Forrest Hill for Secretary of State
Biography
Dr. Forrest Hill is a research scientist, financial advisor, electoral reform activist, and environmentalist. He has been a technical advisor for several government agencies including the California Department of Fish and Game and the Sonoma County Water Agency, and currently specializes in Socially Responsible Investing using investments for economic, social, and environmental transformation.
While working as a research scientist at UC Davis, Forrest worked with the Davis Human Rights Commission to pass a resolution opposing the USA PATRIOT Act and authored a resolution opposing the war in Iraq that was adopted by the Davis City Council in 2003. He also started the UC Davis Green Party, one of the largest campus Green Party chapters in the country.
Forrest has been an active proponent for proportional voting systems and free elections. He has published several articles on voting and democracy, and has spoken widely on the issue of proportional representation. His background in economics and ecosystem analysis – coupled with his independence from the Democratic and Republican Party – give him the necessary skills to ensure that our voting systems are fair, that all votes are counted, and that democratic representation is extended to every citizen.
For the past 30 years, Forrest has been involved in grassroots politics. He has served as an officer in the Michigan chapter of Ralph Nader’s Public Interest Research Group, coordinated several local and national political campaigns, and traveled to Nicaragua in support of coffee growers during the Reagan sponsored Contra war.
Forrest has been a member of the Green Party for the past five years. He has served as an elected official on the Green Party of California coordinating committee, chaired the committee on Green campaigns, and is currently a national delegate to the Green Party of the United States.
Dr. Forrest Hill graduated with a Ph.D. in Oceanography from M.I.T. and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He did his post-doctoral research at the Institute of Theoretical Dynamics at UC Davis, in Davis California. He has published over 15 scientific papers in peer reviewed journals.
Forrest’s partner Steve is a lawyer with Adelson, Testan, Brundo & Poplardo, and is the chairmen of the worker’s compensation executive committee. Forrest and Steve live in Oakland California.
Democracy…it’s everything
I am running for Secretary of State because I believe there is a great need for election reform in this country to bring about a fair and just election system. I believe that just elections are the reform upon which all else in our democracy depends. Without justice at the ballot box, their can be no justice in our society.
It is not an understatement to say that our democratic institutions are in pearl. Our voting technology is highly outdated, unreliable and lacks uniformity across the state. Corporate funding of elections has lead to political corruption, tax politics that favor the rich, and the robbing of public funds through no-bid contracts. Legislative districts in California have become so large that only the wealthiest citizens have a chance of winning office. Finally, our antiquated winner-take-all electoral system ensures the continued monopoly of the two party system over all facets of our political lives.
Most countries around the world have abandoned America’s limited form of democracy for more inclusive proportional systems of voting. In fact, only three of the 36 democracies with populations over 2 million people -- the United States, Jamaica, and Canada -- do not use some form of Proportional Representation to elect an important elected body of government. We now know from over 50 years of experience that proportional voting systems
• Increases voters turnout
• Reduces negative campaigning
• Increases the number of women and minorities in government
• Promotes greater political diversity and multi-party systems
• Enhances political stability and reduces gridlock
• Reduces the effects of big money on politics
California has the opportunity to lead the nation towards real election reform that ensures all citizens are represented in government. It is time we instituted a fair and just election system to defend and reclaim our democratic rights.
Campaign Issues
Below are some of the issues I will promote as the Green Party candidate for Secretary of State. I am running to expand voting rights, increase voter participation, promote democratic representation in our governing bodies, free voters to support the candidate of their choice, improve corporate oversight, and extend domestic partnership rights to all Californians.
Voting Technology: It is imperative that the voting machines
used in state and local elections accurately record the votes of our citizens
and are easy to use. Voting machines must also be flexible enough to ensure
that they can handle choice voting options, such as Instant Runoff Voting
(IRV), which have been approved by voters in cities like San Francisco,
Berkeley, and San Leandro.
We must insist that voting methods used in our City, County, or State are not dictated by voting machine manufacturers. It is up to the citizens of California to make that decision, not corporate contractors.
As Secretary of State I would:
• Require all electronic voting machines to produce a separate paper ballot, which voters can inspect before depositing in a recount ballot box.
• Mandate that voting machines have the capability to conduct representative elections such as IRV and other rank choice voting methods
• Promote uniformity in voting machine technology throughout the state. Our current patchwork of voting systems does not provide equal voting rights and creates a system that is difficult to reform because electoral oversight is so variable among counties.
• Prohibit Voting Machine Manufactures form making political contributions
Public Financing of Elections: America’s reliance on privately financed campaigns has
effectively disenfranchised large portions of society. With each year, the voice of the average American is becoming increasingly weaker, while the influence of large corporations and special interest groups grows stronger.
To counteract this trend, the state should offer full public financing to candidates who agree to spending limits and reject private contributions. Four states - Maine, Arizona, Vermont and North Carolina — already are offering the “clean money” option of public financing to candidates for some state offices. New Jersey will launch a similar program next year, and New Mexico in 2006. It is time that California joined those states that are leading the fight to end the corrupting power of money in government.
As Secretary of State I would:
• Work with the legislature to pass a comprehensive bill that would encourage clean money campaigns and fair elections in California.
• Ensure that clean money provisions provide equal funding and qualification thresholds to all candidates regardless of party - as is currently done in Arizona and Maine.
• Identify funding resources such as a voluntary check-offs on income tax returns and fees on registered lobbyists.
Electoral Reform – Executive Branch: Our current electoral system for statewide races becomes dysfunctional when more than two candidates seek one office. It discourages voters from voting for the candidate of their choice (spoiler effect), suppresses new ideas, and encourages negative campaigns rather than inclusive efforts to build coalitions. Instant runoff voting (IRV) gets around this problem by allowing voters to rank candidates in order of preference. This ensures that candidates win single-seat offices with majority support and prevents the possibility of a third party candidate "spoiling" the race by taking enough votes from one major candidate to elect the other.
As Secretary of State I would:
• Lobby the governor and the legislature to implement IRV for all statewide elective offices.
• Work to change the California constitution to require a majority of the vote to win a partisan office. Currently, only a plurality is required to win, which allows candidates to obtain elective office with less than 50% support of the voters.
• Require that all voting machines used in the state are able to accurately tabulate the results of elections using rank choice voting.
Electoral Reform – Legislative Branch: The key arguments about electoral systems revolve around the questions of democratic representation, accountability, equality and participation.
Multiple studies of Democracies around the world have shown that Proportional Representation (PR) is clearly superior to our single-district winner-take all voting system in terms of minority representation, women in the legislature (about four times higher), voter turnout (about 10 percentage greater) and income equality.
As Secretary of State I would:
• Organize Blue Ribbon Panel to make recommendations on how to implement a system of Proportion Representation for the California Legislature.
• Work to educate the public about the advantages of Proportional Representation voting.
Grassroots Democracy: State legislative districts in California are 10 to 15 times larger in voting population size than the average legislative district in the United States. Large districts increase the influence of money in politics, while smaller districts favor grassroots campaigns and greater participation by citizens.
As Secretary of State I would:
• Form non-partisan Blue ribbon committee to study fiscally responsible ways to increase the size of the legislature
• Study the feasibility of turning current legislative districts into creating multi-seat districts to enhance candidate diversity, improve representation, and reduce gerrymandering.
Ballot Access: Ballot access is an essential component of an effective democracy. Today over 25% of the electorate is not registered with either major party. The hurdles put in place to make ballot access more difficult for minor party candidates are one of the reasons why our democracy is failing.
As Secretary of State I would:
• Work to lower the number of signatures required by independent candidates for state and federal office to place their name on the ballot.
Corporate Oversight: California should be encouraging companies that are law abiding entities to do business in our state. However, as the energy company scandals of 2000 and 2001 show, companies that conspire to manipulate markets can wreck havoc on our economy. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimated that white-collar corporate crime cost $338 billion in 1997 - almost 100 times the FBI's $3.8 billion estimate for street crime costs.
California's law-breaking corporations must be held to the same standard to which the state holds its law-breaking citizens, with serious violators lose their right to transact business in California.
As Secretary of State I would:
• Advocate for the use of social investment screens by state and county pension funds to promote corporate responsibility by appealing to their bottom line. Companies that are good corporate citizens, in terms of environmental protection, labor relations, and community service, should be rewarded for managerial practices.
• Work with legislators, business leaders unions, legislators, and average citizens to develop a corporate code of conduct for California, including a time table for conducting periodic reviews of each corporation’s charter to do business in our state. Corporations that pollute our environment, violate workers rights or safety laws, discriminate, or engage in political corruption should be put on probation or have their charter to do business in California revoked.
Domestic Partnership: Registration of domestic partner is handled by the Secretary of States office. Currently domestic partnership laws in California only apply to same sex couples and opposite sex couples in which one of the partners is older than 62. This not only discriminates against younger straight couples who are not ready to marry, but also puts gay partners at risk, since they become the primary target of discriminatory initiatives that wish to end domestic partnership laws.
Currently, three initiatives are being circulated for the 2006 ballot aimed at severely curtailing or get rid of domestic partnership rights.
As Secretary of State I would:
• Work to protect and expand the rights of Gay and Lesbian couples under California’s current domestic partnership laws
• Lobby the legislature to give all opposite sex couples the right to register as domestic partners.
• Pressure the Governor to sign the Gay marry bill into law, which was recently passed in both houses of the legislature.