What a damn waste
So it looks like every single proposition has failed. That was what, $250 million? For nothing? The funny thing is I'm not sure if this was more of a referendum on Arnold or on the Prop system, but I certainly don't think it was a referendum on the actual props on the table.
I don't mind sticking it to Arnold, I don't think he was ever qualified and I'm glad people are realizing that. I also don't really appreciate his attempts to bypass the legislature and govern almost entirely through propositions. This is especially true with regards to his super-shady budget powers idea. But really I see that as the symptom of a larger problem.
The prop system in California is thoroughly broken. What was intended as a means for the disenfranchised to take their case straight to voters has become a means for the incredibly wealthy to bypass the legislature, sort of the opposite of its intent. Meanwhile, half the shit we're asked to vote on we don't understand. That's why we HAVE a legislature. We elect those people to make it their full time job to understand these things so we don't have to. It's a "representative" democracy! I'm not sure what it is, but something seriously needs to get reworked here. Maybe if we vote down every prop that comes our way someone will actually start thinking about how to fix the system.
I don't mind sticking it to Arnold, I don't think he was ever qualified and I'm glad people are realizing that. I also don't really appreciate his attempts to bypass the legislature and govern almost entirely through propositions. This is especially true with regards to his super-shady budget powers idea. But really I see that as the symptom of a larger problem.
The prop system in California is thoroughly broken. What was intended as a means for the disenfranchised to take their case straight to voters has become a means for the incredibly wealthy to bypass the legislature, sort of the opposite of its intent. Meanwhile, half the shit we're asked to vote on we don't understand. That's why we HAVE a legislature. We elect those people to make it their full time job to understand these things so we don't have to. It's a "representative" democracy! I'm not sure what it is, but something seriously needs to get reworked here. Maybe if we vote down every prop that comes our way someone will actually start thinking about how to fix the system.
3 Comments:
So long as the state is as sensible as yesterday, I kind of agree with Alex about the prop system. Then again, I don't necessarily trust my fellow citizens to be as informed as they should be.
It cost lots of dollars, but I'm pretty happy that all 8 props went down in flames. The system... works? Whoa.
My favorite irony in all this is that unions will probably have to up dues to pay for all the member money they spent to defend their ability to spend member money in the first place.
I like the prop system, though. I *don't* trust representatives to make decisions in my best interest. I'd rather vote every year on props and live in a neo-direct democracy than hope Arnold and Fabian Nunez can but together some lame-o compromise on drivers licenses for illegals.
What I ultimately take away from this is not so much that the Special Election was a waste, but that the entire recall was waste.
Hey, CA! You recalled Gray Davis and elected Schwarzenegger to go in there and shake things up; to change the way CA works by fundamentally altering the Legislature's inability to get anything done because it's so overwhelmingly in debt to status quo unions. You finally get the chance to change the very things you hated in 2003 and... you bitch and moan.
I may be ready for direct democracy everytime all the time, but the people sure ain't.
I like the prop system in concept, but seriously we just shouldn't be voting on stuff that the average voter won't understand. Legislation can be REALLY complicated and like I said, we have representatives specifically so that they can spend their time understanding it.
And Alex, I would mention that people weren't sick of Unions, they were sick fo special interests in general. If anything the whole Arnold fiasco has proved that Unions are far more acceptable as special interests than big business, mainly because most everyone knows or depends on someone in a union (teachers! firefighters!) but very few people are multi-millionairre tycoons. So we traded Davis for Schwarzy and the special interests got... worse. More dirty money flowing into Sacramento, just from a different place.
The problem there wasn;t the voters being inconsistent, it was Arnold not being what he said he would be. If people were paying attention they would have known that from the get go, but as Alan notes, most voters aren't really paying attention.
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