Last Day to Register to Vote & Bullet Points

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Today is the last day to register to vote. Personally, I'd like to see same-day registration. After all, we are living in the era of cheap and tiny computers. This is a fundamental fairness issue, legal voters simply should not be turned away. Nonetheless, here's the voter reg SoS page. Other interesting stuff:

•  Frank Russo writes about a S-USA poll in the Rumble in the Bubble (SD-03). (I do some work for Leno.) Leno leads overall 42 -22(Nation)-21(Migden). Besides the fact that Leno is the only candidate with net favorables, a number of note is the breakdown for "liberal" voters. Leno leads that category 47-21(Migden)-17(Nation).
• The Bay Guardian has released the audio of their endorsement interviews at their 2008 spring election center. I'm a big fan of news media outlets releasing such interviews.  Good work SFBG!
• The elected delegates met yesterday in Sacramento. They talked, chose more delegates, and generally had a good time. The media seems to want to make this some sort of bloodbath, but it seems there was more about unity than anything else.
• Another item to be slashed in the next budget: Aid for California's disabled.  Perhaps the legislators will go and help some of these Californians themselves? Maybe set up an oxygen tank here, help in the process of dressing there.  I think Roger Niello and Mike Villines would be excellent at that. After all, they want to cut these funds, so why not provide a bit of their time in leiu of the money that is so desperately needed.  That would help, right?  Ok, not so much.
• Skelton points out the truth: the 2/3 requirement for budgets is "ludicrous." 

Democrat Lockyer, a former state Senate leader and attorney general, traces California's budget woes back to the 1978 passage of Proposition 13 -- the historic property tax cut -- and Sacramento's subsequent decision to bail out revenue-short local governments and schools.

"We've been bailing the sinking ship ever since," he says. "This may be the year when we have to say, 'OK, we're going to make these awful cuts and voters are going to see what the consequences are.' That's kind of a scorched-earth approach, but people somehow think that the budget is going to be balanced by the tooth fairy.

"I don't like it, but there are days when I think that voters need to persuade themselves and reluctant legislators that cuts like these are unacceptable. It's time to do whatever needs to get done to escape this annual torture."

I'd start by placing a measure on the ballot allowing budgets to be passed by a majority vote -- as they are in 47 other states.

But a two-thirds vote is what's ludicrously required today. So the legislators and governor must deal with it.