When I lived in Silicon Valley, I had the, er, pleasure(?) to be "represented" by Senator Vasconcellos. He's grade A batshit loony.

Gosh I dislike people who know no children. "better informed"? Try teaching them!

Has he also introduced legislation setting guidelines for when 14 and 16 year olds can be tried as adults for their crimes?

Oh my goodness gracious me.

Has this guy ever listened to teenagers? Just because the technological mediums of communication have improved doesn;t mean the substance has risen at all.

Teenagers are idjits. I say this as a recent one.

Ya think we'll hear canidates promise better school lunches?

Teenagers should only be given the right to vote when the number of "likes" in their conversations falls below 40%.

TO: Stephen Green
RE: Dem Desparation

"Vasconcellos is also considering a bill extending the franchise to "dogs who think they're people."" -- Stephen Green

I think you've got it right. After the election of the Governator, the Dems are desparate to get anybody who is ignorant enough to vote for them into the polling booth next go-round.

Regards,

Chuck(le)

California, Popoff valve, or Petri dish? Either way the state serves a valuable function, I'm just not quite sure what that might be...

Raise the voting age to 30. Disenfranchise anyone who is a net recipient of taxpayers' money. Disqualify anyone who can't solve a quadratic equation in his head, recite the first five Amendments and identify the capital of Bolivia.

Dems need their votes while they're still being indoctrined!

TO: David Gillies
RE: Capital Idea!

How about the capital of Assyria?

Regards,

Chuck(le)

J.S.:

Speaking as a Southern Californian, I think "petri dish" is the best description.

While Gray Davis was still Governor, there was an attempt to issue California Driver's Licenses to illegal aliens (later shot down). The Democrats pretended that this was to make roads safer, but everyone knew that the real reason was to create more Democratic voters.

So why would the Democrats do that? Because they are in deep, deep trouble. They are losing their voting base, and are seeking ways to shore it up.

This is just the latest attempt, and it's pretty pathetic. Obviously, giving high school students a vote would lead to more Democratic votes because most teachers and most high schools would encourage voting Democratic.

To me, Proposition 56 (lowering the threshhold for raising taxes to 55%), the driver's license bill and this bill are more evidences of the flailing of the Democratic party as they desperately try to hold power.

Piano:

Agreed 100 percent. In fact, if you track back through the years, there are some very interesting, very telling (IMO) similarities between the overall trending of the California Democrats and the national Democrats.

1. As a general matter, the California and national Democratic Parties have been in decline for more than two decades. The national Democrats lost three straight Presidential elections, by total landslide margins, from 1980 through 1988. The California Democrats lost four straight Governor's races, by relatively large margins, from 1984 through 1994.

2. Then, in the 1990's both the California and national Democratic Parties were thrown lifesavers.

In 1992, the nation elected Bill Clinton. That entailed the historical anomaly, however, of a spike in unemployment right before the election season, a third-party candidate who pulled 20 percent of the total vote, and an incumbent who didn't campaign.

Similarly, in 1998, California elected Gray Davis. That too was within the framework of an historical anomoly. The state literally was drunk on tech stocks and the money from overfunded tech start-ups, and the California GOP succeeded in nominating arguably the worst candidate for Governor (Dan Lundgren) in modern times.

But, in actuality, these events were like giving morphine to a soldier with a terminable wound. It eases the pain, but does nothing for the underlying symptoms.

3. Once the hangover of the late-1990's tech bubble mentality wore off, the California and the national Democrats started to look around and realize their desparate plight.

Nationally, the Democrats have gone from holding over 30 Governor's chairs in 1990 to holding under 30 today. They have lost the U.S. House in five consecutive elections, and, with the Texas redistricting, it's a foregoine conclusion that they have no chance at recapturing that chamber until (at the earliest) the reapportionment after the 2010 census. There have been two separate Presidential elections in the last generation in which the Democratic nominee suffered the indignity of losing their home state.

In California, the ultimate example of a Democratic Party hack politician (Gray Davis) has been thrown out by a ridiculous landslide margin. Also, issue by issue, California still is a conservative state. As you know, we've passed prop. 187 (denying services to illegal immigrants), prop. 209 (outlawing racial preferences), and, only a few years ago, we outlawed gay marriage.

So, not surprisingly, given their maniacal thirst for power, both the California and national Democrats have simply degenerated into a live-action political cartoon. They're lashing out. Lashing out at Republicans. Lashing out at voters. Lashing out at common sense.

The analogy -- I believe -- is the way in which someone reacts to being trapped in quicksand. The harder they fight, the more they sink. The more they sink, the harder they fight.

Cheers.

"While Gray Davis was still Governor, there was an attempt to issue California Driver's Licenses to illegal aliens (later shot down)."

Yeah, Schwarzenegger got rid of it.

However, now he's working with Gil Cedillo to pass a new bill, SB1160. Gil is a former member of the racial separatist group MEChA (see Cruz Bustamante).

SB1160 has an "urgency clause" meaning that if it's passed and signed by Arnold, it goes into effect immediately and the only way to get it repealed is via an initiative.

The next time an initiative could be voted on is two years from now.

There's more on SB1160 here. See the previous entry for more on Vasconcellos and his proposal.

Remember the California task force on self-esteem? Guess who was the prime mover behind that one! John Vasconcellos. I also have had the misfortune of having him as one of my representatiives (hah!) in Sacramento. Fortunately, term limits have him gone in less than a year.

Either way the state serves a valuable function, I'm just not quite sure what that might be...

Yes, it has conveniently located the hollywood halfwits in one easy-to-target location.

If this passes (fat chance, but it is Cali), I say we blow the place into the ocean. Seriously. Loonyville Island has a nice ring to it, as does Arizona Bay.

raise the voting age and the age of adulthood back to 21. Raise age for a driver's liscence to 18. lower the drinking age to 16, 14 for wine and beer.

Hmm... it had sounded like you had some libertarian leanings. I'm curious how libertarians can assimilate not giving people who work (e.g., 15 or 16 year olds are allowed, under Federal labor law, to work up to 20 hours a week when school is in session, and 40 hours a week out of session, without giving them the right to vote).