Doing some last minute research before heading to the polls? Here is my collection of writings on Election 2006:

• Vote YES on 1
• Vote YES on 2
• Vote NO on 3
• Governor’s race:
  • Patrick
  • Healey
  • Mihos
  • Ross
  • Why none of the above

I had a harder time deciding on this question, simply because the information on it is so sparse.  In short, this question would permit a union (SEIU, the Service Employees International) to represent home-based child care providers in negotiating with the state.
I finally found some good arguments in the blogosphere, including Blue Mass Group and Left in Lowell. I was particularly swayed by a commenter on Left in Lowell.

The child-care providers aren’t employees.  They are small business owners.  They should have (and do have) a professional association.  That association can work with the state to guide regulation.  I don’t see how a union would be the right way for these businesses to negotiate with the state.  It would be one thing if these workers were asking to be represented by the SEIU.  I don’t see any evidence of that; I only see the SEIU aggressively trying to grow its membership.
The Yes on 3 group spins the question as one that is good for children.  Their filing statement with the state closes with “Vote yes for our children’s future.”  I can only draw another unflattering comparison to Helen Lovejoy.  I don’t see how unionization of these small business owners will improve child care.  I find it much easier to imagine higher costs with more regulation.

I do not believe that this law will improve the lives of children or the lives of home-based child care workers.  I’m voting No on 3 tomorrow.

If you’re reading these in order, this post was probably unexpected. “He already said why he won’t vote for the other three – I guess he’s voting for Mihos.” Surprise! Not happening.

I came close to favoring Mihos. I’m enamored by his independance. He’s a former Republican, like me. He came to the conclusion, like I did, that the Republican party has too many problems in its platform to support. (Please note that I distinguish between the Republican party and specific Republican candidates. Just because someone is a Republican doesn’t mean they agree with everything in the platform.)

I would love to see someone independant succeed. I’d love to see the pork, the favoritism, the nepotism, and the back-slapping exposed and stopped. I’d love to see appointments based on merit and performance, not as payment for past favors. I think that the media would be forced, to some degree, stop talking about parties and talk more about issues. I’d love that too.

I also find Mihos to be a likeable person. I watched him at Arlington Town Day and he looked like he was having fun talking to voters. I have this theory that he’s made enough money to be happy and he knows it. He feels free to do things because he wants to. I think this story in the Globe captures what I’m trying to describe.

Unfortunately, it all falls apart when I read his positions. I don’t agree with public financing of elections. I don’t agree with his positions on immigration, private contracts by the state, or expanding housing subsidies. Most of all, I don’t agree with his “Proposition 1.” The central point of Proposition 1 is to cap your house’s assessment for property tax on the day that you buy your house. The benefit is that your property tax bill will be more predictable. There are several problems with the idea.

Mostly, it’s not fair. Picture two identical houses, next to each other, on the same street. One of them is paying $1000 in property taxes, the other is paying $2500. The difference? One house was bought in 1995 and the other was bought in 2005.  New arrivals will have to pay more than their fair share of taxes. This policy would discourage people from moving to Massachusetts.   It will drive current residents who are looking for new homes to other New England states; they won’t want to pay the new-home penalty tax.  It isn’t a solution to high property taxes.  It just shifts the burden.

I admire his independance.  I just wish I agreed with him more.

First, the reasons that I’d consider voting for Healey: Healey is the candidate that seems most likely to control state spending. That is a bit of a luke-warm compliment. Neither the current office holder nor the national party leader has demonstrated fiscal restraint. But, at least, she is in favor of rolling back the state income tax to 5%. That’s a point in her favor.

Another point in her favor is that she would mean another four years of a divided government. That appeals to me. When the government is divided new laws are put through the wringer before they are implemented. One-party rule has less questioning and leads to complacency. (Anyone who needs a reminder of this can review Rep. Stephen Lynch’s campaign website).

I approve of Healey’s 50 Points. They are substantive issues, positions that can be debated, refined, and adopted. Patrick would have done well to provide this much substance. I don’t agree with them all (campaign finance, immigration) but think there are some real winners (auto insurance reform, malpractice reform, charter schools, teachers’ merit pay). There are more that I like than I don’t like.

Some of my politically like-minded friends think this is reason enough and are voting for Healey. I gave it a lot of thought, and I can’t.

When I cast my vote, I’m not voting for a party, or even a set of positions. I’m voting for a person. I have to trust that person to be honest, both intellectually and in deed. That trust is what makes it possible for me to disagree with someone and still respect their opinion. It’s what permits reasonable people to disagree but still work together.

Healey’s campaign has not been intellectually honest. I don’t care about the La Guer stuff: Patrick made his own decisions there, and it’s reasonable to ask him to explain them. But the ad about the cop-killer was totally inappropriate. “Lawyers have the right to defend cop killers. . . Do we really want one as our governor?” This is gross pandering. It is an attempt to spread fear, unknown, and doubt without a foundation. Every time I saw that ad I got angrier. It is slime, not substance.

That kind of argument has no place in public discourse. I demand that our leaders lead, and that includes setting a standard of debate. Healey would cry foul if that type of innuendo were aimed at her; she shouldn’t stoop so low herself. She wanted to win; she was willing to try anything; she approved the ad; she showed that she lacks the intellectual honesty to debate on merit. She doesn’t get my vote.

I think I heard of Deval Patrick before most of the state. Living in Arlington, I talk to a number of intellectual-wing Democrats. Patrick got his message to them last year, and they were electrified. They heard someone who spoke their language and shared their vision. Until then, they had been looking at the prospect of long-time party hack Attorney General Reilly running an uninspired campaign against a well-funded Republican. They suddenly saw hope of a new day for Democrats. And they jumped on it.  The rest is history.  Barring a disaster of biblical performance, he’s going to be governor in January.

I worry about Patrick and the Democratic machine on Beacon Hill.  I worry that the legislature will start spending like drunken sailors, and Patrick won’t have the ability to stop it.  Under Republican governors the legislature always passed a bigger budget than the governor’s filed plan.  The governor then used the line-item veto, and some of the vetos stuck.  What’s going to happen in 2007?  Patrick will file a budget.  The legislature will increase it.  Will Patrick threaten a veto?  Will he use it?  Will he be effective at controlling spending?  I don’t think a Democrat governor can change the culture of Beacon Hill.

And what about the budgetary starting point, the budget that Patrick proposes?  How much larger will it be?  Read his positions.  I count 10 uses of the word “expand” and 5 of “broaden.”  Read the page, and after every bullet point ask yourself: “Will that cost me more tax money than it does now?”  How will he pay for it?  On that page he trots out the old saw that he  “will cut wasteful spending.”  Come on, is there a candidate in favor of wasteful spending?  One person’s wasteful spending is another person’s vital program.  He needs to be far more specific than “wasteful spending” before I believe he can pay for his programs.

That brings me to my biggest issue with Patrick: the state income tax.  The voters explicitly supported an income tax rollback to 5% in 2000.  In 2002 it was implicitly endorsed again when 45% of the state voted to roll the income tax to zero.  The Globe’s October 1 poll says that the rollback is still favored by voters.  But Patrick doesn’t think it’s a good idea – he says he wants to use the money to lower property taxes.  I don’t find this claim credible.  Massachusetts’s bastion of liberalism, the Boston Globe editorial page, sees it the same way: “But Patrick is also fooling voters by suggesting that his election would lead to cuts in property taxes.” I want a candidate who will lower taxes and make government smaller, and Patrick wants the opposite.

I also strongly disagree with Patrick on several education issues.  This is particularly frustrating because his campaign started by endorsing education reforms, but the teacher’s union twisted his arm, and he started to follow the party line.  He started the campaign advocating rewarding good teachers based on merit.  After the union was done with him, he was advocating “rewarding schools” based on merit.  I still can’t figure out how this could possibly make sense.  If you reward the successful schools, doesn’t that leave the schools that need the most help with the least money?  His education platform completely omits the word “merit.”  He caved to the union and ran from the issue.

All that said, I appreciate the campaign that he’s running. It may be short on details, but it’s long on vision. It doesn’t prey on fear, unknown, and doubt. It’s positive where it can be and is negative only where it needs to. It would be nice if I agreed with his plans, but I don’t. When I vote, I need a candidate who is pointed in the right direction at least most of the time. He’s not it.

The fact that I’m not voting for him won’t matter to him. He’s going to win, and he’s going to win big. Really, I hope that I’m proven wrong. I hope that he corrals the legislature and screws their heads back on. I hope that he fulfill his promise of a better future for Massachusetts. I hope that when he turns his plans into legislation that reality and reason prevail. But I’m not expecting it.

Grace Ross is the Green-Rainbow candidate for Governor. Of the four candidates, this is the easiest decision for me to make: she doesn’t get my vote. Check out her short position descriptions or go deeper.

I tried to find a position where Ross didn’t think that government spending was the answer, and I couldn’t find one. Specifically: The answer for affordable housing is “funding the Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program (MVRP) state housing subsidy program” and “increased government support for soft second mortgages.” I’d argue that putting more money in the hands of consumers increases the demand for housing, but it doesn’t really increase the supply – the prices go up more than anything else. She’d be using our money more efficiently if she actually made buildings and increased the supply. And, it would be even more efficient if she just made it easier for private sector builders. I’d challenge Ross to work more on making it easier to build homes and apartments, not subsidize rent.

I’m no fan of this position either: “We support the establishment of one standard of health coverage, paid for through the government by progressive taxation and corporations paying their fair share – a universal standard which covers all residents. . . . We are all equals in healthcare – not first, second, third, and fourth-class citizens.” This sounds like one of those George Orwell short stories where everyone has to be exactly the same. I know I’m exaggerating, but the idea is there. If someone has the means to pay for “extra” healthcare, would Ross really tell them that they can’t?

In debates she seems like a nice person. But she has to do better than that to get my vote. I’m looking for someone who will limit the role of government, not someone who will demand more of my wallet to fund inefficient government programs.

Rep. Stephen Lynch is running for re-election. Election day is 6 days away. And the man doesn’t have a website.

It would be nice if there were a real challenger for him. Then he might have more to say.

Question 1 gets all the press, but there are two more questions on the ballot this year, and I’m going to talk about them. Question 2 is about ballot fusion, and I think it’s a good idea.

The short description of Question 2: A candidate can be endorsed by more than one party; when you vote you get to choose which candidate and which party you support. For longer descriptions, the explanations on the state election site and the Yes on 2 site have good sample ballots and more text.

The intent of the question is to enable voters to signal their support for a particular party or position more specifically than supporting a single candidate. For instance, a voter might strongly support gay marriage. The Democrats sometimes have candidates that support gay marriage, but sometimes not. There is a particular candidate who supports gay marriage, and he is the Democratic candidate and he is endorsed by the Marriage Equality party. Voters can choose to vote for the candidate on the Democratic line or the Marriage Equality line. The votes all count towards the candidate, but voters in favor of gay marriage can signal that fact by voting on the Marriage Equality line rather than the Democratic line. Theoretically, other Democrats will see how many votes that was, and adjust their positions accordingly.

The opponents of this question say that it will lead to voter confusion. I think that New York state effectively squashes that argument. New York has several third parties that cross-endorse candidates. The Conservative Party is most commonly cited. In New York, Republicans without Conservative support have a tough row to hoe. And, before you think this whole Question 2 thing is a conservative conspiracy, remember that it’s endorsed by the Working Family Party and a series of unions, and they aren’t conservatives.

The real opponents to this question are the two major parties. They have the most to lose in this – cross-endorsement weakens their grip on power and opens the door for another party to, just maybe, become “major.”

There is another change in this law that hasn’t been mentioned on other websites. The first is that third parties will be recognized by the state for 4 years, not 2, after they meet the 3% requirement in a state election. That’s a big deal. Under current law it’s easy in Massachusetts to get recognition in off-presidential years like this one, but very hard in presidential years like 2006. In 2004 there were 4 parties in the state; this year there are 2. This law change would make it easier for third parties to build over time rather than appear and disappear on a biannual basis. I still can’t figure out why both the Libertarian and Green parties are opposed to it.

I think the effect of this will be to redistribute a bit of power from the major parties to other organized groups. I think that is a good thing. I also tend to give voters credit. I’m not worried about them getting confused. They are plenty smart enough to see their candidate on the ballot and cast their vote.

Vote yes on 2!