Quote:
Originally posted by Sidd Finch
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.
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What a load of rationalizing crap. I am not going to vote for a bill, even though it is good, because the Governor handled it wrong? That may be the dumbest thing I have read on this board the entire time I have been here.
So if he proposed a proposition that we should feed starving orphans it should have gone down because the Governator approached the subject wrong and it was in the form of a proposition?
He went the proposition route because the legislature wouldn't act. It would have been nice to put it in a law but the Teacher Union controlled legislature and wouldn't let it through. He was forced to go the proposition route.
Either it was a good law or it wasn't. Do you really think extending teacher tenure by just two years was a bad idea? And it was all about momentum. Arnold tried to take on the Teachers Union and was crushed. And now he is a better Governor because he has decided not to take on the Teacher's Union anymore and give up on reforming education?
Where you against any of those propositions? They were all badly needed and yet the unions put in thirty five million to defeat them. The only thing Arnold screwed up was underestimating how evil the unions were and how little they cared for the welfare of the California public. And now you think he is a better Governor because he has given up on these much needed reforms and is just tinkering around the edges?
