Janitors in West L.A. went out on strike. Autoworkers in Kansas went out on strike. An entire Spanish pro soccer team just went out on strike. California voters should hit the picket lines too.
We vote, again, on June 3. Only two initiatives are on this ballot, but they are way, way beyond our "citizen first class" pay grade.
The vox-pop ballot plebiscites that ask us up-or-down questions about medical marijuana or the death penalty are swell. But when 15 million voters are asked to say yay or nay on complex matters that need months of hearings in the Legislature, or that wind up after the election mired for months in courts, let's just say no.
It's time to strike for better voting conditions, including:
* Ballot measures that don't require rocket science, brain surgery or forensic analysis to figure out.
* Gutsier legislators. Sacramento, stop these voting-booth train wrecks before they get to us. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger understood, after we whacked his initiatives, that voters are saying, "Don't come to us for every little thing ... you guys work it out." Sacramento, you've got the scalpel. All voters have is the blunt- instrument ballot. Don't make us club you again.
* Cartoons in the official voter information guide. (Seriously. A graphic novel telling of the real consequences of our vote would help immensely.)
Why a strike, with only Propositions 98 and 99 on the ballot? Because I'm tired of being played for a sucker on election day. Aren't you?
Proposition 98 sucker-punches us. It tantalizes us with something we like ("limits on government authority"). Then it scares us with words that make us uneasy ("eminent domain"). And then it flatters us that we don't have to be old dudes in buckled shoes to be Founding Voters ("initiative constitutional amendment").
It says 98 is all about limiting eminent domain, yet the proposed law barely whispers what it really wants to do. Its real mission is to end rent control in California forever, starting literally the morning after the election!
Proposition 98 isn't a Trojan horse -- it's a Trojan Rolls-Royce. Hiding in its belly are attack-ready platoons of multimillion-dollar property and landlord interests that are spending thousands to con us into giving them more millions. Because they haven't been able to browbeat lawmakers into repealing rent control laws, they're making an end-run to us voters, hoping we're too easily spooked to see through them. Insulted? It's only an insult if we prove they're wrong.
