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The Starting Line – Foreclosure Notification Ordinance Passes City Council on Party Line Vote.

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After more than a year of organizing and agitating, including protests at local bank branches, activists have succeeded in winning City Council approval of an ordinance requiring registration of foreclosed homes in San Diego.

A coalition including the Center on Policy Initiatives, ACCE, the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, the Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, AFSCME and many others fighting bank foreclosure blight in San Diego neighborhoods was on hand last night as the City Council voted 5-3, splitting along party lines with Republicans opposed, to enact the Property Value Protection ordinance.

Walmart Walkouts Redux, Education ‘Reformers’ Lose Elections, Bigotry on Parade

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The Starting Line – Hundreds of Thousands Sign Up to Dump the Trump

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An online appeal aimed at getting Macy’s Department stores to fire Donald Trump as an advertising spokesman is expected to pass the half million signature mark today.  Citing the celebrity millionaire’s ‘unpleasant, nasty and despicable behavior’, the signon.org petition statement says:

Macy’s: Donald Trump does not reflect the “magic of Macy’s.” We urge you to sever ties with him. Macy’s says it has a strong obligation to be “socially responsible” and that “actions speak louder than words.” Indeed. It’s time to act.
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The Starting Line – Elections Have Consequences; Gov. Brown Says Prop 30 Vote Has National Implications

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Gov. Jerry Brown took to the airwaves Sunday, telling CNN’s Candy Crowley that voter passage of tax increases on the wealthy included in California’s Proposition 30 were indicative of a coming nationwide shift in voter attitudes, just as passage of Proposition 13 signaled a tax revolt thirty five years ago. “I was here in 1978, when Howard Jarvis beat the entire establishment, Republican and Democrat, because the property taxes had just gotten out of control. Now the cutting, the cutting and the deficits are out of control.”, said Brown.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line—Missing at the California Ballot Box: Older, White Voters

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While there are disputes over the level of voter participation in this past Tuesday’s election, one thing is certain, according to exit polls and numbers released by the California Secretary of State: Non-Hispanic white voter participation is showing a rapid decline, falling from 63% of the state’s electorate in 2008 to 55% this year.

Estimates of voter turnout have ranged widely, with some sources claiming an 80%+ turnout, a Field poll estimate claiming  0% participation and other data showing turnout more in the 55% range.  The actual numbers won’t be available for another month, as counties will be processing mail-in ballots and attempting to verify provisional voters.  Turnout in the 2008 election was 77.5%.

Inside:  Mayoral Election Fallout- Day Two, UT-SD Tries to CYA on Bogus Polling,  Why the GOP Hates Education…

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The Starting Line – Progressives in San Diego Won. So Now What?

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Okay, I know. Everybody’s sick of the politics already. The TV ads, the drama, the hyperbole. Ugh. But sooner or later that itch will come back and need to be scratched. And I feel the need to get up on my soapbox today.

I have been involved in/watching/hating politics ever since becoming a “Clean for Gene (McCarthy)” volunteer way back in the days (1968) before MTV and Comic-Con. And mostly I’ve been disappointed. This year’s election was different. “We” came close to running the table. The future, politically speaking, could very well be a progressive one.

But it ain’t over ‘till it’s over. This year’s elections were a shift in a good direction. History shows us that the reactionaries – those who would roll back the wheels of progress – are going to respond with fury and ferociousness. So I’m making my pitch today. Take a break, catch a deep breath and get ready to work even harder.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line –A Very Good Night for Progressives in San Diego and California (With Election Results!)

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Although there remain over 400,000 provisional ballots to be counted in San Diego County, it would appear that most politically progressive candidates and causes were triumphant on Election Day. A huge Get Out the Vote effort on the Democratic side of the equation appears to have yielded victories in just about every race where the changing demographics of the region made a win possible.

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The Party’s Over – Four More Years

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Nate Silver correctly called 50 out of 50 states http://bit.ly/TJIjSE Democrats have a super-majority in Sacramento. Bob Filner will be Mayor. Proposition 30 won, Prop 32 lost.

Election Day 2012 – Progressive Election News and Views from a San Diego Point of View (w/ Regular Updates)

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DeMaio Floods Colleges with Anti-Filner Flyer We’ve received a copy of the flyers that were distributed on college campuses throughout San Diego today by young people hoping to dissuade young voters from casting their ballots for Bob Filner by saying that he was proposing to shut down bars.  One source told me that students were seen carrying armfuls of […]

The Starting Line –It Ain’t Over ‘Till It’s Over – Make Sure Every San Diegan Gets the Opportunity to Vote

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Contrary to what you might think from reports in the media, no candidate or issue has ever been decided by a poll, a pollster, a TV ad or even a Super Pac.

While races for the top jobs grab the most headlines, there are dozens of other choices to be made, all of which will have an impact on virtually every part of our lives.

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Debunking the Opposition to Proposition Z, San Diego Schools’ Opportunity to Keep Moving into the 21st Century

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San Diego voters are being asked to authorize $2.8 million in bonds for school repair and construction in this fall’s election via Proposition Z.  This initiative should be a straight up or down deal; whether or not to raise property taxes to support this vital part of our infrastructure.

Instead, a coterie of right wing groups with a barely disguised extremist agenda have turned the discussion on Proposition Z into a battlefield, mined with half-truths, pock marked by a barrage of lies and overrun by waves of tea party types convinced that they are stopping an assault on common sense itself.

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The Starting Line—Will It Ever End? Election Night Could Turn Into Election Week

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The Associated Press is up with a story this morning warning that vote tallies next Tuesday could turn into multi-day events.  Pointing out that the number of California voters casting mail-in ballots this year is expected to surpass 2008, with several statewide contests polling at dead even, the story says final results could take days to tabulate.

Voting officials have distributed 8.9 million mail-in ballots this election cycle, about 20 percent more than were requested in 2008, when about 42% of the 13.7 million ballots cast in the presidential election were sent by mail.  In the 2000 election, only 25% of the electorate voted by mail.

The bottleneck in the counting process is attributed to the number of ballots that are being dropped off on Election Day.  California Secretary of State Debra Bowen is quoted as saying dropped off ballots don’t even start to be processed until 8 p.m.  In 2008, 3.2 million ballots– a quarter of the total vote count– didn’t make the tally on election night.

Inside…Glen Beck at UT-San Diego, Gloria vs. DeMaio, and more…

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The Educated Voter – San Diego School Board Races

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This is Part One of series on ballot choices in San Diego that relate to our schools.

There’s been a war going on over San Diego Unified’s Board of trustees for a long time now, and this year’s races for school board are just the latest skirmish.

There are two contests for seats on the San Diego Unified School Board and they’re both important.  Politicians (of all stripes) are prone to saying “it’s about the children” whenever they talk about education, but the fact is there are many other issues at play. Candidates for our local top spot all have preened before the cameras touting their education platforms, when the reality is that the School District is financially and politically independent of the City Government.

The Mayor and the City Council can’t actually do squat about what’s going on with schools.  Change, when and if it comes to local schools, is through the Board of Trustees, popularly known as the school board.   [Read more…]

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