Back to the Courts

I have mixed feeling about going to the courts so solve elections problems. You tell people to fill in the bubble and they don't, even when they write in the name. Their intent is obvious; it is hard to argue against that. The reason for the rule is that it is normally impracticable and there is no point to go through all the ballots and find the write-in with no bubble. But in this case as they went through all the ballots they set aside the no-bubble write-ins for Frye. So they already have a stack of ballots. I do understand Murphy’s point of view, the rules are the rules, but if he is the winning, he won on a technicality.

From the Union Tribune -

SAN DIEGO – Lawyers for the League of Women Voters will ask a judge today to order the counting of all write-in ballots in the San Diego mayor's race, even if voters failed to fill in "ovals" next to the write-in's name.

On Friday, Mayor Dick Murphy declared victory in his bid for reelection after the Registrar of Voters announced that the incumbent had collected 2,205 more votes than City Councilwoman Donna Frye.

Changes Ahead

So now the Bush won he is looking to make changes is Tax policy. I think this might be a good time talk a little about the direction of tax reform, especially since the house just approved an increase of the debt ceiling for the federal government. There has been talk of a national sales tax or flat tax. An example of this can be found on
Economics Without a Face.

“What ultimately attracts me about the idea of a national sales tax is that A) it seems fair and B) investments would not be taxed, which would be great for economic growth. I agree with KipEsquire that there are undesirable issues with the tax (i.e. 30% seems high to me) but I'm not willing to write this plan off yet. To the contrary, the more I read, the more appealing it sounds.” – Peter Mork

First, don’t be fooled, the whole purpose behind this is to shift the tax burden down the economic scale, and shift it from investments to working class wage earners. Right now the system is set up so that the people who can afford the most, pay the most. Taxes are a burden, and tax policy is how you spend out that burden.

The other thing you likely to hear is that workers should pay taxes but not investors. Why? They tell us that investors help the economy, and therefore help everyone. This is just economic mumble-jumble. Investors are out to make money, just like everyone else. Investments help companies build bigger and better companies, that is true, but what is more important is the consumer. It doesn’t matter how much money invested in a company, if no one buys the products. So when you take money from the consumer by shifting the tax burden you are hurting the economy. But really to me it is morally wrong to say that if you work for a living you should pay taxes, but if you are rich and live off of other peoples work you shouldn’t.

City Council Dist #4

CITY COUNCIL DIST. #4

George Stevens 4,241 34.7
Gloria Tyler-Mallery 233 1.9
Marissa Acierto 1,108 9.0
Bruce Williams 819 6.7
Tony Young 2,790 22.8
Jim Galley 235 1.9
Patrick DeShields 178 1.4
Dwayne Crenshaw 2,596 21.2

The continued race for Mayor

This is a good sign. Not matter how you feel about who is winning; it is hard to see suing to make it illegal to be a write in candidate, after they already won. If enough people went to the extra effort of writing in a name that didn't show up on the ballot, you have to al least give them credit for really caring about the election. Of course you can see how the people voting for the old white guys could be a little upset. They ended up splitting the vote, and may end up if a suffer chick as mayor. Try getting your new Condo development on the ocean approved now. If we had Donna vs. either one of them in a straight up race, it seems more likely to have Donna on the losing end.

From the Union Tribune -

"A Superior Court judge gutted an attempt to invalidate the San Diego mayoral election yesterday by ruling that Donna Frye's write-in candidacy is legal and refusing to order a halt to the vote-counting."

Also from the Union Tribune -

"Frye had 154,425 votes, or 34.61 percent as of 8 a.m. today, county officials said. However, only 150,222 of the write-in votes cast for Frye on Nov. 2 have been verified.

Incumbent Mayor Dick Murphy had 153,469 votes, or 34.39 percent, and Supervisor Ron Roberts had 138,311 votes, or 31 percent, county officials said.

All the absentee ballots cast in the Nov. 2 election have been counted and election workers will continue counting about 35,000 provisional ballots today, county officials said. "

Probably Anti-Housewarming, Too

From the Washington Post -

Probably Anti-Housewarming, Too

It's not often that a Washington lobbyist gets to be the focus of a censure motion in the British House of Commons, but anti-global warming lobbyist Myron Ebell managed that trick earlier this month.

Seems Ebell, interviewed Nov. 3 on BBC Radio, said: "We have people who know nothing about climate science, like Sir David King, your chief scientific adviser, who are alarmist and continually promote this ridiculous claim. Sir David has no expertise in climate science."

One newspaper reported the shot and described Ebell, who works for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, as "one of President George Bush's top climate change advisers."

Next thing you know there's a censure move in the House of Commons, saying it "deplores in the strongest possible terms the unfounded and insulting criticism of Sir David King, the Government's Chief Scientist, by Myron Ebell, an adviser to U.S. President George W. Bush, on climate change; notes that Mr. Ebell is Director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, an organization funded by, amongst others, ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute; fervently hopes that Mr. Ebell's comments do not represent official U.S. policy."

Well, not precisely.

Mayor

There is a good Column in the LA Times -

Then there's a sour-grapes lawsuit to sort through, filed by a business attorney who wants Frye's candidacy thrown out, followed by a runoff between the other two candidates.

Meanwhile, the city is abuzz. I visited a beach at dusk, and the first three surfers out of the water were Frye backers who hang on the daily vote updates.

"San Diego has been run by developers and the building industry for so many years," said surfer Suzanne Michael, a University of San Diego professor of environmental law.

Michael said that when the power brokers meet behind closed doors, she can always count on Frye to bang the door down on behalf of the environment and the little guy.

Hooray for What's-His-Name

From the Washington Post -

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) may well have been the first one out of the box Wednesday with a news release to "applaud President Bush for nominating White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez as attorney general." Frist will doubtless learn later how to spell the name. It's Gonzales.

The Governor

From the Washington Post -

" California's Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is trying to keep his state's military installations out of the Pentagon's sights during next year's round of base closures.

Schwarzenegger this week appointed an 18-member council to advise state and local communities as well as coordinate with the California congressional delegation on base closing and retention issues. And in case the recommended strategies don't work, the council will also recommend ways of mitigating the adverse effects of closing or downsizing bases. "

More Elections...

Don't forget about the San Diego City Council District 4 special election. Below is a section of an article in the Union Tribune. By the way the article is terrible if you want to get any sense of who is running, and who is likely to win. But I hear Dwayne Crenshaw is favored.

From the Union Tribune -

Bill Farrar, president of the San Diego Police Officer's Association, said most of the ideas Young presented to the group's board seemed to be carried over from Lewis' term. For the second time, the association endorsed Dwayne Crenshaw, who was narrowly defeated by Lewis in November 2002. This time, Williams also sought the endorsement.

Crenshaw said "the voters are going to have to sort out who did what" in previous 4th District administrations.

"I'm running on my record," said Crenshaw, a 34-year-old former community development director in the district. "I think all the other candidates should run on their own record."

More fun in the Mayor Race

From the Union Tribune -

San Diego's mayoral race is headed to the courts, where a lawsuit filed yesterday contends that the write-in candidacy of Councilwoman Donna Frye – who appears to hold a slender lead – violated the City Charter.

The lawsuit, filed by attorney John Howard, seeks an injunction halting the vote count by the county registrar of voters, a finding that the Nov. 2 ballot with a space for a mayoral write-in was "improper and unlawful," and a runoff election pitting Mayor Dick Murphy against challenger Ron Roberts.

Hours before the lawsuit was filed, Frye held a midday news conference outside City Hall to denounce anticipated litigation as "sour grapes."

Strong Mayor

How funny is that the craziest (in a good way) city council member is positioned to be the new 'strong' Mayor? The Mayor is going from being just one of the city council members to having veto power over it. In a way the business community was trying to marginalize the voices like Donna Frye's on the city council, with a strong Mayor that support their agenda and way they end up doing is giving her the biggest say around. Of course the counting isn’t done, so they may still get their way.

from the Union Tribune -

"With Tuesday's passage of Proposition F, the mayor will become the city's chief executive in January 2006. The mayor will get the city manager's budget and personnel powers and be removed from the nine-member City Council, which will meet with eight members. The council will get its own budget analyst and the ability to override mayoral vetoes with five votes.

Murphy worked out the details in private this spring, with advisers, academics and business leaders pushing to shift power from an unelected city manager. Similar plans had failed since 1973.
"

Results

Here is the County results...

There is still counting for the Major. Here is the hand count

Early Voting

From the Union Tribune -

"Nearly 20,000 people, including 6,000 this weekend, have cast their ballots early. Officials said that's a 75 percent increase from 2000. ...

A record turnout is expected this year. More than 1.5 million people are registered to vote in the county, about 100,000 more than the record set before the 2000 presidential election.

So far, 19,676 county residents have cast ballots since early voting began Oct. 4, Registrar of Voters Sally McPherson said.

As it did four years ago, the registrar's office opened during the weekend before the election.

About 2,700 people voted Saturday and 3,300 voted yesterday. Most people got in and out within a half-hour, although some waited for nearly an hour.
"