Monday, February 4, 2008

Make Your Vote Count 2/5/08

I WANT YOU TO VOTE!!! For you Californian, and many other states, today is VOTING DAY!!! Don’t forget to get out there and get to your polls! I used to go to high schools and talk to seniors about the importance of registering to vote and then actually voting. I gave a presentation on how one vote really does matter. It does – many candidates and laws have been put in place by just one vote - I can share that research later.

Anyway, so for those of you in CA, here are my positions on the issues and candidates. I am a conservative Republican, as most of you know, and against undue spending and government control and here are my positions:

President - Mitt Romney
He stands for most of the positions I stand up for AND strategically he is the better candidate than McCain. I did campaign for McCain over Bush in 2000, but McCain does not have what it takes to win and has made many horrible political decisions. Romney has solid conservative values and positions and great management skills!

Proposition 91-Transportation Funds YES
”Lawmakers often take funding designated for specific purposes and use it for "general funding" of other projects. Proposition 91 would protect fuel taxes that are supposed to be used for infrastructure projects from being diverted by lawmakers for other non-related projects.”

Proposition 92-Community Colleges NO
Although it sounds nice that Proposition 92 would mandate by law that community colleges may only charge $15 per unit, this could be a big problem for colleges in the future forcing them to cut classes, reduce number of students overall accepted, etc. But the part of the bill that I oppose more is the part that increases the size and scope of the community college governing board – we do not need more administration and more tax dollars spent on administration.

Proposition 93-Term Limit Changes for State Lawmakers NO
I like the idea of term limits and would support them in a straightforward bill. Currently, lawmakers can serve fourteen years in the legislature, 6 years (three terms) in the assembly and 8 years (two terms) in the senate. Proposition 93 would allow lawmakers to serve twelve years in the legislature, but they could serve all twelve years in one house. This is not a bad idea, EXCEPT it does not fully apply to current legislators. It's a self-serving initiative that provides a transition period to allow current members to serve a total of 12 consecutive years in the house in which they are currently serving, regardless of prior service in another house creating a loophole that allows some politicians to serve up to 20 years in office. As one organization puts it “It’s a power grab…If these leaders really believed in their own arguments about the need for the measure, they would have made Prop 93 effective only after they are termed out of office so the self-serving taint would not besmirch the initiative.”

Propositions 94-97-Indian Gaming Compacts NO
Plain and Simple, I am against gambling and believe it is not good to increase the number of casinos in CA. That is what these propositions would do. Gambling has been shown to be a destructive, addictive habit in many forms! Although most Republican Organizations are for it because it increases the revenue from the slot machines to the state of California, it does so only by increasing the umber of slot machines in CA by 17,000.

1 comment:

Beverly said...

I voted exactly the same way for all the propositions. I differ on the presidential candidate...but we can still be friends! :)