Benjamin's Well-Intentioned Voters Guide
San Francisco, CA
February 5, 2008
A personal evaluation some friends asked for--no bs, no agenda, just an honest opinion.
91: Transportation Funds
Endorsed Vote: No
Um, WTF? Why’s this on here? I started looking into this thing, and all I find is the arguments in favor of it all say “don’t vote for it, it already got passed during the last election.” So, how come it didn’t come off the ballot? And how much are we paying to have a redundant measure on the ballot? This is why California is so screwed up, because there’s so much damned red tape that they can’t even get their heads out of their a**, even when they want to. Seriously.
92: Community College Funding
Endorsed Vote: No
This looks like it would cut and cap fees at $15/unit, and separating the funding system from K-12 education. What it doesn’t do is raise more money for education. I’m not really fired up about my “no” vote on this because I know that 92 would result in more money for Community Colleges, and that’s a really good thing as far as California’s economy and work force (and thus tax base) are concerned.
But here’s my thing. We’d be setting limits in the California Constitution without raising any additional money. That new money for community colleges has to come from somewhere, and 92 doesn’t do anything to raise more money. Personally, I think we need to raise taxes to pay for this stuff. America needs to wake up from its credit binge and face some facts (don’t even get me started on tax rebates!). We need to invest in our future, not borrow from it! Anyway, all that aside, one of the reasons that California is so screwed up is that there are way too many initiatives like this one that set spending mandates for one particular thing without designating a funding source. This ties legislator’s hands when they go to make a budget, and leads to crises in other areas. The solution to this problem is not more funding mandates—that’s like realizing you have a problem with too much debt, so you borrow more to solve it … oh, wait, that’s our national fiscal policy. Oh well. At least we don’t have to do it here in California .
93: Term Limits
Endorsed Vote: Yes
Ok, so here’s my thing. Term limits were this big progressive movement back whenever it was they got passed through the state legislature. But then the reality set in, and we’re starting to see the problems term limits cause. As everyone no doubt agrees, Presidential term limits are a fantastic idea (can you imagine even the possibility of another term for this one?). Not so much for state legislatures, though, and here’s why: when legislators are constantly shuffling around, they don’t know how to write and pass legislation, and they’re totally focused on volume over quality so that when they run for their next office they can point to their record to prove how much they got done. We’re losing an incredible amount of institutional knowledge as members and their staffs have to be continually re-educated about the legislative process. This results in an excessive reliance on the expertise of lobbyists. Right now, things are set up so that state legislators can spend a maximum of eight years in the Assembly and six years in the Senate, which means that they only have a couple of years of being effective before they have to start planning for switching houses. In turn, inexperienced legislators mean that the real power in Sacramento is firmly in the hands of lawyers, lobbyists, and other non-elected officials. I think we can all agree that California ’s state government is rife with corruption and over-influenced by special interests, and this measure isn’t necessarily going to change that. But at least we can make sure that the people screwing up the state are elected! That way, there’s some sense of accountability. When the lobbyists are running things, accountability goes right out the window.
So, the way I understand it, this measure would make it so that you get 12 years total in either the Assembly or Senate, instead of a maximum of 6 years in the Assembly and 8 years in the Senate. While that’s not perfect (ideally, we’d do away with term limits all together, as far as I’m concerned), it’s a step in the right direction. If this passes, the incentive will be for legislators to stick with one house or the other, accumulate experience, get some effective legislation passed, etc., instead of just planning for a jump from one house to the other half way through. That’s my two cents, anyway—and most of the state bureaucrats I’ve talked to back me up on it (and they have to deal with the politicians much more than the rest of us, so they probably have a pretty good idea about what’s best for the functioning of state government).
Indian Gambling Measures
Endorsed Vote: No
Um. So, I have no idea why there are 4 different measures which all do the same thing. Oh wait, yes I do. It would violate the California Constitution for any single initiative to alter more than one part of the Constitution (called “the single subject rule”). Probably has something to do with keeping initiatives simple enough for people to understand them. Or wait, maybe it’s just that each tribe gets its own initiative. Well, I’ve got some news for whoever’s in charge: the initiative process is confusing.
But on to the concept of casinos. Because that’s what we’re dealing with, and it’s important to remember it—bigger casinos in California , giving us more slot machines than Nevada . Now, I know a lot of people on the fence about this one, people who say that Indian tribes have been royally screwed over and we should do whatever they want at this point. And I hear that. But I don’t like casinos. And the only reason why we’re going that route is because we don’t want to have to pay for reparations or land grants or whatever it is that might start to even the balance. Instead, we’re building gambling meccas way out in the middle of nowhere—drawing people from metropolitan areas to burn a lot of carbon to get there, causing traffic congestion on weekends, requiring more roads, and expanding development in rural areas. The environmentalist in me (um, I suppose that’s most of me at this point since I’ve decided to be an environmental lawyer) just can’t get behind it. Why don’t we just build them in the cities, where the people are who want to use them? The answer to that question is that we don’t want them in the cities because we find them unsightly and we don’t like the gambling culture which develops around them. Theses measures exempt the new development from Environmental Impact Reports, so they don’t even have to tell the public what the impacts of this development is going to be. I can’t get behind that—at least make them report on the impacts.
Writing this, I’m thinking about some pros, too. Which may strike some of you as a little weird, since supposedly I’m advocating my point of view here. But what the heck, here’s another side to things. Gambling is going to happen, so it’s better to regulate it and keep it out of the cities where it might breed violent crime and corruption (as well as neon, ugh). And we can give the industry to Native Americans as a form of reparations. And we can make sure that the addicts don’t loose more than is fair, and that a good percentage of the profits go to societal infrastructure (and hopefully some gambling addiction help).
Anyway, I don’t think I convinced myself. I still think it’s weird to create a bunch of Native American gambling monopolies … just doesn’t seem quite right. Convincing? Oh well. Make up your own damn mind, then.
94: Indian Gambling (No)
Looks like each tribe gets its own measure. The measures contains revenue sharing between the tribes, but much of the benefit would still accrue with four tribes who already own casinos. The whole revenue portion is just way too complicated for me to really figure out who’s going to make the most money, but I’m sure everyone gets a piece of the pie.
It’s kind of funny … what if only one measure passes? Then the other tribes don’t get their casinos. Let’s do it, just to mess with the numbers—vote no on every measure except one:
Birthday = 1st – 7th of the month, vote yes on 94.
Birthday = 8th – 14th of the month, vote yes on 95.
Birthday = 15th – 21th of the month, vote yes on 96.
Birthday = 22nd – 31st of the month, vote yes on 97.
That’s the best I can do. If there’s some mathematician out there who wants to come up with a more balanced formula, have at it.
The Pechanga Band of Luiseño Mission Indians gets measure 94.
95: Indian Gambling (No)
The Morongo Band of Mission Indians gets measure 95.
96: Indian Gambling (No)
The Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation gets measure 96.
97: Indian Gambling (No)
The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians gets measure 97.
A: Parks Bond
Endorsed Vote: Yes
The best add I saw for this was a picture of a kid standing outside a closed park restroom with his dad, his legs crossed and a look of agony on his face. The caption read: “we’re tired of waiting.” I’m not sure why, exactly, but I thought that was funny.
I’m a sucker for city beautification. And for parks. When Susie and I were in Europe during our year of traveling we had to deal with significant issues of “ new city exhaustion.” It can be a grind to land on your feet in a new city , go to all the museums, see the “sights,” etc. Our solution was parks—we’d find a city park and stroll around, have a picnic lunch, and maybe a nap. Just really take it easy. To me, parks are the spiritual center of a city; it’s where people go to play, to recreate, to rejuvenate from the hard cement corners and unforgiving asphalt streets. A city without a park has no soul.
So, yeah, let’s raise property taxes by an annual average of $7.71 per $100,000 of assessed value (50% of which can be passed along to tenants). Oversight of the spending will be good (there’s even a website, if you’re really interested), and property taxes aren’t even going to go up (the city won’t issue the bond until the last one is paid off). Nobody even registered an unpaid argument against it in the voter’s pamphlet (which begs the question, why are we voting on it? Isn’t this in theory what our elected officials are for, to take care of the no-brainers, at the very least? I sense “tax reform” at work, and I don’t like it one bit!).
B: Police Working-Retirement
Endorsed Vote: Yes
This one seems a little weird—retiring police officers get the option to keep working for 3 years while accruing full retirement benefits? Is that a windfall? Hrm. That’s just my knee-jerk reaction, though, and I have to take the controller’s word that this measure should be either cost-neutral or result in slight savings for the city. Costs will be reevaluated after 3 years of the program, at which time the Supervisors can terminate the program. Retirement-age (50) cops have more experience and are more skilled at the things we really need cops for—dispute management, negotiation, conflict resolution, etc. So that’s all good, right? This program seems to make sense, far as I can tell. The Chronicle says it is “a promising program with reasonable safeguards.” And once again, little to no organized opposition …
C: Alcatraz Converted into a Global Peace Center
Endorsed Vote: No
A Global Peace Center ? Is that really practical? Why don’t we put the Global Peace Center somewhere people would want to go to work every day, instead? Not that Alcatraz isn’t lovely, but it’s cold and windy and you have to take a boat to get there. This thing sounds like a dramatic statement, alright, including a giant statute of St. Francis “welcoming all to the San Francisco Bay Area.” The proponent’s description in the voter guide is actually kind of amusing—“a powerful, catalytic statement which will ‘Inspire, Delight, Heal and Enlighten.’” It’s unclear who they’re quoting.
These declarations of policy are non-binding, and so are probably a big waste of time. I can’t get too fired up about it, though …
I have to say, though, that having the federal government manage Alcatraz while San Francisco reaps the tourist dollars it brings in is a pretty good deal. Why mess with that? Or, if we want to mess with Alcatraz, let’s have our big wigs in Congress (as long as we’ve got Pelosi, we might as well use her) slap some pork in the next omnibus spending bill—that way some dude in Alabama can help pay for it. That’s the real American way, none of this silly paying for it ourselves. Sheesh, what are they thinking?
