[conspire] Ballot Analysis and the 7/8 Clause

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Paul Zander (paulz at ieee.org):

> I had not seen the 7/8 extra super majority clause.  That is enough to
> raise the hair on the back of my neck.

Quite.  And here, I must give public kudos to the SF Chronicle editorial
writers.  Whoever that was, he/she/they wrote with integrity and
diligence, calling out the 7/8 clause as a serious flaw even while
encouraging Chronicle readers to vote for Prop. 22 anyway.

That's impressive.  I noticed, and I admire it.

I notice, by contrast, that the [Santa Rosa] Press Democrat editorial,
which _also_ urged Yes on 22, said exactly zero about the 7/8 clause.

I just took a moment to cross-check the _other_ Yes on 22 editorials, to
see if they covered the 7/8 clause:

o  San Diego Union-Tribune:  said nothing
o  Palo Alto Daily Post:  said nothing

In my opinion, that omission (for them and the Press Democrat) is
damning.  It means the editorial writer either didn't notice this
affront to the public (probable) or saw fit not to mention it (less
likely, and a cynical guess).  I'm disappointed in Palo Alto Daily Post,
Editor Dave Price is generally top-notch, but this one got past him.

I mentioned that I tend to put a lot of stock in Pete Stahl's analysis
(at peterates.com).  He urged No on 22, _but_ didn't mention the 7/8 
clause.  Maybe Pete read just enough about 22 to urge no, and then
stopped.  That's basically what I did, after all.  I had no idea there
was a _more_ damning reason to vote 'no' other than my 'Uber et alii are
scofflaws' one, until I read SF Chronicle's 'yes on 22' editorial.

So, hey, another entry for the 2020 Is Weird bingo card:  Today's the
day I'm grateful to the San Francisco Chronicle for its competence,
diligence, and integrity.  Who knew?

Anyway, this furnishes yet another reason why a 'vote like Rick
cheatsheet' makes absolutely no sense.  I miss things -- partly because
sometimes I read just enough to decide why *I* would vote no, and then
stop.  It's not in-scope for my 'RM partisan analysis' sections to list
_all_ the reasons one might wish to vote yea or nay.  I collect and 
link to as much informed opinion as possible in the hopes that _among_
all of those, there is wisdom to be found -- and that _someone_ called
out the important things.

As the SF Chronicle editorial writers did, this time.



> BTW, some of the mailers for local offices are bogus. 

Always!  I probably ought to make it be an addition to Moen's Laws on my
lexicon page (http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/lexicon.html), that as you get
closer to an election, the bushwah quotient rises asymptotically.  

For example, a local race I've been following closely is that of the 
Menlo Park Fire Protection District
(http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/election-2020-11-03.html#menlofire).  There
are two seats to fill, and four candidates -- the two incumbents plus
two late big-money challengers.

The challengers are Peter F. Carpenter, semi-retired longtime corporate
flack, and his Sithlord padawan, Eigenvector Capital founder Sean
Ballard.  Carpenter and Ballard have spent like _crazy_, and this
included a comically deceptive glossy mailer burbling about how much
Carpenter and Ballard and the favourites of our professional
firefighters, and are necessary to protect them.

Which is a foetid load of dingo's kidneys, because the local
firefighters went out of their way to endorse the _other_ two
candidates.

As I mentioned in my analysis, when I engaged politely with Carpenter
and Ballard in the online reader feedback forum at local paper The
Almanac, Carpenter bullshitted me and then spoke dismissively to me
(even though I'm a constituent and homeowner whose vote he's seeking),
and Ballard ducked _twice_ my gentle question about a pretty obvious
detail in which he'd padded his resume with _The Almanac's_ reporter
who'd profiled him.