The vote I'm most looking forward to . . .

[lookin]

isn't the Presidential vote, although I can't wait to hang my chad on that one.

But even more important for me is California Proposition 34, which does away with the death penalty.

For the first time, it's started leading in the polls. Some of the recent support comes from folks who have concluded that it's just too expensive to kill other folks. Fine by me if that's what brings them into the tent.

I'm just hoping California can join the seventeen other states, and the District of Columbia, who don't have it. Not to mention all the other countries who manage to get along without it.

[Guest EXPAT]

I couldn't agree more. And I already voted to abolish it in CA.

[lookin]

There are two other California propositions that will have a major effect on state finances and political power, and both took a surprising turn today when a curtain was lifted to reveal the big money involved in passing one and defeating the other.

Proposition 30 is Governor Jerry Brown's attempt to avoid major cuts in education by raising the state sales tax and increasing taxes on high-income earners.

And Proposition 32 would limit the role of unions in California politics by preventing them from collecting campaign funds from members, even though there are no such restrictions on the corporations who wrote and support the proposition.

Not only are the typical suspects spending millions to defeat Proposition 30 and pass Proposition 32, but last month an Arizona nonprofit donated $11 million to California groups trying to torpedo the tax and muzzle the unions. Something smelled fishy to Governor Brown who wondered where a minor Arizona nonprofit would come up with $11 million and why it would spend that much on two pieces of California legislation. He wanted to know, and thought California voters had the right to know, who was behind the money. And he wanted voters to know before they voted tomorrow.

If this were a national election, we wouldn't know until after the election, but California laws are different from federal laws and the California Supreme Court told the Arizona group they had to come clean. Which they did today, one day ahead of voters going to the polls. Through a convoluted set of maneuvers, which State Attorney General Kamala Harris has branded political money-laundering, the money trail leads from the Arizona group, Americans for Responsible Leadership, backwards to a group called Americans for Job Security, and back again to a group called The Center to Protect Patient Rights.

The Center to Protect Patient Rights has pumped millions into the Romney campaign in recent months, and tens of millions into the 2010 mid-term Congressional elections in support of conservative candidates. The Center's president is a guy named Sean Noble who, wouldn't you know, turns out to be a front for - wait for it - none other than the fabulous furry Koch Brothers!

If they'll pull this kind of shit to cover their tracks in a state ballot, imagine what they're up to at the national level.

Of course, thanks to Citizens United, corporations are people too. Just not the kind of people I'd casually turn my back on.

[Lucky]

Lookin, you will be pleased (well, maybe) that I also support Prop 30 and oppose prop 32. You will not be so pleased to know that I support the death penalty, although I abhor the way it is conducted and the process which is abused. But I do believe that there are crimes so heinous and criminals so evil that society only gains by putting them to death. For me, the death penalty would be exceptionally rare because I would require proof beyond any doubt, but once that burden has been met, sayonara. No long delays, just execute.

[Lucky]

It's not looking good for Prop 34, the measure to ban the death penalty. Polls have consistently shown that the public favors the death penalty, so I don't know why they didn't try to fight a smaller battle and try to add more restrictions as to when the penalty can be used. Surely no one favors giving the death penalty to people who were juveniles at the time of the crime. I think that if they required a standard of beyond any doubt that few deaths would be sanctioned and those that were would be very deserving.

California voters do look to be restricting the three strikes law to require the third strike to be a violent crime. As it is, a person could get life for stealing a pack of cigarettes if he had two serious priors. Not right, and I am glad to see it changed. I voted against the effort to extend penalties of human trafficikng because the measure required other restricitons that are just not right. But it looks like I am on the losing side there.