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November 9, 2006

am I out of step with America?

Actually, I mean "Am I out of step with California?"

Although I was in perfect tune with the nation on almost all of the House and Senate races, I was down with more than a few losers in CA. The following is a review of California election results and how I voted.

Governor - Schwarzenegger , Arnold (i) - GOP - Wrong! I voted for the other guy. Having missed the recall fracaso that put him in office, I will confess to not minding the Governator as much as some, but still. Just on the general principle of state dignity, I can't believe that guy is governor.

I pretty much went party-line on the other statewide offices:

Lieutenant Governor - Garamendi , John - Dem - The Dem got my vote and won
Secretary of State - Bowen , Debra - Dem - ditto
Attorney General - Brown , Jerry - Dem - ditto on Gov. Moonbeam
Treasurer - Lockyer , Bill - Dem - ditto
Controller - Chiang , John - Dem - yes, my Asiatic brother

but then:

Insurance Commissioner - Poizner , Steve - GOP - Whoops! My straight party-line vote had me on the wrong side of this particular office. I should mention, though, that Dem candidate Cruz Bustamante came across to me as somewhat sleazy, so I can't complain about this outcome too much.

On propositions, my picks were a bit more off.

On the plus side, I lined up with the rest of the CA electorate on the following propositions allocating more money for education, transportation and housing infrastructure improvements: 1B (more funds for highway safety), 1C (more homeless shelters and emergency housing), 1D (a school infrastructure bond act), and 1E (fixing levees).(!)

I also lined up favorably on proposition 84, voting "yes" to increase money for parks, land preservation and the protection of water supplies. On the "No" side, I joined Californians in rejecting propositions 85 (the anti-choice "parental notification" act), 88, (a nice sounding education funding bill that increase the funding disparity between poor and rich districts), and, 90 (a lawyer-funding proposition masquerading as an anti-eminent domain protection.)

On the signature proposition of the election, though, the star-studded 87 alternative energy initiative, I voted with the minority that supported making CA the leader in alternative energy. (The $90+ million spent by the oil companies to defeat the bill apparently worked.) I also voted against proposition 83 and lost, meaning the number of people who can be defined as "sex offenders" will increase, and that those folks can now be monitored via GPS for, like, life. While I understand the emotional appeal of the prop., it also strikes me as both pointless and draconian given the number of laws already on the books to punish sex offenders and to insure they remain permanent, un-rehabiliated outcasts. I really can't imagine what more we can do to pervs who have already had the book thrown at them served their time, except maybe brand them, put their eyes out and inject a chip in their asses. (That was rhetorical; please save all the "well, why don't we?!" comments.)

Another one of my losers was 89, which would have diluted the impact of big money in elections by providing for public campaign financing. Curiously, this prop. went down even more resoundingly than the sex offender prop. went up, apparently making clean, publicly funded elections more hated by CA voters than child molesters:

Do you hate kiddie diddlers?
Yes! 4,673,124 70.49
No 1,956,225 29.51

Do you want clean, publicly financed elections?
No! 4,846,442 74.44
Yes 1,663,695 25.56

Before you guys think I'm trying to present myself as some kind of paragon of civic virtue, I will confess that I voted "no" on a proposition that I didn't fully understand - 1A, which guaranteed certain transportation funds had to be used only for transportation - this because some or another good government group told me it would hamstring the state during some future, unforeseen budget crisis.

I also voted for an increase of CA cigarette taxes - 86 - this even though I don't actually believe in them. The thing is that I used to smoke and recall my habit with great, sad fondness, so I know better than most that people will buy cigarettes no matter how much they cost. (At the end of my habit I was smoking Nat Shermans, which I think cost more than weed, so I would have been able to live with an $8 pack.) It also seems to me that (more abstractly) this kind of "sin tax" is regressive and tends to disproportionally punish the poor, precisely the same class of folks already being victimized by big tobacco.

In the end, though, I couldn't resist the call of do-gooderism and tough-love, in so much as it seems to me that if you are going to go and smoke, you might as well pay for your own medical care. So the ultimate outcome on all this was pretty much right by me: I did the right thing with my vote, but no one is going to pay for it. Cowardly, I know, but hey: it's like that sometimes.

In terms of California's wacky state judicial appointment/retention system, I voted for and against a whole bunch of people, and, except for the State Supreme Court justices, I had no idea whatsoever who the fuck any of them were. This being LalaLand, my ignorance was apparently both the statewide status quo and irrelevant, as everyone who "should" have won on 11/7 did:

Despite worries from some judges and legal commentators that California's judicial election process was in danger of becoming politicized, voters have soundly endorsed the status quo.

The electorate voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to retain state Supreme Court Justices Joyce L. Kennard and Carol A. Corrigan, along with all 51 Court of Appeal justices on the ballot.

[...]

Critics have long bemoaned that most voters don't have a clue who any of the judges are when they go to vote -- and that many cast ballots anyway.[full story]

To tell the truth, I voted for people that had ethnic names (terrible, I know) and for people whose job descriptions I liked, the judicial ballots coming not with party affiliations but with short background / job description titles like "prosecutor" or "state attorney." Perversely, my knee-jerk, anti-prosecutor bias had me on the wrong side of the line yet again:

Election outcomes for four vacant seats on the Los Angeles County Superior Court bench were also without surprises. By large margins, voters picked four criminal prosecutors, traditional favorites, to ascend to the bench. [full story]

I'm really not sure how to end after that last note: Even when I'm wrong, I'm right? Even when I'm right, I'm wrong?

Posted by ebogjonson in city of angels, politricknal sciences, on November 9, 2006 2:19 PM