Joshua Rosenau spends his days defending the teaching of evolution at 
I think it's time to replace my bumper stickers from Kansas and Ohio with more regionally relevant stickers. Hopefully even with stickers that will remain relevant in a few years.
That means "Obama '08," while admirable in many ways, is suboptimal. And Diane Feinstein won't face a primary challenge until 2012, by which time my car will be 20, and due for replacement. There'll be a gubernatorial election in 2010, so I could gear up for that, but it seems early.
What I'd really like is a sticker either advocating against propositions in general, or at least advocating against Proposition 13. The proposition system makes it nearly impossible to construct rational responses to changing conditions. To try to fix the funding crisis caused by Prop. 13, voters passed a proposition designating a certain fraction of funds to go to education. That means that as the school-aged population shifts in size, the amount of funding is constant. It means that there's no way to adjust to new conditions, like No Child Left Behind. And as a result, California schools are not only lagging the rest of the country, they are in danger of missing key NCLB targets, and teachers are being punished for the state's mixed up system.
So I'd prefer to see that system be replaced by one where lawmakers have to strike a rational balance between minimizing taxation and maximizing public services by listening to their constituents and getting voted out of office if they make bad choices. It's a model that works very well, while the model California has right now simply doesn't. Anyone know where I can get a bumper sticker expressing that point?
Comments
"Prop13: just ignore reality and maybe it will go away"
"Prop13: because we don't need no education"
"Prop13: maybe the schools will just rebuild themselves"
(roads will fix themselves, etc)
Posted by: decrepitoldfool | March 4, 2008 4:05 AM
I take it you haven't lived in a state with direct democracy before? Your complaint seems misguided. I'm a fan of direct democracy. Yes, the masses can be mislead into voting for stupid crap like Prop 13, but they can also easily be mislead into voting for stupid politicians in a representative democratic system (see 2004 presidential election).
I'm not following why the stupidity of Prop 13 should lead to a blanket condemnation of the proposition system. From your last paragraph it sounds like you think propositions only address issues of taxation and services. Prop 215 (medical MJ) doesn't really seem like a taxation/service issue. Prop 187 (stupid anti-immigrant stuff) addressed services, but I don't think the economics of cutting services to immigrants was the primary factor motivating supporters.
Fixing Prop 13 problems with another Prop may not be the best solution. Prop 13 was a constitutional amendment, which would make it somewhat harder to fix than a proposition that altered statutory law. Politically, representatives will be reluctant to override the will of the voters by changing the implementation of a proposition legislatively-further propositions are going to be the more politically feasible way of changing an existing props effects.
Anyway, I'm certainly aware that voters make poor decisions when given the opportunity for direct democracy, but the make plenty of poor decisions when electing representatives as well. Why is direct democracy uniquely bad?
Posted by: Andrew | March 4, 2008 11:25 AM
Nothing to do with propositions, but a good bumpersticker I saw this morning, which, unfortunately, is likely to remain relevant for some time:
Posted by: Sven DiMIlo | March 4, 2008 11:32 AM
Andrew: You are right that I should have fleshed out my anti-proposition position more fully.
Basically, I don't agree with the notion that the best way to solve complex public policy questions is by putting them on the ballot during whatever election happens to be coming up, and hoping people bother to read up on it. They don't: http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2008/02/postmortem.php
Furthermore, the proposition system tends to lock the state into bad policy choices. Prop. 13 and the collection of subsequent props meant to patch the problems it caused is one example. Last election, there was proposition which would have fixed not just the total fraction of the state budget allocated to education (that was the half-assed patch passed in the '80s), but fixing the fraction of funding allocated to community colleges. Now, I'm all for funding community colleges, and holding down tuition at them. But that sort of decision simply doesn't belong in a state constitution. Like total education funding and like tax policy, it's dependent on a whole range of factors that change over time. Direct democracy done properly would involve a popular vote on the budget every year, so that the public could work out these issues as conditions change.
In practice, these propositions just hamstring the government and give the people elected to make hard choices no way to make any choices at all.
Posted by: Josh Rosenau | March 4, 2008 11:42 AM
Looks like my comment got wiped when you took out the spam comments.
That is a better statement of your position. I agree that complex budgetary issues probably are not best addressed by propositions. Anti-tax measures are very appealing to voters and are quite likely to get passed. This is a problem since anti-tax measures usually do not contain provisions for addressing the revenue shortfall the measure would create. The issue of cutting government services gets kicked down the road.
Micromanaging the state budget via the constitution (ala Prop 13) is not a good idea. For states that have both constitution amending and statutory propositions, I think constiutional amendments are usually used more than is appropriate.
What comes to mind when I think of propositions/ballot measures is resolution of emotionally resonant issues that are fairly trivial in the grand scheme of goverment: medical marijuana, stem cell research, whether to expunge outdated, racist provisions from the Oregon constitution. I don't like seeing issues like these become litmus tests for electing representatives; voters end up being forced to choose between candidates that share their positions on some (but not all) of the issues. Better to have the voters make their positions know directly in these matters.
Posted by: Andrew | March 5, 2008 1:45 PM