Thursday, June 16, 2005

8 issues, 80 million

So I'm sure when you aren't worrying about the recent wave of earthquakes, you're probably wondering what was so damned important that Arnold couldn't wait until March to have you vote on it. Here goes:

Waiting period and parental notification for girls under 17 seeking abortions.
The latest back door abortion measure by the pro-lifers would require girls under 17 to wait 48 hours AFTER notifying their parents they are seeking an abortion to undergo the procedure and would require doctors to report all abortions performed on minors. The fact that the very girls that are likely to have unwanted pregnancies in their teens are usually the same ones that don't have decent caring parents to talk to never seems to dawn on the pro-life movement.

Union employee consent for political contributions.
Union busting at its finest. Requires unions to receive the consent of their members before making political contributions. Corporations continue to get a free pass...

Reapportionment.
One of three Arnold-driven initiatives, the proposal would take the power to draw legislative boundaries away from the legislature and give it to an independent commission. Probably not a bad idea in and of itself, but it would require an immediate redistricting like Texas had under DeLay. That makes it an absolute non-starter in our opinion.

Education funding.
Perhaps the slimiest of all the Arnold initiatives. If state revenues fell short of what they were the previous year (a VERY likely scenario), the proposition would give the Governor unilateral power to slash education funding if the legislature couldn't produce a solution in 45 days...and thanks to the 2/3rds majority required to pass any spending/revenue bill in the legislature, its almost certain they will be unable to meet the deadline.

Teacher Tenure.
The proposal would increase the length of time before a teacher can aquire tenure from two to five years. During this period the teacher can be fired at any time. The state has a massive shortage of teachers, so lets make it easier to fire them...thanks Arnold.

Prescription Drugs.
The bill would expand access to low cost prescription drugs to any individual making less than $37k per year and any family of four making less than $75,000 (400% of the federal poverty level). Not surprisingly, the bill was vetoed by Arnold last year as a pay off to his contributors in the pharmaceutical industry.

Prescription Drugs.
The pharmaceutical industry responds...It would allow citizens to buy into a discount program that no pharmaceutical company is required to take part in. In other words, the bill does absolutely nothing. The only thing it can do is sufficiently confuse the electorate so the other initiative fails with it (this has happened more than once in California electoral history). On behalf of California's poor and middle class, we'd like to offer a one finger salute to the big pharmaceutical companies for this one.

Electricity Re-Regulation.
Pete Wilson left a big steaming turd called energy deregulation on California's lawn and poor Governor Davis stepped right in it and wrongly took the blame. This bill begins to correct the damage wrought by Wilson. The bill also requires 20% of California's energy to come from renewable energy sources by 2010, seven years sooner than previously mandated.

2 Comments:

At 16/6/05 19:18, Blogger Christina Dunigan said...

Heaven forbid that parents be involved in life-altering, life-threatening decisions being made by and on behalf of their underage daughters! What is the world coming to, when people think parents have a vested interest in keeping their daughters safe!

 
At 21/6/05 15:56, Blogger Governor X said...

If a girl can talk to her parents about an abortion, she's already going to. We don't need Big Brother telling her to do so.

 

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