As usual, the 2022 California general election ballot is… long, and as I often do, I will break the ballot down, analyze and give my thoughts on it – doing a bit of research so people that have less time might have a little less to wade through.
There are effectively four portions to the ballot and I will address each of them in turn.
1. Statewide Candidate Elections. This is going to be my easiest and shortest take: Vote for the Democrat. I’ll comment that the superintendent’s race is officially nonpartisan, so it’s worth reminding everyone that Tony K. Thurmond is the Democratic candidate.
However… The Board of Equalization candidates are included in the statewide voter guide, but are not actually statewide positions. Nonetheless, as District 4 is my district, and actually there is a D-vs-D race here, it’s worth taking a look here. Despite the party’s endorsement of incumbent Mike Schaefer, I find that the endorsement is solely due to incumbency, and that fellow Democrat David Dodson is a superior candidate and is getting my vote. Schaefer simply seems to rely on his name (i.e. incumbency) and has had various issues over the years, while Dodson has actual policies that I can appreciate.
2. Judicial Confirmations. Four statewide decisions in which we make a “yes”/”no” statement on whether to retain them as judges of the California State Supreme Court for another six years. Judges are first appointed by the Governor and then we decide whether they get to remain. Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero, as well as Associate Justices Josh P. Groban, Martin J. Jenkins, and Goodwin Liu, are up to get a new term. All four were appointed by Democratic governors. These tend to be rubber-stamp elections – Californians rarely actually reject a judge – and I am not aware of any compelling reason to change this for any judge here in particular, so tentatively I vote YES to retain all judges. Information has been sparse. If anyone is, please do share.
NB: This does not cover more local, appellate court and superior court positions, as they will be in section 4.
3. Statewide Propositions. The bulk of this post will be dedicated to this. We all know this is what most of you are really here for.
4. The Local Ballot. I will make a sequel to this post covering this section at a later date – it will, of course, merely cover that which is on my own ballot, so is much less likely to be helpful to you.
The focus, as noted above, will be on the state propositions. There are seven on the ballot this election. Let’s dive in below the fold.
PROPOSITION 1. CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM. LEGISLATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. This is very simple and straightforward: Adding a sentence in the California constitution to permanently enshrine reproductive freedom as a basic human right, preventing the state from restricting rights on abortions or contraceptives. The opposition arguments amount to two things. First, that this law somehow will increase the flow from out-of-state individuals seeking abortions, costing taxpayers money. This is a blatant lie, and it’s a very insidious one, because if this passes, it will be true that the flow will increase… but this is also going to be true if it fails, as failure does not actually inhibit abortion rights. The real reason there is an increase is because of the Dobbs decision and trigger laws in several red states directly to our east, meaning people now have a greater need to come to California for abortion care in the first place. Don’t fall the scam! The other argument is that it allows for ‘late-term abortions’. This is not an outright lie per se, but it is misleading, because, 1) ‘late-term abortions’ are only ever performed when medically necessary in the first place – they are not a thing otherwise, and 2) while it is true that the proposition enshrines a right to abortion without restriction… it does nothing about medical ethics itself, as indeed it should not, and doctors will continue to refuse to perform non-necessary abortions past the point of viability. I am not a medical expert, nor am I someone capable of getting pregnant, so I will just stop here. The point is that this argument also fails. (As expected, the state Democratic Party endorses the measure, and the state Republican Party opposes it.) YES, we should protect abortion care in California. YES ON 1.
PROPOSITION 26. ALLOWS IN-PERSON ROULETTE, DICE GAMES, SPORTS WAGERING ON TRIBAL LANDS. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT AND STATUTE. Currently, tribal casinos in California essentially only have slot machines and card games. This law would open up roulette, dice games, and sports betting to these casinos, as well as sports betting to the 4 state racetracks. It should be noted that the provisions get really petty and silly. It allows for betting on college sports… but only on games not involving California teams. Seriously? This sort of carve-out is frustrating because it ignores the reality of how sports work, and will make our establishments seem second-class. It also provides an enforcement mechanism by allowing private citizens to sue if they see illegal gambling, and the courts can fine the establishment up to $10,000. This also sounds familiar… at least, from what I can tell, it’s not the reporting citizen that gets the money, so this isn’t a true ‘bounty’ setup. It feels like gambling establishments might well be continually subject to these sorts of lawsuits. (This is exactly what the “No” campaign claims – specifically that this is designed to put cardrooms out of business. I don’t actually see evidence that this is the case in the text, but it’s hard to judge intent from what’s possible – the “No” campaign claims a carve-out for the tribal casinos here, but I again see no evidence of this.) The “Yes” campaign is disorganized: their ballot statement points at yesprop26.com which is not a valid website. (Their rebuttal to the “No” campaign correctly points at yeson26.com, their actual website.) The state Republican Party opposes the measure; while the state Democratic Party takes no position. This is really close for me. I think I’m a YES on 26, ultimately, but it’s close, and definitely no hard feelings for anyone that disagrees and wants to vote against the measure.
PROPOSITION 27. ALLOWS ONLINE AND MOBILE SPORTS WAGERING OUTSIDE TRIBAL LANDS. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT AND STATUTE. The proposal would allow tribes and large gaming corporations to offer online betting legally in California. Okay, realistically – it’s going to be large corporations finding a random tribe to partner with to just make all the money, and the tribe will receive pennies. (When the numbers are this large, those tribes might still well end up with millions, to be clear. Nonetheless, despite the provision for tribes to run their own sites on their own banner, to use examples, I simply do not see a “Barona betting app” getting the traffic the MGM app would…) The taxes from this venture would go 85% towards programs to benefit the homeless and to alleviate gambling addictions, and the other 15% going to tribes ‘not involved in online sports betting’. That being said, a lot of these taxes seem to be able to offset themselves with their own licensing fees and it is very dubious how much money this fund will actually see.
Frustratingly, this bill also calls for people that bet on an ‘unlicensed app’ to be required to pay the state 15% of the bet and $1000 for each day this money isn’t paid. This isn’t a provision being discussed much in ads, but it might be the deal-breaker here: Forcing people to determine what is and isn’t licensed, rather than going after the company issuing the unlicensed app, seems incredibly shortsighted and is the sort of thing that ruins lives for simple mistakes. On the other hand, gambling is literally spending money and you really should be checking this, so my sympathy here isn’t infinite. However, it is true that online sports betting happens, and refusing to acknowledge that it does is just putting head in the sand – so maybe we need this bill just to get *some* form of handle on it – and improve on things we find are not working for us later?
The “no” campaign claims that the bill is funded by large casino corporations. A check on the SOS website confirms that this is absolutely correct. This alone is a good reason to be suspicious of this measure.
Both major parties claim opposition to this measure. My normal standard is to always be very careful before accepting a Republican position, even if it’s also the Democratic position. (Indeed, a few of the most wasteful and horrifying propositions over the past few ballots were supported by both parties.) Despite both Proposition 26 and 27 being about gambling, they are NOT contradictory propositions and both can happen if passed. I am a very hesitant YES on 27 here, because at the end of the day, failure to pass just continues to deny a very basic reality of the current online marketplace.
PROPOSITION 28. PROVIDES ADDITIONAL FUNDING FOR ARTS AND MUSIC EDUCATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. INITIATIVE STATUTE. This bill requires the state to set aside an additional amount of money equal to 1% of the money education normally receives to be specifically directed to arts and music programs for education. Note that this is not a reallocation of education funding, nor is there any mechanism to actually fund this measure. I’m not against arts and music per se, but I also find myself without a ton of reason to particularly find this necessary. The Democratic Party supports the measure, probably because they want to look good for increasing education funds. The Republican Party says nothing, probably because they don’t want to fund anything, nor do they want to look silly opposing funding that doesn’t increase taxes, since that’s their normal whine. (They oppose literally everything else, though…) The “Yes” campaign is incompetent: the website in the ballot statement is the wrong URL. The “No” campaign is… nonexistent. The closest I could find to any opposition was an editorial from the Santa Cruz Sentinel. The Sentinel, however, is actually… quite correct in its criticisms. Fine: I’ll say it, if (almost) no one else will. It’s not necessary: let districts spend money how they feel best, and don’t just move funding from… who knows where… into this. It would be one thing if the measure was actually funded. It’s not – precisely as a cowardly attempt to avoid opposition due to a tax increase. I am a NO on 28, though I’m well aware it is all but certain to pass.
PROPOSITION 29. REQUIRES ON-SITE LICENSED MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL AT KIDNEY DIALYSIS CLINICS AND ESTABLISHES OTHER STATE REQUIREMENTS. INITIATIVE STATUTE. Okay, some of you that are experienced with California ballots are probably groaning right now. Yes, we’ve had dialysis bills a few times now, and they keep failing. Do we need another one? While this is true, they have been a bit different each time, both limiting the scope of what is required, trying to figure out something to help patients and workers. Previous bills have attempted to require a doctor to be at each clinic. This new bill loosens this requirement to simply require at least a nurse. This is probably much more realistic and should be manageable. This bill does not have funding requirements or caps (as previous bills have had), but it does require clinics to obtain consent from the state before closing, have full disclosure of ownership, and prevents discrimination based on method of payment. It also requires information on infections and the care they are providing to be provided to the Department of Public Health. Additionally, it outlines a process preventing clinics from simply closing down in response – they have to file consent with the state, and provide a plan to keep every patient serviced. Now, it is likely that compliance will result in increased charges to Medi-Cal and to insurance companies – and thus, health insurance prices may end up going up a bit across the board, but I’m not convinced that this will be a meaningful increase that would be noticeable from the increases due to inflation. In terms of funding, the “yes” campaign is basically entirely funded by SEIU, and the “no” campaign is funded by DaVita and Fresenius, the two major corporations that run dialysis clinics in California. The “yes” campaign also fails to provide a website; the best online argument I could find was from the San Diego Union-Tribune. The Democratic Party supports the measure and the Republican Party opposes it, to no one’s surprise. I believe these requirements are entirely reasonable – there should at least be a nurse on staff at a medical facility to handle problems – and it generally behooves one to support labor over corporations every time. I will be voting YES on 29.
PROPOSITION 30. PROVIDES FUNDING FOR PROGRAMS TO REDUCE AIR POLLUTION AND PREVENT WILDFIRES BY INCREASING TAX ON PERSONAL INCOME OVER $2 MILLION. INITIATIVE STATUTE. By “reduce air pollution”, they largely mean funding incentives for Californians to purchase zero-emission vehicles (though there are small considerations for communities impacted by air pollution as well). By “prevent wildfires”, they also include direct firefighting – this increase would be about a 25% increase in the budget for these activities. The funding comes from a tax on individual incomes over $2 million. It does not affect business taxes or taxes for anyone making less than $2 million. I’ll never make over $2 million in a year and I doubt many of you will either. Will some assholes do silly stuff to avoid increased taxes? Sure, but they were probably already doing that – it’s not like our tax rates aren’t already high. Living in California is expensive. It will still be so if you’re rich. The Democratic Party supports the measure, and the Republican Party opposes it, as does the Howard Jarvis “I don’t wanna be a” Taxpayers’ Association. The “no” campaign also fails to have a website, but Governor Newsom, a Democrat, is going against his party to oppose the measure, based on ads. I will acknowledge that a tax increase here potentially limits the ability to do so on other things – I do see that some educators are in the opposition bloc, but ultimately, protecting our state matters too, and it is true that the largest funder of this measure, by far, is Lyft. Lyft is hoping that they’ll end up getting a lot of the zero-emission vehicle funding. I admit I don’t follow Lyft’s logic here: Lyft is a ride-share company, not a taxi company – they don’t actually own any cars. At best they might get secondary effects as workers may demand less money when they have fewer expenses due to being able to afford a vehicle that doesn’t have to pay for gas… but ride-share workers are often some of the worst paid workers anyway and this is not likely to help. Opponents also claim that this will ‘lock in’ funding for 20 years. (This despite not having a website; the best opposition site I could find is an LA Times editorial.) Nonsense: this is Initiative Statute and can be repealed by another Initiative Statute if necessary. On balance, I have to conclude that I think this measure is worth it. I am a YES on 30.
PROPOSITION 31. REFERENDUM ON 2020 LAW THAT WOULD PROHIBIT THE RETAIL SALE OF CERTAIN FLAVORED TOBACCO PRODUCTS. In 2020, the California Legislature passed a law banning ‘flavored’ tobacco, which basically only exists to entice the sale of tobacco. Big Tobacco whined and convinced people to put this to a vote. They are also the major funders of the opposition campaign, with the Republican Party also opposing the measure. The Democratic Party supports the measure. The primary opposition argument amounts to ‘this is Prohibition’. It’s not. It bans the *sale* of certain tobacco products. It does not make criminals out of the citizens. It does not make it impossible to exist. Indeed, the determined can probably get this in a state where it isn’t banned, assuming that the FDA doesn’t follow up and also ban the product. Look, bans happen. And as an asthmatic individual that really hates that he has to deal with smokers out on the streets and in his home, I have zero desire to give quarter to smokers and the tobacco industry in general. Let’s ban this garbage. Will it cost taxpayers? A bit, as this is something that is taxed, but the impacts are minimal, and probably outweighed by the long-term benefits to public health. I also tend to dislike referenda: We have legislators for a reason. Let them do their jobs. Honestly the most important one for me personally (except for perhaps 1, though 1 doesn’t do anything directly): YES on 31!
So that’s my ballot analysis for the 2022 California Statewide General Election. I’ll be back when I know what’s on my local ballot and have had time to analyze it. There’s a lot here, even with only seven propositions. I invite comment as usual. Make sure you get out and VOTE by November 8!