On a personal note, the countdown to a very significant moment in my life has begun. Late this Wednesday night/early Thursday morning I'll be taking a Red Eye flight back east to rendezvous in Cleveland with my girlfriend Jen (from the small town of Kinderhook, N.Y.; refer to the 3.2 issue of CAW for more on said cow town) For the second time this summer, I'll then strap in to the caffeine I.V. and take to the open road, as Jen and I complete the 3,000-mile jaunt across our vast country. We'll be taking a slightly more southern route than my brother and I did two-and-a-half months ago, so we'll get to see Kansas. And maybe Toto too. I'm psyched about that.

We'll be back in California by Sunday night, so fear not, faithful readers: your Capitol Action will arrive in your virtual mailbox right on schedule next week. But until then, when I'll have another 3,000 frequent flyer miles in my account and another cross-country drive under my belt, drop me a line.

-Gabe

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For decades, good-government advocates such as Common Cause have struggled to devise a method to limit the pervasive influence of cash on campaigns. A number of ballot initiatives aimed at limiting spending or contributions or at creating a public campaign finance mechanism similar to that used in presidential races have won varying degrees of public support. But they have been blocked in the courts, at least in part because the courts have held that the fund-raising limits unfairly cripple a candidate's right to communicate with potential voters or that they favor one candidate over the other.

In California, the issue is particularly critical. That's because this wealthiest of all states traditionally has set no limits on campaign spending or contributions. Indeed, California has long been known as the "ATM of American politics" because of the enormous amounts of money that fuel campaigns. Six-digit contributions from special interests, even from individual donors, are not uncommon. Even out-of-state politicians routinely come to California to fill their coffers.

The spending and fund-raising have reached obscene levels.

Secretary of State Bill Jones, the state's top elections officer, reported last week that Gray Davis and Dan Lungren spent a combined $52 million in their general election battle for governor. That's right, $52 million. That's nearly half the amount spent during the 1996 presidential race between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. One California ballot initiative on Indian gambling spent $100 million last year, and another Indian gambling proposition is looming on next year's ballot.

All this money doesn't come from the average voter, most of whom have enough trouble making ends meet without giving money to politicians. Rather, it comes from the myriad special interests -- organized labor, businesses, lawyers, insurers, doctors and professional groups -- that seek advantages from the political leadership. And politicians seek to continue this flow of money.

A case before U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton in Sacramento is a perfect example of the hold money exerts on our political life.

The dispute involves Proposition 208, which California voters approved in 1996 to limit the influence of money on campaigns. Among other things, Proposition 208 limited contributions to statewide officers to $1,000, and donations to legislative candidates to $500.

But the proposition has been attacked since its passage by both major organized political parties, and other well-heeled groups, who together challenged it in court and blocked most of its provisions from taking effect. Indeed, the parties agree on very little, but on this issue they are united: They want Proposition 208 quashed.

The initiative is being defended by California's political watchdog, the Fair Political Practices Commission.

In January 1998, after hearing extensive testimony, Karlton granted a court order blocking Proposition 208. That decision was appealed by the FPPC, and the appellate court sent the case back to Karlton for a full trial.

Last week, Karlton ordered a new round of arguments to be submitted in the case, and he set another hearing for Nov. 10. But a final decision on the issue is at least months away, partly because Karlton wants to know that the U.S. Supreme Court thinks about contribution limits and the high court is expected to hear arguments in October on a similar case arising out of Missouri. A decision on that case is not expected until early next year, which means a resolution of the California dispute is not likely until months later.

That means, in turn, that the provisions of Proposition 208 are all but certain to play no role at all in next year's elections, which include California's March presidential primary.

So despite the wishes of the voters to limit money in politics, another round of sky-high spending is on the horizon.

Where will it end?

I have been a subscriber for a number of years to your newsletter and have always been pleased with the level of journalism that you have displayed, particularly on controversial issues such as the environment, etc.

That being said, I feel that I must express my deep disappointment in the cavalier way in which the Y2K issue was treated and then dismissed. I was surprised to even see an article of this nature since legislative affairs is where the strong suit of the newsletter is, not in technological issues.

I do not feel that both sides of the issue were presented fairly. My greatest fear is that some managers or supervisors who read your newsletter, and who respect your opinion, may consider your sweeping statements all the ammunition they need to ignore their IT departments' requests for resources and justify a very dangerous "fix on failure" course of action.

I've been working with Y2K issues since 1994 and have many friends in the IT industry both on the private and the public side. They are not consultants. They are all terrified and working as hard as they can on salaries that do not change whether they work hard or not. You make the erroneous assumption that every state department or private entity has invested in newer LAN/PC systems that are relatively immune (if the software is OK and the thousands of spreadsheets that they use are updated with 4 digit years).

I can assure you that not all government agencies, large businesses or even small businesses share your view on investing in their technological needs and are/have been limping along with ancient systems for far too long. You and I both know what a budget meeting looks like when the IT department starts screaming for an upgrade and the powers that be take the position that if it is still alive (regardless if it is on life support), the money goes elsewhere.

I don't want to get into a debate about Y2K with you because, quite frankly, at this late date there doesn't seem to be much movement in people's opinions. I hope that you are right and that everyone in the world in a position that matters has invested enough money, time and talent into eradicating their Y2K problems. I submit that from what I know of human nature and profit margins that this simply cannot be true. Forgive me when I object to a one-sided article that has the potential to seriously undermine IT departments that are working furiously on a problem that you insist doesn't actually exist.

Shelly Carroll

To the Editor,

I don't work in the computer industry and would be the last person to say what will happen to my PC when I pop a bottle of bubbly at 00:00 2000. Still, the most recent article from Capitol Action had me wondering if it wouldn't hurt to do a little more research on some of your articles before they go to print.

The only "evidence" the author provided that "the Y2K problem is a fraud" is that (according to the article's author) the "threat has not been viewed as a profound danger by the experienced professionals who develop computers and their related products." The author also notes that computers today are more powerful than computers of yesterday and are more compatible with other software programs.

Some of us may notice no difference in our lives on the first day of the new millennium. Still, we live in an increasingly international dependent economy. Silicon Valley may ride out any problems just fine. Malaysia, Chile or Kentucky may fare worse. Any problems they experience could impact us all.

Other people have done far more research than this author and provide a much more detailed picture of the implications and potential problems related to Y2K. I don't see how printing this article really helps. The evidence the author provided to back up the claim that Y2K is a fraud is remarkably thin. If I were the editor reviewing this article I would not have printed it in its current form.

Mark van Gorder
Director of Government and Public Affairs
Jack Neal & Son, Inc.

To the Editor,

Hey, Capitol Action: I am disappointed with the poor presentation of [the Y2K] article.

The argument lacked support.

A good journalist always backs his writing with proofs. Where were yours?

Disappointed in California,

Elizabeth P. Kennedy

To the Editor,

I just finished reading [last] week's Capitol Action Weekly, and I must say I was a little surprised. What I find usually to be a concise and accurate weekly window to current events in the public sector I found [last] week to be more than a little disappointing. I happen to work in the field of government technology and I believe your synopsis of the Y2K issue was more than a little off the mark, not only in concept but in fact. My statements here are based not on my own knowledge, which comes from 16 years of computer experience, but from the customers I work with, some of whom are much more knowledgeable than myself and all of whom work in the State of California. It is also based on the facts, which are readily available on the Web and any number of other sources.

Your theory seems to be based wholly on the premise that computers have improved significantly over the years. While this is true, you must realize that the issues that are of concern are wholly unrelated to speed, processing power or any other issue you addressed in your article. In fact, the more serious issues go beyond hardware altogether. Because computers were designed to handle the year in a two-digit format until as recently as two to three years ago, most software designers thought nothing of doing the same. Neither one of these issues is particularly hard (although possibly expensive) to fix.

A simple hardware upgrade and the download of a patch from Microsoft or other software company usually fixes the problem. However, the state does not only run "off-the-shelf" software. In addition to software you'd expect, you'll find that the various departments often employ the use of custom-made proprietary software applications. Some of the applications have not been modified in a decade or more and may very well be written in a now defunct programming language. Moreover, they may have been used to create immense amounts of data, which may also need to be fixed. This takes a lot of time and expertise.

Beyond the software issue lies imbedded chips. When everyone speaks to the Y2K issue, they generally think only of computers in the format we're used to, i.e. on a desk. But consider elevators, power systems, telecommunications and other places where computers are in use out of our field of vision. I know for a fact that many of these systems will experience problems.

If you doubt my accuracy, I would refer you to the Department of Information Technology's Web site at http://www.doit.ca.gov, and more specifically, to the page where you can get the detailed information of each and every state department's Y2K progress, at http://www.year2000.ca.gov/pmo/state_entities.asp. I assure you that you cannot read through these reports and deny that the problem exists. No one I know who has significant knowledge of technology has questioned that there will be a problem. Will it be Armageddon? Not likely. Will there be significant problems? Possibly. The truth is that no one has any idea what the outcome will be. Most information technology professionals in the state are not concerned about fixing the issues they've identified, but rather, missing the ones they haven't. There's a lot more computer technology out there that the general public doesn't think about. It's in the private sector, the public sector and everyday life. You'll forgive me if I use the word foolish to describe any notions of dismissal.

Forgive me if brevity has escaped me this morning or if the tone of my letter strayed even ever so slightly from cordial. I merely felt, based on your article that your sources were perhaps uninformed or that you yourself did not fully grasp the issues at hand. I'm sure that your article provoked more than one of me out there to the soapbox. Thank you for the service you provide with your letter. Keep up the good work.

Sincerely,
Shawn C.
Sacramento, CA

To the Editor,

Pardon me, but who are the sources feeding you this load of Y2K tripe? Processing speeds have nothing to do with whether or not the CMOS clock on a desktop is Y2K compliant. Your story falls into the "gee, if computers are so much faster, they must have fixed this Y2K problem a long time ago" camp.

Besides, the main problems have never been on the desktop; they've been in the legacy software and mainframes that run organizations such as banks and utilities. In the municipality I work for, we've identified and corrected problems with the 911 dispatch system, the sewer plant, the parking ticket citation system, the payroll tracking software, and the building permit issuance and tracking system.

I consider your Y2K story to be very irresponsible reporting, with few facts and no sources cited.

Greg Redeker
City of Chico, California

To the Editor,

Y2K is not a myth -- it's definitely a potential problem. While I don't think it will be as big a problem as some people have said (saying even things like toasters and elevators will be affected), dismissing it as a fraud or hoax is probably not too good an idea either. I agree with the author's implication that some people have probably used "Y2K Consulting services" as a means to grab some money, but the author gives absolutely no REAL reason to believe Y2K is a hoax.

Aaron Morgan
Lockheed Martin Mission Systems

To the Editor,

Oranges and Apples. You're talking about two completely different things when you're talking about home computers and how advanced they've become over the last few years, and then government and business computers and the Y2K problem.

There is a Y2K problem, and it is serious. There has already been system crashes due to this problem and there will be more by Jan. 1, 2000. In [Sacramento] county, at least, many of the problems have already been taken care of. In other computer using nations, well, we'll see what happens. The main problem is that the government and even businesses are not using the computers (for the most part) that you and I are using. They're using the computers that they bought ten years ago -- computers that do have a Y2K problem.

It was necessary to fix the programs those computers run on, and mostly, that has been done. And yes that work was costly. So you're right in one sense. There is no longer a major Y2K problem. But that doesn't mean it didn't exist and it didn't need to be taken care of. It did and it was. I think after we see what happens in those areas where this problem wasn't taken care of most Americans will be very happy that all that "unnecessary" computer reprogramming was done on their systems. But we'll see who is right around Jan. 2, 2000.

Dwain G. Kaiser

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