Hope is not a plan

Proposition 73 -- recommend voting "no"

This proposed legislation is designed to add an additional parental notification step before a minor can undergo an abortion procedure. The introductory language presents the legislation as an effort to keep parents "informed of potential health-related risks to their children" and promote "parent-child communication and parental responsibility."

In fact, it's another effort to place more roadblocks in the way of abortion.

Some salient points:

Following delivery of notification, there's a required 48-hour reflection period. Notifications must be sent by signature-restricted, certified mail with return receipt. That's quite a barrier on its own.

Abortion without parental notification is allowed in case of a medical emergency or for emancipated minors. Should the doctor screw this part up, the resulting civil case has a bonus penalty for the doc in question -- the parent or guardian can simply choose to recover $10,000 "any time prior to the rendering of a final judgment." There could be a growth industry in "clinic-chasing" lawyers just going for the $10,000 hit.

An otherwise "unqualified" minor can attempt to petition for permission to have an abortion without parental notification. This represents a series of roadblocks, of course. First, there's the ability to make it away not only to a clinic, but also to the courts. Imagine a girl stuck in an abusive or restrictive home trying to make her way to the center of local civil government, walking down the halls past people she or her parents may know, for her "confidential" hearing. What if she's in a small town where her family knows the judge? What if she's in a conservative community where a judge places family, even abusive family, above her freedom? What if she lives on a farm in the Central Valley and would need a car to make it to the appropriate courthouse? The petition concept is a weak attempt to make borderline voters feel like Proposition 73 is a good idea.

The definition of "abortion" refers to a procedure that will "cause the death of the unborn child, a child conceived but not yet born." This is an effort to enshrine in law a definition of life and what constitutes a child.

Overall, I feel that this is an unethical attempt to slowly increase barriers to abortion. I refer to it as unethical not because it attempts to restrict abortion, but because it does it in an underhanded manner, trying to slip in restrictions in the guise of "protecting" young women. It says something important that those who are attempting to make people's decisions for them try to gain that power by misrepresentation.

Proposition 74 -- recommend voting "no"

This proposition would relax the rules around firing teachers, both by extending the probationary period for teachers and by removing many of the procedures for dismissal of unsatisfactory teachers. The need for this legislation has not been demonstrated by its proponents, and as a result I believe it is an attempt to parlay an emotional response into unnecessary economic power over teachers.

The probationary period would increase markedly, from two years to five. This seems excessive, despite the introductory declaration that "Experts believe that a teacher's ultimate potential and skill level cannot be fully assessed within just two years." If that's so, why is there no positive statement about how many years it does take to assess skill and potential? The absence of this information suggests that even if the ideal evaluation period is not two years, it's not five either. Prior to 1984, the probationary period was three years. Were there fewer dismissals then?

The second substantial change this legislation would enact is allowing sections 44934 and 44938 in the Education Code to be bypassed completely. I've included their full text in the extended, but the gist of it is that these sections require advance written notice of 45 or 90 days prior to acting on assertions of "Unprofessional conduct" (i.e. being an unethical teacher) or "Unsatisfactory performance" (i.e. being a poor teacher), respectively. I also read the loss of 44934 as letting school districts carry out suspensions that would otherwise be in violatoin of standing collective bargaining agreements.

The arguments in favor of Proposition 74 mention lurid anecdotes of dismissals that cost school districts $100,000 or $300,000. Of course, there's no indication that this is the norm and, as this article from the San Diego Union-Tribune mentions, there's not a lot of hard data on what's actually going on in school districts. According to the Legistlative Analyst's Office, as cited in the article, many teacher problems involve negotiated settlements, with outright dismissals occurring about ten per year for the past decade.

This proposition removes substantial safeguards from what is already a low paying, often difficult job. Especially given the lack of positive data supporting the existence of the problems it is meant to address, this proposition instead reads as an effort to give the state executive leverage to save money by being able to bully teachers. I do not look forward to our school system if this passes and teachers are routinely dismissed in their fifth year as a cost-saving measure.

Previously:

Prop 73: No

Proposition 75 -- recommend voting "no"

This proposition would add legislation requiring public (that is, government) employees to specifically sign off on the use of any part of their union dues for political purposes. This is a change from the current situation in which a union, whether it represents private or public employees, can choose to spend union dues for political purposes without specific approval from each employee.

This proposition is an attempt at union breaking. I suspect the target is the teachers' union, but it generally impacts public employees' unions unfairly. There are two statements in the introductory text of this proposition that demonstrate the weak and misleading basis of this proposed legislation:

(d) It is fundamentally unfair to force public employees to give money to political activities or candidates they do not support.

It is no more or less unfair than it is to "force" private employees to give money to political activities they don't support. It is the nature of large, democratic organizations that not all the members will agree with all of the organization's actions. If enough people disagree, they may change or take over union leadership, or precipitate the formation of a new union. I have personally been a part of a union whose protection I didn't personally need, but I understood the need for the union for the majority of the employees.

Again, this is the nature of democracy. If the concept is that "having my money used for something I don't like" is wrong, then individual voters need the right to refuse to pay taxes while their government is doing something they dislike. I don't see that happening any time soon.

(e) Because public money is involved, the public has a right to ensure that public employees have a right to approve the use of their dues or fees to support the political objectives of their labor organization.

Ludicrous. Does the public also have a right to mandate that public employees only buy low-emission cars with their paychecks? Once the money is paid to the employee, it is entirely up to the employee what they do with it.

This legislation is an attempt to reduce the power of a specific subset of unions; the arguments presented above are a dishonest attempt to make it seem like something other than that.

Previously:

Prop 74: No
Prop 73: No

Proposition 76 -- recommend voting "no" (though I really like some parts of it)

This proposition would amend the California constitution to significantly alter how our state budgeting works. First, it would cap overall expenditures to an amount equal to the prior year's expenditures adjusted upward by the average of the increase in General Fund revenues over the preceding three years. Excess revenues in a given year would go into a special fund to be dipped into in later years when expenditures fall below revenues. This part of the proposition would serve to smooth out the state budget over time, ideally minimizing the effects of economic downturns.

It would also allow the governor to fairly liberallly cut expenditures should revenues drop below projected levels and the legislature fails to decide on cuts on its own within a month or a month and a half, depending. This is one major sticking point for opponents, as it would be reasonably easy to "cook the books" just a bit and then use this measure to hack unfavored programs.

The proposition would also modify school spending quite a bit, removing some of the requirements that guarantee funding, as well as giving the governor more time to pay back the $3.4 billion borrowed from schools during the earlier portion of his time in office. The near-freeze on the requirements for school expenditures means that even if the legislature hugely increases school funding in a given year, this would not "reset" the required amount in the next budget year. This could, theoretically, allow more flexibility in allocating money when the budget is flush...except, of course, for the expenditure growth limit discussed above.

The proposed changes would also free up money in the Motor Vehicle and Public Transit accounts, allowing their funds to be loaned to the General Fund without any special restrictions (previously this money could only be loaned back to the General Fund under special circumstances).

Overall, I wish that this proposition consisted only of the cap on spending increases. I like the way in which that would smooth out spending over time and buffer effectively against economic downturns. The rest is tempting, but I distrust the ability of the governor to declare a fiscal emergency.

People in the California Department of Education generally aren't fond of this measure, seeing it as an attempt to crack Prop 98 and reduce our already very low (on a per-student basis) school spending.

If you want to go slightly numb, here's the final 2005 state budget. Most instructive is the letter from the governor detailing his line-item vetoes or spending reductions, with explanations. Skimming through it very quickly also gives one a bit of an overview on where money goes in our state. I couldn't recommend places to cut spending at a glance, though.

Previously:

Prop 75: No
Prop 74: No
Prop 73: No

Proposition 77 -- recommend voting "no"

This proposed amendment to the California constitution would completely change the way legislative districts are determined. Under the current method, which would be removed by this proposition, the legislature basically determines state Senate and Assembly districts, as well as Congressional and Board of Equalization districts. Currently, the districts are set up such that seated legislators are highly unlikely to be voted out of office, by dint of picking a voter pool that is highly likely to vote for them.

Under the proposed method in the proposition, legislators would nominate retired judges by a complex method that is designed to prevent "gaming" the system. Protections against gaming include requiring equal representation of the two largest parties among an initial pool of 24 candidates, then subsequently requiring legislators to nominate opposing party judges from this pool. This second picking step is carried out by the majority and minority leaders of the two largest parties in each of the Assembly and Senate. This winnows the choices down to 12. From this set, each of the four legislators mentioned above may then choose to have one candidate removed without cause, potentially narrowing the field to eight. From this eight, three are drawn by lot. One candidate from each of the major parties must be present in the three, or the drawing is repeated until that condition is met.

Once the three retired judges, now termed "Special Masters," are chosen, they are then tasked to draw new districts following each U.S. census (every ten years) as well as one special redistricting right now, before the upcoming primary election.

When redistricting, the Masters are told to comply with these criteria in the order listed: (1) district over whole counties, (2) create fewest county fragments possible, (3) district whole cities if possible and (4) create fewest city fragments possible.

Each districting is immediately applied, but subject to voter approval in the next election. To be clear, this means that one election happens with the new districting, the approval appearing on the same ballot as the election that uses the new districts. This is one of the complaints against this proposition. If a redistricting plan does not comply with the requirements above, there is also the option to make a legal complaint within forty-five days of the presentation of the redistricting plan.

There's additional controversy about this proposition because of a legal battle over whether the signatures for it were collected unconstitutionally (because the language on the proposition given to the Attorney General to appear on the ballot differed from that on the proposition as it was used to gather signatures). It was eventually ruled that the voters should have a chance to decide. This bothers me, though I doubt most of the petitioner signatories read the text of the proposition when they signed.

The topic of redistricting reform in California has naturally been discussed at great length:

An overview from the Institute of Governmental Studies at Berkeley

An overview of redistricting methods by the National Conference of State Legislatures

A discussion of Arizona's current method, which most closely matches the proposed method in this proposition. The redistricting carried out by the Arizona commission suffered a last-minute legal challenge, despite generally appearing to proceed smoothly.

Overall, even after the measures taken to prevent gaming of the system and with the voter approval, I don't see the advantage of putting redistricting in the hands of a commission. Right now, the districts end up fairly partisan, but it does yield an overall state representation that matches the population fairly closely. As demographics change, legislative seat occupants will change and districts will change.

My ideal redistricting method would do something such as starting from the Northwest corner of the state and marking out a square that represents 1/n of the population (where n is the total number of districts of the given type). The next square would then start at the remaining available northwestern point and so on.

This will never happen.

Previously:

Prop 76: No
Prop 75: No
Prop 74: No
Prop 73: No

Proposition 78 -- recommend voting "no"

This proposition is billed as creating a state agency to help provide cheaper medications for lower-income Californians. The arguments against it claim that it is a misdirect by pharmaceutical companies designed to distract from the competing proposition, 79. I'm inclined to agree.

The first danger sign is that it defines "Lowest commercial price" as excluding purchases by government agencies. The upshot of this is that the bulk discounts achieved by large buyers such as Medical and Medicare will not be used to benchmark prices for the discounts to be negotiated based on this legislation. Basically, the state government agrees to disconnect from its otherwise massive negotiating power. This alone is a huge downcheck.

To qualify for assistance, you may earn up to 300% of the federally defined poverty line and may not have insurance, Medi-Cal, children's health insurance, disability or any other program. There's also an annual application that costs $15.

...and pharmaceutical advertising can be given out as "outreach" (see Chapter 3 of the proposition).

The proposition is also preloaded with "kill conditions" under which the agency can be shut down entirely.

There are several elements that, individually, would inspire me to vote "no" on this proposition. The idea that pharmaceutical advertising can be handed out to fulfill a mandate for outreach is unpleasant.

Previously:

Prop 77: No
Prop 76: No
Prop 75: No
Prop 74: No
Prop 73: No

Proposition 79 -- recommend voting "yes"

This proposition competes with Proposition 78, proposing an alternate approach to reducing prescription medication costs. To begin with, the qualifications for this proposition are much more inclusive, allowing pariticipation by state residents at up to 400% of the poverty line who do not have Medi-Cal or Healthy Families coverage, or any residents who have medical expenses equal to 5% or more of their income.

The negotiations would not be benchmarked to prices that exclude government-negotiated rates, which means that the full power of government agencies would theoretically combine to push drug prices down. The annual fee would be $10 and no advertising of any kind would be allowed in outreach literature.

Two completely novel elements are a regulatory commission and outlawing of price profiteering. The regulatory commission would be constructed from an eclectic set of people not associated with the pharmaceutical industry and would be charged with reviewing access to and pricing of prescription drugs. The proposition rather vaguely outlaws illegal profiteering, allowing the attorney general or any interested citizen to take up a case against a pharmaceutical company. This last part is the big sticking point of the legislation, but as the backers point out, pharmaceutical companies already press their own cases heavily in the court system.

Overall, I go with a "yes" recommendation on this, with my primary opposing concern being the potential for unnecessary civil cases being allowed by the vague definition of profiteering. As with all propositions, there is a severability clause, so it may be that this section could be ruled out as unenforceable or too vague without invalidating the remainder of the legislation.

Previously:

Prop 78: No
Prop 77: No
Prop 76: No
Prop 75: No
Prop 74: No
Prop 73: No

You can track voting results as districts report in here:

http://vote2005.ss.ca.gov

The site also tracks how the voting has gone on a county-by-county basis. It's much as you might expect. For example, the voting for Prop 73 (Parental notification for abortions) is a spine of "No" running down the coast -- though sadly stopping short of Orange County and my home town of San Diego -- with a body of "Yes" filling in the inland area, but for the rogue counties of Mono, Alpine and Nevada.

Check out the map for 73 here.

Thanks to Honeyfields for finding this site.

In other election news, San Francisco residents have voted to ban handguns. As the article points out, only Washington, D.C. and Chicago have similar bans.

You can read about the most recent California election results on both Al Jazeera and Xinhua.

Impressive. Of course, Al Jazeera cares because it's reporting on this mid-term election as a possible trend of backlash against the Republican party, whereas Xinhua is playing on the concept of Schwarzenegger as flailing celebrity.

Proposition 81 -- Recommend voting "no" (though I'm not totally happy about that)

It's election time again. Along with voting in various primary elections, the upcoming June 6th election gives you the chance to vote on two state propositions, and likely one or more local laws as well.

The first of the two statewide measures is Proposition 81, which would issue up to $600 million in bonds for the express purpose of building and renovating public library facilities statewide. This follows an earlier bond measure that left the state's needs unsatisfied.

Honestly, the return on investment for libraries is pretty good -- estimates I hit in my research ranged from a two- to five-fold return on investment. However, this is not measured in terms of money going back into state funds, and I'm concerned about adding more debt on top of our current debt right now. I understand that bond measures are a way to attempt to work around inability to alter policy in the legislature, and they may seem more palatable to voters who are inappropriately tax averse, but this line from the rebuttal to the argument against does not convince me:

"Under Prop. 81, the annual interest and principal payment will eb less than $2 per California resident..."

I'd prefer to pay that $2 in up-front taxes and have a state-owned principal that could be invested, gain wealth, and be used to fund libraries.

Other than the fact that it is a bond measure, the rest of the proposition is very well written to help build and support libraries statewide.

The other proposition this year is one that would levy an additional 1.7% tax on income over $400,000 for individuals (or $544,000 for heads of household, or $800,000 for married couples) to pay for universal preschool. Just to be clear, the additional tax is for income over the listed amount, so if you make $450,000, you're only being tapped for an additional 1.7% on the last $50,000. The program described would cover three hours a day and attempt to provide quality, universl preschool for every kid in the state.

The RAND corporation, in their study on the costs and benefits of universal preschool in California conservatively estimate that each dollar spent on preschool will generate $2.62 in returns for the state. Again, this is their conservative estimate; the estimated range goes from $2 to $4, and even that might be bumped up an additional 30-50% by trying to factor in less tangible outcomes such as reduced child neglect and abuse.

The arguments against Prop 82 in the voter guide are particularly misleading, and bear mentioning here. They state that a majority of California kids are in preschool, while factoring in settings without defined, qualified teachers -- daycare, for example. Not the same as preschool. In addition, they try to scare voters with the possibility of a "parent tax" -- this is due to a clause that, under exceptionally bad circumstances, would ask for a parent contribution while never refusing access to preschool even if a child's parents can't afford to contribute anything. There's the even more misleading statement that, "Proposition 82 could force the Legislature to raise taxes on all of us if the revenues aren't enough." This is "true" in exactly the same way that a desire for, say, better roads could "force" the legislature to raise taxes -- nothing in the proposed law requires it. Finally, they suggest as an alternative to universal preschool the money could fund "150 miles of new freeway lanes to ease traffic congestion."

There you go. What's better than universal preschool, which benefits us all both financially and by reducing abuse, neglect and the crime and problems that follow? One new lane from San Diego to Los Angeles.

Put your money in now and enjoy the better state you get to retire in. Vote yes on 82.

Previously:

Prop 81: No (sadly)

You know your state is a world power when it's making environmental agreements with sovereign nations.

Today, Tony Blair and Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a joint mission statement indicating that:

Britain and California will "commit to urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote low carbon technologies".

And:

"California and the UK recognise the linkages between climate change, energy security, human health and robust economic growth," it adds.

"Working together, California and the UK commit to build upon current efforts, share experiences, find new solutions and work to educate the public on the need for aggressive action to address climate change and promote energy diversity."

They are also looking at potential cooperation on an emissions-trading plan.

A spokesman for the British consulate denied that this is a workaround for President Bush, who withdrew from the Kyoto global warming accord and has been proactively shunning news of the need for environmentally driven changes for years.

Of course, on the whole, it makes sense for the UK (GDP $1.83 trillion) and California (GDP $1.54 trillion) to work together. And, if one did want to work around the executive, it's better to deal with 12.5% of the American economy than nothing at all.

The next election is sneaking up on us -- just over a month and change away, we'll all get to vote on a number of exciting new proposed laws, and possibly some new local officials as well. As before, I'll be reviewing this year's crop of propositions and giving each an up or down recommendation. This year, we have (now with links to my reviews added as the reviews are completed):

1A: Transportation Funding Protection Recommend "No"
1B: Highway Safety, Traffic Reduction, Air Quality, Port Security Recommend "No"
1C: Housing and Emergency Shelter Trust Fund Recommend "No"
1D: Kindergarten - University Public Education Facilities Recommend "No" with caveat
1E: Disaster Preparedness and Flood Prevention Recommend "No"
83: Sex Offenders, Punishment, Residence Restrictions, Monitoring Recommend "No" (change of position)
84: Water Quality, Safety and Supply. Flood Control. Park Improvements and more. Recommend "No"
85: Waiting Period and Parental Notification Before Termination of Minor's Pregnancy. Recommend "No"
86: Tax on Cigarettes. Recommend "Yes"
87: Alternative Energy. Research, Production, Incentives, Oil Tax. Recommend "Yes"
88: Education Funding. Property Tax. Recommend "Yes"
89: Political Campaigns. Public Financing. Corporate Tax Increase. Spending Limits. Recommend "Yes"
90: Government Acquisition of Private Property. Recommend "No"

Whew. That's quite a bit. I'll try to review each in a timely manner.

If you just can't wait for your sample ballot and voter information guide, you can read the full text of all the propositions at the Secretary of State's web site.

Proposition 86: Tax on Cigarettes. Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute

If you've heard of any of this year's propositions, you've probably heard of this one. It's been on the receiving end of a blitz of negative campaigning, calling it another tax and decrying how only a minimal portion of its revenues will actually go to smoking prevention. Let's take a look at what it actually does and see how those ads might, just possibly, be shilling for big tobacco.

Prop 86 would add a 13 cent tax on each cigarette, and by extension (due to current California law) comparable tax increases on chewing tobacco and all other tobacco products. This would take the form of an excise tax, meaning that sales tax would be built on top of it. Funds pulled in by this new excise tax would go toward a number of health-related areas. First, money would go to backfill funds lost by Prop 10, which also taxes cigarettes. This would ensure that Prop 10's mandated early childhood development programs would not lose out just because people cut back on taxable smoking after the price increase. Of the money remaining after this backfill, 5% would go into the Health and Disease Research Account, funding studies on tobacco control and various cancers (breast, lung, other cancers). 42.25% would go into the Health Maintenance and Disease Prevention Account, providing health coverage for poor children, prevention and care programs for heart disease, stroke, obesity, diabetes, cancer, asthma and putting money into a number of tobacco control and prevention programs. Finally, 52.75% would go into the Health Treatment and Services Account, which would put money into nursing education, nonprofit clinics, tobacco cessation, rural health services and, above all, paying money to hospitals for emergency and trauma care given to people who can't pay.

On the face of it, it might seem hard to argue with taxing cigarettes (a health care cost for the state) to support state public health. Hey, some people might even quit smoking in response. The major complaints levied against this, other than the tired call of "it's another tax" (this is hardly an income tax...) are that most of it doesn't go to tobacco prevention, that it pushes money into "greedy hospitals," and that it exempts hospitals from antitrust laws.

To the first argument, I say "So what?" It's a straw man. Taxes from cigarettes don't have to go to fighting smoking. Heck, you could tax cigarettes (a luxury) and put the money into roads or public transit (necessities) and it would make perfect sense. Taxing tobacco and putting the money into health care is a good fit, but not a necessary one.

To the second argument, I might simply point out that Doctor's Medical Center in West Contra Costa County is closing after estimated losses of $1.5 million per month. If you want to fight medical costs, fight pharma. Don't think that avoiding a tax on a known cancer-causing luxury good that could help keep hospital emergency departments open is a good way to send some kind of message.

To the third argument, I direct you to the fact that the exemption is solely for the purpose of letting hospitals work together to arrange disaster emergency services that are mandated by this proposition. It's a cheap trick to suggest that trying to keep hospitals from getting into trouble for cooperating on disaster drills is some ploy by those hospitals to "pull one over" on us. As a solid counterpunch, the law limits hospitals in the amount they can charge low-income patients and in their ability to sic debt collectors on patients. I admit that when I heard of an antitrust exemption I was suspicious, but having read the text of the law, it's nothing. Certainly nothing like what the counter-ads suggest.

You can get a read for the purpose behind a campaign by the quality of its arguments. The anti-86 ads push hard on a straw man argument, distrust of medical costs and a lie by omission (they mention antitrust, but completely without its incredibly restrictive context). If someone has to mislead you to get your vote, you know even they don't believe their own position. Prop 86 is a positive, in more ways than one.

You can read the text of Prop 86 here.

Tobacco companies have spent more than $69.9 million ($69,900,000) opposing Prop 86. You can read more about that by clicking here.

You can read my other reviews and recommendations on the propositions by clicking here.

Proposition 85: Waiting Period And Parental Notification Before Termination Of Minor's Pregnancy. Initiative Constitutional Amendment. - recommend No

Two elections ago, opponents of abortion introduced Prop 73, which they subtitled "Parent's Right to Know and Child Protection Initiative". This time around, they've resurrected the exact same measure with a more honest name. That said, it's still the same idea, with the same fundamental problems. Briefly:

This proposition would introduce a parental notification requirement prior to an abortion, with a 48-hour reflection period. This completely ignores the risks posed to young women coming from abusive or unhealthy home environments.

The young woman does have the option of going to a juvenile court to try and petition for the ability to go ahead without parental notification. The court is then obligated to make a judgment by 5pm the following day. As before, try to imagine a young woman somewhere in the Central Valley, with no access to a car or public transit, trying to make it to the juvenile court that's sixty miles away, twice in two days without her abusive father or mother noticing.

Once again, this proposition would allow parents to levy civil charges against a doctor who failed to notify them prior to performing an abortion. At any time prior to judgment, the parents could simply take $10,000 from the doctor in question. Again, I fear the clinic-chasing industry this could generate, with lawyers hunting for the free $10K.

As before, the notification must be sent certified mail, with delivery restriction and signature required, as well as a parallel mailing via first class mail. This part adds a touch of work for a doctor's office, but is the most reasonable part of the prop.

In reviewing Prop 86, I mentioned that you can gain vital understanding about a cause by the way it is argued. The arguments for Prop 86 focus on the unsupported idea that lack of parental notification laws lets young girls be pressured into sex (and then abortions) by sexual predators, and that abortion clinics callously profit from performing abortions on minors. Scanning through the capitalized words in the argument for this proposition, I see that the key concepts are PARENTS, SCHOOL-AGE GIRLS, ADULT MEN, SEXUAL ABUSE, and RAPE. The take-home message of the argument is that your daughters are being raped and forced to have abortions. In contrast, the arguments against this measure point out that it is impossible to legislate family communication, and that many young women come from dangerous homes where they are already being sexually abused, or face violence rather than caring should they find themselves pregnant.

This is my assertion: This kind of proposition is the lazy and callous way out. If you are a genuine opponent of abortion, I recommend that you lobby for greater funding for health and safety education for kids, especially at-risk kids. I recommend combined programs that are oriented toward helping kids lead healthy lifestyles, supporting abstinence and understanding safer sex measures, such that we can prevent dangerous behaviors, unwanted pregnancies and, at the end of the day, abortions. You could even support counseling for parents to help them not respond with violence, or to identify abusers more effectively. If a young woman feels she can talk with her parents or a counselor safely, she will. Forcing her to face parents she can't talk to will not make things better.

It is not worth the lives and health of our young women to promote your political goals.

You can read the text of Prop 85 here.

You can read my reviews and recommendations on the other propositions by clicking here.

Proposition 84: Water Quality, Safety and Supply. Flood Control. Natural Resource Protection. Park Improvements. Bonds. Initiative Statute. - recommend No

Up front, I must say that it kills me to recommend against a proposition with such laudable goals. Proposition 84 is a bond measure that would put up $5.4 billion in bonds to fund water quality management (divided among the major water regions of the state, such as the Sacramento Delta and the Los Angeles area), protection of lakes, rivers and streams, flood control measures (oriented toward mapping, bolstering management efforts and giving state matching funds to local governments for similar efforts), substainable communities (urban greening and competitive grants to regional and local parks), protection of coastal waters, enhancement and repair of parks and recreation facilities, forest and wildlife conservation and statewide water planning.

As I said, laudable. There is nothing sneaky or underhanded in there, and all the goals are excellent. I support them. However, a $5.4 billion bond measure requires a payoff, over thirty years, of $10.5 billion. I would much prefer to see money paid out directly, now, by our legislature.

In what will become, I think, a regular feature of these reviews, let me touch briefly on the disingenuous claims made in the arguments for and against this proposition.

For: "Yes on 84 will not raise taxes..."

That's their emphasis, not mine. This is frankly dishonest. It does not literally raise taxes, of course. It just shovels a $10.5 billion debt onto Californians for the next thirty years.

Against: "This proposal eliminates protections against corruption and favoritism in current law and it bypasses our competitive bidding system."

Also false. The proposition eliminates competitive bidding for one allotment of $10 million tasked for emergency flood care - out of a bond measure that's worth $5.4 billion. It also does exempt the measure from some controls that require that regulations be vetted by the Office of Administrative Law, but per my reading of the appropriate text from the Government Code, this does not affect how the money is spent, but how any potential resulting rules are written (that is, they won't be vetted for clarity).

I'm disappointed that the authors put forward the misdirection tactic of claiming "no new taxes," but as we'll see in Prop 1E, our legislature does this as well. I'm similarly disappointed that the argument against pushes so hard on an allocation method that applies to less than 0.2% of the money involved.

You can read the text of Prop 84 here.

You can reach my reviews and recommendations on other propositions by clicking here.

Proposition 1E: Disaster Preparedness and Flood Prevention Bond Act of 2006. - recommend No

Proposition 1E is part of a raft of five legislative measures designed to help rebuild California infrastructure. Prop 1E is focused on flood control and emergency preparedness measures, proposing putting up bonds worth $4.1 billion to pay for them. As I noted with Prop 84, even bond measures with entirely laudable goals face the fundamental problem that they load dramatic debt onto the state for the next thirty years -- in this case, $4.1 billion now requires a payoff of $8 billion later. For that reason alone, I must again recommend against this measure, and suggest that we all pressure our legislature to pay that money up front, now, out of our state budget.

The core expenditure in Prop 1E is a bolus of $3 billion directed to flood control and disaster preparedness measures in the Central Valley and the Sacramento Delta region. If you're a Southern California resident and these names aren't jumping out at you, the former is where the bulk of California's agriculture lives and the latter is the most consistent source of state flooding news as the rivers overflow every so often. $3 billion would be a substantial amount to direct to flood prevention in these areas; however, the current estimated price tag for the required refurbishing in the Cental Valley and the Delta comes to $7-12 billion. That is, anywhere from twice to four times the amount of the bond. I'm not convinced that making it a quarter of our way to the goal is worth $8 billion in debt. The scope of the problem suggests that incremental, up-front expenditures are really what is required.

Sadly, the argument for Prop 1E hauls out the same "no taxes" argument, saying "YES ON 1E: STRICT ACCOUNTABILITY AND NO NEW TAXES". Although it is not a literal tax, an $8 billion debt is effectively a tax on our future, and is not sound policy.

For the record, our state legislative bodies voted overwhelmingly for this bond measure. I recommend going back to them and telling them to start paying for these repairs directly, rather than mortgaging the future to avoid any hint of taxes now.

You can read the text of Prop 1E here.

You can reach my reviews of and recommendations on the other propositions by clicking here.

Proposition 87: Alternative Energy. Research, Production, Incentives. Tax on California Oil Producers. Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute. - recommend Yes

Prop 87 levies a tax on oil extracted from the land or waters of the state of California, directing the money so derived to efforts to transition our state over to clean, alternative energy sources. Specifically, it would tax oil generated in this state from 1.5-6%, depending on the current price, to feed into a trust fund that is capped at $4 billion. This trust fund would, in turn, pay out, with 57.5% going to reduction of gasoline and diesel use (including funding alternative fuel vehicles as well as ethanol and biodiesel), 26.75% going to research and innovation, 9.75% going to commercialization (providing matching funds to commercial developers), 2.5% to vocational training and 3.55 to public education and administration. The stated goal is to take California down 25% from its current level of petroleum use by the target date of 2017.

Given that California currently sucks down 16 billion gallons of petroleum products a year, chopping off 4 billion of this in a decade is not merely a good idea -- it might be underkill. That said, it's instructive to consider the arguments against, and then who's making those arguments.

Opponents of 87 claim that it generates new state bureacracy, allows the spending of $4 billion outside the state budgetary review process, reduces revenues for fire and public safety and doesn't give any money to schools.

I'll let you in on the punchline first -- these are misdirections. Prop 87 allows spending $4 billion "outside the state budgetary review process" because it collects an additional $4 billion from new sources -- specifically, oil companies that had record profits last year. This is the same reason no money goes to schools from this $4 billion -- it's entirely new money, not carved out of the state budget. The claim that less money will go to emergency services comes from the assessment that the tax-deductible nature of this new severance tax will result in $10 million less in income tax on oil companies annually (of which, a very small fraction would have been directed into emergency services). I'll trade that $10 million annually to get the $200-400 million annually that this new tax is estimated to pull in.

Here's another secret -- oil companies operating in California will pay about $14 million in income tax during the 2006-2007 fiscal year (that $10 million doesn't seem like such a loss now, does it?). In contrast, let's look at how much money they've put down opposing Prop 87:

• Chevron: $29 million
• Occidental Oil and Gas: $4.75 million
• Area Energy, LLP: $12.6 million
• Plains Exploration & Production Corp. (of Texas): $1.2 million
• Other out-of-state contributors: over $200,000
• Other in-state contributors: millions

That's right. Oil companies have put down more than $48 million ($48,000,000), or about three years of their current income tax tally, to avoid this measure. That speaks volumes.

Members of all political parties agree that alternative energy is critical. It's a national defense issue as much as it is an environmental and public health issue. Right now, 42% of California's oil needs are supplied from foreign sources. That means such stalwarts as Saudia Arabia, Iran and Venezuela form the basis of our defense and economic prosperity. We know from history that foreign oil producers can, and will, embargo us to make us cave. That's ridiculous, and it has to change. We can't let callous near-sightedness in oil companies make us vulnerable.

You can read the text of Prop 87 here.

You can read my reviews and recommendations on the other propositions by clicking here.

You can see the source information for money spent opposing Prop 87 here and here.

Proposition 88: Education Funding. Real Property Parcel Tax. Initiative Consitutional Amendment and Statute. - recommend Yes

Prop 88 would add an extra $50 property tax on each parcel (e.g. a house, a business lot) and funnel the resulting funds into education. This $50 tax would not apply to people over 65 or the severely disabled. The estimated $450 million this would collect each year would be channeled as follows:

• First, money would be pushed into the General Fund to account for any other tax income lost due to deductions taken based on the new tax
  
• $175 million would go into class size reduction (grades K-12)
  
• $100 million would go into textbooks and instructional materials
  
• $100 million would go into school safety
  
• $85 million would go into "achievement" grants that supply funds to schools that are not otherwise being funded by state educational bonds, based on the presence of high-achieving students ($500 per student in the 6-10th percentile)
  
• $10 million for a longitudinal study of educational effectiveness
  

The observant among you might notice that this totals more than $450 million. Prop 88 accounts for this, requiring that expenditures be proportionally modified to match the actual revenue earned by the tax. It doesn't dip into outside general fund monies, in other words. As a corollary, the money can't be diverted into the general fund, either, and must be spent on the educational channels indicated above.

Along with the "it's another tax" argument against Prop 88, the opposing argument says that "your money goes to the State Legislature, which decides who gets your tax money..." This is a liberal interpretation of the actual text, which says that:

Funds appropriated pursuant to paragraphs (1) to (3), inclusive, of subdivision (b) shall be apportioned directly to school districts, county officers of education, and public charter schools on a per-pupil basis. Using variables and data that are objective, measurable, and auditable, the Legislature shall weight the per-pupil allocation to account for differential pupil-level costs associated with achieving state and federal achievement standards based on disabilities, English proficiency, or socioeconomic status.

Your money doesn't "go" to the legislature, although they are required to apportion it in a transparent manner. It doesn't surprise me that the opposing argument rings the twin bells of "taxes" and "fattened legislature", inasmuch as they don't have a lot of socially responsible ground to stand on. As you can see here, contributions to the opposing effort come largely from the Howard Jarvis Association (which dislikes any new tax) and from real estate developers.

Property taxes in California have been kept artificially low by Prop 13 -- especially taxes on business properties, which are typically leased out and thus not subject to revaluing following resale. Schools, largely supported by such taxes, have thus taken a funding hit for years, failing to receive funding in proportion with how many students we have in this state.

$50 is about the cost of a typical single month of cable television service, or a tank of gas for many vehicles, or one game for a home gaming system -- but taken altogether across the state, it could provide nearly half a billion dollars of additional educational funding, with all the benefits that entails.

Definitely worth it.

You can read the text of Prop 88 here.

You can read my reviews and recommendations on the other propositions by clicking here.

Proposition 1A: Transportation Funding Protection. Legislative Constitutional Amendment. - recommend No

Prop 1A is a relatively inoffensive and concise bit of legislation that would add additional restrictions on how gas tax money (about $2 billion/year) is spent. A previous proposition, 42, put in place some protections on this money, requiring that it be spent for transportation needs unless the governor declares a financial emergency. He has since done this twice, once partially and once fully, in the last two years or so. Prop 1A would impose the following restrictions:

• Money diverted from the gas tax to the General Fund would have to be repaid, with interest
• More money could not be diverted in a subsequent year until all such repayment was completed
• No more than two fiscal years could be declared "emergency" years (that allow such diversion) in any ten-year window

As I said, concise and inoffensive. I'm against Prop 1A simply because I think our state legislature needs at least the responsiveness allowed by current law (in which a two-thirds vote and a declaration by the governor is required to declare a fiscal emergency and redirect gas tax money) to let our state weather potential fiscal or material emergencies.

Money for Prop 1A has come from pretty much anyone with an interest in transportation in one form or another, including housing construction companies, power companies, cargo transportation firms, banks, title companies, business groups, Native American groups and so forth. There are no committees working against Prop 1A.

Overall, I'm not a big fan of additional spending constraints. If you can't trust two thirds of our legislature to properly decide when there is or isn't an emergency, that suggests that you need to replace your current legislators.

You can see who's supporting Prop 1A financially here.

You can read the full text of Prop 1A here.

You can read my reviews and recommendations for the other propositions by clicking here.

Proposition 1B: Highway Safety, Traffic Reduction, Air Quality, and Port Security Bond Act of 2006 - recommend No

Prop 1B is the second proposition in a raft of propositions kicked out by our legislature that are ostensibly oriented toward rebuilding California. It would authorize the state to issue bonds worth $19 billion to fund transportation projects. Of that $19 billion, $11.3 billion would go to highway and local road improvement (including a $1 billion allotment for State Route 99, which parallels Interstate 5 through the Central Valley and serves Bakersfield, Visalia, Fresno and Merced), $4 billion to public transit (largely to local rail programs), $3.2 billion to improving goods movement and air quality, and $1.5 billion for safety and security measures.

The goal of Prop 1B -- supporting our transportation infrastructure -- is clearly a good one. I'm even impressed by the attention paid to public transit. I am less impressed, however, by the grotesque bill of $39 billion California will have to pay to get this $19 billion up front. That's $20 billion burned on interest over the years -- and I guarantee that future generations will be looking back at us and bitterly complaining about how the debt load from our era is keeping them from maintaining transportation infrastructure.

As with Prop 1A, major supporters of this proposition include construction companies and road building groups, as well as the Automobile Club of Southern California and The California Alliance for Jobs, a group representing the interests of construction firms that has spent about a million dollars pushing this specific proposition.

Arguments for Prop 1B note that if we continue to underfund infrastructure as we've been doing, future generations will face an "infrastructure deficit" that they can't catch up with. True. Of course, if we borrow massively now to partially fill the current gap, then we're just swapping one future deficit with another. That's a no-win situation.

In the argument for, supporters of 1B once again trot out the claim that bond measures magically provide money "without raising taxes."

Spare me from arguments based on the financial wisdom of a college freshman with his first credit card. $39 billion in debt is a bad idea.

You can see who's spending money for Prop 1B here.

You can read the full text of Prop 1B here.

You can read my reviews and recommendations on the other propositions by clicking here.

Proposition 1C: Housing and Emergency Shelter Trust Fund Act of 2006. - recommend No

Prop 1C is the third of five propositions placed on the ballot by the legislature. Like the others, 1C is oriented toward state infrastructure -- in this case, housing.

Prop 1C is another bond measure, issuing $2.85 billion in bonds to fund various housing and residential projects. As with every other bond measure, Prop 1C would incur a considerable debt, costing $6.1 billion to pay off. The $2.85 would be split up as follows:

• $1.35 billion to development programs, including urban development (such as parks, sewer, transit and environmental cleanup), development near public transit and parks funding
• $625 million to home ownership programs such as assisting home ownership in low-income households and down payment assistance
• $590 million to provide loans for multifamily housing, housing with associated healthcare and housing for homeless youth
• $285 million to other housing programs including farmworker housing and homeless shelters

Yet again, the arguments for Prop 1C claim that it requires no new taxes. Once again, I have to point out that adopting over $3 billion in debt on top of the actual money that's going into housing and residential projects simply means $3 billion less to spend on housing or city development in the future. I agree with each and every one of the target projects for Prop 1C, but not with the use of a bond measure as a dodge around raising taxes or reapportioning money from other projects.

A convincing argument for this proposition (and others like it) has to be based on a cost-benefit analysis that demonstrates a net cost savings over the next three decades for a bond measure and its associated debt versus just paying the money incrementally as we go along. Otherwise, you're arguing for money to face infrastructure problems now at the expense of being able to deal with those problems later (and those problems will always exist).

Money supporting Prop 1C comes from people with a social welfare interest in city development, as well as from folks with a financial interest, including real estate developers, builders and so on.

You can see who's supporting Prop 1C here.

You can read the full text of the proposition here.

You can read my reviews and recommendations for the other propositions by clicking here.

Proposition 90: Government Acquisition, Regulation of Private Property. Initiative Constitutional Amendment. - recommend No

Prop 90 is intended to provide strong protection for property rights. It's being billed as protection against eminent domain, but in fact it goes far beyond that, buttressing property owners against any possible loss of value due to government decisions. Specifically, Prop 90 has three major provisions:

• Property can only be seized by eminent domain if it's going to be transferred to a public agency for a public use, rather than to a (different) private owner
• If seized property stops being used for the public good, it must be returned to the original owner, or heirs thereof
• The killer one: any revaluation of property value as a consequence of government action counts as "damage" that must be compensated by the government

When people refer to the "trap" in Prop 90, they're talking about that last one. The first two rules pertaining to eminent domain are quite reasonable, and I would love to see them on the ballot again at a later date. I agree that it's wrong and unhealthy that eminent domain has been used to convert housing to shopping malls. However, depending on how the court interprets "substantial economic loss," we could see a spate of law suits every time any new law goes into effect that can be interpreted to affect the value of a property. Naturally, this has the potential to bleed the state dry as irate property owners flood it in lawsuits.

So, who's supporting Prop 90? Oddly enough, the biggest contributions (over $3.3 million!) have come from out-of-state donors in Illinois, Colorado and New York. Maybe it makes me provincial, but I'm not keen on out-of-state political interests attempting to break my state.

Money to oppose Prop 90 has come in dribs and drabs from the League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club, as well as individual small donors. Given that Prop 90 would make enforcement of even current environmental laws potentially crippling for the state, it's not surprising that the League and Club are opposed.

I'm frustrated that Prop 90 bundles a good idea -- constraining eminent domain -- with a terrible, terrible idea that will hemmorhage our state into oblivion. It's dishonest to combine these two concepts together and then parade people who have suffered from eminent domain around like sick children to grab sympathy and votes.

You can see who's supporting and opposing Prop 90 here.

You can read the full text of the proposition here.

You can read my reviews and recommendations for the other propositions by clicking here.

Proposition 1D: Kindergarten - University Public Education Facilities Bond Act of 2006. - recommend No (with caveat)

Proposition 1D is the fourth of five infrastructure propositions put onto this year's ballot by the legislature. As its title suggests, Prop 1D is a bond measure designed to raise money to modernize older and build new K-12 and university-level facilities. It would issue $10.4 billion in bonds, which would cost about $20.3 billion to pay back.

Money from Prop 1D would be split about 70:30 between K-12 and university education. At the K-12 level, $3.3 billion would go into modernization, $1.9 billion would go into new construction (with up to 10.5% of that for seismic retrofitting), $500 million would go to building of new charter schools facilities, another $500 milion would go to career technical education programs, $1 billion to new construction at severely crowded schools, and $100 million to grants to promote use of materials that "include the attributes of high-performance schools" (I was unable to find a definition for this term). At the university level, $1.51 billion would go to community colleges, $890 million would go to the UC system, and $690 million would go to the Cal State system.

Prop 1D is another straightforward bond measure, as its relative brevity shows. It shares the same problem the other bond measures share, that of building up substantial debt. At the moment, I can't support accruing that kind of debt to build new facilities.

This brings me to the caveat mentioned above. I have looked, extensively, into research that relates money spent up front on education to social and economic benefits downstream. There are clear correlations between having education at all and economic prosperity and social gain. For example, completion of a high-school-level education correlates with reduced rates of drug use and crime, and increased salary and economic output. Projections on "what would have happened if the U.S. hadn't funded as much education" suggest that we'd be at about 80% of our current economic output. The Rand study on universal preschool demonstrated that it would have been a net economic gain for California. With all that said, I have been unable to find anything that supports the idea that improving physical facilities leads to an improvement in graduation rates and educational success.

That may sound like an obvious connection, but after substantial searching I have not yet found supporting evidence. I encourage anyone who reads this and does know about such studies to please point me toward them. It might change my mind. In the meantime, I must go with my "no" recommendation on Prop 1D.

Prop 1D has received funding from groups that support various public education institutions (individual groups supporting each UC campus, each Cal State campus, and one group that represents community colleges as a whole) and from a plethora of construction firms.

You can examine financial support for Prop 1D here.

You can read the full text of the proposition here.

You can read my reviews and recommendations on the other propositions by clicking here.

Scott Baugh, head of the Orange County Republican Party is urging Republican candidate for the House Tan D. Nguyen to drop out of the race against incumbent Loretta Sanchez, following an apparent direct link between Mr. Nguyen and a letter that was recently circulated to Latino households in the area. The letter, mailed to 14,000 Democratic voters in Orance County, said (translated from Spanish):

"You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time."

Note that it said if you are an immigrant, you can't vote (which is quite, quite untrue, or our governor couldn't vote for all those propositions he supports this November). The Attorney General's office is looking into prosecuting this both as attempted voter intimidation and as a hate crime. For his part, Nguyen has lamely offered that "The mailer was flawed and ill-conceived," which is much like saying, "The mugging was flawed and ill-conceived" and hoping that'll let you stay out of jail.

Credit goes to Baugh for not trying to back such a dirty play, along with a little pity for having this happen on his watch.

I'm just plain old fascinated that someone named Tan Nguyen -- not even a "Bob" or "Michael" Nguyen, but a "Tan" Nguyen -- thought it was at all okay to disenfranchise immigrant voters to win. Thus my Malkin reference above. There's a certain branch of radical right-winger who cannot, under any circumstances, see how what they're doing or calling for applies to themselves, even though in the Nguyen-Malkin world, we'd logically go ahead and disenfranchise Vietnamese voters while we're interning Filipinos.

Sad, stupid and wrong.

The S.F. Chronicle story

Edit: Here's the Spanish text of the letter (apologies for ditching the accents):

Saludos --

Se le envia esta carta debido a que recientemente ud. fue registrado para votar. Si ud. es ciudadano de los Estados Unidos, se le ruega a que particpipe en el proceso democratico de la votaction.

We're sending you this letter because you recently registered to vote. If you're a U.S. citizen, we encourage you to participate in the democratic process and vote.

(So far, so good.)

Se la avisa que si su residencia en este pais es ilegal o si es emigrado, votar en una elecion federal es un delito que podra resultar in encarcelamiento, y si sera deportado por votar sin tener derecho a ello.

You are advised that if you are an illegal resident in this country or you are an immigrant, it is a crime to vote in a Federal election, and you could end up in jail or deported for doing so.

(Not so good. Keeping in mind that natural-born American citizens have been successfully disenfranchised by people saying, "Oh, you can't vote if you haven't paid your taxes/gas bill/etc", how would you parse the "if you are an immigrant, it is a crime to vote" statement? I'm the child of an immigrant -- don't worry, the English-speaking variety -- so I admit on not keen on this intentionally deceptive phrasing, especially aimed at an already-vulnerable population. I'll repeat again that native-born Americans have been successfully tricked out of the right to vote via propaganda campaigns in the past; do you think naturalized citizens are inherently smarter than native-born ones? If so, you should probably be pro-immigration...)

De la misma manera, se le avisa que el gobierno de los Estados Unidos esta instalando un nuevo sistema computerizado para verificar los nombres de todos los nuevos registrados que voten en las elecciones de octubre y noviembre. Organizaciones en contra de la emigracion podran pedir informacion de este nuevo sistema computerizado.

At the same time, you are advised that the U.S. government has installed a new computerized system to verify the names of all new registrants that vote in the October and November election. Organizations opposed to immigration can obtain information from this computerized system.

(They're lying. There is no national verification system for new voters for this election -- in fact, as documented recently on many news sources, there's no way for states to even talk to each other about who they have registered -- thus causing concerns about voter fraud that have nothing to do with immigrants. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 mandated state-level registration databases, which do exist. They just don't talk to each other at all or contain any verifying information -- it's just names and addresses.

If I were a naturalized citizen of Latino descent living in an area with a Minuteman group, I'd be pretty scared about that whole "your personal information handed out to anti-immigration groups" idea.)

No como en Mexico, aqui no se aporta ningun incentivo para votar. En los Estados Unidos no hay tarjeta de registro para votar. Por lo tanto, es inutil y peligroso votar en cualquier eleccion si ud. no es ciudadano de los Estados Unidos.

Unlike Mexico, here is this no incentive to vote. In the U.S. there is no voter registration card. For this reason it is useless and dangerous to vote in any election if you aren't a citizen of the United States.

(Say what? What's the incentive to vote in Mexico, other than the normal incentive of wanting to choose your government? As far as I can tell, the voter registration card in Mexico does not provide benefits beyond being able to vote. Perhaps someone can clarify that for me. This entire paragraph is fairly nonsequiter, but the take-home message is "voting scary and dangerous.")

No le haga caso a ningun politico qu le diga lo contrario. Estos solo velan por sus propios intereses. Solo quieren ganar las elecciones, sin importarles en lo mas minimo que le pase a ud.

Do not listen to any politician who tells you otherwise. They only take care of their own interests. They only want to win elections, without caring what happens to you.

(The final nail -- "Don't listen to anyone else! Even if they point out that naturalized citizens can vote! They don't care about you!")

A comment on my post about Tan Nguyen prompted me to track down the original Spanish-language version of the letter and translate it myself. People have been insisting that it's pro-citizen-voting, but I found it worse than I actually expected.

In short, after opening with a throwaway "we encourage citizens to vote" line, it not only misleadingly says that immigrants can't vote, but also that a national computer system is collecting everyone's information, and that anti-immigration groups will be able to access it. There is no national system accessible to anti-immigration groups. If I were a naturalized citizen of Latino descent living in an area with a Minuteman group, I'd be pretty freaked out by the concept of my registration information being handed out freely to militants who oppose my presence in the country. The letter ends with another nonsequiter threat of jail time, and urges the reader not to listen to any other politicians who might tell them they're allowed to vote.

I've posted the full Spanish text, with my translation, here.

Of course, all of this can obfuscate a key point -- this was sent to 14,000 registered Democrats. Why wasn't it sent to registered Republicans? Why wasn't it sent out in English? In Vietnamese? Surely Tan knows an illegal immigrant or two...

Proposition 83: Sex Offenders. Sexually Violent Predators. Punishment, Residence Restrictions and Monitoring. Initiative Statute. - recommend No (I changed my recommendation on this given doubts about the GPS and residency requirements)

Prop 83, called "Jessica's Law" by its proponents, is a prop that would restructure a number of sex-offense-related penalties, modify how sex offenders are treated after their jail time is done, and build a GPS tracking system for registered sex offenders.

Prop 83 modifies a reasonably large chunk of the penal code as it relates to sex crimes. Among the notable changes:

• An attempted sexual assault during a home invasion would rate life with the possibility of parole
• The age gap to quality for "aggravated sexual assault of a child" (under 14) would be reduced from 10 years to 7 years (that is, if you are 7 or more years older than the child, it becomes an "aggravated" assault)
• Possession of child pornography would automatically be a felony
• Attempting to contact a minor with intent to commit various offenses would qualify as "intent to commit" those offenses (this is geared toward allowing prosecution of people attempting to pick up kids online)
• The definition of "violent felony" is amended to include sodomy and oral copulation committed with a threat of future retaliation (that is, a threat such as "If you resist, I'll come back later and kill you" would automatically up the crime from a felony to a "violent felony"). Prior "violent felonies" in a criminal record lead to longer sentences for any subsequent offenses
• It would remove a ten year "timeout" on consideration of prior convictions in enhancing (adding to) jail time for new convictions
• It would add "spousal rape" to the list of crimes that, as prior convictions, lead to enhanced prison sentences
• It would increase certain fines for sex offenses
• It expands the list of circumstances that can bump up penalties for sex offenses -- the most notable addition here being that administration of a controlled substance is one of these penalty enhancers, even if it was administered without threat (previously, administration of a controlled substance was only an enhancer if a threat was used to make the person take it)
• It would increase the length of parole for people released from "life" convictions from 5 to 10 years
• It would increase the prohibited zone (in which sex offenders can not life) around public parks and schools from about 1,300 feet to 2,000 feet.
• Along with a few other things, the other two big features are the GPS system and a reworking of psychiatric holds on sex crime convicts, as I'll discuss below

Under certain circumstances, a person can be defined as a "sexually violent predator" (SVP) and held in a psychiatric facility after their jail time is completed. The current rules for classifying someone as an SVP require two victims during separate crimes and a mental health determination. Prop 83 would revise this to require only one victim. Also under current law, someone classed as an SVP receives a court hearing every two years to determine if they should still be held in a psychiatric facility. Prop 83 would revise this regulation to no longer require the biannual court review, instead requiring an annual medical determination.

Prop 83 would also require GPS tracking of certain sex offenders. Specifically, GPS tracking would be required for parolees during the period of their parole, and for registered sex offenders for the duration of their registered time. Note that in many cases, this means the person will be subject to GPS monitoring for life, as their status as a registered sex offender is lifelong. The estimated cost of this monitoring is on the order of $200 million or more per year. Offenders subject to monitoring would be required to cover the cost of their monitoring, subject to their ability to pay. In addition, certain fines for sex offenses would be bumped up by $100-300, with the added money going to DNA testing labs, the DoJ DNA testing fund, and to the monitoring effort.

There are quite reasonable arguments for and against certain components of Prop 83. Opponents argue that habitual sex offenders habitually avoid registration anyway, so the GPS system will not help. In addition, there are complaints that certain offenses (primarily statuatory rape) will lead to lifelong complications for people, as it will prevent them living near schools and parks. Arguments for Prop 83 hinge on the promise of increased protection against sex crimes, especially protection of children.

I am not a big fan of the police state concept. California's prisons are overflowing, including a lot of people whose primary crime is being an addict. That said, sex offenders -- especially those who qualify as "violent" under the current (or Prop 83-modified) penal code are exactly who should be occupying our prisons. The strength of Prop 83, for me, is its enhancement of penalties for sex offenses, including psychiatric containment for the specific subset of sexually violent predators. It is possible that these are individuals who can be rehabilitated, but they're toward the end of a long, long line of more viable prospects such as addicts and petty criminals. Maybe one day we'll work our way through that list, but in the meantime I prefer not to take it on faith that violent sex offenders are all better just because they've been in prison for a decade.

Financial support for Prop 83 includes a lot of people you'd expect it to -- police agencies, sheriff's groups and so forth -- and a couple I didn't expect to find. Notable standouts giving large donations include the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians and Desert Valley Medical Group in Victorville, CA. I was so curious about both groups (each gave $150,000) that I called them up to see if they had anything to say on the topic. Although Desert Valley had no prepared comment, the Viejas Band was pleasingly responsive. Bob Scheid, in charge of press and media relations, was good enough to get back to me and explain why Viejas was involved in this proposition.

Paraphrasing our telephone conversation: The Viejas band has a well-known reputation for nurturing children and honoring elders. Although this latter aspect of tribal life -- honoring elders -- is more commonly known, Viejas has a strong commitment to education and healthcare for its kids, as part of their goal of nurturing and protecting future leaders in the tribe and in the community. When they saw the initial petition going around for this proposition, they decided that it fit with their priorities, and that they wanted to see it receive a public hearing and debate. That's why they helped in the drive to get it on the ballot (something I didn't know they were involved in). As Mr. Scheid said, "the timing and the issue were right."

I'd like to thank Mr. Scheid and the Viejas people in general for being so responsive to a random private citizen calling to ask them about their politics.

My conclusion about Prop 83 is that I am fully in favor of the extended penalties and the changes to the psychiatric hold policy for sexually violent predators. I am unsure whether the $200 million annual outlay for the GPS will really yield enhanced protection, and I imagine it will receive some amount of legal challenge before it is enacted.

Edit: Following convincing arguments, I think the GPS program will probably not do much to help with the problem of sexual predators, and the new residency requirements will literally force registered offenders out of cities (which might drive them into other states -- I'm not sure what happens then). I still really want to see a package of enhanced penalties and the ability to hold violent offenders indefinitely based on medical cause, but I think the GPS system and residency rules represent too heavy a burden to go with those benefits. Thus, I've decided to vote against 83.

You can see who's supporting the effort for Prop 83 here.

You can read the full text of the proposition here.

You can read my reviews and recommendations for the other propositions by clicking here.

As I mentioned in my earlier review of Prop 86, there's been a lot of advertising on the air and in the mail opposing Prop 86. The core message of the no on prop 86 campaign is that "it's a new tax, and less than 10% of it goes to helping people stop smoking." A piece of junk mail I tossed today went so far as to claim that less than 10% goes for this purpose, and the rest goes to "bureaucratic programs."

As a wise commentator pointed out on the radio earlier this week, by definition, any operation of more than one person has organization -- that is, a bureaucracy. It's a bad buzzword, but it also applies to everything from a family dinner to the IRS.

This "less than 10%" argument is a shameless misdirection -- that is, it's basically a lie. Sure, about 10% of the money gained does go to smoking cessation. But as I pointed out earlier, the smoking lobby that says this is basically trying to convince you that that's the point of Prop 86, and therefore it's a failure.

This is a lie.

Prop 86 is a tax on a luxury item (one that happens to cost our health care system a ton of money) that feeds money into the healthcare system. It's nice that a massive healthcare cost item (smoking) is being used to support health care in the state under Prop 86, but there's zero cause to imagine taxes on cigarettes can only go into smoking cessation programs. Prop 86 taxes cigarettes to help provide medical care to people. Simple, logical and sane.

I understand having your cigarettes cost more money may be upsetting. That said, I'm upset that you're raising my health insurance costs -- and you are, because health insurance costs are distributed across all the insured folks. I want money flowing back into our overburdened hospitals so that they're there when I need them, when you need them, and when our neighbors need them. A tax on a luxury item is a good, good way to handle this.

...and, since I didn't do this before, who's spending all that money to oppose Prop 86? Major contributors include:

• R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company - $22,610,000
• Cigar Association of America, Inc. - $900,000
• Philip Morris USA, Inc. - $23,900,000
• U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co. - $2,311,000
• Commonwealth Brands, Inc. - $1,250,000

...and that's just the big ones. That's over $69.9 million ($69,900,000) in money spent to block Prop 86 by tobacco companies.

I encourage you all to write letters to the editor and otherwise let people know just who's fibbing to you about Prop 86, because it's the people who stand to gain the most money from continuing to sell mass quantities of cigarettes in our state, and they do not have your best interests at heart.

You can see the full list of who's spending money on Prop 86 here.

Proposition 89: Political Campaigns. Public Financing. Corporate Tax Increase. Campaign Contribution and Expenditure Limits. Initiative Statute. - recommend Yes

Prop 89 is a nearly comprehensive package of campaign finance reform measures that would sharply curtail campaign fundraising from a number of sources while offering government money to candidates instead. This money would be derived from a slight bump in the state corporate income tax, from 8.84% to 9.04% (a 0.20% increase). Positions covered by this prop would include governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, treasurer, controller, insurance commissioner, superintendent of public education, senate, assembly and board of equalization.

Prop 89 would lower contribution limits as well as lowering the amount of money candidates and corporations could spend in support of ballot measures. Generally, 89 cuts allowed contributions from individuals and small committees to fund candidates by 5-6 fold, and imposes a new cap on donations from state political parties to candidates. It would not limit expenditures on ballot measures by individuals (that would be unconstitutional) or by political action groups.

To receive public funding, a candidate would have to acquire between 750 and 25,000 $5 donations from individuals in the state (the numbers become higher as you go from assembly member up to governor). A qualifying candidate could raise "seed money" up to 18 months prior to a given primary election -- this would not be state funding, but would not disqualify them from receiving state funding following the primary. All recipients of public money would be required to participate in public debates.

In the event that a candidate receiving public money faced a candidate receiving private money who had more than a given amount, the public money would be increased in parallel (not necessarily to match, though).

Campaign debts would also have to be repaid or written off within 90 days of the election for which they were incurred. Note that many candidates currently carry campaign debt well past this point, especially for larger positions.

Arguments for Prop 89 have hammered the drum of "stop the corruption", pegging on the large amount of corporate financial involvement in elections in California.

Arguments against Prop 89 are a mix of the legitimate and the less so. They maintain that Prop 89 is a "power grab" by a single special interest. Indeed, 89 is almost completely supported by $2.8 million in contributions from the CA Nurses Association PAC. Notably, the campaign finance limitations of Prop 89 vis-a-vis bond measures would not apply to PACs such as the Nurses Association. Another argument against Prop 89, that it's a "tax increase to support negative campaigning" is purely ridiculous. Given the substantial caps on campaign spending Prop 89 would impose, it would necessarily reduce negative campaigning.

People spending money against Prop 89 include various insurance companies, Miller, the Western Growers PAC, Sempra, PG&E, SoCal Edison, the CA Farm Bureau, Chevron and various real estate companies.

Prop 89 would, indeed, introduce some radical spending controls in California elections. I had some hesitation about that at first, but consider this: combined corporate spending against Props 86 and 87 sums to more than $118 million ($118,000,000). That's over three bucks for every person in the state. Do you think we, as citizens, can match that spending power?

I'd rather not have political debate washed out by a flood of corporate money every time they take issue with a proposition or candidate.

You can see who's spending money on Prop 89 here.

You can read the full text of the proposition here.

You can read reviews and recommendations on the other propositions by clicking here.