Election Reflections

California's special election yesterday was covered by the evening newscasts just as though it were a presidential or gubernatorial election. The governor mounted a $50 million special election to get the people's backing for state budgeting reforms that the legislature was balking at implementing. Of the eight initiatives, not one passed! As one spokesperson for the coalition of unions said, the people clearly were opposed to the whole idea.

I tend to vote "no" on all initiatives on general principle, because I believe that such ballot-box lawmaking is by definition serving only the interests of special groups who draft the initiatives, and is never thought through well enough to anticipate its ripple effect. It almost always means the state has to pay millions of dollars for overseeing the provisions, which money the state doesn't have. When it becomes obvious that the state can't continue to fund the programs the initiatives create, a whole new crop of propositions is drafted for the next election. What a continuous loop! What loopy legislators we have in this great state of ours, who refuse to deal with the difficult issues and instead allow them to be handled by initiatives! Why even bother to elect representatives to the state government?