Zak Claxton Endorses -- Part 1/2 -- Midterm Elections 2018 (Los Angeles County, CA)

Dave Chappelle had a bit from a number of years ago about white people being very secretive about who they vote for. I won't repeat the good part verbatim, but it involved a guy being offended by being asked who he was voting for, then immediately turning around and openly talking about intimate details of his sex life with his wife. While I definitely support people's right to maintain privacy about their voting, it does strike me as odd that classically, it was of distasteful etiquette to inquire about someone else's voting choices. The more recent political environment of the past few years has changed that to some degree; people feel a need to be more forthcoming about their political views since the stakes seem much higher than before.

That having been said, there are plenty of circumstances where remaining private about your voting choices is very, very important. I know people who are married to very conservative spouses who would be very angry with them if they were aware that they were voting in the opposite direction as them (sorry for the anonymous pronoun game here, but I don't want to be the cause of busting anyone). I also know people who live in areas or work at companies that are highly swayed in one political outlook who vote in the opposite way, and those folks might run into serious danger if they allowed their voting record to be public. So trust me, I get it and support it.

But me? I'm very open about whom I support, and since I vote early via mail, my selections are literally signed, sealed, and delivered already. Therefore, I'm doing a two-part post that may help those of you who remain undecided to make some choices. Part 1, today's post, is for my California ballot here in Los Angeles County. It's who I actually voted for, along with the ballot measure I chose to support or disapprove. Part 2, perhaps more important on the large scale, will be a synopsis of candidates I support across the USA in various regions. That will be forthcoming.

Why Would You Care?
One other note: why should you care who I'm voting for? I'm just some guy, a random person whose words you occasionally read, a performer and songwriter whose music you may have heard. The answer: you shouldn't care. You should make these decisions for yourself. However, I will say that my choices are based on quite a lot of research, and I stay very up-to-date with news and information about issues that affect us locally, nationally, and globally. It should be fairly obvious that my votes below are supportive of a liberal/progressive view, and yet I still refuse to merely vote along party lines. I would gladly vote for a Republican candidate if I truly felt he or she was the better choice, and if I didn't feel doing so would help legitimize the current GOP administration.

Here are my choices. You are welcome to ask me about the reasons for my decisions in the comments below.

STATE:
Governor: Gavin Newsom
Lt. Gov: Eleni Kounalakis
Sec of State: Alex Padilla
Controller: Betty Yee
Treasurer: Fiona Ma
Atty General: Xavier Becerra
Insurance Commissioner: Ricardo Lara
State Board of Equalization (3rd District): Tony Vazquez

US SENATOR:
Kevin De Leon

US REPRESENTATIVE (33rd District):
Ted Lieu

STATE SENATOR (26th District):
Ben Allen

STATE ASSEMBLY (66th District):
Al Muratsuchi

JUDICIAL:
"Yes" to all except for Carol A. Corrigan.

JUDICIAL ELECTED:
Superior Court Office 4: A. Veronica Sauceda
Superior Court Office 16: Patti Hunter
Superior Court Office 60: Holly L. Hancock
Superior Court Office 113: Javier Perez

SCHOOL:
Superintendent of Public Instruction: Tony K. Thurmond

COUNTY:
Assessor: Jeffrey Prang
Sheriff: Alex Villanueva

STATE MEASURES:
Measure 1 (Bonds for housing programs and veterans’ home loans): Yes
Measure 2 (Bonds for homelessness prevention housing): Yes
Measure 3 (Bonds for water-related infrastructure and environmental projects): No
Measure 4 (Bonds for children’s hospitals): Yes
Measure 5 (Taxes for home buyers who are age 55 or older or severely disabled to transfer their tax assessments): No
Measure 6 (Repeals 2017’s fuel tax and vehicle fee increases): No
Measure 7 (Permanent daylight saving time): No
Measure 8 (Requires dialysis clinics to issue refunds for revenue above a certain amount): No
Measure 10 (Allows local governments to regulate rent): Yes
Measure 11 (Ambulance providers to require workers to remain on-call during breaks): No
Measure 12 (Bans sale of meat from animals confined in spaces below specific sizes): Yes

COUNTY MEASURES:
Measure W (Capture, clean and save up to 100 billion gallons of rain each year): Yes

DISTRICT:
Beach Cities Health District Board of Directors: Noel Lee Chun, Michelle Anne Bholat
Beach Cities Health District Special Election: Andrea N. Giancoli