Eleven days from now the suspense will be broken and we will know whether Obama gets a second term or Romney's desperate dive to the center pays off. The long drawn out Republican primary played out as a farce with one comically unsuitable candidate after another taking the lead over Romney only to be crushed under the weight of their own hopelessness and yielding ground to the next joker. Credible candidates like Huntsman couldn't survive the demands of the Tea Party extremists, but Romney made it through - secure in his puritan personal life (no skeletons there) and ever so willing to take any position that was convenient for the day.
Maybe Romney will govern from the center, but it is a risk that I am not interested in taking. Maybe he will not succeed in repealing the Affordable Care act, but there is one thing he will most certainly get to do: nominate Supreme Court justices, maybe as many as four of them. Citizens United will seem like a very reasonable verdict after that.
Ok, enough with the hand wringing, let me get on with the res. Here are my recommendations for the CA state ballot measures and elections. I'll start with the props (related ones together):
Prop 30 & 38: Both of these propositions aim to raise taxes in order to fund education. Prop 30 raises taxes on incomes above 250,000 for 7 years and sales tax by 1/4 % for 4 years. Prop 38 raises income taxes on a sliding scale. Gov Brown made a sneaky move - he cut funding to education (part of closing a huge budget deficit) and pushed Prop 30 as a way to close that funding hole. How do you vote against that? Prop 30 may leave a funny taste in the mouth, but 38 seems rather suspicious. For one, it does not have any phase out of the tax increases. And then it proposes to give all the money to just K-12 schooling. It also seems like an underhand way of defeating 30 by confusing voters. I recommend YES on 30 and NO on 38.
Prop 34 & 36: Prop 36 tries to bring some sanity to the three-strikes law by requiring that the third strike has to be a serious felony conviction or a violent crime. There are too many people incarcerated for life for essentially a minor (third) crime. I believe this should come to an end.
Prop 34 does away with capital punishment and I think it is about time. If the moral argument does not sway you, then just consider the fiscal one: With all the built-in safeguards that include automatic appeals all the way to the state supreme court (& sometimes to the US Supreme Court), prisoners sentenced to die stay on death row for well over 20 years. The cost to the government is very significant since they are required to be housed in individual cells and given special attention. Not to mention all the legal costs. Life imprisonment without the chance of parole (which is what Prop 36 prescribes) is lot cheaper. Since CA enacted the death penalty in 1974, 900 people have been sentenced to die. Of them, only 14 have actually been executed. I recommend YES on 34 and 36.
Prop 31& 32: These not really related, but sort have the same flavor. Prop 31 is melange of a proposition. It moves some money from the state to the local governments, it puts some restrictions on state legislatures and so on. The big one is that it makes the state budget a 2-year one instead of an annual process. This is supposed to make our legislators plan ahead. It may be well intentioned, but seems too much like a band-aid solution.
Prop 32 has to do with preventing unions from using payroll-deducted funds for political purposes. It attempts to be fair by putting in some similar restrictions on contractors and corporations, but since when did unions and corporations operate on the same level playing field? I am not buying either of these props - I recommend NO on 31 and 32.
Prop 33: This will allow car insurance companies to give you a discount for continuous coverage even if it was with a different carrier. This prop sounds good on paper - it should increase competition and if you are somebody who has always maintained your car insurance then you might be able to shop around for a lower rate. But the people who lose out are the ones who had let their policy lapse - there are some exceptions for military service and losing your job. What gives me real pause is that it is funded almost completely by one insurance company owner and this is the second time he is trying it. The previous attempt was Prop 17 in 2010 and that failed. I recommend NO on 33.
Prop 34: Increases penalties for human trafficking. This prop essentially throws the book at anybody convicted of human trafficking (think pimps). What's to argue with such a law? The problem is that simply raising the criminal penalty is a rather simplistic response to a complex issue. Often it is the well intentioned effort that has really bad consequences. I am truly ambivalent on this prop. I will likely be voting yes, but I am not going to make an actual recommendation.
Prop 37: Require labeling of Genetically Engineered (GE) food. This is another potentially confusing issue. Would such labeling just end up scaring people unnecessarily? Could it end up hurting the average consumer by raising food costs? I am not sure, but messing with nature is often fraught with danger. It also seems rather lopsided that the No on 37 side has raised over 35 million dollars, mostly from the likes of Monsanto and Dow. I say give me the label. I recommend YES on 37.
Prop 39: Out-of-state corporations to pay CA tax on in-state sales. Yes, it will make some companies pay more taxes to CA. A Billion dollars more. But, it is for sales they have had in CA. A loop hole lets them get away with this now. Time to close it, I say. I recommend YES on 39.
Prop 40: This one has to do with redistricting, but there are lots of twists and turns in its story. Without going into too much detail, this prop will essentially retain the results of the work of a civilian commission. The new maps had been opposed by the state Republican party, but they have since abandoned this position. I recommend a YES on 40.
And now for some state-wide offices:
Maybe Romney will govern from the center, but it is a risk that I am not interested in taking. Maybe he will not succeed in repealing the Affordable Care act, but there is one thing he will most certainly get to do: nominate Supreme Court justices, maybe as many as four of them. Citizens United will seem like a very reasonable verdict after that.
Ok, enough with the hand wringing, let me get on with the res. Here are my recommendations for the CA state ballot measures and elections. I'll start with the props (related ones together):
Prop 30 & 38: Both of these propositions aim to raise taxes in order to fund education. Prop 30 raises taxes on incomes above 250,000 for 7 years and sales tax by 1/4 % for 4 years. Prop 38 raises income taxes on a sliding scale. Gov Brown made a sneaky move - he cut funding to education (part of closing a huge budget deficit) and pushed Prop 30 as a way to close that funding hole. How do you vote against that? Prop 30 may leave a funny taste in the mouth, but 38 seems rather suspicious. For one, it does not have any phase out of the tax increases. And then it proposes to give all the money to just K-12 schooling. It also seems like an underhand way of defeating 30 by confusing voters. I recommend YES on 30 and NO on 38.
Prop 34 & 36: Prop 36 tries to bring some sanity to the three-strikes law by requiring that the third strike has to be a serious felony conviction or a violent crime. There are too many people incarcerated for life for essentially a minor (third) crime. I believe this should come to an end.
Prop 34 does away with capital punishment and I think it is about time. If the moral argument does not sway you, then just consider the fiscal one: With all the built-in safeguards that include automatic appeals all the way to the state supreme court (& sometimes to the US Supreme Court), prisoners sentenced to die stay on death row for well over 20 years. The cost to the government is very significant since they are required to be housed in individual cells and given special attention. Not to mention all the legal costs. Life imprisonment without the chance of parole (which is what Prop 36 prescribes) is lot cheaper. Since CA enacted the death penalty in 1974, 900 people have been sentenced to die. Of them, only 14 have actually been executed. I recommend YES on 34 and 36.
Prop 31& 32: These not really related, but sort have the same flavor. Prop 31 is melange of a proposition. It moves some money from the state to the local governments, it puts some restrictions on state legislatures and so on. The big one is that it makes the state budget a 2-year one instead of an annual process. This is supposed to make our legislators plan ahead. It may be well intentioned, but seems too much like a band-aid solution.
Prop 32 has to do with preventing unions from using payroll-deducted funds for political purposes. It attempts to be fair by putting in some similar restrictions on contractors and corporations, but since when did unions and corporations operate on the same level playing field? I am not buying either of these props - I recommend NO on 31 and 32.
Prop 33: This will allow car insurance companies to give you a discount for continuous coverage even if it was with a different carrier. This prop sounds good on paper - it should increase competition and if you are somebody who has always maintained your car insurance then you might be able to shop around for a lower rate. But the people who lose out are the ones who had let their policy lapse - there are some exceptions for military service and losing your job. What gives me real pause is that it is funded almost completely by one insurance company owner and this is the second time he is trying it. The previous attempt was Prop 17 in 2010 and that failed. I recommend NO on 33.
Prop 34: Increases penalties for human trafficking. This prop essentially throws the book at anybody convicted of human trafficking (think pimps). What's to argue with such a law? The problem is that simply raising the criminal penalty is a rather simplistic response to a complex issue. Often it is the well intentioned effort that has really bad consequences. I am truly ambivalent on this prop. I will likely be voting yes, but I am not going to make an actual recommendation.
Prop 37: Require labeling of Genetically Engineered (GE) food. This is another potentially confusing issue. Would such labeling just end up scaring people unnecessarily? Could it end up hurting the average consumer by raising food costs? I am not sure, but messing with nature is often fraught with danger. It also seems rather lopsided that the No on 37 side has raised over 35 million dollars, mostly from the likes of Monsanto and Dow. I say give me the label. I recommend YES on 37.
Prop 39: Out-of-state corporations to pay CA tax on in-state sales. Yes, it will make some companies pay more taxes to CA. A Billion dollars more. But, it is for sales they have had in CA. A loop hole lets them get away with this now. Time to close it, I say. I recommend YES on 39.
Prop 40: This one has to do with redistricting, but there are lots of twists and turns in its story. Without going into too much detail, this prop will essentially retain the results of the work of a civilian commission. The new maps had been opposed by the state Republican party, but they have since abandoned this position. I recommend a YES on 40.
And now for some state-wide offices:
- Dianne Feinstein for US Senate
- Scott Peters for the House seat (52nd distict)
