I admit that I worry about the reactionism I'm seeing against Blackwell himself in these issues. While I despise the man personally (there is no political figure I have more contempt and dislike for currently), I'm uncomfortable with a ballot initiative to strip the Sec. of State of powers because one man may have misused his grossly.
It's entirely possible that replacing him with a board might be just as bad for the Democrats as it is for the Republicans.
Like I said, though, I'm unsure about these issues. Gotta read them and see how they fit.
The board might be just as bad for Democrats as Republicans, but that beats being bad for just one or the other. And if Blackwell could abuse his power, there's nothing stopping some other person in the same position from doing it too, for either side.
I admit, I find that generally pessimistic. Realistic, perhaps, I suppose, but I really think that a committee is no more difficult to corrupt.
Just more expensive.
Amusing, how pessimistic that sounds in return, isn't it?
I'd prefer to trust one guy to do it right, rather than a motley crew of 9 people, I think. But I have this thing for centralizing power a bit. I've seen lots of committees die. At least with Blackwell, I have someone I can point to and say, "Dude, you majorly screwed up."
I'm paritally on that for certain things, but really, I get more concerned with actual language than I do with the lies I get from both sides.
As an example, apparently the anti-Issue 2-5 camp is talking about how we should vote against it because it's put forth by the same people who took prayer out of our schools. These issues have nothing to do with religion. . . Their argument is nearly useless for trying to form a decision. I've seen a lot of implication that the "devil" is pushing these issues, too
( ... )
Reps are against them because they have the potential to balance out the power in the state. The voters in the state lean slightly Republican, but the statehouse and Congressional representatives are overwhelmingly Republican -- and the vast majority of those districts aren't competitive either. Just the fact that Franklin County is divided into three Congressional districts, all represented by Republicans, should tell you something, since Columbus is not dominated by Republican voters.
Funny thing about issue 1, I hate the way the part that was previously voted down is being rammed through this time, but I can actually see enough benefits to it to reluctantly vote yes. It might even help me with jobs in the future. Plus, anything that the anti-stem-cell-research crowd is against must not be too bad. :-)
I'm not so sure that the benefits are actually there. I hate the idea that we can fix this by throwing money at it. . . Maybe we should stop passing legislation aimed at attacking specific groups of people instead and allow our workforce to grow? (Not really questioning you, as I suspect you may agree with me, but the entire idea, really.)
Last year's Issue 1 was terribly unwise for our economy. And I think we'd be much better served repealing that than throwing money at a problem we created.
There are other factors as well. In particular the government that's run this state into the ground. . . but the longer we restrict businesses and attack the workforce, we're going to continue to have these issues. Money won't fix it.
I'm decidedly unhappy with the prospect of handing out gov't money to private companies, even in the form of bonds that need to be repaid. It's a short-term solution to a mudslide of a problem.
...When I informed him that my vote was my business and he could not "count on my support" he just hung up on me. I felt very much like he didn't want me to think about the issue, but just to vote for it.
Nice.
That's why I'm green party. No one ever calls me :-)
Well, you would be lonely too if you walked into the polling office at 5pm and the lady working at the polls took your registration and said "Oh my! You're the first Green Party of these we've seen all day!"
Ok, so it was 1992 and I was in Orange County, CA, but still...
Click the links for each issue to read the exact ballot wording, as well as the Ballot Board arguments for and against each issue.
I find the arguments Against issue 3 to be particularly telling (and ironic), since the proposed "campaign finance reform" doesn't decrease corruption, it just isolates it to a particular subset of carefully-chosen special interest groups.
I find some of the arguments against issue 3 to be rather disingenuous, since it's really only the rich who can take advantage of the current rules (which the statehouse Republicans pushed through not too long ago) allowing contributions of $10,000 per person of any age. Under the current rules, a family of two parents and two elementary school kids can contribute more to a single candidate than I make in a year. Under issue 3, that same family could contribute $4000, forcing the candidate to get support from a lot more people.
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Hmm . . .
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It's entirely possible that replacing him with a board might be just as bad for the Democrats as it is for the Republicans.
Like I said, though, I'm unsure about these issues. Gotta read them and see how they fit.
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Just more expensive.
Amusing, how pessimistic that sounds in return, isn't it?
I'd prefer to trust one guy to do it right, rather than a motley crew of 9 people, I think. But I have this thing for centralizing power a bit. I've seen lots of committees die. At least with Blackwell, I have someone I can point to and say, "Dude, you majorly screwed up."
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(The comment has been removed)
As an example, apparently the anti-Issue 2-5 camp is talking about how we should vote against it because it's put forth by the same people who took prayer out of our schools. These issues have nothing to do with religion. . . Their argument is nearly useless for trying to form a decision. I've seen a lot of implication that the "devil" is pushing these issues, too ( ... )
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If you want the "for" side's arguments, go to www.ReformOhioNow.org.
Funny thing about issue 1, I hate the way the part that was previously voted down is being rammed through this time, but I can actually see enough benefits to it to reluctantly vote yes. It might even help me with jobs in the future. Plus, anything that the anti-stem-cell-research crowd is against must not be too bad. :-)
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Last year's Issue 1 was terribly unwise for our economy. And I think we'd be much better served repealing that than throwing money at a problem we created.
There are other factors as well. In particular the government that's run this state into the ground. . . but the longer we restrict businesses and attack the workforce, we're going to continue to have these issues. Money won't fix it.
I'm decidedly unhappy with the prospect of handing out gov't money to private companies, even in the form of bonds that need to be repaid. It's a short-term solution to a mudslide of a problem.
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Nice.
That's why I'm green party. No one ever calls me :-)
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Ok, so it was 1992 and I was in Orange County, CA, but still...
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Glad it's there, but I wouldn't affiliate, personally.
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http://www.lwvohio.org/members/postboard/september2005/voterservice.html
Click the links for each issue to read the exact ballot wording, as well as the Ballot Board arguments for and against each issue.
I find the arguments Against issue 3 to be particularly telling (and ironic), since the proposed "campaign finance reform" doesn't decrease corruption, it just isolates it to a particular subset of carefully-chosen special interest groups.
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Thanks for the link.
Just one more fun thing for a Monday, you know :)
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