Opinion: In today’s pages: Elections, speeches and teachers
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| Umm, no. (David McNew / Getty Images) |
California voters demonstrated again the power of the Times’ election endorsements, Carmen Trutanich defeated heavily favored City Councilman Jack Weiss in the race for Los Angeles City Attorney. They also defeated Proposition 1B and approved Proposition 1F. Granted, they disregarded the editorial board’s suggestions for the other four propositions and the race to succeed Weiss in the 5th council district. But hey, our batting average is higher than Manny Ramirez’s, and we’re still on the job. Anyway, the board looks at the results on the propositions and says there might be a message for Sacramento, but voters can’t agree what it is. There’s no clear mandate for spending cuts (and no easy cuts to make), nor for tax hikes (not that the legislature could do that, either):
As liberals and conservatives each try to claim credit for the election results, they go back to their respective rhetorical corners. Now, though, those corners are at the bottom of a $21 billion hole.
Meanwhile, on the Op-Ed page, our former colleague Joe Mathews (now a senior fellow at the New America Foundation) calls for California to hold elections every quarter. Why, why, why??? According to Mathews, it would shorten ballots and improve the drafting of initiatives and amendments.
But enough about voting! How ‘bout that President Obama? The editorial board throws its support behind the administration’s move to combat carbon emissions by dramatically raising vehicle fuel-economy standards, an idea that began in Sacramento and was blocked by the Bush administration before gaining purchase with the current Environmental Protection Agency. And columnist Tim Rutten praises Obama’s commencement speech Sunday at Notre Dame, saying the president showed again that he is ‘the rhetorical equivalent of a `money player.’’ Interesting choice of words to describe someone who just returned to the political fundraising circuit.
But enough about Obama! (How frequently those words come to mind....) Let’s talk about teachers. The editorial board revisits the lawsuit by a Christian student against one of his teachers at Capistrano Valley High School, for allegedly disparaging religion, saying the recent ruling shows why such disputes shouldn’t be resolved in the courtroom. And Sigrid Bathen, an education writer who teaches journalism at Cal State Sacramento, calls for streamlining the process of firing lousy public-school teachers.
Finally, in Letters, readers weigh in on Charlotte Allen’s Op-Ed blasting athiests, ‘legacy admissions’ at public schools and a glorious photo of the space shuttle.