Gotta love California! Anybody with enough money can put anything on the ballot by using the petition initiative process. In this election cycle, only Propositions 1 and 12 were put on by the legislature.
While our inclination is to vote NO, figuring that more laws and more debt generally don’t help, initiatives can deal with emotional or policy issues. And some have potentially far-reaching consequences, like Proposition 13 in 1978. So we look for special merit, something that might make these measures worth the cost, worth the regulations, and worth the risk of unintended consequences.
While we’re taking extra space this week, and have discussed some of the issues before, such as gay marriage (“Need not be a problem” on July 31, 2008), we can’t review each of these dozen propositions in detail here. Nevertheless, this is our view:
1 – High Speed Rail Bonds. For the state legislature, every year is a fresh budget crisis, and yet they want to spend $10 BILLION more in taxpayer money! ($20 billion, counting interest.) Like other huge government spending projects, this is a boondoggle for politicians and a few big construction companies. Vote NO.
2 – Standards for Confining Farm Animals. It’s good for everyone to understand that veal, for instance, doesn’t just appear in a clean package at the market – it’s a calf that’s been killed and butchered. But we note the irony in wanting to improve the lot of food animals before we kill them; consumers can seek that luxury now, at higher cost, as with Niman beef, for instance, and free-range poultry. For egg producers, at least, there are voluntary sanitation standards in place that some 98 percent of producers reportedly follow. And if the Prop. 2 supporters are correct, voluntary changes are already being made for livestock, as well. Let’s avoid new regulations and an expanded bureaucracy. Vote NO.
3 – Children’s Hospital Bond Act. This is a BILLION-dollar bond measure (costing $2 billion in new taxes, including interest) to construct more hospitals, while existing hospitals, like Sonoma Valley’s, struggle to stay open. This looks like a better deal for the construction industry than the taxpayers. And the money for doctors, nurses and managers to operate these hospitals would come from … where? Vote NO.
4 – Parental Notification for Abortion in Minors. This issue is not about abortion itself, which would remain legal. The ballot measure is just whether a girl’s parents need to be notified before the girl has her pregnancy terminated. As a minor, she is under the protection of her parents, whose consent would be needed for any other medical procedure. This is likely the biggest decision a pregnant young girl ever will have faced, and she needs the love and support of her parents; that can’t be legislated, of course, but why should the state deny the family that opportunity? Vote YES.
5 – Drug Offense Sentencing. While we’re inclined toward even decriminalization of victimless crimes such as drug possession for personal use, this measure goes beyond that to reduce sentencing for drug dealers and violent felons who allege drug use as a factor in their crimes. Vote NO.
6 – Police and Law Enforcement Funding. This measure forces the state government to spend a BILLION dollars more each year on police and other law enforcement but creates no new revenue source. Thus, funding for some other state services (schools? fire protection? health?) must be reduced by that amount. This is pitched as an anti-gang measure, but the resulting dislocations in existing state spending make this the wrong approach. Vote NO.
7 – Renewable Energy Generation. Great cause – wrong method. Both environmental groups and renewable energy providers oppose this measure, as do the Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian parties. Vote NO.
8 – Same-Sex Marriage. Is it enough that same-sex couples in California presently can enjoy all the legal rights available to man-woman couples (California Code 297.5a)? For some people, it is not, and we recognize their authentic desire for the symbolic weight of the word “marriage.” Others see Prop. 8 as preserving to that word the heterosexual meaning that it has had throughout recorded history, and we recognize their authentic concerns about religious freedom. We on the Sun’s editorial board couldn’t agree on this one, and thus we make no recommendation. We expect likewise that the vote will be closer this year than it was in 2000, when 61 percent of voters wrote the man-woman definition into state law; Prop. 8 now would write it into the state constitution, putting it beyond the reach of the California Supreme Court, which recently overturned that law.
9 – Victims’ Rights. Californians passed the Victims’ Bill of Rights constitutional amendment in 1982, already establishing most of the rights included in this measure, while the longer parole hearing cycle this measure institutes could add to the overcrowding in our prisons. Vote NO.
10 – Alternate Fuel Vehicles. Again, great cause – wrong method. This $5 BILLION bond measure helps fund the purchase of a fleet of cars now, with a useful life of, say, 5 years, but pays for those subsidies over 30 years (at a cost of $10 billion with interest). Irresponsible, any way you look at it. Vote NO.
11 – Redistricting. Gosh, what a political scandal redistricting is every 10 years, effectively disenfranchising voters across the state, as they are corralled into weirdly shaped districts to create “safe” party seats, so safe that something like 97 percent of all incumbents running for re-election to the legislatures are returned to office. This proposal is not great, and it doesn’t change the Congressional districts, but anything would be an improvement. Vote YES.
12 – Veterans’ Home Purchase Aid. Another BILLION-dollar bond measure, also for a laudable cause: extending more credit for veterans in California to buy homes. We’ve just seen, though, what happens when sweet deals for home buyers get them in over their heads: a bail-out by taxpayers. Vote NO.
