The Problems of the California Ballot
Voting is difficult enough when your choice at the top of the ballot is between the two worst choices in any presidential race in the history of our nation. It gets much harder if you live in California.
That is because of California's obsession with the legislation via Proposition method of enacting law. Back in 1973, the first Proposition, Prop 1 was an iniatitive to lower state income taxes. Ironically, it failed because of a well-run opposition campaign.
Twenty-five years later, in 1998, the elections held that June included propositions numbering as high as 227 and a decision was made to start re-using the numbers beginning again at 1 in November of that year. That was six years ago today and on the ballot I will fill in later this morning, I must decide on Propositions 59 through 72.
For the mathematically challenged, that means an average of a dozen new ballot propositions each and every year. Petitions must be circulated in order to get these propositions on the ballot, and this is almost always done by paid signature gatherers. That means money and money means special interests. It also means that if you want to be an informed voter in California, you have some reading to do. The official 2004 voter's guide for today's election is 162 pages of small text.
Some of these are easy decisions. Prop 59 is nothing more than an attempt to prevent government agencies from holding meetings in secret when sunshine clauses in laws allow them to do so. That's an easy "Yes decision. So is the Yes on Prop 62 and No on Prop 60, which will attempt to fix the stupid primary election and district drawing systems currently in existence that were created by incumbent politicians to make holding onto their current offices easier.
Other decisions are tougher. One proposition on the ballot is a surtax on millionaires specifically to fund mental health programs. It sounds good on the surface but raiding the treasury for single-issue purposes is bad public policy on a basic level (as proven by a former proposition, Prop 98). A proposition to fund stem cell research has the Gubinator breaking ranks with the conservative members of his own political party.
I will end up spending a couple of hours in total having studied the issues and the various candidates I have to made decisions on (President, Senate, Congress, State House, Judges, Propositions) before I can go to the polling place and make an informed decision. It shouldn't be this way. The attempt to legislate by proposition is nothing more than a clear indication that the State Legislature has failed in its job to represent the needs of the people in passing laws. The special interest groups that can just spend money to get their proposition onto the ballot should have to go to the Legislature to present their ideas, so that the people's elected representatives can do just that, represent us.
What we end up with is a broken system, where the person with the most money is able to enact legislation by proposition, as long as what they want to do isn't too far over the top and they are willing to spend the money to finance the advertising campaign it will take to convince enough of the apathetic voting populace that their idea is sound, and in the best interest of those voters.
California. Best propositions money can buy.
That is because of California's obsession with the legislation via Proposition method of enacting law. Back in 1973, the first Proposition, Prop 1 was an iniatitive to lower state income taxes. Ironically, it failed because of a well-run opposition campaign.
Twenty-five years later, in 1998, the elections held that June included propositions numbering as high as 227 and a decision was made to start re-using the numbers beginning again at 1 in November of that year. That was six years ago today and on the ballot I will fill in later this morning, I must decide on Propositions 59 through 72.
For the mathematically challenged, that means an average of a dozen new ballot propositions each and every year. Petitions must be circulated in order to get these propositions on the ballot, and this is almost always done by paid signature gatherers. That means money and money means special interests. It also means that if you want to be an informed voter in California, you have some reading to do. The official 2004 voter's guide for today's election is 162 pages of small text.
Some of these are easy decisions. Prop 59 is nothing more than an attempt to prevent government agencies from holding meetings in secret when sunshine clauses in laws allow them to do so. That's an easy "Yes decision. So is the Yes on Prop 62 and No on Prop 60, which will attempt to fix the stupid primary election and district drawing systems currently in existence that were created by incumbent politicians to make holding onto their current offices easier.
Other decisions are tougher. One proposition on the ballot is a surtax on millionaires specifically to fund mental health programs. It sounds good on the surface but raiding the treasury for single-issue purposes is bad public policy on a basic level (as proven by a former proposition, Prop 98). A proposition to fund stem cell research has the Gubinator breaking ranks with the conservative members of his own political party.
I will end up spending a couple of hours in total having studied the issues and the various candidates I have to made decisions on (President, Senate, Congress, State House, Judges, Propositions) before I can go to the polling place and make an informed decision. It shouldn't be this way. The attempt to legislate by proposition is nothing more than a clear indication that the State Legislature has failed in its job to represent the needs of the people in passing laws. The special interest groups that can just spend money to get their proposition onto the ballot should have to go to the Legislature to present their ideas, so that the people's elected representatives can do just that, represent us.
What we end up with is a broken system, where the person with the most money is able to enact legislation by proposition, as long as what they want to do isn't too far over the top and they are willing to spend the money to finance the advertising campaign it will take to convince enough of the apathetic voting populace that their idea is sound, and in the best interest of those voters.
California. Best propositions money can buy.
posted by me at 5:26 AM
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