"Voter revolt" without the voters


The Governor announces the launch of a "voter revolt"...a series of ballot initiative campaigns funded by mega-special-interests and without a grass root to be seen.

The Alameda Times-Star gets suckered in by the rhetoric, as evidenced by the lead paragraph of this article:
Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger essentially declared war Tuesday on the Democrat-dominated Legislature, launching a well-financed "voter revolt" to adopt sweeping government reforms that lawmakers have not adopted in the eight weeks he gave them to do so.

Angry Democratic majority leaders decried the governor for going directly to the ballot in an end-run that they said dangerously erodes representative democracy in California.

But Republican minority leaders praised Schwarzenegger's move to limit state spending in deficit-plagued California and to reform public pensions, teacher hiring and pay, and the drawing of legislative districts.


Our own party's anemic response: More ballot measures on the same special ballot! (Including that populist favorite, tax increases, or at least, measures that the press is getting suckered into calling tax increases)
Democrats have vowed to crowd the ballot with their own measures — items such as raising the minimum wage, tax increases and universal health care. The state Attorney General's office already is reviewing 80 separate proposed ballot measures.

Kind of hard to argue that Schwarzenegger's tactics "dangerously erode representative democracy" when you're scrambling to get a seat on the me-too wagon. So far I've heard very little in the way of coherent strategy against Arnold's November 2005 plans. Phil Angelides is right on his rhetoric lately (see the same article quoted above), but neither in his public appearances nor his infrequently-updated campaign website do I hear any concrete plans.

Posted: Wed - March 2, 2005 at 08:45 AM   | Category:     |   |   | |


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