Voting '14
Nov. 5th, 2014 12:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aYesterday was voting day, and it generally sucked. The Republicans retook the Senate, which was totally expected, but they generally did +2 to +6 points better than the polling averages expected, meaning they took some extra senate and gubernatorial seats. To paraphrase a twitter wit, "America voted for legalized pot, higher minimum wages, paid sick leave, better access to abortions, and Republican Senators and Governors. HUH."
I care a little bit less about this than when we had warmongers pushing us into multiple illegitimate wars during Bush's tenure, but personally I fear that if Republicans take over control of government, they'll take away my health care and my social security. Because that's what they've said they'll do. Yet people needing health care and social security (and legalized pot and higher minimum wages and paid sick leave and better access to abortions) continue to vote for them.
HUH.
Locally. Things went better on the local field. (If only California were its own country.) The new transit prop, BB succeeded with 70% where the old one, B, failed with 66%. An improved economy in the two years since the failure of B was probably a help, but BB also didn't overstretch, where B offered a transit tax with no sunset provision. If they hadn't done that, B surely would have picked up another two-thirds of a percent of support and we would have had our improved roads, transit, and bike infrastructure two years earlier.
I also had an eye on our local City Council race, District 7. I've been unhappy with Kriss Worthington, our local council person for a few years. He's one of the most progressive members on the Council, which could be good, but he's unfortunately one of those progressives who becomes purist, refuses to accept compromise, and so is actually regressive because he cuts down progressive policies that aren't progressive enough. So we don't have Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) running up Telegraph primarily because of him. And that means I don't have the improved, protected bike ways along one of my two main bike travel corridors because of him. He tried to kill the downtown plan two years ago because it wasn't progressive enough, even though it was quite progressive, and after the voters OKed the plan two years ago, he was at least a quiet supporter of a plot to overturn the downtown plan this year--just when we were starting to get people building in Downtown, and maybe revitalizing our city. The good news is that downtown-poison-pill failed 25% to 75%. Worthington's attempt to screw up our redistricting also got cut down (he didn't like the fact that the new student district was only 90% students and so brought in a new plan after the deadline), with the voters approving the redistricting by 65% or something like that.
Worthington also had a strong opponent this time in Sean Barry, and unfortunately that didn't work out. Barry, who I liked because he's younger, less purist, more concerned about doing something about People's Park and Telegraph, and also an ex-journalist, lost by 80 votes. Mind you, that's out of 700 or something ridiculously small like that, but so it goes.
We also agreed to increase our property taxes for parks, which is AOK for me. Our bill should be $30, and I'm sure Kimberly and I get much more than that from our parks each year.
Screw Big Soda. One of the most notable local measures on our ballot this year was D, which imposes an excise tax on soda of one cent an ounce. I was initially not sure what I thought of it. I'm not a big fan of new sin taxes, though they work (but I don't like to be told what to do), and I didn't like the way it was framed as an excise tax, because that could get passed on to consumers in any number of ways. If stores increase their cost of soda, great, but if they just silently absorb it and have a teeny increase across everything, that's worthless.
But then Big Soda (the American Beverage Association to be precise) kicked off one of the scummiest campaigns I've ever seen. They hired two people to move to Berkeley to jam up our City Council's discussions of the measure, before it went on the ballot. They sent out a deluge of purposefully misleading and confusing propaganda. They illegally posted their "No on D" signs everywhere, totally blanketing our local traffic circles one evening. I also suspect they paid people to astroturf forums discussing the topic. It was unethical and corpocratic. Did I mention I don't like being told what to do?
Before Big Soda spent $2 million dollars to defeat Measure D (that's about $20 per registered voter in Berkeley, and probably $40-50 per person that actually voted), 66% of voters were in favor of Measure D. Big Soda's heavy-handed spending managed to move the gauge 9%. When the final votes came in, 75% of voters were in favor of Measure D.
I guess Berkeley doesn't like being told what to do either.
Losing My Religion. I've been registered as a Green for the last decade or more, but I've had increasing problems with them in recent years. I used to generally agree with their campaign literature, and so was able to use it as a good guide for voting. Unfortunately in the last 2-3 elections our local Green Party has become purist. Yep, just like our wonderful city councilman. So progressive that it's regressive. Just like the Tea Party for that matter. So, believe it or not, the Green Party said to vote against Berkeley's Parks measure (just to give one example) because it wasn't as good as what they wanted. They also said to vote for Kriss Worthington, while the Berkeley Democratic Club said to vote for Sean Barry, no shock there.
So, following the election, I changed my registration from Green to Democratic. It's how I'd generally voted in the main elections, but I'd previously figured that voter registration numbers were a mark for what the major parties needed to pay attention to. Sadly, the Green party is no longer something that I think deserves that.
And now I can actually participate in primaries.
I care a little bit less about this than when we had warmongers pushing us into multiple illegitimate wars during Bush's tenure, but personally I fear that if Republicans take over control of government, they'll take away my health care and my social security. Because that's what they've said they'll do. Yet people needing health care and social security (and legalized pot and higher minimum wages and paid sick leave and better access to abortions) continue to vote for them.
HUH.
Locally. Things went better on the local field. (If only California were its own country.) The new transit prop, BB succeeded with 70% where the old one, B, failed with 66%. An improved economy in the two years since the failure of B was probably a help, but BB also didn't overstretch, where B offered a transit tax with no sunset provision. If they hadn't done that, B surely would have picked up another two-thirds of a percent of support and we would have had our improved roads, transit, and bike infrastructure two years earlier.
I also had an eye on our local City Council race, District 7. I've been unhappy with Kriss Worthington, our local council person for a few years. He's one of the most progressive members on the Council, which could be good, but he's unfortunately one of those progressives who becomes purist, refuses to accept compromise, and so is actually regressive because he cuts down progressive policies that aren't progressive enough. So we don't have Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) running up Telegraph primarily because of him. And that means I don't have the improved, protected bike ways along one of my two main bike travel corridors because of him. He tried to kill the downtown plan two years ago because it wasn't progressive enough, even though it was quite progressive, and after the voters OKed the plan two years ago, he was at least a quiet supporter of a plot to overturn the downtown plan this year--just when we were starting to get people building in Downtown, and maybe revitalizing our city. The good news is that downtown-poison-pill failed 25% to 75%. Worthington's attempt to screw up our redistricting also got cut down (he didn't like the fact that the new student district was only 90% students and so brought in a new plan after the deadline), with the voters approving the redistricting by 65% or something like that.
Worthington also had a strong opponent this time in Sean Barry, and unfortunately that didn't work out. Barry, who I liked because he's younger, less purist, more concerned about doing something about People's Park and Telegraph, and also an ex-journalist, lost by 80 votes. Mind you, that's out of 700 or something ridiculously small like that, but so it goes.
We also agreed to increase our property taxes for parks, which is AOK for me. Our bill should be $30, and I'm sure Kimberly and I get much more than that from our parks each year.
Screw Big Soda. One of the most notable local measures on our ballot this year was D, which imposes an excise tax on soda of one cent an ounce. I was initially not sure what I thought of it. I'm not a big fan of new sin taxes, though they work (but I don't like to be told what to do), and I didn't like the way it was framed as an excise tax, because that could get passed on to consumers in any number of ways. If stores increase their cost of soda, great, but if they just silently absorb it and have a teeny increase across everything, that's worthless.
But then Big Soda (the American Beverage Association to be precise) kicked off one of the scummiest campaigns I've ever seen. They hired two people to move to Berkeley to jam up our City Council's discussions of the measure, before it went on the ballot. They sent out a deluge of purposefully misleading and confusing propaganda. They illegally posted their "No on D" signs everywhere, totally blanketing our local traffic circles one evening. I also suspect they paid people to astroturf forums discussing the topic. It was unethical and corpocratic. Did I mention I don't like being told what to do?
Before Big Soda spent $2 million dollars to defeat Measure D (that's about $20 per registered voter in Berkeley, and probably $40-50 per person that actually voted), 66% of voters were in favor of Measure D. Big Soda's heavy-handed spending managed to move the gauge 9%. When the final votes came in, 75% of voters were in favor of Measure D.
I guess Berkeley doesn't like being told what to do either.
Losing My Religion. I've been registered as a Green for the last decade or more, but I've had increasing problems with them in recent years. I used to generally agree with their campaign literature, and so was able to use it as a good guide for voting. Unfortunately in the last 2-3 elections our local Green Party has become purist. Yep, just like our wonderful city councilman. So progressive that it's regressive. Just like the Tea Party for that matter. So, believe it or not, the Green Party said to vote against Berkeley's Parks measure (just to give one example) because it wasn't as good as what they wanted. They also said to vote for Kriss Worthington, while the Berkeley Democratic Club said to vote for Sean Barry, no shock there.
So, following the election, I changed my registration from Green to Democratic. It's how I'd generally voted in the main elections, but I'd previously figured that voter registration numbers were a mark for what the major parties needed to pay attention to. Sadly, the Green party is no longer something that I think deserves that.
And now I can actually participate in primaries.