Quote:
Originally posted by Spanky
Where you against any of those propositions? They were all badly needed and yet the unions put in thirty five million to defeat them.
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I went back to remind myself of what these initiatives were about. And, as I recalled, I was dead against all of them, on the merits, without reference to the need to force Ahnold to compromise and work with the legistlature.
The four initiatives proposed to do the following:
-- prevent unions from using dues for any political purpose. In other words, gut the unions. This was a pure, naked power grab by a governor whose policies are unpopular with any number of unions. I find these tactics vile -- and that is without regard to whether I agree with the union or not. I oppose (as does Ahnold) virtually everything the prison guards' union does. But they, and their membership, have a right to a voice.
-- change the way California draws districts. In other words, disarm the largest Democratic state. This was an attempt to grab power for the national Republican party. Ahnold has a national presence; he could have called for Texas and Florida to do the same thing, if his real desire was to make elections more fair. It wasn't -- his desire was to deliver more power to the national GOP.
I would vote for an iniative that referred districting to retired judges, etc., provided that it did not come into effect unless and until Texas and Florida adopted similar measures.
-- impose more spending caps in the Constitution. In other words, Ahnold can't negotiate a budget with the Leg, so let the voters impose some more rules, to make the process more byzantine. And, in the process, effectively revoke a range of funding proposals -- including school funding -- that the voters had passed previously.
-- finally, teacher tenure. You can blame the "evil unions" all you want. It only shows what a one-note songbird you are. California schools have a vast range of problems. Blaming teachers, and only teachers, is not the way to correct them.
'Nuff said.
