Reminds me of the Drake Springs Pool election, I suppose they will be complaining about this for the next 8 years also.
My guess is there will be as much of a kerfuffle over this as the rich people have been making over having a WalMart in their neighborhood. So far I haven’t heard what I consider a real good reason for the early start date.
KSFY just reported how UNhappy School Board President, Kent Alberty, is with the outcome of yesterday’s election.
It will be interesting to listen to the tone of tomorrow’s school board meeting approving the new school calendar.
Mr. Alberty, this issue was decided by a public vote. The people have spoken.
Homan’s gone. It’s a bigger win but parents walking all over district rule is fun to watch.
Wild Water West can now stay open well into the end of summer. Longer season for city swimming pools. For those who couldn’t get in all summer because the city created overcrowding when they demolished the best outdoor pool.
Hey Joan, watch Doc Martin much? 🙂
“No” wins by a slim margin, but the incumbent school board members opposed to the “No” vote are comfortably re-elected.
The majority party in this state fails at the ballot box to defend or prevent referendums and initiatives which challenge their policy enactments, while the minority party succeeds at initiatives and referendums but finds it increasingly impossible to elect members of its party to the state legislature.
Our US Congress has a 7% approval rating, yet over 95% of its incumbents continued to get re-elected.
There is a true disconnect in this country at all levels between issues and political leadership, but the voters are most to blame and not the politicians.
Have politics increasingly become nothing but a game of image and name i.d. with issues removed from the election of our representatives and totally dependent upon the concept of direct democracy over an electoral partnership with representative democracy to enact the will of the people, I ask?
Sure Wild Water West (large contributor to Vote No) can stay open longer to advantage of the under 18 minimum wage and make some more bucks. A good share of the lifeguards at City pools are college students so they will be leaving in the middle of August to go back to school. So I doubt if all pools will remain open until labor day.
I’ll bite on Winston’s question.
Voters are pretty unsophisticated. When it comes to these sorts of referenda, the questions are really basic and people can usually form a preference one way or the other. Often times their preferences aren’t guided by a lot of solid data but they have preferences nevertheless.
For instance, I’d wager that people who made minimum wage and voted on that question that last fall weren’t considering the various economic impacts of their vote so much as they were voting to give themselves more money.
Similarly, when the “no” campaign frames the ballot, quite successfully, as a campaign for more summer, that’s going to hit home for some people. I think the arguments made by the “yes” people are more relevant to the issue but the arguments were also more convoluted.
It’s also how legions of voters in South Dakota (and elsewhere) continue to vote against their own economic interests in state and federal elections.
Voters tend to trust incumbents because they lack the critical thinking skills or information to consider the ramifications of change. Behavioral economists will tell you that people in general are risk-averse and will tend to stay the course in situations where they are uncertain of what change will bring.
So that there were a bunch of people that voted no on the referendum and then re-elected the incumbent school board members shouldn’t be much of a surprise at all.
Winston #7 has a point. His question needs an answer.
teatime, I have never watched Doc Martin. None of the current programs on Public TV sound interesting. I like a couple of the English comedies that each one ended the story at 1/2 hour. I used to enjoy a lot of the fund raising programs, but they don’t seem to have the really good concerts on for that anymore, and I’m not interested in what Suzie Orman, and other motivational speakers have to say. It used to be that most of the concerts provided the best music on TV.
Hornguy, you make some good points. I guess an argument could be made that attempts at direct democratic ballot initiatives should actually be at odds with our elected officials, because that is the intent of such initiatives and/or referendums as a form of “check and balances” to our elected officials enactments or lack of enactments.
However, it seems to me that increasingly there is a disconnect betweeen candidates and issues and especially at the Congressional level in South Dakota it seems to be more about image and who is the “hottest” than who is right. As a side note, I believe, Thune, Herseth, and Noem were all voted the in their time the “Hottest” of their respective freshman classes as an example.
Also, at the federal and state levels I believe gerry-mandering places a great part in the high re-election capabilities of our incumbents; but at the local level to some degree it has more to do with the lack of competitive races, where name i.d. and incumbency make for a great advantage.
That said, I still blame the voters and not the politicians. Except for the fact, it would be nice to have credible politicians willing to discuss issues rather than using all of their time and money to construct an image; but perhaps I asking too much of our political leaders and we will be forced to walk into the 21st century with a political system which relies on this perverted or warped duality of policy decision-making capability.
Joan: Just wondering. Tipped off by the word “kerfuffle”, very British. 🙂
Gerrymandering districts is a huge problem. So is ALEC and tho Koch brothers who continue to buy up state legislatures. More and more, state legislators care more about there ALEC “lunch” money than what any of their constituents might want or need.
Reminds me of the Drake Springs Pool election, I suppose they will be complaining about this for the next 8 years also.
My guess is there will be as much of a kerfuffle over this as the rich people have been making over having a WalMart in their neighborhood. So far I haven’t heard what I consider a real good reason for the early start date.
KSFY just reported how UNhappy School Board President, Kent Alberty, is with the outcome of yesterday’s election.
It will be interesting to listen to the tone of tomorrow’s school board meeting approving the new school calendar.
Mr. Alberty, this issue was decided by a public vote. The people have spoken.
Homan’s gone. It’s a bigger win but parents walking all over district rule is fun to watch.
Wild Water West can now stay open well into the end of summer. Longer season for city swimming pools. For those who couldn’t get in all summer because the city created overcrowding when they demolished the best outdoor pool.
Hey Joan, watch Doc Martin much? 🙂
“No” wins by a slim margin, but the incumbent school board members opposed to the “No” vote are comfortably re-elected.
The majority party in this state fails at the ballot box to defend or prevent referendums and initiatives which challenge their policy enactments, while the minority party succeeds at initiatives and referendums but finds it increasingly impossible to elect members of its party to the state legislature.
Our US Congress has a 7% approval rating, yet over 95% of its incumbents continued to get re-elected.
There is a true disconnect in this country at all levels between issues and political leadership, but the voters are most to blame and not the politicians.
Have politics increasingly become nothing but a game of image and name i.d. with issues removed from the election of our representatives and totally dependent upon the concept of direct democracy over an electoral partnership with representative democracy to enact the will of the people, I ask?
Sure Wild Water West (large contributor to Vote No) can stay open longer to advantage of the under 18 minimum wage and make some more bucks. A good share of the lifeguards at City pools are college students so they will be leaving in the middle of August to go back to school. So I doubt if all pools will remain open until labor day.
I’ll bite on Winston’s question.
Voters are pretty unsophisticated. When it comes to these sorts of referenda, the questions are really basic and people can usually form a preference one way or the other. Often times their preferences aren’t guided by a lot of solid data but they have preferences nevertheless.
For instance, I’d wager that people who made minimum wage and voted on that question that last fall weren’t considering the various economic impacts of their vote so much as they were voting to give themselves more money.
Similarly, when the “no” campaign frames the ballot, quite successfully, as a campaign for more summer, that’s going to hit home for some people. I think the arguments made by the “yes” people are more relevant to the issue but the arguments were also more convoluted.
It’s also how legions of voters in South Dakota (and elsewhere) continue to vote against their own economic interests in state and federal elections.
Voters tend to trust incumbents because they lack the critical thinking skills or information to consider the ramifications of change. Behavioral economists will tell you that people in general are risk-averse and will tend to stay the course in situations where they are uncertain of what change will bring.
So that there were a bunch of people that voted no on the referendum and then re-elected the incumbent school board members shouldn’t be much of a surprise at all.
Winston #7 has a point. His question needs an answer.
teatime, I have never watched Doc Martin. None of the current programs on Public TV sound interesting. I like a couple of the English comedies that each one ended the story at 1/2 hour. I used to enjoy a lot of the fund raising programs, but they don’t seem to have the really good concerts on for that anymore, and I’m not interested in what Suzie Orman, and other motivational speakers have to say. It used to be that most of the concerts provided the best music on TV.
Hornguy, you make some good points. I guess an argument could be made that attempts at direct democratic ballot initiatives should actually be at odds with our elected officials, because that is the intent of such initiatives and/or referendums as a form of “check and balances” to our elected officials enactments or lack of enactments.
However, it seems to me that increasingly there is a disconnect betweeen candidates and issues and especially at the Congressional level in South Dakota it seems to be more about image and who is the “hottest” than who is right. As a side note, I believe, Thune, Herseth, and Noem were all voted the in their time the “Hottest” of their respective freshman classes as an example.
Also, at the federal and state levels I believe gerry-mandering places a great part in the high re-election capabilities of our incumbents; but at the local level to some degree it has more to do with the lack of competitive races, where name i.d. and incumbency make for a great advantage.
That said, I still blame the voters and not the politicians. Except for the fact, it would be nice to have credible politicians willing to discuss issues rather than using all of their time and money to construct an image; but perhaps I asking too much of our political leaders and we will be forced to walk into the 21st century with a political system which relies on this perverted or warped duality of policy decision-making capability.
Joan: Just wondering. Tipped off by the word “kerfuffle”, very British. 🙂
Gerrymandering districts is a huge problem. So is ALEC and tho Koch brothers who continue to buy up state legislatures. More and more, state legislators care more about there ALEC “lunch” money than what any of their constituents might want or need.