How I’ll be voting today — Each prop is linked to BuyBlue’s more detailed analyses of the special election props:
73: NOOOOO!!! Say no to backalley abortions for teenaged girls. There are so many reasons to no on this, covered here.
74: No. This tenure law would make it even tougher for LAUSD to hire good teachers, and doesn’t address the actual problem: Our educational system’s underfunded.
75: No. This prop would weaken public employee unions.
76. No. Unless you wanna give the Governator unlimited control over the State budget, vote no.
77: No. Unless you want a Republican majority in the state senate, vote no.
78 vs. 79: No, Yes. I think there’s still a large chunk of the California population that’s still not aware that these two props are an either or deal. 78’s the drug companies’ deal; 79 helps more people.
80: (**Update: I ended up leaving this one blank. See comments.) Yes. This’ll likely support green energy.
**Update, 11/9/05: Yey!
Filed in: vote california prop73
Sadly, prop 80 does just the opposite. It eliminates the ability for you and I to buy green power from third party suppliers, among other things, leaving you locked in to the one electric company, and whatever it offers you, take it or, well, there is no leave it. Just take it. SO: For INCREASED GREEN OPTIONS 80 is a NO
Comment by Roger, Gone Green — November 7, 2005 @ 11:40 pm
It took me a minute to figure out the confusion, but the analysis you have linked to makes a basic error:
Current law requires 20% renewable portfolio for electricity providers. The initative moves it up from 2017 to 2010, but nothing else. The Buy Blue analysis implies that the 20% requirement comes from the intiative, but it does not. (Also, the move-up provision only applies to investor owned utilities, so this does not include LA DWP.)
The bad part of the initiative is that it will remove your current right under California law to select 100% green power by contracting with an outside power company, and puts other severe limits on individual solar (wind etc) installations (which don’t count, anyway, as part of the renewable portfolio).
This year our house will produce between 90-110% of of our electricy via the solar cells on our roof; it would not have been possible for us to do that easily, or even at all if a corporate investor-owned utility wanted it that way — under the provisions of Prop. 80.
This is why NO ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS ENDORSE IT; and NO ALTERNATIVE ENERGY PRODUCERS ENDORSE IT.
The big mistake on the Buy Blue site is to imply that the 20% requirement isn’t already law. Which it is.
Comment by Roger, Gone Green — November 8, 2005 @ 6:02 am
Wow — Thanks for letting me know about this! I ended up leaving 80 blank — I tried to do some more research, but the intricacies of this issue seemed way too difficult for me to decipher and make an informed decision.
Interesting points you bring up — But it makes me wonder why so many orgs I like: MoveOn, Working Assets, etc. etc., came out in support for prop 80. I’d like to think they had good, informed reasons for doing so? Still, I wasn’t comfortable voting a certain way just cuz orgs I like did so — so I just didn’t vote on that one.
Comment by Siel — November 8, 2005 @ 5:28 pm
hey greenLAgirl - i read about your starbucks challenge, tested it out at a few starbucks locations, and mentioned it in my blog. within an hour, Cindy from Starbucks wrote a comment to my entry. i was pretty impressed with the speed! She’s really on top of this - goes further to show how sensitive retails are to customer opinions, especially for a trendy place like Starbucks; topics like these have the potential to spread like wildfire in the consumer crowd.
great blog, by the way. i’m quite new to the whole CSR space, and i find it to be fascinating.
Comment by jeni — November 8, 2005 @ 5:49 pm
Prop 80 was well intended; I’m not sure how it got the anti-sustainable elements, but reads like a compromise of some sort. I didn’t see a lot of power company opposition on the airwaves . . . although there were some bigggies against it . . .
R,
Comment by Roger, Gone Green — November 8, 2005 @ 6:45 pm
Hey jeni — Thanks for stopping by :) And let me know which stores you tried out the challenge on, and I’ll tag those stores to the feed. Loved the Halloween pics — I’m jealous — thinking of moving back to NYC…
Cindy’s been tracking the delicious feed — and I added you yesterday, I think — so she’s had a pretty easy way of finding out what’s being said about Starbucks in the blogosphere ;) Wow — She really copied and pasted a HUGE chunk of Starbucks’ press release into your blog! I added my 2 cents to your post too.
Comment by Siel — November 8, 2005 @ 6:52 pm