California’s Tea Party Patriots likely to support Proposition 20 and oppose Proposition 27

Dawn Wildman, California State Co-Coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots, told Etopia News today that her fellow movement activists “like the idea of the Citizens Redistricting Commission(CRC).”

The CRC was created in 2008 by the passage of Proposition 11. It takes redistricting authority over State Assembly, Senate, and Board of Equalization districts away from the State Legislature and gives it to a panel of 14 individuals, to be selected by the California State Auditor's office, representative of the state's population.

She said that they were “annoyed” to be having to vote on Proposition 20, which expands the authority of the CRC to include Congressional redistricting, since they’ve just recently voted on essentially the same thing. Nevertheless, she says that opinion in her group is tending toward a “Yes” vote on Proposition 20 and a “No” vote on Proposition 27, which would abolish the CRC and return all redistricting authority to the State Legislature.

The Tea Party Patriots are currently engaged in a period of study and discussion of the various ballot initiatives, and are looking to determine what the group’s consensus positions on these measures ought to be. One hundred and eighty-six local Tea Party Patriot (TPP) groups are involved in this process, which will close on Tuesday, September 7th. Ms. Wildman said that the TPP would announce the results of this consultative process the next day, on Wednesday, September 8th.

She also said that the proposition of most interest to her group was Proposition 23, which would repeal AB 32, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. “We helped to get it on the ballot,” she said, and added that the TPP would be using “rallies, bumper stickers, and information distribution” to get it passed, including a rally in Sacramento on September 12th.

Also important to the TPP is Proposition 24, on which she said the building trend in the party was for a “No” vote, since that measure “repeals corporate tax breaks.”

One ballot initiative that doesn’t seem to have a strong TPP consensus either way is Proposition 19, which would allow the recreational use of marijuana while authorizing local jurisdictions to tax its sale.

While there is opposition to the measure among some TPP members, others, Ms. Wildman said, especially those who came of age in the 60s, “don’t consider pot a gateway drug,” and want it legally-available and heavily-taxed, perhaps as a way of reducing the need for other taxes. Still, she said, many in the party are worried that the passage of Proposition 19 would lead to the creation of another bureaucracy and more regulation, which is anathema to the Tea Party Patriots.

Despite their likely support for Proposition 20 and likely opposition to Proposition 27, she said, the TPP will “probably not” devote much energy to these measures, but will concentrate instead on securing the passage of Proposition 23, the anti-AB 32 measure.