How I decided to vote for California Prop. 50 in November

I voted by mail today- YES!

The political scam spam which I only get via text has spiked in the last few days, and since the actual elections for office are still some ways away, I can only conclude that it is because I live in California, and this ballot measure is providing the fuel for this increase by getting people in California temporarily interested in politics and elections. The scammers don’t care about the outcome, of course, it’s just a way to funnel more money into their cheating, grubby hands.

I would surely like to be able to reach through the intertubes and grab them by their collective necks.

Like I say in all of these types of threads, get rid of congressional districting.

First, let’s note that I’ve made two arguments. Distrust is just one. The initial argument is that the more you empower liberal politics, the more you energize Trump’s base and give him something to attack. You’re accomplishing the reverse of what you want. You’re throwing fuel into the fire and preventing the situation from finding a peaceful off-ramp.

But, on the topic of bad politicians I invite you to lay out the counter-evidence. I provided mine.

Say, for example, the janitors at a university discovered that they can peek on the girls’ changing room through some cracks in the walls, from a room that’s only accessible by school staff. The Dean finds out, launches into a tirade about how creepy the janitors are, calls to have them arrested, etc. but then somehow always seems to avoid budgeting to fix the cracks, somehow always seem to avoid ordering someone to do it, and will never answer any questions that anyone raises about the subject - swiftly moving to change the topic - I wouldn’t trust that guy.

I mean, sure, maybe we found out about the janitors because one of them - having seen that one of the girls was alone - went in to attack her. If there’s never any such attack by the dean then, sure, he’s not as bad a person as that one janitor who physically assaulted a girl.

But that’s still not the guy to put your faith into. You can and should find a better person, and in the long run you’re only hurting yourself by sitting on your heels.

The person who goes looking for cracks in the wall and the person who uses those cracks to isolate and attack a helpless person is worse than the person who quietly and discretely uses that knowledge in a more controlled manner. That doesn’t make them a good person. A good person blocks access to the locker room, schedules a handyman, and gets the cracks fixed.

When a problem is large enough, there’s zero reason to not try to bring in an immediate and full solution. Anyone who’s not doing that, is someone that wants to get in there and peek.

A failure to act is very compelling evidence of bad intentions. There’s simply no reason to not suggest a true fix.

And if you don’t empower any politics they don’t like, then you empower them to do what they want. Lovely catch-22 you’ve got there.

You’ve got an immediate and full solution to the mess we’re in? I’d love to see one.

When a problem becomes too large a final solution can become possible, unfortunately.

I almost added “preferably one that doesn’t involve killing everybody off.”

I’m sorry, I don’t remember seeing this argument before. You mean all Representatives should be elected at large from the state, like Senators? Or something else, that I can’t quite imagine?

Moderating:

This is a hijack to this thread. Maybe it doesn’t need to be said in all of these types of threads. It certainly doesn’t need to be said in this one. Please be more mindful of the topic under discussion.

This discussion belongs in a different thread, one where it has presumably already been raised. Thanks.

…which doesn’t take effect until the 2032 elections, giving the state plenty of time to put another state Constitutional amendment in 2030 giving control of drawing the lines back to the state legislature.
Of course, that assumes there won’t be a petition to call for an amendment to be added to one of the 2028 ballots that changes the districts back to the current ones.

I thought that was the point: to take advantage of the redistricting following the next census, as well, but to let it go after that. If it’s about the damage the Trump era is causing, even the best case scenario has a lot of cleanup going on for the next four or five Congresses. But maybe they were just hoping by 2032 we’d forget we ever had an impartial redistricting commission.

In any case, they’ve counted my vote now, so if the yes-on-50 is wrong, I’m complicit.

The counter evidence is that except for a very brief periods of time at the beginning of Bill Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s first terms, Democrats just haven’t had the power to accomplish great things. This is why, to continue on with your analogy, the dean hasn’t ordered the cracks fixed. He’s had to deal with an extremely powerful janitor’s union that has blocked the order at every opportunity. The most recent time a Democrat did have that power was back when LBJ was president, and he did accomplish great things (I rate him as the 3rd best POTUS in my personal rankings after Washington and Lincoln although the Roosevelts come close and I could accept LBJ being as low as 5th).

ETA. It wasn’t at the very beginning of Obama’s term. IIRC there were problems with the senate due to Ted Kennedy’s death and one of the other senate seats (maybe Al Franken’s?).

ETA 2. And of course let’s not forget Joe Manchin.

Manchin is the exact practical example - he backed federal legislation to require independent state commissions to draw districts (along with the entire democratic caucus) but wasn’t willing to nuke the filibuster over it.

Ultimately anyone who supports one party being the adult has to decide if that means preserving the filibuster at the cost of keeping gerrymandering legal or eliminating the filibuster to prevent states from doing it.

Except for one thing. The Republicans aren’t trying to arrive at some sort of ideal set of rules based on Republican principles. They’re trying to set the rules up so that they will have every possible advantage. Should a Democrat win in 2028, they aren’t going to say “what was good for Trump is good for Gavin Newsom (or whoever else it might be). They’re going to start going back on everything they preached under Trump.

No more unitary executive, instead we need lots of oversight from Congress and the courts. No more purging of government officials who disagree with the president. Newsom fired some federal prosecutor because they were MAGA? That would now become illegal for the president to do. And so on.

One poll has 44% in favor, 36% opposed

I was quickly scanning the article - perhaps people were speaking differently from how they’ll vote. I think the spread’s going to be tighter between voters. The undecided voters are significant and have to do their own research about it.

Without a doubt. It’s just a single data point but the first one that I’ve seen.

No, I said that you should put in blocks that prevent one team from being able to run rough-shod over the other.

By immediate, I mean solutions that, on passage, would completely solve the issue. In the meanwhile - while working to pass those solutions - I’d have no problem with stop-gap measures.

Long-term fixes:

  1. Anti-gerrymandering Constitutional Amendment
  2. Supermajority requirements restored in the Senate, Constitutional Amendment
  3. Anti-nepotistic pardons Constitutional Amendment
  4. Law to clarify the requirements for blocking pardons related to impeachments
  5. Count-down timer on Supreme Court appointments, Constitutional Amendment
  6. Make Attorney General a non-appointed, separate Federal election, Constitutional Amendment

I’d also recommend putting a 1 term limit on House members, with the ability to select a new Senator for their state, on the way out, an Amendment that lays out the process for selecting Electoral College candidates in a non-partisan manner, and a general larger process for the Electoral College in headhunting and promoting candidates for the Presidency, as well as taking on the impeachment power.

Now whether Newsom or any particular individual wants to take on that specific list, with those specific solutions, or have their own ideas about how to prevent one party or one individual from being able to flaunt his Civil or Constitutional duties, violate the Constitution without penalty, etc. I’m not particular fussed.

But when I don’t see any single movement or idea, when everyone’s real clear that this is an issue and, in fact, the prevailing issue of the day then I’m not seeing why I should put my trust in those people.

I see this sort of thing all the time and while I can see the argument for term limits as a general proposition (I’m not sold on them, but I can see merit in the argument), this restrictive of one is a recipe for chaos. House terms are just two years - they will spend that entire time learning the legislative process, then get turfed out.

I wouldn’t want more than two term limit for Senators and they serve six years per. An absolute minimum House term limit from my POV would be three, which would be six years and would need to be staggered. You want some of your politicians to develop some expertise at managing government and to act as mentors for the newly elected, not have an endlessly turning over parade of 100% trainees.

I don’t want to distract too much from the thread. I understand the argument about having knowledge of the government, etc. But, likewise, we’re sending people to jail based on the idea that we can expect 12 semi-random individuals to be able to sit through expert testimony, understand what they’re being told, and make an informed decision on it, all in the space of a few hours.

In general, I don’t think that it makes sense to have the people proposing a measure also be the people who are voting on the measure. With both the House and Senate composed of people who have been in office for decades, there just isn’t much of a difference between them in idea or sentiment (mostly, it’s just a quality difference), so you’re basically looking at two groups who have already pre-judged everything and are committed to a group vision, rather than an individual analysis of each proposal.

I think a reasonable person can understand, “We have national security interests in the Northwest Passage because X.” Or if they’re told, “We have a secret asset hidden in the cabinet of Y and need to keep the name secret.” You don’t need to have 20 years of experience being told it over and over again to get the point, if you’re a reasonable person.

And, importantly, maybe you need someone who hasn’t had that drilled into him for 20 years to realize that the world has shifted since then. A reasonable argument should sell a reasonable person. If it doesn’t, then maybe the argument isn’t so reasonable and the problem isn’t that you haven’t had enough time to indoctrinate the person into the uber-belief.

Anyways, as said, I don’t want to derail but we can spin off another thread if you want to debate it further.