Over the past week, Daniel Brezenoff and Dennis C. Smith have traded barbs (and sometimes, accidentally agreed) on every single ballot proposition and measure. Here, Brezenoff presents his decisions in one collective, cohesive piece. The views in this column and others do not necessarily reflect those of the lbpost.com.
I’m a big fan of direct democracy, but in California, we must be doing something wrong. Many voters I know are thoroughly confused by the ballot propositions in the upcoming election, and I don’t blame them. Even a lawyer would have trouble – and certainly have to spend many hours – understanding the legal mumbo-jumbo that the State is nice enough, and progressive enough, to send us all in its “voter information guide”. Is there anyone out there – anyone with a life, that is – who has the time and gumption to muddle through it all?
Let me be clear – I sure don’t. I didn’t read every word of these measures, but I do have a method:
1. Read the summaries and arguments for and against.
2. Skim the text for key definitions, expenditures, and any red flag words and phrases (“discretion”, “to be determined later”, and “billion” are among my favorites)
3. Note the people and groups for and against.
4. Bang head against wall.
5. Repeat.
Having completed this tedious process (call it “civics”) several times (especially number 4), here are my suggestions on the ballot props facing Long Beach voters:
First, the statewide measures:
Prop 1A
What it does: Under the name “High speed rail bonds,” allows the State to borrow up to nine-billion dollars for choo-choo trains.
Pros: We are in dire need of alternatives to the automobile.
Cons: We are broke, and don’t need more debt.
How I’m voting: NAY.
How strongly do I feel? Not very.
I wish I could vote yes, but this bill is just too vague and I do not trust our lawmakers to follow through. Although it says it’s for high-speed rail, actually any old train can be funded with these loans. If we spend nine billion on a hypothetical bullet train, it’s going to be much harder to ask for more money to build a real one later.
Will it pass? Doubtfully. It’s too expensive for recession time.
Trivia: A non-stop, high-speed train can get from Los Angeles to San Francisco in just under four minutes. How long with stops? Three days.
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Prop 2
What it does: Strengthens standards for confining farm animals. Mandates that livestock are given living conditions slightly better than they now have, but still slightly worse than Camarillo State Psychiatric Hospital.
Pros: Animals feel pain. They don’t deserve to be tortured before being eaten (and tortured animals produce tough, gamey meat anyway.)
Cons: Gives the idea that something besides profit and convenience should matter to the American consumer and big agribusiness. What stupid hippy thought this up?
How I’m voting: YES.
How strongly do I feel? It amazes and saddens me greatly that people can vote against this in the name of whatever principle they think more important than empathy for living beings.
It’s about time. I hear the argument that agribusiness will flee California if this passes. Yeah – for where, exactly? The green valleys and lush fields of Western Nevada? No – no one can afford to ignore California’s markets or our breadbasket farmlands. We set the pace for progress, and as long as we are going to treat animals like meat-making machines, we need to do so with as little cruelty and neglect as human(e)ly possible. Besides, if we argue for cruelty because it (supposedly) protects jobs, markets, and prices, we might as well make the same argument about housing human prisoners or euthanizing dogs. Why bother with medical care at our jails? Jut pile up the convicts under a tarp and say, “It’s better than Andersenville”. Why bother with painless injections for disposing of unwanted pe(s)ts? Just kill them in the fastest, cheapest way possible – because it saves money. And let’s do away with all environmental and labor standards, while we’re at it – after all, they prevent multinational corporations from exploiting us and our ecology as easily they could in, say, Bangladesh or Guatemala, which are sure to economically surpass California any day now if we stop brutalizing baby cows!
No, the race to the (ethical) bottom is one race California should be proud to lose.
Will it pass? If we still have a heart.
Trivia: Bacon is gross, but yummy.
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Prop 3
What it does: Floats a bond to raise about one billion dollars – paid back double over 30 years – for children’s hospitals.
Pros: Beyond the obvious (sick children need medical care) it will create a few jobs.
Cons: Every Californian will have to kick in about three bucks a year from now until 2038. Those who can’t pay will be subsidized by those who can. Some – the Governor, Linsday Lohan, other fabulously wealthy Californians – may pay up to 12 dollars and 86 cents per annum (I made that figure up, but I think it’s pretty close). That’ a lot of tipping money, but a clean conscience is priceless.
How I’m voting: On balance, this looks like a YES, dontcha think?
How strongly do I feel? I’m not too worried. I know California will care for our sick kids one way or another. This will help.
Will it pass? Of course it will. No one likes being guilt-tripped into a vote by the spectacle of sick children better than the American voter.
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Prop 4
What it does: Requires doctors to notify parents and wait 2 days when minor children seek an abortion.
Pros: I’m not quite sure.
Cons: The law inside a womb troubles me on principal. It’s a blunt instrument where love is needed. Please go away with your stick and guns.
How I’m voting: NO. How loud can I scream it?
Preserving families and protecting girls? I don’t buy it. If the long arm of the law is all that’s keeping little girls from abandoning their parents and living a life of promiscuity and unwanted pregnancies…well, the family has trouble no doctor’s breach of confidentiality is going to fix. Healing families takes more than jailing gynecologists. And it starts long before a gynecologist is even in the picture.
Asking minors to seek a judge’s order to control their own bodies is humiliating, besides being an exercise in absurdity – as if a judge has any qualification! As if she could put herself in the minor’s place – and do so fast enough to allow time to terminate the pregnancy, without the youth missing midterms and soccer practice – which would alert parents. And what’s wrong with that, you ask? Well, it depends.
One of the things prop 4 does is that it almost prohibits forcing a minor to have an abortion. I say “almost”, because the use of the word “may” leaves ultimate discretion to a judge. Under the proposed law, judges have not only the power to order a pregnancy continued, but also to allow one to be ended against the mother’s will. Yet all this says nothing about preventing a minor from terminating her pregnancy; this, apparently, is a parental right inviolable. Otherwise, what purpose notification?
It is likely that in the vast majority of families, parental involvement will be a good thing. It is certain that sometimes it may not be. It is just as certain that forcing girls to inform their parents will more often harm families than help them. Police and judicial power are a piss poor replacement for social work. The best way to help young pregnant mothers is not through the punitive actions our society seems to love so much, but by improving the scope, reach, and quality of health services available to American women and men.
Let me repeat that, because it’s really important:
The best way to help young pregnant mothers is not through the punitive actions, but by improving the scope, reach, and quality of health services available to American women and men.
Ultimately, prop four comes down to two of the deepest lies lodged in the Western mind. One is that women are not to be trusted by society. Two is that fathers own their unmarried daughters (and wives) – and that in the father’s absence, the lex patria can substitute for his sovereignty. I vote that they are, and that they don’t, and that it cannot.
Will it pass? It has a very good chance. So please take all your feminist friends to the booth with you and vote this down.
Trivia: Abortion sucks. You knew that.
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Prop 5
What it does: Essentially recognizes many drug offenses as victimless crimes, providing more funding for treatment and less power for judges to incarcerate nonviolent offenders.
Pros: Sanity, justice, and reason in the government response to drug abuse and addiction (maybe).
Cons: Seriously? Conservatives despise “druggies”. Prison is a booming industry in troubled economic times. The war on drugs is an excuse to curtail liberties and extend executive/police power. Not sure what else.
How I’m voting: Guess.
What a sane adult puts in his or her body is his or her business. Prohibition doesn’t work; it makes things worse by creating a criminal class with unlimited capital. Drug addiction and abuse are public health issues, and ought have nothing to do with law enforcement. The more we get that, the better off we’ll be. We’ll save money, and save lives. We’ll allow the police to focus on violent crime, and the adversarial relationship encouraged in urban communities by the war on drugs will diminish profoundly. This bill is a bargain.
The war on drugs is a travesty. We need to end it. This is a step.
Will it pass? It’s a close one, but I say yes. Californians are too smart to believe that prison solves drug problems. We know that treatment is better, and we like to lead the way – especially when it comes to freedom.
Trivia: I inhaled. Then I exhaled. Then I went to sleep.
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Prop 6:
What it does: Spends a cool billion on law enforcement, with an emphasis, ostensibly, on combating gangs. Money is mandated for 30 years.
Pros: Might see a few hardcore sociopaths disappear from the streets.
Cons: Violates the Constitution of the United States at least twice, and won’t significantly reduce gang activity.
How I’m voting: NAY.
Bleeding heart liberal that I am, not to mention being a social worker (king daddy of bleeding heart liberals) I see gang violence as primarily a social problem with social solutions. I prefer interventions in the economic, educational, medical, and urban planning realms to the blunt force of police power.
Still, there is no doubt, in dealing with the reality of gangs, police power is needed as one element of a multifaceted social response. There are surely men whose souls have become twisted beyond our society’s current ability to offer healing or forgiveness of any kind. There are men who live on murder. Police can protect us from these men sometimes. Good.
But escalation of force and the punitive element of social intervention are not always helpful or just. Sending children to adult court makes juvenile court look obsolete (it isn’t). Increasing sentences for drug users misses the point entirely. Expanding the use of hearsay violates the Sixth Amendment, and forcing gang members to register themselves violates the Fifth. Does that matter anymore? Because if we’re just going to ignore the Constitution, I’d like to know about it; I like to know where I stand. Besides, if we’re not using the Bill of Rights, there are a few countries that might like to borrow it.
There are some good things in this anti-gang bill. I’d definitely like to see parole officer caseloads reduced; I work with PO’s and they are beleaguered. I’d like to lock away a few felons who use guns. But the approach represented by this bill has come to dominate our social philosophy, and it isn’t working with gangs any better than it is with drugs. In fact, the approach represented by proposition 5 could really help make the prop 6 approach less necessary.
Will it pass? Likely.
Trivia: Gang members are just like you and me, except with scary tattoos, cool names…and shorter life expectancies.
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Prop 7:
What it does: Mandates the use of more “renewable” energy by utility companies
Pros: Would reduce greenhouse gases to some degree, and encourage some wider use of solar and wind power.
Cons: Probably favors larger businesses. Views natural gas as a greener energy source than it actually is. Doesn’t do enough to assist solar and wind power producers. Centralizes too much, instead of decentralizing, which is far greener.
How I’m voting: I’m on the fence, leaning no.
We need green energy. California ought to be the world leader in alternative energy production and green industries. But if we spend millions on the wrong approach, the right approach becomes harder.
I am suspicious of the opposition to this bill, coming as it does in large part from the big electricity producers and the major political parties. On the other hand, there are also a gaggle of environmental groups opposing prop 7, and very few significant supporters. My party, the Green Party, opposes it.
We’ve waited too long for a real alternative energy plan in this state, but I’d rather wait a bit longer than hitch my wagon to the wrong train.
Will it pass? No.
Trivia: Sustainability in a nutshell – How long before natural gas reserves run out? Perhaps a century. How long before the sun explodes? About 5 billion years.
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Prop 8:
What it does: Bans gay marriage. Defines marriage as an arrangement between one man, one woman, and the IRS. Does not require love, children, or shared interior design aesthetics.
Pros: Warm fuzzy feelings knowing you’ve “saved the children” from sodomy, at the minor expense of adding to the disenfranchisement of about one in ten Californians.
Cons: Exchanges the message of Jesus (don’t judge, love your neighbor) for the message of the Levitical priests he loathed and derided (homos must be killed, is what they said). Also, millions in lost revenue for California from gay marriage. Also, theocracy. Also, fewer parties where I can drink for free.
How I’m voting: A big wet kiss of a NO.
I’m so sick of hearing about traditional marriage. He’s what traditional marriage is: A man asks another man “how many cows for your daughter?” The daughter becomes a wife. She is housebound, produces a dozen children, and lives the life of a slave. Here’s what traditional marriage is: Get back in the kitchen, bitch. Here’s what traditional marriage is: “I’m sorry, ma’am; we can’t arrest him for beating you – he’s your husband, it’s his right.”
Homosexuality is a new addition to the institution, but so are love, consent, the right to divorce, equality, shared assets. Tradition required no love, but did require absolute submission of the wife to her husband. So why do prop 8 advocates ignore that tradition and focus solely on sexual orientation?
The Catholic Church even went so far recently as to say that no marriage is a marriage if it can’t produce children. This will surely be bad news to all the menopausal and infertile women of Ireland, Italy, and Mexico, to start with.
There is no good argument against gay marriage that isn’t also an argument against women’s equality and modern love, because proposition 8 violates the tenet of personal choice that lies at the heart and foundation of feminism, civil rights, and democracy.
A “no” vote here is a vote for reason and equality; a vote for prop 8 is a vote for irrationality and religious prejudice. Unfortunately, that probably means it will pass.
Will it pass? Sadly, yes.
Trivia: I’m not gay but wow, Jesus makes my knees weak.
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Prop 9
What it does: Amends California Constitution. Reduces parole hearings, opens hearings to more people. Requires written notice of rights to victims of crimes.
Pros: Being a victim of crime does not mean the justice system and police suddenly become warm and friendly. This bill might offer some sense of order and humanity to victims as they navigate the legal bureaucracy in their time of grief and transition.
Cons: I’m not a fan of delayed hearings and extended pretrial detention. Victims already have most of the rights in this bill. Among the new rights are the incoherently vague (“finality”) and the vaguely unconstitutional (refusal to be confronted as a witness).
How I’m voting: It’s going to have be no, but keep trying. Crime victims are often treated poorly and that’s got to change.
Will it pass? Too close to call. But with law enforcement split on supporting it, I’d bet it won’t.
Trivia: What rights do the victims of victimless crimes have?
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Prop 10:
What it does: Gives just under 5 billion in bond money to “clean fuel”, which seems to mean, mainly, natural gas, and “any fuel that achieves at least 10-percent reduction in carbon emissions when compared to petroleum-based fuels,” ie: (in an open market) natural gas.
Pros: Less carbon in the air compared to now, maybe. More likely, a slowing in the rate at which carbon emissions increase, as has been the trend.
Cons: More carbon in the air than better legislation would prescribe. That is, this bill is soft.
How I’m voting: No.
This bill is widely opposed and enjoys little political or grass root support for a reason: it’s a boondoggle give-away to natural gas interests.
Will it pass? I think not.
Trivia: Under this bill, the California treasury would indirectly subsidize a right-wing Texan tycoon.
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Prop 11
What it does: Creates an unelected commission of number-crunchers to appoint an unqualified commission of citizens to redraw the legislative districts of California.
Pros: Combat gerrymandering and partisanship.
Cons: Undemocratic and experimental.
How I’m voting: No.
Drawing up districts is a job that’s always been done by elected legislators. That’s probably not the best system because they tend to distorts authentic geographical and cultural communities for the sake of their own political power and that of their parties.
But prop 11 offers a bad solution. In fact, the system it proposes has problems at every step:
1. Registered voters applying to a redistricting commission is a fine idea, but the screening process for conflicts of interest goes too far, tending to screen out anyone with political knowledge, experience, or involvement of any kind.
2. Appointing auditors to select a final panel from the citizen applicants is an anti-democratic victory for the management class. What qualifies these auditors to determine who is “most qualified”? (I can’t imagine what measurements they’d use, given that anyone with political background is screened out in advance.) What ensures that they don’t have political biases?
3. Unelected commissioners cannot be recalled. The public has no recourse in response to the new districts.
California needs a new redistricting method, but we need to get it right on the first try. We can’t try one system and then another until one sticks; that would grossly undermine a sense of fairness and coherence in our representation process. Until an alternative system is found that is more, not less, democratic than the current, flawed one, we ought to stick with what we have.
Next time, how about an election?
Will it pass? Doubtful.
Trivia: Jerry Mander is the author of “In the absence of the sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations” as well as “Four arguments for the elimination of television.” He was born with the name.
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Prop 12:
What it does: Floats a bond to help veterans buy houses, low-interest.
Pros: “Homeless” and “veteran” are two words that should never appear together.
Cons: Doesn’t distinguish between needy and able vets; treats the wealthy the same as the poor, the wounded the same as the whole, the combat vets same as everyone else.
How I’m voting: Yes.
There are some points of contention in this bill, but not to block a bill that has wide support and no real opposition.
I don’t buy into the hero worship that goes along with war, but I do find it deplorable that a nation asks braver, service-minded young people to fight and die and then relegates them in scores to the streets or to dead-end housing projects if they can’t immediately hack the matrix when they get back home. War brutalizes the body, mind, and soul, and since at least 1783, American veterans have needed more help and support than they’ve gotten – though they’ve never lacked for the star-spangled lip service of home-front politicians.
The GI Bill helped make modern America the envy of the planet; this is a very scaled-down version, and it’s the least we can do.
Veterans pay back the bond themselves.
Will it pass? It will.
Trivia: Vietnam era veterans account for about a third of the homeless population in California. Nice, huh?
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That’s the Bear Republic ballot; stay tuned for the three Long Beach measures, the infamous I and the lesser known G and K:
Measure I:
What you’ll see on your ballot:
To repay bonds which the City intends to issue to repair/replace city streets, sidewalks, alleys, storm drains, fire stations, police stations, libraries and recreational facilities and to acquire, restore and preserve wetlands, shall an Ordinance be adopted which establishes an annual parcel tax of $120 per residential unit (0.4 to 8.8 cents per square foot for other uses) adjusted annually for inflation?
What it is: The city borrows about half a billion dollars to fix our neglected “infrastructure,” which is actually more broadly defined than the summary implies. It’s paid for with a flat tax on homeowners.
Pros: Keep Long Beach from sinking into the marsh, or regressing to its 1991 condition resembling an abandoned pirate ship.
Cons: Half a billion now becomes perhaps 5 billion when we pay it back. And the leeway on how the city can spend the Christmas bundle is a hole big enough to accommodate the Queen Mary, sixteen hundred crane operators, and every illegal truck on the 710. The bill isn’t green enough. The tax is regressive.
How I’m voting: NO.
I sure wish I could vote yes. We need the money, and our infrastructure needs the love. But this revenue method, along with the lack of any real change in the careless, 20th century approach to dire, 21st century problems this bond hopes to address make this the wrong infrastructure bill. We have to hurry up and create the right one before year’s end, but waiting is better than rushing in.
Will it pass? Too close to call.
Trivia: I’d vote for it if they’d promise to fix the center city streets before they fix the ones in Park Estates.
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Measure G:
What you’ll see on your ballot: “Without raising current tax rates, shall an ordinance be adopted to help preserve funding for critical City services, including police and fire protection, paramedic and emergency response, street maintenance, parks, youth services, and libraries, by updating the telephone users tax to include new and evolving technologies so that all taxpayers are treated equally regardless of technology used?”
What it is: Yes it says what you think it says: The city will tax your cellphone at 5%.
Pros: More money for city hall.
Cons: Less money for me.
How I’m voting: NO.
The city does nothing to support cellphone usage, and is harmed not at all by it, so it doesn’t deserve any money for that service. I can support a gas tax: gas pollutes our air, gas tanker trucks clog traffic, cars require traffic lights and traffic cops and they cause accidents stressing hospitals and police, etc. I can support a progressive tax on property owners, because, among other things, they take up space. But cellphones occur independently of the city infrastructure and services. Therefore, they are not in the city’s purview.
I understand that landlines tend to skew towards older and poorer folks, but there are a million and one more appropriate ways to relieve those people of expenditures without losing essential city revenue, or passing on the tax to the middle class, which relies on cell phone use.
Will it pass? Not if voters understand it.
Trivia: I will have the same cellphone number forever. I have no idea what my landline number is.
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Measure K:
What it does: provides money to repair schools
Pros: Being forced to learn trigonometry sucks. Trigonometry while sitting in a broken chair is child abuse. Trigonometry with asbestos water dripping on your head constitutes torture.
Cons: Educated children grow into educated adults, and may disobey orders. Offering kids a nice learning environment now might give them the crazy idea that society cares about them, intensely disappointing them later. Also, teaching is a liberal conspiracy.
How I’m voting: Yes.
What more to say about this? If local government doesn’t provide a decent school for all its children, it has no purpose or mandate. They even had a school on Deadwood.
Will it pass? You know, it might not.
Trivia: The essential problem of public schooling is: Puberty and pedantry do not mix.
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So there you have it. I hope this is helpful to somebody (even if you decide to vote precisely opposite my votes; if you agree with me on everything, please see a doctor and avoid operating heavy machinery) and I hope there were a few surprises. Whatever you decide, don’t forget to vote – it’s the only thing standing between the average American and the realization that nobody actually cares what we think and our democracy is long past broken. And who wants to think about that?