The Helping Hand

Senator Holly Mitchell says a level playing field is the mission behind most of her measures

Back Q&A Nov 12, 2015 By Rich Ehisen

California State Senator Holly Mitchell can be an imposing figure. While most people presume that term evokes physicality, it is Mitchell’s intellect and passion for defending those she believes have little or no voice in the political process that make her such a formidable figure around the Capitol. We talked with her about her effort to turn that passion into policy.

You’ve advocated repealing the so-called “welfare queen” law that bars women on public assistance from receiving an increase in benefits if they have more children. You opted to pull that measure in favor of trying to get Gov. Brown to address it in next year’s budget. Why drop the measure, and why do you feel the law needs to be changed?
EQUALITY FOR ALLA former Assemblywoman and non-profit executive, California State Senator Holly Mitchell — who represents several urban areas in Los Angeles — has made fighting poverty the focal point of her agenda in Sacramento. In her time in the Legislature, Mitchell has championed a moratorium on the controversial oil drilling process called fracking, authored legislation to diminish human trafficking, and created  measures to prevent police from unfairly seizing the business and personal assets of people accused but not convicted of crimes

Technically I didn’t’ drop it. This is the first calendar year of a 2-year process, so it’s just being parked on the Assembly floor because I want to keep it alive. We have a full calendar year next year to continue to move it through. I first introduced this bill as an assemblywoman, and it’s passed out of the Assembly every year since I’ve been here. The issue is not votes; it’s the cost. It’s currently expected to cost about $200 million a year, and I didn’t think it was strategic on our part to pass a bill that wasn’t part of the final budget negotiation with the governor, then just plop it on the governor’s desk and expect that he sign it. The price tag is just too big. So it’s parked in the Assembly, and we will continue to work with the administration, as I have in the past couple of years. In an ideal world I’ll wake up on Jan. 10 and it’s in the budget, and my work here will have been done on this issue. If not, I have a vehicle that is very much alive that we can continue to use.

But why does this particular issue matter so much to you?

At our policy retreat last year, one of my colleagues asked a policy expert, ‘What’s the low-hanging fruit? What’s the one thing we can do to try to impact the poverty rate in California?’ The answer was the maximum family grant. Then I held an offsite workshop to talk about the CalWORKs [state welfare] program — what works and what doesn’t. We had CalWORKs recipients, grassroots advocates, grasstop advocates, legislative staff, budget staff and people from the administration. Resoundingly, the maximum family grant continued to be at the top of the list of what needs to change. Interestingly, the law goes into amazing detail about exceptions to the family cap rule. For instance, there is an exception if you are a victim of rape or incest, but only if you file a police report and tell your caseworker. Or if you can validate that you have used specific forms of birth control as stated in the statute – such as an IUD – and it fails. Tell me, where else in California code explicitly states the kind of birth control someone can use in order to have access to a program that is designed to prevent children from slipping into poverty? The notion that a woman would intentionally, willingly have a baby for the sole purpose of increasing a time-limited grant by $122 per month is just so offensive to me.

That said, you are opposed to fracking, which some observers believe would put billions of dollars in new tax revenues into state coffers. That money could be used to fund the kind of programs you champion. Why not give fracking a chance?
Related: Sen. Holly Mitchell on race, law and legislating change

I represent the Inglewood oil fields and the oil fields that are in the mid-city downtown area by the USC Mount Saint Mary’s downtown campus. So I represent communities that live with oil drilling going on literally next door. And so what I have consistently said is, ‘At whose expense?’ That’s what I’ve said to the oil companies: ‘At whose expense?’ I’m the first to understand and value the global impact it would have on our economy, for us to no longer be as reliant as we historically have been on foreign oil. I get that. But the question is, at whose expense? So what my bill has always said is to halt fracking until we know that there are no unintended health consequences to the people who live in the immediate area. I’ve not said, ‘Hell no’ to fracking, ever. I’ve said, ‘Let’s stop it until a study not financed by the oil industry can be done to answer that question, first and foremost.’ Don’t tell me it’s safe because you say so, OK? Stop until we know differently, because I have a responsibility to those people who live right there next to the oil fields.

You co-authored legislation to change how we tax commercial properties under Proposition 13 by assessing those ket value, the so-called “split roll.” What’s the impetus for this measure?

It’s not just one thing. It’s recognizing and hearing the governor when he says, ‘Where’s the money?’ How do we guarantee, on a consistent level from year to year, the General Fund — to make California continue to be the kind of place where we want to stay and grow old and raise our kids?  Here we tend to talk about split roll around the edges, but it’s the No.1 issue in my district, where my constituents sort of feel duped. The notion voters had at the time we passed Proposition 13 is that we didn’t want grandma to get put out of her house because she couldn’t afford the property taxes. But we didn’t understand that it also gave large corporations the same protections we were trying to put into place for grandma. Now, large corporations are paying less of a percentage in taxes than private residents. But they use the common infrastructure the rest of us. Look at our roads, which is one of our biggest challenges and the one we’re having the greatest difficulty paying for. There are numerous other infrastructure projects that are long-term and that have not been addressed.

When you factor in the actual cost of living – particularly housing – California has the highest poverty rate in the nation. Is there another key area you believe lawmakers should focus their energies in dealing with this?

Early care and education. I always joke that my colleagues never say kids are a pain in the backside, and that we don’t want to fund them or vote for anything that supports them. We never say that. We say, ‘Children are our future’ and ‘It takes a village.’ But when it comes down to it — what we are doing to support them and what investments we are making beyond K-12 — it gets a little sketchy. But early care and education is a game-changer. When we look at core measurements like language, kids who have been in high-quality early care and education programs enter kindergarten knowing tens of thousands of words beyond children who haven’t had the exposure and access. That’s the first indicator in the separation between those who will do well and those who will lag behind indefinitely. The business community knows this – it now says the most logical investment in shoring up California’s economy and business future is closing the education gap, and we can’t start early enough. Businesses are in utter panic about the lack of an educated workforce in the next generation, so they’re looking at the kids in early care and education settings today to make sure they have the literacy skills, the math skills, the critical thinking skills to be useful business leaders, entrepreneurs and employees in the future. So investment in early care and education is critical.  

You’ve certainly had successes in your time here, but it seems that so often advocates for the poor or weak come up short against the more powerful interests of business and industry. Do you ever get down or discouraged when you see so much poverty in a state as wealthy as this one?

I’m a little strange. I don’t get down. To be perfectly honest, I get mad. That drives me. That’s what makes my eyes open before the alarm rings to get back here and go at it again. As corny as this will sound, it is a calling for me.

Comments

Teresa Casazza, California Taxpayers Association President (not verified)November 12, 2015 - 12:41pm

Senator Holly Mitchell’s dedication to addressing California’s poverty problem is undeniable, but we respectfully disagree with her suggestion that a huge property tax increase would help our state.

Californians need more employment opportunities, but a “split-roll” property tax increase would take us in the opposite direction, causing major job losses for Californians, and more business closures in this area and throughout the state. The tax increase on large and small businesses also would lead to higher consumer prices, making it even more expensive to live in this state.

We can avoid such problems by protecting Proposition 13.

Contrary to misleading claims made by opponents of the property tax reform of 1978, Proposition 13 has not shifted the property tax burden from businesses to homeowners. In fact, numbers from the State Board of Equalization – the state agency that oversees the property tax system – show that the share of the property tax paid by homeowners has decreased since passage of Proposition 13, from 42 percent in 1979-80 to 38 percent in 2013-14.

Senator Mitchell states that voters “didn’t understand” that Proposition 13 applied to all types of property. Voters deserve more credit – they knew what they were doing when they approved Proposition 13 and rejected a rival “split-roll” measure on the same ballot.

On June 5, 1978, the night before the election, here is what the NBC Nightly News reported about the competing property tax initiatives: “Proposition 13 applies to all property – businesses as well as homes. … Proposition 8 is an alternative tax reform proposed by the state Legislature – frankly, because the legislators were afraid the voters would approve Proposition 13. Proposition 8 would allow businesses to be taxed at the present rate, but would offer homeowners a 30 percent cut in taxes.” The news show, anchored by David Brinkley, was on one of only three American television networks that existed at the time, and was watched by many California voters.

Californians will benefit greatly if employers are able to create more good-paying jobs in this state, if the cost of living is reduced, and if economic growth continues to generate more tax dollars for necessary government programs like those that help the poor and rebuild the state’s infrastructure. An increase in property taxes would make it harder for the state to achieve these important goals.

Tom Scott (not verified)November 13, 2015 - 2:40pm

A Split Roll Is The Wrong Way To Go
While I commend Senator Holly Mitchell’s focus on tackling poverty, removing Proposition 13’s protections on commercial property is not the correct approach and would be devastating to the economy. A Pepperdine University study found a split roll property tax could result in $71.8 billion of lost output and nearly 400,000 jobs lost over the first five years.

That’s not all. A split roll could make it more difficult for businesses to operate in California. Small businesses often rent their property and many leases pass property taxes directly to the lessee. If a business cannot pay higher property taxes, what are they left to do? Pass the cost on to customers, lay off employees, move out of state or shut down. Raising costs for consumers and putting families and businesses out of work is not the way lift people out of poverty.