November 2008 Voters’ Guide
November 2008 Timothy Jordan Show Voters’ Guide
National Offices
President: Barack Obama
14th Congressional District: Anna Eschoo
17th Congressional District: Sam Farr
State Offices
11th State Senate District: Joe Simitian
27th State Assembly District: Bill Monning
Local Measures:
Measure B: NO
State Ballot Initiatives
Prop 1A: YES
Prop 2: YES
Prop 3: YES
Prop 4. NO
Prop 5. YES
Prop 6. NO
Prop 7. BIG YES
Prop 8. BIG NO
Prop 9. NO
Prop 10. BIG NO
Prop 11. YES
and
Prop 12. YES
We’ll begin our reviews of the Propositions naturally, with Prop. 1A, the Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act.
With a name like that, they could have only broadened the appeal by offering blowjobs: the Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train and Blowjobs Act.
Unfortunately there’s nothing about oral pleasure in the bill, but we’re still going to recommend a YES vote on Proposition 1A.
If passed, the 9.95 billion-dollar bond would fund construction of a high-speed rail line between the Transbay terminal in San Francisco, Union Station in Los Angeles, up to Sacramento and dozens of cites in between them.
Their goal is to provide non-stop passenger service from San Francisco to Los Angeles in no more than 2 hours and 40 minutes on electric-powered trains moving at least 200mph, where conditions permit. Travel time between San Francisco and San Jose would be less than a half hour.
Opponents of the Proposition cite the cost as their main complaint. We at the Timothy Jordan Show consider this an extremely short-sighted view. The Proposition is about expanding our state’s infrastructure, bringing rail service between our largest cities up to international standards. Nearly a billion dollars from the bond would be allocated to fund the extension of local train and mass transit services and allow interconnection with high-speed rail stations.
The system’s construction would create thousands of jobs in a time when we need to boost the economy. But what got us most excited about Prop 1A was realizing just how much a working high-speed train system would change the map for people who commute into the Bay Area, Sacramento, or Los Angeles from bedroom communities.
Think about all of those people who spend hours in their cars each day traveling between the places where they work, and the places they can afford to live. The distance between Stockton and San Jose gets a lot smaller when you’re moving at 220mph.
It would literally change the map, and that’s a good thing. We’re recommending a YES vote on Proposition 1A.
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Next on the list is Prop 2, the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act. It would require that by 2015 all egg-laying hens, veal calves, and pregnant sows raised for commercial production have enough room in their pens to turn around without touching the walls.
I’m generally suspicious of animal welfare laws, since many of them seem to be written more out of limiting meat production than actually improving the lives of farm animals raised for meat. Prop 2 appears to be a rare exception.
The law’s impact would be felt mostly by large producers, raising their costs by increasing the square footage required to produce the same number of animals. Many facilities, particularly in the poultry industry, would need extensive remodeling to comply with the space requirements.
That said, increased prices for mass-produced meat and eggs would make small scale, local agriculture, which would already be largely in compliance, more cost-competitive.
We recommend a YES vote on Proposition 2.
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Proposition 3 is the Children’s Hospital Bond Act of 2008.
It’s a funding request for Children’s Hospitals. You’re thinking about voting against funding for Children’s Hospitals? Are you some kind of monster?
Well it is worth considering, monstrous as that may be, where the approximately $1 billion raised in the bond would be going. Twenty percent of the funds would be divided among the five UC-run Children’s Hospitals. The remainder, of which no single hospital can receive more than $98 million, would be split among the approximately eight hospitals likely to qualify.
It’s a relatively small Bond, and it would fund Children’s Hospitals. We’re going to recommend a YES vote on Prop 3.
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Those of you brave enough to crack open your official state-issued Voter’s Guide may have noticed the ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF CAPITALIZED TEXT in the arguments for and against Proposition 4.
This is because some people are INTENSELY PASSIONATE about teenagers fucking each other, and feel that GIANT CAPITALIZED LETTERS are the only way to get their point across.
Prop 4 is the… oh man, I’m not going to read that entire name out.
Prop 4 would require that a teenage girl seeking an abortion of an unplanned pregnancy have the permission of her parents. This is supposedly to prevent the health risk posed by “secret abortions”.
This is plain and simple an awful idea. Prop 4 would further complicate what is already a complicated and traumatic experience for a young woman. It would introduce a new legal burden upon doctors and family planning organizations. It would also inject the court system into the lives of young women unable, for one reason or another, to get the permission of their parents.
We’ve seen laws like these before, arguably aimed at protecting young women. Unfortunately they typically do the exact opposite. The teenagers most at risk for pregnancy are the same girls most likely to have troubled relationships with their parents. Rather than discouraging “secret abortions”, as Prop 4’s authors claim, we believe that the threat of legal sanctions against doctors and parental notifications would only drive young women further away from safe medical treatment.
Don’t be fooled by a Proposition designed to make things harder for young women. We recommend a NO vote on Proposition 4.
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Proposition 5, the Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act of 2008, would change the State’s drug and alcohol treatment programs by creating a new office within the Department of Corrections responsible for oversight of non-violent drug offenders.
It would also reallocate $460 million to support drug treatment programs. Most non-violent drug offenders charged with simple possession would be eligible for a simple treatment diversion program, keeping them out of the prison system entirely if they complete the program. They also would avoid a conviction on their records.
Two other tiers of drug treatment would be added to the criminal code to deal with non-violent offenders who have problems completing their programs, or who are already in the prison system. They would be eligible for parole upon entrance into a qualified drug treatment program.
It also would further limit the fines and jail time for simple possession of less than 1 ounce of marijuana.
Opponents of Prop 5 say that it would unleash crazed drug felons upon our schools and families.
It’s a misleading claim because judges retain oversight over just who will be allowed to participate in the treatment programs. If you don’t trust judges to exercise judgement, then you probably have larger problems.
We recommend a vote of YES on Proposition 5.
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Following it on the ballot is Proposition 6, the Safe Neighborhoods Act.
This clusterfuck of a bill would broaden the definition of gang-related crimes while also increasing the penalties for those crimes. It would also seek to exclude community-based drug treatment and juvenile counseling programs from having a say in juvenile justice coordinating councils that are established in each county.
It’s pretty simple when you break it down: the cops want to arrest more kids for more reasons and with less community oversight.
Thanks, but I don’t want to live in any more of a police state than we already have. We’re recommending a vote of NO on Prop 6.
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Our last entry in the Guide this evening is Proposition 7, the Solar and Clean Energy Act.
Prop 7 would require that the state’s major utility companies begin an aggressive program to generate more of the electricity that they deliver from renewable resources. It would set one of the most aggressive targets in the world, mandating that half of our state’s electricity come from renewable sources by 2025.
The opposition to Prop 7 appears to be a very broad-based coalition of environmental organizations, solar industry members, and the major utility companies. In reality it is a coalition tied together by some $30 million in funding from PG&E, So. Cal. Edison, Sempra Energy, and a common set of executive board members.
The three most prominent environmental organizations opposed to Prop 7, the Sierra Club, NRDC, and Union of Concerned Scientists are receiving substantial funding from PG&E, as well as a surprising number of board members and executive staff in common.
And who’s putting up the money in support of Prop 7? That would be John Sperling, son of Peter Sperling, the founder of the University of Phoenix and major backer of Proposition 215, the 1996 medical marijuana initiative.
David Freeman, the former director of the Tennessee Valley Authority, and one of the nation’s leading energy experts, was asked by the Sierra Club to come out in opposition to Proposition 7. He read the text of the initiative and decided that he was going to support it instead.
Why? Because it would force the utility companies to make a real commitment to renewable energy. We believe that it would also create a mandate for California to become a global powerhouse for renewable energy development and research.
We believe that Prop 7 is the most important piece of legislation to appear on a California ballot in generations. It would remake our energy industry, and make our state a model for the world.
The negative advertising is taking its toll. I’ve heard the same lines over and over again. “It’s poorly written.” “Major environmental groups oppose it.” “It will raise utility rates.” “It will hurt small solar companies.”
Okay, read the text. I’ve read the text. It’s not poorly written. In fact it’s very clear in its goals. Take a look at it in your voters guide, or linked from our website.
Major environmental groups are opposing it because they’ve sold us out. They’re taking donations from, and share board members and executive staff with the very same businesses like PG&E, businesses that they used to oppose. The Sierra Club and NRDC have done a lot of great things in their time, but on energy policy they’re simply not to be trusted.
The major utilities, locked into power generation from increasingly expensive fossil fuels, have been raising energy prices every year. So. Cal. Edison recently tried to jack rates by 20%. Prop 7 would not only force them into renewable, and therefore cost-stable resources, but it would also cap rate increases to 3% over the next 13 years. Three percent: less than Twenty. Think about it.
And I’ve heard the complaints about small solar companies, but discount them entirely. I’d love to see rooftop solar panels providing distributed, small-scale energy generation for our nation, but it’s just not realistic with current technology. Small solar has a place, but California’s electrical grid is built upon distribution of power from gigawatt-scale natural gas, coal, and nuclear power plants. The near-term solution, while we work towards local power generation, has to be large-scale thermal solar and wind farms.
As I said last week, Prop 7 is the most important piece of legislation to come before California voters in a generation. It’s opponents only offer us the status quo, and we know how well that’s been working. The Timothy Jordan Show staff recommends a YES vote on Prop 7.
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We move on then, to Proposition 8, The California Marriage Protection Act, a Constitutional Amendment that simply adds one line to Article 1 in the California State Constitution: Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.
As we drove around around in recent weeks and saw the Yes on 8 lawn signs my staff and I have been tempted to add a matching sign to those lawns that says “God hates Fags.”
Because that’s really what this is all about: simple-minded, petty, discrimination against hundreds of thousands of people for the simple reason that they’re attracted to their same gender. Why this is so terrifying and offensive to religious conservatives continues to baffle me.
It’s one of these last few bastions of socially acceptable discrimination, and it’s time for that to end. The California State Supreme Court ruled in May that a State ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional, but the backers of Prop 8, aware that concepts like “equality” and “civil rights” were aligned against them, had this amendment to our Constitution ready in the wings.
It’s shameful to see that so many people in our Golden State want to drag us back into the dark ages by supporting Prop. 8.
We prefer the light, and recommend a NO vote on Proposition 8.
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Next on the list is Proposition 9, the Victims’ Bill of Rights Act of 2008, known around our office as the BUILD MORE PRISONS Act.
No, Proposition 9 doesn’t call for the construction of more prisons, but it does make it harder for State and local governments to release prisoners out on parole.
It would allow the family members of crime victims to appear without limit at parole hearings, as well as allowing any and all of them to testify at those same hearings. It fails to include a requirement for a defense legal counsel at those same hearings, which likely places it in violation of Federal law.
We have to admit that much of our initial opposition was based upon the supporting statement in the official State-issued Voters’ Guide, a statement that included a great deal of INFLAMMATORY BOLD-FACED TEXT.
It is our opinion that Prop 9 does more to impose additional burdens on the criminal justice system than it provides rights for victims. We recommend a NO vote on Proposition 9.
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The environmental initiative likely to pass, Proposition 10, isn’t actually an environmental initiative at all. Titled the California Renewable Energy and Clean Alternative Fuel Act, it is a five-billion dollar bond measure that, unlike Proposition 7, really is poorly written.
The bulk of the five billion dollars being raised, some $3.4 billion would be allocated towards something called the Clean Alternative Fuels Account. Clean alternative fuels, eh? Sounds like something we can get behind, right?
Well unfortunately Proposition 10 defines Clean Alternative Fuel as, “… natural gas or any fuel that achieves a reduction of at least 10 percent carbon intensity…”
Since when was natural gas a renewable resource? Since when was it a clean alternative fuel? I’ll give our listeners a hint: it isn’t.
And it won’t be, even if Prop 10 passes, except in California law. It’s an invitation for PG&E, and natural gas producers like Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens, the major backer of Prop 10, to call it an environmentally friendly fuel.
It could mean an additional subsidy for the natural gas that supplies most of our state’s electrical power, at the expense of real progress towards renewable energy production. Yes, there’s some money provided for actual energy research, but the opportunity for Pickens and PG&E to label natural gas as clean energy pretty much ruins any hope of seeing near-term progress away from fossil fuels made.
We recommend a vote of NO on Proposition 10.
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Proposition 11 is another Constitutional Amendment, titled the Voters FIRST Act.
We object, once again, to the use of unnecessary capitol letters in the official Voters’ Guide, but this may not be all that bad of a proposition.
If passed, Prop 11 would take the responsibility of drawing new district boundaries for the State Legislature and Board of Equalization away from elected officials in Sacramento. In their place would be a group of 14 citizen volunteers. Eight members would be drawn from the sixty most qualified applicants. Those eight would then choose the remaining six members of the Citizens Redistricting Commission.
The final Commission would be made up of five members from each of the largest parties in the state, as well as four members from minority parties, or who decline to state.
To be selected, no member could have held political office, donated more than $2,000 to a campaign, worked as a lobbyist, or had a direct family relation do any of those, either.
All hearings by the Commission would be open to the public.
Now we have to admit that there’s a certain random element to this Proposition. What if the only people who applied were complete and total morons. The Proposition assumes that the only people who would be interested in working on a redistricting commission will be intelligent.
I don’t know about that.
On the other hand, it couldn’t be much worse than the system that we have now, where our Legislature is able to gerrymander districts all willy-nilly.
We’re recommending a YES vote on Proposition 11.
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Our last ballot initiative is Proposition 12, the Veterans’ Bond Act of 2008.
It’s a $900 million bond to provide loans for U.S. military veterans to buy homes and farmland.
Vote against it if you’re a cruel, unpatriotic bastard.
We, we’re going to recommend a YES vote on Proposition 12, because while we don’t always respect the wars in which our Veterans have fought, we do respect their service to the nation.
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