Wednesday, October 23, 2024

State Propositions - Nov 2024

Here are my recommendations on California's 10 State Propositions:

State Propositions
2: YES for Bonds for Public Schools + Community Colleges
3: YES to Preserve Marriage Equality
4:YES for Natural Resources and Climate Change Bonds
5: YES YES YES to Allow Local Bonds for Affordable Housing and Public Infrastructure with 55% Voter Approval
6: YES to Prohibit Involuntary Servitude
32: YES to Raise Minimum Wage to $18 by 2026
33: YES to Expand Cities’ Control of Rent Increases for Vacant Units
34: NO to Protect Non-Profit’s Abilities to Engage in Politics
35: NO NO NO to Too-Complicated Ballot-Box Budgeting that will Worsen CA’s Deficit
36: NO NO NO, don’t Reinstate Three Strikes and the War on Drugs

See separate posts for recommendations on Berkeley ballot measures, Berkeley elected officials (city council, school board, rent board), and other elected officials (from President to local districts + Alameda County).

For details on state propositions, read on ..

State Propositions

I’m tired and I’m more focused on the national election than usual, so for several of these I wholesale quote trusted advisors who got their recommendations done before me (see the bottom of my post on Federal-State-County-District elected officials for more description on why I trust recommendations from Edie Irons & Janet Cox and from Nathan Landau (plus links to their full writeups). 

Prop 2: YES for Bonds for Public Schools + Community Colleges

Edie + Janet write: 
Since Prop 13 passed back in 1978, funding schools has been a terrific challenge for many communities, and way too many schools are run-down, unhealthy, and depressing. Many schools and classrooms in California have no AC, and here in Oakland it was just revealed that dozens of school water fountains and fixtures have unsafe levels of lead contamination. The last time a school infrastructure bond was on the ballot was 2020, and it failed. While this measure authorizes $8.5 billion for K-12 schools and $1.5 billion for community colleges it’s still stingy—it requires a significant match with local bonds that are hard for poor communities to pass. But—better than nothing. Bond issue placed on the ballot by the Legislature
 

Prop 3: YES to Preserve Marriage Equality

While I was raising children, the only time I did a LOT of phone-banking was to oppose Prop 8 in 2008, that outlawed same sex marriage. While a previous Supreme Court invalidated Prop 8, vote YES on 3 to amend the California constitution to declare that the right to marry is a fundamental right. This is part of California’s effort to “Trump Proof” the state. 

Prop 4:YES for Natural Resources and Climate Change Bonds

Nathan writes: 
Officially this is for Safe Drinking Water, Wildfire Prevention, Drought Preparedness, and Clean Air, all worthy purposes. The bond would help pay for a variety of actions, including tree thinning and vegetation reduction to reduce the risk of wildfires, actions such as wetlands restoration to mitigate sea level rise, and measures to respond to extreme heat. This would cost the state some $400 million per year, with a slightly longer repayment period than Measure 2. California has always prided itself in our environmental leadership, and this can help renew that. 
 

Prop 5: YES YES YES to Allow Local Bonds for Affordable Housing and Public Infrastructure with 55% Voter Approval

Edie & Janet write: 
Housing supply and affordability is arguably California’s biggest problem. Part of the reason why is that our state requires a 2/3 majority to pass local bonds to build and preserve more affordable homes—which allows a third of voters to block the rest of our willingness, over and over, to contribute to making California a better place to live. Prop 5 would also apply to local bonds for public transit, water, fire prevention, emergency services, and other vital infrastructure. It gives local voters and communities the power to fund the projects they need and want. Constitutional amendment placed on the ballot by the Legislature

My only quibble is that I don't think "arguably" belongs in that first sentence. If you’d like more information, see the Yes on Prop 5 campaign and see the gobs and gobs of local groups and elected officials who have endorsed Prop 5. Opponents are the usual suspects: the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and their friends. 

Prop 6: YES to Prohibit Involuntary Servitude

Edie & Janet write: 
[Prop 6…] eliminates the Constitutional provision allowing for forced labor of people who are incarcerated. California’s practice of putting inmates, who are disproportionately Black, to work for $0.74 an hour does sound like involuntary servitude. This amendment allows inmates to choose educational programs and rehabilitation services over labor, so it would also have a positive impact on recidivism. This is an outgrowth of California’s Reparations Task Force. Constitutional amendment placed on the ballot by the Legislature
 

Prop 32: YES to Raise Minimum Wage to $18 by 2026

Edie & Janet write: 
It’s now $16. According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, a living wage for a single adult in our state in 2024 is $27.32. How could we not support this? Conservative fear-mongering about negative effects of wage hikes on the economy have been thoroughly disproven. Initiative Statue
 

Prop 33: YES to Expand Cities’ Control of Rent Increases for Vacant Units

Nathan writes:
This measure will allow local governments to control rents when units become vacant. State law (known as “Costa Hawkins”) now prohibits cities from controlling the initial rent after a unit is vacated. That weakens rent control greatly, as rents on a unit can rise by an unlimited amount when they’re vacated. It also creates an incentive for landlords to evict or remove tenants from their units. This measure would allow cities decide how to decide that issue given local conditions. It would not require that cities create controls on vacant units’ rents. This is a valuable measure at a time of skyrocketing rents.
Its chief opponents are the California Apartment Association and the California Association of Realtors, each of which has raised over $20 million to oppose the measure. They make a spurious claim that this will somehow damage affordable housing, a claim not supported by the Legislative Analyst’s impartial analysis.
Agencies and organizations supporting it include Los Angeles County, the League of the California Democratic Party, and various unions. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (see Proposition 34) is providing almost all of the money for the Yes side.

I’d just like to add: Prop 33 does not itself put any new rent control, it just allows cities and counties to do so. See the Yes on 33 campaign for endorsements and more info. 

Prop 34: NO to Protect Non-Profit’s Abilities to Engage in Politics

Edie & Janet write: 
This is another inside-baseball, narrowly focused initiative that isn’t actually about what it says it’s about. It got on the ballot because the California Apartment Association put tens of millions of dollars into paid signature-gathering. The criteria for the proposed restrictions are so narrow that the bill probably only restricts the activities of one organization, the Aids Healthcare Foundation, run by one Michael Weinstein, a player in the state’s housing battles (see Prop 33). Why do we have to put up with this? For more details see CalMatters’ writeup. Initiative Statute
 

Prop 35: NO NO NO to Too-Complicated Ballot-Box Budgeting that will Worsen CA’s Deficit

This is an extremely complicated measure that should not be on the ballot, will hurt low-income children, undoes a budget deal adopted by the Legislature and Governor, would make California’s budget harder to manage, would be nearly impossible to change due to the details of its provisions, and was put on the ballot by the very institutions that would benefit most from its provisions. 

If you’ve read the 17 pages of tiny font in the Voter Information Guide and you understand Prop 35, bless you! You can stop reading this writeup. I tried to read it a couple times, and I’m 100% sure that I don’t fully understand its implications. Fortunately, my friend Edwin, who’s spent over 25 years working on health policy, does understand it, and he says it’s a bad deal. He explained:

Prop 35, backed by hospitals and other health care providers, would overrule an enacted budget deal negotiated by the legislature with the Governor about how to allocate revenues from extending a tax on managed care plans that helps to finance Medi-Cal. Prop 35 would essentially dedicate nearly all of the funding to provider payments. That isn’t by itself a bad thing, as provider payments are too low and depress provider participation in Medi-Cal, which in turn limits access. 
The existing deal, however, is a much better approach. Enacted by the Legislature for 2024-25, the current deal would allocate some of the managed care tax for other purposes. One of those other purposes is to provide funding to implement multi-year continuous eligibility for young children through age 6. This allows kids to stay on Medi-Cal irrespective of changes in income from birth up to age 6 to ensure continuity of care, but it isn’t funded under Prop 35.
Prop 35 would also essentially lock in the uses of the MCO tax revenues instead of allowing them to be used more flexibility, especially to fill in future budget shortfalls that would otherwise necessitate Medi-Cal cuts affecting beneficiaries.

When Edwin says “essentially lock in”, he’s referring to Prop 35’s provision that it can only be changed by a 3/4 vote (!!) of the Legislature -- that unreasonably high bar is spelled out in Article 9, Section 14199.134.(a). I’m sure you noticed that when you read it, but if you’d like a reminder, you can find it in the see Voter Information Guide on page 125. 

Another piece of complexity: this so-called permanent extension of the tax might not actually stick because the federal government could changes its rules, in which case we’d really want to change California’s rules, but we’d be limited by Prop 35’s provisions. And Prop 35 could actually reduce state revenues because it imposes a low cap on taxes collected from non-Medi-Cal enrollees.

If you want any more convincing, here are some other resources:
For example, here’s the first few lines of the Mercury News’ editorial: 
Proposition 35, the Medi-Cal funding measure on the Nov. 5 ballot, presents another example of special-interest, ballot-box budgeting that limits the discretion of lawmakers and reduces flexibility to respond to fiscal crises. Voters should reject it.
If we’ve learned anything in the past few years, it’s that multibillion budget surpluses one year can morph into gigantic deficits the next. The governor and state lawmakers need flexibility to responsibly address the shortfalls.
California voters should not lock in funding allocations that favor doctors and hospitals over children and community health workers. Nor should they keep tying the hands of lawmakers…

My frustration here is that none of those groups got it together to write a ballot argument against Prop 35. I don’t know why not, and as Edwin and several news articles say, the opposition is basically a coalition of health advocates who have very limited resources beyond a small social media campaign. 

Prop 36: NO NO NO, don’t Reinstate Three Strikes and the War on Drugs

Edie & Janet write: 
Ten years ago, California voters passed Prop 47 to reform overly harsh “tough on crime” policies that were driving mass incarceration and failing to keep us safe. The millions of dollars saved have been invested into effective drug and mental health treatment, crime diversion programs for youth, and services for victims. Prop 36 would roll back those reforms, increasing penalties and prison time for drug possession and low-level theft.
There is no evidence that worse jail/prison sentences deter the low-value property crimes or drug use this measure targets. There IS evidence that harsher sentencing and more incarceration will exacerbate homelessness and poverty and damage families and communities. 
This is a knee-jerk reaction to COVID-caused crime spikes, which need much more thoughtful remedies. And in fact, the legislature has recently passed new laws targeting retail theft rings, illegal online markets, and fentanyl, and increasing penalties for property damage, vehicle break-ins and online resale of stolen goods, among other things. Furthermore, the retail giants that brought Prop 36 to the ballot have stopped supporting it, leaving only the DAs that fought Prop 47 and masterminded three strikes.

Opponents include Governor Gavin Newsom, the League of Women Voters, the Los Angeles Times, and many more.

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