So we watched the majority of the town hall meeting last night that was supposed to have the Governor of California, the Democratic leader of California and a high ranking Union spokesperson on the same stage to discuss these propositions in the Governor's pet special election. Yes, the one where the Governor of California refused to share the stage with the other two, no, he got to wait backstage and then have the whole stage all to himself. Which meant that no one was there to refute his lies and obfuscations. It pretty much made the event a campaign event for him. Metered only by the barely contained hostility in the crowd with one question asker doing a bang up job of mocking him on live tv. To his credit though, Arnold didn't get angry at all, he responded with thanks which helps to diffuse the situation but didn't really contain the overwhelmingly negative tension in the room.
And Arnold used that stage to pimp himself again and again. He didn't answer questions, he pontificated, he went over his campaign points, he ignored pointed questions and talked about the things he wanted to.
Here's Arnold Schwarzenegger's reply to pretty much everything he was asked "I was sent to Sacramento to get it done and we're going to get it done." No mention of how, no mention of the steps to be taken, just his word that it will get done.
He has no answers, he only has one thing "Give me more power to do as I wish, to redraw districts, to cut budgets without any oversight whatsoever, to make it easy to fire teachers.
I heard absolutely nothing from the Governor that makes me have even the slightest inclination to support any of his propositions. I don't trust him at all, he's rude asshole governor and an embarrassment to the state.
But let's take a walk down through his pet propositions and diffuse them one by one, shall we? Tough, we shall.
Prop 74: Teacher Tenure
Basically this prop makes it easier to teachers to be fired. On the face of it, it seems to make sense to make it more difficult to achieve tenure but schools with shorter tenure actually score better than those with longer tenure tracks and there are already systems in place to remove bad teachers from the system.
No on Prop 74.
Prop 75: Union Dues
A complete waste of time, the Governor wants union members to explicitly approve or disapprove of the use of union dues for re-election campaigns. Add a check box on the union membership application form and its done. Move on. And why would the governor be interested in making it harder for union leaders to get re-elected? Oh, because that makes it easier to push unions around? Of course.
No on Prop 75.
Prop 76: The California Live Within Our Means Act
From BuyBlue, "Prop 76 would end the guarantees of minimum school funding for K-14 provided by Prop 98, and allow the Governor to declare a state of financial emergency. That declaration would allow him to amend the state budget as he saw fit It would limit state spending increases to a set percentage, and would authorize a massive reallocation of funding for education that is now guaranteed whenever the General Fund is in surplus."
Basically, Prop 76 is the powergrab of all powergrabs. This prop would give Schwarzenegger carte blanche to cut any programs he chooses to, this proposition cuts through all of the checks and balances in place and puts the state budget into one single person's control. One. That's not a democracy, that's a monarchy or dictatorship.
No, No, NO, NO, NO on Prop 76.
Prop 77: Redistricting
Another end around attempt by the Governor to redraw the state more to his liking. More to his party's liking in another attempt to grab power. There's a system in place to draw districts and a back up system but the Governor wants a panel of retired judges (no mention of who selects them but I'm betting its the Governor himself) redrawing districts in some bullshit attempt at impartiality. Judges aren't impartial, just because they're judges doesn't mean they don't have serious political beliefs and leanings and affiliations. Those three judges would become enormously powerful instantly. Did I mention that there's already a system in place for redistricting that works fine and has substantially better checks and balances? Yeah, there is and it doesn't need to be changed.
No on Prop 77
Really the best guideline for how to vote is how much does Arnold Schwarzenegger want it? If he's for it then you can rest assured that it does not benefit you or me or anyone else you know. It benefits the Republican Party and Big Business, not California and Californians.
Vote against all the propositions the Governor wants and then vote against the Governor himself in the next election because we really can't afford many more years of his total assholery in office. He's a liar, a fraud and a disgusting excuse for a human being. He's blaming cops, firefighters, teachers and nurses for our problems and trying to take more from them instead of going after the real problems, the big companies raping the hell out of our state.
Tags: special election, Proposition 74, Proposition 75, Proposition 76, Proposition 77, Vote No on Arnold
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