California Family Minute

Dependent upon where you place your attention, you may be celebrating yesterday’s election results with the “bubbly,” or considering an anti-depressant.

Did the Republican Party win? Most would say “no,” that the President lost. Author and radio host Michael Medved suggests that “principles” won, and I agree. Fortunately, the principles of limited government and fiscal responsibility often bring with them a respect for preborn life and traditional marriage and families. Many newly elected members of the U.S. Legislature are pro-life, and will replace so-called “progressive” pro-abortion advocates.

Still, even House Minority Leader John Boehner says it’s far too early to start the champagne celebration. Thankfully, he recognizes that the huge responsibility before them to stay accountable to struggling families and small business owners requires a commitment to sobriety, and humility.

And then, there’s California:
Aligning with recent history and the gerrymandered condition of California’s Assembly and Senate districts, no State Senate seat changed political parties. Only one Assembly seat is in jeopardy of changing parties, as ProtectMarriage.com’s general legal counsel, Andy Pugno, the Republican candidate for 5^th District seat (Sacramento) of the State Assembly, is behind in the ongoing count by three percentage points. 

In what has been a strongly conservative district, Pugno did battle against an estimated $4 million campaign financed by pro-same-sex marriage advocates and public employee unions. A typical Assembly campaign spends about $300,000.

And here’s a head-scratcher: although nearly 53% of California’s voters favored Proposition 8 in 2008, many of those same voters placed Prop 8’s opponents into office! Governor-elect Jerry Brown, as the state’s Attorney General, is unwilling to defend the California Constitution and the will of the people in the legal battle over Prop 8. Lieutenant Governor-elect Gavin Newsom’s claim to fame is his illegal act – as mayor of San Francisco – of declaring same-sex marriages “legal.” Yet undecided is the race for Attorney General, where Democrat candidate Kamilla Harris campaigned on her refusal to defend Prop 8 in the courts.

California voter confusion continued with the initiatives by voting to allow the state’s Legislature to pass a fiscal budget with only a simple majority (Proposition 25), while at the same time disallowing any new taxes or fees without a 2/3rds vote of the same body. One initiative suggests we trust our leaders, and the other one suggests we don’t! With the people’s passage of Prop 25, fiscally conservative legislators now have no voice or power in the budget’s creation or approval, and families will be further burdened with the expensive whims of the legislative majority.

There are many forces at work in California’s contradictory voting patterns, from the power of special interests, to union-financed campaigns, to geographic expanse, and even the varied forms of communication used by diverse population groups. 

California Family Council recognizes that the condition of California did not take place overnight, and recovery will also take time, coalition cooperation, strategic wisdom, finances, and foot soldiers. We commit to expanding our educational communications in upcoming elections, and to identifying and implementing the step-by-step measures critical to this state’s improvement.  

Stay tuned for more discussion of the necessary work.