The California Democratic Convention - AB656

I was at the California Democratic Convention at Sacramento during the past weekend. My trip was fully sponsored by the California Faculty Association. Needless to say, i had a really good time there. Part of my responsibility at the convention is to raise awareness on AB656. A colleague helped me to remember the number of the bill by keeping in my mind this concept of subtracting 10 from 666.

AB656 is sponsored by Majority Leader Toricco. The bill would tax oil extraction and the proceeds would go to higher education - UC, CSU, and Community Colleges. California is the only state in the Union that does not have an oil severance tax. The higher education system in Texas is fully paid by this tax alone and for more than a century. For the first time since the creation of our higher education system, 10,000 eligible students are being turned away from the CSU system owing to lack of fundings. It is rumured that those with financial needs are hit the hardest. Since 2003, higher education funds has been cut by almost a billion annually. This Bill would bring in about $1.5bil to the system per year. Our objective is to bring awareness of the bill to the delegates and the activisists so that the Bill would be adopted as a platform at this year's convention. The party will only accept 10 resolutions to debate and adopt. Our bill was no.10. We were prepared to collect 300 additional signatures from the delegates in order to force a vote if this Bill did not pass the resolution committee. Luckily, that was not needed. All in all, approximately 450 signatures were collected and I, myself, collected 91. I was rewarded with a huge and delicious plate of baby back ribs.

I tried to get Lt. Gov. John Garamendi to sign the petition but he informed me that he hasn't signed one in about 33 years. I even tried to get Mark Leno to sign but i've forgotten what his replied was. Looks like the only star which signed my peition was Alissa Ko, the CYD chair. Evan Low, the vice-mayor of Campbell, also signed the petition, though it was not mine. I can conclude that the young aspiring politicians have more guts than the established 'old' ones. Maybe the next generation of politicians will actually be less political calculative and have the determination to do the right thing. However, this could just be a recurring pattern but i have faith in my generation.

P.S. Due to my CPU being kaput, i'll post pictures of the convention later.