New revelations exposing how labor unions shamelessly rigged the “non-partisan” redistricting process in San Diego is providing case study for how the critical process of drawing legislative district lines can be hijacked by the radical left using multiple front groups.

The “independent” redistricting commission in San Diego, America’s 8th largest city, is charged with drawing lines for the city’s eight (soon to be nine) council districts in a fair and non-partisan manner.  In a city where Democrats have failed to elect a mayor in decades and just lost a seat on the city council in 2010, taking control of the redistricting process was a top priority, starting with the formation of the city’s redistricting commission.

Local television reporter Steve Bosch blew the lid off how the unions worked through two local left wing groups to plant liberal activists on the commission and control its staff.

Empower San Diego is the first union front group used to help recruit, cultivate and put forward potential appointees to the redistricting commission, whose members were selected by retired judges. The group brags on its website that it “directly helped recruit and support seven applicants” for the redistricting commission, three of whom were ultimately appointed.  The group is clearly ideological: it “advances progressive values and fosters local civil society by promoting civic participation and facilitating collaboration among community-based organizations.”

The three liberals the group succeeded in planting on the commission are:  Theresa Quiroz, a “community advocate” who is the “co-chair of the Affordable Housing Coalition” and – surprise! – the Vice President of Empower San Diego; Carlos Marquez III, the “Director of Community Programs and Public Affairs for the San Diego LGBT Community Center,” and David Potter, who has a long record of making financial contributions to Democrat candidates for a variety of offices.

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The militant “community organizers” who run the California Teachers Association union have been forced to pull back on some elements of their controversial plan for a Wisconsin-type takeover of the state capitol after it was exposed here on BigGovernment.com.

The Sacramento Bee reports that once the news media and the public got to see just how extreme the union’s plans are, leadership decided to pull back on some of the more “creative” (read: kooky) elements of the plan set to be implemented the week of May 9 – 13.

“Some of the union’s ideas went beyond the usual letter-writing and rallying,” the Bee reported this morning, but, “By Wednesday, the more creative ideas on the list had been removed.”

The union’s plans to provoke a major confrontation in the state capitol to force the legislature to raise taxes were exposed in this 10-page plan, which contains instructions for using public school facilities and children to which the union has direct access in the campaign culminating in a takeover of the capitol in Sacramento.

While union officials have not backed down on their plans to take over the building and yank thousands of teachers out of classrooms and put them into protests, they are awkwardly running away from plans to use the kids.

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Documents  call for takeover of Capitol, using kids and taxpayer-funded public classrooms for protest activities, controversial “secondary boycott” tactics

The California Teachers Association is preparing for Wisconsin-type activities aimed at forcing the legislature to pass tax increases on Californians in a series of actions planned for next month culminating in a takeover of the State Capitol.

Many of the steps outlined in CTA plans include the use of students, taxpayer-funded public school facilities to which the union has access, and highly controversial “secondary boycott” tactics that involve targeting businesses in the districts of legislators who refuse to accede to union demands.

The union is conducting its actions in support of taxes under the guise of a “State of Emergency.”

Our team believes the true “state of emergency” is in public education’s crushing bureaucracy, lack of choices and options offered to parents, and bizarre union-supported work rules that produce phenomena like New York City’s infamous “Rubber Room” where the city’s worst teachers go because they can’t be fired.

Union officials were clearly caught off guard today when our team circulated links to the union’s plans, which were posted on a non-descript website online.

The CTA’s plans can be found here:

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Sometimes, the news coming out of Southern California is more entertaining than the movies coming out of Southern California.

Last week the  37,000-member California state chapter of ACORN broke away from its national organization to form a new nonprofit group called the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. Amy Schur, executive director of ACORN ACCE in California, says the decision was made because “the level of controversy had become a significant distraction for us.”

So let me get this straight. The California ACORN chapter, which includes the San Bernardino group that was featured in the ACORN videos providing advice for human smuggling and prostitution, and the San Diego chapter, that conducted what looked like the world’s biggest document dump just before the AG’s agents arrived, wants to split off from the national organization because they say the national group has problems.

If anything, the national group should split off from the California group and beat them to the punch.

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Government employee union officials have enjoyed a big advantage over their political competitors: the power to compel members to contribute funds to their causes.

Such political power has served as a massive force in favor of the unsustainable spending that has forced cities like Vallejo, California into bankruptcy with unrealistic salaries and pension benefits for their unionized employees.

Normally only a tiny fraction of Americans choose to donate to candidates or political causes. Yet many government employee unions enjoy the power to compel virtually all of their members into supporting the unions’ advocacy, regardless of how the individual worker feels about that agenda.

That’s one heck of an advantage on the political battlefield, but it comes at the price of forcing, for example, Republican union members to fund Democrat campaigns. Or, conversely, Democrats in Pennsylvania funding then-Republican Arlen Specter’s re-election.  It’s wrong, and abuse of the practice has led states like Utah and Idaho to ban the practice.

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Barack Obama’s public approval rating has dropped to as low as 47% in the last week, according to Gallup.  Although the President will not appear on the ballot again until 2012, how the public views his presidency will have a direct impact on each party’s performance in next year’s mid-term elections.

The party holding the White House has lost seats in 10 of the last 12 mid-terms, going back to President Kennedy’s 1962 losses.  Even in that year, with a 74% approval rating following the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy’s Democrats lost seats in the House.  Historically, the public uses mid-term elections to correct for the perceived excesses of the party in power, while the absence of coattail effects may result in some seats reverting back to the party with the natural advantage in the district.

IMPACT ON CONGRESSIONAL RACES.  The magnitude of the net losses suffered by the President’s party in Congress has been in direct, inverse proportion to the President’s public approval rating on Election Day.  The party in control of the White House suffered the most in 1966, 1974 and 1994 when the incumbent’s approval ratings were all under 50%.  High approval ratings of President Clinton in 1998 (66%) and President Bush in 2002 (63%) helped the governing party gain seats in those two years — a historical aberration.

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By including Democrat candidates for California elected offices as recommended users and omitting Republicans until only recently, Twitter has drawn the attention of those in government interested in opening the door to state or federal regulation of online campaign activity, including social networking sites.

Twitter’s announcement that it intends to do away with its suggested user list is a good idea, at least as it applies to candidates.  Through a system where corporate executives chose which individuals, including candidates, were recommended, the company put itself in the position of appearing to provide something of value to some candidates over others.  It should be no surprise that zealous bureaucrats might seize the opportunity to use this as an excuse to regulate the company’s product.

The notion that some government bureaucracy is going to be able to keep up with, let alone regulate, campaign activities online defies reality.

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The Communications Director for California Attorney General Jerry Brown resigned last week after admitting he regularly taped telephone conversations with reporters without their permission.  Under California state law, the recording of private telephone conversations without consent is illegal.  Although the Attorney General’s Office worked to shut down the story by calling it an internal personnel matter, the potentially illegal behavior of a senior staff member to California’s top cop raises some serious questions.

Here’s one: How can one of the most powerful law enforcement officials in America not know his communications director routinely engaged in activities that may have been unlawful?

Or, how is it that only this senior member of the staff knew this was occurring as they currently claim?

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