Preparing for my civic duty

[owlmoose]

Wow, lots of new people from the friending meme! *waves to new people* Now I am going to scare you all away by writing about politics. ;)

So it's election time in California, and that means one thing: ballot initiatives. State, city, county, local. Since San Francisco is both a city and a county, at least I have one one layer of local ballot issues as opposed to many of my friends who have two, but still, it can get pretty out of control. The fact that I have "only" 18 to deal with this time around makes the ballot seem positively tiny. Still, it is a lot of things to read up on and figure out, and the fact that I'm sure the vast majority of my fellow Californians don't bother to do the same, but just vote based on TV ads and the titles of the propositions depresses me greatly. But I've ranted about the CA proposition system and how much I hate it before, so I'll spare you all that. This time. Fortunately, I had the chance to get together with friends today to talk through the ballot and share impressions and information, and I came away feeling pretty secure on how I'm going to vote on all the initiatives.

What I don't know is how to vote in local elections such as school board, and information and endorsements seem really hard to come by. And it's so important, because so much of politics is local. On a day-to-day basis, who sits on the school board probably has a much bigger impact on my life than who is president. And it can have larger ramifications, too: issues like teaching creationism in schools happens at a local level (not that I think we're in danger of a rash of creationists sneaking onto the school board in San Francisco), and many people start their political careers in positions like these. It's too bad that there isn't a better way to access the candidates' platforms, records, alliances, etc. Guess it's time to start digging.

Comments

[phoebe_zeitgeist]

I don't know how you folks in real cities manage it. Here in my little pocket-sized New England city we have the same kinds of races to consider (well, not the judicial races, thank God; those aren't elected positions here), but we have the small-city social infrastructure to get the information we need on most of them before we vote. There's always somebody whose sister or son works with that candidate for the school board, who can tell you more than you ever wanted to know about their behavior in their day job. You know somebody who knows somebody who's the regional Democratic organizer, who'll tell you why the party insiders would rather have one candidate than another (sometimes it's a terrible reason, and you can ignore it; sometimes it's an excellent reason and you're glad you checked). Or you just know the big gossip in your extended family, the ones whose parents and grandparents have lived here since Hector was a pup, who knows precisely who is supporting every candidate on the ballot, allowing you to rely on the endorsements of better-informed people who you trust.

If it weren't for that, I don't know what I'd do with local races where I don't have any direct involvement with the candidates. Probably leave a lot of lines unvoted, because as you say, it's so difficult to find reliable information, or even to know enough about the issues involved to interpret the information you do find.

ETA:

On a day-to-day basis, who sits on the school board probably has a much bigger impact on my life than who is president.

Well, maybe not this year. Usually it's true, but usually we don't have a genuine radical running for the office who'd likely be supported by an equally radical House should be win.

[owlmoose]

Fair point: in principle, local government has more effect on my daily life than who is in charge of the whole country, but given the state of national politics right now....

In a way, though, that's how we got here: evangelicals and tea party types packed local government and were able to shift the GOP as a whole toward the right. I really want to know how progressives can start to wield their own influence this way.