Just a short note as I’m quite busy today, but I did want to stress how important tomorrow’s election is.  Please do what you can to help defeat Arnold’s Propositions.

Don’t let Arnold Proposition You!

Oh, and check out another animation which I somehow forgot to mention: http://www.electionwatchdog.org It’s another funny one, Arnold tries to convince Minerva about the wisdom of his brilliant propositions.  I’ll leave the ending to the cartoon…

Arnold’s redistricting proposition, Prop. 77, has brought together some very disparate groups and politicians.  Redistricting NEEDS a reformation process, but 77 is the wrong way to go about it.  It would lead to the possibility of voters using several different maps, with massive headaches ensuing if the first map doesn’t pass.  Now, the reasons aren’t always consistent, but a wide range of politicians have come out against Prop 77.  Notable names include Hillary Clinton, Dick Armey (yes, the former GOP Majority Leader), and Nancy Pelosi.

Lest you doubt me on the Dick Armey count: From National Journal’s Hotline (subscription required)

Ex-Maj. Leader Dick Armey (R) also sends a
letter, urging no votes on 77. Armey: “By voting for
Proposition 77, you may actually be voting to put
Congress back in the hands of liberal Democrats”
(Hotline sources, 11/3).

Now, unsuprisingly, Armey is only concerned about getting warm conservative butts in House seats.  What Armey is likely insinuating is a reference to Ohio’s Reform Ohio Now.  While Prop 77 would likely mean a slight pickup of seats for the GOP, Ohio’s redistricting would likely yield up to 5 new Democrat seats.  Armey and many other GOP leaders are concerned about this.  Who isn’t? Arnold.  He officialy supports Reform Ohio Now.

And as for Ms. Pelosi? Well, that boils down to the “No on 77” Committee’s advertising on a GOP slate card. From Capitol Weekly:

A new slate mailer produced by the Citizens for
Good Government urges GOPers to vote yes on 3 of
Schwarzenegger’s initiatives, but not Prop 77
(redistricting). The No on 77 cmte contributed which
has $610K to the mailer, with only $50K coming from
other groups. House Min. Leader Nancy Pelosi (D)
herself has donated $25K to the No on 77 cmte, “and
helped corral donations from” other Dem Reps. No on 77
spokesperson Stephanie Williamson: “We are a committee
for No on 77 and our main concern is defeating
Proposition 77. We are trying to exercise the most
effective means to doing that.” Asked if that means a
Dem-funded cmte “is willing to subsidize a mailer”
urging GOP votes on other initiatives: “I wouldn’t say
we paid for it. I would say we bought on to that
slate.”
 From the mailer: “Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger’s Reform Agenda will bring a breath of
fresh air to Sacramento. … Arnold deserves our
thanks and gratitude. But Republicans should fear 3
randomly selected volunteer retired judges (with
political prejudices) having all the power. No on
Proposition 77!!”

In the election post-mortem we need to look into the question of whether our resources were being used in the most efficient manner and that our efforts were integrated to a sufficient manner.  Helping to support some of the propisitions while harming others seems a little counter to our best interests.

The USA Today published a story describing the Wal-mart connection to the Governator:

SAN FRANCISCO — Wal-Mart (WMT) and its founding Walton family have emerged as big backers of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, giving about $1 million in the past year
***
Wal-Mart and the Waltons now rank No. 15 on its list of the 100 biggest donors to Schwarzenegger-controlled campaign committees, says the Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights, a non-partisan government watchdog group.

And why might the Waltons and Wal-Mart want to give so much money to Ahnold’s campaign committee’s?  Oh, yeah, because they get a nice quid pro quo…

First, Ahnold vetoed a bill which would require release of statistics about forcing labor onto public assistance:

One union-backed bill, which Schwarzenegger vetoed early in October, would have forced the state to disclose names of companies whose workers get government health services meant for poor residents.

So, Wal-Mart doesn’t want the citizens of California to know about the way they treat their workers and how many of them are being subsidized by the state.  There have been several stories about that issue, including a story about Wal-mart contributing to the bankruptcy of Tenn-Care, Tennessee’s Medicaid program. This practice allows Wal-mart to subsidize their business by raising costs for the state.  Thus, their prices are not so cheap after all.  

Ahnold then vetoed another anti-Walmart bill:  

A second bill, vetoed last year, would have stopped employers from locking workers inside workplaces — a policy Wal-Mart has when employees stock shelves and clean floors after closing hours.

The bills reflect issues creating a public relations nightmare for the USA’s biggest private employer, with 1.3 million workers, as it expands in California, the USA’s biggest market. Critics including Wake-Up Wal-Mart accuse it of endangering workers by locking them in stores, and of reducing its health care costs at taxpayer expense.

In other words, Wal-Mart is putting the lives of their employees at risk in order to save a few bucks.  Now, I know that’s not a huge surprise, but this practice is an egregious violation of both personal dignity and decent working conditions.  Apparently, Ahnold is really opposed to the idea of…uh…shoplifting?  Well, maybe, or perhaps it could be this:

The Wal-Mart and Walton political gifts appear in new public campaign finance documents. They show that the same day Schwarzenegger vetoed the health care disclosure bill — Oct. 7 — his California Recovery Team logged a $250,000 gift from Christy Walton. She is the widow of John Walton, a Wal-Mart director who died four months ago. In the next three weeks, the Schwarzenegger-backed Proposition 77 campaign got $250,000 from Wal-Mart Chairman Rob Walton and $100,000 from Wal-Mart. Those gifts and others followed $200,000 to the Recovery Team last year from John Walton about two weeks after Schwarzenegger vetoed the lock-in bill.

This is just another example of Ahnold’s devotion to the special interests.

( – promoted by SFBrianCL)

A new PPIC poll comes out tomorrow.  There’s a summary of the poll at the LA Times:

A new poll to be released Friday by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California is expected to show that Schwarzenegger’s ballot propositions have made no appreciable gains in recent weeks, despite heavy TV advertising by the governor.

None is drawing support from a majority of likely voters.

Well, here here to that!  That is great news.  PPIC is generally far more reliable than S-USA, and apparently, Stanford. But here’s some specific good news.  

Prop 75

And the fate of one measure, the anti-union Proposition 75, now seems a tossup after having been favored by a 25-point margin only two months ago.

The importance of defeating Prop 75 can not be underestimated.  It’s a vile wretch of a proposition that would require massive new efforts from labor organizers, essentially silencing most unions.  And in return, what do we get for that? Well, “paycheck protection” of course.  Not that employees already have the option of opting-out or anything.  It essentially takes the voice away from workers while allowing the corporations to go on singing.  Now, on Monday, Ahnold announced that he intended to support a bill which required express permission of stockholders for corporations to give money to political causes.  I’ll believe that when I see it.

It’s coming down to the wire now.  I’ll follow up with the PPIC poll tomorrow.

( – promoted by SFBrianCL)

It turns out Phil Angelides is running a funny campaign.  Now, not that bad kind of funny, I mean actually funny.  His campaign put out a cartoon mocking the Governator called Arnold’s Neighborhood, playing off Sesame Street.

And speaking of Funny, the Governor himself is quite the jokester!  At the beginning of yesterday’s town hall meeting, The Governator’s sound was having some issues. Perhaps, but it also could have been some planned joke, that we’ll never know.  Anyway, Ahnold joked that “it must be Perata somewhere in the back messing with my sound.”  Yet another helpful comment from the man who was going to work with both parties.

And on to the meeting itself.  I recorded it and was going to stream some clips, but FOX 2 took care of that for me. They’ve provided a page with links to several clips.  Hopefully it will be up until the election is over.  A classic line from Ahnold: “I’m not smart enough to understand all of this and the history of all this.” in reference to Prop. 74’s requirement for 5 year teacher tenure.

In my estimation, Perata won this debate.  However, Ahnold’s star power still has some strange hold over Repuplicans that I can’t really understand.  Polls are all over the place, so who knows how the Propositions are doing.  It was nice, though, to have an informed discussion about the special election.  It would have been better to have both Perata and Ahnold on stage at the same time, but I’m guessing Ahnold’s handlers wouldn’t have any of that.

(As I said, all 77, all the time – promoted by SFBrianCL)

Not that it should really affect the outcome either way, but there was an article in the LA Times about the actual nuts and bolts of getting the state ready for Prop 77.  However, I think the more important part comes later (see the bold)

It’s hellacious for us,” said Stephen L. Weir, Contra Costa County registrar. “The rules under which we’d have to operate are pretty much impossible.”

Proposition 77 would require three retired judges to redraw California’s political districts “for use at the next statewide primary and general elections,” presumably June and November 2006.

The drawing of new districts wouldn’t take long. Some experts say it could be done in a few days with computer mapping software.

But for the people who oversee county elections, getting new boundaries for 120 Senate and Assembly seats, 53 congressional seats and four Board of Equalization districts would merely be a first step. They would have to redraw 25,000 precincts to fit the new districts, reassign polling places and tell voters how to find them.

All of that would have to be done by March so sample ballots could be prepared and mailed before the June election. Officials probably wouldn’t get new maps until late December.

Political districts are usually redrawn by the Legislature once every decade, based on new census data, and then county officials have months to update their systems to match the maps. Opponents of Proposition 77 say that pattern should continue, because an estimated 3 million residents are new to California since lines were last drawn in 2001.

As I’ve said before, I support the concept of reform of the redistricting process (i.e. Reform Ohio Now), but how this is accomplished through Prop 77 is wrong.  However we do draw the map, whether it is through the new retired judge panel or whatever, it should be done after 2010.

UPDATE: Check out the PPIC’s more recent (and more realistic) poll.  Much better sounding for us…

A real mixed bag.  Note that the Hoover Institution is a conservative think tank on the campus of Stanford. Also Note: Knowledge Networks conducts their polling online but recruits their survey respondents using the phone.  Here’s a Press Release and here’s a PDF of the results.

A Stanford Uni./Hoover Institution poll; conducted
10/7-12 online by Knowledge Networks; surveyed 1,006 CA adults; margin of error +/- 3% (Business Wire, 10/18. Subsample: 459 likely voters; margin of error +/- 4.4%.

Schwarzenegger As Gov.?
 LVs All
Approve  37% 31%
Disapprove  51  59

That’s real standard Ahnold approval now.

As for the props:

PROPOSITION 73 — Parental Notification
 All GOP Dem Ind
Yes  54% 76% 39% 41%
No  46  24  61  59

PROPOSITION 74 — Teachers’ Tenure
 All GOP Dem Ind
Yes  49% 78% 26% 43%
No  51  22  74  57

PROPOSITION 75 — Political Contributions
 All GOP Dem Ind
Yes  70% 86% 59% 63%
No  30  14  41  37

PROPOSITION 76 — Limit State Spending
 All GOP Dem Ind
Yes  30% 49% 16% 23%
No  70  51  84  77

PROPOSITION 77 — Redistricting
 All GOP Dem Ind
Yes  50% 70% 30% 55%
No  50  30  70  45

PROPOSITION 78 — Prescription Drugs
 All GOP Dem Ind
Yes  59% 57% 59% 64%
No  41  43  41  36

PROPOSITION 79 — Prescription Drugs
Yes  58% 62% 54% 57%
No  42  38  46  43

PROPOSITION 80 — Electric Service
 All GOP Dem Ind
Yes  37% 42% 31% 41%
No  63  58  69  59

It’s looking good on 76, but rather shaky on several others, especially 75.  We really need to focus on giving 75 a chance.  Now, the polling numbers from all the different polling companies are wildly different, but the fact remains that there is a lot of work yet to be done.