Author: mike

I got some propoganda mail sent to Democrats in California by the “Alliance for a Better California”.

It’s an 8.5″ x 11″ glossy with a picture of a karate guy’s big foot and reads, “Time to kick his [Schwarzenegger] butt for a change.” You’d think that with two sides of that large sheet, they’d be able to offer at least a modicum of actual information. But no.

On the flip side, it just says how they want you to vote on the propositions, but says absolutely nothing about what you are voting for. They just offer up choice quotes like, “This concept flunks out”, “Politics at its worst”, “Fails the basic test of fairness”, etc. There is no description of the flunky concept, the worst politics, or even the failing fairness.

How dumb do they think we are? Just send us the instructions on how to vote and we’ll do it without question?

I don’t really know if this is sponsored by Feinstein and Boxer, but their names are displayed prominently, so I think they must be at least be in approval. And if so, they clearly think I’ve got nothing but monkey fodder in my head. That may be true in my case, but they should never assume that! 🙂

Here is the full text of Proposition 78 and Proposition 79.

Both of these have a lot of details – far too many for me to capture what they are “about” in this short blog entry.

But, I can summarize them both very quickly! Vote NO!

The idea for each of these is to somehow offer discount prescription drugs to some set of low-income individuals. Each has a different set of benefits, each targets a different set of people. That idea is valiant, but each then ties into a bunch of complexities – including how these discounts are established, who benefits from the state & industry negotiation, who benefits from the new administration and overhead that needs to be created to establish these agencies. Lastly, the pro-78 folks are claiming that 79 allows for new mechanisms under which lawyers can file class-action lawsuits. Who knows.

Overall, it’s too complicated, too subtle, and has too many unknowns. On the other hand, it costs between $10M and $20M, and I’d rather we spend that money on somethat that we know is solid.

Of the propositions on the ballot this week, Prop 76 is one of the most complicated.

The basic premise of 76 is to prevent overspending within the state. California has had a long tradition of spending even in times of surplus, and 76 aims to curb that. The intentions are definitely good, but it’s specific mechanisms to do that are complicated. First, it limits state spending such that in years of surplus, the state can save money, rather than automatically spending the entire surplus. Second, it permits the governor, in some circumstances, to reduce spending at his own choice. Third, it overrides part of Proposition 98, which is has been a complicated formula for guaranteeing School Spending in our state.

I don’t like the idea of Proposition 98. Propositions that “guarantee funding” are just too inflexible for the demands of our government to last. Invariably, we outgrow these guarantees, and these types of propositions need to be replaced.

At the same time, however, my feeble brain can’t figure out if this plan is really good or not. Some say it will help the state, but they’ve failed to “connect the dots” such that I can understand how it will.

Therefore, I’m voting no on Prop 76. If it’s too complicated for me, it’s way too complicated for our politicians!

Question: who was the only incumbent state Congressman in California to lose the election in 2004?
Answer: none! out of 153 Congressional seats, not a single one changed hands from one party to the other.

You can read about Proposition 77 here.

The basic premise is that we’ve allowed legislators to do their own redistricting for a long time (in particular in 2001), and now they never lose elections. The new plan sets a panel of independent, retired judges in California and asks them to draw the lines in publicly held hearings, which voters then can accept or reject. Its a pretty great plan, and probably is the single most important proposition on the ballot!

Definitely vote YES.

Here is a really good site (http://www.yeson77.com/) which talks about it. Check out what the politicians have done to “redistrict” so that they can’t lose. Its absolutely incredible.

If you haven’t yet read what proposition 75 is all about, be sure to read the actual proposition. You can find official information here.

This is another simple proposition, that should be a YES vote. The simple things it does are:

* Requires employee consent before contributing union dues toward Political purposes.
* Requires unions to maintain records to the Fair Political Practices Commission about these contributions, although the records are not subject to public disclosure.

That’s it. So, this proposition is quite simple and obviously a YES vote.

One of the problems we have in this state is that many large organizations take disproportionate control in politics due to their large contributions. Bringing that power back to the individuals is a good thing.

In reality, I doubt this proposition will have much affect at all. It means that Unions need to recognize that they are political forces, and they need to be fair. Employees who disagree with the politics of their unions *might* go against the union, but by-and-large they will not. So Unions as political beasts won’t be impacted much, and we’ll allow individuals to vote with their money as appropriate.

Opponents call this the “blame teachers act”. But I have yet to hear any arguments against this proposal. It’s simple and a no-brainer. I think the reason that I haven’t heard a single coherent argument against it (other than to call it names) is because there is no valid argument against it.

Say what you will about whether this bill should be a priority for our state (I agree that it doesn’t seem like a very pressing issue), the fact is that it is on the ballot, and it’s a good measure.

Here is the link to the official Proposition 74.

The bill makes the following true:
1) Delays tenure from two years to five years.
2) Modifies the dismissal process for tenured teachers such that if a teacher gets two consecutive unsatisfactory performance evaluations, the school board can dismiss the teacher.

Thats it.

The only thing wrong with this bill is that it doesn’t abolish tenure altogether. I don’t think our teachers need to be coddled. Despite that, the bill is solid forward progress, and protects all Californian taxpayers from having to pay ineffective employees. Now, how could Warren Beatty or any other democrat claim this is a “fire teachers” bill? The teacher needs to get back to back failing reviews in order for this to be even possible. There is no corporation in America that tolerates bad performers like this, so why should the state?

I think the Democrats are just against anything Schwarzenegger proposes – not because the bill is bad – but because they want to attack him. Politics sucks.

Vote yes on this one.