Almanac. Why my California ballot is soooo large. Part 5 - (the rest of) The ANSWER!

The first four blog posts in this series provide significant background for this final post on the topic. If you did not read them, or if you did and want to review, here are links to each.

https://crdowning-author.blogspot.com/2019/01/almanac-why-my-california-ballot-is.html

https://crdowning-author.blogspot.com/2019/01/almanac-why-my-california-ballot-is_27.html

https://crdowning-author.blogspot.com/2019/02/almanac-why-my-california-ballot-is.html

https://crdowning-author.blogspot.com/2019/02/almanac-why-my-california-ballot-is.html 

In the spirit of full disclosure, what you are about to read is tempered in tone and altered in content from what I'd planned before I did the research presented in the first four parts to this series. I did not remove the poison sacks from this snake, but I milked them before composing this final post.

Initiatives: True Democracy or Bad Lawmaking?

https://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre1990081700

This is an excellent article from 1990. I encourage you to read it. It is less biased than anything else I read about this topic.

Opening Statement

Far too many issues in California are decided by initiative ballot proposals. Propaganda pollutes the mailers from proponents and opponents of nearly every proposition as initiatives are known in California.

In the latest election, then Governor Brown renamed the proposition on the ballot calling for the repeal of a special gasoline tax he instituted. He removed the words "gas tax." The phrase "road repair and transportation funding" replaced it in the title.

Elected California legislators are content to allow ballot initiatives in far too many cases.

Results of the 11 propositions on the Calfornia State ballot in November 2018. (From https://abc30.com/politics/election-2018-results-of-all-11-california-propositions/4441437/ )

On Election Day, California voters approved or denied 11 different propositions, which included regulations on dialysis centers, repealing the 2017 gas tax and wider local authority on rent control. See how the propositions fared below: 

PROPOSITION 1: YES Authorized bonds to fund specified housing assistance programs. Get full details on this proposition here. 

PROPOSITION 2: YES 
Authorized bonds to fund existing housing program for individuals with mental illness. Get full details on this proposition here. 

PROPOSITION 3: NO 
Authorized bonds to fund projects for water supply and quality, watershed, fish, wildlife, water conveyance, and groundwater sustainability and storage. Get full details on this proposition here. 

PROPOSITION 4: YES 
Authorized bonds funding construction at hospitals providing children's health care. Get full details on this proposition here.

PROPOSITION 5: NO 
Changed requirements for certain property owners to transfer their property tax base to replacement property. Get full details on this proposition here. 

PROPOSITION 6: NO 
Eliminated certain road repair and transportation funding. Requires certain fuel taxes and vehicle fees be approved by the electorate. Get full details on this proposition here. 

PROPOSITION 7: YES 
Conformed California daylight saving time to federal law. Allows legislature to change daylight saving time period. Get full details on this proposition here. 

PROPOSITION 8: NO 
Regulated amounts outpatient kidney dialysis clinics charge for dialysis treatment. Get full details on this proposition here. 

PROPOSITION 9: On July 18, 2018, Proposition 9 was removed from the ballot by order of the California Supreme Court. It would have divided California into three separate states. 
PROPOSITION 10: NO Expanded local governments' authority to enact rent control on residential property. Get full details on this proposition here. 

PROPOSITION 11: YES 
Required private-sector emergency ambulance employees to remain on-call during work breaks. Get full details on this proposition here. 

PROPOSITION 12: YES 
Establishes new standards for confinement of specified farm animals; bans sale of noncomplying products. Get full details on this proposition here.

In the previous election, Californians voted against allowing a wealthy individual to manipulate aspects of ownership/use of property he owned to his advantage--although that's not the way they worded the proposition. That should never have been on any statewide ballot. Because of the process in place in California, all it took was enough signatures and the requisite fees to get it on the ballot.

As in years past, I spent several hours groping my way through mailers and state published "information" about propositions this year. In the state published documents, each proposition was accompanied by "ANALYSIS BY THE LEGISLATIVE ANALYST." I put most of my stock in those. 

Ultimately, voters have a way to know the current situations addressed by many propositions. While it's hard to argue with decreasing the level of confinement of farm animals (Prop 12), I don’t know how many farms were abusive or how many must realign their practices to meet the new law even though their animals were not excessively confined.

This hybrid of representative and direct democracy frequently results in immediate court cases filed by the losing side. It's not uncommon that the court system overturns the "will of the people."

Elected legislators should study proposed laws and vote based on what they think is in the best interest of their constituency and/or the state as a whole--probably in that order. 

Too often, voting is based on party affiliation or what a legislator sees as most beneficial to her/his future in politics. The recourse of voters to such shenanigans is to "vote the scoundrels out." As shown in the text below from https://ballotpedia.org/Incumbents_defeated_in_2018_congressional_elections, re-election is more common than non-re-election by a significant amount. Not too many scoundrels are voted out, even in a contentious year as was 2018.

In the 2018 midterm elections, 378 U.S. House incumbents and 30 U.S. Senate incumbents ran for re-election—representing 87.1 percent of the seats up for re-election. With one race involving an incumbent pending, 38 incumbents—two Democratic House incumbents, four Democratic senators, 31 Republican House incumbents, and one Republican senator—lost their re-election bids.

For more information about the new members of the 116th Congress, click here.

HIGHLIGHTS

This was the lowest number of U.S. House incumbents seeking re-election since 1992.

This was the highest number of U.S. Senate incumbents seeking re-election since 

   2008.

Seventeen percent of U.S. Senate incumbents seeking re-election were defeated, 

   including four Democrats. This was the highest percentage since the 

   2014 midterm election when 21 percent of U.S. Senate incumbents were defeated, 

   including five Democrats.

At least 33 U.S. House incumbents—or 8.7 percent—were defeated in 2018. This was

  the highest percentage of incumbents defeated since 2012, when 10.2 percent were 

  not re-elected.

Final Comment

Elected legislators should study proposed laws and vote based on what they think is in the best interest of their constituency and/or the state as a whole--probably in that order. We should demand term limits at all levels to prevent 40-year legislators, many beholden to special interests, from dictating results of proposed legislation to meet their ideas of what “the voters need.”

I know the first sentence repeated from earlier in the post. I bolded and colored red my final decision.

Hmmm.

That final decision sounds a lot like what the earliest elected "politicians" in America did. See Part 1 for details. Maybe it's time for our government to go back to the future!

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