I’m wondering whether anyone who reads this blog has strong opinions about the ballot issues that voters will vote on May 19. I think I will vote “yes” on 1A and 1B, but I’ve seen signs in the women’s toilet stalls on campus urging students to vote “no” on both of those. I just thought I’d ask if anyone would like to discuss these matters.
I plan to vote “yes” on these two because I hope they will help the state overcome this current financial crisis. Those I’ve heard about urging voters to vote “no” don’t propose better options. They object by claiming these measures would either increase taxes or keep them as high as they are now. (Whether they constitute an increase is not clear to me.) In general, I feel that higher taxes on everyone’s part are the price I’m willing to pay for what I hope will be a better state for all who live here.
Sometimes I feel like voting “no” on such measures, however. That’s because I’m fairly convinced our state system of government in particular is broken. I don’t like the proposition system. There have been so many elections this year and I’m tired of confusing measures that don’t seem to accomplish much. Why can’t we fix the system so that legislators can do their jobs? We elect them to make choices and yet they put the choices back on our laps. That’s a more direct form of democracy? So it would seem, but the choices put before us aren’t the choices that anyone would really want. It seems there are always parts of measures that sound good to me, but then there’s an additional clause that dilutes the part I like, sometimes so much so that I don’t want to vote for that measure anymore.
Sigh!
I voted by mail the other day. I was glad to see it was a short list of things to vote for. I like to vote, but sometimes I wish the props had more interesting names instead of 1A or 2B. How about prop we're going to take your money and waste it, or prop c'mon choose me. That would make things interesting.
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