Bad and Good…

Some of my feelings concerning the results of our mid-term election:

BAD:

With respect to the mid-term election, I’m pretty happy with most of the results, especially on the national level. Here at home, however, I am greatly disappointed that Maggie Charleton didn’t win her bid for the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) District 9 seat. Maggie is eminently qualified for the position and she campaigned her heart out, but the Texas election system deck of cards was stacked against her from the get-go. The deck was stacked against her because under screwy Texas law this is a partisan position. What the hell does a person’s political ideology honestly have to do with the process of ensuring the accuracy of text books?

The nincompoop who got re-elected to that position, Don McLeroy, didn’t win because he is the best person suited for the job, he won because too damn many people voted a straight Republican Party ticket.

Because too many people vote a straight party ticket, that means the odds nearly insurmountably favor whichever political party garners the most vote.

State Board of Education positions, like judges, shouldn’t be partisan positions. Candidates should be voted into office based on their qualifications, not their political affiliation.

Maggie’s belief is that the SBOE should review textbooks to see whether they meet the standards set by experts, not for a particular view of the world. Unfortunately, the candidate with screwy world views won, but it wasn’t at all because folks thoughtfully determined he was the most qualified person to serve.

GOOD:

Minimum Wage Ballot Measures

Some of the best news from yesterday’s election is that in each of the six states (Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and Ohio) that had ballot measures calling for an increase in their state’s minimum wage, voters resoundingly voted to do so. The strongest vote in favor was in Missouri, where that state’s ballot initiative garnered 76% of the votes. Montanans voted 73% in favor; Nevadans 69%; Arizonans 66%; Ohioans 56%; and Coloradoans 53%.

And now that the Puppets-For-The-Rich Republicans had the keys to the front doors of the house and senate chambers taken away from them, I’m certain we’ll see an increase in the federal minimum wage, too—and I don’t think our most disingenuous, duplicitous and dangerous-to-democracy president ever will dare veto it.

BAD:

My prediction that the commonsense voters in Idaho’s 1st Congressional District wouldn’t elect Bill Sali, but would, instead, vote for Larry Grant, missed by a couple of percentage points. With 96% of the precincts reporting, Sali has 50% of the vote to Grant’s 45%. Three other folks in the race divvied up the remainder. I hope Larry Grant will hang in there and decide to run in the next go round; I think he’d be very good for his district and for the country.

GOOD:

Pennsylvania incumbent Senator Rick “Intelligent-Design-Should-Be-Taught-In-Schools” Santorum, the third-ranking Senate Republican, got tossed out on his ear by the commonsense voters in that state. They replaced him with state treasurer Bob Casey. Casey is opposed to abortion rights and gun control, but is in favor of increasing the minimum wage and providing health insurance to our millions of uninsured children.

GOOD:

Commonsense voters in South Dakota rejected the draconian referendum to ban all abortions in that state (except to save the lives of pregnant women) by a 56% vote, and commonsense voters in Oregon and California rejected initiatives in their states that called for parental notification for teenagers to receive abortions.