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Voters Deliver a Mixed Bag in Decisions on State’s Propositions

Published

4 years ago

November 5, 2020

Post Staff

Courtesy The Guardian

So far, they decline employee status for gig workers, stricter parole rules and restoring Affirmative Action.

Much was at stake for Californians in this year’s statewide initiatives – strengthening rent control, ending cash bail, providing labor rights for gig workers, ending the state’s ban on diversity and making billionaires pay increased property taxes

That’s why businesses spent so much to try to make sure the results would be favorable to their bottom line. At the top of this year’s spending is Proposition 22 on Tuesday’s ballot, funded by Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and others, a measure designed to override a new state law that requires these companies’ ride-hailing and delivery drivers to be classified as employees rather than independent contractors.

In this race, spending on both sides reached new heights – a record total of $202 million.

While 2020’s results are not yet final, as of Wednesday afternoon, 72% of the estimated vote total (11.8 million votes) has been tallied, and results in many of the races are clear. Late-arriving mail ballots and provisional ballots will be counted in the days and weeks after the election.

Here is where the measures stand:

· Proposition 14 – Medical research bonds. Passing with 51.1% “yes” votes.

· Proposition 15 – Change Commercial Property Tax. Failing with 51.7 “no” votes. The proposition would tax properties based on current market value rather than purchase price and increases property taxes on commercial properties for funding to local governments and schools.

Though the measure is trailing, it could receive a boost from about 1 million uncounted ballots in heavily Democratic Los Angeles.

· Proposition 16 – End diversity ban. Failing with 56% “no” votes. The proposition would repeal a constitutional provision that made it unlawful for California’s state and local governments to discriminate against or grant preferential treatment to people based on race, ethnicity, national origin or sex.

· Proposition 17 – Restore former felon vote. Passing with 59.1% “yes” votes.

· Proposition 18 – Lower voting age to 17 for primary races. Failing with 55.1% “no” votes

· Proposition 19 – Change Property Tax Rules. Passing with 51.5% “yes” votes

· Proposition 20 – Stricter Parole, Sentencing. Failing with 62.4% “no” votes.

· Proposition 21 – Local Government Rent Control. Failing with 59.7% “no” votes. The proposition would allow local governments to establish rent control on residential properties over 15 years old.

· Proposition 22 – App-Based Drivers as Contractors, Not Employees. Passing with 58.4% “yes” votes.

· Proposition 23 – Dialysis Clinic Standards. Failing with 64% “no” votes.

· Proposition 24 – Expand Consumer Privacy, passing with 56.1% of the vote.

· Proposition 25 – Approve Replacing Cash Bail. Failing with 55.4% “no” votes.

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Fighting to Keep Blackness

BlackPressUSA NEWSWIRE — Trump supporters have introduced another bill to take down the bright yellow letters of Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., in exchange for the name Liberty Plaza. D.C.

Published

1 day ago

March 7, 2025

Oakland Post

By April Ryan

As this nation observes the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, the words of President Trump reverberate. “This country will be WOKE no longer”, an emboldened Trump offered during his speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. Since then, Alabama Congresswoman Terri Sewell posted on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter this morning that “Elon Musk and his DOGE bros have ordered GSA to sell off the site of the historic Freedom Riders Museum in Montgomery.” Her post of little words went on to say, “This is outrageous and we will not let it stand! I am demanding an immediate reversal. Our civil rights history is not for sale!” DOGE trying to sell Freedom Rider Museum

Also, in the news today, the Associated Press is reporting they have a file of names and descriptions of more than 26,000 military images flagged for removal because of connections to women, minorities, culture, or DEI. In more attempts to downplay Blackness, a word that is interchanged with woke, Trump supporters have introduced another bill to take down the bright yellow letters of Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., in exchange for the name Liberty Plaza. D.C. Mayor Morial Bowser is allowing the name change to keep millions of federal dollars flowing there. Black Lives Matter Plaza was named in 2020 after a tense exchange between President Trump and George Floyd protesters in front of the White House. There are more reports about cuts to equity initiatives that impact HBCU students. Programs that recruited top HBCU students into the military and the pipeline for Department of Defense contracts have been canceled.

Meanwhile, Democrats are pushing back against this second-term Trump administration’s anti-DEI and Anti-woke message. In the wake of the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, several Congressional Black Caucus leaders are reintroducing the Voting Rights Act. South Carolina Democratic Congressman James Clyburn and Alabama Congresswoman Terry Sewell are sponsoring H.R. 14, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Six decades ago, Lewis was hit with a billy club by police as he marched for the right to vote for African Americans. The right for Black people to vote became law with the 1965 Voting Rights Act that has since been gutted, leaving the nation to vote without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act. Reflecting on the late Congressman Lewis, March 1, 2020, a few months before his death, Lewis said, “We need more than ever in these times many more someones to make good trouble- to make their own dent in the wall of injustice.”

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Oakland Post: Week of March 5 – 11, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 5 – 11, 2025

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1 day ago

March 7, 2025

Oakland Post

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Rep. Al Green is Censured by The U.S. House After Protesting Trump on Medicaid

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — His censure featured no hearing at the House Ethics Committee and his punishment was put on the floor for a vote by the Republican controlled House less than 72 hours after the infraction in question.

Published

2 days ago

March 6, 2025

Oakland Post

By Lauren Burke

In one of the quickest punishments of a member of the U.S. House of Representatives in the modern era, Congressman Al Green (D-TX) was censured by a 224-198 vote today in the House. His censure featured no hearing at the House Ethics Committee and his punishment was put on the floor for a vote by the Republican controlled House less than 72 hours after the infraction in question. Of the last three censures of members of the U.S. House, two have been members of the Congressional Black Caucus under GOP control. In 2023, Rep. Jamal Bowman was censured.

On the night of March 4, as President Trump delivered a Joint Address to Congress, Rep. Green interrupted him twice. Rep. Green shouted, “You don’t have a mandate to cut Medicare, and you need to raise the cap on social security,” to President Trump. In another rare event, Rep. Green was escorted off the House floor by security shortly after yelling at the President by order of GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson. Over the last four years, members of Congress have yelled at President Biden during the State of the Union. Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor-Greene was joined by Republican Rep. Lauren Bobert (R-CO) in 2022 in yelling at President Biden. In 2023, Rep. Greene, Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), and Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI) yelled at Biden, interrupting his speech. In 2024, wearing a red MAGA hat, a violation of the rules of the U.S. House, Greene interrupted Biden again. She was never censured for her behavior. Rep. Green voted “present” on his censure and was joined by freshman Democrat Congressman Shomari Figures of Alabama who also voted “present”.

All other members of the Congressional Black Caucus voted against censuring Green. Republicans hold a four-seat advantage in the U.S. House after the death of Texas Democrat and former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner yesterday. Ten Democrats voted along with Republicans to censure Rep. Green, including Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, who is in the leadership as the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “I respect them but, I would do it again,” and “it is a matter of conscience,” Rep. Green told Black Press USA’s April Ryan in an exclusive interview on March 5. After the vote, a group of Democrats sang “We Shall Overcome” in the well at the front of the House chamber. Several Republican members attempted to shout down the singing. House Speaker Mike Johnson gaveled the House out of session and into a recess. During the brief recess members moved back to their seats and out of the well of the House. Shortly after the vote to censor Rep. Green, Republican Congressman Andy Ogles of Tennessee quickly filed legislation to punish members who participated in the singing of “We Shall Overcome.” Earlier this year, Rep. Ogles filed legislation to allow President Donald Trump to serve a third term, which is currently unconstitutional. As the debate started, the stock market dove down over one-point hours from close. The jobs report will be made public tomorrow.