How I'm Voting

County Measure:
Measure R: YES!
This sales tax increase will fund a wide variety of desperately-needed transportation projects in the County. We're way behind on infrastructure and this will help us get back up to speed. Metro has a whole bunch of info on R here; it funds a lot of mass transit as well as things like grade separations, signal synchronization, etc.A lot of the opposition to this seems to be picayune crap by politicians whining that their part of the county is getting slighted. Well, guess what? This is a regional planning measure, and in regional planning, some areas are going to be favored over others based on need and effectiveness. The Westside is getting a lot of this money because lots of people live there, lots of people work there, and there's currently no rail there and horrible traffic.

Measure R needs a 2/3 majority to pass, so be sure to vote YES on R!

President and Vice President: Barack Obama and Joe Biden, Democrats

U.S. Representative, 32nd District: Hilda Solis, Democrat
State Assembly, 49th District: Mike Eng, Democrat
A classmate of mine in grad school said that Eng "sounds like a Baptist preacher" when he speaks.

Judges of the Superior Court:
Office #72: Hilleri Grossman Merritt
Office #82: Thomas Rubinson
Office #84: Lori-Ann C. Jones
Office #94: Michael O'Gara
Office #154: Michael V. Jesic
On the judges I'm going off of the evaluations from the Metropolitan News-Enterprise, a legal paper in L.A. Also, I believe I spoke with Mike O'Gara on the phone this week at work, unless the Mike O'Gara who's the president of the Sun Valley Area Neighborhood Council is a different person. He seemed reasonable.

State Propositions:
1A: YES (High-speed rail. This bond measure would be a great infrastructure investment.)
2: UNDECIDED, PROBABLY NO (Makes chicken cages bigger. Would be a nice thing to do, but would result in a lot of eggs and chicken meat being trucked in from Arkansas instead. I spoke with an agricultural grad student about this, and she said that she didn't have a strong opinion pro or con on this, but she did note that this would probably result in more chickens living on the ground, where they're more susceptible to infections and parasites, and thus use twice as many antibiotics. The basic premise of treating the animals we eat better is sound, but I'd rather see less-drastic improvements or a consistent rating system, maybe at a national level.)
3: NO (Bond for children's hospitals. Sends public money into private hands; there's still money left over from a previous bond measure for the same thing; has annoying ads with kids singing "Imagine" to evoke pathos.)
4: YES (Family notification for teen abortion. This would probably prevent some abortions.)
5: YES (Rehab for nonviolent drug offenders.)
6: NO (More money for cops... how about more oversight for cops instead?)
7: NO (Poorly-written clean energy bill, would be counter-productive. Environmental groups and even the Green Party oppose this.)
8: NO (Eliminates right of gay couples to marry. Discrimination should not be written into the state constitution.)
9: NO ("Victims' rights" law; makes the law about vengeance rather than justice, rehabilitation, and the protection of society as a whole.)
10: NO (Another poorly-written alternative energy bill; basically just gives a big wad of cash to T. Boone Pickens; long-term bond for a short-term benefit; opposed by environmental groups.)
11. YES (Takes redistricting for state legislators out of their own hands. Won't affect our representation in Congress.)
12. YES (Low-interest loans for veterans. Pays for itself, is a nice thing to do.)

L.A. Community College District Measure:
Proposition J: YES (Bond for classroom building; L.A. Times says it's well-written and the Community College District is good.)

San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District
Board of Directors, Division 3: John C. Reichenberger (Reichenberger is an experienced civil engineer and professor; his opponent is just an administrator.)

So there you go.