I’ve listed most of my votes below. I haven’t listed all of them because I don’t feel confident enough to make public pronouncements about some of them. That includes voting on 12 judges, which I think is madness. It brings back dark memories about Rose Bird, who I worked really hard 28 years ago to keep on the bench. But the people, in their wisdom, removed her because of her stand against the death penalty. As a result, George Deukmejian was able to replace three judges who looked out for the interests of individuals and small businesses and replace them with judges who were corporate hacks. Yes, I believe in democracy; but the people are easily manipulated and as time goes on, it just gets worse.
Governor: Jerry Brown
Lieutenant Governor: Gavin Newsom (unfortunately)
Secretary of State: Alex Padilla
Controller: Betty Yee
Treasurer: John Chiang
Attorney General: Kamala Harris
Insurance Commissioner: Dave Jones
Memeber, State Board of Equalization, 2nd District: Fiona Ma
State Senator, 2nd District: Mike McGuire
State Assembly Member, 2nd District: Jim Wood
State Superintendent of Public Instruction: Tom Torlakson (No question; Marshall Tuck represents everything wrong with education “reform.”)
US Representative 5th District: James Hinton
SRJC Governing Board Member, Analy Area: Jordan Burns
County Supervisor, 4th District: Deb Fudge
Prop 1: yes (I’m not especially keen on the water bond. I think we in California are not taking our water problems seriously enough. I don’t think this is going to be something that we can finesse. Drought is the new normal. What are we going to do about that? But I support the bond because it is part of what we need to do.)
Prop 2: yes
Prop 45: yes (I’m sure this measure will go down. The advertising campaign against it has been intense — more than all other measures combined. The reason I’m voting for it is that the attacks on it are exactly the same as those made against setting up the same thing for auto insurance, and it ended up working brilliantly. The fact that this measure is not likely to succeed whereas the auto one did seems to indicate that our democracy is regressing.)
Prop 46: yes (Let me be clear: I think this drug testing of doctors is madness and it ought to be unconstitutional. I’m totally against that. Just the same, I’m even more against tort limits and this one expands our low limits. So I’m voting for it. I expect this measure to go down, however.)
Prop 47: yes
Prop 48: yes (I’m not keen on casinos, but I see no reason to limit what any tribe does. The arguments against this measure are clearly coming from larger established casinos.)
No go and vote yourself!
I think this is the first time I’ve realized that you live in California. Go figure.
Ah, yes. But I’m actually more of a “left coaster” than a Californian. Not to put too fine a point on it because I have friends and family down there, but southern California really is different. But San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle really are the same culturally. Not that I fit in exactly, but I feel very comfortable with these people.
Nice ballot. It’s interesting to follow the thought process for each choice. Boy, the referendum/ballot measure process has really been corrupted at this point. It was originally meant to be more democratic, I believe. It’s almost the opposite now.