obfuscated.org

If you’re up and reading on Tuesday night, you can see election returns, updated in real time, on the magic internet machine.

Look, folks, it’s been a long week here at home with the Voter Information Guide. We’ve gone through seven propositions so far, finding with each one a new and exciting way of looking at the available information. I’d like to admit up front that I’ve reached the bottom of the barrel with 80, so don’t expect a lot today.

If you haven’t noticed yet, I’ve found (admittedly silly) reasons to go with “no” on every issue so far. This is intentional. I hate California’s system of ballot initiatives. They’re nothing more than slimy ways for people with the wherewithal and the inclination to try to slide scummy laws (and having read the voter info guide, this year’s are as horrible as usual) past the voters using ill-stated facts and questionable rhetoric.

The awful thing is that most people only hear the fearmongering commercials (for both sides of each and every issue) on television or some AM radio host yelling about things this way or that. This is no way to make a decision, especially when there’s so much good impartial information (the analysis by the legislative analyst and the actual text of the propositions in particular) available for free. For whatever reason, I didn’t feel like just putting up links to the League of Women Voters pages, so we get these silly (or stupid, depending on how you look at things) little blurbs for each prop with the LWV link included in each. I hope the links are getting followed, and I hope the information they present is getting read. Either way, writing these beats the hell out of spending an evening watching TV.

All of that said, I do firmly believe that the analysis I’ve presented — silly as it is — is at least as useful in a decision making sense as those asinine scorecards that various political organizations send out. You know the ones I’m talking about. They say “vote yes on X, Y and Z, no on A, B and C” and present no additional useful information. Horrible! If you make your voting decisions based solely on one of these, you are an idiot. You’re abusing the greatest right that your country affords you and making light of the greatest responsibility that your country places on you. So if you’re going to vote, please read up on the propositions. You owe it to yourself and to everybody else in the state.

Look, here’s the goddamn League of Women Voters page for Prop. 80. Please read it, and ignore today’s post. It’s not my best work.

Still here? Well, let’s see. So far, we’ve looked at logical fallacies in the argument summaries, the fiscal effects section of the analysis by the legislative analyst, name dropping in the argument summaries, mysterious uses of quotation marks, argument rebuttals, and the handy chart that comes along with the MORTAL KOMBAT initiatives. What’s left? Lord save us, it’s the actual text of the proposition.

Full disclosure: I can read the proposition text, but I can’t retain any of it. It’s all just so much lawyer speak heretofore’s and subsection this and that and giant swaths of text struck out for whatever reason. It’s a sure-fire cure for insomnia. I’ve tried reading them in the morning and in the evening. Neither works. I’ve tried reading them sober and after a few rounds with no discernable difference. These things suck. They are the least fun documents ever written. So how on earth are we supposed to read them without pulling our hair out?

The answer is that we aren’t. Well, not fully, at least. We want to know what they say, but I’ll submit that we can do that fully well using the magic of statistics. That’s right, we’re going to use word frequency to decide how we might vote on Proposition 80: Electric Service Providers. Regulation. Here are the words and counts for the fifty most often used words:

359 the 247 of 208 and 203 to 108 in 92 a 80 that 77 commission 73 shall 69 for 67 service

63 by 59 section 58 be 57 electrical 56 electric 49 with 48 is 47 as 45 an 41 all

38 customers 34 energy 32 this 32 or 31 resources 31 public 30 market 30 electricity 29 from 27 its

27 corporation 25 not 25 generation 25 fi 24 customer 23 at 23 any 22 utilities 22 renewable 22 pursuant

21 are 20 system 20 retail 20 resource 19 eligible 18 power 18 direct 17 provider 17 on 17 new

How do these words make you feel? Are they friendly words? Vote for 80. Do you hate them? Strike it down! Power to the people! Don’t you just want to get up and march against something right now? Perhaps statisticians?

OK, that was bad even for me. Let’s look at a chart of word frequencies.

Wow, that’s worthless as well. How about this: can we make a good haiku out of the fifty most frequently used words in ballot proposition 80?

the commission shall service electricity for its customer an electrical public market shall not be energy at all a retail resource commission pursuant to the utilities utilities are corporation for power not its customer

Bingo! If that doesn’t cement your vote, I don’t know what will.

You all know the drill here folks. League of Women Voters link for Prop. 80, read it, decide, yada yada yada. I hope you’ve enjoyed all of these. Don’t forget to vote. See you the day after the election. I’ll be the one with the roaring hangover.

It seems like every election year we get two mutually exclusive propositions, or, as I like to call them, MORTAL KOMBAT propositions. They basically do the same thing, and if the voters approve both, the proposition with the most yes votes wins. I think these are pretty sneaky propositions, as it seems more like an either/or choice than the yes/no choice that these sort of things really should be.

On the up side, opportunities like this provide for new and exciting sections in the voter information guide. “Figure 1″ in the analysis by the legislative analyst for both propositions, entitled “Key Differences Between Propositions 78 and 7,” is a comparison chart between 78 — Discounts on Prescription Drugs. Initiative Statute. — and 79 — Prescription Drug Discounts. State-Negoiated Rebates. Initiative Statute. Let’s take a quick spin through it, shall we?

	Prop. 78	Prop. 79
General eligibility requirements	California residents in families with an income at or below 300 percent of the federal poverty level. (About $29,000 annually for an individual and $58,000 for a family of four.) No such provision.	California residents in families with an income at or below 400 percent of the federal poverty level. (About $38,000 annually for an individual and $77,000 for a family of four.) Also, persons in families with medical expenses at or above 5 percent of their family’s income.

So 78 is a little stingier than 79 and doesn’t extend benefits to families with substantial medical expenses. Simple enough.

	Prop. 78	Prop. 79
Persons excluded from coverage	Persons with outpatient prescription drug coverage through Medi-Cal, Healthy Families, a third-party payer, or a health plan or drug discount program supported with state or federal funds (except Medicare beneficiaries). Certain persons with drug coverage, during the three-month period prior to the month the person applied for a drug discount card.	Persons with outpatient prescription drug coverage through Medi-Cal or Healthy Families (except Medicare beneficiaries). No such provision.

So they both have exemptions for people with existing coverage. An extra little proviso from prop 78: if you lose prescription coverage, try not to get sick for three months or so.

	Prop. 78	Prop. 79
Application and renewal fee	$15	$10

78 will run you one Venti Latte per annum more than 79, which probably isn’t that big a deal for families at 300% of the federal poverty level and below.

	Prop. 78	Prop. 79
Method of obtaining rebates from drug makers	Negoiated with drug makers. No such provision.	Negoiated with drug makers. Subject to federal approval, links new drug discount program to Medi-Cal for the purpose of obtaining rebates on drugs.

I don’t understand what in the hell the second point for 79 is talking about. Honestly, it seems like if there’s federal approval required for something drug-related, you might as well assume that it won’t happen. I’d call this one a draw.

	Prop. 78	Prop. 79
Assistance to business and labor organizations	No such provision.	Establishes drug discount program to assist certain business and labor entities.

Prop. 79 works to help out both business and labor. Prop. 78: not so much.

	Prop. 78	Prop. 79
Prescription Drug Advisory Board	No such provision.	Creates a new nine-member panel to review the access to and pricing of drugs.

Prop. 79 believes that this is an important issue, so they’d like some people to watch over it. Prop. 78: not so much.

	Prop. 78	Prop. 79
Lawsuits over drug profiteering law	No such provision.	Changes state law to make it a civil violation for a drug maker to engage in profiteering from the sale of drugs.

Prop. 79 believes that drug makers shouldn’t be allowed to price gouge. Prop. 78: not so much.

So it’s not exactly the most exciting or informative tale of the tape in political history, but it tells us a little something about the motivations behind each proposition and how serious they are about solving the prescription drug problem in California. They’re also good for snarky remarks, and that’s worth it’s weight in recycled voter information guide paper.

As per always, you could probably do better in terms of gathering information for your own personal decision making. These two are big and ugly; just reading them nearly drove me to the bottle. Depending upon what your priorities are — keeping state spending to an absolute minimum, actually making sure the less fortunate can afford the meds they need, etc. — there are a lot of hairy issues to sort out. Our good friends at the League of Women Voters have information for both Prop 78 and Prop 79. Read it for yourself (although I’d recommend keeping a drink handy this time) and make up your own mind.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we’ve made it to my all time favorite part of the voter information guide: the rebuttal! These are the true gems of the whole booklet. They’re an opportunity for each side, presumably after reading the opposition’s argument (although I’ve not read one yet that references the opposing argument even once), to speak their mind in response and clear up any misconceptions introduced by their ideological foes. They’re rarely used for that purpose, though. More often they’re playgrounds for thrilling smears and questionable rhetoric. You’ve got to love ‘em!

I remember well the rebuttal to my argument in the one and only one formal debate I ever participated in. It was during eighth grade, the topic was gun control, and I was put on a team with Julie Cho. Julie knew the subject matter, thought quickly on her feet, and in general clue one and then some about what she was doing. I, on the other hand, didn’t really read any of the background material, bungled my prepared statement and took to sketching at the table in response to our opponent’s arguments. It was such a thrilling experience that I never participated in formal debate ever again, and to this day I hope that I didn’t do too much damage to Julie’s academic career. The other team worked well enough together, and despite questionable rhetoric dealt me a death blow after my argument.

The devastating rebuttal that ended my short and unspectacular debate career went, word for word, as follows: “My opponent doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Period, full stop. That was it. I was done. They had clear and compelling evidence that my position was flawed, and they drove it in to my skull like a railroad spike. Truly it was crushing. I don’t think I was able to string six consecutive coherent words together for the rest of the debate.

Of course, their argument had no rhetorical meat to it, but I didn’t know that. What’s funny is that the people writing rebuttals for the ‘05 voter information guide don’t seem to know either. Their rebuttals at times amount to little more.

Let’s take a look at the two rebuttals to Proposition 77: Redistricting. Initiative Constitutional Amendment. To make the comparison easier, we’ll just look at the handy lists of facts or whatever they are that each side provides. (interesting aside: The rebuttal to the argument PRO uses a numbered list while the rebuttal to the argument CON uses a bulleted list. What could this mean?)

First, the rebuttal to the argument PRO:

Rebuttal to Argument in Favor of Proposition 77

[…]
Read the fine print.

1. PROP. 77 TAKES AWAY THE RIGHT OF VOTERS to reject redistricting plans before they go into effect.
2. The so-called independent redistricting judges are HAND-PICKED BY POLITICIANS.
3. Every time voters reject these redistricting plans, IT WILL COST TAXPAYERS MILLIONS.
4. Everything is decided by a small panel of ONLY THREE UNELECTED JUDGES.
5. This flawed idea is CEMENTED INTO OUR CONSTITUTION.

[…]

First things first: read each item out loud, YELLING WHEN THEY CHOOSE TO USE ALL CAPS. That was fun, wasn’t it? I certainly enjoyed it.

Above and beyond the SCREAMING, the fact that all four points made — the “fine print”, if you will — pertain to the proposition stands out to me. This is how things should be, but it seems somehow alien. Now, whether or not all of these points are correct is another question. For example, voters may in fact reject redistricting plans, however a rejected plan will still be used at least once according to proposition 77. (From the Summary: “If voters reject a redistricting plan, process repeats, but officials elected under rejected plan serve full terms.) You can disagree with their arguments, but you can’t deny that they’re actually talking about the proposition.

Let’s take a look at the rebuttal to the argument CON:

Rebuttal to the Argument Against Proposition 77

[…]
Remember these important facts:

• Opponents don’t want competitive elections. They like the status quo and will do anything to protect their power.
• They want the politicians to continue protecting their special interests at the expense of California’s working families.
• Voter approval of redistricting plans will be held at regularly scheduled elections, so opponents’ claims of huge election costs are false.

Prop. 77 is simple and straightforward

• A bipartisan panel of retired judges would establish new, fair district boundaries for the Legislature and Congress.
• They want the politicians to continue protecting their special interests at the expense of California’s working families.
• Fair districts mean competitive elections. Competitive elections ensure our elected officials listen to citizen voices and not just campaign contributors. Nothing could be fairer than letting voters have the final word!

YES ON PROP. 77 — IT’S ABOUT RETURNING POWER TO THE PEOPLE
[…]

Two quick editorial notes: yes, they include the “at the expense of California’s working families” point twice, and “fairer” in the final bullet point is not a typo on my part.

They get things going by giving us a list of “important facts,” most of which are speculations regarding their opponent’s motivation. Priceless! Their third “fact” is contradicted by the fiscal effects section of the analysis by the legislative analyst. (Specifically: “If, however, voters rejected any redistricting plan, there would be some additional state and county costs for a new plan to be developed and implemented.”) They follow this up with a few unsupported talking points and a revisited speculation from the original section of “important facts.”

You know what they’re saying here, right? “THE ARGUMENT CON DOES NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS TALKING ABOUT!” If this were the eighth grade and I was arguing against prop 77, they would have totally won with this.

Mercifully, this isn’t the eighth grade, so perhaps it would be best if instead of being swayed by PRO’s compelling argument you reviewed the League of Women Voters page for Prop. 77. Read it yourself and make up your own mind.

Sometimes all you need is one phrase to help you make your mind up about a ballot initiative. Take Proposition 76 for example: State Spending and School Funding Limits. Initiative Constitutional Amendment. The argument PRO states the following:

PROPOSITION 76 CONTROLS STATE SPENDING AND FIXES CALIFORNIA’S BROKEN BUDGET SYSTEM. Yes on 76 protects against future deficits and eliminates wasteful spending, making more money available for roads, healthcare and law enforcement without raising taxes. It establishes “checks and balances,” encouraging bipartisan budget solutions — YES on 76.

Now, without even really knowing what the proposition would do, we have good reason to question it. Why did the argument PRO feel it necessary to put “checks and balances” in quotes? They could have just stated that proposition 76 establishes checks and balances. Anybody who’s been through grade school civics (or Saturday morning cartoons, for that matter) knows what checks and balances are. This wink wink, nudge nudge “checks and balances” in quotes, though, is a little more mysterious. It’s like they’re saying “it will establish checks and balances, but some people will be more balanced than others.” I don’t know about you, but I’d just as soon my checks and balances be on the level.

The argument CON does not feel the need to qualify any of its claims with quotation marks. I guess this means that it has nothing to hide.

As usual, the only good way to make up your mind on these important ballot propositions is to do the appropriate research. You can find the League of Women Voters page for Prop. 76 at the same old place. Read it yourself and make up your own mind.

There are a lot of names printed in the voter information guide. Most often in the arguments pro/con, you hear who the proposition is supposed to support, who the proposition is supposed to hurt, who supports and who doesn’t support the proposition. Handy each and every one! Can we can make a decision based solely on this information?

Proposition 75 is titled Public Employee Union Dues. Restrictions on Public Contributions. Employee Consent Requirement. Initiative Statute. For brevity’s sake, we’ll gather our list of names from the argument summaries:

PRO

Proposition 75 protects public employee union members from having political contributions made from their dues without their annual permission. Currently public employee union members are forced to contribute their hard earned money to political candidates or issues they may oppose. Yes on Proposition 75 will make those contributions clearly voluntary.

So according to the argument PRO, Prop. 75 will help:

• public employee union members

Similarly, it will hurt:

• political candidates or issues opposed by public employee union members

It’s short, sweet, and to the point. Three cheers for efficiency! Let’s look at the other argument.

CON

Prop. 75 is unfair to teachers, nurses, police and firefighters. It makes their labor unions play by different rules than big corporations. It’s unnecessary. The U.S. Supreme Court says no public employee can be forced to join a union and contribute to politics. It’s sponsored by corporations who oppose unions.

so if the argument CON is to be believed, Prop. 75 hurts:

• teachers
• nurses
• police
• firefighters

it helps:

• big corporations

Further, the argument CON is backed up by:

• The Supreme Court

Now we’ve heard both arguments and we’ve got five lists. That’s way too many. Let’s boil that down to two lists, FOR75 — the groups identified by PRO and CON as being helped by 75 — and AGAINST75 — the groups identified by PRO and CON as being hurt by 75. We’ll put CON’s claimed supporters in to the AGAINST75 list for good measure. At the end of the day, we have:

FOR75:

• public employee union members
• big corporations

AGAINST75:

• teachers
• nurses
• police
• firefighters
• political candidates or issues opposed by public employees
• The Supreme Court

The FOR75 list looks awfully funny. I personally can’t imagine “big corporations” getting in the same boat as public employees if their lives depended upon it. Public employees are fussy types who want to be paid well and have benefits and sound retirement programs; that’s just not the big corporation style. Also funny, AGAINST75 has teachers, nurses, etc. in with political candidates or issues that they oppose. What’s with that?

These annoying details aside, we have a pretty straightforward set of lists that we can choose between. Do we go for the dynamic duo of big corporations and public employees, or the tasty melange of public employees, their political adversaries and The Supreme Court? The choice is yours.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that there may be better ways to make a call on these propositions than the method outlined above. I encourage you to visit the League of Women Voters page on Prop. 75, read the available material and make up your own mind.

This year’s voter information guide has seventy seven pages for eight propositions. Damn! That’s a lot to read, especially for today’s busy voter. For each prop there’s summary information, analysis by the legislative analyst, arguments for and against (and rebuttals, which are my favorite part), and the text of the propositions themselves. Unless you’ve got like an entire evening and a twelver of some good beer, you just can’t make it through all of that.

The summary is pretty good — it’s useful to know, for instance, the name of the proposition. The arguments for and against, as we saw for Prop 73, aren’t always the most well-reasoned texts in the world, so if you’re in a hurry you might as well give those a miss. If you’re really brave you could read the actually text of the propositions, but there are too many sections and subsections and bullet points and what have you for my taste.

The real gold for the time-pressed voter is the legislative analyst’s section. More specifically, the “Fiscal Effects” section, which really gets to the meat of the whole thing. If you’re truly short on time you could just read this one short section and get a pretty good idea of what the prop is all about. Let’s try it with Proposition 74, Public School Teachers. Waiting Period for Permanent Status. Dismissal. Initiative Statute.

Fiscal Effects

The proposition would affect costs relating to teacher compensation, performance evaluations, and other activities.

Ok, wow, this is going pretty quickly. I guess this is about teachers or something.

Effect on Teacher Compensation Costs

The proposition would affect school district teacher costs in a variety of ways. The net impact would depend on future district actions, and these effects would vary significantly by district. For example, districts would experience reduced teacher costs in the following cases:

Apparently this initiative doesn’t set any hard rules in terms of spending or anything like that, which makes it somewhat murky. Let’s see how it might reduce teacher costs.

• Given the longer probationary period, districts could dismiss more teachers during their first five years. This could result in salary savings by replacing higher salaried teachers toward the end of their probationary period with lower salaried teachers just beginning their probationary period.

Passing this initiative could let us save money by swapping out higher-salaried teachers for lower-salaried teachers. Fair enough.

• Similarly, due to the proposition’s modifications to the dismissal process, school districts might experience greater turnover among permanent teachers. This too would result in teacher-related savings from replacing higher salaried veteran teachers with lower salaried, less experienced teachers.

Wow, same thing. If we pass 74, we would have all different sorts of opportunities to get rid of those pesky, well-paid veteran teachers and replace them with lower-salaried rookies.

In contrast, districts would experience increased teacher costs in the following instances:

For your reading enjoyment: the other shoe!

• The supply of teachers could be reduced because the longer probationary period and modified dismissal process might be perceived as increasing job insecurity. This would have the effect of putting upward pressure on teacher compensation costs.

Apparently there’s a chance that Prop 74 would make it harder to hire teachers, thus driving up the price of employing them. That doesn’t sound too cool.

• The longer probationary period could lead districts to retain some struggling new teachers beyond the current two-year period to give them additional chances to succeed. By retaining these teachers — instead of replacing them with lower-cost entry level teachers — this would have the effect of increasing teacher salary costs above what they otherwise would have been.

If we pass 74, we could possibly pay more for struggling teachers.

As noted above, the net impact on a school district could vary significantly, depending on such factors as the local labor market, the perceived desirability of working in the district, and district actions in response to the measure.

Which tells me that we don’t know which or any of the above scenarios we might get from school district to school district.

So, in summary, in a state with Prop 74, we would have in uncertain quantities some subset of the following:

• cheaper teachers on account of firing them just before their probation is up
• cheaper, less experienced teachers
• a seller’s market for teachers, leading them to be more expensive
• more expensive struggling teachers

This reads to me like we’ll either be chintzing on teachers and losing the experienced veterans or paying more for rookies. Such a deal! All of this just from the analysis of the fiscal effects of the proposition. I’m pretty sure that I don’t need to read the other five pages on Prop 74.

Now, I don’t recommend this particular method of decision making (although it works for me). You can find the text of the proposition and arguments both Pro and Con at the League of Women Voters page for Proposition 74. Read it yourself and make up your own mind.

If you aren’t reading this year’s voter information guide with an eye for the funny, you’re missing out in a big way. Nearly every proposition has a gut-buster or two somewhere in the write up. The potential for fun is obscenely large. I can’t recommend this document enough if you need a good laugh.

Prop. 73 is the first proposition on the ballot this year. It’s officially titled “Waiting Period and Parental Notification Before Termination of Minor’s Pregnancy.” Now, I know what you’re wondering here. This is just another anti-choice/pro-Big Government initiative. That’s frightening, not funny. How could I possibly find something to laugh about here? I agree with you on all counts. Nope, this isn’t a funny proposition at all, but the people who support it definitely are, and they show us as much in amazingly full splendor in their argument for 73.

For each proposition there’s a short (under 100 words) summary argument presented both for and against. These blurbs get mailed to every voter in the state. It’s free advertising for your cause, and the extent to which some groups misuse them is amazing and as a result hilarious. Here’s the 73’s PRO argument. Emphasis and capitalization are verbatim.

MORE THAN ONE MILLION CALIFORNIANS’ signatures qualified PROPOSITION 73! It will RESTORE Californians’ right to counsel and care for their young daughters before — and often after — an abortion. Similar laws are protecting girls in over thirty states. FOR OUR DAUGHTERS’ SAFETY, HEALTH, AND PROTECTION, VOTE YES on 73!

Oh man, this is just too good. I almost don’t know where to start. To make things simple, let’s take this sentence by sentence.

MORE THAN ONE MILLION CALIFORNIANS’ signatures qualified PROPOSITION 73!

Starting right off we’ve got an Appeal to Popularity. More than one million Californians’ (all-caps Californians at that) signatures qualified Prop 73. So what? That doesn’t make it right or good. It just means that one million people signed for it. Big deal.

It will RESTORE Californians’ right to counsel and care for their young daughters before — and often after — an abortion.

This is less directly funny, as all it’s really saying is that the author disagrees with the thinking behind exempting abortion from parental consent and notification in the first place. It’s quite their right to disagree with as much.

Similar laws are protecting girls in over thirty states.

That appeal to popularity wasn’t enough, so they threw in an Appeal to Common Practice. If thirty other states jumped off a bridge, should California do it as well?

FOR OUR DAUGHTERS’ SAFETY, HEALTH, AND PROTECTION, VOTE YES on 73!

MAYBE IF WE SHOUT AT YOU, YOU WILL VOTE FOR IT JUST TO GET US TO SHUT UP!

So, in summary, they’ve got the fact that they disagree with an existing law surrounded by two logical fallacies and some shouting. Maybe this isn’t funny so much as it is sort of tragic. It made me laugh either way.

It’s important to note, by the way, that the horrific nature of the presented argument for prop 73 — lined with fallacious reasoning as it is — should not be construed as an argument against 73. The argument author’s rhetorical ability or lack thereof doesn’t tell us anything about prop 73 being a good idea or otherwise. The League of Women Voters makes information regarding prop 73 available on the web. Read it yourself and make up your own mind.

I’ll note that the full arguments for and against and the rebuttals to the same are as fallacy-riffic as the summaries. They’re all available via the League of Women Voters site. Enjoy!