The upcoming propositions on the ballot.

[Oerdin]

http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/elections_j.htm

The California Secretary of State has certified eight Ballot Initiatives for this year's special election and since we don't have a thread on this topic I thought I'd make one. Here is a list of the eight propositions and the subject they deal with.

Prop 73 - Anti-Abortion intiative which would require a waiting period and parental notification for any woman under 18 to get an abortion. Numerous props like this have been shot down in the past but the far right keeps putting it back on the ballot. Previously they wanted the parents to have to give permission before a woman could have an abortion but the courts have thrown out that idea so now the freepers want a waiting period and notification so religious parents can brow beat young women into not getting an abortion.

Prop 74 - Changes teacher tenure rules so that they must make it through 5 years instead of 2 years before recieving tenure. The effect of this would be to make it easier to fire teachers if they didn't perform well though detractors say teachers could be fired for ideological reasons.

Prop 75 - Anti-Union prop pushed by Republicans. It would require unions to annually get prior written permission from every union member before any political donations or issue advicocy could be done with union money. This is a blatant attempt to cut off the single biggest source of donations for the Democratic Party and individual members who don't want their dues used for political purposes can already write in to exclude themselves.

Prop 76 - This is a very vaguely worded prop and after reading the Sec of State's on paragraph on it I still don't know what it will do exactly. It says that it will limit budget increases to the state budget to the average revenue growth of the previous three years which doesn't sound to bad, but, it then says vague things like "changes minimium school funding requirements" and "permits governor to reduce budget appropriations at governor's choosing". It doesn't even say how it would change funding for schools and many people are saying this would allow the governor to cut programs without any influence by the state assembly or senate.

Prop 77 - Instead of allowing politicians to make their own districts a panel of retired judges will be responsible for redistricting. The methods used by the judges is very completely written out and no political influences would be allowed. Our state does have a problem in that virtually all of the districts have been gerrymandered so that they are not competitive.

Prop 78 - Creates a discount perscription drug program for seniors and low income people in the state. I have no idea how it would work though we need some sort of coverage. I just hope it isn't a massive pork give away to corporation like the medicare drug benefit was; that program actually ends up costing seniors more in many cases and it lets drug companies charge medicare 2-4 times the market rate for any given drug. I sure hope this is not turned into corporate pork like medicare.

Prop 79 - A competing bill for medical drug discount coverage. This one would provide rebates to drug companies who took part in the discount program and would forbid companies who refuse to discount drugs from getting subsidies from medical. Sounds better then the first one to me but I need to read more.

Prop 80 - Reregulates the electrical market and requires modest increases in renewable power. Essentially recreates local monopolies then regulates prices and costs. Personally, I'm thinking the current system is pretty good now that the Republican placed loop holes which allowed Enron to crash the whole system have been closed.

[rogerashton]

1. Maybe we need a proposition

to require a corporation to get the written permission of every shareholder before the corp. can make a contribution ....

[Oerdin]

2. Sounds fair to me.

[mitchtv]

3. they've already started the anti 79 pro 78 commercials

underwitten by Johnson&Johnson, Pfizer, Merck, Glaxosmithkline, so I know that's a "NO"
No on the redistricting It can't help Dems, Won't the Gov appoint the retired rep judges?

[slackmaster]

4. Retired judges who have never held a partisan office

See http://www.igs.berkeley.edu/library/htRedistricting.html for a bunch of good information.

http://www.caag.state.ca.us/initiatives/pdf/sa2004rf0037_amdt_1_ns.pdf for the actual text. It does contain a guarantee that both major parties be represented on the panels that do the actual redistricting.

[Oerdin]

6. No, the legislature gets to decide.

But the state consul of judges along with the majority and minority leaders of both house must all agree on three people from a pool of 24. I linked the complete text with explination in the redistricting thread.

[davidinalameda]

5. I'm thinking of voting NO on all of them

just as a protest

the only one I'd probably support would be 79 anyway

[Oerdin]

7. I've been thinking about these props and...

Right now I will be voting no on 73, 75, 76, & 80. I will be voting yes on 77 while I am undecided on 74, 78, & 79. Those last three I want to learn more about before I make a final choice.

[SoonerShankle]

9. 74 is unnecessary, ineffective, and unfair...

Just to give you a primer on Prop 74 (I'll let you read my other comment for 78 and 79):

This initiative is unnecessary.

Why? There is already a system in place to fire teachers who are not performing in the classroom. Existing law allows teachers to be fired for unsatisfactory performance, unprofessional conduct, criminal acts, dishonesty and conduct unfit for associating with children no matter how long they've been on the job.

Stanford University experts say there is no evidence to show that lengthening the probationary period has any impact on student achievement or teacher quality.

This initiative is ineffective.

Why? The initiative is poorly drafted (like some of the Governor's other dropped initiatives). This proposition changes the constitution of CA to actually make it more difficult to get rid of teachers who are not doing their job (i.e. it takes away all the reasons for dismissal listed above and replaces it with consecutive bad evals as the ONLY reason to dismiss a teacher.)

Also, this initiative does NOTHING to improve student learning, nor does it deal with the problems facing our schools. It won't reduce class sizes, buy up-to-date books for students, or provide quality teacher training. Plus it will increase administrative expense, costing school districts tens of millions of dollars to implement.

Remember, the Governor promised real reform. Instead he has given us this ineffective initiative that does not address the real challenges our schools face, while he has broken his promise to schools by cutting billions in funding.

Lastly, this initiative is unfair.

Why? This initiative unfairly singles out teachers as the problem in our public schools, when many classrooms are badly underfunded and students are denied basic resources like books and paper. (My school ran out of paper six weeks before the end of the school year this year while we faced over $5 million in budget cuts because our district office didn't balance its check book correctly. That isn't bad teachers, it's poor money management at a higher level!)

This initiative extends a teacher's probationary period to five years, and while that may be longer than all but one other state in the country, it will start over anytime a teacher is less than excellent on any part of his or her evaluation. Imagine teaching for four years, then having a personal crisis where you get a "needs improvement" on only one (there are over 30 areas on my districts eval) area, then having to start over again at year one! This will make it exceptionally difficult to recruit and retain high quality teachers in California.

This initiative is also unfair because it takes away teachers' rights to a hearing before they are fired. It doesn't solve any of the problems facing our schools, but creates new ones by driving good teachers away.

Overall, I loathe this proposition because it punishes teachers, not just new teachers mind you, but all teachers (if I switch school districts, I start all over again even though I've been teaching for 15 years!), when we should focus on proven reforms such as providing mentoring programs and quality training programs that help new or struggling teachers. Teachers have to work constantly at professional development and continuing education. And just think if you had to have five years of probation on your job...

[davidinalameda]

10. your tenure doesn't follow you around????

that's bullshit

[SoonerShankle]

14. Not only does it not follow me around...

different districts allow different numbers of years experience to transfer with you. For example, districts in nicer areas that have plenty of retained teachers and lots of applicants often only transfer in three years of service, while other districts may transfer seven, and fewer (in high growth or undesirable neighborhoods) will transfer all. When I moved to CA I lost all of my built up sick leave (nearly 60 days!) and I hired in with three years instead of six. So I was paid like a third year teacher despite the fact that I was starting my seventh year of teaching. I switched districts the following year and all seven years followed me. Now that I'm starting my 15th year, I would not willingly search for another district unless I moved too far away from this one. I like the school I teach at, plus I'm finally starting to recover some sick leave, etc. I would hate the idea of starting all over again, literally, with probation and being placed lower on the pay scale.

Remember tenure does not exist in California for k-12 teachers. Under the ed code it is called "permanency" and only guarantees the teacher to a due process hearing if fired. It is not impossible to fire a teacher, overworked site administrators just don't properly document enough to rid the schools of underperforming teachers, and districts don't do enough to help these teachers get proper help, resources, and training.

[petronius]

26. So this is not the same sort of 'tenure' as at a university?

I teach at a Cal State, and am not eligible for tenure until after 5 years. Two years seems far too short to demonstrate one's fitness for the degree of tenure protection we receive, and I've often wondered why K-12 teachers need our sort of tenure at all. However, if K-12 tenure is more accurately defined as merely the completion of one's probationary period, and the end of the time during which one can be fired at will, then two years seems perfectly adequate to demonstrate fitness. In fact, if today's high schoolers are anything like we were, then I would guess that about an hour in the classroom shows whether a teacher is cut out for it or not... :)

[Baconfoot]

29. Exactly! K-12 "tenure" is nothing like (real) university tenure

All you get after two years is the right to the hearing.
Now I think we SHOULD start admitting that the standards of evidence required by that process are too high.
But Proposition 74 changes NOTHING substantial about the hearing process. All it does it permit a bypassing of the hearing process in cases where a teacher has received two negative evaluations. Who wouldn't write the second negative eval to get out of the overburdensome hearing requirement? The school officials I've spoken with love Prop 74 because "it will make it easier to fire teachers. I wish it were a ten year probationary period. It's such a hassle to fire teachers! I had to sit in on several classes in a row to gather evidence against one bad teacher. I shouldn't be doing that. I'm the principal. Watching teachers isn't my job."

[99Pancakes]

30. Perfect

Well put, SoonerShankle. Add this: Approximately 30% of teachers quit before the two year probationary period ends. More than 50% of teachers quit by year 7. Do we really need to scare more teachers away from the profession?

[IndyJones]

31. Okay, ignorant question for the teachers here...

Don't slam me for not knowing, but why should you get "tenure" at all?

Most employees don't get anything like that in our careers. Why do teachers need it?

[cascadiance]

32. For teachers and professors, how do you measure real success?

In most of our other jobs, measures for success are a lot more objective. How well do you work with other people and how do you contribute to a project that contributes to the bottom line of the company. You can translate people's success in accomplishing goals to financial reward.

With teachers, I would argue the measures are far more subjective. Should professors just be measured as to how much financial contributions come into their department? I guess in private schools like Stanford, that's a big portion. But many would contend that just as important if not more are:

1) how well do you get along with students and help them with problems?
2) how well do you get valuable information to your students?
3) how do you balance time with your own self-edification in and research in your areas of specialty and get accomplishments there alongside the schools needs to help train students directly.

How do you measure these fairly. There isn't a simple equation for this. Some schools/colleges have certain departments focus more on research and leading research teams than teaching students. Other places, more student teaching is needed. There are politics involved with what people do their research on and where they direct their training of students, etc. too. There isn't a universally agreed upon right or wrong answer in many cases on evaluating these situations.

Also, between different schools there are different mixes of students. In some inner city schools, a teacher may spend more time just disciplining students (and hopefully doing that effectively and minimizing it where possible) whereas other schools may be focused on helping a set of top students self-actualize a lot more and have more than just "average" challenges. Why should you penalize one versus the others when they each deal with different challenges. There isn't a universal measure of success in these instances.

By having tenure, you protect teachers from arbitrary "firings" for all of these criteria that can be abused by agenda laden administrators (who arguably in many cases also don't have a good measurement to see if they are effective either without a significant and more simple "profit" motive too).

If we remove tenure, we will all suffer, both in areas of research that might not get done, and our students, who in many cases will be more dependent on how effective BOTH administrators and teachers are in a given environment than just the teacher themselves.

[mitchtv]

11. Yes on 77=more GOP

they have a plan alright and it don't include dems.
77=Texas style gerry mandering I say we do the same to the Pukes here.

[Oerdin]

12. Have you actually read the prop

Or understand what it will do? Do you understand that last election not a single seat in the state switched parties nor did any incumbant lose his spot who wasn't retiring? The sole thing voters can hold over politicians is that if they don't enact the policies we like we will vote them out of office, but, with these gerrymandered districts voters virtually cannot vote out a politicians they don't like. That is extremely fucked up.

Can you still call something a democracy when the system has been rigged so hat voters only have one choice? I'd like to see it so that we can can incumbants who behaive in a manner voters don't like. I constantly hear people here at DU who say so and so should be voted out of office for not supporting their constituents' wishes, but, the truth is they know they won't get voted out no matter what fucked up shit they pull because the incumbants have gerrymandered themselves safe districts which they'll never lose.

It is not in the long term interests of the Democratic Party in California to let incumbants crate virtual kingdoms which they can lord over for 30 years or more. It is wrong when Republicans gerrymander Texas and it is wrong when Democrats gerrymander California. I believe we can win the battle of ideas against the Republicans but we can't and won't as long as lazy and complacent incumbants never bother to give 100% because they know their job is safe even if they don't bother to do anything else other then fund raise for themselves. Real competition means in the primaries we will be able to get the best and brightest people into offices that matter and that WILL improve our party both here and nation wide.

Lastly, it is impossible for us to condemn the Republicans gerrymandering things while we ourselves do the same. We need to prove we are better then them by leading by example. We can't force them to ungerrymander Texas just as Martin Luther King or Gandhi couldn't force change upon their more powerful opponents. Instead they made sure their personal affairs were in order and they lead by example so that everyone could see how unjust and unfair the other side was. The Democratic Party must do this and that means we need to stop the gerrymandering on our side.

[cascadiance]

13. While I agree that we should at some point get rid of gerrymandering...

There is a time and place to do it. Now, here in California is not the right time for a variety of reasons.

Nationally, we've seen gerrymandering, election fraud, and other sleezy means of limiting Dems power all over the place. We're teetering losing our democracy now to fascism. We've still got about 5 more years before an official census is taken when it will be the official time to do redistricting.

I think we've seen plenty of other legislation and elections (proposition or otherwise) that have given ample evidence of cheating and a hidden agenda by the Republican Party. Whereas this proposition may *seem* like its fair, I'd rather wait until we clear the air of things like Diebold, getting an ELECTED Secretary of State in charge here, a governor ELECTED in a general election here, and hopefully a Republican party with more of the corruption that it has currently nationally purged out of it before I think we should start messing with this. We have five or so years before a census (and normal redistricting) should take place anyway.

At some point I don't want to be relying on the judgement of judges OR our legislators to decide how district boundaries are carved up. If we agree on a broad set of verifiable rules and formulas (much like Iowa has done, albeit for a less complicated and voluminous populace) that would be less apt to be corrupted by a select set of individuals throwing money or other influence around, then I could go for this sort of change. However, I think there are far more important things to take care of now. Right now our state bodies and most of our congressional delegation are democrats (even though some like Feinstein, etc. we'd like to replace). If we jeopardize that majority by introducing a loophole, etc. that the Rethugs are counting on, that will make it just that much more harder to fix the problems on the national scene and potentially introduce more problems to us here locally, especially if we need leadership from the most populous state in the union to fix these other problems.

We should punt on this for now, and wait until after the 2006 elections to start working on this, when we have normally *elected* officials instead of the appointed or special election beneficiaries we have in office in the areas I mention above.

We simply cannot afford the risk of passing this resolution now, even if it is as fair as you might suggest. The potential damage it can create greatly outweighs any short term gain that I can see it giving us passing it now. I'd also like to see it being voted on in an election untainted by "unregulated" Diebold machines, which is what this one is doing before the laws preventing such take effect in January. Need to have a sizeable number of Californians to vote this down, to prevent voter fraud giving it to the rethugs.

[Oerdin]

16. Tell me more about Iowa's redistricting.

Where can I read more about this?

[Panda1]

28. Well said. Now is not the time.

Too much can go wrong. It's not in our best interests.
I'm a victim of gerrymandering and I wouldn't wish it on the rest of you. (Gallegly, 24th district) I've been stuck with him for years. He has the money and we're lumped in with vast pods of wingers. He always votes the party line. Some stellar Democrats have run against him, I supported them all. But...he wins. Frustrating.
Somehow I don't trust the timing...look who's in the Governor's office. Shudder. We've already had a WH planned coup. We need to hold the line against these assaults. It's a power grab.

No on 77.

[SoonerShankle]

8. The Alliance for a Better California...

which is backed by the Education Coalition, the firefighters, the nurses, the police, and many leaders in the Democratic party propose no on 73-78, yes on 79 &80. If 78 and 79 both pass, the one with the most votes takes precedence. So if 78, the pharm. companies version, gets more votes than 79, the people's version, then it wins out.

[Gormy Cuss]

20. My reaction too: utter waste of money to have a special election

for a bunch of props. The Arnold endorsed set are automatic no votes, especially the hurry-up-and-redistrict prop which feels like a wolf in sheep's clothing. I'll probably take a more reasoned approach before I get to the voter's booth but I am annoyed at the obvious manipulation of a special election. Historically, special elections have low turnouts among all but the supporters of the ballot measures.

[ronnykmarshall]

24. I agree

I don't trust any of these props.

[Oerdin]

25. Not even 80?

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Oerdin]

17. I suppose it would be to much to ask.

That you discuss points without calling people with different view points "Repub shill"s? I didn't think so... :shakes head:

Your first link was the state party's web page but I didn't see an actual article on 77. I expect the state party to be against it since the incumbants make most of the official stances and this prop is decidedly anti-incumbant. I refuse to believe that getting new blood and new faces up there instead of the tired old people is a bad thing. Our current way of explaining our ideas to the voters nationwide isn't working and something needs to change. These guys don't have the anwsers so we need to find people who can.

It is as simple as that. Finding those people WILL make our party stronger.

[Oerdin]

18. That last link you posted wasn't very factual.

I'll reprint my my post from the redistricting thread since it deals with many of these issues. There are good reasons not to support 77, see Calindependece's post, but the stuff listed on that website isn't included on that list.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

You've asked what the criteria will be and how a judge gets nominated so I will try to answer those questions for you. The full text of Proposition 77 is located

http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:jtpmYyyiZFoJ:ag.ca.gov/initiatives/pdf/sa2004rf0037_amdt_1_ns.pdf+Prop.+77+text&hl=en

and I do hope you decide to read it since it spells the exact changes and the process out in great detail.

That's a PDF file so I can't cut and past it but in order to qualify (section 1.2A) the judge must never have held a partisan political office, worked for a political party, they can't have switched parties since becoming a judge, the judge must be retired and no longer sitting on the bench, and the 24 seat panel must have no more or less then 12 representatives from the two biggest political parties in the state. The judges themselves are decided by drawing lots between themselves. The judges themselves must swear in writing to not run for an elected office for 5 years after taking part in the panel (section 1.2b).

From this pool of 24 judges the state Judicial council, along with majority and minority leaders of both the state senate and the state assembly will unanimously select three judges, called special masters, to preside over the redistricting; all three judges may not be from the same political party. If those people cannot settle upon three judges with in the required time period then three judges will be drawing from the pool of 24 by drawing lots (section 1.2D).

That's how the "special Masters" get decided upon but what are the criteria for creating districts? Simple, from section 2. All districts must have equal population or nearly equal with in 1% of each other, all districts must be contiguous (no more of these leap frog districts), districts must conform to city/county boundaries where ever possible (the order of importance is 1) create the most whole counties possible 2) create the fewest county fragments possible 3) create the most whole cities possible 4)create as few city fragments as possible), districts should be as geographically compact as possible (no more snake like districts like the one in western Santa Barbara and southern SLO counties), US census blocks must stay as united as possible. In addition, no consideration may be given to how the redistricting will effect political parties, past voting records of citizens may not be used while drawing up districts and party affiliation of voters may not be considered.

I can understand the fears some people have about Republicans potentially gerrymandering districts but if anything this will make it much harder for parties to gerrymander things. When in doubt I find reading the original wording of the proposition and its exact phrasing helps and I hope others do read it before making up their minds.

[cascadiance]

19. Oerdin, the whole "legitimate" point of this redistricting proposal...

... is to be able to weed out the bad representatives that aren't really representing their constituencies well because of the way they are involved in manipulating where their districts lay. I think it's a bit presumptuous to say that all of these candidates are bad, or all of them are trying to gerrymander things in their favor, but I'll accept there are many that aren't representing their people well that should have a better means for us weeding them out.

I would submit that a better set of legislation to do just that than this redistricting proposal would be to FIRST put in place "clean elections" legislation like they have in Arizona and Maine now. This would get more candidates out there that want to represent *US* rather than well-heeled contributors, which I think would do more to help us get responsible politicians in office than redistricting would. Then once that legislation is in place, redistricting laws being ammended to be fairer (closer to the census, etc.) would seem to be an appropriate thing, and the clean elections laws would do more to ensure that those politicians we replace would be replaced by better reps to us than if we enacted redistricting now.

The city of San Diego is looking to get clean elections on the ballot in 2006 which very likely could pass with all of the corruption we've had down here recently. Perhaps we can look to get clean elections statewide on the ballot for 2008 and at the same time a more thought out redistricting proposition or get one on in 2010 to time it with the census.

The second part of the proposition you cite (which establishes rules, etc. instead of just changing the makeup of those who make decisions), is more of what Iowa redistricting is about. If you can really have a formula that does most of the work in deciding (based on population and other demographic and geographic information), where to arbitrarily assign district boundaries, based on rules that everyone accepts, then it would leave the human element out of the decision-making process (whether it be the reps themselves making that decision or this convoluted set of rules on how to set judges up to do the same thing). A formula might be slanted toward one party or the other in the way it constructs boundaries, but it does allow:

1) the human element to be isolated out of the system in terms of making decisions, which at some point is always going to be political, no matter how much you try not to make it to be. Look at how difficult it is to find non-partisan judges for the Supreme Court.
2) the set of rules would hopefully be kept simple. The simpler they are, the more the public can understand them and accept them too.
3) By having the rules such that an interested public can see how they are put in place will make them feel more a part of the process where they can approve or disapprove how they are being set up. They cannot read judges' or represenatives' minds to know the logic that is being used now or what is being proposed in setting up these boundaries.
4) A formula can be tweaked over time, though hopefully not very often, if it is found to have pieces that people feel are flawed in it. This is like setting up laws for people to abide by that our constitution supports, not a set of people at the top arbitrarily making laws as they see fit over time (which really isn't what our system of government is designed to be).

[Oerdin]

21. Those fur points are what we should be going toward.

We do need to remove the human element. I've been supporting 77 mainly because it seems to be the only vehicle out there which comes close to those goals. 77 does require a public question and anwser period before districts take effect but final decisions remain with teh special masters based upon the rules written out in the second section of the proposition.

I believe what you are suggesting is that something like the second section of prop 77 be made into law but instead of a bipartisan council of 24 retired judges you wanted elected politicians to do so. If the rules were air tight enough to prevent abuse then this would still work fine although ideally we should not let politicians have any influence over defining districts due to the temptation to rig things.

Last election not one seat in the entire state changed hands and not one incumbant got booted who wasn't retiring. That's a major problem and and I'm willing to back even 77 if it help make the sickness less severe. If we Democrats could get something along the lines you've been speaking about on the ballot then I'd likely prefer that. I just don't see the incumbants who control our party willing to back any sort of change which will make them less secure or open themselves up to competition.

[cascadiance]

22. I think you and I basically feel the same way...

I would like to see less gerrymandering going on. I guess I feel that in relative terms, I think it is far less important now (with the Dems holding most of the seats now) from a pragmatic point of view than many other issues facing us, and would like to deal with it more honestly and focusing more time on doing it right later. I think that this was rushed to get into an election before we have voting machine laws go into effect in January, and I still suspect some loopholes designed to help Republicans get more power. I'll be honest and say I've not studied this proposition that thoroughly yet, as I have many other things that are higher priority for me to work on now (helping get Donna Frye re-elected a second time, etc.). If all of Arnie's propositions fail, that helps us look that much more at a liklihood of someone like Angelides in at governor in 2006, which I think is a VERY important goal at this point, especially if someone like Boxer wants to head or join someone else's ticket for 2008 pres. election. I want to make sure someone like Angelides is there to appoint her replacement if she does get elected then.

You can say it helps us look better in voters' eyes by being a party of true reform by leading the pack to introduce election reform like this. I agree to an extent, but I think with the huge amount of unethical crap that has been thrown at us by Rethugs all over the place over the last few years, I really don't think that this will make that much difference in the big picture when measuring both parties, especially since we're 5 years away from an official redistricting timeframe anyway and we're still doing it the way we've been doing it for a few years. One step at a time. We'll get there some day where we'll both be happy! I think ultimately California will do it for us.

[Oerdin]

23. What about the other props?

There are eight props on the ballot and we've only been discussing one of them. Does anyone know the difference between the two drug discount props? The Sec of State only gave a one paragraph summary of each and it doesn't provide much information on either one. Does anyone know the details?

[Oerdin]

27. I was hoping

We could keep bumping this thread instead of everyone starting their own thread on this topic. It keeps us from having the exact same discussion in multiple threads all at once.

[FrannyD]

33. does it matter

78 is sponsered by the Drug companies and 79 is being opposed by the drug companies. "nuf said. If you want to put your trust in crooked corporations, vote yes on 78, if you want more fairness in drug prices then vote yes on 79. As far as 77, a dem would have to be crazy, it will just give rethugs more chance to fulfil thier dreams of turning California Red, hence if you want to live in a Red State, vote yes on 77 (Or move to Texas), if you want to live in a Blue state vote NO on 77.

[Cleita]

34. The California Alliance for Retired Americans sent me

these recommendations and I agree with them.

No on Proposition 74.
No on Proposition 75.
No on Proposition 76.
No on Proposition 77.
No on Proposition 78.
Yes on Proposition 79.
Yes on Proposition 80.

They were non-commital on Proposition 73, but I voted no. This is another proposition backed by the religious community to make it harder to get abortions when they are needed.

There is more information on their website:

http://www.californiaalliance.org

[xxqqqzme]

35. NIX the first SIX

(73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78)

Redistricting needs to be addressed - 77 is not the way to do it. This is a rethug proposal, backed 'n pushed by steroid boy - need I say more?

Yes 79 & 80

[Oerdin]

36. What good

do you think prop 80 will do? That is a serious question for prop 80 supporters.

[mitchtv]

39. One thing for sure:deregulation didn't work

things worked better as regulated public utilities. We got what they wanted, and they robbed us Answer:? REREGULATION. Start over. May not help but why reward them for felonious larceny? It is time to stop rolling over.

[democracyindanger]

37. 77 is a piece of crap.

The methods used by the judges is very completely written out

No, they're not 'very completely written out'--the only guideline is compactness. Not competitiveness, but compactness--which means urban districts, which are typically liberal-leaning, will be squished into a few districts, and sparser, rural districts--typically regressive-leaning--would increase.

and no political influences would be allowed.

Yeah? How do you figure? Instead of politicians directly doing the redistricting, they choose three people to beard for them.

I'm tired of pointing out how completely crappy 77 is--not only from a partisan point of view, but from the point of view of somebody with a functioning brain.

Go ahead and vote for the stinker. If you think that it's going to result in more competitive districts, you're a sucker--and when the GOP ends up with more districts after this atrocity, I'm going to enjoy telling all the morons who voted for it, "Told you so."

[cascadiance]

38. For me, I'd far more enjoy getting them all voted down...

I certainly would also tell these morons "I told you so" like you said here, but I wouldn't enjoy doing so. I'd much rather us be a blue state as a result of us shooting these stinkers down than relish telling them they made a mistake.