After listening to all the arguments for and against Prop 77, it all boils down to this:
If you believe that democracy is helped by biasing elections towards one side, you should vote NO. If you believe that incumbents should be allowed to pick their voters, then you should vote NO. If you believe that California should wait on reform until states like Texas reform first, then you should vote NO.
On the other hand, if you believe that fair elections matter more than your side winning, if you believe that legislators should be freely chosen by the voters, if you believe that California should lead the nation in reform, and not follow -- then you have a duty to democracy to vote YES.
Update: Clark Smith reminds me of this earlier Interocitor post, which goes into details
Posted by Kevin Murphy at November 7, 2005 07:35 AMGot a good explanation for voting YES on 75 too, from The Irish Lass who says it's the difference between public and private sector labor negotiations: "In public sector negotiations, labor tries to hold both active seats at the table. By using their coerced dues money to contribute to political candidates, they can assure that their opposites in the negotiation are really their allies."
This State's Legislature is broken, there's just one example of a short-circuit in the machinery.
Prop 77: It's this simple...
Posted by: clark smith at November 7, 2005 01:00 PM