Now that postal carriers have risked getting a hernia delivering the 220-page California General Election Official Voter Information Guide, perhaps you might want to contemplate the world you might wake up to on Wednesday, Nov. 9.
The first thing you might want to do is take a nice, long 1-minute shower. That’s because if Proposition 53 passes, Sacramento will be able to bankroll the Twin Tunnels without getting voter approval. Couple that with the state’s current effort to trade 240,000 acres of food crops each year for 1,000 more fish and you will soon find water as precious as it was back in the early 1900s in Death Valley in the midst of a speculative mining boom when water was selling for $50 a barrel.
You might also have more transparency in the workings of the California Legislature as if it will make a difference. Proposition 54 prohibits the legislature from passing any bill unless it is published on the Internet 72 hours before a vote is taken.
So how can this be a bad thing? The opponents contend voting for it will allow special interests like tobacco, oil, and drug companies to delay passage of state laws. Really, as if the legislature isn’t already partially — if not all the way — in the pockets of special interests. If you are having reservations about a “yes” vote, because of arguments made by the opponents— namely Steve Maviglio of Californians for an Effective Legislature — don’t. Maviglio is a hired gun who also happens to be part of the firm hired to defeat the ballot effort to overturn a statewide ban on the use of single-use plastic bags by stores unless customers pay for them. Perhaps a more appropriate ballot measure would be requiring the people at 1005 12th St. Suite A. Sacramento, Ca. 95814 to publish on the Internet their daily efforts to sweet talk the legislature on behalf of special interests they represent.
Speaking of single use plastic bags, the massive wad of flimsy plastic bags in your drawers that are difficult to do much of anything with save for perhaps a single pick up of dog droppings will stop growing after the election with a yes vote on Proposition 67 unless you want to depart with a dime for each one you ask a store for.
Whatever you do with the plastic bags, don’t send them to San Quentin in the event Proposition 62 passes given the warning on many bags that state “improper use can possibly lead to death.” We wouldn’t want the 700 plus convicted mass murderers, rapist-murders, torturer-murderers, and child killers that just got a new lease on life to have to worry about dying, would we?
Perhaps voters will have embraced Proposition 66 that essentially reduces superfluous maneuvers to postpone the execution date of 700 plus convicted mass murders, rapist-murders, torture-murders, and child killers. That would bring great comfort to death penalty foes who argue it is cruel and unusual punishment to make those convicted to die to wait forever beyond their execution dates thanks to non-stop filing of appeal after appeal.
You may want to call your broker and buy stock in gun and ammo manufacturers should Proposition 63 pass. In case the anti-gun forces haven’t noticed every time another chip flies off the footing of the Second Amendment even if it doesn’t compromise gun ownership for law abiding citizens, gun stores enjoy Black Friday style shopping frenzies. If the anti-gun folks succed in eventually wearing down the Second Amendment the general public by that time will be more heavily armed than the Marines.
Then there is the horror of horrors. Porn stars will have to wear condoms while filming should Proposition 60 pass. The real obscene part about this is it will — according to an impartial analysis by state officials — require spending more than $1 million a year to enforce the ban. This, of course, will cost more than new fees that the state will collect. And try not to act surprised if your 16-year-old son on Nov. 9 announces that he intends to apply for a civil service job as one of the porn filming cops the state will have to hire to enforce the new law.
If you happen to be sick on the morning after Nov. 8 — physically and not mentally from the new low of presidential campaigns — you’d better pray that Proposition 61 doesn’t pass.
To be honest, I’m not sure what to expect on this one. But if you think it sounds too good to be true I have one word for you — “Obamacare.”
As for whether it will be legal for anyone 21 and over to be stoned using marijuana in California when the bad trip known as the 2016 Presidential Election is finally over you need to ask yourself one question: Would you like your Uber driver to be totally alert given they are “contract workers” and don’t have to adhere to traditional workplace laws or relaxed on marijuana?
 But then again does it matter because the Democrats and Republicans are just going to keep partying on.