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Originally posted by Spanky
blah blah blah teachers union blah blah blah trial lawyers blah blah blah democrats
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I will comment only on your post re: Schwarzenegger's initiatives. There were any number of reasons to reject the teacher initiative, and the best ones had little to do with the specific merits of that initiative.
Initiatives are a crappy way to make law. Initiatives that were supposed to be limited to single issues have become xmas trees. Voters rarely if ever understand the initiatives they vote on. Three Strikes, for example -- study after study demonstrated that an enormous number of people thought that the law was limited to violent crimes (after all, that was what the proponents focused on), and anyone who questioned the sense, or cost-effectiveness, of jailing petty burglars for 40 years was instantly labelled "soft on crime" or in bed with Polly Klaas' killer.
Ahnold, in particular, flubbed massively by trying to circumvent the Legislature with a series of initiatives. They all tainted each other -- whatever good was in there was overwhelmed by the bad, and by the bad-ness of the tactic of, in essence, refusing to work with the Leg. (That whole "checks and balances" thing, y'know?) A single initiative to change teacher tenure rules might pass -- at least he could focus on it. But a sweeping package of legislation brought to the voters is ridiculous.
To Ahnold's credit, he learned from this -- he is a much better governor as a result of the defeat he suffered, and his willingness to learn from that defeat.
