Tea Party Ballot Recommendations Recap - Propositions and Candidates

Since many of you are voting by mail right now, I am providing a convenient summary of unofficial Tea Party ballot recommendations with links to more detail. Please get your votes in soon. It won't be enough for us to win, we have to win by more than the margin of fraud.

California Propositions

Prop 19 - Yes* (Marijuana Decriminalized)
Prop 20 - Yes (Resdistricting commission)
Prop 21 - No (Vehicle License fee for parks)
Prop 22 - No (Transport and other tricky provisions)
Prop 23 - YES, Heck Yes (Suspend Cap and Trade)
Prop 24 - No (Repeal of Tax changes)
Prop 25 - No, Heck No (Legislative majority on budget)
Prop 26 - Yes (Supermajority for new taxes and fees)
Prop 27 - No (Eliminate redistricting commission)

*B-Daddy and SoCalTaxRevolt not agreeing on this one.


San Diego Propositions

Prop A - Yes (Prohibit County project labor agreements)
Prop B - Yes (City Attorneys like civil servants) (my weakest recommendation)
Prop C - Yes (Pacific Highlands Ranch development)
Prop D - NO, Heck NO (Half Cent Sales Tax)
Prop J - No (Parcel tax increase for schrools)

Richard Rider adds:

Prop G - Yes (Citizen vote to raise pensions) Carlsbad
Prop H - No (Raise phone tax) Chula Vista
Prop K - No (School bond) San Marcos
Prop L - No (School bond) Julian
Prop M - No (School bond) Dehesa
Prop O - No (School parcel tax) South Bay
Prop P - No (School bond) Encinitas


California Statewide Office (This is more from W.C. Varones than me, I note my changes with asterisks*.)

Governor - Meg Whitman* (She made the right enemy: SEIU)
Lt Gov - Karen England (Write In)
Senator - Carly Fiorina
Secretary of State - Damon Dunn
Controller - Tony Strickland
Treasurer - Mimi Walters
Attorny Gen - Steve Cooley
Insurance Commissioner - Dave Jones (Perhaps only Dem I have ever endorsed.)


San Diego Candidates:

City Council District 6 - Lorie Zapf (Not a great campaign, but unions are heavy for Wayne)

San Diego School Board - Steve Rosen (only candidate opposing Prop J)


I realize that this isn't every race, but I don't have more to say, and "better is the enemy of good enough."

San Diego Elections - Blog and News Round Up

Dave Maass at Last Blog on Earth asks whether Howard Wayne's pension will be five digits or six when he retires from state government. He also asks the question of whether the city council members and others offering to not take salaries or pensions aren't really offering us a bribe? Is it a gimmick. Check out Dave's blog and you decide. (My position is that the personal salaries are usually chump change compared to the total budget, so I just ignore this stuff.) Dave is an occasional commenter and a great news source for local politics.

Temple of Mut's compares city governance to flatulence and describes a taxpayer funded public employee union rally in support of Proposition J. I haven't devoted much space to Prop J, other than recommend a vote against, because I don't think it stands a snowball's chance of passing. So why are the unions pushing this? Temple of Mut's husband Horemheb had this observation:

To make the evening even more special, Horemheb even overheard a comment from one of the panelists that the Teacher Union Elite Leaders were itching to strike should we rubes not roll over in support of this golden contract. It seems that the Elite Union Leaders anticipate more press, power, and influence in the wake of a strike.

Even if Prop J loses, the unions get a propaganda tool if it gets more than 50%, so make sure you vote against this flatulence.

I saw both Lorie Zapf and Howard Wayne in front of the Clairemont Library today with cameras rolling. I will update this post when I find out where you can watch.

Proposition D opponents have pointed out that under a 2008 contract negotiation, firefighters receive more pay for sitting at a desk. Much of the argument in favor of high firefighter pay and pensions accrues to the purported dangers and shorter life spans of their occupation. This is just one of many areas the city politicians need to reform before they ask us for more of our money.

If you live in San Diego, you may not have taken note of the school district elections. The U-T has a decent run down on the two races, including the positions of the candidates on Proposition J, which I oppose. In my district, I am having a tough time deciding. The incumbent, Katherine Nakamura has to conduct a write-in campaign because she came in third, partly due to loss of teacher's union backing. I like her already. However, as Temple of Mut, points out, she has been speaking out in favor of Proposition J as has "Teacher of the Year" Kevin Beiser. I don't know much about Steve Rosen, but I will probably vote for him as the only candidate opposing Prop J.

B-Daddy's San Diego Proposition Guide

My ballot came in the mail over the weekend; since I am a resident of the City of San Diego, it included both the city and county propositions. Here's my run down on the initiatives, and I have to admit, it wasn't that tough. Before we start, I have to give a shout out to Richard Rider, who has been submitting arguments against tax increases for as long as I can remember, at least going back to 1985, when I was first stationed here. He worked on the argument against Proposition J and they are great and will be quoted.

One more shout out, to BallotPedia, a wealth of information about initiatives.

On to the props - I am not using the official titles, my shortened and more accurate version. Don't like my characterizations? Tough, get your own blog, free speech rocks.


Prop A - Prohibits Project Labor Agreements - YES

". . .the county shall not require a contractor on a construction project to execute or otherwise become a party to a project labor agreement as a condition of bidding, negotiating, awarding or performing of a contract."

Labor unions use project labor agreements to set wages on government projects at the union rate. This discourages firms that don't employ union members not to bid and DRIVES UP PROJECT COSTS. This is an easy call. San Diego County already has a law like this on the books, but if the Board of Supervisors shifts left, this could be repealed, so the amendment is needed as part of the county charter.



Proposition B - Makes Deputy City Attorneys Like Civil Servants - yes

This basically says that all of the attorneys below the elected City Attorney can only be fired for just cause, to "protect them from politics." Everyone is for this, even Todd Gloria AND Carl DeMaio, so I guess I should be too. It would certainly prevent the loss of attorneys we saw under Mike Aguirre. But I wonder if we will see a City Attorney bemoaning the fact that no one in the office will do what he says. B-Daddy gives this a yes, barely.





Proposition C - Waiting for Godot - Yes

This proposition is to allow the Pacific Highlands Ranch to continue development even though the current ordnance requires them to wait for Caltrans to finish the I-5/SR-56 interchange. This is currently scheduled for 2020. Of course you have to vote for this. Below is a picture of one of the things not to do while waiting for Caltrans to finish anything on time:

By the way, and speaking of Caltrans, if you were stuck in traffic today, you can thank Jerry Brown, who seriously set back our freeway building programs when he was governor previously.


Proposition D - "Temporary" One-Half Cent Sales Tax - NO NO NO

I've blogged about this extensively, do I really need to say more?





Proposition J - More Taxes for Government Schools - NO

The usual suspects are making the argument that the government schools need more funding and they promise to only spend it on classroom learning. This measure reminds me of Proposition D, they make a big deal of how well the school district will manage the extra money, but do nothing up front to address their prior fiscal mismanagement. Basically, they want to find a way to pay for a teacher salary increase of 7% that starts in 2012 along with other increased benefits. As Richard Rider and others also point out, per pupil spending has increased about 34% since 2003.


Make sure you vote, get those ballots in the mail early. There is little going on that should change our mind. If I missed a local proposition in your area, Richard Rider has some recommendations always guaranteed to keep your taxes low.