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This has been an interesting battle in terms of civil governance. Basically Uber & Lyft threatened to put the initiative they wrote, on the ballot if the legisl

This has been an interesting battle in terms of civil governance. Basically Uber & Lyft threatened to put the initiative they wrote, on the ballot if the legislature passed AB5, which they did. Uber and Lyft are now doing everything they can to get it to pass which will set up its own court fight. Watching this fight I wonder "Who is in charge of governing California?" is it the Legislature/Governor or is it special interests who can spend enough to put bespoke laws into effect and make bespoke changes to the state constitution? California didn't help itself when it implemented term limits which had the unpleasant side effect of never having any legislators with enough experience in the job to know how to really get things done, and so the "work" of writing laws has also fallen to special interests. This has never been more clear than the last 4 years where California has had a single party in both houses, and a Governor and still cannot legislate anything that special interests oppose. I don't know what the "solution" would be but it does not feel like it is serving the people of California well (as someone who lives here).

Ericson2314 6y ago
> California didn't help itself when it implemented term limits which had the unpleasant side effect of never having any legislators with enough experience in the job to know how to really get things done. I've never understood this argument. Potential "yay" and "nay" votes are both term-limited, so the "inexperience" should cancel out? The fear of rocking the boat effects anyone that, well, will live longer. Whether you are looking for continued perks/bribes in office, a cushy lobbying job after, or simply don't want to make enemies before your political next move, the perverse incentives are still there. Perhaps a better thing to do would be to let the populace force votes on a daily basis (with queuing / anti DOS measures, of course), so the representatives have to go on the record one way or another, and can't hide behind inaction.
- beambot 6y ago
  Yay & Nay votes aren't the only job of legislators. They're often responsible for writing good legislation too -- something that's arguably difficult to do if you're new to the job, so the task (largely) falls back to special interests to "help" with the process. By way of example: Literature. It's easy to read a good book; it's much harder to write one without lots & lots of practice.
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    Even when the outside interests don't write the legislation, it's the staff and not actually politicians that too: politicians are basically constantly in meetings / at events and have no time for such work. :| Nothing prevents the staff from being retained from when legislator to the next.
    - thebradbain 6y ago
      And that's partly how you end up with what many people would perceive as a "shadow government" -- obviously a group of people are writing the laws, and most likely they're experienced in doing so, but who _are_ they? And who are they accountable to? Kind of like the bureaucratic equivalent of external consultants coming into a private company.
      - matthewmacleod 6y ago
        You’ve just the Civil Service.
    - dmitriid 6y ago
      British series "Yes, Minister" / "Yes, Prime Minister" immediately come to mind.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > Even when the outside interests don't write the legislation, it's the staff and not actually politicians that too: politicians are basically constantly in meetings / at events and have no time for such work. That's a little bit true but mostly misleading. As with any office with professional staff, most of the work of a legislative office is done by the staff, not the head of the office, true. OTOH, that doesn't mean the the skill, knowledge, and understanding of the head of the office is irrelevant, as the head directs the staff strategically, reviews, inquires, refines, and redirects work, etc. > Nothing prevents the staff from being retained from when legislator to the next. The new legislators not having the skill to select appropriate staff might, but a bigger problem isn't that the staff aren't retained but that they usually are; the less skilled the legislators are, the more the professional staff (who probably are shuttling back and forth between working for legislators and working for interest groups) do not only the detail work, but also control the agenda, and the less which faces the electorate sends to fill the nominally most important seats actually matter.
- d23 6y ago
  > I've never understood this argument. Potential "yay" and "nay" votes are both term-limited, so the "inexperience" should cancel out? What? Take this to it's logical conclusion and imagine term limits of 1 day. No one would be making sound decisions with those yeas and nays. And why would they always be 50 / 50 and "cancel out"? If you know nothing about a fairly complex topic, it's easy to be mislead, especially by someone with an ulterior motive that's playing a game much longer than your term limits.
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    > Imagine term limits of 1 day. No one would be making sound decisions with those yeas and nays. I have no idea what terms limits of 1 day would do; it's not obvious to me. Please argue your point. > And why would they always be 50 / 50 and "cancel out"? I'm not talking about a vote split additive cancel out. I'm talking about how in `(termLimit * nFor) / (termLimit * nAgainst)` the `termLimit` factors cancel out. > If you know nothing about a fairly complex topic, it's easy to be mislead, especially by someone with an ulterior motive that's playing a game much longer than your term limits. Again you seem to be imagining legislators are dead at the end of the term and born at the beginning or something. They have plenty time to study the role before (c.f. the stereotypical centrist-psychopath politician planning from elementary school), and plenty of their career to be judged on their actions after. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of factors that reinforce the status quo, but I still haven't heard a decent argument term limits aren't obviously among them one way or the other.
    - m12k 6y ago
      Not the person you are replying to, but I think the point they are trying to make is that the less experience a politician has, the more likely they are to believe what they are told by someone with an agenda who is trying to influence them, e.g. special interests. So the lack of experience doesn't cancel out for yea and nay when it comes to any given vote, because special interests will be lobbying mostly for one of the two, and thus the lack of experience (i.e. resistance to influence by having your own knowledge of the area) can tip the balance.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > I've never understood this argument. Potential "yay" and "nay" votes are both term-limited, so the "inexperience" should cancel out? Your analysis seems to think that legislation is just pushing "yay" or "nay" buttons, and that discussion of experience simply is about people having the skill to find the correct button. (Though inexperience there wouldn't cancel out, either, even with a 50/50 split in intended votes, it would lead to reduced predictability.) Legislators do more than push "yay" and "nay" buttons on packages that are assembled completely outside of their control, though.
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    I do think they do plenty more than "yay" or "nay", but the lack of courage among our legislatures is evidenced in both the California legislature and Congress, so I'm less inclined to think term limits is the relevant issue In California I think the huge dominance of the landowning class is more pertinent. Really, I want a non-FPTP parliamentary system. Politics should officially be a "team sport" as it is in practice, and should be a battle of ideologies not personalities. Coincidentally, these means (to me at least) that not having term limits is way less of potential problem, and so I would be against having them.
- praestigiare 6y ago
  That would be an accurate analysis if this was, for example, random noise in a system. But inexperience is not random, and cannot be said to "cancel out" in any meaningful way.
- bregma 6y ago
  > I've never understood this argument. Potential "yay" and "nay" votes are both term-limited, so the "inexperience" should cancel out? There are no term limits on C-level executives in deep-pocketed corporations and special interests. The term limits are on the legislators they buy. It's like a subscription model: you need to renew every few years to keep the gravy flowing.
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    This is the argument for term limits, BTW: Incumbuants are terrified of their next campaign (which is a every 2 years threat for representatives in the House, btw.) whereas more term limits means more brazen lame ducks. Then again, lame ducks need a job afterword so it's a bad augment too. My conclusions is that term limits seam mostly for show, with muddle benefits and disadvantages. Perhaps the real policy move is term limits + enough UBI that the lame ducks are truly safe no matter what. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition is a neat idea which is like term limits but on steroids: you're as suddenly on the job as you are suddenly off it. I think this example, with the heightened stakes / wider Overton window, makes for the more interesting debate.
- lazzlazzlazz 6y ago
  Inexperience should "cancel out"? This mental model of how legislature is developed and then passed is probably the silliest I've ever heard. You should be more discerning of your thought processes.
blmsjw 6y ago
Maybe you should ask yourself why the single party is unable to oppose special interests? It’s almost as if they were working together for some odd reason hmmm...
choppaface 6y ago
But rideshare employment regulation is not a California issue, it's a _global_ issue. California wasn't first to GDPR, yet it's the home of internet advertising. Sales tax laws for online commerce had to come from the Supreme Court. California (courts) might be able to leave a mark in the Sidecar vs Uber suit on the issue of Uber using dynamic pricing to uncut rivals for marketshare: https://www.law.com/therecorder/2020/04/24/uber-has-trouble-shaking-defunct-competitors-monopoly-claims/?slreturn=20200923005212 https://www.law.com/therecorder/2020/04/24/uber-has-trouble-... Uber got away with greyballing and other price espionage in New York and outright medical record theft in India. Have those legislatures been successful against Uber?
nemothekid 6y ago
At the risk of sounding like a stereotypical leftist, I'm struggling to see how more of the blame can be on term limits, and not just a side-effect of our current version of democracy under capitalism. Simply put, if I had 100B, and there was outside force threatening my business I would certainly invest to protect myself - this includes mundane things like investing in security and outside threats like regulation. I just don't know you would design a government that is protected against an outside player pouring hundreds of millions of dollars in order to change the laws. If anything I think an official who decided to get in bed with special interest groups is far more prepared to outspend any opponent, and is the safer option for special interests groups. I think, in the future, we will see more Facebook era startups get smarter and smarter on playing politics. Airbnb originally failed miserably in their political game, but I think as time goes on SV will only get better at influencing California & global politics.
- ChuckMcM 6y ago
  I've been looking for my copy of the LA Times article on this and have yet to find it. So allow me to recount from my not necessarily trusty memory. During an investigation of the impact of term limits on the California the times talked with former "long term" members of both the Assembly and the Senate. In that discussion the people who had served for longer terms felt that you needed the time to understand what made a law "good" versus what made a law "bad." Examples of good and bad were things like it would not be found to be unconstitutional, or its interpretation would be clear to judges who were ruling on it. Things like that. Bad laws are ones that are ambiguous to the point of being unenforceable or are overturned at the first challenge. There was also some discussion of "wisdom" in terms of knowing what things would benefit most from change vs changing things that are easier but less durable. They found that the time clock on legislators terms made them more eager for "easy wins" rather than tacking complex problems. This was especially true of legislators who were hoping to jump into national politics. So while a legislator had the freedom to introduce a bill to solve a tough problem many times over a long career, each time taking into account the feedback from others over how it was crafted, term limited legislators felt they could not "waste time" on something that they would not be able to see through in the amount of time remaining to them. And while legislators have always had staffs that would help in the development and drafting of legislation, in terms of likely being able to get the legislation over the finish line, laws that came from special interests with the promise of providing "good press" to support it are seen as a better bet. By the same token, I am not a California Legislator, nor have I been one (although I have considered putting my name in the running to develop some experiential learning there). As a result I cannot know for certain how much I read about the process is biased in a way that someone who was part of the process would easily spot. Whether or not what I've read about the process is accurate, it is still an area that I am interested in and I find the "dual" between the legislature and initiative writers interesting in its own right.
KorematsuFred 6y ago
Legislatures and Governors are merely instruments and people should be in charge. Having lived in many countries I would rather live in a country where Uber and Lift can add something to ballot rather than where they secretly bribe Governor or Legislators. Both Uber and Lyft are California companies with billions of dollars in investment and thousands of employees, if they are facing an existential crisis I would at least give them a fair chance. California's hare brained policy to push some virtue signaling measure down the throats of Uber and Lyft is not good for gig economy, riders and innovations. Self driving cars would put all this theater to rest for good hopefully.
tathougies 6y ago
California's problem is precisely that it is a one party state. Even a few decades ago, California was not the one party state it is today. Having multiple candidates with meaningful differences on the ballot automatically lowers the ability of special interests to rule the state because it is difficult to be supported by people on completely different sides of the aisle. The proposition that made California the way it is is the one that meant that the primaries are non-partisan and the final race is between the two top contenders. This means that special interests in California need only present their cause through the lens of leftism and they will automatically find sympathetic candidates in the top two, no matter who those are. Contrast this with a partisan primary system. In that system, on the final ballot, it would be difficult for special interests to formulate an argument appealing to both candidates. EDIT: for some reason, I am downvoted but there is little engagement or actual refutation of what I'm saying. If you're going to downvote, at least say something. Otherwise, it makes it seem like the one-party state's propaganda arm is awake and working.
- iso947 6y ago
  Don’t you have ranked or proportional voting? Even with ranked voting people could choose from different democrat legislators (a Sanders vs a Biden) but be confident republican won’t get in with a plurality.
  - tathougies 6y ago
    But that's what I'm saying.. when the candidates are so similar that certain interest groups always get their way (for example biden and sanders agree on oil, unlike republicans and sanders), then certain special interests become privileged
- bsder 6y ago
  > This means that special interests in California need only present their cause through the lens of leftism and they will automatically find sympathetic candidates in the top two, no matter who those are. The fact that no sane Republican candidates seem to exist in California is not the fault of the jungle primaries. The lack of sane California Republicans is the fault of a Republican primary electorate that views things like "Actually running the government" as a mortal sin. Lets see some California Republicans replace Nunes with a Republican with a couple brain cells to rub together and then we can talk about the faults in the jungle primary system. Until then, you may want to start looking for faults by looking in the mirror.
ksolanki 6y ago
I do not fully understand this, but isn’t this the story at the federal level as well?
- CameronNemo 6y ago
  Nope, the federal level has no term limits. Dianne Feinstein has been a Senator for 30 years. Even without term limits, laws are written by industry at the federal level (if they are ever written, some years we are just lucky to pass a budget at the federal level).
jayd16 6y ago
How do you think it should have played out? Laws were passed, special interests didn't like it and now there's a court battle. And immediately you say nothing can get passed that special interests oppose. California has the curve ball of the proposition system. Its not that hard to make it to the ballot with anything. It can be a little silly but it is what it is. How is this a term limits issue? What would you like to have seen?
- slg 6y ago
  >California has the curve ball of the proposition system. That is where special interest is most heavily felt. This court ruling is mostly meaningless. There is a proposition on the ballot that directly addresses this employment/independent contractor issue. It would supersede the legislature and make it nearly impossible for the legislature to repeal or amend the law. The prop also happens to have the most expensive campaign in history behind it. Something like 90-95% of the money came in on the Yes side and it is almost exclusively coming from Uber, Lyft, and similar companies. Basically these companies didn't get what they wanted in the legislature. They didn't get what they wanted in court. So they are trying to buy it from the public. They are hoping we aren't motivated enough to educate ourselves on the issue and will instead just vote Yes because all the campaigning is telling us to do so.
  - ericmay 6y ago
    On the other hand, California also created a bill that targets two companies specifically; kind of its own special interest if you will. We saw how quickly they started carving out exceptions once the original bill was passed and comedians couldn’t perform, and journalists started getting let go. Why not just pass the bill and call it the “Uber and Lyft must pay their drivers like employees and let them act like independent contractors too” bill? Because that’s really what it is. Uber and Lyft will no doubt relocate and cease operations in California altogether if they can’t get around this. I guess the pandemic is a good time to do that since so many workers are remote, but there is no doubt in my mind that’s going to happen. The bill that was passed is an existential crises for them. The business model was intended for people to make some part time money. Like selling stuff on Etsy. It cant support paying drivers like they are salaried workers. Not many of them at least. It’s all around bad. When states and the feds start regulating companies like this, it’s a prime example of the failures of our governments to provide for the people.
pbreit 6y ago
It's a very small minority that thinks drivers are properly classified as employees. The drivers themselves certainly do not think so. Drivers literally do not have to work.
- smt88 6y ago
  Recent polling suggests that you're wrong, and support for Prop 22 is roughly even with opposition. https://sfist.com/2020/10/06/uber-and-lyfts-prop-22-measure-only-up-by-3-points-in-poll-despite-186-million-war-chest/ https://sfist.com/2020/10/06/uber-and-lyfts-prop-22-measure-...
roenxi 6y ago
> Watching this fight I wonder "Who is in charge of governing California?" The same people vote on the proposition who vote for the government. I don't like the things California tends to vote for but it is nothing short of enlightened to allow people a mechanism to directly overrule the legislature. If the people don't like the government's labour law, who are the government to object? I can't for the life of me see why the people can't choose how they work. It is the one thing I think they are qualified to comment on.
- mehrdadn 6y ago
  No... it's not this simple. The mechanism for overriding a government existing is one thing, but making it so easy to trigger for the most random things left and right is quite another. I'm not sure if you've seen the CA ballots, but casting an informed vote is quite arduous for the average person, partly due to the nuances involved in the topics (experts who've spent their lives studying these topics can easily disagree on some of them), and partly due to the sheer number of things people need to vote on. You easily need to forego days' worth of income (hope you have disposable income to spare!) to do anything resembling a reasonable amount of research to cast something that can be called an informed vote. Even ignoring the fact that many people don't have the time, energy, or means of sufficiently informing themselves to decide nuanced public policy issues, what they do cannot be overridden by the legislature (except for the few issues that specify otherwise). Which is fine for the fraction of people who want that, but for everybody else who doesn't think their opinion is the last word on an issue and understands unexpected problems might come up later, there's no way for them to vote "I'm in favor of this policy but only if the legislature can override it (say) after N years". Or to vote "I think the legislature should decide this and not my fellow citizens, because I honestly have no clue and I think the issue is just too complicated to let random people decide." Just imagine if the FDA approved drugs by popular vote... Really, it defeats how the system is supposed to work. The entire point of electing officials you trust is so they can find experts they can trust and rely on their opinions for making informed decisions. So you don't have to spend your time deciding random things, both to save your time (don't forget it's literally your representative's job to legislate, and not yours), and because you (and me, and most people) probably don't know nearly enough about many issues. It's especially counterproductive to have to vote with people you agree and trust but to be forced to do that in a way that prevents them from being able to improve it down the road. The last thing you should want to do to someone you like and trust is to bypass them in the decision-making progress! Ultimately, there is certainly wisdom in letting people override their government, but CA's implementation of this idea has left a lot to be desired by its own population.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Watching this fight I wonder "Who is in charge of governing California?" is it the Legislature/Governor or is it special interests who can spend enough to put bespoke laws into effect and make bespoke changes to the state constitution? Neither. It's the people, who, after all the spending choose both the legislature and the governor, and choose the results ofinitiatives and referenda, and who have, on making all those choices, time and again defied the balance of spending. > California didn't help itself when it implemented term limits which had the unpleasant side effect of never having any legislators with enough experience in the job to know how to really get things done, and so the "work" of writing laws has also fallen to special interests. Special interests have proposed and drafted laws and offered them up to the legislature since long before term limits, legislators (both before and after term limits) do draft their own a decide which, wherever they originate, to support, either as written or with amendments. And while term limits as implemented in CA do overall moderately weaken the elected legislators compared to unelected interests (professional staff as well as lobbying groups), it's a fairly modest effect; the median legislator is probably about as strong as before, but no one builds up the kind of institutional power that someone like Willie Brown had. > This has never been more clear than the last 4 years where California has had a single party in both houses, and a Governor and still cannot legislate anything that special interests oppose. This is obviously untrue in the literal sense, as most legislation has special interests both supporting and opposing and plenty has passed in the last four years. If you mean it in some non-literal sense, then I can't fathom exactly what that might be.
- atomi 6y ago
  No kidding. Did op forget that it's actual people who are voting on these referendums? California allows any coalition to initiate referendums and bring the vote to the people, if that's not democratic, I don't know what is. Edit: And it's a bit insulting to say California voters don't have the wherewithal to digest political advertisements and make their own decisions.
  - strawberrypuree 6y ago
    > And it's a bit insulting to say California voters don't have the wherewithal to digest political advertisements and make their own decisions. On top of this, voters don’t even need to digest political advertisements. The state sends a booklet that describes all the proposition, the pro position, rebuttals to the pro position, the con position and rebuttals to the con position, plus how much money was spent from each side, plus who made those contributions. All there, in black and white, in your mailbox.
lhorie 6y ago
I think a relevant question is whether California should be legislating these things at all. Look for example at prop 23 (a doctor must be present for dialysis). There's a clear interest group here (dialysis clinics are in existential crisis) but if you look at a bigger picture, you may see why it might not be economically feasible for clinics in less densely populated areas to hire full time doctors, considering the associated costs and even just the general supply of doctors. In that light, does it make sense to try to pass blanket regulation that can have wildly different outcomes depending on hyperlocal factors such as population density? I recently watched a debate between a couple of right leaning folks and they talked about how the left tends to lean towards trying to generalize universally, and this seems like a pathological example where such an approach might not make sense, compared to hyperlocal municipality-driven regulation, or even no regulation at all.

Ericson2314 6y ago

> California didn't help itself when it implemented term limits which had the unpleasant side effect of never having any legislators with enough experience in the job to know how to really get things done. I've never understood this argument. Potential "yay" and "nay" votes are both term-limited, so the "inexperience" should cancel out? The fear of rocking the boat effects anyone that, well, will live longer. Whether you are looking for continued perks/bribes in office, a cushy lobbying job after, or simply don't want to make enemies before your political next move, the perverse incentives are still there. Perhaps a better thing to do would be to let the populace force votes on a daily basis (with queuing / anti DOS measures, of course), so the representatives have to go on the record one way or another, and can't hide behind inaction.

beambot 6y ago
Yay & Nay votes aren't the only job of legislators. They're often responsible for writing good legislation too -- something that's arguably difficult to do if you're new to the job, so the task (largely) falls back to special interests to "help" with the process. By way of example: Literature. It's easy to read a good book; it's much harder to write one without lots & lots of practice.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  Even when the outside interests don't write the legislation, it's the staff and not actually politicians that too: politicians are basically constantly in meetings / at events and have no time for such work. :| Nothing prevents the staff from being retained from when legislator to the next.
  - thebradbain 6y ago
    And that's partly how you end up with what many people would perceive as a "shadow government" -- obviously a group of people are writing the laws, and most likely they're experienced in doing so, but who _are_ they? And who are they accountable to? Kind of like the bureaucratic equivalent of external consultants coming into a private company.
    - matthewmacleod 6y ago
      You’ve just the Civil Service.
  - dmitriid 6y ago
    British series "Yes, Minister" / "Yes, Prime Minister" immediately come to mind.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Even when the outside interests don't write the legislation, it's the staff and not actually politicians that too: politicians are basically constantly in meetings / at events and have no time for such work. That's a little bit true but mostly misleading. As with any office with professional staff, most of the work of a legislative office is done by the staff, not the head of the office, true. OTOH, that doesn't mean the the skill, knowledge, and understanding of the head of the office is irrelevant, as the head directs the staff strategically, reviews, inquires, refines, and redirects work, etc. > Nothing prevents the staff from being retained from when legislator to the next. The new legislators not having the skill to select appropriate staff might, but a bigger problem isn't that the staff aren't retained but that they usually are; the less skilled the legislators are, the more the professional staff (who probably are shuttling back and forth between working for legislators and working for interest groups) do not only the detail work, but also control the agenda, and the less which faces the electorate sends to fill the nominally most important seats actually matter.
d23 6y ago
> I've never understood this argument. Potential "yay" and "nay" votes are both term-limited, so the "inexperience" should cancel out? What? Take this to it's logical conclusion and imagine term limits of 1 day. No one would be making sound decisions with those yeas and nays. And why would they always be 50 / 50 and "cancel out"? If you know nothing about a fairly complex topic, it's easy to be mislead, especially by someone with an ulterior motive that's playing a game much longer than your term limits.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  > Imagine term limits of 1 day. No one would be making sound decisions with those yeas and nays. I have no idea what terms limits of 1 day would do; it's not obvious to me. Please argue your point. > And why would they always be 50 / 50 and "cancel out"? I'm not talking about a vote split additive cancel out. I'm talking about how in `(termLimit * nFor) / (termLimit * nAgainst)` the `termLimit` factors cancel out. > If you know nothing about a fairly complex topic, it's easy to be mislead, especially by someone with an ulterior motive that's playing a game much longer than your term limits. Again you seem to be imagining legislators are dead at the end of the term and born at the beginning or something. They have plenty time to study the role before (c.f. the stereotypical centrist-psychopath politician planning from elementary school), and plenty of their career to be judged on their actions after. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of factors that reinforce the status quo, but I still haven't heard a decent argument term limits aren't obviously among them one way or the other.
  - m12k 6y ago
    Not the person you are replying to, but I think the point they are trying to make is that the less experience a politician has, the more likely they are to believe what they are told by someone with an agenda who is trying to influence them, e.g. special interests. So the lack of experience doesn't cancel out for yea and nay when it comes to any given vote, because special interests will be lobbying mostly for one of the two, and thus the lack of experience (i.e. resistance to influence by having your own knowledge of the area) can tip the balance.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> I've never understood this argument. Potential "yay" and "nay" votes are both term-limited, so the "inexperience" should cancel out? Your analysis seems to think that legislation is just pushing "yay" or "nay" buttons, and that discussion of experience simply is about people having the skill to find the correct button. (Though inexperience there wouldn't cancel out, either, even with a 50/50 split in intended votes, it would lead to reduced predictability.) Legislators do more than push "yay" and "nay" buttons on packages that are assembled completely outside of their control, though.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  I do think they do plenty more than "yay" or "nay", but the lack of courage among our legislatures is evidenced in both the California legislature and Congress, so I'm less inclined to think term limits is the relevant issue In California I think the huge dominance of the landowning class is more pertinent. Really, I want a non-FPTP parliamentary system. Politics should officially be a "team sport" as it is in practice, and should be a battle of ideologies not personalities. Coincidentally, these means (to me at least) that not having term limits is way less of potential problem, and so I would be against having them.
praestigiare 6y ago
That would be an accurate analysis if this was, for example, random noise in a system. But inexperience is not random, and cannot be said to "cancel out" in any meaningful way.
bregma 6y ago
> I've never understood this argument. Potential "yay" and "nay" votes are both term-limited, so the "inexperience" should cancel out? There are no term limits on C-level executives in deep-pocketed corporations and special interests. The term limits are on the legislators they buy. It's like a subscription model: you need to renew every few years to keep the gravy flowing.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  This is the argument for term limits, BTW: Incumbuants are terrified of their next campaign (which is a every 2 years threat for representatives in the House, btw.) whereas more term limits means more brazen lame ducks. Then again, lame ducks need a job afterword so it's a bad augment too. My conclusions is that term limits seam mostly for show, with muddle benefits and disadvantages. Perhaps the real policy move is term limits + enough UBI that the lame ducks are truly safe no matter what. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition is a neat idea which is like term limits but on steroids: you're as suddenly on the job as you are suddenly off it. I think this example, with the heightened stakes / wider Overton window, makes for the more interesting debate.
lazzlazzlazz 6y ago
Inexperience should "cancel out"? This mental model of how legislature is developed and then passed is probably the silliest I've ever heard. You should be more discerning of your thought processes.

blmsjw 6y ago

Maybe you should ask yourself why the single party is unable to oppose special interests? It’s almost as if they were working together for some odd reason hmmm...

choppaface 6y ago

But rideshare employment regulation is not a California issue, it's a _global_ issue. California wasn't first to GDPR, yet it's the home of internet advertising. Sales tax laws for online commerce had to come from the Supreme Court. California (courts) might be able to leave a mark in the Sidecar vs Uber suit on the issue of Uber using dynamic pricing to uncut rivals for marketshare: https://www.law.com/therecorder/2020/04/24/uber-has-trouble-shaking-defunct-competitors-monopoly-claims/?slreturn=20200923005212 https://www.law.com/therecorder/2020/04/24/uber-has-trouble-... Uber got away with greyballing and other price espionage in New York and outright medical record theft in India. Have those legislatures been successful against Uber?

nemothekid 6y ago

At the risk of sounding like a stereotypical leftist, I'm struggling to see how more of the blame can be on term limits, and not just a side-effect of our current version of democracy under capitalism. Simply put, if I had 100B, and there was outside force threatening my business I would certainly invest to protect myself - this includes mundane things like investing in security and outside threats like regulation. I just don't know you would design a government that is protected against an outside player pouring hundreds of millions of dollars in order to change the laws. If anything I think an official who decided to get in bed with special interest groups is far more prepared to outspend any opponent, and is the safer option for special interests groups. I think, in the future, we will see more Facebook era startups get smarter and smarter on playing politics. Airbnb originally failed miserably in their political game, but I think as time goes on SV will only get better at influencing California & global politics.

ChuckMcM 6y ago
I've been looking for my copy of the LA Times article on this and have yet to find it. So allow me to recount from my not necessarily trusty memory. During an investigation of the impact of term limits on the California the times talked with former "long term" members of both the Assembly and the Senate. In that discussion the people who had served for longer terms felt that you needed the time to understand what made a law "good" versus what made a law "bad." Examples of good and bad were things like it would not be found to be unconstitutional, or its interpretation would be clear to judges who were ruling on it. Things like that. Bad laws are ones that are ambiguous to the point of being unenforceable or are overturned at the first challenge. There was also some discussion of "wisdom" in terms of knowing what things would benefit most from change vs changing things that are easier but less durable. They found that the time clock on legislators terms made them more eager for "easy wins" rather than tacking complex problems. This was especially true of legislators who were hoping to jump into national politics. So while a legislator had the freedom to introduce a bill to solve a tough problem many times over a long career, each time taking into account the feedback from others over how it was crafted, term limited legislators felt they could not "waste time" on something that they would not be able to see through in the amount of time remaining to them. And while legislators have always had staffs that would help in the development and drafting of legislation, in terms of likely being able to get the legislation over the finish line, laws that came from special interests with the promise of providing "good press" to support it are seen as a better bet. By the same token, I am not a California Legislator, nor have I been one (although I have considered putting my name in the running to develop some experiential learning there). As a result I cannot know for certain how much I read about the process is biased in a way that someone who was part of the process would easily spot. Whether or not what I've read about the process is accurate, it is still an area that I am interested in and I find the "dual" between the legislature and initiative writers interesting in its own right.

KorematsuFred 6y ago

Legislatures and Governors are merely instruments and people should be in charge. Having lived in many countries I would rather live in a country where Uber and Lift can add something to ballot rather than where they secretly bribe Governor or Legislators. Both Uber and Lyft are California companies with billions of dollars in investment and thousands of employees, if they are facing an existential crisis I would at least give them a fair chance. California's hare brained policy to push some virtue signaling measure down the throats of Uber and Lyft is not good for gig economy, riders and innovations. Self driving cars would put all this theater to rest for good hopefully.

tathougies 6y ago

California's problem is precisely that it is a one party state. Even a few decades ago, California was not the one party state it is today. Having multiple candidates with meaningful differences on the ballot automatically lowers the ability of special interests to rule the state because it is difficult to be supported by people on completely different sides of the aisle. The proposition that made California the way it is is the one that meant that the primaries are non-partisan and the final race is between the two top contenders. This means that special interests in California need only present their cause through the lens of leftism and they will automatically find sympathetic candidates in the top two, no matter who those are. Contrast this with a partisan primary system. In that system, on the final ballot, it would be difficult for special interests to formulate an argument appealing to both candidates. EDIT: for some reason, I am downvoted but there is little engagement or actual refutation of what I'm saying. If you're going to downvote, at least say something. Otherwise, it makes it seem like the one-party state's propaganda arm is awake and working.

iso947 6y ago
Don’t you have ranked or proportional voting? Even with ranked voting people could choose from different democrat legislators (a Sanders vs a Biden) but be confident republican won’t get in with a plurality.
- tathougies 6y ago
  But that's what I'm saying.. when the candidates are so similar that certain interest groups always get their way (for example biden and sanders agree on oil, unlike republicans and sanders), then certain special interests become privileged
bsder 6y ago
> This means that special interests in California need only present their cause through the lens of leftism and they will automatically find sympathetic candidates in the top two, no matter who those are. The fact that no sane Republican candidates seem to exist in California is not the fault of the jungle primaries. The lack of sane California Republicans is the fault of a Republican primary electorate that views things like "Actually running the government" as a mortal sin. Lets see some California Republicans replace Nunes with a Republican with a couple brain cells to rub together and then we can talk about the faults in the jungle primary system. Until then, you may want to start looking for faults by looking in the mirror.

ksolanki 6y ago

I do not fully understand this, but isn’t this the story at the federal level as well?

CameronNemo 6y ago
Nope, the federal level has no term limits. Dianne Feinstein has been a Senator for 30 years. Even without term limits, laws are written by industry at the federal level (if they are ever written, some years we are just lucky to pass a budget at the federal level).

jayd16 6y ago

How do you think it should have played out? Laws were passed, special interests didn't like it and now there's a court battle. And immediately you say nothing can get passed that special interests oppose. California has the curve ball of the proposition system. Its not that hard to make it to the ballot with anything. It can be a little silly but it is what it is. How is this a term limits issue? What would you like to have seen?

slg 6y ago
>California has the curve ball of the proposition system. That is where special interest is most heavily felt. This court ruling is mostly meaningless. There is a proposition on the ballot that directly addresses this employment/independent contractor issue. It would supersede the legislature and make it nearly impossible for the legislature to repeal or amend the law. The prop also happens to have the most expensive campaign in history behind it. Something like 90-95% of the money came in on the Yes side and it is almost exclusively coming from Uber, Lyft, and similar companies. Basically these companies didn't get what they wanted in the legislature. They didn't get what they wanted in court. So they are trying to buy it from the public. They are hoping we aren't motivated enough to educate ourselves on the issue and will instead just vote Yes because all the campaigning is telling us to do so.
- ericmay 6y ago
  On the other hand, California also created a bill that targets two companies specifically; kind of its own special interest if you will. We saw how quickly they started carving out exceptions once the original bill was passed and comedians couldn’t perform, and journalists started getting let go. Why not just pass the bill and call it the “Uber and Lyft must pay their drivers like employees and let them act like independent contractors too” bill? Because that’s really what it is. Uber and Lyft will no doubt relocate and cease operations in California altogether if they can’t get around this. I guess the pandemic is a good time to do that since so many workers are remote, but there is no doubt in my mind that’s going to happen. The bill that was passed is an existential crises for them. The business model was intended for people to make some part time money. Like selling stuff on Etsy. It cant support paying drivers like they are salaried workers. Not many of them at least. It’s all around bad. When states and the feds start regulating companies like this, it’s a prime example of the failures of our governments to provide for the people.

pbreit 6y ago

It's a very small minority that thinks drivers are properly classified as employees. The drivers themselves certainly do not think so. Drivers literally do not have to work.

smt88 6y ago
Recent polling suggests that you're wrong, and support for Prop 22 is roughly even with opposition. https://sfist.com/2020/10/06/uber-and-lyfts-prop-22-measure-only-up-by-3-points-in-poll-despite-186-million-war-chest/ https://sfist.com/2020/10/06/uber-and-lyfts-prop-22-measure-...

roenxi 6y ago

> Watching this fight I wonder "Who is in charge of governing California?" The same people vote on the proposition who vote for the government. I don't like the things California tends to vote for but it is nothing short of enlightened to allow people a mechanism to directly overrule the legislature. If the people don't like the government's labour law, who are the government to object? I can't for the life of me see why the people can't choose how they work. It is the one thing I think they are qualified to comment on.

mehrdadn 6y ago
No... it's not this simple. The mechanism for overriding a government existing is one thing, but making it so easy to trigger for the most random things left and right is quite another. I'm not sure if you've seen the CA ballots, but casting an informed vote is quite arduous for the average person, partly due to the nuances involved in the topics (experts who've spent their lives studying these topics can easily disagree on some of them), and partly due to the sheer number of things people need to vote on. You easily need to forego days' worth of income (hope you have disposable income to spare!) to do anything resembling a reasonable amount of research to cast something that can be called an informed vote. Even ignoring the fact that many people don't have the time, energy, or means of sufficiently informing themselves to decide nuanced public policy issues, what they do cannot be overridden by the legislature (except for the few issues that specify otherwise). Which is fine for the fraction of people who want that, but for everybody else who doesn't think their opinion is the last word on an issue and understands unexpected problems might come up later, there's no way for them to vote "I'm in favor of this policy but only if the legislature can override it (say) after N years". Or to vote "I think the legislature should decide this and not my fellow citizens, because I honestly have no clue and I think the issue is just too complicated to let random people decide." Just imagine if the FDA approved drugs by popular vote... Really, it defeats how the system is supposed to work. The entire point of electing officials you trust is so they can find experts they can trust and rely on their opinions for making informed decisions. So you don't have to spend your time deciding random things, both to save your time (don't forget it's literally your representative's job to legislate, and not yours), and because you (and me, and most people) probably don't know nearly enough about many issues. It's especially counterproductive to have to vote with people you agree and trust but to be forced to do that in a way that prevents them from being able to improve it down the road. The last thing you should want to do to someone you like and trust is to bypass them in the decision-making progress! Ultimately, there is certainly wisdom in letting people override their government, but CA's implementation of this idea has left a lot to be desired by its own population.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> Watching this fight I wonder "Who is in charge of governing California?" is it the Legislature/Governor or is it special interests who can spend enough to put bespoke laws into effect and make bespoke changes to the state constitution? Neither. It's the people, who, after all the spending choose both the legislature and the governor, and choose the results ofinitiatives and referenda, and who have, on making all those choices, time and again defied the balance of spending. > California didn't help itself when it implemented term limits which had the unpleasant side effect of never having any legislators with enough experience in the job to know how to really get things done, and so the "work" of writing laws has also fallen to special interests. Special interests have proposed and drafted laws and offered them up to the legislature since long before term limits, legislators (both before and after term limits) do draft their own a decide which, wherever they originate, to support, either as written or with amendments. And while term limits as implemented in CA do overall moderately weaken the elected legislators compared to unelected interests (professional staff as well as lobbying groups), it's a fairly modest effect; the median legislator is probably about as strong as before, but no one builds up the kind of institutional power that someone like Willie Brown had. > This has never been more clear than the last 4 years where California has had a single party in both houses, and a Governor and still cannot legislate anything that special interests oppose. This is obviously untrue in the literal sense, as most legislation has special interests both supporting and opposing and plenty has passed in the last four years. If you mean it in some non-literal sense, then I can't fathom exactly what that might be.

atomi 6y ago
No kidding. Did op forget that it's actual people who are voting on these referendums? California allows any coalition to initiate referendums and bring the vote to the people, if that's not democratic, I don't know what is. Edit: And it's a bit insulting to say California voters don't have the wherewithal to digest political advertisements and make their own decisions.
- strawberrypuree 6y ago
  > And it's a bit insulting to say California voters don't have the wherewithal to digest political advertisements and make their own decisions. On top of this, voters don’t even need to digest political advertisements. The state sends a booklet that describes all the proposition, the pro position, rebuttals to the pro position, the con position and rebuttals to the con position, plus how much money was spent from each side, plus who made those contributions. All there, in black and white, in your mailbox.

lhorie 6y ago

I think a relevant question is whether California should be legislating these things at all. Look for example at prop 23 (a doctor must be present for dialysis). There's a clear interest group here (dialysis clinics are in existential crisis) but if you look at a bigger picture, you may see why it might not be economically feasible for clinics in less densely populated areas to hire full time doctors, considering the associated costs and even just the general supply of doctors. In that light, does it make sense to try to pass blanket regulation that can have wildly different outcomes depending on hyperlocal factors such as population density? I recently watched a debate between a couple of right leaning folks and they talked about how the left tends to lean towards trying to generalize universally, and this seems like a pathological example where such an approach might not make sense, compared to hyperlocal municipality-driven regulation, or even no regulation at all.