I haven’t found a way to get minutes or summaries of committee actions yet so I haven’t been able to get a definitive answer to whether the timing of the legislature passing these bills is suspect. That said, if one looks at the history of the driver’s license bill, one can see it was sitting around in committee for a long time and then was sent to the assembly floor on August 29th. Lest anyone need reminding, that’s the day Katrina hit and is the same day the gay marriage bill made it out of committee.

Also of note, Mark Leno, author of the gay marriage bill , and Patty Berg, author of the donor legislation (AB 849) that was used to resurrect the original legislation (AB 19) are both on the Assembly Appropriations committee.

So I put my letter to our governor today around noon. By about 8 PM this evening, his press secretary appeared to be reading straight from my letter justifying why the governor was going to veto the bill. Man the US Postal Service is good!

Bravo for Governor Schwarzenegger for doing the right thing!

As promised, I compared the 35-37 vote for AB 19, the failed gay marriage bill in June against the 41-35 vote for AB 849, the successful version with the exact same language as AB 19. Here’s the list of changed votes:

-Bermudez (abstain to yes)
-Chavez (abstain to yes)
-Negrete McLeod (abstain to yes)
-Salinas (abstain to yes)
-Torrico (abstain to yes)
-Umberg (abstain to yes)
-Baca (no to abstain)
-Garcia (no to abstain)

There are two very interesting things to note. First of all, nobody switched sides. Everyone either changed to or from an abstain. Secondly, and I guess this is really just an implication of the first, all those who were new votes for the bill, were all too cowardly to vote for the bill when more intense media scrutiny was on the bill. They all abstained.

While a few of them may be given a pass (and I don’t know which ones these are) for actually not being in Sacramento when the original vote was taken, somehow I doubt that’s why all 6 new yes votes didn’t vote that way the first time around. I’d guess that would account for two at the most.

I’ve decided to dig more fully into the timing of AB 849, the gay marriage bill that was just passed by the California legislature and is awaiting either a signature or a veto on governor Schwarzenegger’s desk. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to link to the page that shows the history of the bill as it is using “post” type cgi scripting and as such it is difficult to recreate the link. I’ll just cut and paste the history for now. If you’re interested in seeing the text yourself go to the California Assembly website, click on the Legislation link on the left, enter AB 849 in the search box and click on the history link of the resulting page. Here it is:

• Sept. 6 Senate amendments concurred in. To enrollment.
• Sept. 1 In Assembly. Concurrence in Senate amendments pending. May be considered on or after September 3 pursuant to Assembly Rule 77.
• Sept. 1 Read third time, passed, and to Assembly. (Ayes 21. Noes 15. Page 2471.)
• Aug. 30 Read second time. To third reading.
• Aug. 29 From committee: Do pass. (Ayes 7. Noes 6.).
• Aug. 15 In committee: Placed on Appropriations suspense file.
• July 13 From committee: Do pass, and re-refer to Com. on APPR. Re-referred. (Ayes 5. Noes 2.).
• June 29 Re-referred to Com. on JUD.
• June 28 From committee chair, with author’s amendments: Amend, and re-refer to committee. Read second time, amended, and re-referred to Com. on RLS.
• May 19 Referred to Com. on RLS.
• May 5 In Senate. Read first time. To Com. on RLS. for assignment.
• May 5 Read third time, passed, and to Senate. (Ayes 73. Noes 0. Page 1374.)
• Apr. 28 Read second time. To third reading.
• Apr. 27 From committee: Do pass. (Ayes 13. Noes 0.) (April 26).
• Mar. 3 Referred to Com. on W.,P. & W.
• Feb. 20 From printer. May be heard in committee March 22.
• Feb. 18 Read first time. To print.

This is as of Sept. 6th and as such doesn’t contain today’s passing by the Assembly. For those (like most Americans, like myself) who don’t understand all the ins and outs of the legislature, I’ll do my best to decode the language (I had to do some research):

The bill was originally created on February 18th of this year. Although it doesn’t say it in the above text, it was created by Assembly member Berg. The bill had nothing to do with gay marriage. It was about fish and game research and regulations. The bill was in the committee process until April 27th, at which point it went to the Assembly floor. On May 5th it was passed, still in its fish and game format, 73-0 and went to the Senate. I don’t understand how this all works, but instead of being voted on by the senate shortly after May 5th, it went back to committee on May 19th, where it would wait for its transformation.

On June 28th Mark Leno, assumably with Berg’s help (again, I don’t understand all the ins and outs of how this stuff works) was able to re-write the bill to place in it the exact same contents as AB 19, the original gay marriage bill that was defeated on June 2nd in the Assembly 35-37. This had the effect of giving AB 19 new life so that Mark Leno could try again later, perhaps when the timing was better, to get the same bill passed.

At that point, the “amended” bill went back into committee. On August 29th, the day Katrina hit, after sitting around in the Appropriations committee suspense file for two weeks, the committee voted 7-6 to send it to the Senate floor. In fairness to the committee, bills often spend a fair amount of time in the suspense file while other bills are being discussed. I’m not sure if there is a specific ordering or priority. This is what I’d like to find out. Did this bill get bumped up the order to get through on August 29th? Or were they stalling on a vote that should have happened a week prior? Or was it un in the “proper” order and they just moved quickly once the timing was right? Or did nothing suspicious happen at all here and the timing was just lucky? I really don’t know how this all works but I want to dig to the bottom of it. Anyone know more to help me out?

After going to the senate floor, they voted on September 1st 21-15 to pass the bill. In theory, this bill had already been passed by the Assembly (back in its fish and game days). However, since the bill had been amended subsequently to that, it had to go back to the Assembly to be re-voted upon. It passed on September 7th with a vote of 41-35.

That’s all she wrote folks, history wise. I’m going to continue to dig to the bottom of the timing in the Appropriations committee to fully understand the timing. It seems pretty suspicious to me that it was passed by the committee THE EXACT SAME DAY that Katrina hit. Also expect analysis later this evening of who’s votes changed since the Assembly voted down AB 19 35-37. Remember that AB 849 was the EXACT SAME law (as in identical text) as AB 19. It passed 41-35. I’ll give you the rundown on who’s votes switched without the media scrutiny that would have been given this bill in normal circumstances.

Well, the shit has hit the fan! The California assembly just passed (41-35, 41 being the minimum number of votes needed to pass the bill) the gay marriage bill that the California senate sent them a few days back. Because it already passed in the senate (and very quietly I might add) it now it goes to Gov. Schwazenegger to either veto or sign.

I’m not sure what angers me more:

– That we already voted on this as a state and 61% of us said no. Talk about usurping the will of the people.
– That doing it now, when the attention of the people is focused elsewhere, is a blatent attempt to avoid the wrath of the people (who would be placing a lot more pressure on the legislature to vote against the bill).
– That the decision is morally wrong.

I guess the final item really upsets me the most, but the other two bother me the most in a political fashion.

What I love is how groups try to sugar coat this. Reading the ever unbiased SF Chronicle artcile you get quotes like: “The bill, AB849, does not require any religious organization to recognize or perform marriages for same-sex couples.” Actually, since it is illegal for any organization, church or otherwise, to discriminate against a gay person in their hiring practices and if gay marriage is allowed they will be forced to provide marital benefits to the other person in the partnership, then churches will be forced to support and recognize gay marriage. If you don’t think this is true, just ask all the Catholic organizations who are forced to provide FREE birth control pills as part of their health insurance despite the Church’s belief that any form of birth control is morally wrong.

Also, to act as if the legislature is being generous by not “requiring” churches to perform gay marriages is ridiculous. Churches aren’t required to marry anyone and can discriminate in any fashion they want, including racially and sexually, in regards to the church’s membership and what ceremonies they’ll perform for/on anyone, including members. (Notice that this is separate from hiring practicies.) Do you think that if the state had any right to regulate in this fashion that the Catholic Church could get away with an all male priesthood? Absolutely not.

Here’s what to expect from here: The governor has a tough choice on his hands. He hasn’t wanted to get tangled up in moral issues because it is not really the focus of his governorship. But, he’s got no choice now. If he thinks he can sign the bill and place the blame on the legislature, he’s sorely mistaken. He will be held accountable by the 61% of Californians who think gay marriage is a bad idea. Of course if he vetoes it, he’ll be stepping in the middle of a subject he didn’t want to get involved in. So, he’s got a tough choice to make and I hope he vetoes it. If he vetoes it, the legislation is dead. The legislature doesn’t have the votes to overturn a veto. What’s left then for the proponents of the legislation is their legal challenges to Prop. 22 (the proposition that made gay marriage illegal).

For the opponents to the legislation, they will be pushing forward with the constitutional amendment to make gay marriage contrary to the state constitution with even more vigor now that it is clear that they can’t keep the legislature from trying to make it legal. Without the constitutional amendment, it’ll only take a pro-gay governor to change the landscape. Similarly, if Schwarzenegger signs the bill, they’ll immediately challenge the legislation saying that it is contrary to Prop. 22, which, from my understanding, should take precedence. So no matter what, if the bill is signed or vetoed, the issue is still headed for more legal challenges.

So here is what I’ll be doing:

– The governor will be getting a letter from me today. I hope that everyone who reads this blog will do the same.
– I’ll be writing my assemblyman and state senator thanking them (in my case they voted against the legislation) for their votes and encouraging those who live in districts with representatives who voted for the legislation to write them letters rebuking them for their votes.
– I’ll be considering a donation or other forms of support to one or more of the prominent groups fighting for the constitutional amendment including www.voteyesmarriage.com and Campaign for Children and Families.

I encourage all to do the same.

My favorite blogger is back online! Go see Mark Shea’s blog – Catholic and Enjoying It!.

I wanted to make this post last so that it would be on top. Despite the failures that helped exaserbate this disaster, the people down there deserve our prayers:

Heavenly Father, we pray today for all those who have been affected by this tragedy. For our sake, bring those who have lost their lives into your heavenly kingdom, forgiving them their sins. Give comfort and peace to those who have lost loved ones. Help those who have lost their homes and livelihoods to find their daily bread and to take comfort in their family and friends. Help all those who are rushing to assist those in need to be able to deliver the services that will help save more lives and bring comfort to those who have lost so much. We ask this through Christ our Lord, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

So our parish has a sizeable scholarship fund. That’s a good thing. A Catholic education can be very expensive, particularly here in California. To send a kid to Catholic elementary school costs about $5K per year and high school can be $8K+ if you’re not good at a sport. (I don’t think sailing counts either…) A Catholic college can be $25K-$35K.

So, we have a scholarship fund. As I said, that’s a good thing. However, the group that runs the fund leaves much to be desired. I’ll enumerate:

-They usually have about $10K in scholarships each year. Instead of giving meaningful scholarships to a few individuals, they seem to divvy it up to nearly everyone who applies and gives out about $500 each. That’s not going to make much of a dent for just about anyone when they’re trying to come up with $8K+ (I don’t know if elementary school kids are eligible and most of the winners are seniors on their way to college).
-Despite the fact that this scholarship is for parishioners only and therefore supposedly bound up in one’s faith, how active one is in their faith seems not to be relevant to whether someone gets a scholarship. People who show up at Christmas and Easter seem just as likely to get a scholarship as the leader of the teen group.
-Despite the fact that there are tons of scholarships for every level of education based on “need”, this scholarship also takes into account the financials of the parents as well. (Despite the fact that a $25K a year college is a significant burden on a $75K a year family and that they aren’t eligible for other “need” based scholarships.)

These points have been true for as long as the committee has been around but this year they decided to up the ante.

It used to be that most of the funding for the scholarships came from a golf tournament and that they were able to get about $20K in profit from (about half goes to scholarships and half goes to an endowment fund for future scholarships). This was a good wholesome event that cost $100 for participants and used corporate sponsorship to increase the revenue.

Now, $20K isn’t good enough for this committee (and in fairness to them, there are a lot of deserving kids). So instead of adding to the great golf tournament, their scraping the tournament (yes you read that right, it will be no more) and instead appealing to everyone’s greed. That’s right, gambling here we come!

First prize (for your $100 ticket, I might add) is a brand new yellow mustang (and it was parked on the walkway to the main entrance to the church this morning)! Or if you don’t want the car, you can take $15,000 in cash! 2nd prize is $1500 and 3rd is $1000. Plus if you buy your tickets by October 15th, you’ll get another chance to win in our $1500 early bird drawing!

Excuse my language but…

WHAT THE FUUUC…DDD…GGGEEE!?! Yeah, what the FUDGE!?!

OK, I know the American Church has a history at using minor gambling (bingo nights) to raise funds, but at least with the old stereotypical bingo night it was a big social gathering (stereotypically for the old ladies). One could wash the gambling under the table as it was only one aspect of what was overall a fundraising effort. The winnings were small to not enough to be praying on anyones greed. This car raffle doesn’t have any of those caveats to save it. This is an outright, simple gambling ploy based on the desire to fleece money from people based on their greed for a cool looking car. If that’s not enough it has the following downsides:

1. The money I would give to help a family get their kid through Catholic school will be significantly reduced by paying for the prizes (which will statistically go to the person who gives the most to the auction and hence should least needs that car).
2. The whole “you can just donate the money instead of getting a raffle ticket” compromise is BS. If everyone but three people do that it won’t change the fact that the total money given will be reduced by $20K for the prizes. The only difference will be that the actual raffle will be a big loss. The only upside here is that they’re very unlikely to do the raffle next year.
3. Also, with the raffle we lose all of the corporate sponsorship money. There’s no ability to put signs on the golf course (or equivalent) with sponsors. We lose a big avenue for revenue. (See point #7 for an aspect of why this is important.)
4. $100 per ticket is WAY too much. What about those who can only afford $20 this year? By setting the number that high you’re trying to hard-sell people into giving more. It’s like the charitable giving requests in the mail that have $10K, $5K and $1K checkboxes and anything smaller has to be a write-in amount. See point #2 about just “donating” $20. Plus the person who can only donate $20 is most likely to make good use of that car. Also, it is not the same as the $100 entry fee for the golf tournament as a round of golf on the weekend costs $50+. So in reality the donation is only $50 (if that). Plus I’m pretty sure they invited those who didn’t play (either because they couldn’t afford $100 or didn’t play golf) but donated whatever they could to the reception.
5. Even if they’re going to do this raffle, why scrap the golf tournament that everyone loved? Why can’t you do two things!?! It’ll increase the likelihood that you’ll net more income for the scholarships.
6. If you still insist on the raffle, why do the prizes have to be so big for any other reason that appealing to people’s greed? Why not give away a top prize around $1000 (plane trip to Hawaii for the family?) and 2nd and 3rd place prizes in the few hundred dollar range (TV set, DVD player, computer, etc.). This would make it so much more of the revenue would actually make it into the scholarship fund. It would also be easier to do if the tickets weren’t $100 each…
7. $20K (really $40K if you consider the gross revenue vs. net revenue) from a parish every year is A LOT of money. Remember that there are tons of other causes that these parishioners are giving to (feeding the poor, etc.) not to mention what they’re giving the parish in tithing (we just completed a $2 million dollar expansion). Just because there is more need for scholarships doesn’t mean that we should be doing anything and everything possible to fleece people of more money. There is a limit to what people can afford to give. This is particularly true because half of the families in the parish have school age children. So every dollar you get from those parents is robbing Peter to pay Paul, so to speak (pretty funny since it is Ss. Peter and Paul parish…).
8. Along the lines of $40K being a lot to raise, how much did the golf tournament cost us? In other words, how much of the money donated didn’t make it into the scholarship fund? I have a hard time believing it was $20K. I’d guess more like $10K (Quick math, 150 golfers * $50 = $7500 plus $2500 for food & reception type stuff. That seems like a pretty generous estimate too (as they’d likely get a discount for the rounds of golf and that’s one hell of a banquet at $2500).) So it would only take $30K from the parish (and maybe less considering the corporate sponsorships we got) to raise $20K.

Do I need to continue? Good, because I’m running out of good complaints. Needless to say, both the committee and our pastor will be getting a big long letter about this.

God forgive us!

Boy, the priest who gave the homily (that’s the Catholic equivalent of a sermon for those not in the know) at Mass this morning must be reading my blog because his homily seemed like a perfect defense of my position about selfishness down in the family statistics comment thread. Every 5th word out of his month was selfish and he tied it very strongly to marital issues. I believe the quote went something like this:

“If you’re getting married to be happy, it won’t work. If you’re getting married to make your spouse happy, it’ll work.”

Booya! (Is that really how that is spelled?)

I was listening to the radio this morning and they were talking about a new survey that showed that for the first time single households out number families. I couldn’t find the survey online and it was unclear from the radio discussion what cohabitating couples counted as, but divorced, single parent and widowed people all fell under the single category, which is a little unfair to each of those groups as they are vastly different, especially the widows.

In any case, inevitably during the discussion a lady (from Davis, surprise, surprise, Berkeley’s mini-me) called in and asked why this is a bad thing.

For me, that pretty much sums up why it is a bad thing, because most people don’t see anything wrong with it. I mean, do I even need to justify my position? It feels like a waste of blog space to defend the need for families. It should be self evident. It’s about a ridiculous as needing to explain why a down trend in the amount of food being produced by farmers and ranchers is a bad thing.

But, just so it is on record:

The current reproduction rate in Europe is about 1.5. The current reproduction rate in the US of native born citizens is right around 2.0 and falling fast. We need a number around 2.2 for a stable population size. A shrinking population has TONS of problems including the overwhelming burden on younger people to support the elderly and a VERY unstable economy (lacking consumers).

There, and I didn’t even need to get into the social/religious values of the family to defend this one. As I said, it is pretty obvious. Just like we need food to survive (which is the answer to the why farmers are important question above for any EXTREMELY challenged readers), we need to reproduce to survive as a society. Any other questions?