This explains why Tom is recommending the votes yes or no on specific issues.
Voting recommendations from Tom McClintock
#73 – YES
#74 – YES
#75 – YES
#76 – YES
#77 – YES
#78 – NO
#79 – NO
#80 – NO
Proposition 73: Parental Notification for Abortion. If parental consent is required for a child to use a tanning booth or get her ears pierced, shouldn’t parents at least be notified if she’s getting an abortion? YES. Whether you’re pro-life or pro-choice, this should be the all-time no-brainer.
Proposition 74: Teacher Tenure. Do parents have a right to expect a higher level of competence before a teacher is granted life-time tenure? YES. This modest measure simply increases the teacher probation period from two years to five years.
Proposition 75: Public Employee Union Dues. Should public employees decide for themselves which candidates they will support with their own money? YES. This measure requires that before a public employee union can take money from that employee for political donations, it has to get the employee’s permission.
Proposition 76: State Spending. Should government live within its means? YES. This measure restores the authority that the governor of California had between 1939 and 1983 to make mid-year spending cuts whenever spending outpaces revenue without having to return to the legislature.
Proposition 77: Re-districting. Should voters choose their representatives in legislative districts that are drawn without regard to partisan advantage? YES. The most obvious conflict of interest in government is when politicians choose which voters will get to vote for them by drawing their own legislative district lines. This measure puts a stop to it.
Propositions 78 and 79: Prescription drug discounts. Do you want the same people who run the DMV to run your pharmacy? NO. These are rival measures, one supported by drug companies and the other by liberal activists – both of which purport to lower drug prices. What they really do is assure that one group of patients gets to pay higher prices to provide subsidized prices for others. There’s no such thing as a free Levitra.
Proposition 80. Electricity Regulation. Do you want the same people who run the DMV to run your electricity company? NO. This measure locks in monopoly control of your electricity by the bureaucratized utilities and forbids you from ever being able to shop around for the lowest-priced electricity available.
These are the targeted explanations aimed squarely at Republican voters. A glance below the surface shows an alternate agenda:
McClintoch, having a small base and little funding needs the CAGOP financial and organizational support to run for statewide office. He has experienced, first hand, the damage the CAGOP can do to their own it they deem the candidate to be a "maverick" or uncooperative.
McClintock's campaign reasoned correctly that even if the CAGOP stood on the sidelines next November his chances for winning were not good and that his candidacy was doomed to repeat of the 13% showing if the CAGOP sabotaged him again.
The consequence was a deal with the devil, or in this case, the CAGOP. McClintock would support the CAGOP mantra during the special election cycle in return for their financial support and cooperation in the upcoming statewide elections. As part of that deal McClintock was given free, statewide exposure by the CAGOP in the guise of support for their "reform" agenda. A good deal for both the CAGOP and the McClintock campaign....
But not for conservatives.
Conservatives now have one of their own publicly implying that Prop 76 will stop the borrowing when in fact it won't, just as was the case with the duplicitous promises made during the Prop 57 campaign by these same folks and even worse, Prop 76 itself authorizes more borrowing. At a minimum, an additional $5B so that the Schwarzenegger administration, with the tacit approval of the CAGOP, can continue to propose increases in state spending at at time when the state desperately needs to cut spending.
Such is politics but truth is often a casualty.