More Anti Prop 93 Propaganda Disguised As ‘Analysis’ By Dan Walters

It is amazing that "good government" individuals (as Walters and Poizner claim they are) would oppose a policy they conceed to be good government simply because it allows a few members to stay in office during a transition period to that new policy (this is term limits reform). The underlying attitude is "I'm not getting what I want so I'm going to hurt the public." The cynicism of this is breathtaking but what we have come to expect from the Republican party.

That being said, redistricting should not be given up for term limits reform as redistricting is about power and particularly the power for the Democrats to protect the poor and disadvantaged in this state. Without safe districts, the Democrats would be caving on the budget every year, which would mean, basically, an end to medical (we've already effectively ended dental care under medical--try and find a dentist who will take it), drastic reductions in welfare, and the continued underfunding of our schools.

Redistricting should only be traded for a change in the 2/3rds vote. This vote gives one representative the power of two (and with the unit rule, 20% of the representatives can effectively veto a budget, as happened this year). Democrats need to make clear at every opportunity that this is where the true distortion in California politics comes from, not redistricting. If the Republicans won't deal, the the next redistricting should create 45 safe seats in the Assembly and 12 marginal seats, where Republicans who are obstructionist would face recalls (the similar numbers would be 23 and 6 in the Senate). It's about time our side starts playing with the same level of hardball that the Republicans have been for the last quarter-century.

Mr. Cavala,

Couldn't I easily substitute your name for Walters in the opening paragraph?

I mean, you are the one who is a proponent of a one (democratic) party system along with media "oversight". Wasn't PRAVDA the media for a one party system state? One that was rejected by the people after a long and often times bloody struggle?

Your version of political "science" of late compaired republicans to a "confederacy": it's inference to that of the south in the 1860's and earlier and how the republicans have locked up the "solid south" with it's alleged by you 21st century Jim Crow and associated racism.

All the while not acknowleging that EVERY DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT since Truman/WWII save JFK is from the SOUTH. (Both Hillary and Edwards, two of your parties leading presidential candidates are also from the south!)

That is some political "science" you practice!

And you did share with publius the idea that republicans (non-democrats if you like) have actual problems, MRI "proven" with their physical brains. A twisted Joe Goebbels (another example of a one party system)approach to propaganda if ever looked at in the light of day.

You cannot deny those utterances/inferences are here deposited throughout this website by youself/yourselves...

You sir, placed the "blame" for a "failed" redistricting on the Governor. I do recall both Speaker Nunez and Senate Pro Tem Perata early in this legislative year say they would push redistricting, just like they said before in years past.

Are not those two equally if not more so responsible for the utter lack of any form of a redistricting initiative placed on the Governors desk? Again? You yourself here said it was "taken back" after Nancy Pelosi, a federal figure, pressured them, state figures, to do so. Fine, but was that solely DEMOCRATIC PARTY POLITICS overrding what the state and Governor were expecting over the whole year, a redistricting understanding by now? Of course it was.

Nunez and Perata did not work in concert, diliberately so, in pushing forward any form of redistricting to the Governor. It was all lip service.

In addition, Proposition 93 IS all about Nunez and Perata keeping their powerful positions LONGER that the current VOTER APPROVED term limits. How?

--A senior Nunez staffer has worked solely on/for the "initiative" for nearly a year.

--The Perata "Get out of Iraq" attempted ballot measure was an attempt to motivate the base to the polls for that meaningless and tax payer costly vote for nothing so as while they were in the voting booth, they may as well vote for the democratic party approved Proposition 93, too.

--Why did Nunez only ask every democratic legislator to "chip in" $50K each for this initiatives campaign if it is such a good idea? He could have asked republicans too could he not? (Do said democratic legislators need to pay "tribute" to Nunez for past and future favors from the Speaker?)(To be fair, you did touch very lightly on this aspect above).

--Isn't Proposition 93 on the ballot, but just barely? Seems at the last minute prior to the deadline the bare minimum number of signatures were "discovered" by "recounting" signatures garnered in democratically run counties. (Florida 2000 in reverse perhaps?) Not a groundswell of public support for this initiative it seems...

...also, isn't the FINAL version of the ballot measure not yet approved? If so, and regardless, it was done AFTER signatures were gathered was it not? Just what version of this ballot measure were the signatures gathered in response to?

--Wouldn't one more term (over existing term limits) keep Nunez in the public eye AND keep his hand in the pockets of special interests up until a probable run for either Mayor of LA (probable) or even for the Governor (now more likely that LA Mayor Villaraigosa has fallen from favor over the Salinas Affair). Recall, Nunez campaign last time around had $3 million in donations and he ran UNAPPOSED. But I guess that was spent on fine $4000 wine during trips to France "on behalf of California" and perhaps his new $1.2 million home in SAC...

The people of California, especially the "poor" people are respresented like this???

--Lets also mention the majority of existing democratic legislators who would also benefit from this term limits "reform" as they were the only ones asked to "chip in" to this campaign.

--Why do existing legislators get a pass over existing term limits should this proposition pass? The "transition period" is both a red herring and bogus: are there no democrats capable of being Speaker or Pro Tem besides Nunez and Perata? Special interests a factor again perhaps?

Cavala need not accept these explainations (or rejoinders). But to deny their existence is to be a propagandist and not an honest journalist.

Bill, you did admit to not being a journalist didn't you?

Actually, Walters is totally wrong. The Senate passed 2 redistricting proposals: SCA 9 (Ashburn) and SCA 10 (Lowenthal).

SCA 9 has expedited campaign finance reporting, the term limits proposal that went on the ballot, and redistricting commission (with Congress out). That passed the Senate 29 to 5 on June 7th and was immediately transmitted to the Assembly. SCA 10 had a redistricting commission with Congress in. It was similar to SCA 9 in most respects. That passed the Senate 34 to 2 on June 7th and was immediately transmitted to the Assembly.

Neither of these SCA's have been assigned to the Assembly Elections Committee. While both SCA’s (indeed all the proposals do) need technical cross-referencing changes to 2 provisions of the Constitution, those amendments were given to the E&R Committee and once amended ready to go.

It appears that Assembly Republicans (or at least Mike Villines) want Congress in and they also explicitly want nesting of seats which in all likelihood will violate the federal Voting Rights Act and is also opposed by the Republicans in the State Senate. I say that because Senator Ashburn is not only a Republican, he is a member of the Senate Republican Leadership - he is Vice Chair of the Senate Rules Committee.

The only way to avoid the legal issue maybe to create 40 Senate Districts with 2 Assemblyman elected there from and have the top 2 vote getters win the seats or move to a North Carolina or Illinois system if you want nesting which results in multi member Senate Districts (and ergo multi member Assemblyman). I should add that as historically done in this state nesting helps Democrats for a slew of reasons.

When i express an opinion, it is mine and will be based on values that i try to be explicit about.

When i present evidence that might lead others to accept my value-based arguments i try to stick to empirically based truths.

My goal is justice. the goal of the journalist is usually truth. I make conscious effort not to further my goals with "untruths".

Jay: You're cutting and pasting some of the same stuff every time term limits comes up. That isn't dialogue--it's repetition of your Republican talking points and using this site for them is getting tedious. Also your personal attacks on authors on this site you disagree with is wearing out the welcome mat.

Russo:

Have a little more tolerance--a variety of viewpoints is necessary even for an idealogical site. Gould
obviously fails to understand some basic conventions about opinion pieces, but his comment on term limits (or continuing, cut and paste comments) deserves answering.

The observation is that term limits is self-serving because the legislative leaders stand to benefit from it (Nunez in particular). This is true. The answer is so what? Will public policy change that much whether the current legislative leadership is in place or a different group comes in? Of course not. So if Nunez and Perata get a few extra years it won't change anything. And contrary to Gould's opinions, yes, the "poor" people of California are represented by leaders like this--if the Republicans get in, we'll have the level of social welfare equivalent to Texas (look at2005).

As far as MRIs and Republican brains, I agree the research is rather speculative for now. But Gould needs to understand that the impulse to follow a leader and stifle dissent is primarily a Republican trait (look at the effort to censure Feinstein). Democrats can follow a leader when necessary, even in a war (look at FDR and WWII). But when Vietnam went bad it was primarily Democrats turning against LBJ. Republicans haven't really turned against Bush on the war, though there was a huge difference between Vietnam and Iraq. In Vietnam, our leaders truely believed that we were facing the efforts of an advesary who could literally destroy us in 30 minutes. Our current enemy (Al Queda in particular and radical Islam in general) can not destroy our civilization and can only kill a few thousand of us at a time, at best. The magnitude of the threat is just not the same.

Anyway, social scientists are coming up with more and more genetic explanations for political behavior--click on the below to see a recent effort in that direction.

http://polmeth.wustl.edu/retrieve.php?id=724

Mr. Russo and Mr. Cavala

The Democrats do not corner the market on telling the truth. Every politician, regardless of party, have exaggerated the truth to get what they want and it would be a total shock to me if either of you have not lied or fabricated the truth at one point in your life--I know better.

Oh, and by the way--I'm a registered Independent voter and I pick on both sides of the political aisle.

Sorry, I've been on travel for a few days...

Mr. Russo,

I do appreciate publius call for tolerance and for the reasons he states. Do you?

Of course my points are repetitious. Just as you and/or Cavala (the article author in question) do not address them is also repetitious. Why not? Being dismissed by yourself as you so often do is not taking on the issue or the challenge it implies, it refects the inability or unwillingness to confront the issues/points. (They were in bullet format...) Plus, the issue is still germain as Proposition 93 will be voted on next year, not yesterday... You won't have any more articles on Proposition 93 between now and election day either by your repetion-logic!

(Now my points are NOT "republican talking points" as I created them in my own brain (more later) using current events and media coverage of all stripes without the aid of any republican party created points. Please reference any republican site that has used points of my own making so my ego can be stroked accordingly...)

"Personal attacks" on authors using this site (including publius)? Please note that both cavala and publius did respond to my earlier blog here with dialog and not with any reference to being "personally attacked" as that was a creation of your OWN making. I appreciate their willingness to exchange dialog on any level, even when heated, pointed, or contentious. (Notice they had no issue with my reminding them of their "different brains" points that THEY brought up before in alleging a physical (negative) difference between republicans/conservatives and democrats/liberals brains. A chilling, perhaps needing more explanation point as it is similar to an approach a certain political party applied in 1930's-1940's Germany, but I digress). Tolerance?

You obviously felt the (unnecessary) need to defend them when they are quite capable of defending themselves. Could it be that you do wish to run a single ideologically based website saying a single party line unable to withstand critique or intense dialog or scrutiny? Couldn't that then be classified as a propaganda mentality?

If you can't stand the heat, you shouldn't have built the kitchen. But I sense your "welcome mat wearing out" is code for your imminent "banning" me from challenging you or others on this website for your positions as you have "banned" others before. Fine. However consider that an inability to deal with challenges given civily, even pointedly, paints a very unflattering picture of those who cannot deal with said challenges civily. Plus, would paint a website for dialog into one for single ideological kool-aid dispensing aka propaganda. Your call.

Publius, to take issue with your last blog here, I am disturbed by your apparent "weight" of the magnitude of the threat by Al Queda ("...kill a few thousand of us at a time") verses Vietnam-by-extension the Communist/Soviet Bloc of the Cold War (obviously capable of massive death withing 30 minutes).

ANY, ANY American death by Al Queda or any enemy of the USA should be countered with all appropriate including overwhelming magnitude required. It was box cutters taking airplanes 9-11. It could be weapons of mass distruction (please think of the words not only as something to get mad at Bush about), something our terrorist enemies desire greatly, next time. A WMD in the hands of a terrorist organization gives them nearly the magnatude of destruction of the old Soviet Union towards us not by a nation state, not by a participant of diplomacy, not by a participant of the United Nations or the Hauge, but by a gang of thugs with nothing to lose themselves.

They are a threat to Americans even without WMD's as proven time and time again. Not one more American death if at all possible if we can prevent it.

With Bin Laden's millions of dollars, why didn't he launch a information/advertising campaign in the USA including buying elected officials attention (regardless of party) to achieve his goals instead of going to war with us? (He "declared" it first did he not? And not as the representative of any nation/state either).

By the way, I believe the recent effort to "censure Feinstein" is one of the California Democratic Party which by title has no republicans in it...

Plus republicans can follow a democratic president in war too, such as FDR. All investigations into Pearl Harbor (and any culpability by FDR) were held off until AFTER WWII to signify unity during the war itself.

Democrats today in comparison say we have "lost the war" while it rages real time thus enboldening an undefeated enemy, so unlike WWII. (Even Murtha, a major critic of the war now says the surge is working).

What say you?

Publius,

Forgot to add/take you to task over your Nunez comment. Myself and many others have this idea that our leaders should act more like leaders and less like politicians: Nunez by your own admission (your own personal viewpoint) is looking out for himself with Prop 93 and you say "so what". Business as usual.

I want our leaders, both democrats AND republicans to be better than that. Don't we deserve that? Color me a wishful thinker.

Would Mr. Russo agree with your assessment that this is an "ideological site"? I look forward to that detailed rejoinder!

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