If Larry and Art get to do this, then here’s this Huntington Beach Progressive Democrat’s picks for the June 3 Primary Election. In order of importance:
1. NO on 98, YES on 99. Will have a whole post up on this later this week. Thank you to Larry for inviting me to a forum on this at Chapman University, but the 98 spokesman was just not convincing, and the anti-98ers were. And 99 is of value in its own right beyond just being an anti-98 measure. 99 = real (albeit modest) eminent domain reform; 98 = a trojan horse with anti-rent-control and anti-environment effects.
2. Democrat candidate for US Reprentative 46th District, Debbie Cook. Well, duh. Except Dan Kalmick is a brilliant young man with lots of great ideas and I hope he runs for state Assembly in 2010 – why can’t some people start out smaller? Don’t get tempted to vote for Dan though because, in order to attract the big donations she needs, Debbie should win the primary OVERWHELMINGLY.
3. If you’re a Republican in the 46th, vote for Ron St. John in the primary! I’m not ju
st saying that as a Democrat “concern troll” – of course Ron won’t beat the name recognition and big money of Crazy Dana, but he represents a direction the OC GOP should want to start going in – toward more inclusiveness (to immigrants etc.) and back to core GOP values of small government. At least I’d vote for St. John if I were Republican; I understand a lot of Republicans consider Dana an embarrassment, between his eccentric behavior and his complete ineffectiveness.
4. COUNTY C
ENTRAL COMMITTEE – MOST IMPORTANTLY, do NOT fall prey to alphabetical order and vote for TEDDI ALVES! E-mail me if you need more details why, but she is nothing but a troublemaker and nightmare no matter what she gets involved in. (Many districts have their own Teddis, I know…) ANYBODY BUT TEDDI ALVES.
Anybody else listed is good (though I don’t know Al Jabbar or Faith Vogel.) Moreno and the Giacoppes are old stalwarts of the party, Louise Giacoppe has recently found her anti-war voice as a member of Military Families Speak Out; Taylor Honrath was recently chosen as part of the H2-for-O slate to go to Denver as an Obama delegate (his big Orange Juice endorsement put him over the top); Scott McKown has been doing excellent internet work for the 67th AD. But there are THREE GREAT CANDIDATES who especially deserve your votes:
JOE SHAW, former Orange Juice blogger and Huntington Beach City Council can
didate, proprietor of the “Greetings From Downtown Huntington Beach” blog, communications director for Debbie Cook, Democracy for America member and (hopefully) running for HB City Council again this year.
LOUISE STEWARDSON, queen of Huntington Beach precinct walkers, DFA member, and treasurer of my own Orange County chapter of Healthcare For All California.
And ROSALIND “ROZ” FREEMAN, tireless activist and DFA member, my predecessor as “volunteer of the year” for the Orange County Democratic Party, and special volunteer in charge of constructing cardboard Dana Rohrabacher cutouts.
So, Vote for Joe Shaw, Roz Freeman, Louise Stewardson, and any other three you like, just NOT Teddi!
(Sure is nice to be an Orange Juice blogger…)
I believe Aaruni Thakur is running for Central Committee. I wholeheartedly endorse him. The Central Committee needs his brand of lay down and die politics.
No on 98, Yes on 99! Because Trojan horses aren’t for… um, Trojans, anymore.
SMS
Larry commented on the old, blogspot version of this post, and I responded. Of course he took exception to my characterization of 98, but the comments are vanished now. I think when I have time I will rehash that exchange under “read more”, unless he gets on here and repeats his comment.
They’re not vanished. I’m working on imports as we speak.
SMS
I am voting NO on 98 and 99.
Neither is any good, both are all about special protection for the lucky few and screw the rest.
Voting:
Last day to register to vote and have your June 3rd ballot count. May 19th
If you re-register from May 20th to June 3rd, your vote WILL NOT be counted.
I have checked the official precinct numbers and I figure that 25 percent of the cast ballots at the poles on Feb. 3rd were tossed out. (only one precinct in the poor side of town).
Early voting starts Sunday May 18th .
Cook, re 4, please elaborate your last assertion ” …25% of the ballots … were tossed out” I always knew there were challenged ballots but assumed that they were in such quantity that they wouldnt have affected the overall outcome because they were fewer than the spread between the top two vote getters.
Good morning Sarah and Vern. One hundred degrees up in the Bay area today. Yes, I did respond to Vern before the switchover.
As a spokesperson for Prop 98 I am amused that the League of Cities supporters of Prop 99 have nothing to say about their ballot measure whenever we compete for endorsements. Their entire “strategy and tactics” are very transparent. They simply want to block our property rights protection while protecting developers. They claim support for Kelo type takings. Perhaps the Fifth Amendment was changed since I went to school and it now only protects single family owner occupied homes. That’s not what I read. If they truly care about protecting our private property from non public use eminent domain takings for developers perhaps you can help all of us out. If both measures pass on June 3rd why did they include a “poison pill” that would block the votes of Californians that support our initiative? Even if both are approved by the voters, should they get one more vote than our side our protections of small businesses, houses of worship, family farms and investment properties will be denied. Perhaps you can ask them why their failed legislation efforts, aka ACA-8 and AB 887 by LA Assemblyman (D) De La Torre, which had included protection for small business and houses of worship were not included in Prop 99 that followed that defeat? They could have worded their measure with specific protections knowing that our submission and approval of title, summary and text preceded theirs. And to argue that they are defending you and I with their measure is disengenuous?
As I am not in my office I need to end the discussion until I return. In the meantime think about the 200 homeowners and 300 business owners in Baldwin Park about to lose their properties. Around 30 years ago the city told one family that their facility was being taken and recommended a new location that would be safe from future eminent domain actions. So they took out a $125,000 loan on their home to facilitate that relocation only to have the city notify them that their current location, which the city suggested, was about to be taken. How does that true story sit with you? Why does Prop 99 reject our protection of that family business?
Silence. All I hear is silence. Have a great day.
Please don’t take the following personally, but you know I’m incapable of lying. Sorry, but…
My response? I don’t care what the League of Cities’ intentions are. It’s not about politics for me, it’s about logic, removed from who is involved. It’s illogical and unethical to corrupt the ballot initiative process like the legislative process by offering the voters take-it-or-leave-it package deals.
I could be wrong. but your argument seems to have had a partisan tone. I love the scare tactics and anecdotes. Do you have any eminent domain statistics? Let’s look at the big picture of both what these bills do and how the passage of a loaded up referendum like 98 may lead to more of this kind of thing in the future.
I’m sorry but it keeps coming back to the rent control issue for me too. I actually don’t like EITHER of these bills, but by abstaining from voting for 99, I’d be voting for 98 by default and so I still say we need to approve 99 and improve it later.
Who cares about the poison pill? In my case, if I’m for 99, I see no problem with its passage killing 98. In fact, the League of Cities beat you guys at the bill-writing game and now ‘Yes on 98’ actually looks kind of petty and jealous.
Maybe someday we’ll get an initiative on eminent domain that Californians can feel proud voting for, but that someday is not today.
Damn Supremes! They got Kelo WAY wrong.
SMS
Grace, Challenged ballots are ballots deemed to be qualified 1st, the ones I referred to as “tossed ballots” are non-qualified.
From what is being told at the “pole worker training” (and what is not being said) I rechecked the number of voters who voted and the number of final votes counted in the Feb. election and only 75.7 percent of the ballots cast were included in the final count. (one poling place) (but from what others have said and the change in ROV procedures, I guess tossed ballots were high throughout the county)
One of the qualifications to vote is to be registered 15 days before an election. There is NO same day registration and voting. Anyone who votes “white provisional” to change their party (like what happened in Feb.) to vote, is re-registering and no longer a qualified voter in any election for a period of 15 days.
The registration deadline for June 3rd primary election is May 19th. (For changes and new registrations)
I did not know that ballots could be thrown away without being challenged. Nevertheless 25% is a huge number for the close elections we are having nowdays and this needs to be watched and tracked closely. What is being done to prevent these unqualified ballots? This is HUGE! If you control the ballots and can throw out 25% you can control every election. Thank you for the info.
Partisan tone Sarah.
How about buying me a dinner at the Five Crowns restaurant in Carona Del
Mar if I can prove that more Democrats and minorites suffer from eminent domain takings.
Ten years ago, while attending an Assembly hearing on redevleopment, I met Ronzel Cato, a fifth generation African American, the first in his family to be able to buy a piece of the American Dream, a home in the city of Fresno. The city’s redeveopment agency decided to take his land and offered 10 cents on the dollar of local comp’s as they turned his propoerty over to Roxbury Farms as a turkey or chicken processing plant.
At the Institute for Justice conference held in the DC area two years ago I met 140 victims, many of which are black and poor families from Riviera Beach Florida, Atlantic City & Jersey City, NJ, Brooklyn, NY and others from TX, Ohio and CA.
Please let me know the first (or last time) a property was “taken” in the city of Beverly Hills or Brentwood. I grew up in Newark NJ and saw the tenements which were government housing for those who could not afford to move out of those drug infested areas.While they were displaced form older areas, the government solution was terrible.
Senator Tom Mc Clintock had it right when he defined redevelopment agency activity as a system designed by Democrats to make Republicans rich.
Who do you think own the big box stores, auto dealerships and sports stadiums in CA. Republicans or Democrats?
The partisanship comment was in reference to the rent control issue and the fact that you keep changing the subject back to eminent domain just as the party would like you to… just as you just did again right here.
Once again, we agree on the eminent domain issue. What we don’t agree on is whether or not THESE initiatives are the best we can do.
SMS
Larry has decided to stop protesting that 98 doesn’t get rid of rent control. For a while there he was furiously insistent that it doesn’t “abolish” rent control, it just “phases it out.” I’ve got in touch with, and will be interviewing, the Republican candidate Ron St. John, who is running against Rohrabacher in the primary mostly because of Dana’s immigrant-bashing. St John is a property-rights attorney who supports 98 specifically because he is against rent control. So I think it’s fair for us to say, if you want to get rid of rent control vote for 98, if you don’t then vote no. 99 is up to you, it seems somewhat half-assed.
Rent control appears to be in your craw so let’s review what our measure does and doesn’t do. Mind you I would prefer responding from home where I have multiple legal opinions and other data.
Aside from the fact that 40 or more states in our nation ban rent control, which is akin to the state telling us how much we can sell our homes for, let me be a broken record. If you have a complex within a rent controlled area and ONE family deicdes to depart for whatever reason the remaining units are not impacted. The provision ONLY applies to that SINGLE location. Therefore current renters will continue to have the same protections they now enjoy.
Perhaps you prefer the socialist system of the former east block where the government provided the housing and a job.
If I owned property in a rent controlled city what incentive would I have to upgrade and modernize that unit or home if I was limited in the yearly or monthly increase of rent for said location? Please show me the text of Prop 98 that throws out the current occupant or the power to engage in a hostile eviction once our measure passes. You can’t because it isn’t there. You have bought into the notion that the ugly property owner, who has invested his or her money in rental properties has a team of agents ready to swoop down with eviction notices on June 4th. Simply another bogus allegation by our opposition.
How do we charge anyone rent? Can we at least agree that first you must own the property in question? As such this is a private property right no matter how many times and ways you try to convince others on this issue.
Stay tuned. I will continue with answering this concern after we return to southern CA. Larry G on the road but not out of contact with the Juice.
Vern, I wish you lived in Gary’s district! Thanks for the picks, I plan on voting no for 98 and yes on 99. Sadly, I still have DTS status and I am not voting in the Democratic Primary. Seriously, Gary threatened divorce, I don’t have his name on my ballot. But I did remind him that if he loses I will still be married to him!
Heather, dude, I’m pretty sure you can go to your polling place and request a Dem ballot! I’m like 99% sure; actually my ballot says so. Just like the last election. Except this time even the Republicans are letting DTS vote in their primary. So spread the word!
Voting choices. (98 and 99)
Yes or No, Up or Down, Black or White, Good or Bad, Democrat or Republican.
There more than Two (2) choices in voting.
While you are voting at the polls, early voting or mail in ballot, it is your choice not to vote at all for 98 or 99. The Blank or Blank vote.
My personal choice is the No or No vote, and there is nothing stopping anyone from voting the Yes or Yes vote too.
98 and 99 both change the California Constitution, is that really a good idea when both are being criticized? Being asked to take the bad with the good, because the good is needed is not a good idea.
So before you check the box YES on either 98 or 99, you need to ask yourself one question. “Do you feel lucky?”
Larry –
40 States ban rent control? Sure. But this isn’t one. California is the 4th largest economy in the world and we owe it to our citizens to not gentrify their communities.
Property values? You want property values to go back up? Why? The market is already overvalued and people are losing their homes and rental properties due to the credit crunch.
Sure everyone’s hurting, but you hurt a lot less if you own a thousand units rather than a 3-family home, few of which can be found south of Los Angeles.
SMS