California Propositions 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97 vs. Lies

Ok, so it is time for another round of lies. Some things don't seem to change. Instead of including the text here, I suggest that you go to the CA voter's guide (link below).

It amazing at what is allowed on radio and TV, especially regarding the propositions. It seems that truth and reality need not apply to the advertising. Perhaps they think that they can spew forth lies and people will believe those lies instead of reading the voter's guide on it. Some are far worse than others though.

Most of this can be cleared up if you just read the voter's guide. Please read the voter's guide and if you still don't understand, then go searching for other places to get information. One thing that I have found is that the rebuttals are the quickest way to figure out where each side is coming from. Some are quite funny when you read what they say, often just appealling to emotions, rather than logic and facts.

Please don't just believe what I say here and certainly don't believe the ads, but instead read the voter's guide and make an informed decision.

The descriptions in red are from the state web site.

For online information you can check out: http://www.smartvoter.org

The official state site for the voter guide: http://www.voterguide.ss.ca.gov/

Disclaimer: I have received no money from anyone, although I am willing to accept money, but it will not change my views. These comments are solely my views, based on the voter's guide and the commericials I have seen.

This looks like the only reasonable Proposition on the ballot unless I am missing something. It looks like it prevents the money which is supposed to go to transportation to be used for other things, which in part will make it harder for the polititians from trying to push for more tax increases for transportation. Typically, there will be a push for a tax increase for specific items, but in reality the general funding is reduced or the money is misdirected.

Establishes independent community college districts and Board of Governors. Requires minimum funding for schools and community colleges to be calculated separately. Sets fees at $15/unit and limits future increases.

This commercials for this is quite interesting. They say that there is no tax increase, but that is like creating a Proposition which gives every resident in California $1 Million Dollars and that there is no tax increase. While there is no tax increase in the Proposition, there is also NO means of paying for it. So that means that there is a hidden tax increase since the money has to come from somewhere.

This is one of the biggest frauds in quite some time. Look to see which polititians are going to be term limited out unless this passes and decide if they need more time to learn the ropes. Obviously, they have already learned how to scam people and this Proposition is just a means to stay on the public dole without having to work harder to find some other office to try to run for.

Even worse than that, this grandfathers the existing critters in office so that the limits don't apply to them. This means that the current critters in office can stay many years longer than anyone else can.

It this passes it will say that the people of this state are complete fools.

This is a fun one. Voting either way can send the wrong message. Some of the commericials against this say that you should vote against it because there is no guaranteed funding for schools. Why is it that people in education think that there should be guaranteed funding from every Proposition?

The commercials for this claim that we need this money so that we don't have to raise taxes. Well, reducing spending would be a better idea than counting on people to gamble. Do we really need to have more gambling in this state? Then, look at how little money this really brings in. The ads are a bit deceptive in telling people how much money it will mean. Instead of giving the yearly amount, they give the total over many years.

It would be nice if you could vote neither for or against these, but I guess the safest is to vote against it.

This measure seems pretty simple. The people voted that the taxes for a specific item should go to that item. There was a means by bypassing that in times of need, but the government always needs and so uses the money by means of a loophole and does not use the money for the intended purpose.

Ok, so I am grouping all these items together because they fall into the same thing basically. I love the claims that these measures won't include your taxes, but the problem is that a bond issue is just like charging items on your credit card and not paying off the balance when the bill comes due. Money does not grow on trees and instead of just paying for these things, it will cost us just about DOUBLE!!! For Prop. 1B, the principal is $19.9 billion amd the interest is $19 billion. Prop 1C: $6.1 billion to pay off principal of $2.85 billion, which is $3.3 billion in interest. Prop 1D: $20.3 billion to pay off principal of $10.4 billion, which is $9.9 billion in interest. Prop 1E: $8 billion to pay off principal of $4.1 billion, which is 3.9 billion. Prop 84: $10.5 billion to pay off principal of $5.4 billion, which is $5.1 billion in interest.

That is $41.2 BILLION DOLLARS!!!! Just where do you think that money is going to come from? If they don't raise taxes, then it will result is cuts in services, which typically occurs for police and fire services since they know that people will vote for tax increases for those services and not all their perks!!!

If these things were really important, why wouldn't it just come from the current taxes we are paying? It is a bad idea to put things on credit cards and waste all our money paying interest.

This is an interesting one. Increasing the penalties for violent and habitual sex offenders and child molesters seems like a good idea. Perhaps we should skip all the steps and just make it life in prison and be done with it.

Some of the areas are a bit of concern though. If we could be 100% sure that the person was guilty, thing would be better. In the case of spousal rape, how can you be 100% sure of what happen? If it is really rape, then the person deserves the punishment, but there have been cases where it turned out to be revenge on the person instead of rape.

This also requires a GPS device for sex offenders, which again is good in theory. It seems like there are many criminals which are being considered a sex offense though and once that is tagged on you, you can never get free.

Its back!!!

This is back from the last major election. It was Prop 73 before, so see the comments below about that as nothing has changed.

I really dislike cigarettes, well actually it is the smoke and the smell from the smoke I dislike. As much as I dislike smoking, I dislike trying to tax certain things in order to get money for other things and that is what this one is about.

Because many people dislike smoking, the people who want money for their pet projects think that cigarettes are an easy target. If all the money went towards smoking issues and smoking health care I would vote for this in a second, but that is not the case. If you vote for this, just remember that and when one of your things is taxed to pay for everything else then remember that you asked for it.

This is an interesting one. One issue with this is that the oil companies are against it and considering how much profit they have made and how the gas prices have gone up, it would be nice to get revenge on them. The problem is that it would not work that way and we would end up paying the price.

I don't have an issue with the tax, especially considering the profit the oil companies have made, but I have an issue with how the money is going to be spent, aka wasted. The ads make all sorts of promises, but the simple fact is that they can't deliver on it. I also have to wonder why Al Gore and Bill Clinton are in ads for this. The last I checked they did not live in CA. I guess they just love a tax and want to promote it.

The bottom line is that if you vote for this, it will be you and I who are going to pay for it, not the oil companies.

This is just another tax and another attack at Prop 13. We already pay a lot of money in property tax and other taxes, so why another tax?

This is another example of misdirection too. If education was really important, then it would have top priority from the general budget, but as we all know, people won't vote for taxes for the politicians perks, so create a new tax, reduce the general funding and pay for the perks.

Yet another tax, but this time it is a tax to pay for the politicians election campaigns. Instead of getting donations and allowing you to give money to who you want to give it to, they take money, via corporations, and give it to anyone who meets some conditions. If you think that this tax is not going to get passed back to consumers, there is a bridge I would like to sell you!!!

This measure came about due the the so called Supreme Court poor decision. It seems that the people on the Supreme Court can't read and don't understand that public use is far different than private profit. In New London, CT, land was taken from home owners and given to a developer in order to put up condos and other things which would result in more money to the city. This is not what the law was supposed to allow. Also, the government often takes the land and pays an amount which is less than what it is really worth.

This has happened in CA too, check out what the city of Burbank did. A theater wanted to build a new building, but did not want to lose money by closing the existing theater, so they got the city to condemn the land for other owners so that they could build a new building. Later, they removed the old building and made it a parking lot. The problem is that all the other businesses had to move so that the theater would not lose money.

I read this measure and contrary to what is claimed in the ads, I don't see any traps. What I do see is that the government is going to have to be more careful when they want to take the property of people. They will have to pay a fair amount and can only take land for public use, not profit.

It is amazing to me the way the election turned out, although it does show that people refuse to read and instead allow themselves to be lead as sheeple by whoever spends the most money and lies. One clear example in my opinion is Judge Wapner claiming that Prop 77 would be giving up power and allowing judges to make law. I would really like that explained since it looked to me to be that people would be gaining more power and control.

It will be interesting to see how the Unions do after spending all that money. Perhaps some in the Union will have a different opinion when their dues are raised to repay all the money spent.

• Amends California Constitution, prohibiting abortion for unemancipated minor until 48 hours after physician notifies minor's parent/legal guardian, except in medical emergency or with parental waiver.
• Defines abortion as causing "death of the unborn child, a child conceived but not yet born."
• Permits minor to obtain court order waiving notice based on clear, convincing evidence of minor's maturity or best interests.
• Mandates various reporting requirements.
• Authorizes monetary damages against physicians for violation.
• Requires minor's consent to abortion, with certain exceptions.
• Permits judicial relief if minor's consent coerced.

Comments:

This proposition concerns me, not because of what it addresses nor what it is about, but because it appears that it is not already the requirement, well, actually more than that should be in place. Since you can not enforce a contract with a minor, I have to wonder how or why a doctor would be able to do anything without a parent or guardian's permission. It seems like more and more the government is taking control over children, yet this seems like a means of restoring some control back to the parents.

There is an ad running which shows a mother talking and claiming that she cares about her daughter, but that she understands that not all girls can talk to her parents. She says "So I am voting no on Prop 73 because our daughter's safety comes first". This proposition allows for girls to get an abortion without talking to her parents, but there are restrictions and permission needs to be given, not just the doctor deciding. Another thing is that not all doctors are created equal. Do you think that a minor female is going to have the funds to afford the best doctor? Or do you think that low bid will win? This means that the girl might get poor medical care, which could cause her death. After such a procedure, if there is no one watching out to make sure there are no problems, the girl could die due to complications. If parents really put safety first, then they would vote for this as it is the only way to know what is happening to their daughters and have the ability to protect their daughters.

• Increases length of time required before a teacher may become a permanent employee from two complete consecutive school years to five complete consecutive school years.
• Measure applies to teachers whose probationary period commenced during or after the 2003-2004 fiscal year.
• Modifies the process by which school boards can dismiss a permanent teaching employee who receives two consecutive unsatisfactory performance evaluations.

Comments:

Again, one has to wonder why things are the way that they are. Even before this proposition I have heard about bad teachers and the inability of schools to get rid of them. The Unions don't care about quality teachers, they just want to protect the jobs of the teachers in order to get money from them. It should not be that hard to fire a bad teacher, especially when starting out since they don't have a track record. In reading this proposition I don't see anything which is unreasonable, in fact it seems that it should already be that way.

The against side complains that it takes away a right to a hearing before a teacher is dismissed, but how many people employed have that right? It is a bit deceptive too since in order to dismiss a teacher there has to be two unsatisfactory reviews of the teacher. Isn't that a good enough warning?

Getting rid of bad teachers help the good teachers since it means that the bad teachers will be replaced with good teachers and therefore there will be less issues with students who have had bad teachers.

• Prohibits the use by public employee labor organizations of public employee dues or fees for political contributions except with the prior consent of individual public employees each year on a specified written form.
• Restriction does not apply to dues or fees collected for charitable organizations, health care insurance, or other purposes directly benefitting the public employee.
• Requires public employee labor organizations to maintain and submit records to Fair Political Practices Commission concerning individual public employees and organizations political contributions.
• These records are not subject to public disclosure.

Comments:

This has to be one proposition which has many lies associated with the against crowd. In the voter's guide the information is quite short, mainly because it is quite simple. The against crowd is outright lying when they claim this is about shutting them up and preventing them from expressing their views. Reading the information on this makes it clear. The Unions have to get permission in advance before they can spend the money. I have to wonder why the Unions would be so upset about having to get permission first, as that seems reasonable. One per year they need to get a form filled out, which would be easy to do. I suspect what the Unions fear is that their members will not fill out the form because they don't agree with what the Unions are spending the money on with respect to political issues.

What is funny is that the Unions complain that corporations are not limited, yet either they forget or just choose to decieve people since the money in a corporation does not come from the employees. It is comparing apples and oranges. You just need to think of where the money comes from.

The against also say that people are not forced to join a union, but the fact is that the people are still forced to pay the money.

Also, one of the main things is that this only involved forced contributions and not voluntary donations. I heard on the radio that the Unions are spending a lot of money fighting this, to the point of perhaps going bankrupt. I am not sure of what happens when a Union goes bankrupt and whether that means the members would need to pay more money to deal with it or if something else happens, but in anycase it is not good.

One commercial against this is claiming that you can not even trust what you read about this since it is really something else. It seems clear that they want to make people think that even the written voter guide does not tell you the truth about this. In part, they are trying for a guilt by association to try to convince people to not vote for this. This is deceptive, to say the least.

Personally I think that most things should be this way, including any privacy disclosures from banks and other companies. A person should not have to opt-out, it should be that they have to opt-in if they want to take part.

• Limits state spending to prior years level plus three previous years average revenue growth.
• Changes state minimum school funding requirements (Proposition 98); eliminates repayment requirement when minimum funding suspended.
• Excludes appropriations above the minimum from schools funding base.
• Directs excess General Fund revenues, currently directed to schools/tax relief, to budget reserve, specified construction, debt repayment.
• Permits Governor, under specified circumstances, to reduce appropriations of Governors choosing, including employee compensation/state contracts.
• Continues prior year appropriations if state budget delayed.
• Prohibits state special funds borrowing.
• Requires payment of local government mandates.

Comments:

I have seen many ads which present things which don't seem to hold up when you read the voter's guide. This proposition seems to be intended to force the state to live within its means, rather than the constant spending and borrowing and tax increases. One claim is that this upset the balance of power, yet the proposition says that the legislature can override what the governor does by a 2/3s vote. This says to me that there is still a balance of power and ensures that the money being spent is far more in line with the will of the people, rather than the typical pork barrel spending. The polititians can hide that they voted for the pork barrel stuff, so they can get away with it. This gives the governor the ability to cut the spending.

When one side lies, you have to question everything that they say and it seems clear to me that those against this are lying and trying to decieve people in my opinion.

Part of the problem with our government is that there is so much waste, yet no one wants to admit that. Instead the schools want more and more money, without having to have results and without having to clean house. Because the administrators control the money, their focus is not on teaching, but what they can get away with. At one community college I attended, the administrators said that they could not work without air conditioning, yet they did not see the need to provide that for the classrooms in which were crowded with people. It is hard to teach and learn in a hot and stuffy room. The first priority should be to teaching, not the fat cat administrators and their perks.

An ad is running which claims that child immunization will be at risk, yet in the commercial the woman erases it as if it will be gone. Read the proposition and see that while the governer would be able to reduce the budget, the legistature would be able to restore anything with a 2/3s vote. It is about living within the state's means.

I also have to wonder about all the waste in the schools. I have heard that over 50% of the budget for California goes to schools. Consider all that is done in California with the other half. Why is it that the schools need so much money? Where are the results for the money? Personally I think that an audit needs to be done for all the schools and get rid of the waste. I suspect then we would have more than enough money for the schools, as well as many other things.

• Amends process for redistricting Californias Senate, Assembly, Congressional and Board of Equalization districts.
• Requires panel of three retired judges, selected by legislative leaders, to adopt new redistricting plan if measure passes and after each national census.
• Panel must consider legislative, public comments/hold public hearings.
• Redistricting plan effective when adopted by panel and filed with Secretary of State; governs next statewide primary/general elections even
• if voters reject plan. If voters reject redistricting plan, process repeats, but officials elected under rejected plan serve full terms.
• Allows 45 days to seek judicial review of adopted redistricting plan.

Comments:

Who could be against this? While it might not be the best way to determine the districts, it is far better than the current method in my opinion. Currently the wolves (foxes is the typical animal used, but I think wolves are more accurate) are in charge of the henhouse and create the districts to their own liking. Only when there are enough of one party in power can they change the districts, but they certainly don't do what is in the best interest of the people, but in their own power interests.

Well, they have brought out Judge Wapner from the People's Court to spew their false messages. Personally, I got the impression that Judge Wapner was not all that rational towards the latter time on the People's Court. In this ad Judge Wapner claims that judges should not make law, which is quite true, but Proposition 77 does not have the retired judges making law. I am not sure of where he gets such a thing, perhaps he is seeing things. He also claims that this Proposition is taking power away from the people, but in my opinion this is an outright lie on his part. We, the people, do not have the power to define the districts. This proposition takes the control out of the political realm and give more power and control to the people. In part, the people would get to vote on the districts, which is certainly not happening now. Perhaps Judge Wapner has never heard of gerrymandering.

Read the voter's guide and see the truth. Then wonder why false statements are needed to try to convince people to vote against this. This may not be the best thing, but it is a step in the right direction in my opinion to take control of the henhouse from the wolves.

• Establishes discount prescription drug program, overseen by California Department of Health Services.
• Enables certain low- and moderate-income California residents to purchase prescription drugs at reduced prices.
• Authorizes Department: to contract with participating pharmacies to sell prescription drugs at agreed-upon discounts negotiated in advance; to negotiate rebate agreements with participating drug manufacturers.
• Imposes $15 annual application fee.
• Creates state fund for deposit of drug manufacturers rebate payments.
• Requires Departments prompt determination of residents eligibility, based on listed qualifications.
• Permits outreach programs to increase public awareness.
• Allows program to be terminated under specified conditions.

Comments:

This one gets a bit more complicated, but when you look at the advertising and see that the big drug companies are behind this one, you have to wonder who it helps the most. One thing that they say is that Prop. 79 will mean that California will not get year end rebates. I don't know about you, but I hate rebates. I would rather have a lower price upfront then a promise of money down the road.

I suspect that this proposition is an attempt to derail proposition 79. Remember, the number is assigned when they get enough signatures and submit it to the state, not which came first.

Even if both 78 and 79 get a majority of votes, only the one which gets the most votes will take effect.

• Provides for prescription drug discounts to Californians who qualify based on income-related standards, to be funded through rebates from participating drug manufacturers negotiated by California Department of Health Services.
• Prohibits new Medi-Cal contracts with manufacturers not providing the Medicaid best price to this program, except for drugs without therapeutic equivalent.
• Rebates must be deposited in State Treasury fund, used only to reimburse pharmacies for discounts and to offset costs of administration.
• At least 95% of rebates must go to fund discounts.
• Establishes oversight board. Makes prescription drug profiteering, as described, unlawful.

Comments:

While in some respects this seems good, there is the issue of allowing attornies to sue for prices being too high or profits unreasonable. This would not be too bad, except you know who wins, the attornies. The average citizen will not see a dime of that money and most likely will have to pay more to deal with the lawsuits. Sometimes the cure can be worse than the disease and it seems like this might be the case with this one. While the big drug companies are against this, which speaks well of it, that does not mean that it would be a good thing.

• Subjects electric service providers, as defined, to control and regulation by California Public Utilities Commission.
• Imposes restrictions on electricity customers ability to switch from private utilities to other electric providers.
• Provides that registration by electric service providers with Commission constitutes providers consent to regulation.
• Requires all retail electric sellers, instead of just private utilities, to increase renewable energy resource procurement by at least 1% each year, with 20% of retail sales procured from renewable energy by 2010, instead of current requirement of 2017.
• Imposes duties on Commission, Legislature and electrical providers.

Comments:

I am not sure on this one, but when you force quota for things, even for renewable electricity, it causes problems when it is not reasonable to do so and so often ends up with higher prices. Some of the claims of Prop. 80 just don't seem reasonable to me. Feel good wishes don't make it true or able to really be done. When there are not concrete ways that the claims can be done, it seems to me to best to not vote for it.

If you want to see what others are recommending, you can check out the following links: