Analysis, Case Studies, and Commentary
Sabine McGinley from the U.K. says electoral systems should be designed to help voters express their authentic preferences, not something they have to scheme around. From the Electoral Reform Society.
Because the issue is never the issue--the issue is the revolution. Quirky lefty academic Noam Chomsky explores why some people oppose strategic voting, but nonetheless concludes that it's worth it to make compromises to advance the cause.
Reddit thread explores how strategic voting imprisons independent voters inside a two-party system monopoly, and ends up empowering that system.
D1 supervisor candidate Rebecca Munson says Measure A won't fix gaping shortfall created by county hospitals' systemic overspending. The banking pro outlines a fiscal discipline approach to increase efficiencies and realize a saner county budget.
While the SJ Mayor offers a state-level plan to “spend better”, he currently sits on the board of the VTA, an “extremely costly” and structurally defective transit agency. So says past state Assembly candidate Ted Stroll, who wants voters to elect VTA board members directly. An Opportunity Now exclusive reaction.
Sacramento’s supermajority won’t now all of a sudden “start getting behind accountability and transparency,” says Gus Mattammal, candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction. While he lauds Mahan’s back-to-basics plan for its specificity, he wonders how much is possible if the Mayor couldn’t even get accountability measures through the SJ City Council. An Opportunity Now exclusive reaction.
On the heels of reports that the murder rate in SJ is up 75% compared to this time last year , the streets of SJ are also proving to be increasingly unsafe. The Merc reports.
Mayor Mahan is right about one thing: Californians shouldn’t be asked to pay more until the government does better. But his spending proposal amounts to managerial reform, not structural reform, according to Peter Verbica, Candidate for U.S. Congress, CA-19. An Opportunity Now exclusive reaction.
“Californians simply do not like race discrimination,” says Daniel Morenoff in a letter to CA Assemblymembers. But this year’s ACA 7 is yet another attempt to degrade Prop 209’s Nondiscrimination Amendment. CA voters will again reject the “racists,” writes the American Civil Rights Project Executive Director: even if they don’t, ACA 7’s discriminatory provisions are banned by the U.S. Constitution.