Go out and vote

What am I voting for and where?
-brillyance
June 8th 2010

Today is June 8th 2010. In California and many other states today is a day to vote for who you want to run for governor, state and federal legislatures as well as some very important propositions. I am an absentee voter so I voted weeks ago.

Here is a brief description of what props you will be voting for if you decide to go out and vote in California.

Prop 13 limits on property tax assessment: This prop is very important for anyone who owns a home or looking to own a home in the next year. Some people who own homes would like to make them earthquake safe. The process of making them safe is called retrofitting. The law as it is now does not asses the value of you home for taxing purposes until 15 years after the retrofitting has taken place. If you vote yes to this prop anyone who will retro fit their home will not be charged the extra property taxes at all. The retrofitting will not be assessed into the value of the home until it is sold.

Prop 14: This one really affect the way we would vote in primaries. I say it is important for everyone but realistically it is only important to those that vote and are involved in politics. Basically this prop changed who we can vote for in the primary as well as who is likely to be on the actual main ballot. It claims that it will allow other parties to be represented on the main ballot. However to me it seems unlikely. The way you vote now is you are given a primary ballot with a list of candidates in your party. You vote for the best one in your party. So every party gets a candidate on the main ballot. This prop will change this instead of each party getting a different primary ballot they will get the same one. The top two candidates would then move on to the main ballot. The way I see this working is democrat and republicans will continue to support candidate that are more in lone with their party. Most people in CA are either one of these parties so only these parties would be represented on the main ballot.

Prop 15: This prop allows people running to use public funds in there campaign. It seems at first that this will simply be giving politicians more money at the tax payers expense. However, it doesn’t take any money from the taxpayer. The money given for the campaigns is taken from registration fees taken from lobbyist. This would affect lobbyist. In addition in order for campaigns to use this money they must abide by strict rules. I think this would allow politicians without money who do not rely in special interest organizations to gain money for there campaigns thus cutting out the influence of special interest groups.

Prop 16: This prop is pretty much pointless. However it is important to be voted on because republicans are more likely to vote so this prop is more likely to pass. This prop just want the voters to be able to vote on public control of utilities. The way the law is is that a local government can take control of utilities and provide it to it’s people wihout consent from voters by voting. This prop will make it so you must vote if a local government want to take control of a utility. I for one trust our government to make decisions on what would benefit it’s people. We vote for people to make these decisions why should we have to vote on this.  This is why its pointless.I believe a government run utility company will only benefit the taxpayers because they are the consumers. A privately run utility will benefit the owners who are working to turn a profit. This is why it is still important to vote on this. If this law passes I believe any vote that would come up for local government run utility would not pass because republicans are more likely to vote. They are more lilkely to vote against government controlled anything. They are so scared of communism.

Prop 17: DO NOT LISTEN TO THE PROPAGANDA. This is important to everyone who owns a car. The way the law is is that insurance companies can only base your insurance on 3 things how much you drive, your driving history and how long you have been driving. Companies can give you a discount on continueing being covered by them. This prop will add one more thing to base ur insurance rate on. That is how long you have had insurance. This prop promises that your rates will get cheaper because you can get this discount but it doesn’t tell you that without this discount your rates will be higher. So essentially your rates will not be any lower than they are now. This is not a good law for consumers. Think about it. It’s backed by an insurance company. Would a company back something that would make them lose money.

For those that don’t know where to vote. Simply go online Bing, Yahoo, or Google it. They don’t pay my bills so I’m not gonna suggest which search engine to use. I’m just gonna say pay my bills bitches.

For more information:

http://www.voterguide.sos.ca.gov/quick-reference-guide/13/