One Pension Scheme Shelved – New Ballot Measure Planned
Chuck Reed and Carl DeMaio announced they will not be circulating for signatures the pension initiative they previously announced earlier this year-while promising to announce two more pension initiatives. The decision reflects, again, that Reed and company can’t “handle the truth” about their pension schemes.
The recently aborted initiative was a full-fledged assault on the pensions of current employees, and an attempt to eviscerate collective bargaining. As mandated by law, the California Attorney General accurately and truthfully created a ballot initiative title and summary, exposing as a lie Reed and DeMaio’s characterization of the initiative. No doubt mindful of a 2014 court ruling that upheld the Attorney General’s title and summary of Reed’s previous pension initiative; the duo chose not the challenge the interpretation in court.
This of course, did not stop Reed and DeMaio from attacking the summary-but that backfired. Even allies called them out for their duplicity. For example, newspaper columnist Daniel Borenstein wrote that the Attorney General’s summary was accurate, and bluntly stated Reed and DeMaio “shouldn’t continue to falsely pitch the measure.”
However, Chuck Reed and Carl DeMaio are clearly desperate to try to avoid accurate descriptions of their initiatives because there is no public support for what they wish to do. A recent public opinion poll revealed that a less than 1/3 of voters believe public employee pensions are a big problem, the lowest number in a decade.
Chuck Reed has had a rough summer, with the San Jose City Council voting to ask a judge to invalidate Reed’s 2012 Measure B pension initiative, a pension initiative that led to the devastation of public safety in San Jose. Carl DeMaio has fared no better — his new occupation of radio talk show host, following failed mayoral and Congressional campaigns, saw his co-host quit after several months rather than continue to work with DeMaio.
Carl DeMaio has recently promised not one, but two, new pension initiatives which he boasts will get around the “political obstacles” of the Attorney General Title and Summaries of Initiatives. However, both the courts and even his close political allies agree that the Title and Summaries of pension initiatives which Reed and DeMaio consider obstacles are simply accurate statements of what the dangerous duo have proposed. What Reed and DeMaio can’t get around, and what they can’t handle, is the truth.
Please read our five previous blogs that detail the pension issue and the financial disaster that Chuck Reed and Carl DeMaio still want to create: (1) Attorney General: Reed initiative eliminates constitutional protections for vested pension benefits (2) The destruction Chuck Reed wants to bring to California (3) Attention Shoppers: Don’t Sign that Misleading Pension Petition! (4) Your Pension is Under Attack and (5) Fuzzy Math Continues To Drive Public Pension Hysteria. If you want to learn more about pensions, we encourage you to visit Let’s Talk Pensions.
The Association of Deputy District Attorneys (ADDA) is the collective bargaining agent and represents nearly 1,000 Deputy District Attorneys who work for the County of Los Angeles.
