October 29, 2004
Election thoughts:
With all the excitement of the upcoming Presidential Election (I’m endorsing Kerry, for what it’s worth. If you need me to explain why, watch the new bin Laden video and ask “why’s he still alive?”), I just got around to taking a look at the State Ballot propositions. To gather my thoughts on them, I’ve written a write up on them each. You may find them interesting or informative. You’ll probably all be surprised at where I find myself on Proposition 72. Anyway, start here and work your way down...
Posted by Andrew at 09:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Election thoughts: prop 60.
Proposition 60 is designed to keep Proposition 62 from coming into effect even if it passes. In the event both measures pass, the one with the highest vote total wins.
Just for consistency, I’m voting for both. No, seriously...
Posted by Andrew at 09:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Election thoughts: prop. 60A
This prop. would mandate that all money earned by selling off state property would be used to pay off bonds.
This prop. was designed to give voters one more reason to vote against prop. 62. While I like the idea, I hate the thought that our Legislature would have its hands tied by it in case of emergency. I’ll vote against-- and hope the Legislature does this on its own...
Posted by Andrew at 09:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Election thoughts: props 61, 63.
Proposition 61 will authorize the state to put forth a bond measure to fund children’s hospitals.
Prop 63 adds a 1% tax incomes over US$1,000,000.
I’d probably be in favor of both of these things, were our state solvent. Since it isn’t, I don’t want to commit us to new spending. While Prop. 63 is a bit better in that it specifies where the money is coming from (hear that, George? Tax, _then_ spend! Not the other way around!), it solution may well cause a massive pullout of wealth from California. I don’t want to have to change the State Constitution yet again if things go badly. Let the Legislature handle this one...
Posted by Andrew at 09:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Election thoughts: prop. 62
California has an interesting decision to make on this year’s ballot. Proposition 62 (the Voter Choice open primary act).
Under the existing system, the State holds elections in November, said elections being between candidates nominated by various parties. These candidates are chosen by political parties during state-conducted Primary Elections...
The system proposed by Prop 62 would change the primary by not letting parties to enter into it. Primaries would be completely “open” (to candidates who jump through certain hoops). The top two vote-getters in the primary would be the only ones onto the November ballot...
I’m not going to make arguments for or against this. I just want to look at what this does. Because as near as I can tell (writing this at the beginning of the article), the net effect will be 0...
Immagine that there are 5 candidates for Governor on the Primary ballot, 3 Up and 2 Down. The Candidates of the Up get 18%, 19%, 18%, while the Down candidates get 25% and 20% of the vote. This creates a situation in which the only candidates for General election are of the Down-- a situation that a majority of voters did not favor. This election would end up as something of a forgone conclusion-- whichever candidate is closest to the middle ends up winning by a landslide...
What happens in the next election is a Up Block emerging, dedicated to getting 1 of the 3 Ups off the ballot, for the “common good”. Or, quite possibly the Up voters get so upset by the way Down is taking the state that they pool their efforts around 1 Up candidate in the primary, ensuring that only she will be there for the state electors to vote for. Indeed, this is pretty much exactly what happened to Ross Perot in 1996, and will probably happen to Nadar this coming election...
Don’t take my word for it: just cast your mind back to the French Presidential Election of 2001. The French use a system to choose their president similar to the one described in Prop 62, (with a completely different parliamentary system on top of it. Really, it is a model of complication and oddness), and their presidential electoral system tends to favor 2 main parties...
Note that we are capable of having the same outcomes under both systems, though. We would still have a first-past-the-post, winner-take-all system, and in any system like that there is a tendency towards the mean...
One final thought on the implications of the change on a state-wide level: It may well make the Party system stronger, rather than weaker. If the second election, under the terms outlined above, consists of candidates chosen by the Up Party, this process would be less transparent than the one we have currently. Without making a judgment on the value of transparency, this is something that might be useful to bear in mind...
On the local level, the situation may be a bit different. It may well be the case that voters are voting for a party, in addition to a candidate. Specifically, voters should well know that a vote for (say) a Republican in the US Senate is a vote for Bill Frist as Senate Majority Leader. So a district may not care for an incumbent, but stick by that person as a way of maintaining their preferred party’s hold on legislative majorities (or to avoid eroding minorities even further). As (admittedly weak) evidence of this I offer Allan Keyes polling 1/3rd of the vote in his run for one of Illinois’ Senate Seat. Perhaps if radical incumbents were to run against moderate challengers, and electors were guaranteed that they were also casting a vote for the same party within legislatures, voters would take the chance...
On the other hand, this is what the primaries are ostensibly for, so this whole issue may well be a non-starter. In the end, I’ll probably end up voting for the measure. I don’t see how it can hurt, it will probably be a lot of smoke and noise over nothing...
Posted by Andrew at 09:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Election Thoughts: Prop 64
This act makes it harder to sue someone for unfair competition. Specifically, unless a claimant is the State Attorney General, a District Attorney, County Counsel, or a City Attorney; they’d have to prove that they had suffered from said unfair competition. Any moneys paid by a defendant as part of a losing claim would go to “the exclusive use by the Attorney General, the district attorney, the county counsel, and the city attorney for the enforcement of consumer protection laws”.
I have a fairly knee-jerk reaction against attempts at “tort reform”, so I thought I’d give this one a look, just to make sure I wasn’t making a mistake. Boy, am I glad I did, had I not, I wouldn’t have known how bad this measure would be...
The big, glaring problem with this act is that if a company (Say Microsoft) unfairly competes with me, and puts me out of business, I can’t get any money. None. Zero. The state gets to keep it. So, in effect, even citizens who have suffered damage have little-to-no-incentive to sue. Sounds good for Microsoft, bad for consumers...
Posted by Andrew at 09:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Election Thoughts: Prop 65
This one would change the way the state and local municipalities allocate/raise money. The state looses power to do so, while the local governments gain.
After reading this one a few times, I’m still not sure I understand it. But it’s about money, and it’s a change to the state constitution. Therefore I vote no...
Posted by Andrew at 09:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Election Thoughts: Prop 66
Proposition 66 has 2 (related) effects:
First, it would create an additional threshold for invoking “3-strikes”. A third violation, in order to be eligible for 3-strikes under this proposition would need to be a violent crime.
Second, it would mandate re-sentencing under the new rules for everyone currently sentenced under the new rules...
There is very likely a (national) constitutional issue involving the second part of this act. Although, I can’t imagine think of how a sentence might go _up_ under this act, so I don’t think too many of the possible complainants actually complaining...
The first part is interesting. I’ve never seen conclusive evidence that 3-strikes has had an effect on crime, (quite simply, crime started to drop _before_ we enacted it, and the economy took off right when crime started to drop) but it seems likely that it has had some positive impact. So I don’t want to ditch the program altogether...
On the other wrist, this program won’t. What it will do is stop forcing me to pay to imprison non-violent criminals. In fact, under rational Choice-theory, it gives criminals incentive to not hurt me during robberies. Of course, I don’t expect criminals to be rational, so there’s that...
I’ll vote for this one. Keep the violent criminals in jail, get the pot-smokers out...
Posted by Andrew at 09:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Election Thoughts: Prop 67
This would add a 3% tax on phone use to pay for emergency services.
Actually, this would add a 3% tax on _land line_ use, cell phones are exempted. Here we have another lock-in of taxes that would require a constitutional amendment to get rid of. To hell with it. Not voting for another one of these again...
Posted by Andrew at 09:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Election Thoughts: Props 68 & 70
Unless in-state Indian casinos re-negotiate their current deals with the State within 90 days, Californians would get new and bigger casinos, under Prop 68.
Under Prop. 70, all new deals with Indian Casinos-- and re-negotiated deals with said native Americans-- would tax those casinos as if they were California businesses.
I love these props. I really do. See, my ancestors came to this country recently. While reading Textbooks about how badly we screwed various tribes out of an entire continent (including paying 64 dollars the _wrong_ tribe for Manhattan), I always felt sad that I would never have the chance to be part of the grand American tradition of screwing over Native Americans. Now, with these 2 props, I can!
Dreck. The native American tribes are _sovereign nations_. As much as I would love to tax Canada or France, had we the cudgel to impose it on them with, it would be wrong to do so. Given the history the US has with Native Americans we owe them at least the dignity of no longer inflicting the same old wounds on them. I’m going to say this just once: we don’t “deserve” a “fair share” of Indian money...
Posted by Andrew at 09:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Election Thoughts Prop 69
This prop. would collect DNA from those accused of Crimes.
Perhaps if it were “convicted” of crimes, I’d give it further thought. But since this act pays no mind of the “assumption of innocence” that is foundational to American Law, I can’t vote for it...
Posted by Andrew at 09:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Election Thoughts: Prop 71
This act would allow the State to place a US$3,000,000,000 bond issue on the market, said bond to pay for Stem Cell research.
We’re broke. This bond will cost money. Ask again in a few years...
Posted by Andrew at 09:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Election Thoughts: Prop 72
Proposition 72, if passed, would create a state board of insurance, which would sell companies insurance, charging them a rate consistent with the number of employees a company has.
There is a right way to get universal insurance and a wrong way. This is a very, very wrong way. Wow, is this one bad...
Basically, it would kill off private medical insurance companies in favor of one large insurance board-- and mandate employers to pay for it all. This type reliance on state-run mega bureaucracy is exactly why communism failed. By mandating buy-in regardless of how well the program actually works, we’ll kill businesses in California...
To compound the folly of this idea, it is a change to the state Constitution, and would require another such amendment to get rid of it. Let’s not go there...
Posted by Andrew at 09:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack