2020 Election Recommendations
From here, you’ll find links to all of my national, regional, and local election recommendations. I will be adding links as I complete each story. The California election guide arrived in the mail yesterday, so it’s time to get started.
But first, a little guide to where I’m coming from.
Make no mistake, I am an unabashed liberal. That does not mean I support all of the Democratic Party positions, but with the Republican Party having abdicated policy and country, there’s just no way any of them, at any level, deserve any votes until they fix what’s wrong with them.
I also don’t believe that “career politician” is an epithet. Politics is — or can be — as honorable profession as any other. It has been corrupted, mostly by money, that is true, but there are politicians out there, more often on a local level than a national one, who fight good fights for good reasons. Identify them and support them.
I am not a fan of the initiative/proposition system. It’s no longer a method of direct democracy, but an avenue of direct purchase of policy. My general policy on initiatives and propositions is a “no” vote until proven otherwise, proven with good, solid data and shown, as much as possible, to have potential consequences well considered.
I especially loathe paid signature gatherers; they are the public antithesis of citizen democracy.
That all said, read on and click on.
National
President of the United States: Joe Biden
Local
The races for national and state offices are pretty easy. City races, not so much. My San Francisco supervisor is retiring, and I know very little about the candidates to replace him. At the moment (less than a week to election day), I think I’m leaning to Joel Engardio, although I have more research to do this weekend. And there are races for school boards as well where the candidates are even less known.
I should note that with the current state of the Republican party, even if Democrat candidates are less than optimal, to save our republic, the default stance this year is #VoteBlueNoMatterWho.
For U.S. Representative, I live in district 14, and the easy choice is Jackie Speier.
For state senator, I live in district 11. His opponent says he’s not liberal enough, but he gets a lot of good legislation passed, so the vote has to go to Scott Weiner.
For state representative, again, it’s an easy choice for Phil Ting.
California Propositions
California has 12 statewide propositions in the November election this year. Which is almost certainly 12 too many. Follow the money, folks, because in most cases, whoever is spending the money to put a proposition on the ballot is who will benefit from it passage — and that does not mean it is good for California.
Remember, your default choice on propositions is always NO.
18 Voting for 17-year-olds: No
20 Sentencing & Parole Changes, DNA Collection: No
22 App-Based Drivers as Contractors: No
23 Kidney Dialysis Clinics: No
San Francisco Propositions
As with on the local level, the default approach to propositions is that they are a failure of government, and the default choice is No unless there’s a really good reason to choose otherwise. That said, I researching the again-long list here in The City, I found an interesting exception.
For the past 40 years, Republicans have been eviscerating the tax base with their tax cuts, almost all of which have been aimed at the wealthy and the top income of business. But “trickle-down economics” was a lie; businesses don’t generate more jobs and give their workers higher pay when their tax bills are reduced. They give more money to their executives and stockholders. Higher marginal tax rates on higher income, both personal income and business income, is what drives the healthiest economy. And as it turns out, some of these citywide measures address this directly. (And to be fair, this should be happening on a state and national level so businesses and individuals don’t tax haven shop, but they don’t, so here we are.)
So here’s a summary of San Francisco measures.
Proposition A: No. The cause is good: mental health and homelessness, parks and recreation, improved streets. But borrowing is the wrong way to go about it. There is too much bloat in the city budget. It’s time city leaders trimmed the fat and paid for this out of available resources.
Proposition B: No. The solution to past corruption isn’t to create a new departments with a new bureaucracy. The solution is to fix what went wrong, eliminate the bloat, and focus on providing services.
Proposition C: Yes. There is no reason why residents who are not citizens should not be allowed to participate in the processes of making the city better.
Proposition D: No. This hitches to the “defund police” mantra sweeping progressive circles, but this is not the way to do it, and now is not the time to spend this money.
Proposition E: Yes. This fixes a mistake the city made back in 1994, a mistake akin to ballot box budgeting.
Proposition F: Yes. This is one of the measures that compensates for our broken tax system. (And don’t believe the fearmongering of the “No” ads; this is aimed only as businesses that sign leases of 35 years or longer, and small businesses just don’t do that.)
Proposition G: No. I am embarrassed to be agreeing with the Republican Party on this one. Let’s just say that, many years ago, I was outraged that I could not vote for President when I was under 18. I was confident that Richard Nixon was the right choice.
Proposition H: Yes. Eliminates a good portion, although not nearly enough of, the stranglehold of regulations that may it waaaay too expensive, time consuming, and sometimes impossible, for businesses, especially small businesses, to open in San Francisco.
Proposition I: Yes. Again, this is a start to returning to a tax system that results in a healthier economy. (Also, look at the PAC that spent money for all the “individual” arguments against.)
Proposition J: Yes. This actually replaces a parcel tax that was approved in 2018 that targeted raising money for schools — only this one will cost homeowners less. I don’t really like parcel taxes — they hit hardest on those who can afford it least — but this will reduce the burden.
Proposition K: Yes. It’s pretty damn stupid that government can’t develop and own low-income housing without specific local approval. I mean, that’s the role of government, to provide for all of its citizenry, and that is never more important for its citizenry that needs it the most.
Proposition L: Yes. The other big measure to get us to a fairer tax system.
Measure RR: No. Yes, Caltrain is important — as badly as it is run. But increasing the already high, regressive sales tax isn’t the answer. Transit systems are important to society whether you use them or not, and more funding should be coming form the state and federal budgets.
