Edit: To anyone reading this via RSS, make sure you drop by the site and check out the voter guide. Only the first page of the 8-page guide is showing up there, and that only includes the Senator race for this district. There’s a lot more info so make sure you drop by!
Well, as promised, here’s the Gnorb.NET Florida-although-mostly-Broward voter guide for those of you too lazy or busy to do you own darn research. That’s OK, though: it’s sometimes hard with everything going on to research every little bit, which is why you’re probably reading this. (By the way, if someone printed this out and handed it to you, thank them. It means they care.)
As the title states, while a good portion of this guide is applicable to all Floridians, some portions are applicable only to Broward county, so if you don’t recognize a name, don’t worry about it. In this guide I’ll be covering the following electoral items: U.S. Senator, Governor, Attorney General, Chief Financial Officer, Commissioner of Agriculture & Consumer Services, Amendments to the Florida Constitution, and County Ballot Legislation. In that order. In cases where there are more than two or three choices (like in the race for Governor), I’ll be covering who I consider to be all the viable candidates. (This includes third party candidates and independents, so long as they’re not batshiat crazy. I tried to cover them all, even the batshiat crazy ones, but it would take way too long, seeing as I have to cut through the monuments of self-righteous self-love most of them put up in their Issues page.) I won’t, however, be covering judges. Finally, I’ll also be offering recommendations on who to vote for and why. You don’t have to agree with me: I won’t be offended.
NOTE: When I started doing this, I intended to cover all people running and cover the issues they covered on their websites. As you will see from the US Senator race, I stopped because a lot of the third party candidates are indeed crazy. Just take a look at Floyd Ray Frazier, for example: that dude has the angry black felon socialist vote locked down, but probably scares everyone else away.)
Contents
- US Senator
- Governor
- Attorney General
- Chief Financial Officer
- Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services
- Amendments
- Broward-Spefic Items
- The Rundown: A Quick Voting Guide
- Katherine Harris (Republican): Currently serving in the US House of Representatives.
- Supports lowering taxes, and deregulation of business.
- Voted in support of the REAL ID Act of 2005
- Opposes blanket amnesty for illegal immigrants, but supports protocols for creating a temporary legal workforce
- Committed to ensuring adequate resources from the federal government in cases of hurricane releif and disaster preparedness.
- Supports Florida-determined coastline oil exploration. Currently, this is determined by Congress.
- Strong support of veteran’s rights.
- Opposes abortion and embryonic stem cell research.
- Received an “A” rating from the NRA.
- Voted for Medicare Part D (St. Pete Times explanation here.)
- Opposes the practice of eminent domain.
- Bill Nelson (Democrat): Currently serving as Senator in the US Senate.
- Supports the war in Iraq; has voted for the US PATRIOT Act and its extension, as well as the Military Commissions Act; supports making homeland security grants to state and local authorities based on risk threat.
- Opposes practice of eminent domain. Helped passed a measure in the Senate that bars the use of federal transportation and housing funds to take one’s property for economic development projects. He believes the Congress must further limit government’s use of eminent domain by extending the ban to cover all federal funds used for such a purpose.
- Supports reforming FEMA.
- Supports preventing Medicare beneficiaries from having to pay an annual fee to see their doctor.
- Supports closing tax loopholes by preventing corporations from setting up “sham” headquarters in other countries to hide their assets and escape tax liability.
- Supports lowering the cost of the new Medicare prescription drug benefit program by allowing the government to use its buying power to negotiate for lower-priced prescription drugs.
- Supports small business growth.
- Supported a two-year sales tax deduction allowing Florida taxpayers to deduct state sales taxes on their federal tax return. Wants to make this change permanent.
- Supports the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
- Supports better regulation of environmental issues including phasing out arsenic-treated playground wood, forcing corporations to clean up their own pollution, has a 30-year plan to restore the Everglades, and opposes Florida coastline oil exploration.
- Supports protecting the Social Security program as a guaranteed source of returement income for future generations.
- Supports the “No Child Left Behind” Act; Introduced legislation to help public schoold provide better quality physical health education.
- Floyd Ray Frazier (Independent):
- Believes that current policies have made the US one of the biggest purveyors of Human Rights violations in the world.
- Social security reform with a transfer of wealth component, but without private and/or personal accounts. Tax all wages and salaries, regardless of amount. Transfer of wealth compoent will be based on how long you have paid into social security, with a minimum of 10 years. Transfer of wealth component only kicks in if you do not have children under the age of 23, and will be available to heirs.
- Provide people with the same health care program as our elected officials.
- Raise minimum starting salary for teachers to $100,000; completely reorganize the education system; nationalize education.
- Implement a national sales tax: tax all goods and services so that everyone pays their share “from the womb to the tomb”. Abolish the income tax.
- Reparations: Affirmative Action was designed to help the Black African-American Male, but instead has helped Caucasian and Jewish women.
- Legalize marijuana/
- Restoration of ex-felons’ civil liberties. (“It is time for the big pay back, the wealh of America was built with blood, sweat, and tears of our ancestors, we demand a level playing field.”)
- Belinda Noah (Independent):
- Affordable housing: by replacing he tax system with the FairTax, there will be no tax liability and no need for a deduction against home mortgages.
- Eliminate the entire federal tax code, eliminate the IRS, and replace it with the FairTax (S.25, now in the US Senate).
- Eliminate the trade deficit; re-establish America as a creditor. All trade agreements that abridge US law shall be considered under the Treaty provisions of the US Constitution.
- Defend the right to bear arms.
- “It is the responsibility of the federal government to maintain and secure our borders by whatever means necessary.”
- Supports individual accounts; Supports current medicare recipients’ ability to choose the best healthcare plan that works for them.
- Supports growth management laws where ever possible, in line with population density; Supports negotiating viable agreements with other nations to protect the global environment.
- Repeal the tax system to remove impediments to savings for educating our youth.
- Brian Moore (Green):
- Opposed Iraq war from the beginning.
- Supports diplomatic talks with Iran, emphasizing understanding its security concerns, that its neighbors India, Israel, and Pakistan, all have nuclear weapons.
- Opposes the Patriot Act.
- Supports a balanced budget and opposes deficit spending.
- Advocates protecting American jobs by supporting fair trade over free trade, halting out-sourcing of jobs to foreign countries.
- Opposes Medicare Part D.
- Advocates Universal Health Care system.
- Opposes current immigration bills in the House and Senate advocating erection of border walls; supports fixing the root cause of illegal immigration: US Government economic policies that undercut foreign countries.
- Supports withdrawing form NAFTA, GATT, CAFTA and the WTO; supports “Living Wage” for all Americans; establish “Marshall Plan” for Latin America to enable immigrants to be gainfully employed in their own countries.
- Favor public funding of campaigns and term limits.
- Opposes permanent tax reductions to the wealthy at the expense of the middle and lower class; favors no new taxes.
- Favors reduced defense budget by eliminating unnecessary and exorbitant high tech weapons; Advocates national guard and military reserve to be retained for homeland security; increased services for veterans; favors redirecting of funds towards domestic priorities.
- Supports current social security system.
- Encourages environmental conservation in tandem with responsible growth; favors development of renewable energy; promotes enhanced public transit via bus and railroad systems.
- Foreign policy should promote arms control, peace, economic development in order to reduce terrorism.
- Better education system through higher teacher salaries, more equitable requirements for school adherence to “No Child Left Behind” policies, independent audits of educational system and teacher testing.
- Initiate Congressional hearings to determine if freedoms and liberties have been violated via Patriot Act, warrantless searches, domestic spying, telephone company data mining, etc.
- Remove embargo on Cuba
- Supports abortion
- Supports equal rights for gays
- Roy Tanner (Independent):
- Combat proliferation of WMDs.
- Develop better human intelligence resources.
- Transform Armed Forces to 21st century needs.
- Accelerate homeland security and national missle defense system.
- Fortify border protection and port security.
- Enforce immigration laws and guest worker regulations.
- Expand domestic energy exploration and production; increase renewable and alternative energy supplies.
- Enforce trade agreements to ensure a level playing field.
- Adopt a constitutional line-item veto linked to deficit reduction.
- Fight health care fraud.
- Expand health savings accounts for families and small businesses.
- Prevention of all human cloning research.
- Opposes embryonic stem cell research.
- Opposes Gay Marriage; Supports Federal Marriage Amendment.
- Appointment of judges who strictly interpret the law.
- Opposes the use of Senate filibusters.
- Gnorb’s Impressions:
- Katherine Harris: The REAL ID Act was onerous legislation, a “temporary legal workforce” is code for “jobs which Americans won’t do” — which is total crap — and as Florida’s Secretary of State, she was in large part responsible for the Florida electoral debacle of 2000. This woman should never again be allowed to hold public office.
- Bill Nelson: If this guy is trying to pass himself off as a Republican, he’s doing a heck of a job. While I like some of his positions, such as in taxation and reforming FEMA, his unwavering support for the Bush administration’s un-American security policies are a bit too in-line with why I’ve become disillusioned with the Republican party. Overall, this guy’s a career politician, through and through.
- Floyd Ray Harris: Wow. Just… wow. Definitely has the angry black socialist vote. He’s so angry he even misspells words on the site.
- Belinda Noah: A bit too much on the whole “fair tax” deal, which tends to favor the rich. Overall, I like her ideas.
- Brian Moore: While I believe his economic policies and political leanings are a bit too socialist, he is the first candidate I’ve seen outside of the Rep and Dem who has laid out a comprehensive plan of action. He’s gained my respect.
- Roy Tanner: Would the real Republicans please stand up? If you’re planning to vote for this guy, don’t: vote for Harris, instead.