For the record, here's how I'm voting, and why:

President and VP: Barack Obama and Joe Biden
Wow, where do I even start? Obama and Biden are simply better, smarter, and more capable. If you don't think you know enough about Obama by now, you haven't done your homework.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/

The California Propositions:

1A - YES
Safe, Reliable, High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act
This one is a no-brainer. Of COURSE we need a high-speed rail line in California between Northern and Southern CA. Duh!

From the CA League of Conservation Voters website
Yes on Proposition 1A: Improve air quality and public transportation through High Speed Rail

Developing viable high-speed rail connecting Northern and Southern California is an essential component of California’s transportation future. A high-speed rail system throughout California would deliver an estimated 117 million travelers into downtowns well-served by local transit, all while reducing the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.

California is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, with approximately 40% of the state's emissions coming from the transportation sector. By replacing car and airplane trips with rail trips, high-speed rail will help California achieve the greenhouse gas reductions outlined in the landmark AB 32 legislation, which requires greenhouse gases to return to 1990 levels by 2020 and to achieve levels that are 80% lower than 1990 levels by 2050.

California will grow by at least 15 million people over the next 25 years. Unless we make a serious shift in in-state transportation travel, we’ll have to invest in major freeway and airport expansion up and down the state even sooner. A high-speed rail system would cost less than half of what it would cost to get the same increase in capacity from highway and airport expansion. In addition, the proposition includes specific guidance on protection of sensitive habitat lands. With some of the most congested regions in the country, the urgency of climate change, and limited land and resources for highway and airport expansion, now is the time to invest in a new high-speed rail transportation system.

2 - YES
Standards for Confining Farm Animals
Requires that certain farm animals be given room to fully extend limbs/wings, lie down, stand up and turn around. Another no-brainer, unless you are a psychopath and love animal torture.

3 - YES
Children's Hospital Bond Act
It's a lot of money to spend in a bad economy, but then again, I can't find any compelling reason to NOT update our regional hospital infrastructure. California is a leader in healthcare technology, we don't want to fall behind, plus this will create jobs too.

- Authorizes $980 million for grants to California's 13 regional children's hospitals
- Funds the construction, expansion, remodeling, furnishing, and equipping of children’s hospitals
- Costs the state $64 million a year for 30 years
- Cost divided by CA population = approximately $1.75 a year for each Californian
- 80% of the bond proceeds go to eight regional nonprofit children's hospitals that focus on serious diseases and illnesses and 20% go to five University of California children's hospitals

4 - NO
Waiting Period and Parental Notification Before Termination of Pregnancy

This measure has been on the ballot four times now, and has been voted down every time. Wingnuts just keep on trying, gotta give 'em credit for that. This time the backers have phrased things a bit more deceptively, but it's the same old wolf in sheep's clothing. Proposition 4 threatens a woman's right to choose and puts teens at risk.

Prop 4 states that in order for a woman under 18 to receive an abortion, she must tell her parents. But Prop 4 isn't just about teens notifying their parents before they have an abortion. It was written by the same conservative groups that want to outlaw abortion. Backers of 4 have a clear agenda: they want to limit a woman's right to choose.

And parental notification laws don't work anyway. Not all teens live in homes where communication is possible. Remember that friend in high school who was truly afraid of what her parents might do or say...especially if she got pregnant? If Prop 4 passes, those teens will have nowhere to turn. Scared, desperate teens do scary things...take matters into their own hands, resort to an unsafe, back alley, illegal abortion, or even contemplate suicide.

Imagine the scenario for incest victims..yes, there are exemptions, but would you want to be the pregnant, traumatized incest victim who has to get up in court and explain to a judge why she needs an exemption from parental notification for her abortion? My god, the horror.

Prop 4 threatens Roe v. Wade and is simply another attempt by the religious right to drag California's reproductive rights backwards into the last century. Don't want your teen to have an abortion? Then EDUCATE HER ABOUT SEX AND CONTRACEPTION AND LET HER KNOW THAT YOU ARE THERE FOR HER IN GOOD TIMES AND BAD. Period.

5- YES
Nonviolent Drug Offenses. Sentencing, Parole and Rehabilitation

From the California League of Women Voters website:

There are three essential components of Proposition 5 (sometimes known as “NORA”):

1. Treatment diversion programs for adults
2. Prison system and parole reforms
3. Youth-focused substance abuse treatment reforms.

The League of Women Voters’ support for Proposition 5 is based on the aspects of the initiative that relate to juvenile justice.

As part of a comprehensive, common-sense solution to the prison overcrowding crisis, Proposition 5 will create a system of care for at-risk youth by:

1. Dedicating annual funding of at least $65 million per year for youth treatment programs, as well as about $4 million more from fines collected from adults for low-level marijuana offenses
2. Ensuring that the new system of care meets the spectrum of youth needs, including family therapy, mental health interventions, educational and employment stipends, and more
3. Requiring science-based educational programs and counseling, instead of a misdemeanor conviction, for young people found in possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Too often today, young Californians with drug problems get entangled in the juvenile justice system and may even be incarcerated. During the past few years, juvenile arrest rates have increased 39 percent, and yet fewer than 10 percent of adolescents receive substance abuse treatment programs.

Proposition 5 will:
* Create an independent oversight panel, which would have authority over major aspects of the implementation of NORA
* Provide better opportunities for rehabilitation
* Save prison beds by requiring local sanctions, not prison, to punish minor parole violations by nonviolent offenders
* Require that all prisoners receive appropriate treatment prior to release from prison
* Require that all parolees receive appropriate services for up to one year after discharge
* Build on and improve Proposition 36, the voter-approved initiative of 2000 that provided treatment, not jail, for nonviolent drug users
* Link three existing, but disparate, systems of court-supervised treatment programs in order to provide a continuum of care
* Give priority to treatment for people with mental illness and substance abuse problems
* Provide judges with annual training on drug and addiction treatment
* Allow schools and medical doctors to recommend these treatment programs to their students and patients.

6- NO
Police and Law Enforcement Funding

Puts more money into the prison system to lock people up, while not providing for rehabilitation, and keeping younger people in for longer periods, starting at younger ages.

If Prop 5 was written by the enlightened parent who will communicate and counsel you through tough times, Prop 6 was written by the parent who spanks the crap out of you and then locks you in your room when you screw up, you idiot.

Vote NO on 6.

7 - NO
Renewable Energy Generation

I was really confused about this one until I researched both sides thoroughly.

TheCA League of Conservation Voters is against it.
NO on 7 - Protect small solar producers and encourage solar energy production

The California League of Women Voters is against it too, and their arguments are good.

In 2003 the relevant state agencies adopted a policy that made energy efficiency the highest priority resource in the state’s “loading order” (the order of priority for procurement of energy sources). Proposition 7 fails to consider energy efficiency and reduction in the need for additional generation, the least environmentally damaging and the lowest cost resource.

California has led the nation in fostering ways to conserve energy over the past 30 years. The state’s appliance and building standards are the most rigorous anywhere in the world, and now the state is supporting development of a “smart” distribution grid to foster demand-side management—to encourage customers to decrease their demands for power, particularly at times of peak demand.

Proposition 7 calls for the overly simplistic mandate that half of all the power produced in the state should come from solar, wind and other alternative resources by 2025. For decades California has led the nation in the procurement and use of renewable energy—from solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, and small hydroelectric facilities. Since 2002 the state has had a Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) requiring electric providers regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) (i.e., the investor-owned utilities and the electric service providers) to increase their reliance on renewable resources to 20 percent of total generation resources by 2010. While sufficient contracts have been signed to meet this RPS, in fact, it is clear that many of those projects will not be operational before 2012 or 2013.

The PUC has conducted a study to determine the reasons for the delays in meeting the current RPS. There are four notable causes: (1) a lack of transmission capacity to carry renewable power from areas in the state where it is abundant to the load centers; (2) the failure of the federal government to renew the investment tax credits that currently are an important inducement to developers of renewable energy; (3) uncertainties regarding the siting of renewable energy projects on lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management, particularly in and around the Mojave Desert; and (4) issues related to the technical maturity of some renewable projects.

Major efforts are currently underway on the part of the PUC, the Energy Commission, and numerous other stakeholders to address the delays associated with achieving the 20 percent RPS, but the state does not have the authority to challenge either federal policies or local jurisdictions that object to expansion of transmission lines. Meanwhile, the governor and the Air Resources Board have called for an expansion of the RPS to 33 percent renewable generation by 2020 in conjunction with implementation of the plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as called for in AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act. This expansion would require all energy providers in the state to meet this requirement. The PUC has called for an analysis of issues associated with meeting this 33 percent goal and the establishment of a schedule.

Passage of Proposition 7, with its confusing and sometimes contradictory provisions, would certainly upset this effort to expand the deployment of renewable resources in the state.
The fiscal effects of the proposition are very unclear. We emphasize that the least expensive way to meet increasing demands for electric power in the coming decades will be investments in energy efficiency and in demand-side management.

8 - NO
Eliminates Right of Same-sex Couples to Marry
Proposition 8 is a hate crime made law. Plain and simple.

Hello....gay people have kids too. The latest statistic I found is that 30% of gay couples are raising children. Aren't their kids deserving of parents who are able to marry one another?
And what exactly is marriage needing "protection" from?

Protect marriage? Then how about universal healthcare, better support for working families, quality affordable childcare, and low-cost rehab? Addiction, poverty, stress and violence are huge threats to marriage. Two gay people who love one another are not.

From the League of Women Voters of California:

Prior to the court decision, California had extended many rights given to married couples to gay and lesbian couples who registered as domestic partners. As of April 2008, almost half of the state’s same-sex couples were registered domestic partners. However, inequities between domestic partnership and marriage remain. In addition, domestic partnerships may not be recognized when a couple travels out of state, and even if domestic partnership is recognized, the rights that go with it are vastly unequal from state to state. On the other hand, at least one state (New York) recognizes legal same-sex marriages from other states and more may follow suit. Marriage also provides same-sex couples with a status that is understood by society in a way that domestic partnerships are not.

If Proposition 8 passes, rescinding the marriage rights of gay and lesbian couples will affect many families and children throughout the state. Same-sex couples live in every county in California and represent every racial and ethnic group. Nearly 30 percent are raising their own children (biological, stepchildren and adopted children). According to the U.S. Census, the children of lesbian and gay couples are more likely to be younger than five years old, adopted, and disabled than children of opposite-sex couples. All children are affected when their parents’ relationship is not accorded the same dignity and respect as the marriages of other parents in their communities. Without marriage, children may suffer if parents are not legally empowered to support and protect them because of inequalities in the law between marriage and domestic partnership, or if the family travels to a state where domestic partnership is weak or non-existent. Conversely, the concept of marriage, including parental rights and responsibilities, is well-understood and defined in family law.

9 - NO
Victim's Rights. Parole.

From the CA League of Women Voters website,

The League believes that efforts to deal with dependency issues and provide juvenile justice should reinforce a young person’s right to safety, support, respect and justice. Juvenile Courts should be well managed, provide due process, protect the rights of all affected parties, work with community resources . . .

The LWVC Constitution position supports measures to secure an orderly and simplified state Constitution: provisions that enable the legislature to deal with state problems efficiently, flexibly and with responsibility clearly fixed.

The League believes that the California Constitution should permit the legislature and other elected officials to carry out their responsibilities with flexibility, unhampered by unnecessary restrictions, but with safeguards in the public interest. The League is opposed to highly detailed provisions including administrative and procedural detail.

In June 1982, California voters passed Proposition 8, known as the “Victims’ Bill of Rights,” which granted crime victims the right to be notified in advance, attend, and state their views at sentencing and parole hearings. Other separately enacted statutes have created other rights for crime victims.

This initiative would expand the legal rights of crime victims in various ways while undoing many of the rights of prisoners, as well as of parolees facing revocation of their parole, to due process and speedy parole hearings.

Recently, a federal court has ordered the state to hold prompt hearings and to provide legal counsel for juvenile parolees held in Department of Justice facilities while awaiting rulings on whether they have violated their parole.

10 - NO
Alternative Fuel Vehicles and Alternative Energy

From the CA League of Conservation Voters website

No on Proposition 10: Protect the environment and taxpayers — and stop the alternative energy scam

A fossil fuel corporation owned by Texas oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens spent $3 million dollars to put Proposition 10 on the ballot. That same corporation will almost certainly reap the rewards if Prop 10 passes. California taxpayers will be stuck subsidizing big trucking companies at a cost of $335 million per year; they’ll shell out a total of $2.5 billion in subsidies to trucking companies to purchase “clean” vehicles. Prop 10 does not require any reduction in global warming emissions for trucking companies that get “clean” vehicle handouts of up to $50,000 per truck – and Prop 10 excludes hybrids from its definition of a “clean” vehicle.

If Prop 10 passes, Hybrids do get a rebate ($2000 ea.), but only the first 55k sold. Alternative fuel cars (and vans and lightweight trucks) get $10k each. The majority of these cars are not hydrogen or electric, they’re natural gas

The bottom line: California already faces a $15 billion budget deficit crisis, and Prop 10’s raid on the state’s coffers will mean cuts to our schools, our public safety and our health programs. Prop 10 is biased towards investments in natural gas technology— over cleaner alternatives such as wind and solar technology—while draining California’s already over-committed general fund. Although perhaps rooted in a commendable goal of environmental progress, Prop 10 is bad policy for California’s taxpayers and California’s environment. Why spend all that money just to trade one petroleum product for another, instead of investing in clean alternatives?

11 - YES
Redistricting

From the CA League of Women Voters website

Reform of the redistricting process has been a core issue for the League of Women Voters of California for over 20 years. In recent years, we have participated extensively in a number of efforts to achieve meaningful reform of the process by which Congressional, state legislative, and Board of Equalization district lines are drawn. We believe that the process should take place in an open, transparent manner with wide public input; that lines should be drawn according to strict, ranked criteria; and that the body drawing the lines should be an independent body that is selected according to well established conflict of interest rules and that represents the diversity that is California.

Proposition 11, the California Voters FIRST Act, meets all of our key reform criteria. We believe that the formation of the commission, the ranked mapping criteria, and the open, transparent process prescribed by the measure will give voters the opportunity to choose their representatives rather than letting elected officials draw districts that allow them to choose their voters. The League is particularly pleased with the importance given to respect for the Voting Rights Act and to keeping communities and cities and counties whole; the good conflict of interest rules applied to the commission; and the outstanding open process required.

12 - YES
Farm and Home Aid for California Veterans
Provides loans for vets to buy homes and farms. Program pays for itself through loan interest. Another no-brainer.

I looked at a lot of research and various endorsements, not *just* the League of Conservation Voters and the League of Women Voters. But I found that their voter guides explained in detail the motivation behind their decisions, especially the League of Women Voters website. Many other endorsements (from newspapers, for example) just offered a little sound bite on how to vote without much real substance explaining the background of the proposition, the details of it, how it would affect the state financially, etc. That's why I included links to and excerpts from the League of Women Voters website so often above.

Now get on out there and have your say! And then go get a free coffee at Starbucks. You *have* heard that Starbucks is giving away free coffee to voters today, right?