summercomfort (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
summercomfort) wrote2012-11-01 10:45 pm
summercomfort) wrote2012-11-01 10:45 pm
Election Time!
Finally got around to filling out the mail-in ballot!
President: B.Obama.
- Yes, he wasn't all the hope and change that he promised, but I never really expected him to be the savior of the government. But I'd prefer to give him another 4 years to figure it out than to have Mitt. One big turn-off for me re: Mitt (not even counting all the policy stances that I disagree with), is the fact that he seems to be willing to say anything to get elected, so what happens if he does get elected? Would he stand for anything as a president?
US Senator: D. Feinstein
- Incumbents' advantage? She seems all right, I like the details that she mentions in her statement, and the statement of the opponent seems to mostly boil down to "we need change!" followed by a pretty standard set of Republican talking points.
US Representative: Anna Eshoo
- Yay, I like her. She wrote Jono a hand-written note! When we went to her town hall meeting during the health care debate, she seemed very aware of the different voices of her constituent.
State Senator: Jerry Hill
- I'm a little turned off by the fact that he sent 5 separate pamphlets showing himself looking dramatic in front of some power plant. But his statement seemed pretty solid, and he's currently an Assemblyman, so probably he has some experience in how this government stuff works. Due to the jungle primary system, both candidates are Democrats. The opponent, Sally Lieber, sounds like a single-issue candidate (Environmental policy), and while Environmental policy is important to me, I'd like a more well-rounded representative.
State Assemblyman: Richard Gordon
- I really wanted to like George Chengzhi Yang, but he just didn't feel inspiring, and didn't provide any specifics, so Richard Gordon it is.
Santa Clara Board of Education
- Grace Mah looks and sounds legit, and her opponent is a self-titled "User Experience Designer". Um... I don't want education to be redesigned to be a better "user experience"
Foothill/De Anza Community College Governing Board member
- I'm supposed to vote for up to 3, and there are 4 running, with 3 whose statements are in the voter guide. These three are all already on the governing board, and all seem to be those power-women who are probably super-nice to each other but also super-competitive. My response is: let's not get in the middle of that. Instead, I voted for the 4th person, Geby E. Espinosa, a small business owner. Take that, Laura, Joan and Betsy!
Palo Alto Unified School District Governing Board Member
- Once again, three ladies who are already involved in the process, so I decided to vote instead for Ken Dauber, a software engineer whose statement actually sounded solid.
Palo Alto City Council
- Ugh. There are 6 candidates, and I'm supposed to vote for up to 4. Reading through their candidate statements was not fun. One incumbent promised to work to fight against state housing mandates that would bring in more high-density low-income housing. Another described high speed rail as "devastating transportation scheme". Another guy describes himself as "catalyst for ideas... part semi-conductor, part song-catcher". Bleh. I ended up voting for the two least horrible ones: Liz Kniss, who is returning after a 10 year hiatus, and I'm interested in why. And Marc Berman, whose website actually has a platform which even includes a commitment to diversity and mental health.
Propositions (for a list and run-down of the props: http://www.kqed.org/propguide/ )
30 - Raises taxes on high-income (>25,000) and sales tax for 4 years in order to pay specifically for schools and public safety. YES.
31 - State Budget Reform. This is a weird omnibus thing that includes giving the governor slightly more power to cut spending if the legislature can't decide, giving local government more $$ and ability to substitute government laws, a pay-go budgeting process, and changing the budget process to 2 years instead of 1. I was thinking of voting yes, but then I was listening to the interview and someone called to ask if that would allow her community from not building high-density low-income housing, and I was like, "okay, maybe don't want that sort of power in local communities." I also looked at some of the actual language of the law, and parts of it seem really vague, like the pay-go stuff. So... maybe NO? Haven't marked it yet.
32 - NO to restricting only union campaign contributions without stopping Super-PAC stuff. Too one-sided
33 - NO to having good insurance behavior carry over to a different insurance -- unfairly punishes people who choose public transit, etc. Does not have enough exemptions for those types of cases.
34 - YES to repealing the death penalty -- cheaper for the criminal justice system, without adding too much to the penitentiary system, plus there's a provision in there about how the money the prisoners earn from work go to the victims of their crimes.
35 - NO to broadening the definition of human trafficking and requiring registered sex offenders to submit all of their internet identities to the police. I like the stuff in there about providing support and treatment for victims of human trafficking, but the other half of it make the definition of "sex offender" way too broad.
36 - YES to revising the 3 Strikes law so that if you're not a crazy dangerous criminal, you don't automatically get life in prison. I think it decreases the lifers by 1/3?
37 - NO to genetically engineered food labeling. If you don't want genetically engineered food, buy organic. Besides, if there wasn't genetic engineering, corn would still be some tiny grass.
38 - NO to the other school funding proposition that would increase income tax by a bunch, even for folks earning 18k/year, and wouldn't stop the state school spending cuts from triggering.
39 - YES for closing weird loophole that allows out-of-state companies to pay taxes on # of CA employees instead of CA revenue, thus incentivizing them to keep low # of CA employees.
40 - YES to keeping the reasonable districts drawn by the Citizens Redistricting Commission.
A - NO to a regressive sales tax that goes into a county slush fund.
B - NO to automatically renewing a clean water program that will expire in 4 years -- maybe they'll write a better one? And if they don't, I'll vote yes next time.
C - YES to opening 3 marijuana dispensaries in Palo Alto. Mostly because the city council is SO opposed to it, and because it'd be funny to see more potheads in downtown PA.
President: B.Obama.
- Yes, he wasn't all the hope and change that he promised, but I never really expected him to be the savior of the government. But I'd prefer to give him another 4 years to figure it out than to have Mitt. One big turn-off for me re: Mitt (not even counting all the policy stances that I disagree with), is the fact that he seems to be willing to say anything to get elected, so what happens if he does get elected? Would he stand for anything as a president?
US Senator: D. Feinstein
- Incumbents' advantage? She seems all right, I like the details that she mentions in her statement, and the statement of the opponent seems to mostly boil down to "we need change!" followed by a pretty standard set of Republican talking points.
US Representative: Anna Eshoo
- Yay, I like her. She wrote Jono a hand-written note! When we went to her town hall meeting during the health care debate, she seemed very aware of the different voices of her constituent.
State Senator: Jerry Hill
- I'm a little turned off by the fact that he sent 5 separate pamphlets showing himself looking dramatic in front of some power plant. But his statement seemed pretty solid, and he's currently an Assemblyman, so probably he has some experience in how this government stuff works. Due to the jungle primary system, both candidates are Democrats. The opponent, Sally Lieber, sounds like a single-issue candidate (Environmental policy), and while Environmental policy is important to me, I'd like a more well-rounded representative.
State Assemblyman: Richard Gordon
- I really wanted to like George Chengzhi Yang, but he just didn't feel inspiring, and didn't provide any specifics, so Richard Gordon it is.
Santa Clara Board of Education
- Grace Mah looks and sounds legit, and her opponent is a self-titled "User Experience Designer". Um... I don't want education to be redesigned to be a better "user experience"
Foothill/De Anza Community College Governing Board member
- I'm supposed to vote for up to 3, and there are 4 running, with 3 whose statements are in the voter guide. These three are all already on the governing board, and all seem to be those power-women who are probably super-nice to each other but also super-competitive. My response is: let's not get in the middle of that. Instead, I voted for the 4th person, Geby E. Espinosa, a small business owner. Take that, Laura, Joan and Betsy!
Palo Alto Unified School District Governing Board Member
- Once again, three ladies who are already involved in the process, so I decided to vote instead for Ken Dauber, a software engineer whose statement actually sounded solid.
Palo Alto City Council
- Ugh. There are 6 candidates, and I'm supposed to vote for up to 4. Reading through their candidate statements was not fun. One incumbent promised to work to fight against state housing mandates that would bring in more high-density low-income housing. Another described high speed rail as "devastating transportation scheme". Another guy describes himself as "catalyst for ideas... part semi-conductor, part song-catcher". Bleh. I ended up voting for the two least horrible ones: Liz Kniss, who is returning after a 10 year hiatus, and I'm interested in why. And Marc Berman, whose website actually has a platform which even includes a commitment to diversity and mental health.
Propositions (for a list and run-down of the props: http://www.kqed.org/propguide/ )
30 - Raises taxes on high-income (>25,000) and sales tax for 4 years in order to pay specifically for schools and public safety. YES.
31 - State Budget Reform. This is a weird omnibus thing that includes giving the governor slightly more power to cut spending if the legislature can't decide, giving local government more $$ and ability to substitute government laws, a pay-go budgeting process, and changing the budget process to 2 years instead of 1. I was thinking of voting yes, but then I was listening to the interview and someone called to ask if that would allow her community from not building high-density low-income housing, and I was like, "okay, maybe don't want that sort of power in local communities." I also looked at some of the actual language of the law, and parts of it seem really vague, like the pay-go stuff. So... maybe NO? Haven't marked it yet.
32 - NO to restricting only union campaign contributions without stopping Super-PAC stuff. Too one-sided
33 - NO to having good insurance behavior carry over to a different insurance -- unfairly punishes people who choose public transit, etc. Does not have enough exemptions for those types of cases.
34 - YES to repealing the death penalty -- cheaper for the criminal justice system, without adding too much to the penitentiary system, plus there's a provision in there about how the money the prisoners earn from work go to the victims of their crimes.
35 - NO to broadening the definition of human trafficking and requiring registered sex offenders to submit all of their internet identities to the police. I like the stuff in there about providing support and treatment for victims of human trafficking, but the other half of it make the definition of "sex offender" way too broad.
36 - YES to revising the 3 Strikes law so that if you're not a crazy dangerous criminal, you don't automatically get life in prison. I think it decreases the lifers by 1/3?
37 - NO to genetically engineered food labeling. If you don't want genetically engineered food, buy organic. Besides, if there wasn't genetic engineering, corn would still be some tiny grass.
38 - NO to the other school funding proposition that would increase income tax by a bunch, even for folks earning 18k/year, and wouldn't stop the state school spending cuts from triggering.
39 - YES for closing weird loophole that allows out-of-state companies to pay taxes on # of CA employees instead of CA revenue, thus incentivizing them to keep low # of CA employees.
40 - YES to keeping the reasonable districts drawn by the Citizens Redistricting Commission.
A - NO to a regressive sales tax that goes into a county slush fund.
B - NO to automatically renewing a clean water program that will expire in 4 years -- maybe they'll write a better one? And if they don't, I'll vote yes next time.
C - YES to opening 3 marijuana dispensaries in Palo Alto. Mostly because the city council is SO opposed to it, and because it'd be funny to see more potheads in downtown PA.