no transparent scorecard, no easy way to compare one company to the next and, of critical importance, no way for companies to compete with each other on employee-ownership adoption.

To create that scorecard, we must make currently invisible employee-ownership data visible to all Americans. The tool required is a public-facing Employee Ownership (EO) Index, in effect, a “company Gini coefficient” that measures employee stock ownership within and between companies. The power of such an index shouldn’t be underestimated. In addition to potentially impacting market value, it’s a way for companies to signal their good intentions.

The ESG (which asks stockholders to consider a company's commitment to environment, social and governance issues when making investment decisions) taught us just how sensitive corporations are about their reputations, even with regard to societal problems they aren’t fully equipped to solve. In contrast, broad-based employee ownership is completely within their control and totally consistent with profit maximization. The EO Index offers both companies and the public a flashlight to reveal which companies are leading, which are following and which are impeding change on this defining issue for the future of democratic capitalism in the U.S.

Our nonprofit organization, Work to Own, along with a team from Harvard Business School and other leading institutions, is releasing a first-ever Employee Ownership Index for the S&P 500. Though it will require further refinement because of the data limitations, we believe it will create a new market standard for measuring broad-based ownership that will encourage a race to the top.

The SEC could greatly improve the robustness of the rankings by mandating that companies disclose employee stock compensation by income cohort, but until then, Work to Own will be supplementing our existing measure with surveys of the leading companies to produce a more definitive ranking of the S&P 500.

The more robust the tool, the more empowered companies will be as change agents, and the less demand there will be on government to expand redistributive programs. For while progressively larger rounds of redistribution have improved the living standards of the poorest Americans and strengthened the safety net, they haven’t solved the economic mobility problem and, arguably, have imposed huge costs on the efficient functioning of the market economy.

Rather than continue this course, we must find solutions that expand wealth from the bottom up. Then, and only then can the founding vision of America be restored, and, as Steinbeck described in another essay, can the working class once again be “temporarily embarrassed capitalists.”

—William A. Mundell, Founder and Chairman of Work to Own, and Chairman of Neurosphere Entertainment.

Making Corporations The Change Agents To Jumpstart Economic Mobility

Forbes.com

Washington is appropriating tens of billions of dollars to rebuild New Orleans and the devastated Gulf Coast region. But one measure that would cost little and quickly spur an inspiring revival of this impacted area would be making the region a true free-enterprise zone.

Residents and local businesses would be free from both federal and state capital gains levies. Parents would have genuine school choice: If they wanted to move their children to another school, they'd get a voucher or coupon equivalent to the amount spent per pupil in their current school. Pre-Katrina property tax rates would be slashed. Give people who currently live in the region or who move to it an income tax holiday: no taxes owed to Uncle Sam or state capitals for, say, ten years.

With those kinds of incentives small businesses would flourish--a handful might even become tomorrow's Microsoft or Intel or Apple or Oracle. Job opportunities would proliferate. So would good schools. People would gladly migrate to the region and build anew. Critics may cry that all this would give the area an unfair advantage vis-à-vis the rest of the country. Precisely. Which would lead to another constructive move--making the entire country a true free-enterprise zone. America would prosper as never before.

Thank goodness we have accepted the Netherlands' offer to send experts on levees and levee reconstruction. That country has an extraordinarily sophisticated system of dikes and floodgates.

The Netherlands underwent a Katrina-like disaster in 1953. Like New Orleans, much of Holland lies below sea level. The dikes broke, and 1,800 people lost their lives. Holland put in a three-tier system of levees, and its North Sea floodgates are considered a marvel of modern ingenuity.

So let's take seriously the advice of these experts on how to protect New Orleans in the future and which parts of the city should be rebuilt and which left unrestored.

Out of the Katrina disaster might come--finally-a renewed sense of seriousness concerning energy.

•Oil refineries. There hasn't been a new one built in the U.S. in nearly 30 years. Yes, the petroleum industry has been remarkably creative in increasing output from existing plants, but new ones are needed. The President should push for legislation to clear obstacles, particularly delay-it-to-death environmental lawsuits and regulations. The Environmental Protection Agency, for instance, has an array of rules that force refineries to produce a variety of gasolines to meet regional environmental standards, especially during the summer. Their effectiveness is debatable; the fact that they increase gasoline costs and reduce gasoline output is not. Most of these regulations were suspended temporarily after Hurricane Katrina. Why not scrap them altogether?

•Congress should allow oil exploration in a small part of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). In essence we're talking about a handful of acres here, the equivalent of a sugar cube in New York City. And we're not talking about sweeping, awe-inspiring forests: This region is bleak, even in summertime. Moreover, the oil industry has again and again proven its ability to drill in and then restore impacted terrain.

•Congress should also permit exploration and drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), including areas off the shores of Florida and California. Some 85% of these waters are off-limits. Thankfully, drilling technology and practices have improved substantially in the last 30 years, sharply reducing the possibility of spills. Experience has demonstrated that even when spills do occur, the affected areas recover rapidly. The amounts of offshore oil and natural gas are stupendous. If these reserves were developed, our dependence on overseas energy sources would considerably lessen.

President Bush could help to once and for all pop the oil-price bubble by selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve on a more regular basis. Before the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, speculators knew that Uncle Sam was a buyer of last resort. There is no fundamental reason that petroleum prices should be almost three times the level they were three years ago.

California entrepreneur Bill Mundell--founder and CEO of Vidyah, a leading private educational organization--is spearheading a citizens' effort to attack one of the major corrupters of American politics today: gerrymandering. Thanks to high tech, politicians can now establish district lines that effectively make elections for state legislatures and for the House of Representatives uncompetitive.

In California last November not one incumbent was defeated in elections for the state legislature or Congress. Not one of the 153 seats up for grabs--53 congressional seats and 100 in the state legislature--changed party hands. As has often been observed, the U.S. is becoming a democracy in which the politicians choose the voters rather than the other way around. Aside from a handful of notable exceptions such as Iowa, states more or less follow California's Soviet-style approach to drawing voting district lines.

Mundell chairs Californians for Fair Redistricting, which is pushing for passage this November of Proposition 77, the Voter Empowerment Act. The initiative would establish a nonpartisan panel of judges to draw competitive and compact district lines. No longer would boundaries resemble a Jackson Pollock painting. Competition would be restored--and with it infinitely greater accountability.

You'd think that with more and more pols ensconced in safe districts, they'd act more responsibly. Quite the opposite--special interests have gained more influence, and spending has reached irresponsible proportions. Gerrymandering is one reason California politics has become so dysfunctional. Needed reforms are dead-on-arrival in the state legislature.

It's no wonder that Proposition 77 is despised by most Golden State politicos. California State Attorney General Bill Lockyer tried throwing Proposition 77 off the ballot on minor technicalities. Fortunately the state Supreme Court blocked Lockyer's insidiously cynical maneuver, and Proposition 77 is back on the ballot.

If successful, this initiative will set an inspiring precedent for similar redistricting reform efforts in the rest of the country. And Mundell will rightly become a political force to be reckoned with.

Bridgeclimb, an Australian company at the base of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, does a brisk business selling so-called bridge climbs (

,). New York City should set up a similar operation at the Brooklyn Bridge. Enterprising souls are willing to do it, including those who currently run the Sydney concern. Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani wanted the city to do just that several years ago, but Big Apple government lawyers howled that the city would lose money from the liability suits brought not by the bereaved families of those who accidentally spill into the river below (as Rich Karlgaard points out, the Aussies do everything they can to make the jaunt safe, including cabling climbers to the bridge itself) but by people who stub their toes and bang their knees, etc.

Still, the idea is a great one. I climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and it's a captivating thrill. Mayor Bloomberg should make a Brooklyn Bridge climb part of his reelection platform. It would win votes, and the inauguration of such a climb would be a great way to kick off his second term. New Yorkers would probably take to the bridge experience even more than Sydney-siders have.

What about those possible liability suits? Would-be Brooklyn Bridge climbers should have to sit through a safety lecture and sign multiple pieces of paper acknowledging that this trek is no cakewalk. Of course, a plethora of lawsuits could, in a perverse way, do some good: Such suits might push the normally nonsensical City Council or the New York State legislature to enact a wee bit of tort reform.

forbes.com

Steve Forbes -  Fact and Comment

Trying to Pry the Gerrymander Out of Politics

wsj.com

Several months of quiet whispers have quickly turned into a resounding buzz -- and a nervous buzz, no less -- about a case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court that questions whether it's constitutional for independent state commissions to have the sole power to draw political district maps.

The case is centered on Arizona, but the buzz being heard on this side of the Colorado River arises from the fear that if a lower court's ruling is thrown out, California may very well be next in the return to partisan congressional gerrymandering.

It explains why everyone from legal scholars to three former California governors is asking to be heard before the nation's highest court.

Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission

, now scheduled to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in March. And the argument being made by Arizona's legislative leaders in their quest to outlaw the state's redistricting commission is pretty simple: The U.S. Constitution, they say, vests all power over congressional elections in state legislatures -- and no one else.

The legal fight has been brewing for a long time. Arizona voters approved 

 in 2000 that created an independent redistricting commission. A decade later,California voters 

assigned the drawing of congressional districts

 to a similar panel (after giving the panel 

Now, a swarm of Californians are filing 

Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission

California Citizens Redistricting Commission

 depends on what happens in Washington, D.C., before the end of 2015.

While California's commissioners have filed their own 

 in support of the Arizona panel, their fight was joined on Friday by 

 from three former California governors -- George Deukmejian, Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Of those, Schwarzenegger has the most to lose in terms of his legacy, as he was a driving force behind 

the two initiatives that wrestled control of political map drawing away from the Legislature

The governors were joined in their filing by the California Chamber of Commerce as well as wealthy activists 

 -- two big money backers of the redistricting initiatives.

It's fascinating that the California cavalry is rushing in to defend its Arizona compatriots now, given that this effort to kill Arizona's redistricting commission is pretty much down to its last swing of the bat. A U.S. District Court ruled against Arizona's legislative leaders last February, and it's not exactly clear that the Supreme Court justices will even consider all of the arguments made by legislators seeking to regain their redistricting power. Perhaps, but everyone still sees the stakes as high.

"The Arizona litigation," said California Chamber of Commerce President Allan Zaremberg, "jeopardizes the will of the California electorate and its embrace of fair redistricting and competitive elections."

For the average observer, the crux of the case may be this: Is the power of Arizona voters to write legislation -- legislation written through the ballot initiative process -- equivalent to the legislative power over elections in Article I, Section IV of the Constitution:

The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators.

Arizona's legislative leaders say, quite simply: no way. In 

their December filing with the U.S. Supreme Court

, they argue the above passage is crystal clear:

"The term 'the Legislature' is clear and explicit and has an unambiguous meaning repeatedly recognized by the Framers and this Court: the representative lawmaking body of a State. In the Constitution, the Framers carefully assigned particular obligations to particular State-level entities, whether the 'people,' the 'legislature,' the 'executive,' or the 'State' generally. That precise division of labor leaves no doubt that they intended that 'the Legislature' -- meaning the representative lawmaking body -- be the entity that 'prescribe[s]...Regulations governing redistricting."

Arizona's independent redistricting commission

 is selected by a different process than the one in California, though Golden State activists and lawmakers may have used parts of the Arizona process to help shape the final details that were drafted in 2007.

In Arizona, the independent commission has five members. Four of them are chosen by the state's legislative leaders from a pool vetted by a judicial commission; the chairperson of the commission is then selected (out of the remaining applicants) by the four commissioners.

In California, the panel is 14 members. Eight commissioners are chosen at random, from a pool of applicants vetted by the state auditor but from which each of the four legislative leaders is able to reject six names. Those eight commissioners then choose six colleagues from the remaining applicants.

From a layman's perspective, if Arizona legislators are successful in convincing the Supreme Court that they been stripped of their right to have a role in crafting congressional maps -- 

even though the Arizona system allows top lawmakers to pick four-fifths of the commission

 -- then it would seem much easier for California's legislators, who have a much smaller role, to argue they, too, have been wronged. Remember, the entire political campaign was about stripping politicians of their power to draw congressional districts.

(And in case you're confused, the pending Supreme Court case is only about drawing 

 districts, not those for Arizona's Legislature.)

Most states across the nation continue to have their political maps drawn by legislators -- a power that's led to countless charges of districts skewed by gerrymandering for partisan gain. And that's what supporters of independent redistricting say will happen again if the high court strips the Arizona commission of its power to craft the state's nine congressional districts.

"The Arizona Legislature's lawsuit is just an effort to get the foxes back in the henhouse," said Kathay Feng, executive director of California Common Cause and one of the authors of the California redistricting laws.

In California, a redistricting process dominated by majority Democrats in the Legislature would undoubtedly produce more Democrats and fewer Republicans in the state's congressional delegation, though leaders of both parties in the state Capitol opted for a map that protected incumbents in 2001, the final once-in-a-decade redrawing before the independent commission took over.

Even some members of Congress don't want to go back.

“Districts drawn by incumbents to protect their jobs makes politicians less accountable to their constituents," says Rep. Julia Brownley, a Ventura County Democrat. She and 19 other incumbents filed their own amicus brief in hopes of blocking the rollback effort by legislators in Arizona.

A Gerrymandering Comeback in California … via Arizona?

kqed.org

Politics Gerrymandering kqed

Three former California governors are wading in to an Arizona elections case before the Supreme Court that could have major implications on how California draws its congressional and legislative districts.

Former Govs. George Deukmejian, Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger, along with the California Chamber of Commerce, GOP mega-donor Charles T. Munger Jr. and entrepreneur Bill Mundell, submitted a brief late Friday stating their support for an independent commission that crafts a state’s districts, rather than restricting the task to state legislatures.

Arizona, like California, has an independent panel that draws the state’s districts. But Arizona’s legislature wants to take the job back and has challenged the constitutionality of allowing such a committee to determine district boundaries. They argue that legislators alone have that power.

The case is set to go before the Supreme Court in March.

California’s redistricting panel was created by a 2008 ballot initiative to draw state legislative districts; in 2010, voters approved extending its authority to draw congressional districts as well.

, the governors and their allies said that “for decades, the California Legislature abused its power to adopt congressional districts, at times adopting highly partisan gerrymandered districts ... and at other times adopting bipartisan ‘sweetheart’ gerrymanders designed to insulate incumbents of both major parties from electoral competition.”

The brief asserts that the Constitution allows voters to use the initiative process -- as they did in California and Arizona -- to delegate the redistricting power to an independent panel.

“The lines drawn by California’s Citizens Redistricting Commission have resulted in the fairest and most competitive elections in California history,” said CalChamber President and CEO Allan Zaremberg in a statement.

He added that the “Arizona litigation jeopardizes the will of the California electorate and its embrace of fair redistricting and competitive elections.”

Zaremberg said, in a follow-up interview, that the brief’s signatories were those who had “taken a leadership role in fair redistricting.”

The group has a noticeably GOP tilt -- the three governors are all Republican and Munger is a major party donor. Rick Hasen, a law professor at UC Irvine, said such an assemblage could be helpful in convincing Justice Anthony Kennedy, a likely swing vote on the issue.

“If, as in many cases, Anthony Kennedy is the swing voter, he is that same kind of moderate Republican as George Deukmejian, as the Chamber of Commerce,” Hasen said. “That’s the kind of Republican Justice Kennedy was before he was a judge.”

If the Supreme Court finds the independent redistricting commission to be unconstitutional, that would almost certainly pave the way for a challenge to the district maps drawn in California in 2011.

Hasen said the ripple effects could extend further to other California electoral reforms done by initiative, such as the open primary system.

“Anything that could affect how federal elections are conducted -- to the extent it would be done without the Legislature -- could be subject to being unconstitutional” if the court finds against the redistricting commission, Hasen said.

3 former California governors back independent redistricting

latimes.com

Politics Gerrymandering 3 former california governors

With the census nearly complete, states next year will redraw congressional and legislative lines.

Steve Forbes - Reenfranchising Voters

The esoteric subject of who draws California’s political districts has morphed into a high-drama affair this fall, a multimillion-dollar struggle with political intrigue stretching from Sacramento to Washington and even, some suggest, to Israel.

It’s a battle about power, Nancy Pelosi and control of Congress, pitting a Los Angeles billionaire against the son of Warren Buffett’s business partner. There’s racial strife and even a full-length documentary in the mix.

All this over two competing ballot measures, Propositions 20 and 27, which would overhaul the arcane, once-a-decade redrawing of political districts in the nation’s most populous state.

“It’s really frankly very dull to most people — and yet so important,” said Bill Mundell, executive producer of Gerrymandering, a documentary released this month about how political districts can be contorted. Backers of Proposition 20 have sent 660,000 DVDs of the movie to California voters.

Every 10 years, after the U.S. Census, lines must be redrawn to ensure that legislative and congressional districts have equal populations. For years, in nearly every state, state legislators drew those lines. Critics say the process has allowed lawmakers to choose their voters, rather than the other way around. The last set of California maps, drafted in 2001, protected incumbents so thoroughly that no seats switched party control in more than 300 elections in the state in 2002 and 2004.

Two years ago, Californians approved a ballot measure, Proposition 11, stripping legislators of power to draw their own districts’ boundaries and handing that authority to an independent citizens’ commission.

Now, two competing Nov. 2 ballot measures offer voters divergent paths going forward: Proposition 20 would double-down on the still-forming citizens’ panel, allowing it to draw maps for Congress too. Proposition 27 would scrap it entirely. If both measures pass, the one with more votes would be enacted.

The initiatives have lured roughly $20 million in campaign money — and both were placed on the ballot by big donors who, their opponents hint, have mixed motivations.

Charles T. Munger Jr., the son of Buffett’s business partner and a big GOP donor, and his wife have injected more than $12.5 million of their fortune to pass Proposition 20. He casts the campaign as completing the job voters began when they passed Proposition 11 in 2008.

“Districts are drawn like fortresses for incumbents of both parties,” said Munger, a physicist.

The billionaire on the other side is Haim Saban, a Los Angeles Democrat and entertainment mogul who provided a $2-million loan this spring that paid for signature gatherers to get Proposition 27 on the ballot. Saban is the unlikeliest of bankrollers; in 2008, he contributed $200,000 to the campaign to create the citizens commission that Proposition 27 would unravel.

Saban may have provided the answer back in 2004. “I’m a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel,” he said in an interview with the New York Times that year. Mundell and other opponents of Proposition 27 have connected his change of heart to his desire to protect the congressional seat of Rep. Howard Berman (D-Valley Village), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a staunch supporter of Israel.

Berman, his brother Michael Berman, a redistricting expert, and Pelosi (D- San Francisco) have been the leading political organizers behind Proposition 27, said Daniel Lowenstein, the measure’s author and an emeritus professor at UCLA’s law school.

Saban declined to be interviewed. His spokeswoman, Cassandra Bujarski, said in a statement that Saban believes the redistricting commission, which has yet to be fully formed, “hasn’t worked out as intended because the state’s diverse population has not been adequately represented in the process of selecting members.” Records show his loan has been repaid.

Whatever Saban’s motivation, Berman’s district provides an interesting case study in how gerrymandering is used in California.

The issue is often cast in terms of partisan balance — Democrats versus Republicans. And in some parts of California, strategic drawing of boundaries can tilt a district one way or the other.

But in many parts of the state — much of Los Angeles County, for example — the population is so one-sidedly partisan that almost no amount of line-drawing could elect a representative from the other party. Instead, lines are drawn with an eye more toward the primary election than the general.

In Berman’s case, lawmakers in the last round of redistricting, nearly 10 years ago, redrew the boundaries of his 28th congressional district to leave out some heavily Latino neighborhoods, insulating the congressman from the threat of a Latino challenger.

Racial and ethnic tensions have often played a role in redistricting battles and have also dogged the citizen commission. The selection process for the panel drew criticism early in 2010 for under-representing minorities. The crop of 60 finalists has proved more diverse, with 17 Latinos, 10 Asians, eight African Americans and four Native Americans among those still in the running to be on the 14-member panel.

Both sides have tried to use the issue of race in the current campaign.

In the official voter guide mailed to 11 million California homes, former national NAACP Chairman Julian Bond called Proposition 20 “insulting to all Californians.”

“Jim Crow districts are a thing of the past,” Bond said, adding that Proposition 20 “sets back the clock on redistricting law.”

The Yes on 20 campaign had California NAACP President Alice Huffman sign the rebuttal to those remarks. Huffman has been paid nearly $100,000 by the Yes on 20 effort for her strategic advice and outreach to black voters. She has been criticized in recent years for being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by ballot campaigns that the state NAACP has endorsed while she has been president.

Some Democrats suggest that Proposition 20 is a tool to dilute their power. Democrats firmly control the state Legislature and thus the current map-drawing system. Pelosi could try to bolster the number of Democrats elected to the House in 2012 by influencing the way congressional district lines are drawn next year.

Pelosi and 17 California House Democrats each contributed at least $10,000 to promote Proposition 27 to abolish the citizens’ commission.

Munger dismissed the notion that he wants to influence elections for GOP gain, arguing that he could lavish funds on GOP candidates — or run for office himself. “If this is a Republican plot, it’s an awfully stupid one,” he said.

Competing propositions take aim at California redistricting

Politics Competing propositions take aim

 defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

We've seen redistricting initiatives appear on the California ballot and, except for 2008, all have failed. Reformers have struggled with the burden of trying to pitch a complex "inside baseball" issue that is loved by political junkies but very hard to explain simply to the general public.

That's why we decided to make the movie "Gerrymandering," which has received critical acclaim and will open in theaters throughout the country this week. In fact, hundreds of thousands of copies of our film will be sent directly to homes in California. My hope is that this will lead voters to vote yes on Proposition 20 (which would give the existing redistricting commission the power to draw the new district lines for Congress) and no on Proposition 27 (which would eliminate the commission altogether).

Gerrymandering is America's best-kept secret. It has effectively disenfranchised the majority of voters - and they don't even know it. But they do know our country's infrastructure is crumbling, our economy has cratered and our government is broken. It turns out our ability to address those problems is directly affected by the arcane rules of redistricting.

 wrote that "the genius of representative government comes from excluding the people in their collective capacity from the direct business of governing." It's a terrific idea, but it presumes a well-functioning, responsive system.

The failure of representative democracy in this state has led citizens to overutilize the initiative process to express their will. Originally conceived as a reserve power, the initiative has become a full partner to the legislative process. This initiative inflation has given us unfunded, uncoordinated mandates that cannot be adjusted to deal with changing circumstances, leading directly to our recurring budget disaster. Whoever is elected governor of California in November will be trapped by this system.

The passage of Prop. 20 and the defeat of Prop. 27 will take the power to draw the district lines for Congress away from the politicians and give it back to the people. Fair district lines are sure to again produce a significant number of competitive House races in those areas of the state with both 

Even if redistricting reform doesn't produce a single newly competitive district, taking the power to draw lines away from the party caucuses still will have a salutary effect on our representative democracy.

When the line-drawing process is in the hands of the party leaders, legislators feel compelled to toe the party line to preserve their futures. If it does nothing else, redistricting reform will empower intra-party dissenters in a way that enhances the free flow of ideas that should be a normal part of the legislative process. This reform is unquestionably an initiative of the people and not of the politicians nor of the special interests that control them. An honest redistricting system will give us the chance to overcome the undemocratic and self-interested schemes of career politicians.

Prop. 20: Fair redistricting empowers dissenters

sfgate.com

Bill Mundell: Most voters lose with gerrymandering

ocregister.coom

the orange county register - bill mundell

There Is No Perfect Electoral System

‚Kooky‘ Monster

California and the Right of Initiative

Incredibly, the state of California, the 8th largest economy in the world, doesn't have a complete balance sheet. It's not a question of bankruptcy, taxes, or services, but of redeploying the state's significant assets.

Question: How do you run California without a balance sheet?

We all know about California's liabilities, the $72 billion in debt, the $100 billion plus in unfunded pension liabilities, IOU's, etc. But, where is the list of the state's assets? Incredibly, the state of California, the 8th largest economy in the world, doesn't have a complete balance sheet.

California needs to show the world that our state isn't bankrupt, isn't in dire need of raising taxes or cutting essential services. How? By redeploying its significant assets.

Some of these assets are tangible, like the Rose Bowl, or our University system, others are not, like the value of a large and technologically advanced workforce. California is not only home to some of the best beaches and most beautiful parks in the world, but the busiest ports, major airports, and a DMV whose revenue is the largest in the United States. In total, it has some 22,000 different properties recorded, most of which are vastly underutilized. California is not bankrupt. It's just not making effective use out of what it has right under its nose. If we did, we would not need to cut spending or raise taxes.

We need to leverage the tools of modern finance to ensure premium value for the assets held in the public trust. That means using the capital and expertise of the private sector to create partnerships with the state so that the assets can become more valuable over time and create more revenue for the state. It does not mean selling public assets outright. That's old school. Few in our state would want to do that, especially in a down market.

But through leasing arrangements, and especially by pooling assets together, something that is second nature in modern finance, but that has not been done before with public assets, we can not only ensure premium value, but also raise significant revenues upfront, money that can be used to pay down debt, and even build a reserve, a rainy day fund of sorts for the future.

Where to start? How about the DMV, a woefully inefficient $3.5 billion behemoth bereft of adequate technology investments and likely one of the least popular points of interaction with the state for citizens. Talk about nothing to lose.

What I'm proposing is a far cry from mere "privatization" which means handing over control to the private sector. In my proposal, the state is capitalizing on the private sector's money and expertise but keeping ultimate ownership and control over key decisions. My plan includes a comprehensive regulatory body, similar in nature to the public utility commissions that define the ground rules for price increases and maintaining the integrity of state property.

Australia, an economy significantly smaller than California's, was saddled with 100 billion Aussie dollars of debt in the mid 1990's. In April 2006, their central bank announced that all of the country's debt had been paid off. Thanks largely to redeploying its public assets, Australia now has an $80 billion rainy day fund called the future fund. California, under my plan, can do the same thing.

California is sitting on an embarrassment of riches. Some estimates say the land value alone is worth more than $200 billion, more than enough to pay off all of our debt and have $100 billion left over for our fund for the future.

I have asked Governor Schwarzenegger to issue an executive order to form the California Enterprise Commission. This commission would be responsible for valuing the State's assets, selecting which ones should be part of a first ever California Enterprise Fund, and finding the type of marquis investors that once and for all can shift the whole psychology about the state.

To paraphrase Mark Twain: "the reports of California's demise have been greatly exaggerated." We have technology, incredible weather, education, great citizens and all the resources needed to get us back on track. What I'm proposing is a sound plan to make it happen.

In Support of a California Enterprise Commission

huffpost.com

Bill Mundell, the only Republican making serious preparations to challenge U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s bid for reelection, said Tuesday he has decided not to run, leaving the GOP with no clear contender for one of California’s top races for 2006.

The move by Mundell, an education software executive, reflects the difficulty Republicans face in finding a strong candidate to challenge the popular Democratic incumbent.

In an interview, Mundell said he was willing to spend several million dollars of his own money on the race, but would have needed to collect much more from donors to mount a viable campaign. He said his conversations with the party’s major contributors in California made clear that donors do not plan to put substantial money behind any push to oust Feinstein, and he had no interest in running a “vanity campaign.”

Mundell, chief executive of Vidyah Inc., had raised his public profile this year as a major supporter of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Nov. 8 ballot measure to strip state lawmakers of their power to draw district maps for themselves and members of Congress.

Republican campaign consultant Dave Gilliard said the absence of a Republican to run against Feinstein reflects the party’s lack of a “strong bench” of candidates -- especially for a race against an incumbent Democrat who has cultivated a moderate image.

“Very few want to take on someone like Dianne Feinstein,” he said.

As of the end of September, Feinstein had $5.2 million in the bank for her reelection run. After 13 years in the Senate, Feinstein can easily raise millions more. Given federal limits on campaign donations and the dwindling time left before the election, it will be increasingly difficult for a Republican to raise enough money to mount a credible fight against Feinstein.

With hotly contested Senate races in other states, the national Republican Party appears unlikely to pour resources into the contest in California, which has strongly favored Democrats in recent years. As a result, the GOP’s best prospect to challenge Feinstein would more likely be a rich candidate whose personal fortune could bankroll the campaign. Feinstein barely defeated such a candidate in 1994 when she was challenged by then-Rep. Michael Huffington.

“There will obviously be people who want to run,” said Feinstein campaign strategist Bill Carrick. “It’s just a question of whether there will be anybody credible who wants to run.”

Mundell Will Not Challenge Sen. Feinstein

Bill Mundell has carved a lonely spot for himself in California politics: The wealthy technology executive is the sole Republican openly weighing a serious run to unseat U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

“If I make a decision to go forward with this, I will give Dianne Feinstein a run for her money,” said Mundell, whose last campaign, a state Assembly race, ended in defeat 19 years ago.

California faces no shortage of Republicans elbowing their path to statewide office. More than a dozen are raising money to run next year.

Yet none of the state’s hundreds of GOP elected officials has stepped forward to take on Feinstein, a Democrat whose moderate record has kept her largely in sync with California voters -- and whose popularity as she seeks a fourth Senate win has given pause to aspiring challengers.

Into that void has stepped Mundell, 45, a West Hollywood millionaire whose rumblings about a Senate run have left strategists in both parties asking the same question: Who is he?

The absence of a well-known candidate to run against Feinstein highlights the Republican Party’s continuing struggle to overcome the Democratic dominance of California that solidified a decade ago.

“It’s an uphill battle,” said Gary Jacobson, a UC San Diego political science professor who described prospects for a broad Republican recovery in California as bleak.

A fast rise in the ranks of independent voters -- now 3.7 million in all -- has eroded both major parties in California. But registered Democrats still outnumber Republicans, 7.2 million to 5.7 million.

Because independents typically side with Democrats, voting patterns reflect an even stronger tilt. Democrats hold eight of 10 statewide offices. By wide margins, they outnumber Republicans in both houses of the Legislature and in California’s delegation to Congress. President Bush lost California by 1.2 million votes to Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry.

That said, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has lifted at least some of the Republican gloom. Though mired in political setbacks of late, he broke his party’s losing streak in the 2003 recall and could prove formidable in a reelection fight if he opts to run.

Yet take away the Hollywood superstar, analysts say, and Republicans still lack a field of well-known, viable contenders for such top jobs as governor and U.S. senator.

Some potential candidates -- Republican members of Congress -- have been loath to give up safe seats and Washington seniority for an uphill fight. The high cost of campaigning in the vast state adds to the party’s difficulty in mounting a comeback and enhances the appeal of wealthy newcomers such as Mundell who can put up their own money.

Among the party’s main troubles is lasting damage from the Latino backlash against former Gov. Pete Wilson’s push for Proposition 187, the 1994 ballot measure aimed at curbing public services for illegal immigrants.

Also thwarting Republicans: Statewide primaries tend to produce conservative nominees whose stands on abortion, guns and other matters put them out of step with the Democrats and independents who hold sway in general elections.

Since the mid-1990s, “we just haven’t had that many good candidates, and part of it is that the right wing is too conservative for this state,” said pollster Dick Dresner, a Republican who worked for Wilson.

In a U.S. Senate race, Republicans are further hobbled by the national party’s ties to the religious right, whose agenda is unpopular in California.

“I don’t care how good the Republican is, he’s going to get stuck with the national Republican platform,” said Tony Quinn, editor of the California Target Book election guide.

Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer beat her Republican challenger last year by a 20-point margin. Feinstein defeated hers in 2000 by a 19-point margin.

For all that, Mundell does not sound like a man facing the gallows.

“I don’t share the consensus point of view that Dianne Feinstein is unbeatable,” he said between bites of a vegetarian burrito at lunch in Beverly Hills.

“If I go in, I will go in to win,” he said. “And if I go in, I will go in because I feel I can win.”

Mundell is a world traveler: He grew up in Geneva, Switzerland; Bologna, Italy; Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa, Canada; Chicago and Washington, D.C.

His father, Robert A. Mundell, who teaches monetary theory at Columbia University, won the Nobel Memorial Prize in economics in 1999.

The son, who holds master’s degrees from Columbia in business and international affairs, moved to Los Angeles in 1984. Two years later, he ran for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic Assemblyman Tom Hayden on the Westside.

Mundell, then 25, lost the primary. But he went on to success in the corporate world. In the 1990s, he was chief executive of the WEFA Group, an economic consulting and forecasting firm based in Philadelphia.

Now he is chairman and chief executive of Vidyah Inc., and chairman of TeckChek Inc. Both are offshoots of the online education empire set up by Michael Milken, the junk-bond titan, and Larry Ellison, co-founder of software giant Oracle Corp.