It’s Hallowe’en, and my one nod to the occasion is a bright orange t-shirt. Perfect for teaching.
This may be boring for out-of state readers. Or in-state readers.
I voted early in the California Special Election (via Los Angeles County’s "touchscreen" program). Here, for what it’s worth, are my endorsements. More information about these propositions ca be found here.
Proposition 73 (Parental Notification Initiative): No. (I blogged my reasons here).
Proposition 74 (Increased wait for teacher tenure): No. (It only affects K-12, not community colleges, but I’m going with my union and the League of Women Voters on this one).
Proposition 75 (So-called "paycheck protection"): No. (A thinly disguised attempt to make corporate money the only "big money" in Sacramento; an easy "no" for me. Of course, if it passes, I will still voluntarily contribute to the teacher’s union political campaign arm.)
Proposition 76: No, No, No.(This one scares me more than any of the others, frankly.)
Proposition 77: No Endorsement. This is the redistricting initiative. I voted "no", but it was a close call — I hate our current system of gerrymandered districts that guarantee no competitive races.
Proposition 78: No.
Proposition 79: No.
Proposition 80: Yes.
For the most part, I’m not only voting with my union, but with the non-partisan League of Women Voters.
Do any of my readers live in Arcadia? If you do, here’s a surprise endorsement: Brandon Powers for Pasadena Area Community College District Board. Here, I’m bucking my union (which has endorsed his opponent, a long-time incumbent.) I’m also crossing party lines: Brandon is a Republican, a former aide to conservative State Senator Tom McClintock, and the chair of the California chapter of Young Americans for Freedom. He’s the first Republican (and perhaps the last) to whose campaign I have given money.
Brandon is also a good friend, and of course, a former student. Yes, it’s true that I have a penchant for placing personalities before politics. But I’m not merely endorsing Brandon, and contributing money to him , because he’s a pal. He’s a remarkably bright, genuinely thoughtful young man with some intriguing ideas for improving the college. I suspect we’ll be hearing from Brandon in the future, regardless of what happens with the board race next Tuesday.
74: How on earth is voting this modest proposal down supposed to accomplish anything remotely positive for anyone, other than a bad teacher who has been on the job for less than 5 years?
75: Huh? Corporations have to comply with all sorts of regulations to collect money for their PACs. Only unions don’t. Can you name any other advocacy group that is allowed to tax the individuals whose interests it supposedly represents? Imagine the outrage if the NRA got an automatic donation from every gun sale, on the theory that their lobbying benefits non-NRA member gun owners as much as it benefits its own members.
76: I fail to see why anyone in his right mind can be scared of a law that requires government to live within its budget.
77: If you dislike district gerrymandering, why is this a close call rather than a no-brainer?
Last and least, the League of Women Voters is about as “nonpartisan” as the Heritage Foundation.
Well, I’m out of state, but had I lived in California..
Proposition 73 (Parental Notification Initiative): Yes. If you need parental consent to give an asprin…
Proposition 74 (Increased wait for teacher tenure): Reluctantly yes, but only as a stepping stone to eliminating tenure entirely
Proposition 75 (So-called “paycheck protection”): Yes. If the day came when there weren’t “Union Shops” it might not be so, but as long as it is required to be in the union, and to give money, that is just theft.
Proposition 76: Jeez. There is no good vote here. Either continue to allow deficit spending by congresses of idiots, or grant autocratic powers to a single idiot. Remind me to stay in flyover country.
Proposition 77: Yes - I’d also like to see the bars to thrid party candidates lowered.
Proposition 78: No.
Proposition 79: No. (This like the above probably for different reasons than yours)
Proposition 80: No. I’d also want to find ways to remove utility monopolies.
I never thought I’d say this, but in this election, one could do worse than to vote a straight ticket in favor of the L.A. Times endorsements.
XRLQ, I was struck by the paper’s support for 75. I wonder if this is a sign of the long-awaited shift to the right that some folks think the paper needs?
And XRLQ, frankly, I think the state is going to vote exactly as you suggest on your site. I predict 73-77 will pass (albeit 76 will be close), and 78-80 will all fail. You’ll be happy,and I will be depressed — which has been the usual result for liberal Californians the last several autumns.
California’s one of the most liberal states in the union. If liberals can’t be happy here, I don’t think they’re capable of happiness under any circumstances.
I don’t think we’re really all that liberal, X. There are happy pockets along the coast (Berkeley, Santa Monica, and so forth) but the state seems to be growing redder. Stick a McCain on the ballot in 2008, and I think — sadly — California could get back in the Republican column.
Part of being a liberal today is an almost pleasant sense of wandering in the wilderness, looking for the promised land.
No, not “that” liberal, only liberal enough to elect the only Legislature liberal enough to flip its own electorate the bird and enact a gay marriage bill in violation of its own constitution, which no other Legislature, including Massachusetts’, has done. And, of course, liberal enough to elect Al Gore by a 12.5 point lead when the national vote was within the margin of error, and to elect one of the most liberal Senators by a 10 point margin in 2004, when the national vote went in Bush’s favor, not to mention liberal enough to elect two Senators who think that no matter how ultra-qualified a Supreme Court candidate may be, he shouldn’t be named to the court unless he can be trusted to ignore the law as written and impose a hard-left wish list by judicial fiat instead. There’s only one large state I can think of that is more liberal than California, and that’s New York, where the same geographic arguments could be made (NYC & Albany blue, rest of state red).
I assume that by “happy” you mean left-liberal, not happy. As one who spent three years around Berkeley and three more around Santa Monica, I can assure you that the people who give both cities their reputations are not happy, and haven’t been since the 1960s. As to McCain, I’m not sure how many Republicans would want to vote for him. I know I wouldn’t. The only way I could see him winning is if he switched parties; he seems to be quite the darling of many a Democrat.
If you need parental consent to give an asprin…
…then parents have the right to have an abortion clinic send them a letter saying “Your daughter is having an abortion, if you don’t like it, too bad”. That is, if their daughter doesn’t just go to a judge and cut them out completely.
California is very liberal right up until you mess with people’s cars or houses. I suspect most Berkeleyites would happily strangle puppies with their bare hands if it meant a reduction in vehicle registration fees or property taxes.
Anyone who doubts the need for Prop 75 should watch this.
Most Berkeleyites would happily strangle puppies with their bare hands if it meant other people’s vehicle registration fees would go up, and those damn other people would quit taking up the parking spaces in front of their houses.
Berkeley has quite possibly the most self-centered, selfish, greedy politics of any place in the United States. Even in Louisiana, people are voting to line the pockets of the politicians, rather than themselves.
Some of us Berkeley left-liberals are happy! Then again, I don’t own a car or a house. And I would totally strangle puppies for cheaper BART tickets…
Tentatively, I’ll be voting yes on 77, 79, and possibly 80, and no on everything else.
I actually fall in the boat supporting 78 over 79. 79 seems liek a lost cause to me. If it wins, it will just get tied up in courts, whereas 78 would actually provide some relief to those who need it.
By “happy” I refer to happiness from within. Substance-induced happiness does not count, especially if the substance in question is strong enough to cause the user to think that the fact that other states have abortion notification laws is a reason for California not to, or that “I want a pony” is a substantive argument against worker paycheck protection (or, for that matter, a substantive argument for or against any issue at all).
Xrlq, if you want to insist that my weak attempts at humor be interpreted as weak attempts at substantive arguments, it might be better to do so on my blog rather than Hugo’s. I don’t try as hard as Hugo to maintain a respectful atmosphere in my comments section, so you’d be welcome to make as many cliched jabs at the origins of my addlepatedness as you like.
Why do I sense people around here are for 79? It doesn’t seem like it could help anyone if it gets stuck in the courts. 78 would actually be implemented whereas 79 doesn’t stand a chance.
Johnny, I’m going with the CTA endorsements. Besides, 78 is being pushed by the very companies responsible for high prices, while 79 is being pushed by consumer groups. The fox already regularly raids the hen house, I see no reason to put him in complete charge.
Regarding your opposition to Prop 73, I just noticed that your little joke about a “consistent-life ethic” is still up there in your blog’s byline. Now that you’ve utterly thrown away any pretense of being remotely anti-abortion, shouldn’t that read consistent-left?
Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for an explanation as to why one argument in favor of Prop 77 (your alleged aversion to district gerrymandering) and zero arguments against it add up to “a close call” rather than an easy endorsement of a “yes” vote.
X, I would have supported 77 if it didn’t demand such rapid implementation — county registrars are terrified of this, with good reason. Why not wait until 2010?
I am still very much consistent-life. I just don’t want to use the power of the state to coerce women into choosing life; I want to make life the best choice through spiritual and communal means, not legal ones.
Hugo, thanks for the response. The problem I see with 79 is that it has no chance of ever being implemented. If it passes, lawyers will tie it up in the courts forever, making it useless. 78 actually has a chance to help people b/c it can start right away.
I’m sure you’ve heard the one about the boy who murdered his parents and threw himself on the mercy of the courts because he was an orphan. That’s basically the situation we have here. Prop 24 was supposed to go on the March, 2000 ballot, leaving plenty of time for a normal implementation, but its opponents sued to keep it off the ballot. Now that it’s back on the ballot half a decade later, after we’ve had enough election cycles to see how bad the existing districts really are, they complain that it’s poorly timed. Go figure.
Besides, if Prop 77 is defeated it will be widely regarded as a repudiation of the idea of legislative district reform, not as a mandate to try it again when the timing is a little better. In fact, opponents of this much-needed reform will use its 2005 defeat as an argument against the next attempted reform, no matter when it is brought. Need proof? Just read the ballot argument, It’s right there, in the first paragraph of the rebuttal to the Pro-77 argument:
Just in case you didn’t get their dishonest message the first time, they repeat it in the anti-77 argument as well:
Note that while they say “four times over the last 25 years,” they actually mean zero times over the last 15 years, and twice in the decade that preceded that (Prop. 14 in Nov., 1982; Props 118 and 119 in March, 1990). How do they get from “twice” to “four times,” you ask? Well, you start by counting the dueling 1990 initiatives as “two times” even though both appeared on a single ballot (and only one, Prop 119, was all that much like Prop 77 anyway). Counting a single election as “two times” gets gets you from 2 to 3; to get 4 you have to lie outright and claim that voters, not the courts, rejected Prop 24 in 2000.
That’s their argument today, on an initiative voters have not been allowed to vote on in more than 15 years. What do you think the argument will sound like in 2010, when voters have actually gone and voted it down as recently as 2005?
You gave up that kind of consistency a long time ago, when you opposed the U.S. war to topple a state that has murdered at least 300,000, or possibly upwards of 1,000,000 of its own people. Also, I have a hard time believing you’d support a death penalty law in which the state technically does not kill anyone, it merely “does not coerce” the victim’s friends and family members to refrain from doing so themselves.
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