Yesterday I shipped off this year’s mail-in ballot. What a HUGE passel of things and people to vote on…most of them people and things no one ever heard of. Several extreme propositions appeared on the ballot, among them one that would take away firefighters’ and police officers’ defined pension plan and one that, if passed, will raise our property taxes into the stratosphere.
This fall we revisited the mystification that is the Superior Court judge vote.
In Arizona, big-city Superior Court judges are appointed through a merit system. However, every couple of years the citizenry has to vote on whether to retain those who are on the bench. This, of course, is completely wacky: unless you’re a lawyer, a Superior Court judge yourself, or an employee of the Superior Court, you have no way of knowing which of these folks is competent and which not.
The voter pamphlet contains exactly nothing about the judges: who they are, how long they’ve been on the bench, what their background is, what they claim to stand for…what??????? As I sat there staring at the page-long list of names, I finally recalled that there’s a judicial review system in Arizona. Googled that up and found that of the several dozen sitting judges, not one, not two, but three of them have failing scores. As in “does not meet basic qualifications.”
Wow!
Most people, I think, would either vote for all the candidates or not vote at all, thereby insuring that three incompetent judges would stay in place for at least another two years. Who would know you could look these folks up online and find their rankings on one page? There’s no clue in the voter pamphlet.
The mail-in ballot is such a convenience! In addition to giving you weeks in which to mull over your vote, you get to fill it out while sitting in the comfort and privacy of your dining-room table — with your computer in front of you as you look up the candidates and issues. The only nuisance is having to physically drive the ballot to a post office, since one wouldn’t dare leave it out for the postal carrier to pick up from one’s own mailbox. Too much theft.
I got on the mail-in ballot list some years ago — once you’re on, you’re on, and they keep sending the things forever — after they moved our district’s polling station from a centrally located church to a very shaky gangland neighborhood in the war zone to the north of us. That year, I went to track the place down and found myself driving into one of those areas where you reflexively check to be sure your car doors are locked. The polling station stood about eight or ten blocks down the street from an apartment building where two small children playing on the sidewalk were shot by gang-bangers firing at each other. It’s smack in the middle of a meth gang’s territory, a place where I wouldn’t get out of the car on a bet, much less stand in line out in the open.
So, after laying my life on the proverbial line to vote that year, I arranged to have mail-in ballots sent to me. The result is that I vote in a lot more elections than I would have — all of them, including various small referendums that wouldn’t be enough to get me out of the house.
I expect that benefit will soon be taken away from us, though. A certain major political party is working hard to disenfranchise voters who are not in its demographic. Mail-in ballots benefit the unfriendly ilk of students (such as my neighbor’s son, the honors engineering major who come November lives on the ASU campus), minimum-wage workers who will have their pay docked or be fired if they show up at work saying they had to stand in line at the polling place for an hour (not unheard-of here), disabled people who depend on federal and state benefits that said Party would like to eliminate, and snowbirds who claim Arizona as their primary residence but who come from and spend the summers in “blue” states and so might be inclined to vote in undesirable ways.
They gerrymandered our local district to break up a block of affluent, educated voters who incline to favor moderate candidates and to oppose the extremist agenda so often manifested in the wacko propositions that appear in almost every referendum. Another strategy has been to disqualify thousands of mail-in ballots for negligible reasons — so one has no idea whether one’s mail-in vote is counted at all.
Not that Arizona has enough “liberals” (read “former Goldwater Republicans who now look middle-of-the-road”) to make much difference…but the ruling party has unequivocally shown it wants to make sure we have no voice at all. They’re very good at that.
Where federal and some state candidates are concerned, I felt frustrated to find myself voting the party line, something I have never done in the past and do now only because one of the parties is infested with bizarre extremists. I used to pride myself on studying each candidate and voting on the individual’s merits, not on her or his political party. But today I fear that even a man or woman of good will who manages to get on the ballot as a member of that party will be pressured to conform to the extremists’ demands for “ideological purity,” so that it really doesn’t matter who’s running — any vote for a member of that party is, alas, a vote against common sense and for obstructionism, mean-mindedness, economic inequity, and duplicity.
I don’t like it. Matter of fact, I hate it. When a vote for a potentially good leader amounts to a vote for something you can’t support, and a vote for a potentially mediocre leader amounts to to a vote against something you can’t support, what we have is a dangerously distorted political system that no longer functions to drive what we as Americans imagine our country stands for.
What you said, Funny. I’d love to vote for a Republican once in a while but the whole party is just so out of touch with reality. I’ve disliked the GOP ever since they began pandering to the extreme religious right and the Tea Party.
My 81-year-old dad, who was a lifelong Repub until Bill Clinton came along, would vote for him again if he could. Since that can’t happen, he’d love to be able to vote for Hilary. Maybe he’ll get his wish.
IMHO some Republican candidates are reasonable men and women. But their actions are so circumscribed by the crazies who’ve taken over their party, they cannot be trusted to behave reasonably when the crazies threaten to rusticate them.
It’s hard for me to believe Hilary Clinton could possibly win. Too many moderates and too many hard-line right-wingers hate her too passionately. And the fact that Americans tend to believe whatever is said often enough, whether it’s true or not, guarantees that she will be the target of unrelenting disinformation campaigns. (Yes. I know it’s rude to use the word “lies.” Aren’t I polite?)
My mom ( 1907-2000) confessed that she never voted in her life.
“It just encourages them”, she said.
What she meant that who ever get elected is just another lying bastard that got there with some help from his friends.
I think I would’ve liked your mom.
My dad, a union guy voted for every Democrat, even if they were in jail.
Probably the best place for a politician….
I became a registered voter when DW declared she was voting for Jimmy Carter for a second term. I registered to vote so as to “cancel” her vote by voting for Roanald Reagan. So I guess I’m a Reagan Republican by default. I for one, think that Reagan himself wouldn’t recognize the political landscape. I too have experienced the “carving up” of districts to limit the influence of certain “conservative thinking folks”. As for Hilary as President….not a fan. My question is what qualifies her to be President ? Has she ever governed….a state…a county…a city….a PTA…? Her appointment to Secretary of State was nothing more than political pay back and IMHO she was a joke. Just try to compare her to Henry Kissinger. Add to this “Whitewater”… her “standing by her man” with Bill’s affairs and it makes me just shake my head. Please answer for me how one moves from Arkansas to New York and even though had never lived there before or had any ties to the area, establishes residence and becomes a Senator in months. Can you say “carpetbagger”….
Ha ha! And she didn’t try to cancel you with the frying pan? I used to do that with SDXB: whoever he’d vote for, I’d vote for the other guy (or gal). Take that, you!!!
Seriously, even Reagan would probably be astonished at the unproductive, destructive nonsense that’s going on. In a landscape where Barry Goldwater would appear moderate…what can one say?
Well…I know exactly what Barry said. The first wave of crazies was coming on the scene toward the end of his life. After he had retired from office, he did share his opinion of the early tea-baggers…it wasn’t printable.
Oh, God! Hilary for President! Let’s hope the Democrats manage to transcend that moment of magical thinking.
Speaking of Kissinger and what the Old Guard thinks of the present state of affairs, I understand Kissinger has a new book out that will raise the hair right off your head.
Oh, yeah, and on the Arkansas to New York maneuver: John McCain did the same thing. He moved down the street from us in 1981 specifically because an opportunity to run for national office opened up here. When accused of carpetbagging, he played the war hero card, which shut down most criticism…but the fact was, he knew nothing about Arizona and came here specifically so that he could engage a political career.
He turned out to be more of his own man than any of the current flock of ideologically correct sheep, though.
On Bill’s affairs: that’s a social class thing. Powerful men attract chickadees like flies, because power (like money) is an aphrodisiac. If you want to stay married to such a man, you simply ignore his peccadillos. The rich really ARE different from us.
Thank you for the info on McCain….I had no idea. I always thought he and his wife had “deep”ties to the area and in fact I thought his wife’s family owns or owned the largest beer distributor in Arizona. I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure. His story is incredible BUT I have never voted for him nor will I. As crazy as it sounds I tend to vote for the candidate rather than the Party. An example, our out going Governor, Martin O’Malley…a Democrat….I voted for … twice. IMHO he’s a good guy who tries to do the right thing and was at the helm as we “muddled thru” the Great Recession and made tough decisions. My thoughts are he would be an excellent choice for President. Unfortunately his Lt. Governor is running for Governor and IMHO lacks the skill set, charisma and work ethic Mr. O’Malley has….so he won’t be getting my vote but rather Mr. Hogan, a Republican, with a plan, will be. I think a lot of folks make their decisions this way now a days….
She does. He met and married Cindy after he moved here.
I knew her brother briefly. He was a little too jocky for my taste; I a little too counter-cultural for his. We went our separate ways, I not yet having learned which side my butter was breaded on.
Yup. That’s my preferred way of making vote decisions, too; Hope your guy has the cojones to resist the pressure to hew to the GOTP line.
I hope if elected he can remain “his own man”. BUT who knows. The last Republican we had as Governor was a disappoinment to me. He played the …”it’s not a tax…it’s a fee” game. This game was employed to keep intact his campaign promise of no tax increases. My auto registration went from about $30-40 a year per car to $80-100…over a 100% increase from where I sit. BUT this was “sold” as a fee not a tax increase for we all know driving is a privlege and ya don’t have to drive or own a car. Sure you could walk or ride a bike…If I could just figure out how to carry a ladder on a bike….
He’s getting to be pretty old…true, Carl Hayden set a precedent for parking in Congress until he dried up and blew away…but that may not be so much longer, where McCain is concerned.
Our car registration fees (I call them taxes, too, and claim them as such on my income tax forms) have always been exorbitant. They drop as your car ages — wuz thrilled when mine dropped to $48 on a 14-year-old junker.
Figuring what your cost would be on a new vehicle is complicated, but from what I can tell, if you bought brand-new car for, say, $35,000, in Arizona you would pay $588 for license taxes alone. Add to that another $30 for “registration and titling fees,” and it’s over $600! And of course that doesn’t count the cost of the (legally required) insurance.
This amount drops by 16.25% at every registration renewal, creating the perverse incentive to keep aging, fuel-inefficient, polluting vehicles on the road.
It’s the stupidest thing: one would think it would make sense to raise the tax rates on aging cars by way of encouraging people to get rid of the junkers. Ohhh well.
In fairness, though, few of us realize how STAGGERINGLY expensive it is to build and maintain roads. I once served on the City of Phoenix’s citizens committee on roads and was stunned to learn what our roads and highways cost.
In a rural area, building a new undivided two-lane road costs $2 million to $3 million PER MILE. In a city, jack up that amount to $3 million to $5 million. To build a four-lane highway: $4 million to $6 million a mile in rural areas and suburbs; $8 million to $10 million per mile in the city.
Once the thing is laid down, maintaining it is amazingly expensive, too: resurfacing a four-lane street will set the taxpayer back $1.25 million per mile.
In Arizona at least, auto registration taxes go toward building and maintaining roads and highways, as does a portion of the taxes on gasoline.
Then we have the costs of cleaning up after the car wrecks that kill around 30,000 people a year and injure something over 2 million a year. The NHTA says vehicle crashes cost Americans over $230 billion a year in medical bills, lost wages, legal bills, car repair, and delays: more than 2 percent of GDP. The average cost per household, then, is about $2,000 a year. Public revenues pay for about 10 percent of the cost of highway accidents, adding about $200 a year to every American household’s tax bill.
If we want roads to drive our cars on, we do need to find a way to pay for them. Makes some sense to have vehicle owners chip in the lion’s share…although it must be said we all benefit from local, state, and national highways. Unless Safeway and Kroger’s would helicopter in their merchandise, it’s hard to see how we could live in cities at all without the presence of a robust and well maintained road system.
Heh…. Imagine the cost of a head of lettuce delivered to your grocer by helicopter! 😀
http://www.artba.org/about/transportation-faqs/