CA: Our Governor's ties to Norquist, Prop. 75 and his appointee

This summer, the Governor appointed a nationally known Norquista to the California Board of Forestry.

Thomas Leavitt at Seeing the Forest and journalist John Myers at Capital Notes gave us timely red flags on this well-connected fellow, Ron Nehring.

So what else is there with this Nehring guy? In the summer, a quick Google pulled up all sorts of items of interest on Ron Nehring. Today, for some diabolical reason, much of the information I found on him has been scrubbed.

Nehring’s specialty at ATR was destroying unions with initiatives such as Prop. 75. I suppose it's just a strange coincidence Prop. 75 is on this special election.

Back in 2000, Nehring was the Director of National Campaigns for ATR. There he followed the Norquist pattern of making airdrops from state to state, spreading legislative goodies everywhere like the Republican version of the Easter Bunny.

Prop. 75 has been part of a 50 state campaign for awhile. It has been quite successful in delimiting union power. You can read about Idaho at this link:
http://heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=11927

Here is something he wrote more recently about the whole movement:

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=16772

CSM has an article on this 50 state strategy.

"The Republican National Committee has pumped millions into groups like Americans for Tax Reform with the intention of putting up conservative ballot measures that will help drive turnout for GOP candidates," he says. "But [it is] also to basically drain the coffers of Democratic allies, most notably organized labor," says Smith.

The initiative process is an effective, relatively low-cost strategy, Smith adds, because measures can be qualified for about $1 million but require millions to defeat.

And the other states where similar legislation is being considered has become longer:

Should California's Proposition 75 fail to pass, Mr. Schier adds, it could halt the progress of similar measures under consideration in several states - from Ohio, Michigan, and Nevada, to Florida, South Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Arizona.

 No mention of Nehring since he's gone on to other things.

I know some people would say it's just a strange coincidence the once national Norquista strategist for Prop. 75 type legislation is now on board as part of California's government.

The take home lession is this: When you vote, know that Prop. 75 is part of a national effort, a Norquista agenda item to give corporate interests unlimited power and influence at the state level. In this election, the ties to Norquist are too many, too deep, and too strong to be a coincidence.