Maven Has Some Propositions For You

September 24, 2008

Proposition 1: YES. High Speed Rail. I firmly believe that rail is our future. Marin and Sonoma counties need to connect to the Bay Area via BART and California needs to be connected statewide via high speed rail. Californians need the freedom to adapt to economic conditions and find work where work develops without driving for 2 hours or more everyday. This system can be an important start in converting our state from a state built around cars to a state built around rail and public transportation. Our airports cannot expand enough to handle all the traffic and we wouldn’t want an expansion of air traffic anyway due to the huge carbon footprint it creates. I believe that the 9.9 Billion dollars (lets just round up to 10 billion or 20 billion as you know there will be cost overruns) is a necessary investment. When it is all over the 700 mile 200 mph rail system will cost around 30 billion, but for that cost we will be connecting San Diego to Sacramento to the San Francisco Bay Area, and everywhere in between. Plus Howard Jarvis is against it and since they tried to ram Prop 98 down our throats last election you just cannot trust them.

Proposition 2: YES. Treatment of Farm Animals. If you tether farm animals you need to give them enough room to extend their limbs or wings, sit down, stand up, and turn around. Exceptions are made for transporting animals, lawful slaughter, rodeos, veternary and research purposes, and 4-H. This isn’t the law already? One doesn’t have to belong to PETA to know that this is an easy YES vote.

Proposition 3: YES. Children’s Hospital Bond. This is a 980 million dollar bond measure to build, expand, furnish, equip, and renovate childrens’ hospitals in the state. 80% of the funds would go to facilities that treat leukemia, cancer, diabetes, heart defects, sickle cell anemia, and cystic fibrosis. 20% would go to the University of California acute care. This bond requires that such hospitals provide comprehensive services to high volume of children eligible for governmental services.

Proposition 4: NO. Waiting Period and Parental Notification.
“Amends California Constitution to prohibit abortion for unemancipated minor until 48 hours after physician notifies minor’s parent, legal guardian or, if parental abuse reported, an adult family member. Provides exceptions for medical emergency or parental waiver. Permits courts to waive notice based on clear and convincing evidence of minor’s maturity or best interests. Mandates reporting requirements, including reports from physicians regarding abortions on minors. Authorizes monetary damages against physicians for violation. Requires minor’s consent to abortion, with exceptions. Permits judicial relief if minor’s consent is coerced. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Potential unknown net state costs of several million dollars annually for health and social services programs, court administration, and state health agency administration combined.”
It has been shown that the vast amount of minors seeking abortions do tell their parents and do obtain abortions with parents’ approval. In fact, it is usually the parents who urge abortion for their daughters as our society sees out-of-wedlock pregnancy as a burden on society that will ruin their daughter’s life. There are young girls who for whatever circumstances cannot tell their parents about their pregnancies and cannot go to a judge or governmental agency to gain approval for an abortion. A physician may be the only person a young woman can turn to and if they cannot trust a doctor to help them, they will either take things into their own hands to terminate the pregnancy or hide the pregnancy and dump the infant somewhere. This proposition does not care about the safety of young women, but is merely a ruse to interject government into the most private of personal decisions and undermine our state constitutional right to privacy. It forces government to practice medicine without a license. If people want to prevent abortions, they should support young pregnant women who have children out-of-wedlock and change society’s harsh attitudes toward young women who parent while poor.
As a parent, I would want to know if my child is in a hospital, but I would not want my child not to seek out help if he felt that he could not come to us. The most important thing is the health and welfare of our children.

Proposition 5:YES. Sentencing, Parole, and Rehabilitation of Non-Violent Offenders. Reduces sentences and parole for non-violent drug offenders. Changes certain Marijuana offenses from misdemenor to an infraction and reduces the consequences of non-violent drug offenses through dismissal and sealing of records. Increases the ability to provide drug rehabilitation. We cannot keep building prisons to hold all the drug offenders and prisons should be reserved for violent criminals and sex offenders. Say YES to rolling back the war on drugs, vote YES on Prop 5.

Proposition 6: NO. Criminal Penalties. “Requires new state spending on various programs to combat crime and gangs, and to operate prison and parole systems. Increases penalties for several crimes, including violating gang injunctions, using or possessing to sell methamphetamine, or carrying loaded or concealed firearms by certain felons. Eliminates bail for illegal immigrants charged with violent or gang-related felonies, establishes crime for removing or disabling a monitoring device affixed as part of a criminal sentence, and changes evidence rules to allow use of certain hearsay statements as evidence when witnesses are unavailable. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Net state costs likely to exceed a half billion dollars annually primarily for increased funding of criminal justice programs, as well as for increased costs for prison and parole operations. Unknown one-time state capital outlay costs potentially exceeding a half billion dollars for prison facilities. Unknown net fiscal impact for state trial courts, county jails, and other local criminal justice agencies.“

I just don’t like it as it seems to be a windfall for the Prison Industrial Complex. As much as I find meth, gangs, and weapons a negative influence on society, I don’t like the idea of changing the evidence rules to allow hearsay as it can and will be abused by overzealous police and prosecutors.

Proposition 7: NO. Renewable Energy. Renewable energy development is absolutely essential for the future of California. Yet, this proposition is opposed by most if not all environmental groups. The legislation would cut out the small mom and pop renewable energy providers, which doesn’t make sense.

Proposition 8: NO. Marriage Amendment. I said it before and I will say it again — gay and lesbian couples are tax paying, law biding citizens and deserve equal rights, including marriage rights. Gay and Lesbian couples should be able to go to their local county offices and be treated equally to straight citizens. Anything else is anti-American and certainly anti-Californian. Prop 8 is just outsiders trying to stir stuff up where they do not belong. This needs to be defeated.

Proposition 9: NO. No one wants to be against victims’ rights, but this legislation goes too far and would overburden our already overburdened courts by notifying victims on every development. There are already notifications in place and courts need to enforce those that are on the books. If they fail to notify under current law, they will certainly fail under a situation where more notification is required.

Proposition 10: NO. Like Proposition 7, Proposition 10 sounds good, but looking at the details of this thing it is difficult to support this. The problem is that the proposition favors natural gas vehicles over hybrid plug ins that I feel are the future. I believe in government financial incentives to get people out of their gas guzzling cars and into clean and fuel efficient cars — especially the plug-in hybrids that are coming in 2010.

Proposition 11: NO. Proposition 11 is yet another republican scheme to change the way we redistrict California. This time it is a commission of 14 registered voters who have volunteered to be on it and selected by a review panel of state auditors whom have been selected by the California State Auditor. There would be 5 dems, 5 republicans, and 4 from other parties or independents. This scheme has the potential to disenfranchise a great number of Californians. I am not sure republicans have earned the right to have anything to do with redistricting as everything they damage everything they touch. Republicans completely screwed up Texas, why should we trust them here.
Proposition 12: YES. 900 Billion in bonds will finance low interest loans for our veterans. According to supporters, the program will pay for itself including debt service. If the monthly payments do not cover costs, taxpayers may get exposed. We have exposed our veterans to far more horrific risks, it seems to me that this is the least we can do. My only concern is that the system is set up so it is truly affordable to vets without any hidden language.

I welcome people to counter or add to the discussion of these propositions. This is an important election on so many levels.

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