Why do government bureaucrats often throw common sense out the window with inflexible, illogical rules? A perfect example comes from Southern California where the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), which is the second largest in the nation, has started enforcing a policy it’s had for years but has largely been ignoring. Now that enforcement began earlier this school year, parents are rightly up in arms.
In September, Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 1793, Cannabis convictions: resentencing. The bill amends Prop 64 (2016), the Adult Use of Marijuana Act and requires the state to erase or reduce prior sentences for marijuana possession. Assemblymember Rob Bonta, who sponsored the bill, stated “Long after paying their debt to society, people shouldn’t continue to face the collateral consequences, like being denied a job or housing, because they have an outdated conviction on their record.” AB 1793 lets people who committed victimless crimes move on with their lives.
It's kind of amazing that something so central to many of the issues we see and read and hear about in the news every day, something on which billions of dollars and countless hours of scheming by political "professionals" are expended every year, continues to be so widely misunderstood. Yes, that description can be applied to government itself, but here I'm simply talking about voting.
These are our recommendations for the local + state measures on the November ballot.
Have questions about our recommendations? Email [email protected].
| A | B | C | D | E | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| NO | NO | NO | NO | NO | NO | NO | NO | NO | YES | YES | - | NO | NO | NO | NO |
John Dennis for District 2 Supervisor
District 2 is the Presidio, Marina, Cow Hollow, parts of the Richmond (click here to find out your district)
The Libertarian Party of San Francisco has endorsed John Dennis at our August 2018 meeting. Read our interview with John Dennis and find out more at JohnDennis.com.
Lisa Remmer for Congress
California's 12th District, includes most of San Francisco (view map)
Although Lisa is not running as a Libertarian, she is a member of the Libertarian Party of San Francisco. She addressed our membership and we were generally happy to recommend her, especially over Nancy Pelosi. We cannot officially endorse Lisa Remmer because she is running as a Republican in a partisan race, but we think she is an obvious choice. Remmer4Congress.com
Click "Read More" for explanations
Could a man raised in the densest Democratic county in America and now living in the bluest city in the country end up becoming Libertarians’ best chance to get a real freedom-loving politician into San Francisco City Hall? Unlikely as it seems, yes, it’s actually possible this November. The lone Republican candidate for District 2 Supervisor, John Dennis is waging an enthusiastic campaign this fall to get a seat at the table. District 2, which covers primarily the Marina District, Pacific Heights, and Cow Hollow, is undeniably the wealthiest district in The City and probably the most conservative.
Unprecedented Power Grab By California's State Legislature
Statism in California is not on the march, it's rampaging.
On August 30, the State Senate passed SB-826, which would compel corporations to appoint specified numbers of women to their boards.
Here me loud and clear, please, men and women alike:
There is nothing wrong, and everything right, with a company choosing to appoint a woman or women to its board.
But there is nothing right, and everything wrong, with using government power to force a company to put any person on its board (or in its management or anywhere else in the company). It is tyranny, plain and simple.
In my dialogues with defenders of statism, online and off, I routinely encounter people – usually though not always on the political right – who express feelings of anger, disgust, contempt, etc., toward those whom they characterize with terms like "lazy", "bums", "freeloaders", "parasites", "anti-social", "welfare queens", "druggies", "illegals", "junkies", "leeches", "the homeless", "non-productive members of society", etc. Most of the criticisms seem to boil down to resentment that the people who are the objects of their ire are in some way being assisted or provided for by government at the expense of others.
It’s almost election time again, so these are the LPSF’s recommendations and thoughts on all of this fall’s local ballot measures. As always, the LPSF submitted arguments for the “free” official arguments to be printed in the Voters Handbooks, and we “won” the lottery for two of the ballot measures and submitted two paid arguments, all of which will appear in the Voters Handbooks mailed out in early October. As usual, our support of or opposition to a ballot measure hinges on whether it expands or shrinks the amount of governmental control of our lives. Increased taxes, debt, ordinances, bans, and mandates all tend to be the former, so that’s why the LPSF generally opposes most San Francisco ballot measures.
Since outright taxation, even for statists, has its limitations, bond measures have become the preferred method for politicians and vested interests to increase government spending, especially here in California. Since California voters passed Prop 39 in 2000 lowering the threshold for passage from 2/3 to 55% for school bonds, the approval rate for such bonds has soared to 80%. A report from the Little Hoover Commission, a “good government” independent state oversight agency, in 2009 pointed out the increasing problem of more and more long-term debt being approved both statewide and locally. It revisited the issue last year as the problem seems to have worsened as few of their recommendations from 2009 were adopted.
Proponents of Prop C like to pose that the LPSF doesn’t think they have a plan to address homelessness in The City. In fact, we do believe they have a plan. This is a deflection from our real concern, which is that in order to fund their plans, they feel entitled to dip their fingers into local company coffers to “raise more revenue”. That’s a great euphemism for “stealing”.