Hold your nose and vote on Tuesday, June 8, 2010: California Propositions

[mithriltabby]

As usual, I’ve done my research on for the upcoming election and written up my notes so everyone else can crib off my paper. Feel free to forward this on to anyone whom you think would find it helpful. If this helped you make up your mind, please leave a note here on my blog; even if you disagree with me on everything, I’m happy if I was able to save you time, and it makes all this worthwhile when I hear that I saved someone else a headache.

Propositions

• Proposition 13: Seismic Retrofitting Amendment. Ballotpedia. SmartVoter. Vote Smart. Follow the Money.

  Supported By	Opposed By
  Pete Rates the Propositions San Francisco Chronicle San Jose Mercury San Francisco Bay Guardian Sacramento Bee Los Angeles Times California Democratic Party California Republican Party Libertarian Party of California California National Organization for Women PAC Calitics Courage Campaign Mother Jones

  This is just a subtle tax incentive for doing seismic retrofits on buildings. No one even bothered submitting an argument against this one in the official state voter information guide. Yes.
   
• Proposition 14: California Top Two Primaries Act. Ballotpedia. SmartVoter. Vote Smart. Follow the Money. Coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle: Would open primary open Pandora’s box?; perspective from Debra J. Saunders. This is very similar to 2004’s Proposition 62, which was defeated at the polls; it is not like 1998’s Proposition 198, which was struck down in court.

  Supported By	Opposed By
  Californians for an Open Primary San Francisco Chronicle San Jose Mercury Sacramento Bee Los Angeles Times Pete Rates the Propositions Thomas D. Elias, columnist	Stop Top Two California Democratic Party California Republican Party Libertarian Party of California California Green Party San Francisco Bay Guardian The Center for Voting and Democracy Californians for Electoral Reform Mother Jones ACLU of Northern California California League of Conservation Voters California National Organization for Women PAC Calitics Courage Campaign Robert Cruickshank

  This act’s name is somewhat deceptive. What this boils down to is that there are no more party primaries; for races for Congress, the Legislature, and statewide offices, November is effectively no longer the general election. All the candidates run in June in a big gaggle, and the ones getting the top two votes go to a runoff in November. If voters belonging to a party want to get that party to endorse a particular candidate in the June race, they’ll have to work the party apparatus. What are the ramifications of this? As I see it:

  • Proponents say that this will eliminate the run-to-the-extremes primary strategy because moderates will be the ones who get the most votes. The problem I see here is that June elections usually bring out the partisans, which is part of the problem; it’s unclear that enacting Proposition 14 would change this without a massive effort to explain to voters that June is now the general election.
  • There will be huge, expensive wrangles over the June election.
  • In some districts, the November election may be between two Republicans or two Democrats, shutting out even a major party.
  • Vote-splitting could lead to perverse outcomes; in a district split 60%/40% Republican/Democrat, for instance, if 4 Republicans ran with 15% of the vote each and 2 Democrats with 20% each, the November runoff could be between two Democrats.
  • Voters will be able to game the system by crossing party lines to vote for an unelectable extremist from the other party, in hopes of sabotaging their chances in the November election.
  • There is no historical support for the notion that open primaries lead to getting moderates elected.
  • Open primaries in Louisiana and Washington have not shown a good track record of defeating incumbents.
  • In Washington, open primaries led to depressed voter turnout.

  Getting more moderates in office is a good idea, and I was initially predisposed toward this bill because editorial boards liked it and the major political parties hated it. I’ve been waffling over this one, though. On the one hand, passing even this bad bill might help us start to dig out of California’s dysfunctional deadlock, would show voter interest in electoral reform, and the problems it causes might whet appetites for better reforms; on the other hand, judging by the performance of similar measures elsewhere, it probably won’t work, and it might sour people on tinkering with the electoral system at all. The arguments for it tend to rely on principles that sound quite sensible, but don’t cite real-world experience, such as the lack of good results from similar laws elsewhere, or the lack of good results when we had a blanket primary in 1998 and 2000; the arguments against it that I find most convincing are the ones that involve these reality checks.

  A better solution, much more likely to elect moderates, would be to use instant-runoff voting in the November election, but that’s not on the ballot this year.

  After much indecision, I’m finally picking No. I want the pro-14 people to be right, but in my opinion, the evidence just doesn’t bear them out.

• Proposition 15: California Fair Elections Act. Ballotpedia. SmartVoter. Vote Smart. Follow the Money. The ACLU of Northern California are neutral.

  Supported By

  Opposed By

  Yes on the California Fair Elections Act San Francisco Chronicle San Jose Mercury San Francisco Bay Guardian Los Angeles Times Pete Rates the Propositions California Democratic Party California Green Party Consumer Federation of California California League of Conservation Voters Mother Jones California National Organization for Women PAC Calitics Courage Campaign CREDO Action Greg Brockbank, San Rafael City Councilman

  STOP PROP 15 California Republican Party Libertarian Party of California Sacramento Bee

  Even if you’re skeptical about fair elections, this one is worth your vote. It’s a test that only runs for two elections, and it costs taxpayers nothing— it pays for itself by raising the feeds to register as a lobbyist in Sacramento a bit above that required to get a license as a hair salon. Yes.
   
• Proposition 16: California New Two-Thirds Requirement for Local Public Electricity Providers Act. Ballotpedia. SmartVoter. Vote Smart. Follow the Money. PG&E is spending millions to block local utilities: would require two-thirds approval from local voters before cities or counties could choose an alternate energy provider. PG&E don’t like journalistic scrutiny and their CEO admits this is an attempt to block communities from dropping PG&E when they get fed up; they’re using lots of deceptive tactics to sell it. A coalition of locally owned public utilities, including the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, are claiming that the PG&E Chairman admitted that Proposition 16 is designed to choke off competition.

  Supported By

  Opposed By

  Yes on Prop 16 California Republican Party Jim Wunderman, CEO of the Bay Area Council

  Taxpayers Against the PG&E Powergrab San Francisco Chronicle San Jose Mercury San Francisco Bay Guardian Sacramento Bee Los Angeles Times Pete Rates the Propositions California Democratic Party California Green Party Mother Jones Consumer Federation of California California League of Conservation Voters Environment California Calitics Courage Campaign California National Organization for Women PAC CREDO Action Ross Mirkarimi and Mark Toney (respectively of the SF Board of Supervisors and The Utility Reform Network) Scott Herhold, San Jose Mercury News

  If PG&E can’t provide the services that cities need, cities should be free to take their business elsewhere. What has a would-be monopoly scared is the prospect of losing customers to public utilities like Silicon Valley Power, which is serving Santa Clara to general approval. There’s already an accountability mechanism for this sort of thing called a city council; there doesn’t need to be an additional one. (Besides, ditching PG&E and setting up your own power is expensive; it will almost always require a tax increase or bond measure, and that already requires a separate vote anyway.) Frankly, I think we should regulate PG&E further so they can’t waste money ($34.5 million already!) from our power bills on this kind of nonsense. Vote No.
   
• Proposition 17: California Continuous Coverage Auto Insurance Discount Act. Ballotpedia. SmartVoter. Vote Smart. Follow the Money. Meet the Spokeswoman for the Mercury Initiative.

  Supported By	Opposed By
  Yes on Prop 17 California Republican Party Libertarian Party of California Mike D’Arelli, executive director of the Alliance of Insurance Agents & Brokers	Campaign for Consumer Rights San Francisco Chronicle San Jose Mercury Sacramento Bee Los Angeles Times San Francisco Bay Guardian Pete Rates the Propositions California Democratic Party California Green Party Mother Jones Calitics Courage Campaign California National Organization for Women PAC CREDO Action Consumer Federation of California Harvey Rosenfield, founder of Consumer Watchdog

  This is likely to help very little and to jack up rates on some people who really need coverage. No.
   

Comments

[divertimento.livejournal.com]

If Prop 16 passes, there should be a companion measure that requires each private utility company to be reaproved by two-thirds of voters every year or be replaced for serving that community.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Prop 14:

"In some districts, the November election may be between two Republicans or two Democrats, shutting out even a major party." This is intended as a feature, not a bug. But it's turned into a bug by your next point, the perverse outcomes of vote-splitting, similar to the reason that a Republican just got elected in a strongly Democratic congressional district in Hawaii. The majority of voters preferred a Democrat; they just disagreed about which Democrat. Only instant-runoff would have prevented this.

There are other problems, especially the one noted in a guest editorial in the May 13 Mercury.

Prop 16: "There’s already an accountability mechanism for this sort of thing called a city council; there doesn’t need to be an additional one." That's a weak argument. On major issues, the voters should be able to override legislation; that's what we have referenda for at all. I'd favor this proposition if it called for a majority vote. But it calls for a 2/3 vote. So instead of letting the people vote, as the proponents say, it allows a third of the people to veto the preference of the rest of the people.

[mithriltabby]

I doubt any city council could create a municipal power utility without going to the voters for funding, which would effectively serve as a referendum.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

True, but a genuine referendum, were someone to propose one instead of this, would do no harm.

more on Prop 14

[(Anonymous)]

I still don't see the downside on voting for Prop 14.
Primaries get you the best two. November gets the best of those elected.
This method should rid us of the very extreme candidates getting elected on hysteria.

Re: more on Prop 14

[mithriltabby]

You would think so by looking at the principle of the thing, but when you check the real-world performance of the same thing in other states, the same type of open primary doesn’t seem to have done Louisiana any favors, and it didn’t accomplish much in Washington either. The biggest problem, in my opinion, is that it effectively moves the general election to June, but the voters that will turn out in June will not be as representative a sample of the electorate as the ones that turn out in November. If this came with a massive push to tell people that the general election is now in June, it might work, but I don’t see anyone laying the groundwork for it.

[deirdremoon.livejournal.com]

This is definitely helpful.

I only differ from you on Prop 15, and it's because I actually read through the d**n bill's real wording, and found that there IS truth to the opposition's claim: the legislature has the power to divert money from other sources to pay for the election funds. The main summary reads as though ONLY the funds from the lobbyist taxes will be used (which I love the idea of), and if there isn't enough money, it's just spread evenly between candidates and they can raise the difference. But this additional sentence *could* mean that other programs would have their funding cut to support the idea. Comments? Do you still think it's worth it for the two-term experiment, or do you know a rebuttal to the problem itself?

[mithriltabby]

Are you referring to 91135 (g), “Any other sources of revenue from the General Fund or from other sources as determined by the Legislature.”? That means that if the legislators divert funds from other programs for this, that can be draped around their neck at the next election. I doubt that many of them would risk their careers that way (“Assemblyman Bedfellow diverted money from [important cause] to pay for the political campaign of [party you hate] [party’s candidate]!”). This also only applies to two elections to a single office; I think the risk of other programs being cut for this is extremely low. I think the key thing is that it doesn’t require that funds be diverted; it merely doesn’t rule it out.

[deirdremoon.livejournal.com]

Awright, you convinced me. :)

FYI, I also used both of your other posts to supplement my reading of candidate statements, etc. Usually the statements (or lack thereof) give me a pretty good idea, but like a resume, you always want to know what their past references think of them! Thank you for all three bits of research.

[mithriltabby]

Candidate statements are basically advertisements; I look them over to see what a politician is willing to claim about themselves, but I look for third parties to find out if there’s a chance they’ll live up to their promises. (I do have trouble voting for candidates with badly written statements. If they can’t be bothered to take the time to write well for their ballot statement, what kind of job are they going to do in office?)

[deirdremoon.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Even more so if they couldn't be arsed to write one at all. :P

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

Still studying everything. But I must admit, I had just about reached all the same conclusions you had on all of them.
Frankly, I can't wait for the 8th. They should finally have finished running all the political ads by then. Though Meg's will probably run til 2011, she's spent so much $$.
The only reason why I would want Open Primaries this year is to be able to vote AGAINST Meg Whitless. Her ads are getting Real Annoying. And the Prop 16 ads because they are such Big Lies.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

Alameda County Greens are against 13, FWIW.

[silverstreak.livejournal.com]

Prop 13: Most Assessor's, including Santa Clara County, already do this. The only thing this does is write it into the constitution as law so it really doesn't change anything except make it so everyone HAS to do it. Voting yes is probably a good thing.

[aknitwit.livejournal.com]

Definitely helpful, thanks for the diligent research. We agreed on the Big Offices, but knew little about the judges, school board, etc, so your insight was very valuable. Thanks!

[firecat]

Your crib sheets made the difference between my voting and not having time to vote this year, so thank you VERY much.

[mithriltabby]

It’s hearing things like that that make all this effort worthwhile— you’re welcome!

[mithriltabby]

According to the Secretary of State’s site, propositions 13 and 14 won and 15–17 lost.