• Prop 13 – Yes
• Prop 14 – No
• Prop 15 – No
• Prop 16 – Yes
• Prop 17 – Yes
• Governer – Whitman or Poizner (favoring Poizner for 2nd Amendment)
• Lt. Governer – Sam Aanestad (anyone but the douchebag Abel Maldonado)
• Secretary of State – Damon Dunn (better website, Orly Taitz sounds like a wacky birther)
• Controller – Either one, Evans is a fresh face in politics
• Attorney General – Eastman or Cooley
• Insurance Commissioner – Brian Fitzgerald (not the douchebag Mike Villines)
• Senator – Devore or Fiorina
• Judge Office #28 – Kim Smith
• Judge Office #35 – Soussan Bruguera
• Judge Office #73 – Laura Matz
• Judge Office #107 – Tony De Los Reyes
• Judge Office #117 – Pattricia Vienna
• Judge Office #131 – Maren Nelson
• Superintendent – None, they all sound like union hacks
• Assessor – John Loew (just because he put “Lower Taxes” as his middle name and affiliation with Howard Jarvis)

• 1A – Extend tax increases for 2 more years with $16 billion coming out of tax payer pockets
• 1B – Takes money from 1A and gives it to schools
• 1C – Borrows $5 billion from future lottery “profits”
• 1D – Takes $600 million in tobacco revenues from some kids and gives it to other kids
• 1E – Takes $200 million of mental health money from some mental health programs and gives it to other mental health programs
• 1F – Politicians can’t give themselves pay increases when there’s a budget deficit

1F is the only one that even remotely looks like a good idea on the surface, but what the hell does it actually accomplish? Politicians aren’t going to be more motivated to pass a balanced budget knowing they’ll get a little bump in their salary when lots of them are already rich bastards. Funny how none of the propositions propose reducing the burden of government, the only option we have is to increase the burden or shift around who receives our money. If you missed it, here’s my little quote I call The Encumbrance of Government.

So yeah, NO on all the propositions.

• Worried Obama will be assassinated
• Cheney is evil
• Sarah Palin can just go back to Alaska and shoot moose
• Maybe Cheney will join her and shoot each other
• Glad it was an ass-whooping
• It become a world election, change in the rest of the world now
• Floodgates to a new world, less polarized
• Unify as one American people
• It’s a very proud day for African-Americans
• Now I can tell my grandchildren they can be whatever they want
• It’s a new day, it’s a new world

Kssschhhh, Houston, the “one” has landed.

Whole lot won’t change immediately in January, but if you had any plans of buying a firearm in the next couple years I’d accelerate those plans.

Proposition results were a mixed bag. Too bad 1A passed, but I’m glad 11 passed so we can get some districts that make sense. No to gay marriage, but no to parental notification, really California?

And that ends the deluge of political posts. Juicy D90 vs D70 comparisons coming soon.

On President and legislature I’m going party line. If you disagreed with The Blarg and me on a majority of the propositions then it is safe to assume we aren’t voting the same here. If you tend to agree with us then you’ll be well served by these other choices.

Judiciary

Office #72 – Hilleri Grossman Merritt
Office #82 – Thomas Rubinson
Office #84 – Pat Connolly
Office #94 – Michael J. O’Gara
Office #154 – Michael Jesic

Downey City Council

3rd District – Roger Brossmer
5th District – Gary De Remer

Central Basin Municipal Water District

Division 1 – Ed Vasquez

PROP 11 – REDISTRICTING. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT AND STATUTE.

PROP 12 – VETERANS’ BOND ACT OF 2008.

Take a minute to do a little exploring of the electoral districts in the Los Angeles area at this site. Congressional District 38 is my favorite, it was gerrymandered in 2001 and now includes a little bit of everything from Norwalk and Pico Rivera to Pomona. Steve Horn (R) was the incumbent for about 8 years in the Long Beach area district until it got redistricted. The 2000 election was pretty close too, 48.5% for Horn (R) and 47.5% for Gerrie Shcipske (D). After gerrymandering District 38 to create a Hispanic majority the 2002 election result was 71.2% for Grace Napolitano (D) and 26.2% for Alex A. Burrola (R). I’m sure this happened all over the place and both sides did whatever they could to keep their seats safe.

Prop 11 will be every state politicians worst nightmare. It takes the redistricting process out of their hands and gives it to those whose power is not at stake. Districts should be drawn up by geography and neighborhoods not by whatever gives a politician a nice cushy career.

Vote YES on Prop 11.

Prop 12 would take out a bond to help the CalVet program give loans to veterans to purchase homes and farms. I’m would stick to my guns on this one and say no, but the money will eventually come back and I’ll agree with McClintock and The Blarg on this one.

Vote YES on Prop 12.

Measure R is just for us in Los Angeles County. 0.5% sales tax increase to go towards different transportation projects. Funny how we never get to vote on lowering our taxes, just increasing them.

Vote NO on Measure R.

PROP 10 – ALTERNATIVE FUEL VEHICLES AND RENEWABLE ENERGY. BONDS. INITIATIVE STATUTE.

Busy week so I’m falling behind on the propositions. I’m starting to experience an acute episode of political fatigue so I’ll be happy once the process is over (not necessarily happy with the results though). Check out The Blarg for more analysis on these since I agree on both of them.

PROP 9 – YES

PROP 10 – NO

And in other news I should have a nice little package showing up on my doorstep this afternoon. More on that later.

Before you read any further, read this article by Al Rantel. Al is a gay talk show host on KABC here in Los Angeles and when it comes to issues of homosexuality I actually look to him for inside information, much like I look to Larry Elder for insight into the black community.

Under the law same-sex couples have the same rights as everyone else. This proposition isn’t about ending discrimination, it is about trying to make same-sex marriages socially acceptable. If this doesn’t pass then the same people that oppose this amendment are free to get their own amendment up on the ballot and let the people decide. The people had decided in 2000 to define marriage as between a man and woman, but four judges made short work of that mandate from the masses.

I’m going to follow Al Rantel’s lead on this one and vote YES for Prop 8.

• Requires utilities, including government-owned utilities, to generate 20% of their power from renewable energy by 2010, a standard currently applicable only to private electrical corporations.
• Raises requirement for utilities to 40% by 2020 and 50% by 2025.

That’s the big part of this proposition. If those goals aren’t met then the utilities get charged a penalty per kilowatt-hour, a max of $25 million per provider per year. Investor-owned utilities and electric service providers (92% of our electricity supply) would be allowed to charge 10% over the market price for electricity. I’m going to go with the opponents of this initiative (pretty much everyone, both Republican and Democrat parties) and vote NO.

My biggest issue is the government meddling in electricity production. Renewable energy production shouldn’t be mandated by anyone but the market. When it becomes cheaper to produce electricity through solar or wind then the market will shift that way. And until renewables are truly ready for prime time we should be filling the gaps with increased nuclear capacity.

Like Proposition 5, Proposition 6 deals with the criminal and prison systems. There’s a lot of stuff in here and if it passes it will require a minimum of $1 billion in mandatory spending for law enforcement agencies. The programs and changes to the law sound good like doubling sentences for gang members, but we don’t have any more money to spend.

Like Prop 5, the general public shouldn’t be asked to tack on a huge amount of new spending for things we might not necessarily understand. I’d actually be more willing to look into these propositions if they weren’t massive bundles of new laws and spending. Put up an initiative that deals specifically with methamphetamine prosecutions and I can probably make an informed decision. Bundle 30 different things together and the average person won’t be able to analyze all of them thoroughly. Plus if there’s one thing I don’t like in there, I have to vote no on the whole package.

I’m going to vote NO on Prop 6 for the same reasons as Prop 5, we don’t have the money and there’s just way too much included for the average person to consider.

It’s late and I don’t want to fall behind on the Proposition posts. I read through the analysis and I’m not impressed for the simple fact that this initiative adds an additional $460 million in mandatory spending that will increase with cost of living and population. I’m not going to pick this one apart and try to reason through it’s merits because it requires the one thing we don’t have, money.

I also object to this proposition because this really doesn’t need to be decided by the people of California. We don’t know anything about prison administration, corrections and probation, try reading the text of the law, we can’t possibly make an informed decision on something like this. I just get the feeling that they couldn’t get this through the legislature so they are trying their hand with us.

I’m voting NO.