From Antelope Valley Press Editorial
October 8, 2008

There are an even dozen statewide measures on the Nov. 4 ballot.

Today we are urging voters to reject nine of them.

California has become infamous for loading up every ballot with an overabundance of propositions couched in legalese and providing confusing arguments - often worded in such a way as to trick voters into supporting policies and expenditures diametrically opposed to their personal beliefs.

Please note that California's finances are horribly in the red. It took our Legislature and the governor nearly three months past the June 30 deadline to cobble together a makeshift budget.

Now Arnold Schwarzenegger is begging the financially ravaged federal government for a $7 billion bailout to help California pay its bills.

Ballot measures often are created by special-interest groups for specified benefits to the promoters, and all too often they involve adding substantially to our crushing, multilayered tax burden.

Here are nine propositions we strenuously urge you to oppose: ---

Prop. 5 - Nonviolent Drug Offenses, Sentencing, Parole and Rehabilitation. This measure would cost $460 million annually. It would shorten parole for methamphetamine dealers and other drug felons from three years to just six months. It's been labeled the "Drug Dealers' Bill of Rights."

Opponents point out that "this dangerous measure could also provide, in effect, a 'get-out-of-jail-free' card to many of those accused of child abuse, domestic violence, mortgage fraud, identity theft, insurance fraud, auto theft, and a host of other crimes, letting them effectively escape criminal prosecution."

---- The Antelope Valley Press opposes these nine propositions and urges a no vote on each. It's vital to your badly depleted wallet that excessive additional drains on your economic security be defeated.

Be sure you vote on Nov. 4. It may well become the most important election ever in the history of our once-great but now beleaguered nation.