Today I went to a press conference featuring out Assembly member John Laird of Santa Cruz. He has been working really hard to get people to vote yes for Prop 93 here in California. Why? Because under current law, he will be termed out at the end of the year. That would be really bad for the lgbt community but also the whole state of California.
Why? You may be asking why would this matter to the whole state. Well, John is also the chair of the Assembly budget committee. He negotiates with the Governator over things like money for schools, money for HIV programs, money for everything. This state has the fifth largest economy in the world! This is not just any job and it affects millions of people.
John also made the point that a number of legislators who are pro-marriage would also be termed out. That number could be as high as 25 legislators we would lose to term limits. So we would have to start all over again, educating people, working on campaigns to make sure we had friends who will vote the right way for us. If our friends stay in office we can focus on getting others to vote the right way. Or left way.
Any way, voting yes on Prop 93 will be very important to the whole lgbt community. My friend Clark would disagree but I think keeping John Laird in office is one of the most important things we could do for ourselves in California.
That's me next to John's left arm.
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