Video of the Day: Your East Side Moment of Zen
The Big Pink @ El Rey Theatre 11/18/09
If You've Got the Time: Sunday Brunch @ Casa del Mar
The Great L.A. Walk Treks Adams & Washington Today
They Might Be Giants @ Royce Hall 11/14/09
With 100% of precincts reporting, preliminary results for yesterday's special election are here. It's preliminary because an unknown number of provisional and vote-by-mail ballots still need to be counted. Here's a round up of what happened:
- The Big Picture: The turnout was 17.39%, or 753,242 people. 466,112 physically showed up to vote and 287,130 were absentee. A total of 4,301,299 people are registered in LA County.
- Props: All ballot measures failed except Prop 1F, which passed with flying colors. That measure, which the LA Times opined as "dumb but relatively harmless," stops legislators from receiving a pay raise during bad budget years.
City Attorney: Carmen Trutanich wins and will become the new City Attorney on July 1st. He beats the unpopular and current 5th District Councilman Jack Weiss. - Council District 5: It's too close to call. With 100% of precincts reporting, only 335 votes separated Paul Koretz, who is in the lead, and David Vahedi. We'll have to wait until the canvas is completed to really know on this one.
- Congress, 32nd Seat: Judy Chu wins Democratic nomination and will face a Republican and libertarian in a July 14th election.
- State Senate, 26th Seat: Curren Price overwhelmingly won the seat for the 26th State Senate seat.
- LA Community Colleges: Nancy Pearlman won the 6th area seat on Board of Trustees for the LA Community Colleges. Tina Park appears to have won the 2nd Seat.
Results must be certified by Monday, June 16th by the LA County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk. However, a few races are scheduled be tentatively completed before then: the 32nd Congressional District by May 22 and the 26th State Senate seat by May 29th. Uncounted ballots counted during the canvas period will begin to be counted on Thursday.
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http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/5/20/733535/-CA-Special-Election:-Voters-Reject-Budget-Fix,-Chu-vs.-Chu-in-CA-32
the only budget "fix" California voters found palatable was a freeze on legislative salaries during budget years where a deficit occurs. Way to go, fellow Golden Staters: your foresight is going to save us...I dunno...about $400,000. A few more bold measures like that, and that $15.4 billion budget deficit is HISTORY.
The election wasn't as much an "I don't want to fix the budget" statement as much as it was a "It's not my job to fix the budget, it's yours"
Elected officials wanted the voters to be the scapegoat by having them vote on unpopular ideas like tax hikes and huge cuts, so that 2 years from now those officials don't have to run for re-election saying they voted for it. Not this time. You fix the budget. You make unpopular but necessary decisions yourself. And we'll remember how much you screwed up our budget the next time we go to vote.
Not that these were incredibly well-designed propositions, but it's the damn electorate that got us in this budget mess to begin with (although Sacramento isn't blame free.)
Frankly, it's ludicrous that voters decide on line-item billion dollar budget proposals via our proposition system. 70% of the state budget is locked into voter initiative requirements, leaving Sacramento with 30% discretionary spending on critical state programs. There's only so far you can get on fixing the budget when you can only play with 30% of it (and that 30% includes unemployment, social services, education, universities, etc.)
Budgets are complicated balancing acts, but our state reps have no ability to holistically approach the budget. To take a recent example, I love the idea of high-speed rail, but maybe now isn't the time to tackle it when our budget's in shambles and the rider/revenue projections were, um, optimistic. But guess what, we're now locked into paying for it, thanks to the electorate's voice in Nov 2008.
I don't think the voters are really to blame. If the author of a proposition doesn't ringfence the funding, it ends up getting reappropriated ever time there's a budget crisis. (like when is there not a budget crisis)
Look at how Schwarzenegger and/or Sacto rob the gasoline tax that is supposed to fund public transportation year, after year, after year. They don't even bother to call it "borrowing" from it anymore.
Yes, but that's a question of diverting income from a tax that voters agreed on versus requiring new, fixed expenditures without determining a budgetary means to achieve them (except by selling CA bonds, which are essentially junk at this point and further indebt us).
To expand upon your example, it's as if you got a second job to save up for a new car (new revenue stream = new gas tax income, from your example). Then, the government came in and says you have to spend 70% of your total income on poorly designed drug treatment programs, farm animal treatment initiatives, and new school or hospital construction. Those sound great and all (which is why voters choose them), but you still have rent, bills, and credit card payments to deal with. And a lot of these are funded with new bonds (ie govt credit cards.) So instead of using your second job for a new car, you're throwing it towards rent because you have to, based on silly outside dictates that pay no attention to your core needs.
That's not to say that I agree with the way our lawmakers raid every available pot of money that's supposed to be designated for specific purposes. But the electorate's spend-on-new-program propositions rarely offer an effective means of paying for them, except by further constraining general funds (in many cases). Many are also poorly written or intentionally confusing (written by narrowly focused interest groups) and I know far too many voters who walk into the booth and think "Oh - More police. Great. I'll vote for that."
I see what you're saying. Yes certainly any proposition that requires new spending should also require the mechanisim to pay for it.
Government by the people, eh?
I guess this just proves that the people are no more likely to make the hard choices than those who represent them.
I think my favorite was Prop 1D (I think?) which said, "Hey, we'll provide more health care for kids by taking away money for early childhood education." Er, what?
Like I said in a previous post, this is the first time I can ever remember the progressives and the Howard Jarvisites actually agreeing in their ballot recommendations. For different reasons of course.
Progressives? -- what or who are they? How is it progressive to spend money you do not have? How is it progressive to increase taxes to pay increased state pension plans and new programs that were not in existence five years ago. How is it progressive to advocate tax increases while those in the private sector lose their jobs in an anti-business state? And why is their no talk of cutting state employees while the state is essentially bankrupt? Geez-- what a progressive (liberal) state we live in. The ballot initiatives were a sham and rightfully voted down.