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Not for me. There’s a reason why the Founding Fathers provided for regional representation as well as direct election. How long do you think that Wyoming and Montana would stay in the Union if they were governed by majorities in Los Angeles and New York? As for direct initiative, I love it in principle. In actual practice, there’s a real problem with how easily it can be manipulated by the proverbial special interest groups. In this case, there’s reality to that. California’s Constitution is an unholy mess because of the number of amendments made by direct election, constitutional because the proponents of the measure wanted to prevent the legislature from laying hands on some poorly constructed or outdated measure.
17 states representing 222 electoral votes (48 short of the 270 needed for election) have joined the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Under the compact, member states will award all their electoral votes to the nation’s popular vote winner regardless of who carried each state.
Virginia joins interstate compact to award electoral votes by national popular vote
Virginia just joined. All participating states lean Democratic, quelle surprise.
I would still prefer a nationwide initiative system.
National Popular Vote Interstate Compact – Wikipedia
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[quote quote=11146]Speaking of frauds, here comes your next Democratic candidate for Governor, Eric Swalwell… Rep. Eric Swalwell vows to push back on ICE in bid for California governor[/quote]
…and there goes Eric Swalwell, former gubernatorial candidate, dropping out after an avalance of a sex scandal.
New Emerson poll shows candidates as follows:
- Steve Hilton (17%)
- Chad Bianco (R, 14%)
- Billionaire Activist Tom Steyer (D, 14%)
- Former HHS Secty Xavier Becerra (D, 10%)
- Social media darling Katie Porter (D, 10%)
- SJ Mayor Matt Mahan (D, 5%)
- Former LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D, 3%)
- Betty Yee (D, 1%)
- Tony Thurmond (D, 1%)
- Someone Else (1%)
- Undecided (23%)
Steyer and Becerra had the largest gains in the wake of Swalwell’s departure.
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To boost California’s extremely negative public opinion, Newsom has hired Edelman (hugely expensive PR firm) to buttress California’s tarnished image. Cost: $20 million.
Gavin Newsom’s $20M PR hustle to polish California’s image picked apart by lawmakers
Bill Clinton’s old press secretary (and SCU alum) Dee Dee Myers is in charge of the campaign. She works for GO-Biz, which is California’s attempt to attract businesses from other areas (talk about an uphill battle).
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Local angle: 1/4th of the city of Campbell falls under this law (with three light rail stations). Technically speaking, Sacramento could force them to add up to 40,000 homes, tripling Campbell’s population. And Campbell would be on the hook for the infrastructure upgrades demanded.
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I tried to do a comparison of IRS auditors hired (or let go) by each President. Party doesn’t seem to matter much. Here they are ranked by addition and subtraction over the course of each President’s term since WWII:
PresidentNet change in IRS revenue agents George W. Bush 123 John F. Kennedy 1,859 Joe Biden 2,502 Dwight Eisenhower 2,966 Ronald Reagan 3,742 George H. W. Bush −1,429 Donald Trump (1st term) −2,010 Barack Obama −2,707 Bill Clinton −3,066 Interesting that the two largest auditor increases came under Republicans and the two largest net decreases in auditors came under Democrats. I knew that Clinton had a significant Federal employee reduction program.
Couldn’t get reliable data on Truman, Johnson, Nixon, Ford or Carter.
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Speaking of frauds, here comes your next Democratic candidate for Governor, Eric Swalwell… Rep. Eric Swalwell vows to push back on ICE in bid for California governor
Mr. Swalwell has decided to drop out of the Governor’s race after four women have accused him of sexual harassment.
Eight years earlier, the pious Mr. Swalwell led the charge in unsuccessfully attempting to block Judge Kavanagh’s Supreme Court nomination, stating that even anonymous sexual harassment charges need to be fully examined and taken seriously.
In a moment of delicious irony, here are Rep. Swalwell’s comments:
“What are the chances that three or four women, independently, who never met each other, would have similar experiences with one person?” Swalwell said then, adding that such allegations pointed in the same direction and warranted scrutiny.
Swalwell led hypocritical attacks on Kavanaugh
Personally, I would have dropped out as soon as my long-term affair with a Chinese spy was publicized, but maybe that’s just me…
Swalwell FBI Files Fight Revives China Spy Controversy
Of course, if it’s okay for Dianne Feinstein, it must be okay for Eric Swalwell…
The Chinese (and Russian, and North Korean) Spies Among Us – LAmag
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In theory, I like the jury system. I just don’t like three elements:
- The attorneys are paid to argue one side of the case. They’re not there to seek justice. And they deal with rank amateurs in the jury.
- Voir dire. Subject to rules, each side gets to pick jurors…and they aren’t seeking justice, they’re seeking jurors sympathetic to their side. I’d support the jury system much more if they selected 12 random people.
- Kalven and Zeisel’s The American Jury which polled judges as to how often they agreed with jury decisions. For criminal trials, the judges agreed 78% to 80% of the time. For civil trials, the judges agreed 78% of the time. The study was later repeated by Eisenberg, Hannaford-Agor, Hans, Waters, Munsterman, Schwab, and Wells, which found essentially the same pattern: about 77% agreement. In other words, the best and smartest jurists — judges — disagree with juries betwen 1/4th and 1/5th of the time. That is unacceptably high.
I have to admit that I’m biased. I was involved in a dispute with an 80 year old, said person was a CPA with representation, who drew up and had me sign not one, not two, but three separate contracts agreeing to a real estate transaction involving an option to purchase. The market ran away from her. Both our mediator and our attorney said that 100% of the law was on our side. Both recommended that on the facts, we would win at trial. But both recommended we avoid trial. Why? Because old people sit on juries. And they would side with other older people, right or wrong.
So…no. Not a fan of the jury system in its current reality.
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Perhaps we should do away with the jury system, the 12 normal people who vote on guilt and innocence. They’re not educated or steeped in the law, nor are voters. Replace juries with a triad of judges.
A Minnesota state supreme court ruling held that a judge cannot overturn the ruling of a jury by weighing evidence differently than the jury. Abu Fatah Yousseff defrauded the state of $7.2 million by billing without providing services. and last summer, a jury unanimously found him guilty. The judge overturned the verdict because he weighed the evidence differently.
The MSSC found that a judge cannot act as a 13th juror and change the jury’s ruling because they differ over the weight of the evidence.
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Perhaps we should do away with the jury system, the 12 normal people who vote on guilt and innocence. They’re not educated or steeped in the law, nor are voters. Replace juries with a triad of judges.
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Speaking of frauds, here comes your next Democratic candidate for Governor, Eric Swalwell…
Rep. Eric Swalwell vows to push back on ICE in bid for California governor
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And Newsom is responsible for the biggest single financial debacle in American history, the Bullet Train to Nowhere.
Newsom’s original proposed budget for California’s Bullet Train to Nowhere was $33 billion when proposed in 2008. It is now $126 billion.
By way of comparison, Amtrak’s total Federal budget investment (not including loans) between its founding in 1971 through today has been a little over $73 billion.
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Nick Shirley was in California for a few days and uncovered a $170 million fraud.
Californians are discovering that fraud is not a bug, but a feature
In 2022, California had 13.9 million Medi-Cal patients. By 2026, it had only increased to 14.0 million. And yet…the budget soared by $100 billion in that time frame.
Elon Musk says the California High Speed Rail Project is riddled with fraud, waste and abuse. Newsom says 463 of the 494 miles of track are ready to be laid creating 16,400 jobs.
Trump has appointed JD Vance the “National Fraud czar.” Good luck to the VP…
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I suspect it’s 20% the former, 80% the latter. CA is still 20% Progressive, 19% Liberal, so of course, the Democrats get 95%+ of the representatives in Congress.
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2,000 California likely voters, English & Spanish poll, online and telephone.
CA-Voter-Index-Baseline-Survey-03.23.26.pdf
Ten candidates for California Governor. Here’s the results:
- Steve Hilton (R), 16%
- Chad Bianco (R), 14%
- Eric Swalwell (D), 10%
- Katie Porter (D), 10%
- Tom Steyer (D), 10%
- Xavier Becerra (D), 3%
- Antonio Villaraigosa (D), 3%
- Matt Mahan (D), 3%
- Betty Yee (D), 2%
- Tony Thurmond (D), 1%
- Another candidate, 2%
- Undecided, 24%
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