Ballot Measures

Former LA Mayor and state education secretary Richard Riordan is getting a lot of attention, here and elsewhere, for his screed against Gov. Schwarzenegger and the budget measures on the May 19 special election ballot.

Here's a link to the poll, which shows five of the six measures on the May 19 special election ballot with less than 50 percent support. Here's pollster Mark Baldassare's take on the results in the Sacramento Bee. And here's my upbeat prediction, via Fox & Hounds Daily.

Writing in the Sacramento Bee, Meg Whitman, the eBay chief turned GOP gubernatorial contender, comes out against Props 1A (spending limit and rainy day fund), Prop 1B (a boost in the education funding base) and Prop 1C (a plan to modernize the lottery and borrow against future revenue).

That's how California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today characterized opponents of the six measures that were part of last month's budget deal and go before voters in the May 19 special election.

Schwarzenegger made plain in a speech at the Commonwealth Club that, despite sagging approval ratings, he intends to campaign strongly for the package of six measures.

Joe Mathews is right: the way California lets politicians, whether the attorney general or the Legislature, put their thumbs on the scale by writing cagey or misleading titles and summaries for ballot measures invites dishonesty and abuse, as with Proposition 1A on the May special election ballot.The state needs an independent ballot title process carri

When read the ballot description of the six measures that were put on the May 19 special election ballot as part of February's budget deal, California voters in a new Field Poll gave majority support to five of the six. But that support was soft. A sixth measure -- which involves borrowing against future lottery revenues -- trails, and may be essentially a dead letter as a result.

I'm thinking of suing the state for legislative pay. As a voter. To secure the vote of Republican state senator Abel Maldonado, a holdout whose vote is needed to pass a massive budget compromise bill in California, Democrats are considering Maldonado's demand for three ballot measures, the Sacramento Bee reports.

The state legislature has yet to announce a date for a special election to consider budget measures. Expect to vote during graduation season--sometime between mid-May and early June. Since we don't know the full details of a budget deal, or whether the current tentative deal will hold, we can't say for sure what else will be on the ballot. But the LA Times opinion blog recently had a description of what was already headed for the ballot, pre-budget deal.

Want more proof that the initiative process is too powerful in California? All the recent talk about lawmakers reaching a budget deal is bunk. The deal, even if it passes, requires the voters to sign off on multiple ballot measures later this year. That's right -- California simply can't handle a budget emergency without a vote of the people.

Not the 21st century, mind you. But South Dakota, where American direct democracy began in 1898, is considering whether to change its woefully outdated laws that permit initiative sponsors to write their own descriptions of what their measure would do. In the world outside South Dakota, titles and summaries have been written by public officials who are supposed to be neutral. (In California, it's the attorney general). More details of the proposal from this story in the Mitchell Republic.