We figured that when Darrell Steinberg assumed the leadership post in the Senate, there would be less accommodation and more risk-taking from the Democratic caucus. Well, this potential deal floated in today's LA Times would certainly fit that description.
State lawmakers began moving toward a deal this week to close California's deficit with the help of steeper car fees that would cost many drivers hundreds of dollars annually, according to people involved in budget talks.
Under the plan, GOP lawmakers -- most of whom have signed anti-tax pledges -- would vote to triple the vehicle license fee that owners pay when they register their cars every year in exchange for a ballot measure that would impose rigid limits on future state spending. Motorists' annual license fees would rise from 0.65% of the value of their vehicles to 2%. For a car or truck valued at $25,000, the increase would be $336.
The higher fees would generate $6 billion annually, helping to fill a budget gap that is projected to reach nearly $28 billion over the next year and a half.
The proposal is being championed by incoming state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento). Democrats and advocates for the poor have opposed strict state spending limits, saying they would cripple government services.
Steinberg may be gambling that voters would reject the limits, as they have in the past.
This would be a simple restoration of the VLF to the levels put in place by Pete Wilson (yes, Wilson; the increase, which was meant to occur during poor economic times, only triggered under Gray Davis). It is not a progressive version or a "feebate," and it does not increase for higher emission-producing cars and trucks. So it's not the best way to restore the VLF, in my view.
And the exchange, a ballot measure to restrict state spending, is a long-sought Yacht Party agenda item. I'm guessing it would be substantially similar to the version voted down in 2005. A spending cap is simply a way to ratchet down government and eliminate needed services which the public has said time and again they not only want, but are willing to pay for.
I understand Steinberg's reasoning on two levels:
(1) It's probably correct that Democrats and unions would fight like hell to stop a ballot measure with a spending cap. These are tough economic times, however, and they're projected to continue in the near future, so cutting spending may look more attractive to voters.
(2) This would be a stake through the heart of Yacht Party rhetoric about taxes. You can see the effect of what this would do by just listening to talk radio:
Prospects for the plan, however, immediately began to dim after details were published on the Los Angeles Times website. Angry phone calls from constituents, advocacy groups and talk radio hosts prompted lawmakers to publicly distance themselves from the proposal.
I mean, this came out on the same day when Senate leader Dave Cogdill wrote an op-ed entitled Cut, Don't Tax. And Arnold Schwarzenegger made cutting the VLF the signature piece of policy in his platform in the 2003 recall election. For him to reverse it just 5 years later would be humiliating.
Ultimately, Republicans are probably too spineless to agree to this - they'd fear primary elections in 2010, although directly after an election would probably be the best time to pull this off, with the most distance between now and the next election. But Democrats should think hard about this as well. Is it really worth having to fight a ballot measure that would cripple the state? It may well be, especially considering there's probably no other way to raise needed revenue.
For years upon years, most states had consistent vehicle license fees. They didn't vary all that much from state to state, averaging around 2% of stated value. You paid your couple hundred bucks per year and for that you got to use a tremendous system of roads, traffic lights, and stop signs. All very helpful to your average driver.
Then something happened in Virgina in 1997. Jim Gilmore was elected governor. Yes that crazy guy at the end of the stage in the first few presidential debates. He focused his campaign almost exclusively on eliminating the "car tax" in Virginia.
And it worked. The vehicle license fee was slashed in the state. Funding for the roads and transportation suffered, and eventually the government began to feel the effects across the budget. Stop me if you've heard this before.
But Virginia was able to bring itself out of the abyss. How? They went and elected themselves in 2001 a courageous governor who stood up to the "goverment sux" crowd in now Senator elect Mark Warner. Warner went and did the unthinkable, he raised taxes. He restored some of the license fees and increased other fees to ensure that the state of Virginia didn't have to slash across the board.
Here in California, we had quite a similar story, didn't we? Of course, Schwarzenegger didn't really need to campaign on the "car tax." He did it because he could and it calmed the right-wingers that he needed to keep away from Tom McClintock. Let's be honest, had he not even touched the issue, he probably would have won anyway.
But he did campaign on the issue, and so he went about and made deals with interest groups to get his bills paid. Higher ed got their compact to increase funding. K-12 got promises to increase their funding later. All this to slash and burn through our revenue stream. So he paid for the several billion in local government infill with general revenue. In FY 2004-2005, it cost us about $6B, and that number has increased since. Some back of the napkin math gets you to about $25 Billion in the four completed fiscal years since.
Now, what could we have done with $25 Billion? Oh right, we could have avoided a budget crisis.
But it's unclear if there is a Mark Warner in our future. Our 2/3 rules gives a minority a veto power they didn't hold in Virignia. Furthermore, a few republicans were even willing to come along to help Warner clean up the mess there. Arnold is finally looking at raising taxes, but he only gives a quick smirk at the VLF, raising it by a $12 flat fee. Kevin Drumm has a better idea:
Unlike a sales tax, which needs to be a flat rate for administrative reasons, the VLF could easily vary by assessed value. It could stay at its current rate of 0.65% up to, say, $10,000 in assessed value, increase to 2% for more expensive cars, and increase still further to 4% for top end cars. The average rate would still be about 2%, but the incidence of the tax would be more progressive.(Mother Jones 11/2008)
The main element of Arnold's tax plan is the inherently regressive sales tax. Drumm argues for this progressive VLF. As for me, I'd like to see an element that contributes towards our goals under AB32 as well. A quick idea would be to give discounts for low-polluting vehicles while penalties for high-value cars with poor mileage. Yes, Hummer owners I'm looking at you.
But however you do it, we need to restore balance to our tax system. We can't keep eliminating without considering that we are just becoming more and more dependent on the cyclical income tax. It's a recipe for boom and bust that we've seen play out too often here.
Today the Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) is due to report back on the estimated budget deficit. The news won't be good. Across the state, we hear greater numbers of anecdotes about public and private employers cutting jobs. Of course, this strains our budget on two ends. It decreases our revenue and increases our outlays for services. But it's gonna happen, from the Chronicle:
A survey of 509 executives, conducted in the first week of November by the Bay Area Council, found that business confidence in the nine-county Bay Area had slumped to its lowest level since the group first began taking quarterly readings in the summer of 2001.
* * *
"Unfortunately, layoffs often follow on the heels of pessimism, and I think we may see bad get worse," council President Jim Wunderman said in a statement.(SF Chronicle 11/20/08)
So bad in fact, that forty percent of the executives surveyed by the Bay Area Council expected to layoff workers. And just to make things more fun, municipalities like the City and County of San Francisco are being forced to make cuts to their workforce. This is horrifying data, and if everything comes to pass we'll need a lot more than $25 Billion from the federal government to correct our budget shortfalls.
I guess Henry Waxman, a key ally to Nancy Pelosi, wouldn't have made the move to unseat John Dingell if he didn't count the votes.
Rep. Henry Waxman (Calif.) has ousted Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell (Mich.), as Democratic lawmakers voted 137-122 Thursday morning to hand the gavel of the powerhouse panel to its second-ranking member.
This, more than anything, could be the biggest change in the federal government in 2009 and beyond. Waxman's Safe Climate Act sets the targets needed to mitigate the worst effects of global warming. It now becomes the working document in the House for anti-global warming legislation. And his constituency doesn't include a major polluting industry.
From a policy standpoint, it's a major progressive victory.
At Tuesday's board meeting Superintendent Terry Brace explained the district will lose $3.5 million under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed budget plan.
If that passes, the district's three percent reserve will be pushed to the limit to cover expenses. Brace said the aim will be to maintain educational programs first. After that, "we want to cut things and not people," he said.
Kings County officials implemented a hiring freeze Tuesday as one of several measures to circumvent anticipated funding cuts from the state in the midst of a faltering economy. The county had already been on a limited or "soft" hiring freeze since July 1, the freeze affecting only positions that won't affect the basic level of service. No reduction in staffing levels were being considered.
County Administrative Officer Larry Spikes says it's a necessary measure to protect the county's fiscal health in light of the worsening state budget crisis underscored last week by the governor's call for a special session to close the deficit. Never before in California history has a governor called an "extraordinary session" so late in the year.
Efforts to close an $11.2 billion state budget deficit have shaken up the state's Healthy Families program, which provides health care to about 13,300 children and pregnant women in Stanislaus County.
Next month, the state is preparing to freeze enrollment in the program, which provides medical, dental and vision care to children whose families earn too much to receive Medi-Cal but can't afford private insurance. If the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board approves the proposal Dec. 17, families trying to enroll children will be placed on a waiting list at least until June 30.
This is what's happening in this state, at precisely the wrong time. During an economic downturn, with the attendant job loss, people need more services, not less. It's the perverse cycle of constrained state budgets with their balanced budget amendments that they need to cut back precisely when they should be expanding. In a downturn, government must be the spender of last resort, yet the state Constitution doesn't allow it. And cutting the budget to get it in balance during this greatest fiscal crisis since the Great Depression would be an absolute disaster. And frankly, the Yacht Party isn't going to agree to anything sensible.
It would be better for all involved if the entire Democratic caucus decamped from Sacramento to Washington and sat outside Nancy Pelosi's office until a stimulus package with aid to state and local governments passed. Otherwise, the local stories are going to get worse and worse.
House Republicans apparently think that losing 50 seats over two cycles is change they can believe in, as they signed up John Boehner as Minority Leader for two more years, resisting a challenge from Dan Lungren.
While Randy Bayne considers this a bright spot for Bill Durston and his effort to beat Lungren in 2010, I have the opposite view. Being Minority Leader would have put a major target on Lungren's back. Now he can slink back into quiet anonymity and not raise the ire of his constituency, which is rapidly growing more Democratic.
On another note, how can House Republicans possibly think that Boehner has done a good job these last two years to warrant a return engagement? Fortunately, that's their problem.
...in other news about local Congresscritters, Barbara Lee is now the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Lynn Woolsey has retained her co-chair of the Progressive Caucus in the House, along with Arizona's Raul Grijalva.
The Supreme Court wasted no time in issuing its Order.
Not surprisingly, the Court agreed to hear the Prop 8 cases. The Respondents and Intervenors must file their brief on the merits by December 19, 2008. The Petitioners' Reply brief is due on January 5, 2009. Any applications to file amicus briefs are due January 15, 2009, and the replies to amicus briefs are due on January 21, 2009. A hearing date has not yet been set, but I predict it will not occur until March.
One early indicator of the way the Supreme Court sees the issues in any given case is to look at what questions it certifies for review. Here, the Court certified three questions:
(1) Is Proposition 8 invalid because it constitutes a revision of, rather than an amendment to the California Constitution?
(2) Does Proposition 8 violate the separation of powers doctrine under the California Constitution?
(3) If Proposition 8 is not unconstitutional, what is its effect, if any, on the marriages of same-sex couples performed before the adoption of Proposition 8?
The Court allowed the Official Proponents of Proposition 8 to intervene in the litigation. This means that they can file a Respondent's Brief along with the Attorney General's office. The Court denied a similar request filed by the Campaign for California Families.
As I predicted it would do, the Court denied the Petitioners' motion to stay the enforcement of Proposition 8 pending the outcome of the case. An interesting side note, however, is that Justice Moreno joined the Order except that he would have granted the motion for stay. This is an encouraging sign that Justice Moreno believes that there is a reasonable likelihood that Prop 8 will be declared invalid. Way to go Justice Moreno!
Another interesting side note - Justice Kennard did not join the Order. She stated that she would deny the Petition, but she would allow another Petition to be filed that raised only the third question - What effect Proposition 8 has on the marriages performed before the adoption of Proposition 8. What does this mean? Well, it could mean that Justice Kennard does not believe that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. On the other hand, it could mean that she simply thinks the case should originate in the Superior Court before making its way to the Supreme Court.
Justice Kennard was one of the four Justices who voted in favor of marriage equality. In fact, she was one of the minority of Justices who thought that the marriages that were performed in 2004 should not have been invalidated pending the Court's decision in In re: Marriage Cases. Justice Kennard wrote her own concurring opinion in the Marriage Cases in which she stated:
Whether an unconstitutional denial of a fundamental right has occurred is not a matter to be decided by the executive or legislative branch, or by popular vote, but is instead an issue of constitutional law or resolution by the judicial branch of state government.
Given her stand on this issue, it is my guess that Justice Kennard believes that Proposition 8 is not constitutional. I must admit, though, that her refusal to join the Court's Order today perplexes me.
All along this budget process we hear that our spending is bloated, that we need to cut, cut, cut. Well, Republicans and the crew, here is what you are cutting:
John Melone says he'll probably have to cut back on his heart medications to make rent now that the state is eliminating the renter's tax credit that saved him $316 a year. The 73-year-old retiree says he has come to expect that people on low or fixed incomes always are the first to take the burdens of the state's budget woes, but he does not like it.
"We're catching it from every angle, particularly seniors and the disabled," said Melone, a former medical social worker who pays $500 a month for a room in a friend's Richmond home. "This is ridiculous, that people in their 70s have to decide they have to take a pill every other day so they can make rent." (CoCo Times 11/19/08)
Yet just today I received a sweet missive in my email from the CA Republican Senate Caucus. It's really not all that substantive, but that's the case for most of the spin emanating from Cogdill and Crew. But, this was worth noting:
As the Legislature enters a special session to address California's estimated $11.2 billion budget deficit, some in Sacramento have proposed billions of dollars in higher taxes to bridge the state's growing budget shortfall. GOP lawmakers argue that tax hikes will only hurt the economy and threaten jobs.
* * *
Republicans have a common-sense approach to the budget deficit that does not include increasing taxes on Californians struggling to make ends meet. To learn more visit: SenateRepublicanBudget.com.
The interesting part, when you get to their website, there is nothing about the new budget negotiations. There's a "plan" to balance the budget from back in September without raising taxes. It mostly relies on cutting services to folks like Mr. Melone, but it never really got close to what it was supposed to do.
And for today's larger budget crisis? Nary a peep as for a solution. It's easy to say no, providing real solutions is becoming tougher for Cogdill's Comrades.
This is a very big deal. Henry Waxman has been nominated by the House's Steering Committee to be the head of the House panel on Energy and Commerce, ahead of longtime chair John Dingell. The implications for such a change would be huge, but it's not over yet.
The House Democratic Steering Committee has nominated Henry A. Waxman to be chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee next year - a stinging rebuke of the sitting chairman, John D. Dingell .
Waxman won a 25-22 vote over Dingell in a closed-door meeting Wednesday by the Steering panel. Because Dingell got more than 13 votes in the secret balloting, he can be nominated to run against Waxman at Thursday's Democratic Caucus meeting, at which all of the Democrats elected to the 111th Congress are eligible to vote.
That means we have one day to whip our Congresspeople on this vote. Waxman, who wrote the Clean Air Act and who has an understanding of what is needed to be done on global warming and the post-carbon future, would make a great chairman, as opposed to the Dingellsaurus, who is still trying to protect the auto industry from moving into the 21st century, even as the verdict on their approach is defined by their trudging to Capitol Hill for a bailout. A majority of the caucus has signed a letter to Nancy Pelosi asking for greater efforts to combat climate change. Waxman at Energy is a key to that happening. We must eliminate this roadblock.
Marc Ambinder sets the scene (this was written before today's vote)
Waxman wants the job for obvious reasons: the committee will be the most powerful in the new Congress, one that'll deal with health care and energy legislation. (Ways and Means? Pleghghgh.) A lot of impatient liberal Democrats want to see Dingell go; he is too old, too blinkered in his thinking and too at odds with the party on energy, they say; just as many, it seems, want him to say, including some influential members of the leadership, even if for reasons of preserving the integrity of the seniority system.
Senior Democratic aides expect that the vote will go to the full caucus; all the loser of the steering committee vote has to do is present a letter with 35 House members. The full vote would be Thursday via secret ballot.
Lots of members of Congress put themselves in the position of someone like Dingell, who earned his chairmanship with seniority, and they don't want to see him pushed out because they wouldn't want it to happen to them. That's the kind of institutional thinking that must be vanquished, as it restricts change. The enviro groups are backing away from this fight because they don't want to feel Dingell's wrath if he wins. There is nobody else left to step in but us. I was skeptical that House Democrats would be pushed in the direction of progress, but with Waxman's former chief of staff, Phil Schiliro, in the Obama White House, some pressure may be coming down from the top. It's in all of our interests to have Henry Waxman atop this committee.
Call Congress and tell them you want to see a committee chair with bold ideas on energy as the head of the Energy Committee. If you want some extra incentive, read the smugness of the Blue Dogs who are fighting for their roadblock:
Dingell's supporters said they are not worried by the vote of the Steering panel, which they say is stocked with left-leaning members who do not represent the broader makeup of Democratic caucus.
"If you look at the makeup of that committee in terms of geography and political leanings, this is not the same dynamic as our whole caucus," said Jim Matheson , D-Utah, who is part of a team working the phones for Dingell, D-Mich.
In particular, if your member is in the Congressional Black Caucus or the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, both of which are supporting Dingell, ask them if they want their constituents to breathe clean air in the future.
In the days after Proposition 8's passage, much was made of a CNN Exit Poll showing 70% of African Americans voted for Prop 8. That poll had a number of problems including a small sample size. But the damage had been done, and it soon became conventional wisdom that black voters made the difference, that Obama brought out a huge wave of black anti-gay voters, etc.
But a further review of the evidence, more accurate exit polling, and academic analysis suggests that the 70% figure is way off, as David Mixner reports:
Dr. Fernando Guerra of Loyola's Levy Center for the Study of Los Angeles did a far more extensive poll than CNN and found that the 70% figure was way too high. The figure is closer to 57% (still not acceptable) but a long way from the 70%. Other models that I have been running in an attempt to get the facts and not the emotions show the latter a more likely figure.
The other data that appears to be emerging (BUT yet to be totally verified) is that African-Americans who early voted (which was a huge number) voted YES while those on election day voted NO. Remember we did not do extensive campaigning in many of the African-American precincts until the final week or so which was long after tens of thousands had already voted. Our campaign was slow to use Obama's opposition to Proposition Eight which he gave the day after the initiative qualified five months before the election.
That explanation makes much more sense than anything else I've seen. Early voters tend to be older and it would make sense if some of them in the African American community were strongly associated with Yes on 8 churches. Once the No on 8 campaign finally got its act somewhat together and did outreach to African Americans, we saw the rewards on Election Day.
Ultimately this reminds us how cheap, stupid, and misguided the scapegoating of African Americans over Prop 8 has been. Prop 8's passage revealed that the marriage equality movement has a lot of outreach to do in this state - to older voters, voters living in "red California," to some Latinos and African Americans but also to numerous white voters (if whites had voted strongly No, this discussion would be moot), to Asian and Pacific Islanders, to some religious groups, including LDS Californians.
When the next campaign happens we will be sure to not make these same mistakes. Outreach is going to happen early and often. Just as Barack Obama took his campaign to red America - organizing in places Democrats never before thought they could win, reaching out to voters Dems often ignored - so too must the Prop 8 campaign adopt an inclusive and assertive organizing strategy, mobilizing our base and doing outreach in every community that did not vote strongly enough for marriage equality.
So the legislature has scheduled a weekend vote on a new budget plan for the special session. It could be that they will vote on Governor Schwarzenegger's plan without modification. In fact, that's almost certain, because Denise Ducheny, the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, is in India until next Wednesday, and unless she's holding hearings in Mumbai, I don't think she'll be marking anything up.
So what exactly ARE they going to vote on?
The basic political dynamic that caused a record-long impasse over the state budget last summer - Republicans blocking any new taxes, and Democrats vowing to protect services from deep spending cuts - has not changed. Even so, Schwarzenegger is expected to gather with the Democratic and Republican leaders this morning, after more than three hours of talks on Monday.
"We're committed to making a dent in this problem with this Legislature and not waiting until Dec. 1," Darrell Steinberg, the incoming Democratic Senate leader, said after Monday's negotiations. But asked if he knew what legislators would be voting on Sunday during the scheduled floor sessions, he said, "We definitely don't know yet."
The Governor seemed to suggest in this weekend's interview with George Stephanopoulos that his proposal would be changed before the vote, but I don't see how that would happen.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Yet, your critics say that this one-and-a-half- cent sales tax is the most regressive form of tax. It's going to hit the people who are going through the toughest times right now the hardest.
SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, no one should be that worried about any of that, because remember, the way it works is that the governor puts up a proposal, and then the legislative leaders go and start debating over that and looking into it, if they maybe have a better idea or a different idea. So we have a very collaborative kind of approach to the whole thing. So they may come up with different type of taxes.
Get to work, Sen. Ducheny! Or maybe the hordes of lobbyists can come up with something.
Meanwhile, at this point, it seems like the best option for the state is to beg the Congress for aid. The stalemate with the Yacht Party is overwhelmingly likely to continue, and the numbers that California would need to survive are dwarfed by the handouts to banks and other industries. The Governor has been lobbying for support as well, and Speaker Pelosi appears to agree that some aid is needed. Without that help, we're going to see cutbacks even worse than lowering future enrollment at CSU by 10,000 students. And sadly, it's better at this point to seek help from Washington than Sacramento.
• The trial on prison overcrowding began today. This could blow another hole in our budget, or could end up in a mass release of prisoners. Either way, this is yet another sad day for a failed corrections system in the state.
• We've already run out of money in our fire fighting budget, and exceeded the budget allocation by over $200 million. Tack it on to the 12Billion in deficit, I suppose.
• Jerry McNerney as the Secretary of Energy? It seems like more rumor than fact, and his spokesman is denying any contact with Barack Obama. But this would start a chain reaction and would likely set up a contested special election. McNerney hasn't been the best Congressman, but he does have fairly substantial knowledge about energy issues, particularly wind power.
• Markos has an important post on the Prop. 8 protests, the Human Rights Campaign, and grassroots politics.
• Disgraced conservative former SF Supervisor Ed Jew pleaded guilty to lying about where he lived in order to run for Supervisor. Ed Jew lasted only a few months before trying to shake down a business in the City. SF is better for his absence.
• "America's Sheriff" Mike Carona's exploits are getting detailed in his corruption trial. Yesterday we learned that one of his contributors got something of a "get out of jail free" card. Fun, just like a board game!
• In election counting news, Tom McClintock's lead over Charlie Brown is down to 562 votes, with provisionals to come, which usually favor Democrats.
As Shum-and-Mike wrote yesterday, several right-wingers have been rumbling about recalling any California Supreme Court Justice who votes to overturn Prop 8. For example, right-wing nut Jon Fleischman said:
If the court overturns 8, I think you will be able to count the days before a very organized and well-funded recall of the justices voting to do that will begin. Given the passion on this issue, and the financial resources available, a recall of these justices would be on the ballot lickety-split, and then the justices who didn't believe in the primacy of the voters can understand what it feels like to feel their wrath. ... Remember Rose Bird?
Unfortunately, he is correct. The California Constitution (Art. II, Sec. 13-16) allows for the removal of any "state officer." And Supreme Court Justices are "state officers." (See Government Code section11005).
If a recall petition is initiated, it must be signed by registered voters equal in number to 20 percent of the last vote for the office. The last vote of a Supreme Court Justice was 5,193,000. Consequently, about 1 million signatures would be required to recall a Supreme Court Justice. To put this in perspective, those behind the effort to recall Gray Davis gathered 1.6 million signatures, 1.3 million of which were valid. They would have 160 days (less than 6 months) to gather the signatures.
In addition to a recall effort, another way the right-wingers can attack our Justices is through their re-election bids. California requires every Justice to stand for election every 12 years. In 2010, Ronald George, Carlos Moreno, and Ming Chin stand for election. Both George and Moreno voted for the majority opinion in In Re Marriage Cases. Ming Chin voted with the dissent. It will be much easier for the right-wingers to target Moreno and George in their re-election bids as opposed to a recall campaign because they would not need to file a recall petition or gather signatures.
Follow me to the flip to see why allowing for the recall of a judge violates just about every tenet of a democracy. . .
The resolution that passed today did not reflect Senator Boxer's belief that Senator Lieberman should remain in the Democratic caucus but not retain his full Committee Chairmanship- she voted accordingly.
Good vote by Boxer, you can find her online at Barbara Boxer dot com.
(Food banks all over the state are feeling the pinch. If you can, please consider helping out online or off. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
"This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change." President-elect Barack Obama
Across the country, food banks are struggling to keep up with increased demand. And with the holidays approaching, Democrats Work is doing something about it. We need your help.
In California we are helping the FoodLink for Tulare County, Food Share, Inc., Butte County Gleaners, Inc., Community Resources Council, Inc., FIND, Inc., Second Harvest Food Bank serving Santa Cruz & San Benito Cos., Food Bank for Monterey County, Community Food Bank, Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano, San Francisco Food Bank, Foodbank of Santa Barbara County, Redwood Empire Food Bank, Second Harvest Food Bank serving Santa Clara & San Mateo Cos., Second Harvest Food Bank serving Riverside & San Bernardino Cos., Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, Los Angeles Regional Foodbank, Alameda County Community Food Bank, San Diego Food Bank, San Joaquin Food Bank, and Senior Gleaners, Inc.!
