Evan's Election Guide

If you haven't voted yet, go do so.

My voting guide this time is easy: no on everything.

The reason is primarily that ballot initiatives are on the whole an extremely bad idea. They create constitutional amendments, not laws. This means even in an emergency, the legislature cannot change them - not to balance the budget, not anything. Constitutions should include only broad statements of principle and the details of the mechanisms of government, not basic policies that should be law instead.

Because of ballot inititatives, nearly 80% of California's state budget is already fixed by the constitution ... and the Governor thinks more of them will help reduce the gridlock? I'll vote for an initiative, but it needs to be overwhelmingly positive and/or necessary, and none of these pass that test. 77 comes close, but not close enough for me.

By way of a second justification, I think it's irresponsible of the Governor to try to impose his will on the state's legal structure by going over the legislature's head this way. More, it's irresponsible to spend the money necessary to run the special election for that purpose. I don't want to reward that irresponsible activity by contributing to the success of any initiative.