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I think this conservative journal is trying to make a lot of something out of nothing and attacking areas (large coastal cities) that simply have always tended

I think this conservative journal is trying to make a lot of something out of nothing and attacking areas (large coastal cities) that simply have always tended to go more Democrat. I think this article (probably intentionally) misses the simple point that there's a lot of "get rid of the old" going on everywhere. This has everything to do with the economy (unemployment) and little to do with actual actions by the ousted politicians. Dissatisfaction with life leads to voting out incumbents, and the economy has been particularly terrible for particularly long now. Federally (House, especially) that's meant a lot of Democrats have been voted out, because the Democrats have been in power. In California, the combination of an ineffective Republican governor, 2/3rds requirement to pass a budget, and a block of hard-liner Republicans has been crippling California (with an overly polarized legislature), and that's what I think California voters were voting out. Absolute stupidity about implementing some of the emergency budget measures (so they cost instead of saved) really didn't help. In particular, Whitman sounded an awful lot like Schwarzenegger: conservative talking about running things like a business, but with no political experience, leading to making promises they have no idea how to keep. And, of course, voting for lowering the budget passing requirement to simple majority. (To be fair, prop 25 was very astutely designed to pass, with the simple majority budget on one hand and not paying legislators when the budget is late on the other hand.)

anamax 16y ago
> To be fair, prop 25 was very astutely designed, with the simple majority budget on one hand and not paying legislators when the budget is late on the other hand. What makes you think that legislators care about their pay? (Note that salaries are a small part of their govt income.) Note that CA's balanced budget reqt doesn't mean that income equals outgo, that is, what the rest of us think that "balanced" means. CA's balanced budget reqt means that a model, which isn't tweaked when it fails to match reality, has equal income and outgo. It's accounting theater.
- freiheit 16y ago
  I didn't say anything about legislators caring about their pay. I think the pay thing in prop 25 was a smart way to write a proposition to get it passed, because many people were expressing unhappiness that legislators were getting paid while there was no budget, especially when many of the legislators were doing nothing about it. In other words: if you'd split that proposition into the two different main things, it's likely neither would have passed.
  - anamax 16y ago
    > if you'd split that proposition into the two different main things, it's likely neither would have passed. I disagree. Pretty much anything "punishing" CA legislators would have passed. It's unclear whether replacing the 2/3rds reqt with a majority vote would have passed on its own.

anamax 16y ago

> To be fair, prop 25 was very astutely designed, with the simple majority budget on one hand and not paying legislators when the budget is late on the other hand. What makes you think that legislators care about their pay? (Note that salaries are a small part of their govt income.) Note that CA's balanced budget reqt doesn't mean that income equals outgo, that is, what the rest of us think that "balanced" means. CA's balanced budget reqt means that a model, which isn't tweaked when it fails to match reality, has equal income and outgo. It's accounting theater.

freiheit 16y ago
I didn't say anything about legislators caring about their pay. I think the pay thing in prop 25 was a smart way to write a proposition to get it passed, because many people were expressing unhappiness that legislators were getting paid while there was no budget, especially when many of the legislators were doing nothing about it. In other words: if you'd split that proposition into the two different main things, it's likely neither would have passed.
- anamax 16y ago
  > if you'd split that proposition into the two different main things, it's likely neither would have passed. I disagree. Pretty much anything "punishing" CA legislators would have passed. It's unclear whether replacing the 2/3rds reqt with a majority vote would have passed on its own.