Archive for November, 2005

Proposition 74: Teacher Tenure

Friday, November 4th, 2005

Proposition 74 is simple enough. It changes tenure from 2 years to 5 years of employment. It also makes it easier for school districts to fire teachers after they have been tenured. Being no fan of tenure, my heart is sympathetic to this measure. That said, the more and more I think about this measure, the more and more I think that this measure falls short and is somewhat misdirected at what needs to be done. Tenure needs to be removed in public education (K-12). It doesn’t have a place there. If it were to remain, it needs to be changed to where it is granted to exceptional teachers after a number of years of service, instead of automatically envoked after a set number of years. That’s the way it is in colleges. A professor doesn’t just get tenure after a few years of work. No, the professor has to be recommended to the tenure committee and the committee must approve the tenure. (Along these lines, there was a teacher that was fired recently, not because she wasn’t acceptably good, but because it had now been two years and if she wasn’t fired, she would have been tenured and near impossible to let go if her acceptable performance deteriorated.)

With these thoughts in mind, I’ve decided I’m against prop. 74. If this measure passes, the state’s attention will turn elsewhere and real reform in teacher employment will not be examined. I’ll wait for a proposition that actually does something meaningful.

My endorsement: NO on prop. 74

Proposition 75: Union dues reform

Friday, November 4th, 2005

This proposition is one of two propositions that I consider to be critical and not only worthy of a single issue recall, but nearly critical that it passes. Let’s be honest, the entire government of California from top to bottom is controlled by special interests. Our elected officials can not become elected officials unless they submit to the special interests and accept their donations (that implicitely require voting in certain ways down the road). Even our proposition process is overrun with special interest money. Want proof: what’s the number one campaign in terms of revenue spent in this special election? If you guessed the “No on 75 campaign”, you’re right!

This must stop! and prop 75 will slow it down by making sure that union members actually support the campaigning of their unions. Public employee unions are by far the biggest special interests in this state with the most to lose from reform. Don’t buy their ads about how they’re all noble and good. They’re not. They’re a union. Teachers unions aren’t in business to make sure that kids get a good education. They’re in business to make sure that teachers get paid well. The same is true of nurses unions, they aren’t in business to protect patients but make sure nurses are paid well. Don’t get me wrong, I think nurses and teachers should get a good salary with good benefits. That’s not what I’m saying here. What I’m saying is that the unions crap about being solely well intentioned ‘only for the good of California’ organizations is 100% pure bullshit. There job is to protect their union members whether or not (the key point) it is in the best interest of California.

Furthermore, these unions have gone beyond their charter (protecting their union members) to do a great deal of political campaigning not directly related to their union members employment. It has angered Wendy and I to no end to see the CTA spending her money on campaigns for issues and candidates we deplore. Could we opt out of giving them that money? Yes, but it is fairly complicated AND (more importantly) requires that she quit the union and lose out on all the other benefits outside of collective bargaining (like life ensurance availability) that the union provides as well as being ostrocized for not being a member of the union. It’s not as simple as the unions will have you believe.

The unions argue that their members support them. If that’s true, they have nothing to worry about. If that’s the case, everyone will sign up for having the political campaign donations taken out of their paycheck and all that will be lost is a little bit of administrative time and money. But everyone knows that is NOT what is going to happen. No, what is going to happen is that large percentages of members will opt out and that percentage will only increase as the union asks for more and more money to campaign with. Unions will turn back into unions: entities that do collecive bargaining instead of political action committeee funded by public employees.

The number one complaint I hear about this bill is that it doesn’t affect corporations, only unions. That’s a good complaint. We need to reign them in too. However, unlike prop. 74 where it’s passing will take focus off the subject, prop. 75 passing will only ramp up the desire to see a another proposition (heck we may even see it out of the legislature) that will similarly reign in corporate spending. Prop. 75 can only help in this regard because if it fails, the effort to reign in big business will die too.

My endorsement: YES on prop. 75

Proposition 76: Midyear budget reforms

Friday, November 4th, 2005

Returning to my philosophy that propositions should only be used when absolutely necessary, I just don’t see this prop as being that important. The reality is that the legislature makes the budget every year and the governor approves it. These people SHOULD be able to do one of their most important jobs. Additionaly, I’m totally against having arbitrary metrics of how much spending will get spend on certain programs. Furthermore, I don’t see a need to do midyear spending corrections if we’ve made a good budget and are willing to make corrections the following year.

Sadly, our legislature has let us down. They’ve continued to outspend their revenue as well as playing all kinds of games to get around the spending limits we’ve put in place in the past. Because of this, I sympathize with those who support this bill. We DO need to get our budget situation under control. That said, the right solution to this problem is to elect new legislators. If we put the right people in office, they’ll solve the problem.

Since there is already a “proper” solution to our budgetary problems, there is no reason to make the water any muddier in our budget laws by passing this proposition.

My endorsement: NO on prop. 76

Proposition 77: Redistricting

Friday, November 4th, 2005

OK, this is by far the most important proposition to come to the voters in a long time if not in the history of the proposition process. This prop is very much at the core of why the proposition process exists. We have a legislature that has jury rigged the system to ensure that they get re-elected. As I heard one commentator say, the legislators pick us, not the other way around. This results in a situation where it is nearly impossible for us to elect new legislators who will fix this problem. The only way it can be fixed is to bypass the legislators and do it ourselves.

We need an impartial committee to draw district borders. Having the legislature do it is the stupidest idea we ever had. The opposition argues that retired judges are no better. I think that is complete BS. Are retired judges completely impartial? No, they aren’t. But they also don’t have any personal interest in the matter either. They’re retired, so they aren’t going to be running for election. They can’t accept any political donations, so they can’t get rich drawing biased borders. And if that isn’t good enough for you, there is a selection process that uses selections from both sides of the isle to put in a lottery system, so it will be very difficult for anyone to influence who the judges are that do the districting. And if THAT isn’t enough, the 3 judge panel has to unanimously vote to accept the borders, which will prevent any 2 judges from using their majority in the proceedings to strong arm the third.

Finally, and this is one of the most overlooked parts of the issue, after the judges draw up the districts, the new districts have to be voted on by us, just like we vote for the propositions. So if the borders are screwed up by the judges, we have a chance to reject them and start the process over with new judges using the lottery process.

With all of these built in protections, how can anyone say that prop. 77 wouldn’t be an improvement?

Everyone agrees that the current district situation is a mess. The opposition claims that this is a flawed attempt. Putting aside for a minute that there real motivation is to keep the status quo (and that’s the TRUTH behind their complaints), what is their alternative that they’re proposing? “Let a bi-partisan committee of legislators do it.” THAT’S HOW WE GOT HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE YOU BOZOS!!!! What happened when we had the legislature do it was that BOTH the Republicans and the Democrats agreed to carve up the state so that the Dems would get heavily democratic leaning districts and the Republicans would get the opposite. Both sides were happy because they protected their own elected seats. Bipartisanship does not help you with redistricting, it’s that simple, because both sides have a motivation to make deals in this fashion to protect themselves.

Need further proof that this isn’t just a Republican power play attempt to get more seats in the legislature? How about this: Many prominent Republicans are against this measure including all the ones who’s district I’m in. I’ve gotten letter after letter telling me to vote against 77 with all kinds of bogus reasons.

Sorry guys, I’m doing the right thing.

My endorsement: YES on prop. 77

Proposition 78: Prescription drug discounts

Friday, November 4th, 2005

There are two prescription drug discount measures on the ballot. This is the one that is endorsed by the drug companies. Need I say any more?

My endorsement: NO on prop. 78

Proposition 79: Prescription drug discounts II

Friday, November 4th, 2005

This is the second prescription drug discount measure. This one is endorsed by the various social services organizations. Basically, this measure would create a new organization in the state government that’s job was to negotiate drug prices with the companies and then pass those reduced drug prices on to the patients. Because of the realities of limited supply, they’ll also be responsible for determining who is going to get these cheaper drugs.

Somehow I’m pretty pesimistic about yet ANOTHER government health care organization being created. We’ve already got to many. Add this to my normal stance of vote no when in doubt and you get my endorsement.

My endorsement: NO on prop. 79

Proposition 80: Electrical deregulation reform

Friday, November 4th, 2005

Most people don’t even know that this proposition is on the ballot. This is the stealth measure that is totally forgotten amongst a list of emotionally charged props.

The goal of this measure is to clean up the mess that caused the electricity shortages a few years ago. It decides to go the route or re-regulating a portion of that which was deregulated.

This is another case of a partially baked proposal. The problem a few years ago was that the front end price of electricity was set by the PUC but the back end price (the price that our electric company paid) was being determined by the market. The result was that the electric companies were paying WAY more for electricity than they were able to charge for it.

I think the right solution to the problem is to deregulate the front end. When consumers can reap the benefits of dramatically reducing their electric bills by using less energy at peak times, the price of electricity will follow a more traditional supply vs. demand curve.

This proposition takes us the other direction by forcing more entities back under the regulation of the PUC. The PUC is one of the worst run organizations in the country. Not much more needs to be said.

My endorsement: NO on prop. 80

Pac-10 picks

Friday, November 4th, 2005

It’s that time of the week again: time to prognosticate!

Cal 28, Oregon 24: I think I might be allowing too much scoring in my prediction. I have a feeling that this game is going to come down to good defense. Oregon is going to go through a lot of growing pains with their green QB and Cal is not going to be able to run as well as it would like. The difference in this game will be redzone effectiveness and I put Cal on top of that list.

ASU 449, WaZoo 438: OK, so I exagerated by 400 points each. That’s only because this game is going to be a shootout if there ever was one. ASU will have just the defensive toughness necessary to win this game of deep passing games.

UCLA 42, Arizona 31: Arizona is finally starting to get some offense rolling but their defense continues to be weaker than advertised. UCLA won’t need a big comeback this week.

OSU 28, Washington 20: OSU continued their trend of scoring between 23 and 28 points last week agianst Arizona. Sadly for them, they let Arizona put up 29, in what appears to be a new school record for them. I don’t see the trend of OSU opponents breaking school records continuing into a second week and Washington will score less that 24 for the 8th time in 9 tries this year.

Stanford 13, USC 31: Stanford will have a lot to be proud of at the end of this game: they will have held USC to its lowest score all season. Sadly, the Stanford offense still SUCKS and will not be able to compete.

OK, that’s it campers! Tune in Monday for updated metrics. In the mean time, remember that the Cal vs. Oregon game will be on ABC at 12:30 PM pacific time here on the west coast.

The real nature of hypocrisy

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2005

This article at Catholic Online is REALLY good. It speaks to the true nature of hypocrisy. The money quote is:

“Hypocrisy consists not in failing to practice what we preach, but in not believing what we preach.

I might fail to live up to my beliefs all day long, but still hold on to them as I strive to live up to them. That is not hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is a cynical pretense of being a “good person” while disregarding the morality we claim to follow. The difference is being sorry, repenting, and striving forward. The hypocrite doesn’t care.”

I think he makes an important point we need to remember, particularly for those who struggle (key word) with sin.

The Loretto high school mess

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2005

I’m sure most of my readers have not heard about this, but there is a HUGE controversy brewing regarding Loretto high school in Sacramento. It started when Loretto hired a pro-abortion teacher who had been volunteering at Planned Parenthood as an escort (the people who go out into the parking lot to shield customers from protestors) up through this summer. Two months later, the school fired the teacher at the direction of the bishop. It later came out that a family with a student at Loretto, recognized her from various protests at the clinic. After escalating the issue from the teacher to to the school, they finally escalated the issue to the bishop, resulting in the firing. As if this didn’t make for enough controversy, the school has now expelled the student who’s family was responsible.

I had refrained from commenting on the topic before now because I was conflicted on a number of issues. First of all, I strongly stand for the bishops right to fire this teacher for her non-work-related support of Planned Parenthood. Catholic schools have a right to ensure the moral character of their employees and students reflect the beliefs of the Church. That said, I’m not so sure it was the RIGHT decision for the bishop to do that. From what little information has been circulated, the bishop never talked with the teacher (or had a representative do it) to determine what the teachers perspective was to determine if indeed she needed to be fired. Also, I wasn’t sure what the schools actual perspective on the subject was. Maybe after learning this they had intended to release the teacher at the end of the year. Or maybe they had a discussion with the teacher telling her what was expected of her including no longer volunteering at Planned Parenthood and not condoning abortion in the classroom.

But now that the student has been expelled, I’m more confident that the right thing was done by firing the teacher. It is clear that the school has no sympathy for the student and her family. There argument that the family “attacked” the school is pretty clearly hogwash unless you want to define “attacked” as going over their heads and asking the bishop to take action. This is particularly true since the family has been in contact with the school over the issue for two months now and it was not until the bishop stepped in that the student was expelled. Pure and simple, they’re angry that the family went over their heads. Furthermore, the language in their letter makes it pretty clear they have no sympathy for the family which leads me to believe that they do not seem to care about upholding the faith, at least on this issue.

You can be sure I’ll be writing a letter to the bishop asking him to reconsider taking further action against the school for expelling the student including the dismissal of the president and principle of the school if they refuse to properly justify the expulsion or repent and re-admit her to the school.

Finally, if you want the whole enchilada, you can go to the students blog. Her blog has become a lightning rod for both sides with much animosity and non-Christian behavior on both sides. Katelyn on the other hand has remained forthright and calm, refusing to take the bait that many (she averages a few hundred comments per post these days) throw her way.