Witness LA Endorsements 2008

(It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.)

NOTE: THERE’S A VERY SHORT VERSION AT THE END in case you want to print it out.

(Thank you again to the always fabulous, Alan Mittelstaedt, and to my USC J202 students who researched the issues so intelligently and well.)

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1A High speed rail: YES

Oh, I suppose the opponents and naysayers have a point, in an Eeyore-ish sort of way. But California needs to move itself into the future, transportationally speaking. I want a bullet train. You should want a bullet train. The LA Times wants a bullet train. (Even if the Daily News doesn’t.) Yes on infrastructure. No on prisons. What kind of tomorrow do you want anyway?

2. Humane farms: YES

Prop 2 requires that caged farm animals have enough room to be able to stand up in their pens or cages, turn around—and flap their wings if they happen to have wings. In other words, we can kill ’em and eat ’em, but we can’t torture ’em. It’s pretty much that simple. You’ve no doubt seen all the commercials warning you that hideous things will happen if this proposition passes. Salmonella will run rampant, California will have to get its eggs from Mexico, food prices will skyrocket. And all goodness and light will disappear from the earth. (Yes, I made that last part up. But the rest is claimed by the NO-on-2 TV ads paid for by big agribusiness.)

The facts say otherwise. First of all, confining animals to over-small spaces spreads diseases (and pathogens like salmonella) more easily between the animals, and extreme stress makes creatures additionally disease-prone. In other words, humane treatment of chickens, pigs and veal calves, et al, will make our food safer not the reverse. In terms of price, a California-based poultry economist cited by the Humane Society has figures indicating that eggs will, at most, cost a penny more (per egg). Sure, in this sucky economy, even pennies add up, but unhealthy food is never a bargain.

The LA Times says to vote no, but they’re on the wrong side of this one. My brilliant pal, LA Times columnist and KPCC radio talk show maven, Patt Morrison, who is extremely well informed on these issues, says yes—-as does a slew of other organizations beginning with the Humane Society, the Sierra Club and the California Democratic Party.

The poultry industry, in particular, has had plenty of time to reform itself—as the beef and the veal industries have pretty much already done. But poultry has failed to come into the 21st century. It seems those poultry farmers need a nice firm nudge (or peck), which Prop 2 thoughtfully provides.

3. Children’s Hospitals: YES

Do I really have to explain this? Okay, Children’s hospitals throughout the state are overflowing with seriously ill and injured children, and you will find no serious organized opposition to this proposition. There is a good reason for that.

4. Parental notification: NO

Every few years this thing gets on the ballot and then gets voted down.

For the details, see the write-ups from my USC students here.

Then listen to our state’s daughters and deep-six this puppy.

5. Rehab not prison for certain drug offenders: YES

Our prisons are crowded with nonviolent low-level drug offenders, who often cycle in and out for parole violations, not additional crimes, because they go back in every time they test dirty—or are afraid they’re going to test dirty—on the drug tests mandated by the conditions of their paroles. And we pay the tab for their inability to get off the conveyer belt. Is that really any way to run a railroad?

Prop. 36 is terming out, and this would replace it. No matter what Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown say (the latter who should know better), this proposed system is not going to send a plague of criminals running rife through the streets.

We need this initiative. It’ll save us money, and prison beds, and it will keep low level offenders in the community where they have a chance at recovery, not in prison where they are further broken—and then we and their families get to pay the tab for the damage.

The truth is, we need a state commission that can come up with binding sentencing reform, but the stage legislature is too chicken and/or politically hamstrung to authorize such a commission (because of the pressure of certain unions we could mention—cough….CCPOA….cough), so we are left with the proposition process.

(NOTE: I part with my smart USC students on this one, but their intelligent summaries are very much worth reading and, heck, you may find you agree with them, not me.)

UPDATE: WLA commenter, Reg, has just pointed out that Jeanne Woodford has endorsed Prop. 5. Woodford is the former warden of San Quentin, the former director of the California Department of Corrections, and now, post-retirement, the chief of adult probation in S.F.—and as smart as they come on corrections policy. In terms of knowledge and experience of the entire system, there can be no better endorsement.

(The rest after the jump.)

6. The Not So Safe Neighborhoods, Let’s Lock Up the Kids Act: NO!!!!! (with extreme prejudice.)

This is a 30-page wish list put forth by the state’s most extreme law-and-order fanatics. It’s full of all the whacked-out, would-be laws that both democrats and republicans have repeatedly shot down in the state legislature, and for good reason. Among other things, this poison pill mandates trying more kids as adults, drastically upping the penalty on anything that can be vaguely construed as a gang crime, all of which will further burden our disastrously crowded prisons that are already running at 200 percent capacity. AND it aims to pay for all this, not with funds of its own, but by grabbing money from the state’s general fund, which means it will snatch $1 billion next year from schools, health care, highways and the like, and $500 million every year thereafter. The New York Times called it fiscal suicide.

(My energetic USC students analyzed it here.)

Read the fine print. And then spread the word

7. The renewable energy boondoggle: NO

We all wish this proposed law was a good one. Unfortunately, while well-intentioned, the proposition is so miserably written that it will do much more harm than good, thus environmentalists on the left and taxpayer groups on the right all agree that it should go down in a crashing defeat.

My USC students thought so, too. Here’s what they had to say.

8. The anti-gay marriage amendment: NO, NO and then again, NO

Zach Sire has a couple of EXCELLENT posts on this inexcusable attempt to limit basic rights for some of our friends, family members and fellow citizens, here and here).

(WWJD? He wouldn’t vote for this small-spirited pile of masa, I can tell you.)

(By the way, my journalism students considered Prop. 8 such a totally no-brainer that they voted not to report on it, but picked what they thought were more challenging propositions.)

9. More Prison Expansion – NO

We already have an excellent victims’ bill of rights in this state. We don’t need another one that tramples on everyone else’s rights.

This is another costly law-and-order nightmare that would greatly expand the prison population without incorporating any way to fund the expansion.

Even California DA Steve Cooley hates this initiative that wants to amend the constitution to give victims an outsize influence in criminal cases thus turning dispassionate justice into family vengeance. In addition it wants to do away with early-release programs in prison, and it would undermine law and order behind bars by eliminating incentives for good behavior.

Here’s what my insightful students thought of it.

10: The T-Boone Pickens bailout – NO

Zillionaire T-Boone Pickens has been having a bad year in the stock market so now he’s cooked up a scheme that will be fiscally and environmentally costly to California but will greatly benefit the good Mr. Pickens. Just say NO. And T-Boone, honey, buzz off.

Nearly every major group you can think of recommends a NO vote on this deceiving and pricey piece of pernicious flim-flam. The LA Times has a good rundown here.

11. Redistricting: YES

Admittedly, this plan is not perfect, and, as LAist pointed out, anything that is favored too enthusiastically by a Republican group that has hired Karl Rove as a consultant is decidedly suspect, but a legislature dominated by one party or the other has an inherent conflict of interest when it is allowed to oversee redistricting. This plan takes the power out of the politicians hands and gives it to a neutral committee. As I said, it ain’t perfect, but it’s still better than what we’ve got.

(On this Prop, I reluctantly part ways with the conclusion of my smart student, Holly Villamagna, whose explanation of the proposition is nonetheless, very much worth reading. And, hey, the California Democratic Party, among others, agrees with Holly)

12. Bond issue to help veterans buy homes. – YES

This is another no-brainer. Just vote for it. Low cost to us. Big gain to those who have sacrificed in our behalf.

MEASURE A- for gang intervention and prevention programs – YES

Look, we need more prevention, intervention, jobs and apprenticeships programs. And, yes, we have to hold the respective feet of Gang Czar Jeff Carr and the City Council members to the fire to make sure those programs are well evaluated, and well run—which may require that some of us show up to the Council chambers packing large sidearms (metaphorically speaking, don’t get jumpy, LAPD), but we still need the programs for the health of our city.

Here’s more.

MEASURE Q – $7 billion for LAUSD – NO

Actually, the district needs more money than a piddling $7 billion. But the way this request came down (with no credibly thought-through budget explaining the details of how the bucks would be spent) effectively spat in the face of the voters. We’re over it. Clean-up your house, come up with a reasonable and transparent plan, and we’ll give you the money. And not until.

MEASURE R – transportation sales tax hike – YES

Why? Because we need it. Alan Mittelstaedt, who of all my journalist/editor friends, is the most expert on transportation issues, kindly agreed to lay it all out here.

(Yes on all the rest of the tax measures.)

LA COUNTY SUPERVISOR – Mark Ridley Thomas

In brief, while both are able men, and Bernard Parks has many excellent qualities and is, without question, a valuable person to have in Los Angeles public life, his vendettas and his enemies lists have gotten wearying. (Plus we still haven’t gotten over his antics as LAPD chief, and neither have the rank-and-file officers, which is part of the reason for the union’s support of Ridley-Thomas.) Ridley-Thomas has a more practical grasp of workable solutions for the district he wants to represent (for instance his ideas on such issues as the future of MLK-Harbor Hospital, and the way forward with gang intervention and prevention programs, come across as more concrete) and he has fewer downsides.

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QUICK & DIRTY GUIDE

1A – YES

2 – YES

3 – YES

4 – NO

5 – YES

6 – NO (YOU MUST BE KIDDING)

7 – NO

8 – NO, NO AND NO

9 – NO!

10 – NO

11 – YES

12 – YES

A – YES

Q – NO

R – Yes

(All the rest, yes)

PS: If you haven’t already, don’t forget to check out the various write-ups on the props by my terrific USC students