|
|
|
You should have read the rules to filling out your ballot and the possibly also the information about the Dad Guide before progressing to this page. November 2006 |
|
|
A 192-page state voter guide. This is getting way out of control. Legislators need to legislate. No more initiatives, please. Generally a straight Democratic ticket, with one exception. |
|
State Offices |
|
Governor |
|
| Phil Angelides. Not even a close call. Smart, experienced with good results, used the Treasurer’s Office creatively to create affordable housing, and generally fiscally prudent. Too bad he looks like Eugene Levy, had a bruising primary, and has run a terrible campaign. The Dad Guide finds it incredible that anybody actually can vote for Arnie, or that he gets newspaper endorsements. An extreme case of statewide cranial-rectal inversion. | |
Lt. Governor |
|
| John Garamendi. He looks so good on a horse, with that square jaw. McClintock is radical right, way out of touch with reality in California. He’s even far right of most of the Reeps. Amazing that the race is even close. He deserves to lose. The only good thing, is that this office is an entire waste of time and whoever is elected is very limited in the harm he can do. But the Dad Guide says, don’t even let the evil people in the door. | |
Secretary of State |
|
| Debra Bowen. Actually, two decent candidates, but go with the Dem, and go with the one who has a healthy skepticism of electronic voting. McPherson is a Santa Cruz Republican and former newspaper publisher. Odd combination. He is far too trusting of the machinery. But he’s a Reep, and their people make the machines. Nuff said. | |
Controller |
|
| John Chiang. A reasonable Democrat, against another crazy Republican. No, that’s not entirely redundant. But Strickland is off the edge. | |
Treasurer |
|
| Bill Lockyer. Separated at birth from Dan Ackroyd. He’s done well as AG. Still hankering to be Gov some day. No reason to not vote for him. | |
Attorney General |
|
| Jerry Brown. Against my better judgment. But there’s no reason in the world to vote for Poochigian, a “lock ’em up and throw away the keys” kind of guy. The Dad Guide suspects that Jerry could be a very interesting AG, but also wacky and veering out of control. His record as Mayor of Oakland is mixed, and certainly didn’t accomplish as much as another mayor down the street in the same period. | |
Insurance Commissioner |
|
| Steve Poizner. Yikes, a Republican. But Cruz Bustamante has absolutely no rationale for running, much less for voting for him. He’s completely tone deaf on his record, campaign, and promises. Sorry Cruz. The Dems have to do better than this. Poizner is a wonk, annoying on the radio, but smart and has had a life of some accomplishment in business, which is useful for this position. | |
State Board of Equalization, District 1 |
|
| Betty Yee. Democrat. On the board already as an interim appointment. The other guy is a non-entity. | |
United States Senator |
|
| DiFi. Best Republican on the ballot. Still way too conservative, but Mountjoy is a complete joke | |
Congress |
|
District 14 |
|
| Anna Eshoo. No problem here, though she waffled on the war in the beginning. But then, only Barbara Lee and Mike Honda were on the correct side way back then. | |
District 15 |
|
| Mike Honda. Of course. | |
State Assembly |
|
District 22 |
|
| Sally Lieber. | |
Judges |
|
California Supreme Court |
|
| Yes on all confirmations. Judges should not be politicized. | |
Court of Appeal, 6th District |
|
| Yes on all confirmations. Judges should not be politicized. | |
Superior Court, Office No. 13 |
|
| Tim Pitsker. Two prosecutors, bragging about locking them up. Swell. McCoy McKay is endorsed by all the cops, all the cop organizations, and has raised a ton of money for her campaign. Ballot statement not illuminating, but she’s proud of leading her Girl Scout troop. Pitsker, on the other hand, hasn’t called in sick in nearly two decades. Now, there’s a qualification for judge. | |
Local Offices |
|
Fremont Union High School District |
|
|
Vote for three. Barbara Nunes, Bill Wilson, Don MacKenzie The board majority blew it big time with their firing of the superintendent. Incumbents Ho and Katz screwed it up. In candidate forum, Ho said her main lookout is for the Asian students in the district. Sorry, we don’t run public agencies that way, and if she were another flavor she would be soundly thumped for it. Katz let personal issues interfere with his governance judgment. Time to go. Bad board, here’s a chance to fix it. Nunes has good record on the Board, voted against the bad decision. She’s a former principal at Cupertino HS. The two newcomers going for change for all the right reasons. |
|
Santa Clara County District Attorney |
|
| Karen Sinunu. Not an enthusiastic choice. Follow Dad Guide principles on this one. Look at all the law enforcement endorsements. Sinunu generally regarded as the smart one, but irritating. As quasi-incumbent, she has some responsibility for prosecutorial overreaching. But Carr is likely to go way to far for the cops. | |
Santa Clara Mayor |
|
| Pat Mahon. She’s not terrific, but much better than John McLemore who is a major doofus. | |
Santa Clara City Council |
|
|
My sources say these two are OK. Joe Kornder, Dominic Caserta. Incumbent. |
|
State Propositions |
|
Bond Measures |
|
|
Huge amount of money on the ballot for infrastructure. It’s long overdue for water, floods, schools, transportation. Fiscal wonks are nervous about taking on $40 billion of new debt. A reasonable worry. But you can pay now or pay later. Levees are going to fail. Roads and transit are a mess. Schools and colleges are not keeping up. It’s like a mortgage. Borrow now, and beneficiaries will pay it back over the next 30 years. Pay as you go puts the burden all on us now. Debt spreads it around. Of course, it means that a big chunk of the state budget gets whacked right off the top for debt service. We will have to increase taxes eventually. But it’s a lot cheaper than losing our entire state water system in a catastrophic levee failure in the Delta. |
|
|
Transportation Funding Protection—
Yes. Not a bond measure, and in a normal rational world, not even necessary. But the Governor and the Legislature have a bad habit of hijacking pots of money approved by voters for one purpose and spending them elsewhere in the name of balancing the budget. This is an effort to tie their hands upfront for transportation funds. Like strapping Ulysses on the mast so he could hear the sirens. |
|
Transportation bonds. $20 billion. Yes. Even the anti-tax guys are for this one. |
|
Affordable Housing bonds. $3 billion Yes. |
|
School and College bonds. $10 billion Yes. |
|
Flood Prevention Disaster Prevention bonds. $4 billion Yes. About damned time. |
Craziness |
|
|
As always, another annual reminder that we need the “Ballot Simplification Act,” the initiative to end initiatives. Make the Legislature do its job. Initiatives are almost always lousy legislation. Although the Dad Guide is sorely tempted to say vote No on everything, the bad guys are pouring a ton of money to defeat some. A Dad Guide Rule: follow the money. |
|
|
The Let’s-make-it-impossible-to-locate-released-sex-offenders-any-place-on-the-planet Act No. These are creepy people, and no one wants them living next door. But they have to live someplace, and it would be better in a community where there are support services and genuine monitoring. This measure would force released offenders to either live in the boondocks (lucky rural communities!), or force them to go underground and not register and therefore we would lose track altogether. If it’s preventing risk to our kids that this is all about, then we should require everyone with a second DUI to register and have their address posted on the web. What’s more dangerous and more likely—a driver with too much to drink running somebody down in our neighborhood, or a sex offender in town someplace? |
|
Water Quality Bonds. Yes. Another big bond measure, $5 billion, this one put on by initiative rather than by the Legislature. Good causes, but a real Christmas tree of pet projects. Supported by all the green organizations. The opposition complains that the measure doesn’t include any dams. Tough. It would have been better as a deliberated piece of legislation, but it does provide resources to invest in improvements that neither the Legislature nor local agencies ever seem to get around to. |
|
Parental notification for minor’s abortion No. Here’s what the Dad Guide said last year when this narrow-minded mean spirited initiative was defeated the first time: No. This is a radical right stealth measure to whittle away at women’s health issues and choice. Sure, we all would like all families to be healthy, intact, and rational. Those aren’t the ones affected by this proposition, however. This is about girls in broken homes with abusive parents who need to have a safe way out of a very difficult position. Even more sinister, this erodes physician-patient confidentiality and would require doctors to rat out their patients. Even straight-laced Republican Becky Morgan is against this one. Despite its defeat last October, the Sebastiani winemakers put it back on the ballot again, virtually the same, as an ideological wedge to bring out the mossback vote. It would have the unintended consequence of forcing more later-term abortions and more abandoned babies left by frightened kids. Ignore the Dad Guide Rule about typography—both sides are in violation. |
|
Tax on Cigarettes. Yes. With some reservations because of the Trojan horse clause about inter-hospital coordination and anti-trust concerns. But on the whole, it’s about making cigarettes more expensive and using the funds to pay for health care and hospital operations in general. A decent trade. Of course, in the future revenues will decline as smoking declines, levels of service will have to be cut or another tax increase will be needed, and we all will squeal. Big Tobacco spending megabucks to defeat. All the major health organizations are for it. OK. |
|
Tax on Oil Production. Yes. Another crappy initiative that would have been improved with more deliberation. But follow the money, again. Big Oil, the poor babies, are so concerned about the price of gas we pay at the pump. Investing in alternative energy is a good thing, and if it slows down oil production, that’s actually a good thing too on the macro scale. Not likely to have an impact on gas prices since California is part of the global market. The campaign all around has been hugely expensive, wholly deceitful. In the end, the Dad Guide says we shouldn’t reward Big Oil’s lies and greed. Make ’em pay. |
|
The Stupid Education State Tax Measure That Nobody Supports. No. An amazing concurrence of educators, parents, local districts, taxpayer organizations, wing nuts and good government wonks all agree: who put this crazy measure on the ballot? It’s regressive, big time. A new statewide property tax that opens the door for new mischief. A deterrent for local solutions, and concentrates even more educational policy authority in Sacramento. |
|
Public financing of campaigns. Yes, with reservations. Another flawed initiative for a good idea. Too many details to really put to a vote of the people. Unfortunately, we’ll never end the flood of money in elections until we require television stations to provide free access to the airwaves the people already own but which have been locked up by corporations by bad telecommunications policy over the past half century. The Supreme Court has ruled that money equals speech, a nuts idea in a democracy. Why should moneyed interests have more rights to speech than those without money? This measure attempts to equalize funding and therefore speech. It has worked in other places, but the kinks are still being ironed out. |
|
The Scrap All Regulation of Local Land Use Zoning Trojan Horse Act. No. No. No. This is not about eminent domain, despite the title. This measure elevates narrow, greedy, private property interests far above community benefit. A reactionary evil proposal that preys upon the emotions of “don’t let them take my home.” SF Chronicle found this week that in the entire Bay Area over the past ten years, only two homes were taken under eminent domain for redevelopment purposes. Unnecessary, because California law already prohibits what this measure pretends to correct. Every local agency, green organization, union, and business organization in the state says NO. |
Santa Clara County Local Measures |
|
|
Open Space and Hillside Protection Yes. We don’t development in the hills. We don’t need farmlands subdivided into “ranchettes.” We don’t need unincorporated areas becoming urban. Ugly and deceptive campaign against it. |
|
Binding Arbitration for police and fire contract negotiations. No. Stupid unnecessary measure. Santa Clara Council wimped out by allowing this to get on the ballet. It would remove financial responsibility from accountable elected officials and put it in the hands of an arbitrary arbitrator who would have no stake in budget outcomes. Police and fire employees in Santa Clara already get paid more than anybody else. It’s a mess in San Jose where voters approved it a dozen years ago. Sunnyvale defeated it nine years ago. |
| : archive : rules : about : | |
![[vossbrink.net]](../heads.gif)
|
|
1A
83