Daily Archives: June 28, 2006

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Which way will the winds blow on Prop 73 Redux?

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As we mentioned earlier, the Prop 73 folks have gotten a repeat of their initiative from last year on the ballot.  In 2005, Schwarzenegger supported the initiative.  In 2006?  Well, no word yet:

As a pro-choice candidate with no chance of support from anti-abortion rights voters, Angelides was quick to attack “anti-choice extremists” who allied with Schwarzenegger’s “attempt to chip away at a woman’s right to choose.”

But Schwarzenegger, while an abortion rights supporter, has to deal with conservative backers who oppose abortion. While he quietly supported Proposition 73, a very similar parental notification measure defeated in November’s special election, he has taken no position on the new initiative. (SF Chronicle 6/28/06)

We know where our Pro-Choice candidate stands, Angelides is firmly against it.  Now, where does the GOP’s “Pro-Choice” Candidate stand?  The people of California just said last November that they reject this plan as dangerous to our children.  But, we’ll see how Arnold and his BushCo team read the tea leaves on this one.  Who cares about principles when you can pander to your base?

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marcy winograd, bradblog, dharma’s mom, skippy & voting townhall meeting

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(Elections for sale! Elections for sale! Diebold’s offering them up at bargain basement prices! – promoted by SFBrianCL)

cross-posted at skippy as well as a literal cornucopia of other community blogs.
skippy the bush kangaroo attended the townhall meeting for voting accountability tonight in venice, calif, hosted by the lovely bradblog, and featuring a plethora of speakers who had a strange combination of both a lot of bad news and inspiration for the 100 or so citizens who showed up.

our report after the jump:

rob cohen, documentarian of the film votergate (name change imminent…tho we kind of like “de-voted,” the crowd went for “hacked”) showed a small clip of his movie, currently in production.

in the clip, bev harris of black box voting was seen visiting patty newton, a poll worker in san diego for the recent california 50 busby-bilbray election. patty told bev that after a brief afternoon of training, the poll workers were literally handed the voting machines and told to take them home and store them there until the election a few weeks later.

patty showed bev the garage where she stored her charges, and explained that all the poll workers had to do to receive the machines that would decide the fate of san diego county’s senatorial concerns was sign a piece of paper. but don’t worry, folks, there was an official seal over each of the voting machines: a xerox of the county registrar’s seal stuck on with sticky paper. talk about security!

the lovely bradblog gave some good news: that looney tinfoil hat wearing lefty communist lou dobbs has been reporting on the widespread problems with election machines, under the banner “democracy for sale.”

as an example of the problems inherent with electronic voting, bradblog told the story of harri hursti who proved the diebold machines were hackable with the mock election held in leon county, florida, in december of 2005. 6 mock voters voted “no” and 2 voted “yes” to the question “can diebold machines be hacked via their memory card?” the voters retained their paper ballots. but when the results were run thru the optical scanner, the machine tallied the votes as 1 “yes” and 7 “no’s.” no, there’s no problem with diebold!

more problems with the san diego elections: cal. sec. of state bruce macpherson re-certified diebold machines, even tho the software contains “interpretive code,” which is strictly forbidden by section 19250 of the fec guidelines. of course, skippy has reported on macpherson’s sneaky re-certification.

next, the wonderful actress and chair of the progressive democrats of america, mimi kennedy, took the microphone (you know her as dharma’s mom). mimi warned everyone that the propaganda will start coming hard and heavy against all our efforts, such as the la times completely unsourced and citeless sunday column “the gop knows you don’t like anchovies.” mimi pointed out how incredibly difficult it would be to have accomplished, over one weekend, the voter outreach and absentee ballot distribution that the column attributed to the gop, even with a data base and plane tickets.  she warned that the media will be doling out propaganda to make voting activists depressed, and feeling as if our efforts were not worth the trouble.

but, mimi mocked the very imagery that the paper ascribes to the gop’s efforts.  “the voter vault?” she asked.  “it sounds like a superman comic book.  with dick cheney in his fortress of solitude!”

“but,” mimi concluded, “they are not invincible.  the rule of law is their kryptonite.”  she received a standing ovation.

next marci winograd, who gave jane harman a run for her money, let everyone know the “help america vote act,” the registrars of every county is obligated to hold quarterly meetings with any citizens who want to attend and ask questions (skippy plans on being at the next one for los anageles).

marci also warned against the concept of “voting early,” which is being offered in some parts of the country (for instance, here in los angeles).  tho voters are asked to believe that coming into the polling place and voting a few days early is more convenient, what they aren’t told is that the diebld tsx machines being used have a 30% failure rate.

this issue affects everyone.  during the course of the evening, bradblog played a clip of the roger hedgecock radio show he appeared on, during which ultra-conservative roger (who subs for rush) agreed 100% with bradblog, “that if we have any bedrock notion in this country, it ought to be that the votes be fully and fairly counted.”

other speakers were jeeni criscenzo, darryl issa’s upcoming opponent, who said that when someone steals a vote, they steal the essence of democracy; they’re not a thief, they are a traitor, and judy alter who told of the various lawsuits being brought against the various registrars who violate election laws.

this townhall “train,” as they so metapoorically put it, will be chugging down to san diego on wednesday, to convene at the oceanside civic center on 330 n. coast highway at 7 pm (with a rally at 6pm).  we urge anyone and everyone in so socal to go there and hear these speakers.  it will make you angry.

when all is said and done, this issue could be primarily the most important that we are facing today (even more than net neutrality).  all the blogging in the world about all the political machinations is not going to do any good for anyone if our votes are not accurately counted.  skippy international is proud and happy to stand with the blogs who insist on talking about this elephant in the room.

(at this point we must also give bradblog a big thanks for using his podium on the townhall stage to single out skippy in the crowd and plugging our humble blog as one of those working on this issue.  we are happy to do our part.  but don’t worry, skippy reciprocated by giving bradblog and bradblog’s girlfriend each a complimentary skippy tee shirt!)

we must have accountable elections, we must have methods that are auditable, we must have a process in which the entire country can trust, and most of all, we must make sure democracy is safe for future generations.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, California, Prisons

3 Strikes: The Real Problem with California’s Prisons

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(Also cross-posted at dKos and MyDD. Feel free to recommend. 😉 – promoted by SFBrianCL)

Arnold Schwarzenegger is pushing a new plan to build more prisons, saying that we “desperately” need new prison cells to accommodate our exploding prison population.

Saying that federal courts could seize control of California’s overcrowded prisons, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday called a special legislative session on the corrections system and said the state must build more lockups soon.

Schwarzenegger urged lawmakers into action less than a week after a federal court monitor sharply rebuked him for retreating from prison reforms he had promised after taking office in 2003. Some critics called the governor’s move an election-year political gimmick. (LA Times 6/27/06)

But, even with all the discussion of the prison crisis, the real cause of the problem is ignored. 

Lots, lots more on the flip…

Arnold had some specifics to his plan:

In his speech, Schwarzenegger offered a four-part plan that he said would relieve overcrowding in the nation’s largest prison system and would help more convicts stay crime-free once released.

With the inmate population at an all-time high and 16,000 inmates sleeping in gyms, hallways and even outside at one prison, the governor said California “desperately” needs more cells. He embraced a bill by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles) to use lease revenue bonds, which do not require voter approval, to build two prisons for at least $500 million apiece. And he asked for authority to expedite spending and contracting.

Schwarzenegger revived a proposal to shift 4,500 low-risk female inmates to private correctional centers closer to their homes. He also called for moving thousands of male convicts near the end of their sentences to other detention facilities, to better prepare them for success upon release — and free up prison beds. (LA Times 6/27/06)

Now, there have been many commentators on these issues citing all the various problems that have caused the prison crisis.  You know, poor planning and under construction of prisons, the fight over prison placement, and all that stuff.  Bill Bradley thinks the real problem is the battle between prison administration and the prison guard’s union (CCPOA).

Yes, we have terrible conditions in our prison.  And the battle between the union and the administration has become, to be polite, a distraction.  But all of these are really just symptoms aren’t they?  We have overcrowded prisons because we have too many prisoners.  We have locked up too many people.  In other words, the real problem is the 3 Strikes Law.

According to a 2004 report, 3 strikes accomplishes very little but costs a great deal.  A summary of the 3 part report that the Justice Policy Institute Published:

1. 3 Strikes has significantly contributed to an increase in California’s prison population. (Still Striking Out)
2. Nearly two thirds of the second or third strikers were incarcerated for nonviolent crimes.
3. California had four times as many people incarcerated under Three Strikes as the other 21 Three Strikes states for which there were data.
4. There was no substantial link between the use of Three Strikes and declines in crime.
5. 3 Strikes disproportionately impacts African-Americans and Latinos on a statewide basis. (Racial Divide)

You can read the reports on the Justice Policy website, they are excellent resources.  But I think even if you were a conservative, you would pay attention to this number: $10.5 billion.  That’s how much 3 strikes has cost us since 1994.  Over 10 billion, which could have been used to improve our schools, preschool programs, and other necessary services, many of which would have lowered the crime rate just as effectively.  (Or if you’re a conservative, it could have gone to drowning the government in the bathtub through tax cuts.  Thanks Grover!) One of the most attractive aspects of Prop 82, the preschool initiative, was that it had the ability to reduce the crime rate.

A 1998 RAND study found the following:

Research by RAND has found that alternative crime control policies can also be more costeffective. Their 1998 report, Diverting Children from a Life of Crime: Measuring Costs and Benefits, compared the cost-effectiveness of four childhood intervention programs—home visits and early childcare; parent training; graduation incentives; and delinquent supervision —with the Three Strikes law. The results? Parent training, graduation incentives, and delinquent supervision were more cost-effective in terms of the number of serious crimes prevented per dollars expended. Graduation incentives were four times more cost-effective: while it would cost $3,881 per serious crime prevented, Three Strikes was expected to cost $16,000 per serious felony prevented. (JPI, page 20)

So, even if you are a conservative, you’d rather spend $3,881 rather than $16,000 to accomplish the same thing, right?

Wrong.  The proponents of 3 strikes used Fear® to sell this, and continue to use Fear® in the defeat of Prop 66 in 2002 that would have excepted nonviolent offenses from 3 Strikes. 

So, now we are now getting worse results by spending more money. But nobody has the courage to say this.  To challenge the “Tough on Crime”™ meme would be political suicide, so we pack our prisons full of African-Americans and Latinos.  At some point we will have to see that continually locking up more people will not be a successful program.  What is that line? 

Before the “Tough on Crime”™ meme was really going strong, there were 3 times more black men in college than in prison.  Today, there are more black men in prison than in college.  Do we need to lock up all of our minority youth before we feel safe?

So, while the governor talks about the “desperate” prison crisis, think about where the desperation really lies.  We desperately need to stop locking up large swaths of our youth.  We desperately need more funding for crime prevention programs.  We desperately need more funding for education.  We do not desperately need new prisons. 

Until we at least amend 3 strikes to exclude non-violent offenses, or preferably repeal it altogether, we should not build any new prisons.  We don’t need them.  Our artificially inflated prison population will return to reasonable levels, and we can use the money for better purposes and programs.  Purposes and programs which actually lower the crime rate.