The props have been terminated.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Ding dong, the props are dead.

All of them. And this "special election" is officially a collosal waste of time and money. I can't say I'm not a little delighted at how much of a fool this makes Arny look. While I would have much rather this didn't go forward at all, from my perspective this is the best possible outcome.

This would have been the first time an election results mirrored exactly what I voted for, but at the last minute I decided to vote yes on 80 (energy re-regulation...never thought dereg was a good idea) even though I knew it had no chance.

But essentially, I voted no on everything as my little form of protest against this stupid special election. It helped that I would have voted no for all of them anyway, 'cause they sucked.

Neither of the perscription props seemed like they'd do any good. I have no desire to give the Governor (whomever it is) the amount of power over the budget that was propsed, and forgetting any debates over minors notifying their parents of abortions, I certainly wasn't going to vote for language defining abortion as "the killing of an unborn child" or whatever the exact wording was. Waaay too politically charged.

Even the local measures here faired poorly. The only thing in all of OC that passed was a Newport/Costa Mesa local measure that wasn't on my district's ballot. All 5 of the measures on my ballot were county ones, and man were they idiotic. 5 different agencies vying for a bigger cut of money from a propositon from a couple years back funneling state sales tax money to bolster homeland security. It was the most petty, and complicated, little web of money grabbing. And each of the 5 had complex caveats about which would take precedent should more than one pass. It was ridiculous, so I voted no on all of them because what the hell do I know about which one of these agencies deserves the money more than the others?

My brother in law said it best. He almost always votes no on any props because they are usually either poorly written, or written in a politically charged fashion as to make them hard to agree with, even if you agree with the principle. He plee was, "Why can't we just come up with a system where we elect people who write laws and vote them in for is?"

[Alex]

What I don't get is the special election whining. When Arnold was elected, he has several reforms in his stump speech. He said he would try to get them through the legislature and then if that failed he would come directly to the people with them.

He was elected. He actually did pretty much what he promised he would do (and several of the props played big roles in his stump speeches so they can't be called surprises).

I'm an opponent of the initiative and referendum process in totality (I always vote "no" on them regardless of the merits*) but this is another example of the people electing someone saying "I'll reform the system" and then punishing him for attempting to do so. We have a long history of this.

We like reform speeches but we don't like reform.



*Except for the redistricting one, I feel so strongly that this has to be done that I was willing to forego principal to see it come about through the initiative process.

[Ghoulish Delight]

I didn't vote for him.

[Prudence]

You don't vote for kings!

(Sorry! I can't help it! Blame Wendybeth!)

[wendybeth]

I thought we were an autonomous collective.

[Prudence]

ooh! That's right! Wendybeth's in WA. Howdja like the initiative returns? 912, 330, and 336 all headed down the drain! Yeehaw!

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

I didn't vote for him.

I'm sure you didn't, but I'm not talking about you with my post, but the California voters as a whole. The last election produced a guy who promised to hold special elections if necessary to achieve the reforms he proposed.

Then when presented with that actually happening, the same collective group of people said "no, never mind" and "isn't this a waste of money?"

I'm sure it is just because most people didn't actually pay any attention the first time around but either way it doesn't make the governor look like an idiot, it makes the voters look like idiots.

Though I am sad to see that the teachers union didn't get the neutering they so richly deserve (even if I didn't vote yes on that proposition). At least it was fun watching them whine while it lasted. Now they can go back to destroying our children feeling all empowered and impervious. (I think teachers individually are wonderful things but that the unions have done more to damage education in this country than anything else save one thing.)

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

(I think teachers individually are wonderful things but that the unions have done more to damage education in this country than anything else save one thing.)

Scaeagles bows, applauds, claps, cheers, mojos, gives kudos to, and does whatever other praising activity possible to this statement (but I am curious as to what the "one thing" is).

[Alex]

The domination of local school boards by religious nutjobs.

[Prudence]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

The domination of local school boards by religious nutjobs.

Amen and hallelujah on that one!