Doing some catching up and checking out the sites of causes and groups I support, and I see this giddy statement from the Sierra Club:
We did have a particularly bright spot in California. San Francisco beat Texas in the World Series, and California thumped Texas in the fight for clean energy.
We played big and scored big against Big Oil with the defeat of California’s Proposition 23. Despite more than $10 million spent on deceptive advertising campaign funded by out-of-state oil barons—more than $8 Million from Texaco and Valero alone, to undermine the state’s landmark clean-energy and climate law, California voters took a stand for clean energy – not in spite of a major economic downturn, but because of it. As National Journal said last week, we could point to existing jobs that would be lost with the passage of Prop 23.
With the third-highest unemployment numbers in the nation, California voters chose clean energy as one of the best paths to recovery.
This victory also shows what can happen when we work together to create jobs and protect our environment. When given the chance to vote on the actual issues, the public embraced our belief that a clean environment and a strong economy are not mutually exclusive.
Nice to see a win on something like this. Kind of odd that California voters can be so clear-headed about issues like this, then go and fumble the ball on issues like Prop 19.
morzer
I am not sure “clear-headed” describes all of the supporters of porpoise… porcupine.. pro-wrestling.. Preposition 19, dude.
Softail
Probably more important is that we removed the 2/3 majority for the budget. Now maybe we can actually get something done without being blackmailed by the Rethugs. Not holding my breath though…
Sucks about 19 though. Well more kids vote in presidential years.
gbear
Five posts in one hour. I’m glad some of it is good news…
ruemara
Well, pot might make hippies happy, so bipartisanship.
23 failing is great, wish 26 had.
Ruckus
Some CA residents are just trying to prove to the rest of the country that not everyone here is a DFH. We have our rethugs, haters, control freaks, god bothers, racists, homophobes, misogynists, lunatics, etc, etc.
Martin
Prop 19 has much less direct impact on voters. The folks that smoke aren’t currently hindered much by the law, and Arnold did decriminalize small amounts (which probably killed the Prop). It relied on counties to opt-in, so you’d have it ‘legal’ in half the state, and not in the other half, and if you’re driving through a county where it’s not legal and get picked up? It was a messy proposal.
I hope they bring it back up in 2012, but get rid of the county by county piece, add in a revenue component (because of our stupid fucking tax laws, saying that pot could be taxed for increased revenue was tantamount to a lie because if it wasn’t in the initiative, it’d never happen) and add in an enforcement component that is consistent with what we would like to see federally. Basically, pass a ‘this is a good enough policy to be extended for the nation’ initiative. Then I think it’d get stronger support.
Of course, Dems have 60+% of the legislature and a Democratic governor, so they could just outline the law and get it signed effective Jan 1 2013, with the tax issue on the ballot in 2012. Make it a done deal policy-wise and simply ask voters to approve the tax.
Chris G.
Students of mine who were following Prop 19 very, very closely tell me that many pot folks opposed it because they didn’t want to pay taxes on what they sold, while many law enforcement types supported it because they’re sick of wasting their time on pot.
danimal
Support for Prop 19 went down about the same time that the Govenator effectively decriminalized possession. So even that prop had some positive effect despite losing.
Mako
Nobody fumbled, it wasn’t a great law, it’s already legal.
Oh wait Martin already said that in 6. Dude, you need to be more… uh…pithy.
And screw cannabis, why isn’t every damn roof in LA and San Diego sporting solar water heaters? Fuckin’ californians, why if I was supreme ruler…
MTiffany
Clean energy, or dirty hippies? Which would you prefer?
Martin
@ruemara: Yeah, 26 passing (2/3 requirement to raise fees, in addition to our existing 2/3 requirement to raise taxes) takes a fair bit of the benefits of Prop 25 away. It’ll still help quite a lot, but having some control over revenues is key.
I think the effect of 22 passing (prevents the state from holding back local funds to balance the budget) is going to make the next budget extremely painful now that there’s no meaningful means of increasing revenues.
These initiatives turned into something of a perfect storm to require state spending be slashed. I’m going to predict a special election early next year for initiatives to generate revenues. I don’t see how they balance the budget under these constraints without something really enormous like closing half the prisons or privatizing the UCs.
Martin
@Mako: They’re installing solar panels on my daughter’s elementary school next week. Every building where I work was covered with solar last summer and every recent building is LEED certified.
It’s happening. These things take a little time.
Southern Beale
Colorado’s “fetal personhood” amendment failed too … by a HUGE margin. So… each state had its own little tweak.
Here in Tennessee we approved making the right to hunt and fish a constitutional right. That’s just how we roll.
someguy
@MTiffany:
With Jerry back in office, and a 60%+ majority of Dems in both houses, they have both. The Cali Renaissance should commence imminently…
Polish the Guillotines
As fucked up as California’s political system is, I’m glad I live here.
Now, let’s take our 8th largest economy in the world and go home.
Graeme
I just filled out Just Say Now’s survey about how to follow up Prop 19. Also, because CA & America voted for me to pay less in taxes, I just made a tax deductible contribution to NORML. I will keep donating for as long as it takes.
Hopefully, we keep pounding the media now & there’s another, better Proposition on the ballot in 2012.
Redshirt
CA and MA will lead the nation back from the Event Horizon of the Wingularity!
PS
Given that pot is blind-eye legal already (as noted above) the victories on Props 23 and 25 (eliminating the 2/3rds requirement for passing a budget) are much more important. But our state parks are screwed (dedicated funding lost) and we still need 2/3rds to raise taxes (or fees), in fact that has been extended. Good luck Jerry, you’ll need it. But at least we ain’t got Meg. And hasta la vista, Arnold.
SB Jules
@Polish the Guillotines:
I’m so glad I live in California. It took two terms of the governator and a small fortune spent by Meg Whitman to get us to this point, but I like where we are now.
Except, you know, for the pot. But there are still dispensaries.
Steve
One of the finest moments of Ahnold’s tenure as Governor was his completely unhinged rant against Prop 23. He even committed a Godwin violation!
HumboldtBlue
Mendo Grower: I make a damn good living growing and selling my marijuana and now Oaksterdam wants to corner the medical marijuana market by pushing through poorly-worded and ambiguous legalization. Fuck off, I like my profit margin.
Jody
Who knows. We might even get Single Payer in CA now. Dare to dream…
Polish the Guillotines
@SB Jules: I’m old enough to remember Jerry from the first time around. I think he’ll do okay. He knows how the game is played.
Frankly, we dodged a bullet with the Meg and Carly show.
Small miracles.
Martin
@PS: Having discretion over what to cut in the budget is still a very valuable tool. With a Dem governor and AG, they need to empty out the prisons of non-violent first offenders, give them ankle monitors, and start closing facilities and laying off state corrections officers. Parole and probation cases are handled by the county so the shift of dollars from Prop 22 will automatically pay for that, and they’re much cheaper to manage. The legislature could further decriminalize pot which would take even more burden off of law enforcement and the courts.
There’s a lot the state can do now to get the budget in order, even without revenues. Brown is a pretty creative guy in that regard. He understands the CA state budget better than anyone in the state – literally.
Martin
@Steve: Well, he is from Austria like Hitler was, so he’s permitted.
Martin
@Jody: Yeah, I think there’s a very good chance of it. They sent it to Arnold twice. CA could opt-out of ACA with that kind of move, which the Feds would probably love since it’d really help their efforts to reduce entitlement spending.
If we’re lucky, they’d pass it and then turn to Kaiser to set the system up. They’ve got the best rated, and best cost managed system in the country outside of the VA.
Jody
Martin:
Awesome. I’d heard something about that but wasn’t familiar enough with the details to comment further. And I was too lazy to look it up. That fills me with, oh what’s the word…”hope”.
I’d love to live in a state that surpasses ACA. I think Hawaii’s the only one that does that right now.
Roger Moore
I think you’re underestimating the inherent “No” bias in California proposition elections. Even innocuous, technical propositions that have no official “No” position in the voter’s guide have trouble breaking 90% Yes.
Left Coast Tom
@Southern Beale:
Californians already have the right to fish, but not to hunt.
Ash Can
@Southern Beale: So can I sashay into Zach Wamp’s district office now and drop a line into his fish tank and catch me some supper if I want?
Graeme
@Martin Kaiser rules. I would love to see it. Great care made simple & cheap!
Mako
@Martin:
You know, your comments are strangely soothing. You been a Californian for awhile, yeah?
Martin
@Mako: Since ’91. But my family steadily moved here starting in the late 60s so I’ve been in and out of the state my whole life.
Hob
@Martin: All true… plus, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that support for Prop 19 dropped right after Eric Holder announced he would “vigorously prosecute” growers & buyers if it passed.
Batocchio
It’s been covered up thread, but while Prop. 23’s defeat was great news, Prop. 26 passing is trouble. As usual, the proposition voting was a mixed bag. Overall, I’m encouraged by the election, though. Brown will be much better than Whitman, and the same goes for Boxer over Fiorina. However, Brown will be stymied by the 2/3rds rule for raising taxes and the horrible financial situation.
trollhattan
@Batocchio:
Yep, 26 was as stealthy as 23 was in-your-face aggressive. I half suspect 23 was a sort of smokescreen or stalking horse for 26, which got tobacco support along with the oil support.
However it got in, it presents a hefty pair of revenue handcuffs. Think it will end up in court?
Martin
@Batocchio: I expect Brown to go all-in on the budget, actually. I don’t think he’ll tiptoe toward his eventual goal but lay out a very bold plan, send the bits to the voters that he needs them to approve early next year, and then yell over the top of anyone that opposes him.
He’ll find ways around the 2/3. He’s held every fucking office in the state, after all. I wouldn’t discount him going to the big corporations in the state for backing – and he’ll probably get it. Silicon valley companies pay lots of taxes, pay workers well, and provide lots of benefits. Democrats have a lot to offer them. Lowering the minimum wage doesn’t mean a goddamn thing to them, and they are dead without a well funded education system.
And he’s going to be Obama’s best friend, because all of the things Obama wants and needs done, California can now deliver on if Congress can’t.
Pangloss
Ugh. I’m a California native living in Illinois. I was feeling sort of superior for a while there when the riots and the mudslides and the blackouts and Gray Davis was booted for Arnold and Prop 8 passed. Good showing on election night— a whole lot better than ours, where we lost five seats in the house and one in the Senate.
Joe Max
@HumboldtBlue:
Your profit margin is artificial. There’s no economic reason why pot should cost any more than sage or rosemary. Tobacco is far more expensive to produce. The reason you have such a great profit margin is the same reason Mexican drug cartels control most of the pot in the US – the illegality makes it obscenely profitable.
So the next time you hear about innocent people being gunned down in Mexican border towns, light up a spliff, count your cash and congratulate yourself.
Asshole.
Polish the Guillotines
@Martin: Furthermore, he’s got the credibility with the various state unions to garner concessions on pensions, wages, and benefits without it being a back-door attempt to bust their unions.
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
Aagh! No! Kaiser Southern California and Kaiser Northern California are two separate entities and Kaiser NoCal is fucked beyond belief. They aren’t even allowed to do organ transplants anymore because they kept killing patients.
I was always happy with my Kaiser here in Southern California, but I heard nothing but a string of horror stories from people I knew who had Kaiser in Northern California.
Tim in SF
No fair hitting us on 19, JC. Every major politician in this state came out against it. MOST of the heroes of the medical marijuana movement (the ones getting rich on expensive pot) came out AGAINST 19. My own pot doc sent me a personally signed letter asking me to vote against 19. MADD came out against it and scared the shit out of the public with an unending stream of horror stories about pot heads smoking doobies and then getting in their car to RUN OVER YOUR CHILDREN.
jl
@Chris G.: I heard a news report that illegal growers in CA and Mexico were funneling money to the anti prop 19 effort. and north coast CA illegal producers were running an informal campaign warning how prop 19 would hurt the local economy (Edit: by DRIVING THE PRICES DOWN TO A VERY LOW LEVEL).
Report also said that pro 19 forces did not spend all the funds they had, and did not have much of campaign effort,
Maybe they thought a campaign would counterproductive?
Or, they were all stoned on hemp?
Or what?
It was a brief report and can’t find it in KCBS archives, and have not found anything else on it.
Martin
@Mnemosyne: Yes, Kaiser SoCal. Sorry, I should have been clearer about that. NoCal isn’t *that* horrible – they’re still better than the mean, but that’s a pretty low bar, I have to say.
As for the transplant program – those are very difficult to run and not go bankrupt on. UC Irvine had problems with their liver transplant program and had to shut it down. Beyond administrative failures, those also point to the difficulty of solving some of the problems on the care side of the equation. How much does it cost to keep full-time transplant surgeons on staff? Can the hospital afford to have a unit that literally drops everything to attend to a patient when an organ becomes available? Can those costs be recouped through insurance reimbursements, etc? CA should be able to manage these things better than most states, and Kaiser better than most hospitals because they self-insure, but it’s still a very difficult program to run.
cynickal
Smoking is bad… mmmm’kay?
California sent a clear message.
Quit fouling up the air.
Sadly, Washington still has to deal with socialized alcohal.
Joe Max
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t know about the rest of Kaiser Norcal, but the Oakland Medical Center has one of the highest patient satisfaction ratings in the country. I’ve been very happy with the care I’ve gotten from them. I’ve often said if California could offer a clone of the Kaiser system to the whole state, it would be a model for the rest of the US.
D-Chance.
Nice to see a win on something like this. Kind of odd that California voters can be so clear-headed about issues like this, then go and fumble the ball on issues like Prop 19.
How so? Be defeating Prop 19, the air stays clean since it won’t have all that new smoke polluting it.
Martin
@jl: The real problem was that it was a symbolic vote for most people. I personally don’t give a fuck. I don’t smoke. I’m serious when I say that I would have let my kids manage a crop in the back yard for college money if it passed (we’ve got enough friends that would have been eager buyers), but they’ll just do something different now.
I would like to see the benefits of decriminalization on the justice system, but there are easier ways of doing that in the state, actually. I would like to see it promoted to a national discussion which is why I voted for it, but I have zero disappointment that it didn’t pass.
Tim in SF
Here’s the anti prop19 email from my pot doctor:
http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/771247/f2e99253c6/1470543301/d5e8be7b47/
Here it is on my blog, in case that link doesn’t work for you:
http://blog.hisnameistimmy.com/1613/1613
Mako
@Martin:
With a Dem governor and AG, they need to empty out the prisons of non-violent first offenders, give them ankle monitors, and start closing facilities and laying off state corrections officers.
hmm. Releasing unemployable convicts into an already unemployed population might not be a good idea?
Why don’t we just look at these things- prison and military- as jobs programs? I’d really rather all those dudes were repaving the highways than catching the random explosive or watching The Price Is Right.
jl
Also, too. If it were not for the prolonged recession, I would not say that the props in CA mean a doomsday scenario for CA budget. Until recently, polls have shown that the population as a whole prefers a compromise solution on budget problems: find a compromise solution that uses a combination of spending cuts and tax and fee increases.
The problem was that the CA GOP legislators would not compromise on one penny, and in fact kept demanding corporate tax cuts in order to get a budget passed, and papering it over with loans and revenue ehancement schemes (sell of some state real estate and buildings, sell and lease back gimmicks), fancied up with fakey revenue projections from the schemes.
My theory was that GOP legislators were spending all their time pandering to the future GOP primary voter, who they would have to face as non incumbent in next 4 to 8 years because of CA term limits (which I hate with a passion).
Not sure what mood is now, given the people are probably scared because it is increasingly clear that neither party has much interest in solving unemployment or mortgage problem, unless they can finance it by squeezing the ordinary person even more.
We will see. Brown knows all the tricks, and he is not afraid to go on offense and tell opponents to put up or shut up. Whether the Brown variety of offense is politically effective or not is another question.
One problem is that GOP has been continually lying their arses off about the nature of the CA budget problems with no effective counter from the Democrats.
CA supported the Democrats very nicely this election, but that does not mean that the CA Democratic politicians have deserved it much more than national Democratic party, IMHO. Maybe a little more, but not much more.
I think that the CA GOP has been so blatantly toxic and blown off so many groups, been so generally thuggish, that the Democrats don’t have to do all that much to win.
If Brown cannot give the CA Democrats more spine, and the public is so scared it will not vote for any fee increase, or falls for BS about making corporations pay their way will wreck the economy, then it could be a mess.
Prop 23 passing is good news, prop 26 pasing may be a warning sign.
trollhattan
@Tim in SF:
Heck, I saw one ad claiming your school bus driver could legally smoke a spliff before going to work, conjuring thoughts of Otto on The Simpsons. In sum, 19 seemed lost in the noise of an extremely noisy campaign season that began nearly a year ago. It was also a pretty confusing piece of law, and confusing propositions tend not to pass. They may have had better luck wording it so that a no vote meant yes, and vice versa. We’ve had a few of those.
Earl in CA
why didn’t we (californians) pass prop 19?
MONEY
face it – weed is big $$$ and big tax-free $$$ for the folks supplying those ‘shops’ and charging ‘patients’ $100 a pop for medical weed cards.
sure there are plenty of us who voted for it, but we are a small minority compared to people in ‘the scene’ that want to keep their tax-free $$$-producing cultivation jobs. none of them wants ‘wal-mart’ weed taking out their extra tax-free $$$.
SB Jules
@Polish the Guillotines:
I’ve voted three times for Jerry Brown for governor. I know he’ll handle it well.
Graeme
I’m in SF. I just had an ounce delivered, and the price went down again. Dude said he’s dealing with downward price pressure, anyway. He said it’s a combo of 215, 19, and the pot clubs. He’s got to offer more for less. Plus, he delivers.
This pressure is working! Keep up the momentum!
John Smallberries
@Roger Moore:
The Saint is on to something, coupled with one other factor- myself, my wife, and a number of people who we know, who voted for the medical marijuana initiative and are not opposed to the concept of 19, watched what happened in Los Angeles when the dispensaries opened and were subsequently taken over by the pot heads, where the cannabis was fundamentally from anywhere instead of controlled grown, and where they started popping up like wild weeds. We were instantly suspicious of the people behind the initiative. Admittedly, the city of Los Angeles can fuck up anything that they touch, but the pot heads with their supposedly organic weed that actually had come from somewhere south of the border was what put me off a fairly poorly written proposition.
Polish the Guillotines
@SB Jules:
ACORN!
James E. Powell
I think 19 went down as badly as it did because it was complicated. A straight ‘legal or not legal’ vote might have been easier to sell to voters.
Mako
@John Smallberries:
The saint thing gets ovedone , but seriously, why not.
HumboldtBlue
Oh suck my dick you insufferable shitbag. The reason growers make profits from growing and selling marijuana in this region is because there is and always will be — until legalization — a huge market for it. It’s tax free and lucrative.
But of course, because some schlup in Loleta grows 50 pounds a year he’s the one responsible for insane levels of violence in Mexico. Uh-huh, and it’s because of Pharmaceutical companies that Mexican drug cartels are murdering folks over bootlegged methadone, oxycontin and ecstasy.
So when you finally pull that huge fucking broomstick out of your ass, please explain to me how a grower in Humboldt County, selling to local, regional and state-wide dispensaries is encouraging death, murder and mayhem in Tijuana.
Pseudonym
@HumboldtBlue: By voting against legalization in order to maintain high barriers to entry for potential competitors.
Mako
@HumboldtBlue:
Oh suck my dick you insufferable shitbag.
You know, you coulda just stopped there. Pithy is best.
John Smallberries
@Mako:
Why not? Because you had to read the proposition as it was written, that’s why not.
It sucked.
Biggest issue for me, aside from the douchy way the medical pot dispensaries in LA were run before the city grew some balls and started cracking down a bit – Special protection for smokers? I’m sorry, but there are jobs where drug screening is either demanded by customers (right or wrong is a policy issue that I am not going to get into) or just a good idea with the quality of the pot that is out there today. And the proposition language, which in this area came across like it was conceived by a couple of stoners chowing down on a pizza and realizing that even though they might be able to get loaded it might be frowned on in some jobs, just sucked.
Sometimes the stuff that is put in front of the voters here fails not because the California body politic either agrees or disagrees with the premise behind it, but because it sucks.