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Time to Show Initiative

It was Thomas Jefferson who believed the US Constitution ought to be rewritten from time to time. Jefferson’s dream has been realized in California, where no matter who you elect, the people have the power to circumvent the officials by means of ballot initiatives. Nothing has a greater impact on California than these measures, and as hard as candidates fight for offices, the propositions make everyone, from the junior assemblyman to the governor irrelevant by comparison. “Unpaid” is here to help by cutting through pages and pages of the voter guide to give you the unvarnished reasons why to vote for, or against.



Proposition 1A No. The reason to vote no on this measure is incredibly simple, yet abstract. The idea behind the measure is to prevent the Legislature from making new spending appropriations until the amount of money it sends to local governments are satisfied. So why is this a bad idea? Well, is there anything to prevent cities and counties from overstating what they need in an attempt to reduce the state’s general revenue? And if even if they don’t, some revenue shortfall comes from the federal government not coming through on its requirements in the form of unfunded mandates. So as abstract as it seems, you vote for your local government, you vote for your national representatives, and you vote for your person in the state legislature. You do not get to vote for other districts’ representatives, other states’ senators, and so forth. This measure impedes the state and appears to be harmless, but what it ensures is that the federal government will continue to cut spending to local governments knowing that local leaders won’t resist and instead shrink the size of the state’s cushion for revenue. Unlike the feds though, California is not authorized to run a deficit, ensuring that taxes will rise precipitously at the state level if this measure is passed. Sales, vehicle licensing fees, university fees…it does not matter…Proposition 1A could be the most ill-considered idea since 1978’s Proposition 13.


Proposition 59: No. How much do you really want to pay for more access to your public records. While we do not have the equivalent of “sunshine laws” as strong as other states, so many other strong measures exist that make “59” window dressing. After all, confidential government meetings still are barred, so with that semantic trick, this is a dead letter.


Proposition 60: Yes. It’s usually a bad reason to vote for an initiative to avoid another initiative. But Proposition 60, designed to prevent any party from being denied ballot access is just such a reason. Chances are the party you vote for doesn’t have this problem, but if Proposition 62 passes, “60” limits the trickery by preventing an “open primary” where only two leading vote getters are placed on the ballot.


Proposition 60A: No. This measure is only here because it was stuck in a rider to Proposition 60. It’s not that there’s any reason to oppose it. But it’s because the Legislature can vote on this measure again later on should the initiative not be passed.


Proposition 61: Yes. It is true that this measure’s opponents are right. The reason this measure is on the ballot is that our healthcare system in America is broken. But the reason it comes to this in California is Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s vicious redlining of the University of California. While its hospitals aren’t going under, it still needs money to make capital improvements and the losses are mounting because people are afraid of “socialized medicine”. Yes, it will cost money, but there’s really no other option, short of a total political change in the United States away from myopia on health care and immigration.

Proposition 62: No. As much as people seemed to have liked the open primary, where anyone can vote for primary candidates, the parties went all the way to the Supreme Court to rid themselves of it. So now, a new initiative says, you can have your open primary back, but the only two top voter getters will be sent to the general election. This is how they do it in Louisiana, which perfected the situation to ensure that if one Democratic nominee did not win the election, the runoff would consolidate the votes to defeat the challenger. This wouldn’t quite happen in California; instead it would just kill the primary process into no third parties and the two major parties having coronations. Sure, we don’t live in a democracy as much as a republic…but still…

Proposition 63: Yes. Los Angeles and San Francisco seemingly have an out of control homeless problem, but in reality most are just disabled people or mentally impaired folks turned loose with no ability to handle them. Proposition 63 does not solve the eternal problem, but it does create an interesting solution. It raises income taxes only on the rich as an attempt to pull many of the mentally ill off the streets. The odd surprise is this is supported by law enforcement because surprise, they often have to be the ones to marshal the downtrodden. The less street people, the more time they have to tackle more serious problems. Again, if the federal government would get serious about replacing the money it used to spend on mental health in the 1980s and earlier, this would not be necessary.

Proposition 64: No. Chances are you never heard of the Trevor Law Group, a bunch of thieves who happened to be lawyers running wild with California’s Unfair Competition Law. Unfortunately their abuse does not warrant this. It’s a strong-armed measure which prevents real legal champions taking on unfair and incorrect marketing and business practices.

Proposition 65: No. This was what Proposition 1A was before Arnold Schwarzenegger made his suggestions. It’s still a bad idea.

Proposition 66: Yes. Now here’s a thought, why send a person to jail for life for stealing a slice of pie. Sure, recidivism is a problem in state prisons. Still, when your state incarcerates more people than any other country or state on earth…including much more populous ones like China…you can see where this “budget deficit” really comes from. As fun and exciting as the “3 Strikes Law” was during the crime-ridden early 90s…we really don’t want to have a geriatric ward disguised as a penitentiary in 20 years. Why do we claim society will be so much safer locking up offenders for life when in fact recidivism is neither likely in some cases, nor likely as a person ages. Even the most dangerous or deranged individual will become pretty harmless as they grow longer in the tooth, and if not, they probably need to be committed anyway.

Proposition 67: Yes. Though it has a different mechanism than Proposition 63, this is the same idea. The uninsured have strained hospitals and EMTs to the breaking point, and we need new revenues to pay for closing hospitals. Sure there is another solution, but it’s unlikely to happen.

Proposition 68: No. If we are going to legalize gambling in California, we can’t give it away this cheaply. Considering how lucrative it can be, this is just a bad deal, no matter who is the beneficiary, card club owners or Native Americans.

Proposition 69: No. The reason to vote this measure down is because of what was left out. Instead of forcing all people arrested (DUI and domestic violence types take note) to give their DNA to the database, it places no evidentiary guidelines how that would be treated in court. In other words, even though the State would be able to show how close the DNA match would be in court, it would smell like OJ. And ultimately you know that it will actually have the reverse effect. More of more people would be suspicious of the State’s discretion using the DNA drops as evidence without requiring DNA matches to either hold, arrest, or convict a suspect. Barry Scheck is going to be a rich man if this passes.

Proposition 70: No. We repeat, it’s not that legalized gambling is an anathema to California. It is merely that if we need the revenue generated in its taxes, we need to cut a better deal than this. Proposition 5 stands in any event, allowing the Native Americans more or less sovereign gaming rights on their reservations anyway.

Proposition 71: Yes. This is huge. California is the biggest biotechnology state in the country. Massachusetts nips at our heels. The University of California hangs by a thread thanks to a coordinated reduction in funding at the state and local level. So why stem cells? The answer is that this would create lots of jobs in California, high paying, while offsetting the amount of money certain UC program would need. The bottom line, don’t think of this as a bond measure, think of a tax break that actually works out even better should President Bush be reelected.

Proposition 72: Yes. Here’s a novel idea. If you hire people at minimum wage and they cost the state money for being uninsured, why not force employers to buy insurance. This is the bottom line in the health care “crisis”, a restaurant owner is covered under the small business exception of providing health care because he or she bought the franchise rights, not into the company itself. Now companies supposedly would put out of business. Please, trauma centers are being shut down and the state is being forced to mortgage its future for Walmart? Note, small businesses under fifty people are still exempt, causing you to wonder just who is against this idea.

posted by Thomas at 5:31 PM 0 comments