Next year’s ballot looks to be the biggest in years – only five measures have qualified so far, but somewhere between 15 and 19 ballot props appear likely to make the cut. With a presidential campaign, a senate race and plenty of California candidates also up, you can bet airtime is going to get expensive next fall. John Myers, Los Angeles Times:
“All of this may be the equivalent of a full employment act for political professionals, but a lengthy and dense ballot can turn off voters.
"’What ends up happening is voter fatigue,’ [strategist Gale Kaufman] said.
“Political scientists say voters simply give up on trying to follow so many disparate propositions and skip many of them -- or simply vote no.”
The Sacramento Bee’s Dan Morain takes aim at one proposed ballot initiative that has gotten a lot of attention this month – the “Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act,” that boasts the support of major donors and the only declared 2018 California gubernatorial candidate, Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom. Sure, let’s stop putting people in jail for marijuana, but is giving corporations control over the weed industry the way to do it?
“Not to be a buzzkill, but the 60-page initiative could create mega-corporations, curtail local officials’ authority to keep marijuana retailers out of their jurisdictions, and limit certain labor protections.
“It is very problematic for us,” said Barry Broad, an attorney and lobbyist who represents the Teamsters. “I would predict that we will oppose it.”
“Broad, hardly a prohibitionist, was part of an alliance that included labor, cops, local officials and some marijuana entrepreneurs who agreed earlier this year to a three-bill package to regulate readily available medical marijuana.
“Negotiated by Gov. Jerry Brown’s top aides and signed into law by the governor, the new marijuana regulations seek to guard against monopolization by creating a three-tiered system. Individuals could receive licenses to grow, distribute and sell marijuana, but could not get licenses to do all three.
“The Newsom-Parker initiative would undo that restriction by saying a person may receive licenses for everything from farm to market. The initiative takes the definition of what is a person to a whole new realm: ‘any individual, firm, co-partnership, joint venture, association, corporation, limited liability company; estate, trust, business trust, receiver, syndicate, or any other group or combination acting as a unit, and the plural as well as the singular.’
“Corporations, evidently, are people, as are syndicates, joint ventures, limited liability companies, estates, trusts and the rest. Let the gold rush begin.”
As noted above, Newsom is the only major candidate who has declared for guv thus far, but former Assembly speaker and Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is seen as a likely competitor for California’s top job. Cathleen Decker looks at how the two are angling for the office. From the Los Angeles Times:
“Newsom's stock in trade is staking out an early and, often, controversial position, as he did with gay marriage, which he pushed over the objections of other Democrats 11 years before the U.S. Supreme Court would validate his support.
“Already, early in the season of preparations for the 2016 ballot, he has announced that he will take on the gun lobby with an initiative to, among other things, outlaw possession of large ammunition magazines and require background checks on any ammunition. He's also said he will back the legalizing of marijuana for general use, not just for medicinal purposes….
“Villaraigosa's unofficial campaign is almost the polar opposite of Newsom's. The San Francisco mayor's gun-and-pot measures will probably be most popular among liberals along California's coast; Villaraigosa is spending his election run-up treading up and down the state's more conservative interior.
“In recent months, Villaraigosa has spent at least 28 days in the Central Valley and the Inland Empire and other areas still yearning to recover from the recession. He has only occasionally surfaced publicly; most of his meetings have been private stops on what politicians like to call a "listening tour" that lets locals vent and grow comfortable with the visitor.”
Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to drill two tunnels under the Delta to convey northern water to the southern part of the state has been under fire from some environmentalists and most Delta residents for years – but will fierce opposition make any difference? David Siders, Sacramento Bee:
“’What’s new?’ said Jerry Meral, who served as the chief steward of the tunnels project while deputy secretary of the state’s Natural Resources Agency.
“’The people who filed the comments who haven’t wanted this project for 10 years or so and are still upset, so that’s not surprising,’ said Meral, who retired from the state in 2013 and now works for an environmental group supporting the tunnels plan. ‘I’m sure there were people who didn’t like the pyramids, but in the end they got built because, frankly, the people who had the power to build them built them.’”
How long til Ben Carson says the tunnels were built to store grain?
And finally, the story of a brand new Guinness World Record that reminds you to tip your taxi driver – before he tips you! (With video.)
“Jagathish M, a tuk tuk (think three-wheeled motorized rickshaw) driver in Chennai, India, set the world record for longest side-wheel drive, a feat he accomplished in his yellow work vehicle in front of Guinness cameras.
“After ramping up to a speed of nearly 50 mph, Jagathish tilted his three-wheeled tuk tuk onto two wheels and cruised for 1.37 miles, according to the folks with the Guinness Book.”
That’s all well and good, but let’s not forget the King of Two Wheeling, Jean Sunny, who once drove a car sixty miles on two wheels. Keep trying Jagathish!
