Sunday, April 26, 2009

Propositions take a pounding at California Democratic Convention.

I was sure hoping for a consensus on Proposition's 1F through 1F, but that wasn't the case at the General Session on the floor of this year's Democratic California Convention. I was an elected delegate of the Humboldt County Democratic Central Committee (HCDCC) and voted to support all the Propositions so the state won't be bogged down further in doing business in the near future. But there were just too many questions and doubts from my fellow Democrats, so I look for all these props to fail. Here are the results on the elections:

Prop 1A- Vote by card count. 58% yes votes. No position taken.

Prop 1B- Yes vote by card affirmation. Prop Supported.

Prop 1C- Yes vote by card count. 67% yes votes. Prop Supported.

Prop 1D- Vote by card count. 52% yes votes. No position taken.

Prop 1E- Vote by card count. 51% yes votes. No position taken.

Prop 1F- Vote by card affirmation. Prop Supported.


Only half survived. Much spirited debate was had on the floor. Going to be a tough election this May 19th. May have huge ramifications in paying state employees during the summer. I will cover more tomorrow.

13 comments:

Andrew Bird said...

The threshold to win party support was 60 percent. While only B,C & F reached this threshold, all of the Props did win the support of the majority of delegates at the convention.

Anonymous said...

It's like watching a train wreck.

samoasoftball said...

That is a good point Andrew. I should have pointed that out.

Anonymous said...

Big Rich takes big dumps

Carol said...

Which groups were in support and against? Was it the old-line democrats versus the progressive democrats?

Thank you, Richard, for representing the Humboldt County Democrats.

Andrew Bird said...

There was a huge split between the CTA, which supported 1A and the SEIU, which opposed it.

I wish we could have voted with paper ballots on the Props. Having volunteers walk up and down the aisles counting delegate cards being held up in the air doesn't ensure accuracy. And with the support motion failing by less than two percentage points....

The Dems, rightly so, are going to do everything they can to repeal the two-thirds requirement to pass a budget in the Legislature. But how do we do that when we have the same type of requirement in our own party bylaws that allows a minority bloc to have this much power?

Shane Brinton said...

A party endorsement is different from a state budget, Andrew. We need a majority budget to keep the state running. The point of the 60% threshold for party endorsement is to preserve party unity. If only half of the party supports something, it's going to create a lot of problems if you drag the other half of the party along. Unity is a lot more important for the party than it is for the state legislature. We really just need to be able to get a budget through the legislature.

Anonymous said...

I can't wait to vaote no on all of these money grabbing props. What the dems need to do is quit pretending that taxing the rich will solve all of the problems we have and the pet projects they want. Why not just be honest, fair and raise everyones taxes, as needs to be done. That would be fair. I wouldn't like it, as me and my wife only make 65k combined, but it would be fair. I thought that the increased license fee was fair but I didn't like paying it. Both parties keep putting the tough decisions off in favor of band-aid solutions and political expediency. Nothing in any of this addresses the fundamental flaws in the revenue generation/spending ratio. This crap has been going on for so long it is sickening. My wife worked for the state hospital in the 80's and got her pay cut to balance the budget. Then, of course, they begin the multi-tier system in their contract to screw the new people. The only problem is, the people voting weren't the ones affected. They hadn't been hired yet.

As long as we worry about what Bill Clinton did with his personal life or whether or not Bush is a war criminal or a nazi we don't look at the same people saying the same crap year after year, getting re-elected and doing nothing.

Anonymous said...

I already voted no on all of them (except the no-brainer 1F). I voted for you too Shane, and continue to wish that you'd unplug from the Dem machine and think for yourself.

Shane Brinton said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Shane Brinton said...

I'm proud to be a Democrat, but anyone that knows me is aware that my progressive values always come before the party line.

For the record, I voted against endorsing everything except for 1B. This is a rotten package that will impose an unhealthy spending cap and cut services for children and the mentally ill. This is not "shared sacrifice," no matter how much Schwarzenegger and our Democratic legislators tell us it is.

The Democrats have fallen into a Republican trap. It's a great deal for the Right. They created this situation by blocking more reasonable budget proposals. Now they get to oppose these unpopular measures, while the Democrats in the legislature do the dirty work of cutting services and raising revenue through regressive measures like sales tax.

I know the Dems in Sacramento tried, but they fell short. They need to raise taxes on the rich and start cutting real wasteful spending, like excessive prison funding.

Anonymous said...

Where is the shared sacrifice when taxing the rich? Why not be honest about what needs to be done and raise everyone's taxes? I'll tell you why....because the politicians are too gutless to do that. Lets tack on a couple of percent onto everyones income tax and see what happens. It is easy for these cowards to vote on something that affects 2% of the population. Anyone can see that this must be done, whether it's now or next year or the year after that we will all pay more in taxes.

Anonymous said...

Shane said something to the effect of,"I'm glad to take my pay raise ,it's how I make my living" It's over 400$ a meeting. Shane get a freaking job or you'll end up a rich bum like cheesebro.