The California governor’s general election of 2006 was a low voter turnout election due to the deliberate lack of campaign by the pro-death penalty millionaire Democrat Phil Angelides against the pro-death penalty millionaire Republican incumbent Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In spite of this mockery of democracy, the 2 anti-death penalty peace parties, Peace & Freedom Party and the Green Party did as well as could be expected and both certainly remain on the ballot.

VOTER TURNOUT

In a state of 27 million adults, almost 7 million voted. This may go up to 8 million when the provisional ballots are counted within the next 30 days. This means that not only did the usual 50% of adults not vote as they are not registered, mostly the workingclass, but many registered voters did not vote. A high voter turnout is 13 million in California. With that in mind, the totals for the Green Party and Peace and Freedom Party demonstrate that their anti-death penalty, anti-corporate and pro-peace message is being heard. Only a mass movement can increase the totals for these two parties. Elections only confirm the class struggle that has preceded them and there is not much labor activity in this country. The peace movement gave the undeserving pro-war Democratic Party a majority in Congress, but it certainly cannot change the nature of the pro-war, pro-death penalty Democratic Party, which will not and cannot deliver peace. What we had was essentially a party regular, property owners election on November 7, 2006.

PARTY REGISTRATION

The two anti-death penalty peace parties’ registration as of 10/23/06 in California is as follows:

Peace & Freedom Party: 59,139 or .37%; Green Party: 141,451 or .89%

CALIFORNIA BALLOT

PEOPLE

Peace & Freedom Party and the Green Party did well in the State Controller and Insurance Commissioner races. The totals, with 90.9% of the precincts reporting, are:

State Controller

Green: Laura Wells, 184,933 votes, 3.1% of the vote

P&F: Elizabeth Barron, 155,668 votes; 2.6% of the vote

Insurance Commissioner

Green: Larry Carfiero, 191,853 votes; 3.1% of the vote

P&F: Tom Condit, 134,478 votes, 2.2% of the vote

The Democrats now hold all of the Constitutional offices in California except the Governor’s and the Insurance Commissioner’s offices. The twin parties of capitalism are helping each other stay in office, and we certainly saw that in this year’s governor’s race.

As to the US Senate race, the power of incumbency and a low voter turnout gave the undeserving incumbent Dianne Feinstein 59.5% of the vote, which is actually low, considering she acts like she is royalty. She is, of course, a Democrat, and profoundly reactionary. With 96% of the precincts reporting, Todd Chretien of the Green Party won 106,046 votes or 1.7% and Marsha Feinland of the Peace & Freedom Party won 88,318 votes or 1.3%. They both deserve highest praise for putting up a good fight against a senator who is staunchly pro-death penalty, pro-Israel and pro-war. This is also the stance of most Democrats, and in the case of Israel, all Democratic and all Republican elected officials. Israel is a US military base that exists to protect US oil profits in the Middle East for which we pay the reactionary Israeli government $6 billion a year to murder and torture Palestinians and steal Palestinian land. These kind of results can only occur in a society that has a profoundly undemocratic electoral system.

PROPOSITIONS

All of the bonds put on the ballot by Gov. Schwarzenegger passed, putting this state into massive debt. A far better way to finance any project is to appropriate the money from the general fund which receives money from the progressive income tax, better known as tax the rich. If there is not enough money from the state progressive income tax, then the taxes on the rich should be raised, instead of cutting them, which both the Democrats and Republicans have been doing. The rich is the small minority who make over $200,000 a year from all sources. In a state with lots of millionaire and billionaires, that increase would not be much to pay for all these projects.

With the exception of Prop 83, calling for punishment instead of rehabilitation for sex offenders, which passed in all counties except San Francisco(53% said no), all the other non-bond propositions failed, including Prop 85, the anti-abortion measure, and Prop 90, the anti-rent control “eminent domain” measure, and both deserved to fail. Prop 89, a campaign finance reform also failed so we will continue to see million dollar campaigns from the wealthy candidates and difficulty in electing workingclass candidates due to lack of financing. Essentially, the majority of voters voted No to maintain the status quo on most of the non-bond measures, a common position of party regulars. It is also common among party regulars who are Democrats and Republicans to support prisons and the death penalty as they are mostly the law and order punishment instead of rehabilitation bastion of reaction, hence the reactionary vote for the costly Prop 83.

ALAMEDA COUNTY

One race that was being watched was the Green Party challenger Aimee Allison’s campaign for Oakland City Council District 2 against incumbent Patricia Kernighan. While Allison did not prevail, she won an impressive 45.02% of the vote, and that should make her a front runner when that position has no incumbent. With a high voter turnout, she could have won, and that is why voting does matter and why it is important to vote your conscience at all times.

Well, the voters have spoken again. Spend like mad, and do it on credit. Don't raise taxes. Just pass the debt burden on to future generations.

There were two easy ways to fix roads and water: raise the gas tax and raise water prices. Instead, we're going to do it with debt, and end up paying extra interest, higher prices for the work (because when you're flush with cash, you get charged more) and with no reduction in use of roads and water (because higher fees lead to conservation).

To top it off, some rich folks are going to make money on the bonds. Maybe it'll be old folks with pensions. The bond managers are going to get rich, again, at the expense of regular people.

You know times are crazy when the libertarian fringe and the socialist fringe are voting similarly.