| Vol. VIII, No. 5 | Editor: Robert Giedt | June 1998 |
California's voters passed judgement on nine ballot propositions in the June 1998 blanket primary and showed encouraging support for Libertarian candidates in San Mateo County.
Three propositions were approved by at least a 2-to-1 margin: 219 (ballot measures) received 67% of the vote, 221 (judicial officers) received 81%, and 222 (murder of peace officer) received 77%. These votes were unanimous by county, with all 58 of California's counties voting the same way.
Three more propositions were decided by more than a 10% margin: 220 (court consolidation) received 64% of the vote, 224 (state-funded engineering) received 38%, and 227 (English instruction) received 61%. Though these were not unanimous by county, each had fewer than three counties dissenting.
The remaining three propositions were hotly contested: 223 (school spending) received 46% of the vote, 225 (congressional term limits) received 53%, and 226 (union dues and political contributions) received 47%. Proposition 223 pulled a majority in five dissenting counties, scattered throughout the state. Proposition 225 failed in seven dissenting counties, six clustered around San Francisco, plus Los Angeles County. Proposition 226 was defeated by a minority of counties: 24 counties near the coast, including clusters near San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Libertarian candidates were able to break the 10% barrier when one of the two major parties was absent. In two-way races: Lindberg (AD63) took 24% of the vote, Watson (BOE1) took 22%, Acker (CD25) took 21%, Richter (CD19) took 18%, Maira (AD39) took 12%, and Aaroe (CD18) took 11%. Badler (CD52), facing a Republican and other third-party opposition, took 12%. Muhe (CD48) and Ros (CD26) also faced only one major party with other third-party opposition, but they did not break 10%.
Among Libertarians running against both major parties, San Mateo County's Moloney (CD12) posted the highest congressional return, at 6.8%. Ross (AD40) posted the highest state assembly return, also at 6.8%, and San Mateo County's Steve Marsland (AD19) posted the second-highest at 5.2%. San Mateo County's Jack Hickey (AD21), a write-in, received under 1%, but his endorsement by the LP puts him on the November ballot.
Two Libertarian primaries were contested: Rossi defeated Oglesby, 1.7% to 1.3%, for CD1. Meyers defeated Metti, 3.3% to 1.6%, for AD77.
This data was compiled from the California Secretary of State's Web site on the afternoon of June 3, 1998, with all vote totals expressed to two significant digits. 99.7% of precincts had reported, and all pending precincts were in Lake County.
On Sunday, May 24--over the Memorial Day weekend--four candidates attended the first San Mateo County Libertarian Candidates Day.
First to speak was Jon Petersen, candidate for State Treasurer. Jon explained what the Treasurer's office does and outlined his vision for the future--streamlining the office to half the size and making it more efficient. In addition to his candidacy, Jon also serves as Northern Region Vice-Chair for the California State Libertarian Party. He is a senior software engineer from Santa Clara.
Next to speak was Mike Moloney, who energized the audience with a rousing speech about liberty, government waste, and his opponent, the "multinational congressman" Tom Lantos. Mike is running for Congress in the 12th Congressional District. While campaigning, Mike has continued to meet the public and has achieved name recognition throughout the county.
Jack Hickey, our candidate for the 21st Assembly District, talked about his experience in campaigning throughout the years. A long-time Republican who recently turned Libertarian, Jack has been a political activist for more than three decades. In 1965, Jack led a successful referendum campaign against urban renewal in Hawthorne, California where the issue was abuse of eminent domain powers. In 1983, Jack Hickey was a candidate in the crowded Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by S. I. Hayakawa. As recently as 1984, Jack challenged Tom Lantos for his seat in Congress. He received 29% of the vote on a $5,000 budget.
San Mateo County voters may remember Jack from his successful "taxpayer advocate" campaigns in the early 90s, most notably the smashing defeat of Measure A. Jack has also been a long-time supporter of school vouchers as a step toward choice in education.
Steve Marsland closed the meeting by outlining his plan to use his candidacy to build the party and gain momentum for Libertarians. Steve has raised nearly $5,000 to date and is using the funds to build up an infrastructure to benefit all Libertarian candidates. Some of the achievements so far include a consistent look for campaign literature, coordination between candidates on voter lists, upgrading the computer capabilities of the Party, and getting precinct maps county-wide for the party.
The next social get-together is planned at the same location (the Howard Johnson's in San Mateo) for August 23rd. Speaker(s) and the agenda will be announced in a future issue of this newsletter... stay tuned!
The following Letter to the Editor appeared in a recent issue of the Redwood City Tribune under the subhead "Too much government." Read it for yourself: the LP couldn't buy this form of great publicity. Great job, Charles! Ed
Editor:
I'm writing this in response to Anna Eshoo's comments about your campaign finance reform in your edition of Wednesday, April 8, 1988.
The reason our political system is entirely corrupt is that the federal and state governments have usurped the decision-making process that should be the purview of individual citizens.
We don't need our governments to teach us, care for our retirements, nurse us from cradle to grave, tell us where we can farm and what to farm, what to eat or whether to take drugs or not.
Most of the activities in which our governments now partake are not consistent with our Constitution, which was designed to limit government action in order to free the creative forces of sovereign individuals, which are the only sources of wealth and true happiness. It is only because our governments take our wealth and redistribute it in the form of subsidies of various kinds that it is necessary for business and other interest groups to petition the government for favors and bribe our executive, judicial and legislative representatives.
True campaign reform will come only when the government is pared back to the limited functions specified by our Constitution. It is obvious that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have any interest in the concept of liberty that was the reason for making this new nation.
Where does one turn to learn about and participate in the movement to recapture our freedoms and the good life only that can bring? In my searching, it seems only the Libertarian Party has the requisite, sensible and moral foundations for that purpose.
Frederic Bastiat once wrote, "There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: The bad economist confines himself to the visible effects; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen." To illustrate, Bastiat tells the following story: A man's son breaks a window, and the father is livid with his son's irresponsibility. As the crowd gathers to watch this spectacle, invariably some will encourage the father to look on the bright side. "After all," one muses, "this will make business for some glazier."
This analysis is true as far as it goes. The glazier will come, repair the window, be paid for his work, and walk away in his heart secretly blessing the boy. This is what is seen. What is not seen is that the man, having spent money to repair the window, is now unable to spend it on something else. If he had not a window to replace, he would have bought, say, a new pair of pants. Now, instead of a window and pants, he has only a window. The glazier's gain is the tailor's loss; no new employment has been created.
Henry Hazlitt calls the broken-window fallacy--this tendency to focus on a policy's immediate effects and to ignore its long-term consequences--"the most persistent in the history of economics." Take as an example public works projects. What we see is some parking garage, public building, or roadway come into being; what we do not see are all the private projects people would have undertaken if their pay had not been eaten up by the taxation required to fund these such public works.
May's business meeting was a potpourri of previously deferred items.
Chair Steve Marsland updated us on plans for May's "Meet the Candidates" get-together and announced that the LP of California's Chair, Mark Hinkle, may be the special guest at an upcoming social.
We voted unanimously to thank our Community Connnection volunteers for their hard work and dedication promoting recent events: Laura Fabbro, Anna Berryman, Helen Rogers, and Barbara Less. Thank you! Helen produced a special mailing for voters in her city promoting Mike's campaign and our May social.
Charles Rebert wrote an excellent letter to the editor (in which he speaks favorably of the LP) which appeared in the Redwood City Tribune (see the story on the front page of this newsletter).
Steve highlighted some of his campaign activites for us: walking his district, speaking to civic groups, and buying ads in local papers. Bernie has created a great brochure for Steve's campaign.
Bernie, Lacy, and Jack have been wrestling with large voter databases, with a view to various types of outreach.
We voted Lacy our new Membership Chair and elected Bernie, Lacy, and me (Christopher) to the Judicial Committee (6-0-0 in each case).
Dakato tribal wisdom says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategie is to dismount. However, in government, we often try other strategies with dead horses, including the following:
submitted by Lori Adasiewicz
Wednesday, June 17
Prime Time Athletic Club
1730 Rollins Road, Burlingame (between Broadway and Millbrae Avenue)
Informal
chat/dinner: 6:307:30pm in the café
Business meeting: 7:309:00pm in the multipurpose room.
Business
agenda: