Round 2 - “The 200 Series”
These are all voter initiated, and there is some confusion, especially on the smoking stuff, so pay attention. Once again, I really urge you to Read the text yourself.
Brian Samson’s Voting Recomendations
Prop 200: Yes
Prop 201: Yes
Prop 202: Yes
Prop 203: Yes
Prop 204: Yes
Prop 205: No
Prop 206: No
Prop 207: Yes
Prop 200 - $1,000,000 Vote
Proposed by initiative petition relating to voter rewards
My Summary: Turn voting into a lottery - with a $1,000,000 prize!
My Stance: Vote Yes. Why not? I really don’t think this is going to “devalue” the vote, and everyone cares about the issues, even if they dont admit it. Plus as an avid voter I could use a million bucks.
Prop 201 - Smoking Ban
Proposed by initiative petition relating to smoking
My Summary: Ban smoking in Arizona, pretty much everywhere. Still allowed outside and in tobacco shops and smoking rooms in hotels.
My Stance: Vote Yes. This evens the playing field for Tempe vs Scottsdale, and my clothes still won’t smell like smoke when I get home from the bar. Plus in Arizona it’s never to cold to go outisde for a smoke.
Prop 202 - Raise minimum wage to $6.75
Proposed by initiative petition relating to the minimum wage
My Summary: That’s it: Minimum wage in AZ goes up more than a buck fifty in 2007.
My Stance: Vote Yes. $5.15 is such a ridiculously low amount of money that noone should have to suffer it. That’s barely even $10,000 a year working full time. Most families pay more than that in federal income tax. This will also continue to give cost of living increases every year, which is more than most employers are willing to do, even when they raise their prices to consumers. Minimum wage hasn’t gone up in a decade and it doesn’t look like the feds care, so we have to.
Prop 203 - Early Child development Programs
Proposed by initiative petition relating to early childhood education
My Summary: Up taxes on cigarettes by $0.80 per pack to raise over $100 million dollars for programs for early childhood (< 5years old) development programs.
My Stance: Vote Yes. Cigarettes are already expensive and I don’t really care. On the other hand I worry daily about the future of America. Young kids are consistently ignored, espeically in poor familys, and I think an extra 4 cents for every cigarette I smoke is a small price to pay to give our kids an edge.
Prop 204 - The Hogwash signs
Proposed by initiative petition relating to farm animals
My Summary: Increase the cage size for pregnant pigs so that they have room enough to turn in a circle.
My Stance: Vote Yes.Everyone has seen those PROP 204 - HOGWASH signs all over the place. It’s funny that they don’t tell you anything about what the proposition does, because if you knew, you’d probably vote Yes. MY mother owns a pig farm in South Dakota, and you should see how happy those pigs are. I cannot image how bad it must be for a pregnant pig to have to stand, motionless, for months waiting to crap out the new litter. It seems obscene to me that any pig not have enough room to TURN IN A CIRCLE, but it is absoltely inhumane to subject pregnant mothers to that treatment. The only ones opposed to this are the giants who know it will cost them a pretty penny to build the new cages. It won’t affect small farms at all because they already comply.
Prop 205 - Mail-in Voting
Proposed by initiative petition relating to voting by mail
My Summary: Make all voting in all local elections by mail-in ballot only.
My Stance: Vote No. If you want to mail in your ballot, you can do that right now. Forcing people to vote via mail drastically increases the opportunity for voter fraud. What’s to stop my neighbor from just intercepting my ballot and sending it back in without my knowledge. It seems like a strange proposition, and I don’t really understand the motivation behind it.
Prop 206 - “Arizona Non-Smoker Protection Act.”
Proposed by initiative petition relating to smoking
My Summary: The fake smoking ban that allows smoking in bars and restaurants
My Stance: Vote No. Again, I recommend voting yes on Prop 201 instead. Many arguments for this law say that businesses suffer because smoking isn’t allowed. This is true in the case of the Tempe smoking ban from a few years ago. Bars in Tempe certainly lost business to bars in Scotsdale, where smoking was allowed. One of my favorite pool halls had to close. But 201 won’t cause that, because the ban in state-wide instead of city wide. Prop 206 is a last-ditch effort to allow smoking in bars, which is something that at least in Tempe, we decided we didn’t want.
Prop 207 - Arizona Property Owner Rights
Proposed by initiative petition relating to eminent domain
My Summary: Limits eminent domain and requires fair market price be paid to property owners when it does occur. Also pay property owners depreciation if the city rezones their land to make it worth less.
My Stance: Vote Yes. This seems fair to me. Opponents say it encourages land speculation and will cost taxpayers money if land is rezoned as say, conservation land. That is true, but it seems fair to me and I don’t think the government should be except from reasonable compensation when it forces a private holder to sell his/her land.
That’s it for the 200 series! Please feel free to comment with your ideas or opinions. I’ll try to have the 300’s done by next week. There’s only 3 of them so it should be easy!