How Tim Voted

As part of my ongoing personal full disclosure campaign, here is my complete ballot for California Special Election 2005:

Statewide initiatives:

Proposition 73: Parental Notification of Abortion: No
Proposition 74: Public School Teacher Tenure: Yes
Proposition 75: Union Dues for Political Purposes: Yes (I know, I've already said it's a bad proposal; but it seemed so certain to fail that I couldn't resist trying to make it a close vote and giving the finger to public employees. With early returns in, I appear to be losing that bet.)
Proposition 76: State Spending and School Funding Limits: Yes
Proposition 77: Redistricting: Yes
Proposition 78: Discounts on Prescription Drugs (Drug Companies' version): No
Proposition 79: Discounts on Prescription Drugs (Unions' version): No
Proposition 80: Electric Service Providers Regulation: No

Details on initiatives here.

San Francisco Initiatives:

Proposition A - Community College District General Obligation Bonds: No
Proposition B - Street and Sidewalk Improvement Bond: No
Proposition C - Ethics Commission Budget and Outside Counsel: No
Proposition D - Appointment of Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors: No
Proposition E - Election Date of the Assessor-Recorder and Public Defender: No
Proposition F - Neighborhood Firehouses: No
Proposition G - Access to Underground Parking at Golden Gate Park: No
Proposition H - Firearm Ban: No
Proposition I - No Military Recruiters in Public Schools, Scholarships for Education and Job Training: No

Details on initiatives here.

Candidates (All are ranked-choice votes that require you to give win, place, and show choices.)

Assessor-Recorder
Write-ins:
1. Starchild
2. Randy Harris (my bartender)
3. Norman Maine
Treasurer
Same as above
City Attorney
Same as above

Almost-midnight update: I'm going to bed now, but it looks like all statewide measures are failing! Leaving aside for a moment how I feel about any individual measure, there's something beautiful about a row of big red Ns on any election result. They say the problem with libertarians is that they only know how to say No, but maybe the rest of the population is finally catching up.

Comments

[Matt Welch]

I went No on all props except 74 & 77, and No on some local bond measure building some damned thing (schools, maybe). I'm pretty bummed about 77, and pained to imagine the union parties tonight, but otherwise I'm not too unhappy.

[Kris]

Ya' voted much the same as I intended to Tim. (my wife threw away my ballot card! No Shit!)

I was going to vote yes on 75 as an act of spite if nothing else. Those bastard's bombard me with their advertisments(always stupid, often disingenuous)for like what, 6 months now? Yeah, I'm really gonna vote in your favor 🙂

[Kris]

Why do you hate teachers Matt?

[JonBuck]

Updates here:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/results/county.html

What's passing:

Prop 73
Prop 74
Prop 75

[Hakluyt]

Looks like Martha Reeves won a seat on Detroit's City Council.

Nowhere to run to baby, nowhere to hide
Got nowhere to run to baby, nowhere to hide

http://www.clickondetroit.com/politics/5283867/detail.html

[spur]

why did you vote for military recruiters to have access to schools? It won btw -- there is no funding alotted to alternative scholarships section of the prop.

[Andy]

Looks like Measure H (gunban) in Frisco is passing. ugh.

[JOe]

Fucken idiots who voted for any of Gov. Arnold Props...servers you right to lose assholes!! Fuck ya'll for voting for any of Arnolds props!

Check out the overall results and no just SD's:

http://news10.net/news/2005-vote/special/results-propositions.asp

[joe]

Oh yea, fuck you TIM!

[Joe]

Go fuck yourself you fucken ignorant bitch!!! HA!

[Joe]

hahahah you voted for FUCKEN retard Arnolds props and none of them, I MEAN NONE OF THEM GOT THROUGH! Not even close!!! AHHHHHH HAHAHAHAHAHAH! you selfish ignorant asshole! AHHH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAH!!!

[thoreau]

In other election-related news, the creationists on the Dover school board were voted out and replaced with pro-evolution members.

[Joe]

HAHAHAHAH you fucken idiots! basically anyone who voted for any of Arnolds props were horned as fucktards. I heard theirs an award ceremony for you guys this coming week.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

t:

But the creationists in Kansas just won, big-time (shock).

The only thing I'm upset about is that this crap wasn't prevalent when I went to gradeschool. If I didn't know an answer, I would've loved to say "Well, Jaysus tells me that the answer is.." And if I got an "F" I would yell "HERESY! HERESY!"

It would've been awesome:

5X + 1/2(35 - 2Y) = Jaysus

The third article of confederation states that: JAYSUS

[thoreau]

MNG-

If my current calculations don't work out and I can't enhance microscope images with my algorithm, it's not that my theory was wrong, it's just that Jesus wants some things to remain hidden from our sight.

[David]

Not sure if this is the right thread for this or not, but I got this gem from the re-elected mayor in my morning paper.

"After this, no one can ever question my authority to speak for the people of Waterbury on matters of public policy," Jarjura said.

He was referring to the clear mandate that he now has from the people. He won with about 35%.

[s.m. koppelman]

I'm not a Californian so I don't know the inticacies of this stuff, but I'm still trying to figure out how a "yes" on 74 or 75 can fit into any sort of libertarian political philosophy. As far as I can tell, 74 would have used state power to constrain municipalities' rights to negotiate contracts, and 75 would have used the state constitution to constrain the scope of contracts and override a mutually agreeed-upon clause in existing contracts in a way that clearly favored the state.

If the governor and his administration want a positive check-off for political spending of dues incorporated into state employee union contracts, aren't they free to negotiate for that on a contract-by-contract basis like pretty much everything else? Maybe the unions would agree to it in exchange for pay increases, expansion of pensions, or improved medical benefits. Mutually-agreed-upon contracts are still the basis of everything in Libertarian World, right? Or has the emphasis shifted back to the re?stablishment of debtors' prisons and indentured servitude?

[blah...]

Is it our business to where someone else's money goes? I mean, can you vote yes on restricting government workers from donating their money to gambeling? Same goes for Unions. Its the workers business where their money goes. If people don't like it within the business then start a ballot for people to vote on within the union. If everyone votes no then that's a democracy. Its like asking other countries to vote for our president.

[Jennifer]

David-

Yeah, but at least Jarjura doesn't pay crack whores to pimp out their pre-pubescent daughters to him. By the standards of Waterbury mayors, that's actually brag-worthy.

Connecticut: At least five of our mayors have never committed a felony.

[joe]

Yo, namestealer,

The redistricting proposal was a good idea on the merits. It's a shame it lost in CA, it's a shame it lost in Ohio.

[s.m. koppelman]

Another thing, Mr. Cavanaugh.. Would you be okay with a law that bars state workers from eating lots of greasy, cholesterol-rich food on the grounds that it saddles taxpayers with increased healthcare and life insurance costs? Sometimes your political stances strikie me as little more than reflexive scorn for anything that reminds you of the Democrats of your parents' generation. The arbitrariness of which wouldn't make you much different from most people, I suppose, but I expect the bar to be a bit higher at a political magazine with pretensions to a definable philosophical grounding.

[jimmy]

well thank god the commercials for/against the props are over. the anti-77 ads were perhaps the most intellectually dishonest political spots i have ever seen (even trotting out old decrepit judge wopner!)...and that's saying something.

[David]

Jennifer,

Good point, I wish I could afford to move. The problem is that in Waterbury, the candidates are simply puppets of a larger cabal of politicians who cherish the spoils system. They screw the town as soon as their boy gets elected, then leave him holding the bag. In the Giordano case, he was all that and much worse.

[Tim Cavanaugh]

Another thing, Mr. Cavanaugh.. Would you be okay with a law that bars state workers from eating lots of greasy, cholesterol-rich food on the grounds that it saddles taxpayers with increased healthcare and life insurance costs? Sometimes your political stances strikie me as little more than reflexive scorn for anything that reminds you of the Democrats of your parents' generation.

Since I wrote a long article objecting to Prop 75, and only voted for it because I predicted it would lose anyway (a guess that, like most of my off-the-cuff political predictions, proved accurate), I don't know how to respond to your crackerbarrel psychoanalysis of my voting patterns (ill-informed psychoanalysis, by the way: both my parents are lifelong, staunch Republicans who wept when Nixon left office, and I have zero regard, one way or the other, for their views on or understanding of political issues). Your objection to Prop 74 is even more specious: If the government runs public schools the government can decide how to make contracts with public school employees. If your "municipalities" don't like it, let them say no to the state's money: As Mildred Pierce tells Monte Beragon, "I never noticed you backing away from a $50 bill because it smelled of grease!"

[Mike]

I'm not sure which city is the most stupid... San Francisco banned guns, Detroit re-elected the "hip-hop" mayor...

[The Wine Commonsewer]

There is something I like about a guy who votes for his bartender. Maybe we all should.

Joe, the redistricting plan in Ca lost because the opponents spent a lot of cash putting together some very convincing TV ads that were, to be charitable, big fat lies that totally distorted what the effect of the redistricting would be.

The voters have given us ever more reasons to leave Californicate but the silver lining is that the prescription drug props and the electricity re-reg prop went down.

Shame those teachers have to wait even two years for a liftime job. I wish my clients would give me tenure.

[Mike Laursen]

So, did Starchild win? 🙂
Seriously, at first he may seem like another Libertarian "whacko", but the dude's got major brains.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

Nice, you mean all this time I thought the Kansas people were saying we're proud to be Jayhawks they were actually saying that we are the Kansas Jaysus? Must be the accent.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

SMK, the entire market in education is twisted, convoluted, and mostly monopolized by the government owned public schools. When public education is abolished and a free market in schools is established then your objections to state interference in mutually agreed upon contracts will have some validity.

Lessee, last time I checked it was tax money that funds both the government and the schools, therefore as citizens and taxpayers we piss ants have a right to make changes in the way things are done if we can.

Personally, I'd shut down public employee unions tomorrow and abolish tenure by Friday, but I'm not king so that ain't going to happen.

[David]

TWC,

If you were king, I would hope that making Bacchanalia a weekly holiday would be higher on your list than teacher unions.

[poco]

only voted for it because I predicted it would lose anyway

Like voting LP for prez?

[MikeP]

I voted thusly:

73: abstain
74, 75: abstain
76, 77: yes
78, 79: no
80: no

...75 would have used the state constitution...

For the record, 74 and 75 were simple initiative statutes, not constitutional amendments. That pretty much goes -- one-for-one -- with why I abstain on them. As statutes, they are ludicrously complex and I have no idea what the fine print or unintended bugaboos are. And, even though I might like it if the legislature passed such statutes, I am in the end annoyed that the voters are asked to do so.

In other words, I am happy to vote on restrictions to the legislature and government (76, 77). I am also happy to vote down attempts by the government to take away individual freedoms or force itself into markets (78, 79, 80). But I am not happy to vote on normal operational issues of state government just because someone thinks the state government is not doing an adequate job with those couple particular issues.

[Daniel Montiel]

I have always had a soft-spot for these initiatives due to how they came about: the process in CA was created (and made so damn easy, unfortunately, especially with today's money) was to allow the citizens to enact changes and bypass a corrupt, entrenched, and non-responsive legislature. Hey--remind you of any legislature you know? So I have enjoyed watching the Democrats' shocked (shocked!) response to the concept, year after year, that the unruly citizens might actually do something they didn't approve.
Aside from that, yes of course we should have the elected officials do their jobs; it's just been fun watching them scramble.

[CTD]

Is there a nice set of charts and/or graphs somewhere showing who spent what on what? In particular, there was a chart in the SF Chronicle showing a godawful amount spent on one of the Cali drug bills and a similar godawful amount spent opposing another, and I can't remember which was which. And I can't find the article on the web.

[joe]

TWC,

The redistricting proposal lost for the same reason all of the other proposals lost - because it was connect to the One-Terminator, who at this point is less popular than Gray Davis.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

If you were king, I would hope that making Bacchanalia a weekly holiday would be higher on your list than teacher unions.

Hmmmm, and David, you would be right. Now get over to that second longest online oak bar and I'll buy you a bottle of good red.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

Joe, Did Not. 🙂

[randy]

its the fact that no gov. offical in CA wants to do their job and instead have everyone vote and make decisions. Didin't these guys get voted in to make decisions for us??

[s.m. koppelman]

Apologies, Mr. Cavanaugh. I had a knee-jerk reaction to your piece's expression of knee-jerk hatred of labor unions and their, um, "monopolization" of public discourse and I didn't read all the way to the end where you came down against the initiative on principled grounds.

You are a gantleman and a scholar, etc., though I can't get on board with the idea of your take on Prop 74. There are certainly plenty of examples of state and federal funding that come with restrictions on how the municipalities and states respectively down the line can spend it, but it seems like advocating an expansion of the same is a poor way to help decentralization along, as with the antidrug education and speed-limit restrictions that have long come with federal highway funding.

To me the only place where such strings make sense is when there's an important justification for uniformity at the state or federal level and not just a tactical expediency.