(Recap, continued from page 2)
determined. Electronic voting is under discussion, most recently due to the close gubernatorial election in Washington State. In that race, Democrat Christine
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Senator Debra Bowen
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Gregoire appeared to lose by 200 votes on election day. But in the recount, a tray of uncounted ballots was discovered, awarding her the governor’s seat. This would have been impossible had the voting been 100% electronic.
 Bowen said a bill is also in the works to allow instant runoff voting, which ranks votes and eliminates the need for runoff elections.
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The Senator plans to run for Secretary of State in 2006. There is a move to turn this into a nonpartisan office, but she believes that would keep voters from holding people accountable. Instead, she favors prohibiting the officeholder from certain activities that lead to a conflict of interest such as certifying the vote count (“who can forget Katherine Harris?”).
The Governor’s plan for redistricting bears an eerie similarity to what happened in Texas. He proposes to “randomly” appoint a panel of retired judges. Republicans who favored redistricting in the past were voted out of office as overly partisan.
Assemblyman Alan Lowenthal is working on an alternate bill that would prevent one party from dominating by creating a redistricting commission made up of appointees of the governor, the senate pro tem, and the Speaker.
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(Candidates, continued from page 2)
The Manhattan Beach candidates were participating in a forum and could not be present. Bobbi read a letter from city council candidate Eric Mah apologizing for sending out a “No Solicitors” campaign door hanger. Some people feared this message would hurt our precinct walking effort.
It was reported that PZ Associates is again canvassing in Redondo Beach to draw more members to the club and help our candidates.
Drew Gamet, Steve Colin, Todd Loewenstein
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Mustapha reported from the 53rd AD Committee that they cannot give money to the club but can donate to endorsed candidates.
New positions
Edna Murphy
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Ranoo Shipper
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has volunteered to help Shirlee Browne in her duties as treasurer and a motion was passed to approve her in this capacity. Ranoo Shipper is heading our fund raising committee. She is looking for donations for an upcoming rummage sale. Lori Geittmann reported that she will be running for chair of the State Party Senior Caucus and invited everyone to attend the State Party Convention at the Los Angeles Convention center in April.
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Monroe’s
Corner
A few days ago I received a note from a good friend, a Republican who believes in self-reliance,
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optimism, & independence. In the light of President Bush’s proposals, he asked, “Whatever happened to the American spirit of independence & self-reliance?” He feels the idea of personal savings accounts is excellent & even his heirs will benefit.
I wrote him a lengthy reply, which I am using as my column this month. I’ve given a fair amount of thought to the attempt by George Bush to make Social Security into something it was not created to be. Do you recall the Depression years before World War II? In those times jobs were impossible to find, businesses were closing & going bankrupt, money was scarce, people were on bread lines, starving Okies were migrating into California, and Communism was a monstrous dragon beckoning to the helpless.
Now we come to the crux of the matter. FDR & his administration developed a plan under the NEW DEAL to sign a social contract under which we all owed something to each other. To quote Ben Franklin, “We must all hang together or surely we will all hang separately.” The plan for Social Security was that the average ‘Joe’ would not find himself in old age without assets, without healthcare, & too poor &/or sick and destitute. The plan was to provide elderly Americans with a guaranteed source of retirement income, and certainly not to be an investment vehicle.
What prevents anyone today from investing over & above his Social Security deductions? How do we protect people from making poor investments? Who really knows the sure way to invest for profit & no chance for loss?
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