I'm with you on that one. 83 and 85 are also possibilities (I still haven't read the fine print).
The Bondage Acts are so laden with pure puss and pork it's pathetic!!!
Agreed! Along with all the VC and Tax proposals.
Posted on 07/09/2006 8:30:24 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Thirteen propositions that have qualified for the Nov. 7 ballot ask voters to authorize billions of dollars in bond issues and new taxes, creating political land mines for the candidates for governor, especially Democrat Phil Angelides.
The cumulative weight of the measures could make it more difficult for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sell his ambitious package of public-works bonds. In the June primary election, voters decisively rejected a seemingly routine library bond issue whose price tag was a tiny fraction of what the Republican governor is promoting.
The proposed tax increases on the November ballot complicate life for Angelides, the state treasurer, who is under fire from Schwarzenegger over his advocacy of higher taxes – as he was from Steve Westly, his Democratic primary opponent.
A public-opinion poll released last week by the Survey and Policy Research Institute at San Jose State University showed a modest improvement in Schwarzenegger's re-election prospects, with the governor leading Angelides 44 percent to 37 percent.
The same survey showed voters to be gloomy about the state's future, as 53 percent said California is on the wrong track, compared with 35 percent who said it's on the right track.
“When voters are that pessimistic about the future, they are less likely to want to take certain kinds of risks,” said Democratic strategist Darry Sragow, who isn't involved in the gubernatorial campaign. “And arguably, spending a lot of money is something that they're not anxious to do right now.”
Spending a lot of money is what voters will be asked to do Nov. 7.
There are bond issues totaling $42.6 billion on the ballot. They include the four-part bond package for roads, housing, schools and levees placed on the ballot by Schwarzenegger and the Legislature, plus a water-quality bond that qualified through the initiative process.
The broad coalition backing the four infrastructure bonds plans to promote them as a package. But voters are free to pick and choose, and usually do.
“It leads to interesting decision-making,” said Elizabeth Garrett, director of the USC-Caltech Center for the Study of Law and Politics. “Does it mean that some pass and not others depending on their subject matter? Do they say, 'This is too much,' and vote no on everything? Or do they say, 'It's time to rebuild California,' and vote yes on everything?”
Even though the bonds are for improvements voters say they want, what probably weighs most heavily against a clean sweep is the total price tag.
“I think the biggest problem for the bond issues is cumulative sticker shock,” said Jack Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. “Add all the measures together and that's a very large chunk of change.”
Also on the November ballot is a total of $3.2 billion in proposed new taxes: a $2.1 billion cigarette tax increase for hospitals and emergency rooms, a $500 million parcel tax to raise money for schools, a $380 million oil production tax to pay for alternative energy programs, and a $200 million increase in bank and corporation taxes to pay for a system of public financing of political campaigns.
Throw initiatives on crime, abortion and private-property rights into the mix and it adds up to a political concoction that could cause problems for both Schwarzenegger and Angelides.
There are propositions that each can enthusiastically embrace or vehemently oppose. There also are ones each surely would like to avoid, but probably can't.
“For a politician who doesn't want to get pinned down on an issue, it still forces a choice,” said Republican strategist Dan Schnur, who isn't involved in the gubernatorial campaign.
It's a choice that reporters will badger the candidates to make, and one that voters are thought to expect.
“A candidate's position on these ballot measures is a piece of information that on any given day can be significant to voters,” Sragow said.
“You have to be for them or against them or not take a position,” he added. “And whichever one of those positions you choose, you have to have a plausible explanation.”
Both candidates for governor are handling different propositions gingerly, given their own political imperatives.
Schwarzenegger is making passage of the public-works bond package – Propositions 1B, 1C, 1D and 1E – a centerpiece of his campaign for re-election. He's also backing Proposition 1A, which is designed to prevent the Legislature from further diversions of gasoline sales-tax revenue away from transportation.
Angelides, while loath to give Schwarzenegger credit for anything, would be hard-pressed to oppose bonds that received overwhelming bipartisan support from the Legislature and are strongly backed by business and organized labor. So, while he's on record as supporting them, he hardly ever talks about them.
Relentlessly hammered by Republicans for advocating higher taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations to fund education and pay down the state's ongoing budget deficit, Angelides has so far ducked three of the four initiatives that raise taxes.
It's a predicament of the Democratic nominee's own making, one of his sharpest Democratic critics contended. Angelides proposed new taxes early on, despite resistance from both the Legislature and the electorate.
“I think Angelides is in a terrible bind, and it's one he got himself into,” said Garry South, who was senior strategist for Westly's campaign. “He's made his bed on taxes and now he has to lie in it. My fear is if he continues down the new-taxes road, he could be responsible for taking down some of the lesser-known Democrats on the ticket with him.”
Angelides endorsed Proposition 87, taxing oil production to promote cleaner fuels, before the primary and before the initiative qualified for the November ballot. But he has been silent on the Proposition 86 cigarette tax, the Proposition 88 parcel tax and Proposition 89, the public campaign financing initiative that would raise bank and corporation taxes.
“I'm just not ready to talk in detail about the initiatives that he hasn't addressed yet,” said Dan Newman, communication director for the Angelides campaign. “But now that we know what's on the ballot, we're going to evaluate them.”
Schwarzenegger has said he opposes all new taxes. That suggests he opposes the four initiatives, though he hasn't expressly said so in regard to three of them. He has announced his opposition to Proposition 87, but with a caveat as he campaigns as a devoted environmentalist.
“The governor is opposed to new taxes. Personally, he opposes the initiative, but he strongly supports the goals of the initiative – increased investment in renewable and alternative energy sources,” said Katie Levinson, communication director for Schwarzenegger's re-election campaign.
The starkest difference between the two major-party candidates for governor is over Proposition 85, which would require parental notification before an unmarried minor can have an abortion. It's virtually identical to last year's Proposition 73, which failed but received 47 percent of the vote – better than any of the seven other propositions on the special-election ballot.
Though Schwarzenegger hasn't commented publicly on Proposition 85, he strongly endorsed its predecessor. Angelides denounced Proposition 85 as the handiwork of “anti-choice extremists.”
Angelides has had nothing to say about “Jessica's Law,” Proposition 83, which would impose severe penalties and living restrictions on people convicted of sex crimes involving minors. Schwarzenegger is chairman of the campaign to pass it.
Crime isn't the dominant issue it was in the 1990s, but it remains a major public concern and an issue on which Angelides has no record.
Critics of Proposition 85, including Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, contend that the initiative's restrictions on where convicted sex offenders can live and the requirement that they wear tracking devices for life are unworkable. Politically, however, Jessica's Law is often compared to the 1994 “three strikes and you're out” criminal sentencing initiative, which was so popular that politicians with substantive objections to it found it prudent to simply get out of the way of the onrushing train.
The final initiative to qualify for the November ballot has received scant attention, but has the potential to explode into a major issue of private-property rights by curbing government's ability to exercise the power of eminent domain. Proposition 90 would prohibit government from condemning private property for other private uses.
Neither Schwarzenegger nor Angelides has taken a stand on it.
Propositions on the November ballot
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20060709-9999-lz1n9props.html
UNION-TRIBUNE
July 9, 2006
Thirteen propositions have qualified for the Nov. 7 general-election ballot. The first five were placed on the ballot by the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The other eight qualified through the initiative process. The deadline for initiatives to qualify has passed, but the Legislature could still add measures.
Proposition 1A – Transportation Investment Fund: would make it more difficult for the Legislature to suspend Proposition 42, which mandates that gasoline sales-tax revenue be spent on transportation, and divert the money for other purposes.
Proposition 1B – Highway Safety, Traffic Reduction, Air Quality, Port Security Bond Act of 2006: a $19.9 billion bond issue to pay for road repairs and expansions, repair bridges, expand public transportation and improve port security.
Proposition 1C – Housing and Emergency Shelter Trust Fund Act of 2006: a $2.85 billion bond issue to pay for affordable-housing assistance and housing for farmworkers and the homeless.
Proposition 1D – Education Facilities. Kindergarten-University Public Education Facilities Bond Act of 2006: a $10.4 billion bond issue for school and university construction.
Proposition 1E – Disaster Preparedness and Flood Prevention Bond Act of 2006: a $4.09 billion bond issue to repair levees and flood-control systems.
Proposition 83 – Sex Offenders, Sexually Violent Predators. Punishment, Residence Restrictions and Monitoring: would increase penalties for violent sexual predators and child molesters, prohibit registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park and require violent offenders to wear a satellite-monitoring device for life.
Proposition 84 – Water Quality, Safety and Supply. Flood Control. Natural Resource Protection Park Improvements: a $5.4 billion bond issue to pay for clean-water, flood-control and conservation projects.
Proposition 85 – Waiting Period and Parental Notification Before Termination of Minor's Pregnancy: would prohibit an abortion for a minor until 48 hours after a physician notifies her parent or legal guardian, with exceptions for medical emergency, parental waiver or court order.
Proposition 86 – Tax on Cigarettes: would raises the tax by 13 cents per cigarette to fund hospitals and emergency services, nursing education and children's health insurance.
Proposition 87 – Alternative Energy. Research, Production Incentives. Tax on California Oil: would impose a 1.6 percent to 6 percent tax on producers of oil extracted in California, depending on the price per barrel, to pay for research and production incentives for alternative energy vehicles and clean-burning fuels.
Proposition 88 – Education Funding. Real Property Parcel Tax: would impose a $50 tax on each real property parcel to pay for kindergarten-through-12th-grade programs, including class-size reduction, textbooks and school safety programs.
Proposition 89 – Political Campaigns. Public Financing. Corporate Tax Increase. Contribution and Expenditure Limits: would allow political candidates who raise a specified number of $5 donations to receive money from the state, and would raise taxes on banks and corporations by 0.2 percent to pay for the program.
Proposition 90 – Government Acquisition, Regulation of Private Property: would prohibit state and local governments from condemning private property for other private uses.
13 is NOT bad luck.
Prop. 13 was the one that stopped the government from escalating real estate taxes to and past the point of people's ability to pay them.
California voters may find new measures too taxing ($43B more borrowing,$3B in annual tax increases)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1662753/posts
1A YES (spend gas tax on roads)
1B YES roads/infrastructure bond
1C NO housing bond
1D NO school bond
1E YES levees bond
83 YES Jessica's law
84 NO parks, conservation
85 YES parental notification (predecessor of which, prop. 73 in the special elections was defeated, because conservatives stayed home)
86 NO cigarette tax
87 NO tax on "big bad oil companies" (incentive for them to leave state)
88 NO real estate tax increase "for the children" :(
89 NO tax increase on "big bad corporations" ( and who do you think will ultimately pay that?)
90 YES limiting eminent domain ( although I have to read it, because I heard it's not quite what we think it is)
Now, that's a scary thought.
Big kudos Norm for listing the measures.
(The Palestinian terrorist regime is the crisis and Israel's fist is the answer.)
I'm sorry but... This is what many of us have been trying to tell all the Shifty Schwartzie Swooners all along!!! They cover their eyes, ears and mouths but they should also cover their noses from the stench he's puttin on the bench with all those liberal Dem judges... There are none so oblivious as those who will not sniff!!!
So far... 90 is the only obviously worthwhile measure. The Bondage Acts are so laden with pure puss and pork it's pathetic!!!
I'm with you on that one. 83 and 85 are also possibilities (I still haven't read the fine print).
The Bondage Acts are so laden with pure puss and pork it's pathetic!!!
Agreed! Along with all the VC and Tax proposals.
And do you think ANGELIDES is just the guy to put CA on the "right track"?
(The Palestinian terrorist regime is the crisis and Israel's fist is the answer.)
"So far... 90 is the only obviously worthwhile measure.
I'm with you on that one. 83 and 85 are also possibilities (I still haven't read the fine print). "
===
Are you trying to tell us, that you read the fineprint on 11 out of the 13 propositions, but not on 83 and 85?
You seem to be sure on how you vote on all of them except 83 and 85: Jessica's law and parental notification.
Angelides can't make up his mind on 83 either, whether or now he should support tough measures for pedophiles. I guess you must be having the same dilemma.
Bad luck for who? Prop.13 sure wasn't bad luck for the taxpayers.
(The Palestinian terrorist regime is the crisis and Israel's fist is the answer.)
They're banking on non-property owners to get out and vote for it but property owners will fool them and be out in force. Non-property owners will stay home as usual.
I read the fine print on Props 1A thru 1E and will vote NO based on the content.
I read the fine print on Prop 90 and will vote YES.
Props 84, 86, 87, 88, and 89 are unacceptable on their face--no need to read the fine print.
I want to read the fine print in Props 83 and 85 before deciding. While I favor strong enforcement of pedophiles, the mere thought of putting GPS devices on citizens, for life, is pretty creepy to me. I'd prefer to see them locked up if they present a danger.
"While I favor strong enforcement of pedophiles, the mere thought of putting GPS devices on citizens, for life, is pretty creepy to me."
====
Yes, I can see how we should have sympathy towards those who sexually abuse and murder little children. (/sarcasm)
Those are the "citizens" you are so concerned about.
You are sounding like the ACLU, worrying about the right of the murderers, but not about the rights of little children to grow up without being sexually molested and murdered by these criminals.
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