California Citizens - Let me hear your voice

[Mikey]

I guess you're into wasting money too.

Why vote on something that's clearly against the state constitution? If these morons want to split up the state, then they can go through the established legal process. Or don't you believe in that, either?

[Joe in PB]

I read the reason the initiative was taken off the ballot were questions about how to implement the splitting of the state, divide states funds etc. Reasonable questions that would not come easy in a state as fucked up as California.

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[Wolfman]

The US Constitution also has something to say about all that. Check out Article IV, Section 3.

[Mikey]

You're right. They didn't actually rule on the constitutionality but that there are serious questions that need to be addressed.

The justices said their unusual intervention was necessary “because significant questions have been raised regarding the proposition’s validity and because we conclude that the potential harm in permitting the measure to remain on the ballot outweighs the potential harm in delaying the proposition to a future election.”

The court will decide later whether the measure is constitutional. If it is, the three California's question will go on a future ballot. If it isn’t — as several legal scholars have argued — then hopefully this will be the end of Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper’s efforts to slice up the state.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editoria ... story.html

They also haven't ruled that it can't be voted on. It could still be on the ballot in 2020. No harm in waiting a couple of years for something this important.

[Mikey]

The US Constitution also has something to say about all that. Check out Article IV, Section 3.

California could still vote to split. What this means is that Congress would have the last say. I think that if the voters of the state decided to split up it would bear pretty heavily on their decision.

[Rooster]

The core issue isn’t why shouldn’t the initiative be on the ballot in November, but the California initiative process itself. It’s a microcosm of why our founding fathers chose to have a Republic, not a Democracy. Any yahoo who can get enough signatures can get a whack-a-doodle idea before the voters regardless of the merits. A fine example of this is back in 1996 California voters decided that traps were far too cruel to the animals they were designed to catch and banned them. Shortly thereafter the gopher population exploded and they burrowed through the levy system weakening it for the heavy rains that came a year later— which resulted in massive flooding in the Central Valley.

The reality is you can’t trust the voting populace to drive the political process directly. There’s too much emotion and not enough critical thinking involved.

[Mikey]

The core issue isn’t why shouldn’t the initiative be on the ballot in November, but the California initiative process itself. It’s a microcosm of why our founding fathers chose to have a Republic, not a Democracy. Any yahoo who can get enough signatures can get a whack-a-doodle idea before the voters regardless of the merits. A fine example of this is back in 1996 California voters decided that traps were far too cruel to the animals they were designed to catch and banned them. Shortly thereafter the gopher population exploded and they burrowed through the levy system weakening it for the heavy rains that came a year later— which resulted in massive flooding in the Central Valley.

The reality is you can’t trust the voting populace to drive the political process directly. There’s too much emotion and not enough critical thinking involved.

The initiative process was added by amendment to the state constitution in 1911 and was intended to give the actual people some more say in their government as opposed to the politicians in the legislature. It's had its successes and its failures, depending on our point of view. Certainly there's a lot of disagreement on both sides of Prop 13, which is probably the best known.

Right now the system is completely broken. The problem today is that people have realized that all you really need is a lot of money to get an initiative on the ballot, so that it's become a tool of corporations and rich folks instead of a populist thing. If they would outlaw paid signature gatherers and anybody from out of state from gathering signatures, it would make a big difference. These guys hang outside grocery stores and malls and get paid up to $15 for each valid signature. I won't even talk to these assholes, no matter what they're trying to get me to sign.

[Rooster]

Wow. $15 per valid signature? A resourceful man would gather a number of people he knows to readily sign a petition and with whom he’d split the proceeds. Given enough in on a scam like that, you could make some serious coin for very little effort.

[Goober McTuber]

It was Churchill. Winston, not Ward.

[Mikey]

Wow. $15 per valid signature? A resourceful man would gather a number of people he knows to readily sign a petition and with whom he’d split the proceeds. Given enough in on a scam like that, you could make some serious coin for very little effort.

Depends on the petition and who's paying for it. I hear the average is more like $5 - $10 but that's still pretty fucking ridiculous.

[Rooster]

So are these professional petition gatherers doing this for whoever hires them? Or is it confined to a limited number to issues that California deals with specifically? And does the job title fall under “Community Organizer” or professional activist?

[Mikey]

So are these professional petition gatherers doing this for whoever hires them?

Yes. I think California is the most lucrative market but I'm pretty sure they get around to other states as well.

[Mikey]

This guy was making $3,000 a week and took half the year off.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol- ... story.html

[Rooster]

Niiiiiice. I need to get in on that gig. Like Dire Straits sang, “Money for nuthin and your chicks for free.”

[Dinsdale]

Not picking at knits here...

For all intensive purposes, I miss Shoalzie.

[Joe in PB]

I read the reason the initiative was taken off the ballot were questions about how to implement the splitting of the state, divide states funds etc. Reasonable questions that would not come easy in a state as fucked up as California.

I have no idea if that is true or not. But just because something is difficult does not mean you cannot vote on it.

I'm in agreement, but having the state cut in three, each section having about the same population, means Sacramento would have about 1/3 of the dollars they currently receive. An issue magnified because the California Assembly doesn't necessarily distribute the funds equally. One of the reasons I am for the initiative if it ever finds its way onto the ballot.

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[Mikey]

Why vote on something that's clearly against the state constitution?

Are you suggesting that the people of California cannot amend their own state constitution (or end it)? What is the part of the California Constitution that prohibits a proposition to divide the state into three states?

Not picking at knits here... but if you are going to say that something is "clearly against the state constitution" then it should be easy for you to identify what part of state constitution prohibits such a vote.

Why don't you look it up and show me that I'm wrong? I could be. I read it on the internet.

[Dinsdale]

We have the initiative process in Oregon. And I'm having a hard time remembering one that wasn't beneficial.

This November, there's one to overturn the Sanctuary State Law (which doesn't really do much to start with, just prohibits state funds from being spent on immigration enforcement). Couple years ago, our one-party legislature thought it would be dandy to give illegals driver's licenses, and an initiative overwhelmingly shot it down. Back in the 90's(?) the state treasury had this neat trick where they'd cook the books with revenue estimates, and collect way too much income tax -- an initiative made a Constitutional Amendment to put the kibosh on that, and any extra revenue collected that exceeds 2% is refunded (the "Kicker").

The system works great here, and keeps the public employee unions (we have the most per capita) from running the state any more than they already do.

We have paid signature gatherers, but they have to do certain things to do it legally (explain certain things, present a written copy of the initiative, etc), but they never seem to do it. They still have a hard time getting more than a few signatures a day. If'n I'm not mistaken, they must be paid hourly, and not by the signature (Soros, Bloomberg, and Steyer can afford it... huge players here, although none have ever lived here).

[Dinsdale]

Why don't you look it up and show me that I'm wrong?

WHOA!!!! 3 ALARM YHKYOA!!!!!!!

When you make an assertion, then are asked to back it up, and you respond that someone else should verify it... you're wrong. One way or another... no ifs, ands, or buts.

[Mikey]

Apparently the California State Constitution can be amended by initiative.

The technicality here is is that splitting the state would require and amendment, but the initiative was written as a statutory initiative and not an amendment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_3#Legal_issues

As for California constitutional issues, there is the question as to whether a statutory initiative measure like this one, without any state constitutional amendments, can start a process that fundamentally revises the state government's basic framework. Under the California Constitution, a proposal that substantially alters the state's basic governmental framework must be a state constitutional amendment that originates from either the State Legislature or a constitutional convention, and not from a ballot initiative.[14][19] As Vikram Amar writes, "Certainly breaking California up alters, as a quantitative matter, most every provision in the constitution, by shrinking its effective reach ... such a division is first and foremost a matter of structure ... what is of greater importance to a state’s overall structure than its geographic boundaries?"[18]

There could also be multiple court challenges on how the state's existing liabilities are split among the new states, whether based on a plan passed by the State Legislature, or distributed based on their relative populations (as mandated by the proposal if the State Legislature fails to decide on such a plan). Among the existing liabilities are all the bonds that have been issued as a result of other passed laws or ballot measures. There is also the question as to what to do with all the health and retirement benefits and other compensation owed to the state's current public employees. There are also liabilities mandated by other policies. A number of these bonds, employee plans, and policies are currently unfunded, awaiting revenue from future state budgets. Furthermore, many of these liabilities are mandated by California constitutional amendments, so a case could be made that splitting the state may unconstitutionally impair the contractual rights of all these bondholders and public employees.[14]

[Mikey]

Why don't you look it up and show me that I'm wrong?

WHOA!!!! 3 ALARM YHKYOA!!!!!!!

When you make an assertion, then are asked to back it up, and you respond that someone else should verify it... you're wrong. One way or another... no ifs, ands, or buts.

Yeah, but I admitted I could be wrong and that I just remembered seeing it on the interwebs. An embarrassing admission in itself. Sort of busy at work today but it took me all of three minutes to find the argument that I had seen previously.

[Rooster]

The reality is you can’t trust the voting populace to drive the political process directly. There’s too much emotion and not enough critical thinking involved.

The voters do not always get things right. That is part of allowing free people to govern themselves. Sometimes they fuck up. But they can fix it with another vote.

You are not entitled to perfect government, which is an oxymoron if I've ever seen one. If California is whack-a-doodle, then so be it. They have the power to fix whatever they break using the same procedures.

This is true. The voters do not always get it right. But the system is in place to minimize those mistakes and to make it harder to make them, thus we have checks and balances designed for little to get done unless there is unity in purpose. When the voters— or politicians —go around these checks and balances to make it easier for things to get done, it subverts the system and causes it to break down by creating an environment that increases disunity like what we are seeing in California by way of the 3 Californias initiative.

Our forefathers were wise beyond their years as evidenced by the government they built. Too bad many of our country’s citizens haven’t lived up to their standard.

[Rooster]

I would say the checks and balances are primarily for the government-- but, they are there for the citizenry as well, not as a prohibition on their freedom to live according to their will, but as a brake on impulsivity.

Our forefathers had a wisdom which wasn't reflected in some of their actions and behaviors, but was evident in their words: That all men are created equal. That we as people do not live up to these lofty ideals shouldn't surprise anyone, but what is inspiring is that these wise men thought to enshrine these virtues and values in our founding contract.