I promise I'll be back for the next election. You can hold me to that.
PROP 1: YES
$10 billion in bonds to kick-start construction of housing for low-income Californians, plus $1.25 billion to reseed the marvelous CalVet Home Loan program at no net cost to the state. Most of the $10 billion will provide low-interest loans to local governments and developers to build and renovate rental housing, with a requirement to reserve units for low-income renters. These loans will enable more housing projects to pencil out and actually get built, slowly easing our housing crisis.
PROP 2: YES
Revenue from the state income tax fluctuates wildly year-to-year due to unpredictable real estate and stock markets. In down years, this leads to gruesome budget crises. To reduce their impact, in 2014 voters wisely approved a strong “rainy day fund” to hold reserves, which are deposited in high-revenue years for use in lean years. Under current law, the rainy day fund can be as large as 10% of the General Fund. Prop 2 would double that to 20%. Given the enormous volatility of recent income tax revenue (down 18% in 2020, up 73% in 2021, down 34% in 2023, up 28% in 2024), this is eminently sensible.
PROP 3: YES
In 2012, California voters increased taxes on high incomes, making our income tax more progressive. The increase applies only to the top two percent: those with incomes above $743,000 (filing jointly; half that for single). But the increase is temporary, scheduled to expire in 2030. If that happens, the top tax bracket will start at just $145,000, making our income tax more regressive and flat. Prop 3 will prevent the 2012 increase from expiring, ensuring that high earners continue to pay their fair share. The impact on the state budget will be significant: continuation of a revenue stream on the order of $10 billion annually, directed to education, healthcare, and other vital programs.
PROP 4: YES
Currently, public financing of political campaigns is banned in California, except in charter cities such as Los Angeles and Oakland. Prop 4 would allow (but not require) the state and local governments to enact public financing. To receive public funding, candidates would first have to prove their viability, and then abide by spending limits.Six California charter cities, fourteen states and the District of Columbia have public finance, and the results are worth emulating. Prop 4 will make campaigns less about wealth and big-bucks fundraising (with its ever-present danger of corruption), and more about ideas, communities, and serving the people.
PROP 5: YES
If the governor of California is recalled, Prop 5 would promote the lieutenant governor to be the new governor. That’s vastly preferable to our current procedure for choosing a replacement: a free-for-all election on the same ballot as the recall, with potentially hundreds of candidates; majority vote not required. The existing process encourages minority parties (looking at you, GOP) to instigate spurious recall elections, as they did in 2021, in hopes of installing their own Governor with a small fraction of the vote. We don’t need that circus again.
PROP 37: YES
Provides low-interest loans to “middle-class” buyers of new homes, at no cost to the state. Buyers’ family income cannot exceed twice the median income in the area, and the purchase price must accommodate a conforming mortgage (e.g., maximum price of $845,000 in Fresno or $1.27 million in San Francisco). Buyers would put down 3% of the purchase price, the state would lend 17%, and the rest would be a conventional 80% mortgage. Buyers would repay the state at a rate that completely covers the state’s expenses, so Prop 37 won’t cost taxpayers a dime. By facilitating home sales, Prop 37 will help more owner-occupied homes get built, just as Prop 1 does for rental housing. A big win for everyone.
PROP 38: NO
A self-dealing “buy-a-law” subsidizing a single research lab to the tune of $4.2 billion, and other labs another $4.2B, likely providing negligible benefit for the state. Bond funding should always be for long-lived, tangible acquisitions such as buildings and infrastructure. But Prop 38 will squander interest-burdened bond money on salaries, chemicals, and other ephemeral expenses. It’s a serious misuse of bond funding and the initiative process itself.
PROP 39: NO
Part of President Trump’s antidemocratic scheme to disqualify as many voters as possible, based on a pack of lies about purported “voter impersonation” and supposed lack of “public confidence and trust in the electoral process” (both quotes from the text of the proposition). There is absolutely no need for this destructive and dangerous measure.
PROP 40: YES
Imposes a one-time, 5% tax on the total assets of the roughly 200 Californians whose net worth is over $1 billion. If allowed to go into effect (a very big “if”), it could bring the state as much as $100 billion. The revenue will be used chiefly to offset $112 billion to $300 billion in cuts to Medi-Cal over the next ten years due to the heartless One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Prop 40 will let millions of Medi-Cal patients stay enrolled, averting a looming public health disaster. Billionaires, unlike the rest of us, have the means to avoid income taxes entirely, ducking their obligation to society. Is it fair to levy this wealth tax, leaving them with only $950,000,000 out of every $1 billion, so that millions of poor Californians can occasionally visit a health clinic? I’m thinking yes.
PROP 41 and 41: NO and NO
Regardless of how you vote on Prop 40, you should definitely vote “no” on the countermeasures, Props 41 and 42. They are poison pills designed to kill the Billionaire Tax forever, but they would have detrimental impacts far beyond that. Prop 41 would invalidate any special-purpose tax which is excluded from the Appropriations Limit, while Prop 42 would prohibit wealth taxes and retroactive taxes. These measures would straitjacket the Legislature if some future emergency requires tapping these capabilities, even temporarily. Both measures have mouthwatering candy coatings to induce unwitting voters to swallow them. Stop drooling. If you oppose the Billionaire Tax, then vote against Prop 40. But don’t restrict how the state can tackle future crises.
PROP 43: NO
Prop 218 of 1996 requires that special taxes (i.e., taxes that fund specific programs) must be approved by a two-thirds vote of the electorate. But in 2017, the state Supreme Court ruled that special taxes proposed by initiative can be approved by simple majority. That case was California Cannabis Coalition v. City of Upland. Prop 43 would effectively reverse the court’s decision, requiring a two-thirds vote of the electorate to enact, extend, or increase local special tax initiatives.
PROP 44: NO
Remember those nuisance propositions about dialysis clinics a few years back? Prop 44 is a tired retread of those, this time targeted at community health clinics in medically underserved areas. More extortion than legislation, this measure was intended to be withdrawn before the ballot was finalized in exchange for boosting union membership at certain clinics. But negotiations broke down, and here we are. There is no reason anyone should vote for Prop 44.
PROP 45: NO
Prop 45 would speed up the approval of most housing, transportation, water and health projects by imposing time limits on environmental reviews and lawsuits conducted under CEQA, the state’s environmental review law. It’s incredibly complicated and nuanced, and affects everyone in the state. Because of that, this issue shouldn’t be decided by poorly informed voters in an all-or-nothing ballot measure. Instead, it belongs in the Legislature, which can (and regularly does) fine-tune CEQA to fit current conditions. Prop 45 would place much of CEQA out of reach of the Legislature, leaving us with a rigid process tailored to the needs of the building industry, which wrote the proposition.
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