Election Post-Mortems
Proposition 51 won for one reason and one reason only: the ballot language. It promised voters savings of millions of dollars.
The last California Poll showed a close race among decided voters. But it also showed 26% were undecided, and that an additional 10% had never heard of the insurance measure. When that 36% walked into the polling booth and read that a Yes vote would save them millions of tax dollars, 93% of them must have voted Yes.
Subtract 36% from the winner’s column and Proposition 51 loses. That means that a majority of the voters who analyzed the issue were against it.
Now that Proposition 51 has passed, when do we start saving those millions of dollars in premiums? (Perhaps you’d like to buy a piece of the Brooklyn Bridge, too!) That sound you hear is the insurance companies laughing, all the way to the bank.
JOSEPH SCANLON
Berkeley
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