The Chads are Crashing Down
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- Category: Jeremy Addis-Mills
- Published on Wednesday, 27 October 2010 14:39
- Written by Jaddis-Mills
This will be my last blog prior to the November 2nd election. In the sprit of the talking-head punditry, I will make a final prediction and ramble about propositions facing California. First and foremost, where are we at on the national level? The national election is clearly being motivated by an anti-incumbent, economic-driven anxiety. The sentiment has resulted in most incumbents fighting for their life.
It does appear that the Democrats will lose seats in both the Senate and House. Unfortunately, the breadth of these losses are yet to be seen. With early voter numbers reporting to be high among Democrats (a haven usually reserved for Republicans), the devastation may not be as catastrophic for the Democrats as was once predicted.
In recent days, both Jerry Brown 50% (Whitman 41%) and Senator Boxer 48% (Fiorina 44%) have started to take the lead over their Republican counterparts. These are only small leads but for the first time in months, Brown has polled over 50% and they are both close or slightly outside the margin of error. I'm glad at least Californians have come to their senses, but it seems that Progressives in other parts of the country are not having as much luck. In what will be an extremely upsetting defeat for the Progressive movement, Senator Feingold of Wisconsin has been down in the polls for the past few months and has only begun to close the gap in recent days, but it might be too little too late.
Moving on to the more interesting part of the election. As you are no doubt aware, California loves to mandate things by voter mandate. This includes raising taxes, overturning legislation, mandating spending levels on state programs, or more recently instilling bigotry into our state's constitution. This election is no different. We are currently being asked to vote on 9 propositions on the November ballot. They range from the modification of legislative processes to the legalization of marijuana. I'm going to focus on the series of propositions that deal with Global Warming and California's famed AB 32. To provide a little background, AB 32 was signed by Governor Schwarzenegger and it requires the state to begin to ratchet down global greenhouse gas emissions. It lays out target reductions by 2020 and 2050. The overall intent of the legislation is an attempt to wean California off of dirty, foreign produced energy sources. This was landmark legislation when it passed and still to this day is one of the strongest laws nationally, with the goal of reducing global warming.
Proposition 23 proposes that all requirements requiring major emission sources to report and reduce greenhouse gas emissions would be suspended until unemployment reaches 5.5%. This would be a major setback for the state and the country. This legislation would basically stunt all economic growth in the clean energy sector and make the state ineligible for stimulus money that is putting Californian's back to work. Worst of all, it would continue to kick the can down the road for another generation to deal with. The proposition process had become a little out of control in California. If a special interest does not like something, they pay the marginal cost of collecting signatures, and then they put something on the ballot. Mainly funded by Valero and Tesoro Texas oil companies, Prop 23 is just a way to undermine good, sound policy in Sacramento. I hope that my fellow voters will see through the smoke and mirrors and vote NO on Prop 23.
So as we all enter the polling booth on Novermber 2nd please make sure and really consider the people and the propositions you are voting for.I hope you enjoyed my last rambling of the electoral season.
