California's general election

[Brian]

On the left, as you see.

The California ballot this November has more than its share of bare naked corporate power grabs among the propositions, along with a couple others that will help ease the budget woes inflicted, ironically, by previous initiatives that have hurt our state and local governments, public schools and universities and the poorest and most infirm of our citizens. With Senator Dianne Feinstein a shoe in for re-election, all of the interesting races are local. Hope you'll join me in this thread over the next seven weeks.

[Brian]

Because of a proposition that I voted against in 2010, I have to choose between two Democrats for my redrawn state Assembly district. I guess it could have been worse -- what if it were two Republicans? I was able to postpone my decision in the June primary by inking the circle next to the Green Party guy.

Initially, I tried to like Raul Bocanegra, chief of staff to the current, termed out assemblyman and a part time college professor, who ran a good campaign and got 2500 more votes than Richard Alarcon, my city councilman. But I found Bocanegra's positions as shallow as the Tujunga Wash in September. Meanwhile, I had a problem with Alarcon allegedly living in the wrong council district. But, damn, he's an effective and progressive elected official, endorsed by Rep. Maxine Waters and former state Sen. Sheila Kuehl.

The citizens commission, which I also voted against, reunited Sunland-Tujunga with the City of Los Angeles after decades of being reapportioned into districts with Palmdale, Santa Clarita and Glendale. The new 39th district is centered in the northeast Valley, where I worked registering voters for Assemblyman Richard Katz' campaign in 1986. It's great to be part of a majority Latino district.

[Brian]

I signed the petition and donated money to the Yes on 34 campaign to end the death penalty in California. I will vote yes. Still, even the best intentioned propositions have serious flaws, as I've learned only recently.

Death row inmates are wholeheartedly against the initiative, but they can't vote. It's not just that they'll lose their relatively cushy confinement when their sentences are changed to life without parole and they're sent into the dangers of the regular prison population. The few who are innocent will lose all hope of ever making their case without the due process and free lawyers they now get automatically.

That's why I found a mass e-mail from the Yes on 34 folks touting the release of the latest innocent man from a death row back east so irksome. That guy had the means to pursue his case. If Proposition 34 passes, the truly innocent will have more trouble overturning wrong convictions. Some of the savings will have to be directed to units in district attorneys offices statewide to investigate legitimate claims or to groups like the Innocence Project. I believe in justice even more than I oppose the death penalty.

[Roberta]

Oct 1, 2012 23:00:32 GMT -8 Brian said:

I signed the petition and donated money to the Yes on 34 campaign to end the death penalty in California. I will vote yes. Still, even the best intentioned propositions have serious flaws, as I've learned only recently.

Death row inmates are wholeheartedly against the initiative, but they can't vote. It's not just that they'll lose their relatively cushy confinement when their sentences are changed to life without parole and they're sent into the dangers of the regular prison population. The few who are innocent will lose all hope of ever making their case without the due process and free lawyers they now get automatically.

That's why I found a mass e-mail from the Yes on 34 folks touting the release of the latest innocent man from a death row back east so irksome. That guy had the means to pursue his case. If Proposition 34 passes, the truly innocent will have more trouble overturning wrong convictions. Some of the savings will have to be directed to units in district attorneys offices statewide to investigate legitimate claims or to groups like the Innocence Project. I believe in justice even more than I oppose the death penalty.

I haven't yet been able to talk with someone knowledgeable at the Prop 34 campaign to confirm or refute Brian's point about appeals by inmates whose death penalty would be converted to life w/o possibility of parole. But we were told at the first volunteer mtg. I attended that those convicted to death under the current death penalty statute get the required initial appeal paid for by taxpayers. After that they are on their own to pay lawyers etc., and/or find supporters to help them do so. After there is no death penalty in California, I hope anyway, that initial appeal won't be relevant.

I did get a chance to ask the ACLU staffer running my latest outreach effort -- leafletting, holding a big pro-Prop 34 banner, chanting and otherwise catching public attention at Sunday's CicLAvi downtown -- about the possibly innocent now on death row. There is "exculpatory", I think she said, language specifying that someone off death row serving life w/o possibility of parole will of course have the right to legal recourse should new evidence emerge.

[Brian]

Oct 11, 2012 13:02:08 GMT -8 Roberta said:

I did get a chance to ask the ACLU staffer running my latest outreach effort -- leafletting, holding a big pro-Prop 34 banner, chanting and otherwise catching public attention at Sunday's CicLAvi downtown -- about the possibly innocent now on death row. There is "exculpatory", I think she said, language specifying that someone off death row serving life w/o possibility of parole will of course have the right to legal recourse should new evidence emerge.

I'm grateful to Roberta for looking into this issue -- and for her activism in support of Proposition 34 all year. Because of her, I donated to the campaign. I look forward to voting "yes" in just two weeks.

However, I still don't know what to do about Proposition 38. I want it to pass if Proposition 30 doesn't, but I don't want 38 to get more votes than 30, because the Brown initiative is much more progressive. Molly Munger's initiative hits every personal income tax bracket except the lowest, while Brown's only affects the top. Yeah, there's a sales tax increase in his, one quarter percent, as low as you can go. I signed Munger's petition, having read about it first. Now I may abstain, but I'm open to persuasion on the merits or strategy.

[Roberta]

Oct 22, 2012 23:00:15 GMT -8 Brian said:

but I don't want 38 to get more votes than 30

Boy, you said a mouthful there! Here at our house we are really sick of paycuts -- faculty at Glendale College have lost 15% of their salary in the last several years. (And of course at the same time, we count our obvious blessings.)

My advice when you don't want something to get more votes than something else ... don't vote for it.

YES on 30, NO on 38!

[Jeanne]

Oct 23, 2012 13:47:03 GMT -8 Roberta said:

Oct 22, 2012 23:00:15 GMT -8 Brian said:

but I don't want 38 to get more votes than 30

Boy, you said a mouthful there! Here at our house we are really sick of paycuts -- faculty at Glendale College have lost 15% of their salary in the last several years. (And of course at the same time, we count our obvious blessings.)

I agree with Roberta on this. 38 would require new administrative people at each school site which isn't very efficient. And it would be up to each school to interpret how to spend the money. 30 would go through existing state and district bureaucracies. I'm not saying that they are not without waste, especially after the meeting I just sat through, but I think it would be more efficient than 38. And 38 has nothing for community colleges.

I just heard news that some mysterious Arizona group donated $11 million to the No on 30 campaign here in CA. Does anyone know who or why?

I'm voting yes on 30 and no on 38.

[anni]

Oct 23, 2012 15:24:04 GMT -8 Jeanne said:

I just heard news that some mysterious Arizona group donated $11 million to the No on 30 campaign here in CA. Does anyone know who or why?

Two days after Jeanne posted, George Skelton attempted to answer her question in the Los Angeles Times:
www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cap-money-20121025,0,2891668,full.column

[anni]

On LA Progressive, parent and school volunteer Kim Tso posted her explanation of the state tax brackets and the impact Propositions 30 and 38 would have on them:



...Although it's nine minutes long, Ms. Tso explains these complicated tables and ideas so even I, (of the short attention span) could understand that which only remained an impossible, foggy blur.

[Brian]

I was a big believer in the initiative process until 1978, when Howard Jarvis and the apartment owners association gave California Proposition 13, which ironically made this year’s Proposition 30 necessary. This election, we can also help to correct the death penalty and the three strikes sentencing propositions that voters mandated decades ago. If you look back, it seems to me, we’ve had so many egregious constitutional amendments and laws stuck on the books or struck down by courts – we’re still awaiting the last word on 2008’s Proposition 8 outlawing same sex marriage – and seen very few good ones passed. Hiram Johnson probably would not approve.

In consideration of Proposition 37, which would label genetically modified food, I offer this column by Michael Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times on September 16:

www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20120916,0,2211926.column

Great intentions do not always make good laws. Unlike the requirements to label packages containing trans fats and peanuts for the allergic, adding an advisory to 70 percent of processed foods wouldn't tell consumers anything useful. Also, it won't scare agribusiness away from growing genetically modified plants and it won't shame Monsanto, Dow and DuPont from producing the seeds and chemicals. It might only benefit the organic food companies who sponsored the initiative. I will abstain on Proposition 37.