In recent years, almost two dozen states have implemented laws that impose new restrictions on voting. Here's what to do if you're turned away at the polls by Christina Maxouris and AJ Willingham (CNN)
Showing posts with label voting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label voting. Show all posts
Vote like your Medicare and Social Security depend on it
If you hear the word "reform," reach for your gun.
Term limits are on the ballot in Santa Monica and, I suspect, in other places where voters are frustrated. To put it as positively as possible, term limits are intended to bring new ideas and put a brake on entrenched interests. But there is no evidence that either of these outcomes occur.
In 2004, the Public Policy Institute of California published a research paper about the state legislative term limits that California voters enacted in 1990. The analysis found that rather than representing a new breed of "citizen legislator," "new members after term limits behave a great deal like their precursors.”
Term limits are a terrible idea. Here are some reasons why:
1. Term limits are anti-democratic. A fundamental principle in our system of government is that citizens get to choose their representatives. Term limits curtail that fundamental right. Voters should be able to vote for whomever they want to represent them.
2. Like it or not, politics is a profession. We ask our representatives to find solutions to pressing problems, often problems with no simple answers. Political representation is a learned skill; as with any profession, experience matters. The public is not well served by inexperienced people making policy choices with widespread, lasting consequences. In effect, term limits deny voters expert representation. Government is complicated. Just when representatives begin to learn their job, they are termed out.
3. Representative government is dependent on compromise. Term limits severely hamper the opportunity for understanding and trust to develop between council members. Strangers in a new environment can't know whose judgement to accept and which colleagues know what they're doing. Also,decreasing the number of seasoned elected officials results in greater deference to bureaucrats, especially in cases like Santa Monica's where elected officials have no independent staff of their own.
4. Term limits discourage the development policy expertise: members who know their time on the city council (or any office) is limited will be disinclined to spending the time and effort necessary to acquire expertise on specific issues knowing that, in most cases, that difficult-to-acquire knowledge won’t be nearly as valuable or useful in the assembly or state senate or wherever they're forced to head next. Also, special interests are always ready to jump in to help elected officials bone up on an issue, which distorts policy in favor of those interests.
5. Term limits empower bureaucrats and the special interests. Institutional memory is in the hands of staff: it is difficult to know when you are being manipulated or misled if you don't know the history of the issue being considered. By the same token, if lobbyists don't like an outcome, they don't have to wait long before they can take another shot at new arrivals. The people's representatives will soon be gone; the bureaucrats and special interests will be around forever.
6. Inevitably, there will be the temptation to defer to individuals, groups, and lobbies with matters before the council that may be helpful in getting the next political job.
7. Special interests are empowered at election time: campaign spending becomes all important when new faces need to be sold at every election.
8. Knowing they are going to be termed out, incumbents spend their time running for their next job instead of doing the job they have now.
9. We already have term limits. They're called elections.
Term limit campaigns are often cynical attempts by politicians to exploit voters' frustrations by appearing to favor a "reform." They often reveal a deep distrust of the democratic process. If you're unhappy with the government you have, you have the power to change it. Get involved. Vote.
Vote no on Prop TL.
In 2004, the Public Policy Institute of California published a research paper about the state legislative term limits that California voters enacted in 1990. The analysis found that rather than representing a new breed of "citizen legislator," "new members after term limits behave a great deal like their precursors.”
Term limits are a terrible idea. Here are some reasons why:
1. Term limits are anti-democratic. A fundamental principle in our system of government is that citizens get to choose their representatives. Term limits curtail that fundamental right. Voters should be able to vote for whomever they want to represent them.
2. Like it or not, politics is a profession. We ask our representatives to find solutions to pressing problems, often problems with no simple answers. Political representation is a learned skill; as with any profession, experience matters. The public is not well served by inexperienced people making policy choices with widespread, lasting consequences. In effect, term limits deny voters expert representation. Government is complicated. Just when representatives begin to learn their job, they are termed out.
3. Representative government is dependent on compromise. Term limits severely hamper the opportunity for understanding and trust to develop between council members. Strangers in a new environment can't know whose judgement to accept and which colleagues know what they're doing. Also,decreasing the number of seasoned elected officials results in greater deference to bureaucrats, especially in cases like Santa Monica's where elected officials have no independent staff of their own.
4. Term limits discourage the development policy expertise: members who know their time on the city council (or any office) is limited will be disinclined to spending the time and effort necessary to acquire expertise on specific issues knowing that, in most cases, that difficult-to-acquire knowledge won’t be nearly as valuable or useful in the assembly or state senate or wherever they're forced to head next. Also, special interests are always ready to jump in to help elected officials bone up on an issue, which distorts policy in favor of those interests.
5. Term limits empower bureaucrats and the special interests. Institutional memory is in the hands of staff: it is difficult to know when you are being manipulated or misled if you don't know the history of the issue being considered. By the same token, if lobbyists don't like an outcome, they don't have to wait long before they can take another shot at new arrivals. The people's representatives will soon be gone; the bureaucrats and special interests will be around forever.
6. Inevitably, there will be the temptation to defer to individuals, groups, and lobbies with matters before the council that may be helpful in getting the next political job.
7. Special interests are empowered at election time: campaign spending becomes all important when new faces need to be sold at every election.
8. Knowing they are going to be termed out, incumbents spend their time running for their next job instead of doing the job they have now.
9. We already have term limits. They're called elections.
Term limit campaigns are often cynical attempts by politicians to exploit voters' frustrations by appearing to favor a "reform." They often reveal a deep distrust of the democratic process. If you're unhappy with the government you have, you have the power to change it. Get involved. Vote.
Vote no on Prop TL.
Vote!
The Brett Kavanaugh thing isn't going away. A majority of Americans wants the investigation to continue, despite his confirmation. A lot is going to depend on the outcome of the November election. The Democrats may gain the House, but control of the Senate is crucial, too. Consider this: in 2013, the six senior Republican members of the Judiciary Committee all voted against the reauthorisation of the Clinton-era Violence against Women Act. It ultimately passed the Senate 78-22, but the upper body has continued its rightward drift since then. Who wins matters. Vote.
"Vote for Yetta and watch things get betta" (slogan, Yetta Bronstein presidential campaign, 1964)
Both major parties follow scripts leading up to elections. The GOP pitches prayer in the schools, criminalizing abortion and what amounts to racial cleansing. Never happens. The Democrats hawk social and economic justice (this year in the form of free education, Medicare for All and criminal justice reform). Never happens. Whatever is promised turns out to be "too hard," we can't afford it, the other side just won't compromise.
Whichever party wins, though, what does happen is this: endless war, corporate welfare, and unimpeded transfer of public wealth into private hands.
Vote. Vote locally. Vote strategically. But, wherever possible, don't vote for corporate shills and the war machine. Change is a long, slow process. It's not going to happen in one election. Or two. Or probably ten. But it's not going to happen at all if we keep falling for false narratives.
There are plenty of Democrats to vote for, especially at the local level. But we need to be selective. The Democratic establishment
If you don't favor kleptocracy and militarism, then in races where the outcome will be the same, don't vote. Or vote Green or Peace & Freedom or Working Families or whatever other off-brand choice you have. Or write in yourself or Lebron James or Kshama Sawant or Jimmy Dore or Helen Keller or Stormy Daniels or Noam Chomsky or the progressive who got outspent in the primary or anyone else you think will get across the point that you're not accepting business as usual or the lesser evil anymore.
Otherwise, change? Never happens.
2012: Will voters "throw the bums out"?
I'm taken to task for having the temerity to suggest that Barack Obama may be held accountable for the nation's problems -- in the instance, for the decline in average American's income and net worth, and that there may be some justice in his impending political demise: "It's not Obama's fault. It's the policies, peoples." As if, I guess, it is John Boehner who is running the country.
It's true, though, that these "policies" are not Obama's alone. They have been been pursued through six administrations and a couple of dozen congresses controlled, it should not be forgotten, more often by Democrats than by Republicans. There is a lot of convenient buck passing in the nation's capital: the Republicans blame the Democrats for lack of "progress" on social issues; the Democrat's accuse the GOP of holding
economic reforms "hostage;" meanwhile, the oligarchs dictate the outcome of the legislative process, and the two parties get to go back to the electorate every couple of years with the same unresolved set of issues (we forget that the GOP agitates its base with "lesser of two evils" rhetoric familiar to us from Democratic propaganda).
It was Democrat Bill Clinton, at the end of the day, who passed the stalled pro-corporate agenda -- banking "reform," telecom "reform," welfare "reform," trade "reform," NAFTA, etc. -- beyond the reach of Republican George Bush the Elder. It is Obama who has doubled-down on militarism and security abuses. As Bush the Younger did with al Queda, Obama inflated the GOP and the Blue Dogs for his own purposes, empowering them, attempting to partner with them instead of closing ranks with congressional liberals (and thus losing the House, just as Clinton did, and for the same reason: why vote for Democrats if they are going govern on behalf the corporate elite instead of the majority?), and blaming the conservatives as he caved on issue after issue without a fight.
If BHO was a liberal warrior in the mold of FDR, HST and LBJ, he would not be in danger of getting the boot in November, as he probably will. But the real victory this fall will not go to the Democrats or the Republicans; whether it is Obama or Mitt Romney who takes the oath of office in January, the true winners will be the militarists and the masters of the security state. Obama? Romney?: the victims of the shredded social contract, the unemployed and underemployed, the homeless, the graduates without prospects drowning in debt, the hundreds of thousands of youth whose futures are being sacrificed to the war on drugs, the young men and women who will die in exotic locales of interest only to war profiteers, the innocent victims of American guns and bombs and gameboy war toys, none of these will know the difference.
----
Return of the Body Count: Dissecting Obama's Standard on Drone Strike Deaths by Justin Elliott (ProPublica 2012-06-05)
Democratic Website Publishes List of Obama Accomplishments, Half of Them Are the Names of People He's Killed (Reason 2012-06-12)
Most voters favor slashing foreign economic & military aid; few would cut domestic programs like Social Security, education and health care (Good).
It's true, though, that these "policies" are not Obama's alone. They have been been pursued through six administrations and a couple of dozen congresses controlled, it should not be forgotten, more often by Democrats than by Republicans. There is a lot of convenient buck passing in the nation's capital: the Republicans blame the Democrats for lack of "progress" on social issues; the Democrat's accuse the GOP of holding
economic reforms "hostage;" meanwhile, the oligarchs dictate the outcome of the legislative process, and the two parties get to go back to the electorate every couple of years with the same unresolved set of issues (we forget that the GOP agitates its base with "lesser of two evils" rhetoric familiar to us from Democratic propaganda).It was Democrat Bill Clinton, at the end of the day, who passed the stalled pro-corporate agenda -- banking "reform," telecom "reform," welfare "reform," trade "reform," NAFTA, etc. -- beyond the reach of Republican George Bush the Elder. It is Obama who has doubled-down on militarism and security abuses. As Bush the Younger did with al Queda, Obama inflated the GOP and the Blue Dogs for his own purposes, empowering them, attempting to partner with them instead of closing ranks with congressional liberals (and thus losing the House, just as Clinton did, and for the same reason: why vote for Democrats if they are going govern on behalf the corporate elite instead of the majority?), and blaming the conservatives as he caved on issue after issue without a fight.
If BHO was a liberal warrior in the mold of FDR, HST and LBJ, he would not be in danger of getting the boot in November, as he probably will. But the real victory this fall will not go to the Democrats or the Republicans; whether it is Obama or Mitt Romney who takes the oath of office in January, the true winners will be the militarists and the masters of the security state. Obama? Romney?: the victims of the shredded social contract, the unemployed and underemployed, the homeless, the graduates without prospects drowning in debt, the hundreds of thousands of youth whose futures are being sacrificed to the war on drugs, the young men and women who will die in exotic locales of interest only to war profiteers, the innocent victims of American guns and bombs and gameboy war toys, none of these will know the difference.
----
Return of the Body Count: Dissecting Obama's Standard on Drone Strike Deaths by Justin Elliott (ProPublica 2012-06-05)
Democratic Website Publishes List of Obama Accomplishments, Half of Them Are the Names of People He's Killed (Reason 2012-06-12)
Most voters favor slashing foreign economic & military aid; few would cut domestic programs like Social Security, education and health care (Good).
quote unquote: Could it have been Will Rogers?
"If voting changed anything, they'd abolish it.
-- attributed variously to Emma Goldman, Ken Livingston, Mark Twain, Philip Berrigan and an anonymous anarchist.
Or was this the first: "If voting could change anything it would be made illegal!" (The Lowell Sun, Lowell, Massachusetts, 1976/09/24)?
Elections: The Oscar for Best Voting System Goes To...
There's a new method for choosing Best Picture: instant runoff voting, a system that would also make political elections more fair.
by Rob Richie (Yes! 2010-03-05)
A growing number of Americans resent the constraints of our dominant two-choice, two-party electoral system. It contributes to political gamesmanship in Washington, reinforces the power of established parties, and restricts the impact of independent candidates and voters, since voters are encouraged to choose “the lesser of two evils” rather than their preferred candidate.
So where can we turn? Surprisingly, part of the answer lies in Hollywood. The Academy of Motion Pictures and the Producers Guild of America are using a new method for selecting 2009’s Best Picture: instant runoff voting.
Last year, the Academy decided to nominate ten movies for best picture rather than five, as it did until 1943. But it wanted to make sure the final winner was representative of majority opinion among Academy voters—theoretically, an unpopular movie could still win a simple plurality vote if only eleven percent of voters picked it.
Enter instant runoff voting (IRV, also known as ranked choice voting). Academy voters this year ranked the ten nominated movies from their favorite to least favorite in order of preference, one to ten. Those rankings are being tallied according to an “American Idol” kind of algorithm. Every voter has one and only one vote, but they indicate their backup choices in case their first choice can’t win. In each round, the movie with the fewest votes is eliminated, and that movie’s backers have their vote added to the totals of their next ranked choice. This continues in a series of “instant runoffs” until the winner gains a majority of votes.
For the Oscars, that means the best picture won’t go to a movie that might lead in first choices, but which most Oscar voters see as undeserving. Instead, a movie will need to do well enough in first choices to stay in the running, but also keep building support as weaker movies are eliminated. At the end of the day, the winning movie will be more likely to be the consensus choice.
Oscar elections are headline-grabbing—the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and USA Today (with an interactive animation) all ran profiles of the Oscars’ use of IRV—but what’s even more exciting is the prospect of similar changes in the way we choose our elected leaders. There, IRV can have a truly transformational impact, ensuring that a majority of voters actually support winning candidates and encouraging the growth of third parties by solving the spoiler problem (most famously illustrated by Ralph Nader’s 2000 presidential campaign, which tipped the race away from Al Gore).
IRV is still a winner-take-all voting system that doesn’t represent political minorities; it won’t fully provide the fair representation we should keep fighting for. But IRV does allow darkhorse candidates a chance to make their case—and to demonstrate their real levels of support, without results being skewed by fears of spoiling elections.
It’s a proven system: major cities such as Oakland, Minneapolis, and Memphis use it, pro-IRV laws have passed in North Carolina and Colorado, and many major private associations use it, including student governments at nearly 60 college and universities.
City councils in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Leandro, California recently voted to implement IRV in their November elections, including a highly competitive mayoral vote in Oakland. San Francisco will also hold its seventh IRV election, and with other California cities—including Los Angeles, Long Beach, and San Jose—seriously talking about IRV, a change in statewide elections may soon be within reach. IRV has also made headway in Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, and Minnesota at both the city and state level.
IRV is gaining proponents around the world. It has been used for decades to elect leaders in Ireland and Australia. In February, the British House of Commons voted overwhelmingly to hold a national referendum in 2011 on adopting IRV (there called "the alternative vote") for its elections. The bill has to pass the House of Lords, but if it does, the United Kingdom will join New Zealand in allowing voters to decide how to elect their most powerful leaders (in the 1990s, New Zealanders voted to use proportional representation; in a referendum to take place next year they will choose between that system and IRV).
IRV has had to play defense as well. Frustrated losers in mayoral and county executive races in Pierce County, Washington, Burlington, Vermont, and Aspen, Colorado all led efforts in the past year to repeal IRV. With a state law change solving the “spoiler” issue in a different way in Pierce County, voters there repealed IRV in 2009. In Burlington, IRV was repealed by a narrow margin in a low turnout race that many saw as a referendum on an unpopular mayor who had been the only candidate ever to win an IRV election there.
Of course, IRV is not the only election reform that’s necessary; other ideas for fairer elections are also generating energy and excitement. Following the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, which opened the door for huge increases in corporate spending in politics, broad and influential coalitions working toward constitutional change. Meanwhile, the filibuster rule in the Senate looks increasingly vulnerable, universal voter registration is gaining growing support, and the National Popular Vote plan for president continues its state-by-state progress toward effectively sidelining the Electoral College.
Change breeds change, and the 2010s are promising to be a decade of reform. Stay tuned on Oscar night!
Rob Richie wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Rob is the executive director of FairVote, a non-profit organization that researches and advocates election reforms that increase voter turnout, accountable governance, and fair representation.
See, also: Electoral Reform: Instant Runoffs by John Gabree (Impractical Proposals 2004-12-29)
by Rob Richie (Yes! 2010-03-05)
In 1939, the Academy of Motion Pictures used
instant runoff voting to select from ten strong Best Picture contenders, including The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Of Mice and Men.
Gone with the Wind was the consensus choice.
instant runoff voting to select from ten strong Best Picture contenders, including The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Of Mice and Men.
Gone with the Wind was the consensus choice.A growing number of Americans resent the constraints of our dominant two-choice, two-party electoral system. It contributes to political gamesmanship in Washington, reinforces the power of established parties, and restricts the impact of independent candidates and voters, since voters are encouraged to choose “the lesser of two evils” rather than their preferred candidate.
So where can we turn? Surprisingly, part of the answer lies in Hollywood. The Academy of Motion Pictures and the Producers Guild of America are using a new method for selecting 2009’s Best Picture: instant runoff voting.
Last year, the Academy decided to nominate ten movies for best picture rather than five, as it did until 1943. But it wanted to make sure the final winner was representative of majority opinion among Academy voters—theoretically, an unpopular movie could still win a simple plurality vote if only eleven percent of voters picked it.
Enter instant runoff voting (IRV, also known as ranked choice voting). Academy voters this year ranked the ten nominated movies from their favorite to least favorite in order of preference, one to ten. Those rankings are being tallied according to an “American Idol” kind of algorithm. Every voter has one and only one vote, but they indicate their backup choices in case their first choice can’t win. In each round, the movie with the fewest votes is eliminated, and that movie’s backers have their vote added to the totals of their next ranked choice. This continues in a series of “instant runoffs” until the winner gains a majority of votes.
For the Oscars, that means the best picture won’t go to a movie that might lead in first choices, but which most Oscar voters see as undeserving. Instead, a movie will need to do well enough in first choices to stay in the running, but also keep building support as weaker movies are eliminated. At the end of the day, the winning movie will be more likely to be the consensus choice.
Oscar elections are headline-grabbing—the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and USA Today (with an interactive animation) all ran profiles of the Oscars’ use of IRV—but what’s even more exciting is the prospect of similar changes in the way we choose our elected leaders. There, IRV can have a truly transformational impact, ensuring that a majority of voters actually support winning candidates and encouraging the growth of third parties by solving the spoiler problem (most famously illustrated by Ralph Nader’s 2000 presidential campaign, which tipped the race away from Al Gore).
IRV is still a winner-take-all voting system that doesn’t represent political minorities; it won’t fully provide the fair representation we should keep fighting for. But IRV does allow darkhorse candidates a chance to make their case—and to demonstrate their real levels of support, without results being skewed by fears of spoiling elections.
It’s a proven system: major cities such as Oakland, Minneapolis, and Memphis use it, pro-IRV laws have passed in North Carolina and Colorado, and many major private associations use it, including student governments at nearly 60 college and universities.
City councils in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Leandro, California recently voted to implement IRV in their November elections, including a highly competitive mayoral vote in Oakland. San Francisco will also hold its seventh IRV election, and with other California cities—including Los Angeles, Long Beach, and San Jose—seriously talking about IRV, a change in statewide elections may soon be within reach. IRV has also made headway in Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, and Minnesota at both the city and state level.
IRV is gaining proponents around the world. It has been used for decades to elect leaders in Ireland and Australia. In February, the British House of Commons voted overwhelmingly to hold a national referendum in 2011 on adopting IRV (there called "the alternative vote") for its elections. The bill has to pass the House of Lords, but if it does, the United Kingdom will join New Zealand in allowing voters to decide how to elect their most powerful leaders (in the 1990s, New Zealanders voted to use proportional representation; in a referendum to take place next year they will choose between that system and IRV).
IRV has had to play defense as well. Frustrated losers in mayoral and county executive races in Pierce County, Washington, Burlington, Vermont, and Aspen, Colorado all led efforts in the past year to repeal IRV. With a state law change solving the “spoiler” issue in a different way in Pierce County, voters there repealed IRV in 2009. In Burlington, IRV was repealed by a narrow margin in a low turnout race that many saw as a referendum on an unpopular mayor who had been the only candidate ever to win an IRV election there.
Of course, IRV is not the only election reform that’s necessary; other ideas for fairer elections are also generating energy and excitement. Following the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, which opened the door for huge increases in corporate spending in politics, broad and influential coalitions working toward constitutional change. Meanwhile, the filibuster rule in the Senate looks increasingly vulnerable, universal voter registration is gaining growing support, and the National Popular Vote plan for president continues its state-by-state progress toward effectively sidelining the Electoral College.
Change breeds change, and the 2010s are promising to be a decade of reform. Stay tuned on Oscar night!
Rob Richie wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Rob is the executive director of FairVote, a non-profit organization that researches and advocates election reforms that increase voter turnout, accountable governance, and fair representation.See, also: Electoral Reform: Instant Runoffs by John Gabree (Impractical Proposals 2004-12-29)
California: 2010
Since the Ballot Initiative to End Ballot Initiatives is not on the ballot again this year, here's what we're left with:
Propositions (summarized here by the California Voter Guide):
Prop 19 would legalize and permit the taxation of marijuana. Pot should never have been criminalized in the first place, and you'd have to be stoned not to be outraged at how racist has been the prohibition's application. In addition to being worthwhile on its merits, adoption of Prop 19 might help to bring about a cessation of the failed War on Drugs. Though it was initially very popular, a lot of money has been spent by the Right and the political establishment to defeat Prop 19; we'll see on Tuesday whether George Soros' last minute $1M donation to the proponents of legalization funded a push back in the last week big enough to stem the tide of misrepresentation, misinformation and fear. YES.
Prop 20, written by a right wing multi-millionaire activist with the intent of further reducing democratic control over redistricting (in California that means, in effect, weakening Democratic control over redistricting), would give the power to draw the boundaries of the state's electoral districts to a panel of 14 randomly selected volunteers who, bizarrely, must, by law, have no experience in government or real-life redistricting. Not that California shouldn't end gerrymandering, but this is just nuts. NO.
Prop 21 is a holding action to save the state's long-neglected parks, which are in danger of being shut down if the measure fails. Public goods like libraries and parks should be paid for out of general revenues, but until we have fair and responsible taxing in California, we need to keep public services going. Prop 21 would establish stable funding for the park system, improve bicycle access and, for most vehicles, provide free admission to the state's 248 parks by introducing a new and unfortunately regressive tax in the form of an $18 registration surcharge on most vehicle registrations. If this proposition fails, you will see plans to privatize park administration or to divest parkland entirely. This is a reluctant but crucially important YES.
Prop 22 is ridiculous; as the LATimes says, it asks voters to referee a dispute between local and state politicians: go do your jobs, people. The measure would bar California from delaying payments to local agencies for transit, public services and redevelopment, the kinds of projects so dear to local pols; but it is being opposed by professional firefighters, the California Teachers Assn. and other worthies because they fear its passage would also result in further cuts to education and public safety. So, NO.
Prop 23. Let's see. Big Texas oil firms, Valero and Tesoro, put this on the ballot and are shelling out millions of dollars in deceptive advertising in an effort to repeal California's landmark global warming legislation and wreck the state's burgeoning clean energy economy. A job killer and a boon to polluters. Um, NO.
Prop 24 "Repeals Recent Legislation That Would Allow Businesses to Carry Back Losses, Share Tax Credits, and Use a Sales-Based Income Calculation to Lower Taxable Income." In other words, Prop 24 jettisons some ill-considered and unnecessary tax breaks affecting a minority of businesses and returns $1.3 billion a year to the state coffers for the next three years, so it seems like a no-brainer. But this is the just the sort of policy-making that should never be the subject of a ballot measure. Only the Legislature can fully assess the pros and cons of budget and tax proposals and weigh the outcome of one set of policy variables against others. This initiative uses a battle mace for an operation that requires a scalpel. If the proposal fails, the Ledge still has time to do what it should have done in the first place: consider these taxes deliberately in open hearings. A reluctant No.
Prop 25, establishing majority rule over the state budget, is long overdue. It would eliminate the requirement of a 2/3 super-majority in the Legislature to pass the annual state budget. Unfortunately, it will leave intact the 2/3 requirement for raising taxes, meaning the crazy right wing minority in the Ledge will still be able to stymie rational budgeting. What good is it to tell legislators they must pass a budget, then not give them the tools to do it responsibly? All the good government types (League of Women Voters, et al) support this proposal. Both fair-tax advocates and anti-tax cranks say that Prop 25 is a doorway reform that will result ultimately in a recalibration of property tax laws to correct the unfair advantage given to corporations by Prop 13. This would be a swell outcome, but unlikely; if 25 passes, it will make it even easier to defend Prop 13's inequities with emotional appeals to "no new taxes." If 25 is defeated, the reform movement will be forced to come back next time with a proposal that restores democracy to both budgeting and taxing; linked as it should be to budget reform, the democratization of the revenue side of state financing would have a much better chance of passing. Without democratic taxing, rational budgeting will still be all but impossible. So I'm casting a very reluctant NO, but acknowledge that the argument that a small step is better than none is not without merit.
Prop 26 is another right-wing special interest play, this time with the goal of shielding environmental criminals from legal remedies by subjecting certain fees and penalties to the 2/3 rule. If you don't like Prop 23, you're really going to hate 26. It's a wrong answer to the perennial question of who pays for environmental clean-ups, taxpayers or polluters. The corporate swineherds have found that it is much cheaper to stick us with their bills by spending a few tens of millions of dollars on ballot initiatives than it is to clean up their messes themselves. Privatize profits, socialize problems: it's the American Way. A lot of out-of-state oil money is being spent on this one, too. NO.
Prop 27 would eliminate the "nonpolitical" redistricting commission, a dubious reform adopted by the voters two years ago that would in effect empower shadowy experts and power brokers, and instead restore redistricting to the hands of democratically elected representatives. Prop 27 has been endorsed by the California Democratic Party, the California Labor Federation, the teachers' union, the state's biggest conservation group and other trustworthy folks. 27 will cost less than the commission to administer, provides voters with the authority to reject proposed district boundary maps, and requires populations of all districts for the same office to be the same size. As an added bonus, if it gets more votes than Prop 20 it also renders that odious contraption moot. YES.
Governor: Jerry Brown: He has his limitations, but he is the best choice by far.
Senator: Although Barbara Boxer is infinitely superior to Carly Fiorina, the truth is that the incumbent senator has been an uninspiring backbencher rather than a leader. I plan on voting for Marsha Feinland, the Peace & Freedom Party candidate. Aside from being the better choice on issues, a vote for her will help keep the Peace & Freedom Party on the ballot. Plus, in the astronomically unlikely event that she won, Bernie Sanders would be less lonely and the upper house could sport a Socialist Caucus.
Congress: As John Nichols writes in The Nation, there is one race in California, between Speaker Nancy Pelosi and John Dennis, a Libertarian running on the GOP line, where reform-minded voters could have a real impact. Dennis' Randian economic casuistries would be irksome if they weren't so wildly impractical and, well, radical. But his unrealizable ambitions for the economy are insignificant when weighed against the very real excesses of the Democrats' foreign military adventurism and domestic assaults of civil liberties. My guess is the political beliefs of a majority of the district's inhabitants are better represented by Dennis (he endorses Prop 19, for example) than Pelosi.
On military policy, Dennis favors "ending both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and withdrawing our troops as safely and quickly as possible....I do not believe that our troops should be forced to be policemen of the world. Our troops, first and foremost, should protect Americans where they live—in America."
Ironically, given that he is running against the legislator-in-chief, Dennis's stance would serve to strengthen the power of the legislature vis-Ã -vis the executive: "The Constitution is clear on who bears the responsibility of the power to declare war, i.e., the Congress. I am strongly opposed to Congress passing resolutions granting the president the authority to use force. Unless there is an imminent attack, the Congress should never disregard its constitutional obligation over the war power. A decision to declare war requires debate, a process that clarifies the country’s situation and leaves a clear conscience whatever is decided."
Progressives like former San Francisco Board of Supervisors president Matt Gonzalez, and Cindy Sheehan who challenged Pelosi in 2008 and could have usefully run again this year, are speaking favorably of Dennis who is, as the San Francisco Chronicle put it, "running to the left" of Pelosi. On matters of militarism and civil liberties, he certainly is: "The Constitution was written to restrict the actions of the government, not individuals. That is why we call ours a limited government. Unfortunately, American political vocabulary is filled with a lexicon of different types of liberty: civil liberty, economic liberty, sexual liberty, financial liberty, etc. Yet, in the end, there is only liberty. And if we support some types of liberty but not others, ultimately we will be left without liberty at all." This would just be so much rhetoric, though, if it wasn't reduced to specifics: Dennis opposes "warrantless wiretaps," "the creation of extra-judicial systems to deal with enemy combatants," "waterboarding and other forms of torture," and calls for respecting "the 800-year foundation of the law embodied in the principle of habeas corpus."
Closer to home, in the 30th CD where Henry Waxman is unbeatable, a vote for his opponent offers an opportunity for progressives who don't want to risk losing a seat to the Party of No to still cast their ballot for a peace candidate, Peace & Freedom's Richard Castaldo, who as a bonus is also critical of Waxman's sellout of Medicare for All. There is no palatable alternative to imperialist warmonger Jane Harman in the 35th, although the Libertarian entrant, Herb Peters, does include "Bring Home Troops; End Treacherous Wars" in his platform (I'm assuming what seems to be a promise to "out" the U.S. Constitution is a typo).
Many progressives are mad at the Democrats and at Barack Obama for not aggressively pursuing a more liberal agenda. In his campaign for president, though, Obama never -- well, except for the implications of that whole "change" business, Obama never promised to be anything more than the centrist he has governed as. And by now, after 40 years of feckless leadership, unless you live politics like Bill Murray lives "Ground Hog Day" starting out fresh every other November as if it was a new beginning, you know that the Democrats are not going to challenge the corporate oligarchy any more strenuously than the GOP will. If you expected more of the Democrats than they've delivered, it's probably more realistic to blame your own naivete. Real change will come only when people -- collectively -- demand it. That means building a movement that can't be ignored, that can't be defeated, that can fight with a reasonable possibility of victory. Don't get mad, as Joe Hill didn't say. Organize!
Where possible in races for Congress and local offices, it seems to me in our best long-term interest to give support to third parties. With the country increasingly militarized, the infrastructure suffering forty years of neglect, education and other public services falling apart or closing down, the economy in decline, the Bill of Rights under attack, and economic justice ever further out of reach, it's hard to buy the argument that we owe any particular allegiance to the Democrats, beyond thanks for programs, like Social Security and Medicare, now generations old. A vote for a Green, P&Fer or independent is a reminder to the Democratic Party that there is a constituency for change that it needs to court if it expects to win close contests. In addition, local offices are terrific venues for political experimentation and training, and third party office holders can be counted on to support campaign finance and electoral reform (instant run-offs, proportional representation, etc.). In the event that there is an opportunity for radical political change in the future, the existence of third party lines on the ballot could be vital.
Propositions (summarized here by the California Voter Guide):
Prop 19 would legalize and permit the taxation of marijuana. Pot should never have been criminalized in the first place, and you'd have to be stoned not to be outraged at how racist has been the prohibition's application. In addition to being worthwhile on its merits, adoption of Prop 19 might help to bring about a cessation of the failed War on Drugs. Though it was initially very popular, a lot of money has been spent by the Right and the political establishment to defeat Prop 19; we'll see on Tuesday whether George Soros' last minute $1M donation to the proponents of legalization funded a push back in the last week big enough to stem the tide of misrepresentation, misinformation and fear. YES.
Prop 20, written by a right wing multi-millionaire activist with the intent of further reducing democratic control over redistricting (in California that means, in effect, weakening Democratic control over redistricting), would give the power to draw the boundaries of the state's electoral districts to a panel of 14 randomly selected volunteers who, bizarrely, must, by law, have no experience in government or real-life redistricting. Not that California shouldn't end gerrymandering, but this is just nuts. NO.
Prop 21 is a holding action to save the state's long-neglected parks, which are in danger of being shut down if the measure fails. Public goods like libraries and parks should be paid for out of general revenues, but until we have fair and responsible taxing in California, we need to keep public services going. Prop 21 would establish stable funding for the park system, improve bicycle access and, for most vehicles, provide free admission to the state's 248 parks by introducing a new and unfortunately regressive tax in the form of an $18 registration surcharge on most vehicle registrations. If this proposition fails, you will see plans to privatize park administration or to divest parkland entirely. This is a reluctant but crucially important YES.
Prop 22 is ridiculous; as the LATimes says, it asks voters to referee a dispute between local and state politicians: go do your jobs, people. The measure would bar California from delaying payments to local agencies for transit, public services and redevelopment, the kinds of projects so dear to local pols; but it is being opposed by professional firefighters, the California Teachers Assn. and other worthies because they fear its passage would also result in further cuts to education and public safety. So, NO.
Prop 23. Let's see. Big Texas oil firms, Valero and Tesoro, put this on the ballot and are shelling out millions of dollars in deceptive advertising in an effort to repeal California's landmark global warming legislation and wreck the state's burgeoning clean energy economy. A job killer and a boon to polluters. Um, NO.
Prop 24 "Repeals Recent Legislation That Would Allow Businesses to Carry Back Losses, Share Tax Credits, and Use a Sales-Based Income Calculation to Lower Taxable Income." In other words, Prop 24 jettisons some ill-considered and unnecessary tax breaks affecting a minority of businesses and returns $1.3 billion a year to the state coffers for the next three years, so it seems like a no-brainer. But this is the just the sort of policy-making that should never be the subject of a ballot measure. Only the Legislature can fully assess the pros and cons of budget and tax proposals and weigh the outcome of one set of policy variables against others. This initiative uses a battle mace for an operation that requires a scalpel. If the proposal fails, the Ledge still has time to do what it should have done in the first place: consider these taxes deliberately in open hearings. A reluctant No.
Prop 25, establishing majority rule over the state budget, is long overdue. It would eliminate the requirement of a 2/3 super-majority in the Legislature to pass the annual state budget. Unfortunately, it will leave intact the 2/3 requirement for raising taxes, meaning the crazy right wing minority in the Ledge will still be able to stymie rational budgeting. What good is it to tell legislators they must pass a budget, then not give them the tools to do it responsibly? All the good government types (League of Women Voters, et al) support this proposal. Both fair-tax advocates and anti-tax cranks say that Prop 25 is a doorway reform that will result ultimately in a recalibration of property tax laws to correct the unfair advantage given to corporations by Prop 13. This would be a swell outcome, but unlikely; if 25 passes, it will make it even easier to defend Prop 13's inequities with emotional appeals to "no new taxes." If 25 is defeated, the reform movement will be forced to come back next time with a proposal that restores democracy to both budgeting and taxing; linked as it should be to budget reform, the democratization of the revenue side of state financing would have a much better chance of passing. Without democratic taxing, rational budgeting will still be all but impossible. So I'm casting a very reluctant NO, but acknowledge that the argument that a small step is better than none is not without merit.
Prop 26 is another right-wing special interest play, this time with the goal of shielding environmental criminals from legal remedies by subjecting certain fees and penalties to the 2/3 rule. If you don't like Prop 23, you're really going to hate 26. It's a wrong answer to the perennial question of who pays for environmental clean-ups, taxpayers or polluters. The corporate swineherds have found that it is much cheaper to stick us with their bills by spending a few tens of millions of dollars on ballot initiatives than it is to clean up their messes themselves. Privatize profits, socialize problems: it's the American Way. A lot of out-of-state oil money is being spent on this one, too. NO.
Prop 27 would eliminate the "nonpolitical" redistricting commission, a dubious reform adopted by the voters two years ago that would in effect empower shadowy experts and power brokers, and instead restore redistricting to the hands of democratically elected representatives. Prop 27 has been endorsed by the California Democratic Party, the California Labor Federation, the teachers' union, the state's biggest conservation group and other trustworthy folks. 27 will cost less than the commission to administer, provides voters with the authority to reject proposed district boundary maps, and requires populations of all districts for the same office to be the same size. As an added bonus, if it gets more votes than Prop 20 it also renders that odious contraption moot. YES.
Governor: Jerry Brown: He has his limitations, but he is the best choice by far.
Senator: Although Barbara Boxer is infinitely superior to Carly Fiorina, the truth is that the incumbent senator has been an uninspiring backbencher rather than a leader. I plan on voting for Marsha Feinland, the Peace & Freedom Party candidate. Aside from being the better choice on issues, a vote for her will help keep the Peace & Freedom Party on the ballot. Plus, in the astronomically unlikely event that she won, Bernie Sanders would be less lonely and the upper house could sport a Socialist Caucus.
Congress: As John Nichols writes in The Nation, there is one race in California, between Speaker Nancy Pelosi and John Dennis, a Libertarian running on the GOP line, where reform-minded voters could have a real impact. Dennis' Randian economic casuistries would be irksome if they weren't so wildly impractical and, well, radical. But his unrealizable ambitions for the economy are insignificant when weighed against the very real excesses of the Democrats' foreign military adventurism and domestic assaults of civil liberties. My guess is the political beliefs of a majority of the district's inhabitants are better represented by Dennis (he endorses Prop 19, for example) than Pelosi.
On military policy, Dennis favors "ending both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and withdrawing our troops as safely and quickly as possible....I do not believe that our troops should be forced to be policemen of the world. Our troops, first and foremost, should protect Americans where they live—in America."
Ironically, given that he is running against the legislator-in-chief, Dennis's stance would serve to strengthen the power of the legislature vis-Ã -vis the executive: "The Constitution is clear on who bears the responsibility of the power to declare war, i.e., the Congress. I am strongly opposed to Congress passing resolutions granting the president the authority to use force. Unless there is an imminent attack, the Congress should never disregard its constitutional obligation over the war power. A decision to declare war requires debate, a process that clarifies the country’s situation and leaves a clear conscience whatever is decided."
Progressives like former San Francisco Board of Supervisors president Matt Gonzalez, and Cindy Sheehan who challenged Pelosi in 2008 and could have usefully run again this year, are speaking favorably of Dennis who is, as the San Francisco Chronicle put it, "running to the left" of Pelosi. On matters of militarism and civil liberties, he certainly is: "The Constitution was written to restrict the actions of the government, not individuals. That is why we call ours a limited government. Unfortunately, American political vocabulary is filled with a lexicon of different types of liberty: civil liberty, economic liberty, sexual liberty, financial liberty, etc. Yet, in the end, there is only liberty. And if we support some types of liberty but not others, ultimately we will be left without liberty at all." This would just be so much rhetoric, though, if it wasn't reduced to specifics: Dennis opposes "warrantless wiretaps," "the creation of extra-judicial systems to deal with enemy combatants," "waterboarding and other forms of torture," and calls for respecting "the 800-year foundation of the law embodied in the principle of habeas corpus."
Closer to home, in the 30th CD where Henry Waxman is unbeatable, a vote for his opponent offers an opportunity for progressives who don't want to risk losing a seat to the Party of No to still cast their ballot for a peace candidate, Peace & Freedom's Richard Castaldo, who as a bonus is also critical of Waxman's sellout of Medicare for All. There is no palatable alternative to imperialist warmonger Jane Harman in the 35th, although the Libertarian entrant, Herb Peters, does include "Bring Home Troops; End Treacherous Wars" in his platform (I'm assuming what seems to be a promise to "out" the U.S. Constitution is a typo).
Many progressives are mad at the Democrats and at Barack Obama for not aggressively pursuing a more liberal agenda. In his campaign for president, though, Obama never -- well, except for the implications of that whole "change" business, Obama never promised to be anything more than the centrist he has governed as. And by now, after 40 years of feckless leadership, unless you live politics like Bill Murray lives "Ground Hog Day" starting out fresh every other November as if it was a new beginning, you know that the Democrats are not going to challenge the corporate oligarchy any more strenuously than the GOP will. If you expected more of the Democrats than they've delivered, it's probably more realistic to blame your own naivete. Real change will come only when people -- collectively -- demand it. That means building a movement that can't be ignored, that can't be defeated, that can fight with a reasonable possibility of victory. Don't get mad, as Joe Hill didn't say. Organize!
Where possible in races for Congress and local offices, it seems to me in our best long-term interest to give support to third parties. With the country increasingly militarized, the infrastructure suffering forty years of neglect, education and other public services falling apart or closing down, the economy in decline, the Bill of Rights under attack, and economic justice ever further out of reach, it's hard to buy the argument that we owe any particular allegiance to the Democrats, beyond thanks for programs, like Social Security and Medicare, now generations old. A vote for a Green, P&Fer or independent is a reminder to the Democratic Party that there is a constituency for change that it needs to court if it expects to win close contests. In addition, local offices are terrific venues for political experimentation and training, and third party office holders can be counted on to support campaign finance and electoral reform (instant run-offs, proportional representation, etc.). In the event that there is an opportunity for radical political change in the future, the existence of third party lines on the ballot could be vital.
Electoral Reform: Instant Runoff Wins by a Landslide
Proportional representation and instant runoffs would go a long way toward making our electoral system more democratic. See Election Reform: Instant Runoffs (Impractical Proposals, 2004-12-29) and It's ba-a-a-a-ck: New Life for Conservative Initiative to Apportion Electoral Vote (Impractical Proposals, 2004-11-03). Proportional representation may be a hard concept for voters who have no experience other than with winner-takes-all ballots, but instant runoffs are so clearly superior to the method used in most U.S. elections, according to FairVote.org, that the alternative is gaining support across the country.
Many newly elected candidates are no doubt celebrating today, basking in the glow of their fresh victories. But they were not the only winners from Election Day 2007.
Instant runoff voting earned landslide support on ballots across the country. A whopping 77% of voters in Aspen (CO) voted to move to instant runoff voting. Sarasota (FL) voters topped that margin, voting 78% for IRV and prompting the Sarasota Herald Tribune to call the city "a model of election reform." In a particularly important election for next year, 65% of voters in Pierce County (WA) voted on a charter amendment to keep IRV on track for the hotly contested 2008 county executive race. In rural western Washington, voters in Clallam County narrowly rejected establishing IRV as an option in their charter.
Several cities also held ranked voting elections.
* San Francisco held its fourth IRV election overall, and its first for mayor, with first-round winners in three citywide races.
* Takoma Park (MD) smoothly held its first IRV election for mayor, with nary a single spoiled ballot out of more than 1,000 cast.
* The city of Hendersonville (NC), following in the footsteps of Cary (NC) in using IRV this fall, had a strong first IRV election for two city council seats. As one voter put it, "There's nothing to it."
* As a bonus, a graduate student in Cambridge (MA) won a city council seat in an upset victory under the choice voting system of proportional voting, now
in its seventh decade of use.
From FairVote.org
2008: Obama's Democracy Index Bill
This is from Dan Tokaji's Election Law blog:
Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) has instituted the "Voter Advocate and Democracy Index Act of 2007," designed to institute a system by which states' election systems could be measured. A release describing the bill may be found here and the text here courtesy of Rick Hasen.
The bill would create an Office of the Voter Advocate within the Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Among the responsibilities of this new office, as described in Sen. Obama's release, would be to measure:
The idea of creating a mechanism by which to measure the health of each state's election system is an excellent one. Despite all the attention devoted to election administration these days -- or maybe because of it -- it is sometimes difficult to tell where there are really serious problems, as opposed to partisans angling for position. Creating a sense of performance standards is a worthy enterprise, one that in the long run could make our election system function much better.
That said, it will undoubtedly be a major challenge to get a bill of this nature passed. There will almost certainly be resistance on the part of Republicans, at least to the way the bill is presently framed. Senator Obama's bill focuses on issues of access and, if the debate over HAVA a few years ago is any indication, Republicans are likely to be more interested in issues of "integrity" like combatting voter fraud. I'd also expect resistance from some election administrators, who are likely nervous about the possibility that their states will look bad.
Designing a fair and workable Democracy Index will also be a major undertaking. Still, it's a worthy enterprise, and I very much hope that some version of this bill is eventually enacted into law.
Read more about election law issues at Dan Tokaji's blog.
Other sources on election law include:
Election Law Blog (Rick Hasen)
Election Updates (Michael Alvarez & Thad Hall)
ElectionLine.org
Votelaw Blog (Ed Still)
Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) has instituted the "Voter Advocate and Democracy Index Act of 2007," designed to institute a system by which states' election systems could be measured. A release describing the bill may be found here and the text here courtesy of Rick Hasen.
The bill would create an Office of the Voter Advocate within the Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Among the responsibilities of this new office, as described in Sen. Obama's release, would be to measure:
- The amount of time spent by voters waiting in line;The bill draws on an idea by Professor Heather Gerken of the the Yale Law School, which appeared in the Legal Times. After my colleague Ned Foley wrote a weekly comment in response, Professor Gerken offered these further thoughts here on the EL@M site a few weeks ago.
- The number of voters incorrectly directed to the wrong polling places;
- The rate of voter ballots discarded or not counted along with an explanation;
- Provisional voting rates and the percentage of provisional votes cast but not counted;
- The number and description of election day complaints; and
- The rate of voting system malfunctions and the time required on average to get the systems back online
The idea of creating a mechanism by which to measure the health of each state's election system is an excellent one. Despite all the attention devoted to election administration these days -- or maybe because of it -- it is sometimes difficult to tell where there are really serious problems, as opposed to partisans angling for position. Creating a sense of performance standards is a worthy enterprise, one that in the long run could make our election system function much better.
That said, it will undoubtedly be a major challenge to get a bill of this nature passed. There will almost certainly be resistance on the part of Republicans, at least to the way the bill is presently framed. Senator Obama's bill focuses on issues of access and, if the debate over HAVA a few years ago is any indication, Republicans are likely to be more interested in issues of "integrity" like combatting voter fraud. I'd also expect resistance from some election administrators, who are likely nervous about the possibility that their states will look bad.
Designing a fair and workable Democracy Index will also be a major undertaking. Still, it's a worthy enterprise, and I very much hope that some version of this bill is eventually enacted into law.
Read more about election law issues at Dan Tokaji's blog.
Other sources on election law include:
Election Law Blog (Rick Hasen)
Election Updates (Michael Alvarez & Thad Hall)
ElectionLine.org
Votelaw Blog (Ed Still)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
