My California Ballot, November 2024, Part 1
Statewide and federal races
Topline
Proposition 2 — Yes
Proposition 3 — Yes
Proposition 4 — Yes
Proposition 5 — Yes
Proposition 6 — Yes
Proposition 32 — No
Proposition 33 — No
Proposition 34 — Yes
Proposition 35 — No
Proposition 36 — No
President — Kamala Harris
Senate, regular — Adam Schiff
Senate, special — Adam Schiff
US House, District 12 — Lateefah Simon
Ballot Propositions
General Philosophy
I dislike California ballot propositions. Implemented in the Progressive era, direct democracy moved power to the people from a corrupt state government that was in the pocket of Big Railroad. One hundred years later, is that still a good idea?
Perhaps the 1900s were simpler times, and getting 5-10% of active voters to sign a petition meant that your petition concerned something important that impacted many people. Nowadays, too often ballot propositions are financed by huge companies annoyed by some element of California regulation; the most expensive ballot campaigns in state history were in 2020 and 2022, efforts by Lyft and Big Sports Gambling to obtain favorable legal treatment1.
Propositions are also hard-to-impossible for the legislature to overturn on its own, which generally annoys me because I pay the legislators to make laws on my behalf and I’d rather not have to micromanage them. For these reasons I lean towards voting to preserve the status quo (usually “No”). This is only a lean, though, and in many cases I’ve let the object-level concerns of a specific proposition override my annoyance at being asked to weigh in.
Also note that some issues are required to be put up for a popular vote even if the legislature passes them on its own, so I don’t penalize those for appearing on the ballot, and bias towards voting Yes because I dislike having a say in the process at all. This year that’s propositions 2 through 6.
Proposition 2: Public Education Facilities Bond Measure
This is a $10 billion bond measure, requested by the state legislature, to build more elementary and secondary schools ($8.5B) and community colleges ($1.5B). I assume the state legislature is asking for this money not because they are addicted to building schools, but because it’s vaguely necessary. I try not to micromanage the state government too much on basic policy like this, and would really prefer that these questions not have to be put on the ballot.
Mercury News says this program is inequitable and maybe illegal because it’s easier for wealthy school districts to get the money, but the Chronicle endorses it and says Prop 2 has some equity-improving features that past school bonds haven’t. It’s also not clear to me that a somewhat inequitable distribution of new buildings is preferable to no new buildings.
Vote YES.
Proposition 3: Right to Marry and Repeal Proposition 8 Amendment
This initiative repeals 2008’s Proposition 8, which added language to the state Constitution defining marriage as between a man and a woman. In particular, Prop 3 removes from the state Constitution the text2
Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.3
and in its place adds the text
The right to marry is a fundamental right45. (b) This section is in furtherance of both of the following: (1) The inalienable rights to enjoy life and liberty and to pursue and obtain safety, happiness, and privacy guaranteed by Section 1. (2) The rights to due process and equal protection guaranteed by Section 7.
I think Prop 8 was bad and gay marriage is good. Even though the Prop 8 text is inoperative, it’s probably a good idea to clean it up. It does seem moderately likely that someone in 150 years will decide that the sweeping language means polygamy is legal in California, but I’m not actually opposed to polygamy and I don’t think I could actually stop future Californians from legalizing polygamy if they wanted to6. If the last sentence repulses you, uhhh, forget I said anything! If you don’t vote in favor of this straightforward amendment to legalize gay marriage you are a bad person.
Vote YES.
Proposition 4: Parks, Environment, Energy, and Water Bond Measure
This is a $10 billion bond measure, requested by the state legislature, for various outdoorsy things like climate change, green energy, and state parks. Most of the things being funded seem pretty sympathetic to me7 and I try not to micromanage the state government yadda yadda etc.
Vote YES.
Proposition 5: Lower Supermajority Requirement to 55% for Local Bond Measures to Fund Housing and Public Infrastructure Amendment
This does what it says on the tin. Currently local governments need a two-thirds supermajority in order to sell bonds to fund affordable housing and public infrastructure; this would lower that threshold to 55%. I think supermajority requirements are undemocratic and presumed bad until proven good, and the arguments against this seem to boil down to “this would make government spending easier, which is bad because I am a Republican.” The Chronicle also thinks the legislature made too big concessions to Big Realtor in exchange for them not opposing it, and I sympathize, but I don’t think that’s actually a good argument to vote against this.
Vote YES.
Proposition 6: Defund the 13th Amendment, Amendment
Certain annoying know-it-alls will tell you that the 13th Amendment, which in some sense abolished slavery, actually reads
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
This language is mirrored in many state constitutions, including California’s. Your mileage may vary but I find involuntary servitude morally dubious, plus you might worry about a perverse incentive to convict more people of crimes so that they become eligible for it. I do find the arrangement where prisoners fight wildfires for 75 cents an hour a bit gross.
One argument against this is that it would be prohibitively expensive to run prisons without slave labor. I appreciate this argument for being straightforwardly evil, but don’t feel particularly obliged to engage with it.8
There are various less-bad arguments against this. Maybe the language in this amendment would entitle prisoners to refuse to clean their rooms (the Chronicle doesn't think so) and they’d just be lazy all day and emerge from prison less rehabilitated. Maybe they’d be entitled to the state’s minimum wage (probably not).9 You can read Mercury News for a NO perspective but I don’t find it persuasive.
On the other hand, maybe conditions of involuntary servitude are poorly optimized for rehabilitation. The Chronicle even argues that Prop 6 could increase rehabilitation while decreasing the amount of time prisoners spend living on the state’s dime, with high wages and reduced sentences encouraging inmates to pursue the benefits of an honest day’s labor. Overall I find the moral case for this proposition compelling and the policy cases against it unconvincing.
Vote YES.
Propositions 7 through 31
These don’t exist, because of woke.10
Proposition 32: $18 Minimum Wage Initiative
The current minimum wage is $16/hr pegged to inflation (going up to $16.50 on January 1, 2025). This initiative would raise the minimum wage to $18/hr in 2025 and peg it to inflation starting in 202711.
California already has one of the highest minimum wages in the country, and our legislature is (obviously) active on this issue. This is a citizen-initiated measure, and I don’t think the legislature has done some horrible abdication of its responsibilities on the minimum wage that I want to circumvent them with an unrepealable superlaw raising it.
By the same logic, this is a relatively small change to the status quo so it’s not like it would be some disaster. Some cities are already at or near an $18/hr minimum wage, and wages for healthcare workers have already hit that threshold. Fast food workers even have a minimum wage of $20/hr12 without the local economy being destroyed or all our McDonalds ceding the land underneath them to Nevada or something.
Vote NO, but if you vote YES we can still be friends.
Proposition 33: Prohibit State Limitations on Local Rent Control Initiative
This proposition would repeal the Costa-Hawkins Act, a state law that limits cities’ ability to enact rent control.
Economists almost universally oppose rent control as a way of helping renters as a class. (It helps people who have rent-controlled apartments at the cost of people who don’t, who end up displaced or homeless or paying more for non-rent-controlled housing.) Recent experiments in the Twin Cities and Berlin have generally endorsed the Econ 101 perspective that price controls like rent control lead to shortages.
I am sympathetic to the plight of people being displaced, and I acknowledge the hard-to-quantify costs of communities being broken up as people are pushed out by rising rents. But the right answer to controlling housing costs is to build more housing! It’s really that simple.
This is a repeat of 2018’s Prop 10, which failed by 20 points, and 2020’s Prop 21, which also failed by 20 points. Who is bankrolling these seemingly doomed initiatives? It’s the weirdos at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation — more on them soon!
Vote NO.
Proposition 34: Stop Making us Vote on Proposition 33 Every Two Years Initiative
The actual title is “Require Certain Participants in Medi-Cal Rx Program to Spend 98% of Revenues on Patient Care Initiative”, where “certain participants” is code for “the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and their president Michael Weinstein”. There’s a lot of background material to unpack here and I’ll do my best.
340B drug pricing is a federal program that allows charity-ish providers that serve low-income populations to buy drugs at heavily discounted rates. The idea is that providers can buy drugs on the cheap, but Medicaid still reimburses them for the full sticker price of the service, and the extra money can be spent on treating more patients. That last part is just a suggestion, or a hopeful aspiration, and in practice they can do whatever they want with the money.
My impression of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation is of an initially sympathetic nonprofit fallen prey to mission creep. They seem to have done some genuinely good work for victims of the AIDS crisis back in the day, but time has moved on, AIDS is not a death sentence, and they’ve had to find new ways to fill their time and spend their 340B money. Those ways seem to be being a slumlord, opposing PrEP13, and defending Michael Weinstein's view of the Hollywood sign from tall buildings.
This proposition requires “certain participants” in the 340B program who operate in California and are slumlords to stop spending lots of money on non-healthcare expenditures. It also makes sure Medi-Cal14 continues to pay the discounted 340B rate for drugs, sure whatever15.
The newspapers are opposed to this kind of political gamesmanship of the proposition system, but I don’t really get why. 340B program abuse seems fairly common and this prop curbs some abuse without closing the door on comprehensive reform. I don’t think dueling proposition wars by interest groups trying to ban each other is ideal, exactly, but it’s also not ideal that the AHF gets to piss away government money on bad ideas that happen to be their leader’s hobbyhorses. The legislature has had plenty of time to address either issue (AHF spending money poorly / interest groups putting the same issues on the ballot year after year) and chosen not to, so I have no objection to citizens taking the matter into their own hands.
Vote YES.
Proposition 35: Managed Care Organization Tax Authorization Initiative
This initiative is supported by both major parties, but opposed16 by Governor Newsom because he’s a maverick.
I’m not even going to bother getting into the weeds on the concrete policy details here; you can read attempts in the Chronicle and Mercury News. At a very high level, it makes a tax on healthcare plans permanent and allocates the money it raises to be spent on Medi-Cal. There are multiple reasons this is a bad idea:
The legislature is not stupid and always extends this tax when it’s about to expire. Maybe in the future that could stop being a good idea and they’d want to change their behavior, but this proposition would lock us in to one course of action.
California has a big budget deficit, and we might need the money this tax raises to do other things more urgently.
The way California currently does business takes advantage of what some would call “aggressive accounting gimmicks” but which the feds call a loophole that they are threatening to close. It would be bad to enshrine our loophole abuse as an inflexible superlaw and then have the feds close the loophole, leaving California to scramble to adjust to the new reality.
Vote NO.
Proposition 36, Drug and Theft Crime Penalties and Treatment-Mandated Felonies Initiative
As the title suggests, this is a hodgepodge of different issues, both overhauling 2014’s much-maligned Proposition 4717 (which is why Walmart is sponsoring it) and bringing some tough love for people struggling with drug addiction (which is why you might vote for it).
The thing everyone hates about Prop 47 is that a series of thefts each of under $950 never escalates beyond a misdemeanor. Prop 36 instead moves to a three-strikes model, which is bad for serial thieves but I guess also bad for sympathetic moms shoplifting to feed their children; that’s unpleasant to think about so I’ll choose not to, and anyway the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Office thinks it would only modestly increase the prison population.
As an enlightened centrist I know that Prop 47 modestly increased property crime rates. I also saw a lot of clips during the pandemic of organized smash-and-grabs and heard about rampant shoplifting, but I’ve heard more recently that I was gullible for believing that stuff and should maybe feel bad about falling for it. But I also also voted against the tougher-on-crime Prop 20 in 2020, so I have some Good Liberal political capital to spend voting in favor of this one.
The sexy part of this initiative is creating a new class of treatment-mandated felonies for third-time drug offenses, which means you either go to jail (discouraged) or get treatment (good outcome). For all that people on the left love talking about the Portugal method of decriminalizing drugs, “go seek drug treatment or we will put you in jail” is actually a major component of it, and recent experiments in the US with eliminating that plank have not inspired confidence.
There is some claim that we don’t actually have the capacity to provide all that drug treatment, which is maybe a reason not to legislate at the ballot box like this. Maybe the legislature can find some money in the couch cushions to expand drug treatment if this passes?
And we should reform Prop 47, and voting NO means waiting at least another 2 years for that. Plus maybe it’s a law of the universe that any proposition attempting to fix 47 will also include some tangentially related policy gunk, so there’s no guarantee our next opportunity would be any better. We voted down a pretty draconian version of this 4 years ago, but it seems plausible that either Prop 36 or whatever version of it comes to the ballot in 2-4 years will pass, and maybe I like this version more than the mystery one behind Door B.
Astral Codex Ten brought to my attention that the Democrats actually had their own, nicer version of Prop 36, but for mysterious reasons chose not to place it on the ballot. Still, I think if Prop 36 fails to pass we’ll probably get the Democrats’ version which I’d prefer, so I don’t feel like I have to settle for the version that’s actually on the ballot.
Vote NO.
President
My proprietary multivariate regression model has determined that Kamala Harris would be a better president than Donald Trump.
If you live in California or another safe state and have misgivings about Harris and the Democratic Party, I won’t begrudge you your choice to leave your ballot blank or vote for someone else. If you are reading this from Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, or Georgia18 and have misgivings about Kamala Harris, please please please vote for her anyway. You have my permission to do it and publicly pretend you didn’t vote for her until the day you die. Donald Trump is worse on the Middle East and wants to deport 20 million people, destroy the economy, and possibly become king.
Vote Harris.
Senate
Steve Garvey holds the National League record for consecutive games played (1,207) and was named baseball’s “Iron Man” by Sports Illustrated. Garvey was part of the Dodgers’ infield that won four National League pennants and one World Series championship in 1981.19
Unfortunately I am a Yankee fan, and my guys will be squaring off against his guys in this year’s World Series. Garvey is also a Republican, and I strategically voted for him in the primary intending to set up an easy race for Adam Schiff in the general.
Vote Schiff.
Senate, again
This seat is open because Dianne Feinstein died, so we have the pleasure of two Senate races, one for the full term and one to finish out the last few months of her old term20. When this came up for our other Senate seat I left the second race blank in protest because I thought they’d dragged their feet on scheduling the special election, but Feinstein died a little over a year ago and I think the timeline this time has been reasonable.
Vote Schiff.
US House, District 12
Barbara Lee is retiring-ish, having chosen to run for Senate instead of pursuing re-election. The candidates are Lateefah “Antifa”21 Simon, Lee’s heir-apparent with an inspiration-porn life story, and Jennifer Tran, whom I described in February as “nice enough but clearly way out of her weight class”. Since then Simon (whom I voted for in the primary) has remained unchanged, but Tran has turned out to be distressingly close to the ethics scandal consuming Oakland’s government. If she turns out to be innocent I will feel a little bad and maybe vote for her for dogcatcher in 2028 or something.
Vote Simon.
I even voted for the Lyft one!
currently defunct, federally unconstitutional, and unenforceable
Yes, this passed! Fifteen years ago! In California! It was a different time.
You might notice that this is extremely vague, and as a math/logic guy that does bother me. It also bothers the California Family Council, who have scaremongered that “the absence of any clear definition of marriage is alarming and paves the way for the legalization of polygamy, child marriage, and incestuous relationships.”
My favorite troll reading of this sentence is that the right to officiate a wedding is fundamental, potentially without the consent of the people you’re marrying.
It’s not like if someone had drafted the 14th Amendment more carefully we wouldn’t have gay marriage today.
There’s $60 million for “Community gardens and farmer's markets” that sounds kinda fake to me, and there’s a lot of money in farm subsidies when we already do too much farming here. But the public will doesn’t agree with me about farm subsidies, and it’s not like this particular bond measure is egregiously pro-farming relative to other things the state government does.
Okay fine, let’s engage, at least to the extent of a Fermi calculation. Prisons and schools are at least vaguely similar institutions. The state has 6 times as many K-12 students as prisoners but the “teacher-to-student” ratio is about 3 times better in prison, so overall there are roughly half as many prison guards as teachers. To the best of my knowledge the economics of schools work out without having to enslave people to mop the floors or work in the cafeteria or whatever. Prison guarding and maintenance are probably a bit more intensive overall than staffing a school, but I still find it hard to imagine it would break the bank.
Among other reasons this might be a bad idea, prisoners don’t have to buy food or pay rent.
Proposition numbers go up every 2 years, picking up where the last election left off and resetting in years ending in 8. That’s actually just a suggestion though, and the secretary of state can number them however she wants. For some reason this year she’s decided that legislative propositions will start from 1 (we voted on #1 in March) and citizen initiatives will continue on from Proposition 31 in 2022.
There are some exceptions and edge cases I’m ignoring for brevity.
They have better lobbying than you.
This is sort of confusing, because the AHF at least advertises that it’s happy to prescribe PrEP, and a lot of their public opposition is from years ago. My guess is they decided the public anti-PrEP crusade was a losing battle, and maybe the government forces them to prescribe it or something.
To make a very long story very short, PrEP (“pre-exposure prophylaxis”) is something you can take before having gay sex to vastly reduce your risk of contracting HIV. Most people think this is great, but the AHF is (was?) concerned that PrEP will backfire by making gay men feel invincible and they won’t bother using condoms. This is certainly not the consensus medical view, and seems to be wrong at least in part because gay men have never been very good about using condoms.
An extremely cynical person who hates Michael Weinstein might posit that most of his money comes from treating people with AIDS, and PrEP is too efficient at preventing AIDS relative to how much money he makes from it.
The state’s punny implementation of Medicaid, healthcare for the poor.
This enshrines in law a Newsom executive order from 2019, which I guess was intended as a fig leaf but annoys me (the legislature is responsible for making laws and is perfectly capable of doing this if it’s a good idea). But no one seems to have any concrete objections to it beyond “ehhh it’d be better if we left this kind of thing to the legislature”, so I think we can ignore it if otherwise inclined to vote in favor.
He hasn’t endorsed per se but this is pushback against one of his policies and he spoke negatively about it at a press conference in July.
This law reclassified various property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors if the amounts in question were less than $950, with no guardrails for repeat offenders. In some people’s imagination this has singlehandedly turned California into a crime-filled hellscape, though that’s actually slightly exaggerated.
Or the 2nd Congressional District in Maine or Nebraska.
This is taken from his campaign website.
Somehow Steve Garvey “won” the special election primary by nearly 300,000 votes despite losing to Schiff by about 3,000 in the election for the full term. This isn’t at all meaningful but I thought it was fun trivia.
No one actually calls her this, though I am prepared to take credit when Fox News starts to.