Editorial by Garen Yegparian, THE ARMENIAN WEEKLY
Much of the action and deception in California’s June 8 Primary Election is on the Republican ballot and the five propositions. But read on (or skip) to the end of this piece for the election that has generated the most heat, from an Armenian perspective. This is the year of elections for California’s “constitutional officers,” governor, attorney general, etc.
First let’s get some of the most troublesome elections out of the way. These are non-partisan, but also, they are almost “non-information.” The LA County Superior Court judges! Who knows about them? Unless an organization you trust has studied them (beyond the bar association’s findings regarding their competence), you have no real way of telling who would be good. So, if, like me, you feel compelled to vote, check out the LA Times April 24 edition’s editorials where they list their recommendations and see if they make sense to you.
Other non-partisan elections confront us, and choosing there is a bit less difficult, thanks to some work the LA Times has done. While I don’t share their conclusions, I will avail myself of their research. For California’s superintendent of public instruction, their top three choices are Tom Torlakson, Gloria Romero, and Larry Aceves; choose one of these three. Similarly, for LA county tax assessor, choose either John Noguez or John Wong. Finally, I suggest voting for the LA Unified School District’s proposed $100-per-year-per-parcel assessment, lasting only four years, which appears as Measure E on residents’ ballots to help the schools survive the dire times caused by California’s budget disaster.
The five California-wide propositions on the ballot are real issues this time, even if I don’t support them all.
Here’s what I think…
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Proposition 13—Yes. This one’s easy. No one’s opposed. It helps make building of all sorts safer by eliminating a disincentive to seismically upgrade them. Currently, if you own a home (or anything else) that isn’t up to modern earthquake-proofing standards, and you decide to fix it, you will trigger a reassessment that will likely increase your property tax by a significant amount. Who wants that? Prop 13 eliminates this obstacle. It’s nice to have such a simple, common sense, constitutional amendment that the otherwise much vilified legislature has put on the ballot to improve things for all concerned. Vote Yes!
Proposition 14—No. This ballot measure is a rehash of something that has come up at least once before, in the mid 1990’s. It changes the primary election process. Instead of each political party—Democratic, Green, Republican, etc.—getting to choose their own standard bearer for the general election, everyone would get to vote for everyone regardless of party affiliation. Currently, if you’re registered as, say, Peace & Freedom or Libertarian, you vote on the candidates who are running for that party’s nomination in the primary election. Then the winners from each party run against each other in the general (November) election. With the proposed change, the two candidates who get the most votes would run against each other in the general election, regardless of what party they belonged to. So there could be districts where only Republicans appear on the November ballot, and others where only Democrats do. This not only shuts out the minor parties, but reduces the choice people have even between the two major parties. It is an ill-conceived “solution” to the perceived problem of people getting elected to office who are too ideologically strong in one direction or the other. But just like term limits were supposed to help solve Sacramento’s problems and only made things worse, this proposal too will do nothing to solve the real root of the problem—too much money from special interests pouring into campaigns. Also, remember that each political party is a separate organization with a set of principles it stands for as embodied in the party platform. Each party’s members should get to decide who can best represent them without outside interference. With the new system, members of party A might vote for the “weakest” candidate of party B to get elected in the primary so that party A has an easier-to-beat opponent in the general. Here’s another example. The new system is like saying that members of the Ku Klux Klan should be able to vote in the elections of the American Civil Liberties Union, and vice versa. Does that make any sense? Vote No!
Proposition 15—Yes, enthusiastically. This is the best item to appear for a vote in years. For the first time, a publicly financed campaign will be available to a statewide officer: the secretary of state. This is the official who oversees elections, so it is the most important one to have free of outside influences, i.e. campaign donors with agendas that might run contrary to our, the citizenry’s, interests. Also, this is a trial. It would hold for the 2014 and 2018 elections. If we like it, then we can extend it and expand it. And the best part is, the money for these campaigns would come from raising the registration fees on Sacramento lobbyists (who currently pay less than someone who wants a fishing license!). No one will be forced to do this; they can opt in or out. Vote Yes!
Proposition 16—No. This measure is a sneak attack on citizens’ ability to choose who supplies their electricity. Surprise, surprise, it is bankrolled, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, by Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E). Can you guess why? They’re afraid of losing business, which is what would happen if municipalities decided to start their own utilities. So what this measure does is make it more difficult for people to choose a public utility by requiring a 2/3 vote to create one. Many of us in the LA area (Burbank, Glendale, LA) enjoy the stable service provided by municipal power authorities. When Enron gamed the system a decade ago, those served by public utilities did not suffer. PG&E wants to deny others this option as a viable alternative by deceptively advertising this ballot measure as a “right to vote,” when we already have that right. It just locks in PG&E’s effective monopoly on supplying power in the areas it serves. Don’t be fooled by the millions spent to support this deceit. Vote No!
Proposition 17—No. This measure is another corporate bait-and-switch. Under the guise of “helping” car insurance payers, what it does is help the bottom line of its main proponent, Mercury Insurance. It does one good thing, allowing insurance companies to give a discount to people switching from one insurance company to another, currently forbidden by the law. But, it also allows several other increases to be charged by insurance companies. For instance, if you terminate you coverage for any reason, no matter how sensible—moving out of state, serving in the military, being injured and not driving, etc.—when you go to restore coverage, all your years of previous coverage will not count towards a lower premium the way they do now. If Mercury Insurance was serious about its “benevolence,” it would have proposed changing only the prohibition against giving the discount. Along the way, this proposition also overturns parts of the original law passed by Californians in 1988 to protect against abusive insurance practices. Imagine that two previous California insurance commissioners have come out against this! Vote No!
Tags: big corporations, consumer, contributions, deceptive, Editorial, Mercury, overcharges, Prop 17, trust, voters
