Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

It's late evening on Tuesday, Election Day here in California as I write. It's too early to call a winner in the presidential race but it looks like it's going to be Trump. He's leading in most of the swing states: Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, and Nevada. Not all the votes are counted— so the outcome could still flip— but the margins are big enough in several of these states and the numbers of votes remaining to be counted small enough that a "red mirage"/"blue wave" reversal seems unlikely.

Meanwhile the Republicans have taken the Senate and are on track to keep their small majority in the House. Assuming Trump does win the White House he'll have complete control over the federal government. Both houses of Congress will be his willing lapdogs to enact boldly reactionary policies fueled by hatred and the grudges he's amassed and nursed for the past 4 years. He won't be slowed down by his ineptitude at understanding the levers of power; his political supporters have written a plan (Project 2025, one of its aspects) for how to fill the ranks of government with loyalist yes-men instead of the various "adults in the room" who curbed his worst impulses last time. And the 6 seat arch-conservative majority on the Supreme Court will not check him.

This is a terrifying time to be a US citizen. I'm afraid in a year or two I won't recognize my own country.

Every election season I try to write about the key races and issues on the ballot. Today I thought to myself, "I should start writing about the ballot props!" because there are so many of them this year. Then I realized before I dig into examining what the props are about I should take stock of all the different ways I can vote.

I live in California, where all registered voters are mailed a ballot in advance. We can then vote it in many different ways:

1. Mark the mailed ballot and return it by mail.


2. Mark the mailed ballot and drop it in an official locked drop-box. This is how I've often done it the past few years, using the dropbox at my city library a little over 1 mile away.


3. Mark the ballot and deliver it to a voting station. Voting stations are open early— 9 days before election day


4. Vote the ballot in person at a voting station— on election day or as early as October 26.


5. If you don't have an advance ballot or wish to vote at a different voting station, you can vote a provisional ballot at any voting station.

I might choose Option 2 again this year. Though since Hawk has volunteered as a poll worker I may choose Option 3 so I can give her a hard time, maybe by asking her for help in Spanish, at her polling station. 😂

I've been checking on the preliminary results of the election primary. "Preliminary primary"... say that 5 times fast! 😅

Especially now that my vote has been tallied 😅 I'll update the results. Note that these are still preliminary results. According to state and county election data only about 75-80% of all votes cast have been tallied and published as of midday today.

US Senate: As I mentioned several days ago, the top two candidates are Adam Schiff (D) and Steve Garvey (R). Each has a bit over 32% of the primary vote so far. At this point it's a near certainty they'll go the general election. The next closest candidate, Katie Porter, in 3rd place, has 14.8% of the vote so far. For her to overtake one of them would require her to win nearly 100% of the pending ballots.

US Congress District 17: Incumbent Rep. Ro Khanna (D) is leading with 63% of the vote. Republican challenger Anita Chen has 27%. It looks like the two of them will face off in the general election... where it's pretty much a sure bet Khanna will win. Rep. Khanna is a reasonably popular incumbent Democrat in a deep blue district.

US Congress District 16: The 16th isn't my district today though it was for many years, prior to redistricting in 2012. Sixteen term incumbent Anna Eshoo (D) is finally retiring— yes, after 32 years in the House— making it a wide-open race this year. Former San Jose mayor Sam Liccardo is leading the field with over 22% of the vote. Second place currently is a near tie between Joe Simitian and Evan Low, each with a bit over 17% of the vote. Low, as I mentioned last week, used to be the State Assembly member for my district. But my pick in this race, if I were voting in the district, would be Simitian. As a member of local and state government for 20 years he built a reputation as a policy wonk, a person who digs deep into the facts of the issues brought before him and can be counted on to reach a thoughtful and objective opinion. I experienced that first-hand at a town hall several years ago where I rose to speak on the issue of the day and how it impacts my neighborhood and me, personally. Simitian is the one politician, ever, who instead of saying, basically, "Okay, thanks, next!" when I've spoken at a public meeting actually showed that he considered my argument by engaging in a brief, principled debate with me.

State Assembly District 26: my pick, Patrick Ahrens, is leading with 35% of the vote. It looks like his competitor in the general election will be Tara Sreekrishnan, who currently has 26% of the vote. It's possible, though, that Sophie Yan Song, currently with 23%, could overtake her. There are still a lot of ballots to be counted locally. If Ahrens and Sreekrishnan win the primary it'll be a case of California's top-two primary system advancing two members of the same party (Democrats, in this case) to the general election.

Proposition 1: This state-wide measure to rejigger funding and treatment for mental health, addiction, and homeless is headed down to the wire. The "YES" vote is leading by 50.3% to 49.7%. This past week I shared my reasons for voting YES. on 1.

Measure C, bonds to improve schools in my local school district, needs 55% to pass because it's a bond measure. Currently it's winning 69% to 31%. Read my reasons for voting YES on C.

Sources: Statewide election results at California Secretary of State (sos.ca.gov); Santa Clara County results.

Some results from yesterday's Super Tuesday primary are coming in. Unsurprisingly, Biden and Trump won big in their respective races. Neither candidate totally ran the table, though. Joe Biden came in second in the territory of American Samoa, and Donald Trump came in second to Nikki Haley in Vermont. Despite her first-place showing in Vermont, though, where she leads Trump 50% to 46%, Haley announced today she has suspended her campaign.

My reaction? It's about time! It's been obvious for weeks she's not going to win this thing. She's won two states, Vermont and DC, while Trump has won the rest— and generally by very lopsided margins. Even in Haley's home state of South Carolina, where she served as governor for 6 years, Trump drubbed her by 20 points in the primary. In terms of the delegate math he's won more than 90% of the delegates pledged and, with his Super Tuesday wins, now has more than 80% of the delegates needed to clinch the nomination. Example news coverage: Super Tuesday 2024 full coverage (Yahoo! News, updated 6 Mar 2024).

In other Super Tuesday news, here in California the top two candidates who advance to the general election for US Senate are Adam Schiff and Steve Garvey. It seems Schiff's gambit to campaign for Garvey helped. Schiff came in first with 33% of the vote and Garvey is close behind at 32%. Rounding out the leading contenders, Katie Porter came in 3rd with 14%, and Barbara Lee finished 4th with 7%. I actually threw the lever for Lee (with second-order logic behind that choice) so nominally it's a loss for me, but I'll be satisfied to vote for Schiff in November.

Tomorrow, March 5, is the 2024 primary election in California. That means today I filled out my ballot and sealed it up to drop off at the ballot box tomorrow. Yes, California is one of those voting rights states where everyone can get a mail-in ballot, no questions asked. Mail-in ballots are much easier for people whose job and or family situations make it prohibitive to carve out time on election day to go to a polling station, wait in line, and fill out a ballot provided only then and there.

Here's a run down of the main things on the ballot this time.

President: I'll assume if you can read this and are eligible to vote in the US, you know what the choices are here.

US Senator: It's a race to replace Diane Feinstein, who died several months ago. Actually it's two races, making it more confusing. One race is to fill her seat for the remainder of her current term, which ends 3 January 2025. The other race is to be US Senator from California for a full, 6 year term.

Both of these senate races follow California's "top two" primary rule, which is also affectionately known as a "jungle primary". Numerous candidates run in the primary, and the top two vote-getters advance to the general election. This narrowing of the field is done without regard to political party, so it's possible the general election could feature two Democrats running against each other and no Republican.

There are three credible Democrats in this race. All three are sitting members of Congress: Adam Schiff, Barbara Lee, and Katie Porter. The leading Republican is past baseball star Steve Garvey. Schiff leads among all the candidates and has spent a lot of his considerable campaign money telling people Garvey is a conservative. Poll watchers agree this seems to be a play by Schiff to shape the results of the "top two" primary by boosting Garvey to be the #2 finisher. If that happens Schiff would presumably coast to a win in the general election, given the overwhelming registration advantage Democrats have in California, versus having to fight it out against a fellow Democrat.

US Congress: Again, a "top two" primary race, though with only a handful of candidates rather than the dozens in the senate race. Here our incumbent, Rep. Ro Khanna, has been doing a pretty good job, so I gave him my vote again.

State Assembly: My district's incumbent Assembly member, Evan Low, is termed out this year and is seeking higher office. He's running for US Congress (though not in my district). I usually don't pay much attention to State Assembly, but this year I went to a meet-and-greet with one of the candidates, Patrick Ahrens. I went into that backyard rally skeptical and left shaking his hand and telling him he'd earned my vote. This is a race where I politely disagree with my friend mithriltabby who posted his usual well-researched recommendations a few weeks ago. Edit: I don't think the opponent of Ahrens's he chose is poor but I do consider Ahrens a stronger candidate than he gave him credit for. I found Ahrens to be intelligent, thoughtful, and skilled at bringing together political leaders across different levels of government to solve challenging problems, like housing for the homeless, that are often dismissed with finger-pointing about who else needs to be involved. Ahrens has a record of not just identifying who else needs to participate in the solution but actually getting them to help.

Proposition 1: There's just one statewide proposition this election. That's a good thing, because such significant measures as statewide initiatives shouldn't be passed or rejected in elections with such low turnout as primaries. In fact, the state passed a law (via ballot proposition 😂) to force most props to the general election. Anyway, this prop is clumsily named "AUTHORIZES $6.38 BILLION IN BONDS TO BUILD MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT FACILITIES FOR THOSE WITH MENTAL HEALTH AND SUBSTANCE USE CHALLENGES; PROVIDES HOUSING FOR THE HOMELESS." Per the information in the state voter guide it changes up how money under an existing law is allocated, shifting more of it to mental health care, housing, and drug addiction treatment. It also includes a new bond to help fund these. The measure isn't perfect, as my friend mithriltabby points out, but unlike him I support it anyway. I side with The League of Pissed Off Voters in San Francisco who also explain that Prop. 1 is imperfect but voting "Yes" is far better than voting "No" for anyone who cares about the dual crisis of drug addiction and homelessness. I drive past growing tent encampments 1/2 mile from my house several days a week. I'd very much like to see them gone— and not by police rousting the homeless and simply forcing them to move elsewhere, but by us providing a compassionate, superior alternative.

Measure C: This one's a local school district bond proposal. It authorizes up to $214 million in bonds to improve local schools, paid for by a surcharge on property taxes. That may sound like a lot of money, but it's only at most $15 per $100,000 of assessed property value. For roughly a hundred bucks a year I'll invest more in local schools. I don't use the schools myself, nor do I have any schoolkids, but if our schools go up even a point on statewide scores it'll add thousands to the value of my house. So even if I didn't think educating the next generation is the right thing to do (it is the right thing to do) there's still a selfish argument to be made for it.

Yesterday, November 7, was Election Day for many in the US. Here in California it was almost a non-event. It's an off year for almost everything: presidential elections, Congressional elections, even California's state-wide offices. All we had across the state were a smattering of local elections to fill empty seats in bodies like school boards and municipal water districts. There was literally no election in my district as there was nothing to vote for.

Since Sen. Raphael Warnock's reelection win in Georgia less than 2 days ago pundits are saying it totally changes the math of the US Senate. "Joe Manchin is the second biggest loser in this race [after defeated candidate Herschel Walker]," the gist goes.

Manchin, a Democrat US senator from West Virginia, rose to prominence over the past 2 years for his opposition to much of his party's legislative agenda. In an evenly divided 50-50 Senate every single vote counted. Manchin milked his for all it was worth. But is Machin made much less relevant with Dems now holding at 51-49 majority? Yes and no.

If all that had changed was Senate composition then, yes, Manchin would lose some leverage. Though only some, as Arizona Democrat Kirsten Sinema often joined him in thwarting Democrat priorities. The two of them together would still be enough to scuttle any or all Democrat legislation. But that's not the whole picture after the election; far from it. Republicans took control of the House. That makes intra-party opposition from Manchin in the Senate much less relevant. Sure, Dems can pass bills in the Senate without Manchin's support, but anything they do that's seen as even remotely partisan will die in the House.

Some political pundits expected a "Red Wave" this election cycle, with the Republican party taking sizable majorities in both the House and Senate. The wave has turned out to be more of a trickle, though. With the vote tally for 3 Senate seats still undecided, Republicans have won (or are forecast to win) 49 versus Democrats' 48. Either party could eke out a narrow majority. In the House, Republicans are on their way to a slim majority— though enough races remain toss-ups that Democrats could retain a majority if they sweep the races currently too close to call.

Why was a "Red Wave" expected? There are a few typical patterns. For one, the party of the president usually loses seats in Congress in midterm elections. That's because the president's party usually sweep into majorities in Congress "riding his coattails" during the presidential election; then the electorate reverts to the mean 2 years later. Another typical pattern is that whenever the economy's doing poorly the party in power is punished. It's debatable whether the economy is doing poorly in 2022— on the positive side, job growth and wage growth are both strong— but there's definitely widespread dissatisfaction with inflation.

These patterns are not rules, just things that usually happen. Beyond these broad strokes, Democrats failed to control their own messaging this cycle. Republicans ran circles around them, redefining not only which issues voters should pay attention to but skewing voters' understanding of them through disinformation that Democrats failed to counter effectively. In the last weeks before the election polls suggested Republicans would sweep to majorities in both houses.

So, what happened to slow the red wave to a red trickle? It's still a bit early to tell. Not only are enough races still undecided that control of both chambers is still undecided, but the analysis on who voted how and why is not in yet. One idea I read today is that young peopled vote in stronger numbers than they have for the past decade. The younger vote skews Democrat normally, and in the current political alignment that's extra true. Key issues animating younger voters today— reproductive rights and climate change— favor the Democrats. But that's just a hypothesis right now. We'll see how it looks as more of the results come in.

Election Day is this coming Tuesday, November 8. I know how I'm voting for most of the statewide offices, Congress, and state legislature. As I noted a few weeks ago, those choices are pretty easy; nearly every race pits a credible Democrat against an anti-government, election denying Republican. But one part of the ballot I need to do more research on is ballot propositions.

Ballot propositions take more effort to research before voting on because they can be tricky. It's already tricky because there are different types of propositions, as I outlined recently. But even more than that, propositions can be problematic in a number of ways. Here are 5 common problems:

1) They're written by amateurs, and contain illegal, impractical, or contradictory language. It's both a strength and a weakness of the initiative process that anyone can write one and, if they pay for signature-gatherers to get enough people to sign the petition, get it on the ballot sent to California's 22 million registered voters. The good is that it's a mechanism for citizens to bypass a legislature that is unresponsive to the majority of the electorate. The bad is that the props go through minimal review, and there's no deliberative process to improve them. Whatever is submitted is what's on the ballot, and we voters can only make an up-or-down choice.

2) A laudable goal with a deeply flawed implementation. The implementation of an otherwise worthy goal doesn't have to be illegal or infeasible to be a problem. Sometimes it's just plain bad. For example, years ago I supported the goal of funding stem cell research in California. But the initiatives to encourage it funded 10 years of research grants with 30 year bonds. Things like research grants should be funded out of current-year accounts. Leave long-term bonds for genuinely long-term things like building schools, roads, and bridges. Part of the problem with initiatives like this is that an up-or-down vote doesn't send a clear message. If I want to support stem cell research, do I vote Yes despite the problems? Or do I vote No knowing that if the measure fails many politicians will take it as, "Californians have spoken, and they've don't like stem cell research"?

3) Spending requirements tie the hands of the legislature. Many of the initiatives over the years have been of the form, "At least X% or $Y of the budget must go to this worthy goal." In addition to the problem of how up-or-down votes could be interpreted (see previous point) this also has the problem that, when successful, these measures put more and more constraints on managing the state budget. In years when tax revenues are tight the state government finds that 90% of its spending is locked in by law. This means that other popular programs must be cut because there just isn't enough fungible budget to go around.

4) Special interests disguise the initiative's impact. Given that anyone can write an initiative and there's no deliberative review, when moneyed special interests write them they generally try to conceal the true intent or impact of the measure. A prop could talk about "consumer choice" when really it's about removing important health regulations, or levy a "sin tax" on something like smoking or gambling people broadly want to see more regulated— but the tax proceeds go to help some other big business (i.e., the one that wrote the measure). At least once in the past 20+ years I've been fooled by a sneakily written ballot prop that I didn't spend more than a few minutes researching, and I voted wrong.

5) Complex, granular issues that are beyond the ability of 99% of voters to properly evaluate. Props can be big or small, simple or complex. Some of them are very complex, or have very wide-reaching consequences, which the vast majority of voters are unable to sort through properly. Many props I look at and I'm like, "I really wish this could go through the legislature." The legislature has not only a deliberative process to improve bills but numerous professional policy experts and lawyers involved in said process to understand its impact and feasibility.

After reading this list of problems with propositions it's tempting to take the stance, "Vote No on all!" Or at least, "If in doubt, vote No." But this is a problem, too!

The problem is not all ballot props are the same. While some are voter-written measures subject to any or all of the problems I've described so far, there are other types of props. In particular, referendum props— which are voter veto measures on legislation passed by the state assembly— really should be a case of "If you're not sure, vote yes." And bond measures proposed by the assembly go on the ballot because they have to. The legislature's not trying to hoodwink you by putting funding for schools, roads, and bridges there— though political opponents routinely claim they are, BTW. They're doing it because the state constitution requires it.

Bottom line, California's initiative process brings the good with the bad. Conscientious voters must read all ballot measure carefully to understand what they're voting for— or failing to vote for.

More and more of our mail is turning to politics. It makes sense because it's that time of year. Election Day is now just under 4 weeks away.

The political mailers we're getting aren't what you'd think, though. In other parts of the country, races for governor, senate, and Congress are high visibility. Here those offices are up for election, too, but those candidates are not the ones campaigning hard or spending lots of money on advertisements.

Why not? Frankly it's because most of those races are not competitive. In our Congressional district, for example, we have a well-liked Democrat incumbent who's progressive on social issues and fiscally moderate, opposed by a bigoted, conspiracy theory-spouting crackpot Republican. The Democrat will likely win with 70% of the vote. (Decide for yourself which is scarier— that Democrat incumbents coast to victory here or that bigoted, conspiracy theory-spouting crackpots actually win 30% of the vote against reasonable competitors.) There's a similar pattern in most of the statewide offices.

So which races are competitive and spending money on advertising? Aside from one state assembly race where one of the candidates (or her surrogates) has started a name-calling fight against the other, it's ballot propositions. And it's not even all ballot propositions, but two in particular, Prop 26 and Prop 27, both concerning legalizing sports betting. Expanding legalized gambling is a politically contentious issue, yet there's billions of dollars to be made on it, so that's why there's a flood of advertising around it.