The Nineteenth Amendment

Sorry for the total lack of punctuality, friends and neighbors. Let’s call this your last-minute push to the polls! This feels like a small election because of the relatively short ballot, but there’s some important decisions to be made. I had a reduced research period, so this is largely resourced through the CA Legislative Budget Analyst’s web site, the SFBG and League of Young Voters’ endorsements, and for opposition research, FoxNews.

Let’s hop to it:

FEDERAL SEATS
Democratic Primary: President Obama
Republican Primary: Ron Paul
3rd parties: no endorsements
US Senate: Dianne Feinstein
US Congress District 12: Nancy Pelosi
US Congress District 14: Jackie Speier

STATE SEATS
State Senate, District 3: Mark Leno
State Assembly, District 13: Tom Ammiano
State Assembly, District 19: Phil Ting
Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) District 17: Avalos, Chiu, Haaland, Midgen, Rosenthal

CA PROPS
Prop 28: Limits on Legislators’ Terms in Office. Initiative Constitutional Amendment. YES
Prop 29 :Imposes Additional Tax on Cigarettes for Cancer Research. Initiative Statute YES

SAN FRANCISCO PROPS
Prop A: Competitive bidding for trash & recycling - NO
Prop B: Coit Tower (policy statement) - YES


AND NOW, THE LONG-WINDED BIT:

FEDERAL SEATS

Democratic Primary: President Obama, need you even ask?

Republican Primary: Ron Paul, just to appease Chicken John and to thumb your nose at Romney.

3rd parties: no endorsements
As much as I love the idea of legitimate and influential 3rd party candidates for higher office, I see no point and think it is a waste of 3rd party resources when they could be focusing on smaller races they could actually win and on local and state legislation which they could actually influence. I welcome debate on this.

US Senate: Dianne Feinstein
My love/hate relationship with her continues. I look forward to the day a truly radical progressive can reach this office. Until then, Feinstein is the juggernaut who keeps the Republicans from stealing this seat. Her record is both an embarrassing legacy of compromise to the oligarchy to which she belongs, and a remarkable list of accomplishments protecting our civil rights over 4 decades, but her power as a leading liberal force in the snake pit of the DC GOP in deniable: THEY HATE AND FEAR HER. Like Obama, however much she may disappoint, we need her to stay as long as she can and to continue to wield the power of her intellect and compassion as the head of .

US Congress District 12: Nancy Pelosi
That which is true for Feinstein is doubly so for Pelosi, except that I disagree with her less frequently. Her time as the Speaker alone should speak for itself. Not only is she a powerhouse of a fundraiser, the GOP fear her even more than Feinstein, and she stands in the same symbolic posture that Pres. Obama does - an “other” to be feared and vilified. The attack dogs of the GOP calling her the usual names is a sign to watch: anyone they allow their base to call a “cunt” is a winner in my book.

US Congress District 14: Jackie Speier 
One of the bravest people n Congress, Speier is a passionately intelligent and courageous advocate for women’s rights, facing off against the tidal wave of misogynistic legislation coming from our Koch-backed friends o the state and federal level. We need her as one of the very few Democrats willing to shame the GOP for their outrageous and ongoing attacks.

STATE SEATS

State Senate, District 11: Mark Leno
One of our local darlings made good, Leno is a forceful proponent of reasonable business and a passionate advocate for civil liberties including internet freedoms, marriage equality, environmental responsibility…the list goes on.

State Assembly, District 17: Tom Ammiano
All that and a bag of chips, Ammiano is Leno’s ideological twin in the Assembly, furthering a blessedly progressive agenda that includes campaign reform and marijuana law reform. I’ve supported him since he was our most charming Supe.

State Assembly, District 17: Phil Ting
While not impressed with his mayoral campaign, I’ve been very impressed with the work he’s done going after the fraudulent foreclosures here, and his tax justice efforts to get the Catholic Church and other commercial property owners to pay their fair share, and his whole Reset San Francisco program. He’s a good guy with a crusading spirit, and we need more fiscally-minded, smart, impassioned folks like him in Sacramento.

Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) District 17:
Avalos, Chiu, Haaland, Midgen, Rosenthal
Load em up with proven and passionate progressives and maybe the DCCC will stop being such a back-biting group of pandering dickheads. Hey, I said “might”.

CA PROPS

Prop 28: Limits on Legislators’ Terms in Office. Initiative Constitutional Amendment. YES

Scary as it might seem to increase the length of time a person can stay in a particular office, this means the next Mark Leno or Tom Ammiano can work on the issues we care about in the same seat for 12 years, instead of 6 or 8.

Term limits are one of those knee-jerk issues that folks frame within the context of their dissatisfaction with government. The idea of  career politicians upsets many, as they are perceived as being wholly self-interested at best, and at worst, pawns in the pocket of larger forces. While the fear is real and legitimate, the solution of the nearly religious advocacy of short term limits is not.

Currently, you can be a State Assemblyperson for 3 terms of two-years each, and a State Senator for 2 terms of four years each. You can then jump ship to from one to other. If you win all possible elections, you can serve in the CA state government for a total of 14 years, 8 in the Senate and 6 in the Assembly.

The goal of these shorter term limits in each of the CA governing bodies was to ensure we don’t give those folks too much traction in any one seat. It is a policy of fear, of guarding agains “the enemy” as opposed to supporting our better advocates.

The unholy irony that elected officials have no qualification requirements other than citizenship and a lack of felony convictions has the predictable effect of a steep learning curve once in office. Anybody who starts a new job has to be given time to learn the ropes; imagine this for someone with perhaps . They must learn the rules and social mores of their office whether it is City Council or Governorship. They must develop the staff that they will rely upon daily to organize and interpret proposed legislation and analyze and present budgets. They have to build relationships with the community and business lobbyists upon whom they rely as parters in developing policy. Six or eight years is not really a lot of time. Just as you’ve hit a sweet spot of learning how to get things done, you’re out. New officials mean new networks, and new opportunities for the influence of the corporate right-wing - whom we know generally has significantly more money to spend.

I find the short term limits we imposed, and the fear that drives them, to be a kind of anti-intellectualism. We spend hundreds of thousands, - and increasingly, millions - of dollars to get these people elected. We give them just enough time to either just get their feet wet on the issues we care about, or opportunistically abuse the office for a few quick bucks or future support for higher office in exchange for political favoritism. With short limits comes an even greater lack of accountability, imo.

It might have sounded good at the time, but if we look for empirical evidence of success, it’s not that easy to find. CA is certainly in no better shape for it. This notion that shorter = better speaks to our fear of being under the thumb of the opposing party for too long, and of good-old boy cronyism. This legislation, while shortening the overall amount of time a person can serve in government from 14 to 12 years, actually lengthens the limit of time a person can hold any single office.

Lastly, as much as I love to participate in voting, elections cost a lot of taxpayer and individual contributor money. They require a lot of time and resources. They result in what I feel is an unhealthy amount of propaganda of an unhealthy nature which foments divisiveness while making us, quite frankly, stupider, nastier, more jaded and less informed in our political and social opinions. Any seat race offers an opportunity for more propositions, which until we correct the destructive and obstructive 2/3 majority rule, will continue to drive us deeper into debt, just as it have for the past two decades, as we vote for legislation which we don’t necessarily understand and which requires mortgaging ever more of our future tax dollars.

Prop 29 :Imposes Additional Tax on Cigarettes for Cancer Research. Initiative Statute YES

 I support anything that will get people to reduce smoking tobacco and weaken the tobacco lobby. But this bill is actually pretty awesome. According to the CA Legislative Analyst’s Office, it breaks down like this:

60% - about $468M annually for research for the prevention, early detection, treatments and potential cures or cancer and other tobacco-related disease (heart disease, emphysema, etc.)
20% - about $156M to CA’s existing tobacco prevention and cessation program, divided between the CA Dept of Public Health (8o%) and the Dept of Education (20%)
15% - about $117M annually specifically for facilities to do the above biomedical, epidemiological, behavioral, and health services work
3% - about $23M annually to tobacco law enforcement efforts against smuggling, tax evasion, sales to minors etc.
2% - specifically, “no more than 2%” or about $16M annually for administration

There would also be a governing body of 9 people to run this program and coordinate between all the research facilities and government agencies:
-  the Chancellors of UCSF, UC Berkeley, and UC Santa Cruz, where the vast majority of the research will happen
- 3 directors from the National Cancer Institute, to be appointed by the Governor
- 1 practicing physician from the CA Academic Medical Center with expertise in cardiovascular disease, to be appointed by the Governor
- 2 representatives from CA and/or national disease advocacy groups, to be selected by the CA Dept of Public Health
- plus a committee to establish a peer review process for grants

The only thing that gives me pause is the argument that this is a regressive tax that disproportionately affects poorer Californians. It is. And that sucks. But you know what sucks more? Trying to get treatment for lung disease without health coverage. Dying from preventable disease. And knowing that by smoking, you are funding the right-wing forces that are hell-bent on keeping you poor, sick, and powerless.

SAN FRANCISCO PROPS

Prop A: Competitive bidding for trash & recycling - NO
While I absolutely agree than monopolies are not good, and that all City contracts should require fair competition, this legislation SUCKS. It breaks down the services into 5 contracts, and forbids a single company to hold all 5 which sounds good on paper but will mean more trucks, more complicated schedules, and less predictable rates. It limits those contracts to 5 years, which makes long-term projects nearly impossible to plan and execute with adequate accountability. And the fact that while yes, they currently have a monopoly, Recology does a *great* job. They should not have the unfair advantage they do, but until the City can come up with a better plan for change, lets stick with the efficient, fair-priced, reliable devil we know.

Prop B: Coit Tower - YES
The net-net is that our mayor and the mayors before him have sucked at responsibly managing our public parks and landmarks, so privatization is all the rage because they’d rather pimp out our public spaces rather than make the wealthy and their businesses pay a fair share of taxes.

This was written to make very clear the City’s policy against double-dipping the rest of us and reducing our public spaces to party venues for rich folks. Among its other features, Coit Tower’s Rivera murals are a testament to civil and artistic dissent, the subject matter chosen by some of the artists was a protest against Rockefeller’s destruction of Rivera’s “Man at the Crossroads”, a brilliant consideration and critique of the influence and morality (and amorality, and immorality) of industry and the titans behind it, as they affect our national and international culture and the lives of everyday people. It is of the deepest and blackest irony that this proposition even had to be written, but some things do remain, must remain, sacred.

Thanks for reading this far, if you did. Now get thee to the polls!