When you voted for Prop. 30 in 2012 you thought the money was going to the classroom—Jerry Brown lied. When you voted for $10 billion in bonds for Arnold, to be spent on roads—he spent billions on global warming instead—he lied. When you see cities ask for a sales tax increase for roads—they are lying, much of that money is really going to CalPRS for the 50% mandated contribution increase.
If you are over 18 and vote you need to know one lesson—government lies.
“Finally, a pending ballot measure would raise the state’s long-standing $250,000 cap on pain and suffering damages in medical malpractice cases, but that’s obscured by wordy provisions about curbing doctors’ drug abuse and controls on overprescribing drugs – stuff that might be attractive to some voters.
Is it any wonder California voters are so cynical about their politics?”
Ballot measures have become game of hide-the-pea
By Dan Walters, San Luis Obispo Tribune, 4/27/14
Writing California ballot measures has evolved – or degenerated – into a game of hide-the-pea.
The trick is to write a measure that contains the main thing its sponsors want, but encase it in other stuff that, they hope, will sway enough inattentive voters to win approval.
Examples abound, but a classic was the 2010 ballot measure, backed by Democratic politicians and their allies, especially public employee unions, that lowered the legislative vote requirement for state budgets from two-thirds to a simple majority.
The real goal was to take minority Republicans out of the process, and allow majority Democrats to write budgets unfettered – in other words, a power play.
The pitch to voters, however, was that it would eliminate unseemly stalemates on budgets and allow them to be enacted by the constitutional deadline of June 15 each year.
To reinforce that supposed purpose, the measure contained a seemingly harsh penalty on legislators if they missed the deadline – forfeiture of pay during any delay.
The very next budget was a test.
Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed the first version as unbalanced, and Controller John Chiang cut off legislators’ pay. A new budget was hastily enacted, based on what turned out to be a fanciful expectation of $4 billion in additional revenues.
Legislators were incensed and sued Chiang, contending he acted improperly. A Superior Court judge agreed, declaring that the Legislature itself was the only judge of whether it had met the deadline, and an appellate court ratified that ruling.
Bottom line: The penalty portion of the 2010 ballot measure is, essentially, inoperative. Legislators are now free to do whatever they wish on the budget.
Seeking ways to bypass what the voters were told they were enacting is, however, not confined to the budget case.
In 2008, voters narrowly passed a $9.95 billion bond issue for a north-south bullet train, with assurances that the project would meet many specific conditions.
Last year, a Sacramento judge ruled that some of its conditions had not been met. Gov. Brown now wants appellate courts to intervene, contending that since the Legislature appropriated bond money, the conditions have been met.
It could be a ploy to make judges bear the onus for killing the unpopular project. But if Brown is serious, it continues a pattern of voters being told something to win approval of ballot measures, only to have assurances sidestepped later.
Finally, a pending ballot measure would raise the state’s long-standing $250,000 cap on pain and suffering damages in medical malpractice cases, but that’s obscured by wordy provisions about curbing doctors’ drug abuse and controls on overprescribing drugs – stuff that might be attractive to some voters.
Is it any wonder California voters are so cynical about their politics?
The 2008 Prop 1A bond was for "The Safe, Reliable High Speed Passenger Train…" Less than a decade before, an Amtrak train had derailed two locomotives and scattered 11 of 14 passenger cars, killing 11 and injuring 122 on 79 mph track when it hit a heavily-loaded truck at a grade crossing in Bourbonnais, Illinois. CHSRA plans to run on similar Caltrain 79 mph track and the talk is of raising train speed even higher. Caltrain has dozens of grade crossings. __HSR needs secure track - fenced and grade separated. HSR from Pacheco Pass should stop at San Jose, with passengers transferring there to Caltrain, Capitol Corridor and the planned BART extension beyond Berryessa. Better, safer, more reliable, and far cheaper than providing a one-seat trip for San Francisco society.
April 28, 2014 at 9:34 am
Stop squandering HSR money on Caltrain track than HSR cannot safely and reliably use.
April 28, 2014 at 9:36 am