Pages

Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Voting in March

The chancellor circulated an email this morning which said in part:

As the March 3 election approaches, I want to encourage you to vote and also ensure you are aware of new voting opportunities at UCLA.
...This year, UCLA Ackerman Union will serve as a Los Angeles County vote center for 11 days and the Hammer Museum will be a vote center for four days, providing UCLA students, faculty, staff and other voters around our campus community with greater voting flexibility than ever before. This new model allows L.A. County voters to cast a ballot at any vote center in the county... 
In order to vote, you must register by February 18. If you have changed your permanent address, name or party affiliation since the last election, you will need to re-register. You can find more information at the BruinsVOTE! UCLA election hub.
While the presidential primary receives much attention, there are also important local races and measures, as well as a statewide measure, that will be on the ballot in March. Information about statewide Proposition 13 — which authorizes bonds for facilities at UCLA and the other UC campuses as well as public preschools, K-12 schools and other public colleges and universities — is available on the California Secretary of State website (see Proposition 13 Summary and Analysis (PDF) and Proposition 13 Arguments in Favor and Rebuttals (PDF))...
Yours truly might note in addition something discussed in earlier blog posts. LA County DA Jackie Lacey is running for re-election and has a significant opponent in George Gascón. Lacey's predecessor as DA brought a criminal case against a UC faculty member for a tragic lab accident that should have been dealt with as a civil case. It was hoped that when Lacey was first elected she would take a different approach to that matter which she inherited, rather than pursue the criminal case, which at one point sought to charge the entire Board of Regents. Instead, she went ahead with the case as it stood. UCLA defended the faculty member and eventually the case largely dissipated and was settled. But in the course of the DA's efforts, another faculty member was charged in a totally-unrelated case on spurious grounds that were eventually dropped. It appeared that the DA's strategy at the time was somehow to hold the second faculty member as a kind of hostage to push for some kind of deal on the lab case. If that was the strategy, it failed. The bottom line here is that you might want to consider this history in making your choice in the DA race. We previously posted links whereby you can trace the history of this matter at:

No comments: