Loading ...“Gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman got a lesson in watching her words at her Tustin town hall meeting with Sen. John McCain on May 29. An unscripted comment about the shortcomings of citizen initiatives got little attention at the time, but last week the issue ripped through the internet and talk radio as she was attacked for wanting to take away voters’ power to directly enact laws,” according to Martin Wisckol, over at the O.C. Register.
What is up with these Republicanns? Whitman’s comments have finished her before she left the starting gate!
She is toast…you cannot speak up against the initiative process – which will of course be construed as being pro-taxes, without angering the anti-tax voters. Clearly Whitman has forgotten the success of Prop. 13 – in fact I would bet she wants to undo it.
It is looking more and more like Jerry Brown will be our next Governor.
OK. so I’m a Democrat that does not like Brown, what to do?
Benson: Whether you like it or not, it’ll have to be Gavin.
Citizen initatives are vital, but they should not require 50%+1 to pass consitutional amendments. I think they should either pass in 2 consecutive elections by 50%+1 or by 60% in the first election.
Or 50%+1 to borrow billions of dollars to add to our very shrinking borrowing capacity too.
Why can prop 8 pass with 50%, but our state budget needs 66% to pass, its silly.
I dont think we need to silence the people, but we should toughen the standards to pass these initatives.
While citizen initiatives are good, they have run amok in California, and made CA ungovernable.
The problem is that it is impossible to do any long-term planning, with citizen initiatives forcing the state to spend money on whatever the propositions mandate.
The Economist recently has called CA the “Ungovernable State”, and has called the current proposition system “Citizen-power gone mad”. In fact, the majority of the propositions are not citizen initiatives, but rather special interest groups who abuse the proposition system.
If Meg Whitman wants to get rid of the current implementation of the proposition system, she has my vote (and for an independent, that means a lot…)
She has started out just like the Gubernator did, with sweeping generalizations about how she will change things in Sacto, such as her statement she will reduce the State work force by 30% – thereby ignoring the fact that the Governor cannot make changesl like that on his or her own. Also ignores that all 100,000 State General Fund employees could be eliminated and it still would not cover the $ 24 billion deficit. She is searching for a theme, but seems to be latching on to possible themes that she as Governor can neither do nor could she make a significant difference. Another person with a big ego in search of an elected office trophy who is extremely naieve when it comes to fisally managing California government. Note how reality has Arnold’s trophy tarnishing while still in office