Month: February 2014

California’s Quietest Reform

California has adopted a lot of high-profile political reforms recently, including a new way of drawing district lines and a radically open primary system. But there’s another reform that is transforming the state legislature without attracting nearly as much national attention.

In June 2012, California voters approved Proposition 28, an important change to the state’s term limits law. Before the reform, a single person could serve a maximum of three two-year terms in the Assembly and two four-year terms in the Senate, a total of 14 years. Under the new law, a person can serve up to 12 years in the Assembly, the Senate, or both. The reform sounds like a tightening of term limits—12 is less than 14—but because legislators no longer face a limit in each chamber, the average length of service will probably increase significantly.

A lot of people have blamed dysfunction in the legislature on the old term limits. Observers have argued that the legislature is short on the kind of relationships and expertise that develop over time, which has led to acrimony and reliance on the expertise of lobbyists. Also, it is often said that members looking to build their records as quickly as possible flood the legislature with unimportant bills, while big problems linger because they take too much time and expertise to address.

When will we know whether the new term limits are helping? Sooner than you might think. Turnover in the legislature has been high since the law took effect. Redistricting helped force a lot of retirements in 2012, a few incumbents lost to newcomers, and there have been several special elections in 2013 to fill vacated seats. As a result, more than half of the Assembly (42 out of 80) is already covered by the new limits.

The new law’s effect on the Senate has been smaller: only two senators, Richard Roth and Andy Vidak, are covered by the new limits. But that’s because termed-out members of the Assembly dominate Senate races and probably will for a while to come. So even though it may take longer for the Senate to switch over, it’s less important if we’re concerned about expertise: since most senators are former members of the Assembly, they already have legislative experience.

Regardless what happens in the Senate, the pace of turnover in the Assembly won’t slow down much. Sixteen assemblymembers will term out this year, and it looks like another seven will be stepping down anyway. When the dust settles this fall, no more than 17 members of the Assembly will be covered under the old limits. The rest will be legally free to serve for at least another 10 years—in some cases 12.

The new California Legislature is coming, ready or not.

Will Uninsured Californians Get Health Care? Most Say Yes

California’s health insurance exchange, Covered California, has enrolled more than 625,000 people under the Affordable Care Act. However, many eligible enrollees have yet to sign up, including a disproportionate share of Latinos. But if residents follow through on the intentions they express in PPIC Statewide Surveys, enrollment should continue to grow for all groups. This is significant because Covered California will need to enroll a broad group of eligible Californians—particularly the young and healthy—to keep premiums low in the future.

In PPIC’s January survey, 72 percent of the uninsured say they will obtain insurance in accordance with the law, up slightly from our December survey (66%). We then combined the two surveys and found that solid majorities of the uninsured in all demographic groups say they plan to sign up, with particularly high numbers in the following groups:

  • Young people: 76 percent of residents ages 18 to 34 plan to enroll in health insurance. Of all the uninsured who say they will do this, 52 percent are in this age group.
  • Latinos: 72 percent say they will enroll. Latinos comprise just 20 percent of current enrollments, but in our survey 61 percent of all those who say they plan to sign up are Latino.
  • Spanish-preferring residents: 70 percent of those who took the survey in Spanish say they will sign up.
  • Lower-income residents: 75 percent of those with annual household incomes under $20,000 say they will obtain insurance. Of those with annual incomes of $20,000 to $40,000, 65 percent plan to enroll.
  • Women: 75 percent plan to enroll.

Chart Sources: PPIC Statewide Surveys, December 2013 and January 2014.

Refundable Tax Credits Ease Poverty in California

Poverty and income inequality have become hot topics in policy circles at the state and national levels. PPIC has been looking at these issues, too—recently analyzing the role that needs-based programs play in helping families make ends meet. In conjunction with researchers at the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality we measured poverty in California more comprehensively than the Census official poverty measure does. We found that the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and refundable portion of the Child Tax Credit have the biggest impact in moderating poverty rates, relative to other safety net programs.

Both programs are aimed low- and moderate-income families with dependent children. Families must file tax returns to participate in these programs, which are funded by the federal government. (In addition, 25 states and the District of Columbia have their own smaller EITCs, although California does not.) The EITC is fully refundable, meaning that a family with earnings but no net tax obligation (after deductions) receives the full amount of the credit (based on their earnings) in the form of a tax refund. The Child Tax Credit is partially refundable.

Together, the EITC and CTC trimmed the 2011 poverty rate for working age adults from 24.0 percent to 21.4 percent. The child poverty rate dropped even more, from 31.1 percent to 25.1 percent. Put another way, an additional 600,000 California adults and 560,000 children would be considered poor without these programs.

Chart Source: The California Poverty Measure: A New Look at the Social Safety Net.

Survey Briefing Focuses on State Fiscal Policy

The January edition of the PPIC Statewide Survey is always a popular one—especially in an election year. It gauges Californians’ reaction to the governor’s annual budget proposal and their sense of the issues that will be most important in 2014. Media coverage and audience comments at the lunchtime briefing focused particularly on the governor’s high approval ratings and his debt reduction proposals. Findings on attitudes toward the public pension situation and health care reform also generated considerable interest.

Sonja Petek, PPIC research associate and project manager for the survey, talked about these and other key findings—from Californians’ views on how the state should use the budget surplus to opinions about President Obama, Congress, and immigration policy.

Drought Watch: A Better Way to Manage Water for Fish

This is part of a continuing series on the impact of the drought.

As California’s drought wears on, state and federal regulators will be under increasing pressure to loosen environmental standards that protect native fish and other wildlife. Relaxing flow standards in rivers and streams is always problematic; the standards exist because many native species are already in a precarious condition. But during droughts, regulators often make this decision as part of a balancing act, in order to make additional water available to cities and farms. Usually, the standards are relaxed without requiring any payment from cities or growers for the added water they receive. Yet the environmental consequences of relaxing standards can be costly, requiring special efforts to protect and recover species in other ways—such as with conservation hatcheries that help maintain populations of endangered species outside of their natural environment.

In a recent op ed in the Sacramento Bee, we joined a group of researchers from UC Davis, UC Hastings, and Stanford University to propose a new way for California to approach this challenge. The basic idea: instead of giving the water away, California should create a special environmental water market to sell to growers and cities the water made available by relaxing environmental standards. The revenues would be used to support fish and wildlife recovery. This special environmental market would be an extension of the water trading that already happens during droughts. It would help meet California’s goals of both ensuring reliable water supplies and protecting the environment, even during the dry times.