California chose Kerry, but not by the 100-to-0 margin he deserves. And Boxer appears to have dismantled her little-known Repub challenger Jones, by a 20% margin or so. But there are many, many state and local initiatives, some of which are important, and I will update you on them here:
- Prop 1A is passing by a giant margin. I think this has the potential for ruinous, Prop. 13-style consequences, but the state really went for it.
- The sunshine proposition is also going to win handily
- 60 is winning and 62 is losing, meaning our primary system will remain the same.
- Much to my dismay, the state has voted overwhelmingly to forbid private citizens from filing unfair business practice lawsuits. Under this Prop. only he Attorney General and certain defined plaintiffs have standing to sue.
- Prop. 69 is passing easily. Prop. 69 maintains a DNA database of all people who have ever been arrested (not convicted, or even charged) in connection with a felony crime.
Californians can hang out on dKos all day and make fun of Oklahomans for electing another extreme wingnut to the Senate, but look at what we are doing to our own state. Not only has the deposed, disgraced governor been supplanted with an Austrian movie star, but we are going for the
full Orwell to keep genetic databases of people never charged or convicted of a crime. How can we call ourselves Free with that type of bullshit going on? We're also removing the private citizen's judicial relief against unfair business, and on the fiscal side, we've passed 1A, promising to deadlock state finances permanently. It seems that Californians never get enough of fucking themselves. Soon, we'll be the biggest pretend liberal, actually cryptofascist, fiscally bankrupt state on the planet.
Meanwhile, something quite fishy is going on in San Francisco. Normally, returns from absentee and early votes are posted immediately after polls close, but the polls have been closed for more than an hour here and still not a peep. Very many people voted absentee or early in San Francisco, because many activists left town to work the election in swing states with ACT, MoveOn, and PFAW. I sincerely hope there's not any kind of glitch or shenanigans going on down in the lower levels of City Hall. It was only a few years back that ballot boxes were fished out of the Pacific Ocean by the Coast Guard on the day after the election.
Monitor San Francisco election returns here:
http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/election/results.htm
Update [2004-11-3 0:43:38 by jwb]:
San Francisco results have been posted. I breathe, a sigh, of relief.