Did you know the first female U.S. Supreme Court Justice was Sandra Day O’Connor who came onto the bench in 1981? The Court was almost 200 years old. The second was Ruth Ginsberg while the third was Sonya Sotamayer. Out of the 112 Supreme Court Justices, only these three were women. Elena Kagan could be the 4th. When Sandra Day O’Connor graduated Stanford Law School in the 1950’s, she was unable to get hired as a lawyer – because she was a woman. That was only fifty years ago! Oh, enough about woman’s lib. Thanks Leigh, for sharing the Supreme Court chronicle.
This past week, the Global Gals talked about the upcoming California election without really knowing what we were talking about. We pretty much concluded that the State Proposition system in California doesn’t work because even a group a smart, educated women couldn’t figure out what the laws mean!
In general, we steered away from any proposition that would change or instate a law that would require a 2/3 majority for making future changes.
Keep in mind, for judge elections: Judges are appointed then have to run for re-election here in California. One way to know who to vote for is to vote for the currently sitting judge. That means you are basically voting for whoever was originally appointed without worrying how much money is being spent in the judicial elections. A current trend is to spend money on judicial campaigns to replace “liberal” judges with more “conservative” judges.
I don’t think we made any concrete recommendations. In my notes, this is what I wrote:
Prop 13 Yes
Prop 14 No
Prop 15 ?
Prop 16 NO
Prop 17 NO
Democrat Governor Jerry Brown
Lt Governor either Janice Hahn or Gavin Newsom
US Senator Barbara Boxer
Nobody liked Meg Whitman and most felt she isn’t trustworthy
Below are some web pages that may help you with your research and voting decisions:
www.sddemocrats.org/sdcdp_endorsements.asp
www.sandiegorepublicans.org/voterguide/
www.smartvoter.org/ca/state/
www.sierraclubcalifornia.org/elections.html
I apologize for being so erratic in my reporting. I experienced difficulty in following the conversation at times. Please, make comments if you have found any helpful information or if you have made a decision as to how your will be voting.
Your Gal,
Jules