For all of you traditional Tuesday voters—the ones in California, anyway—here's a repeat of my recommendations for how to vote on all of our ballot initiatives. Keep in mind a couple of things:
- I don't like ballot initiatives because they lock things into the state constitution that shouldn't usually be locked in. So my standards are high for a Yes vote.
- I especially hate ballot-box budgeting. It's a cancer.
- I believe the point of ballot initiatives is to give grass roots activists a chance to pass legislation opposed by moneyed interests. However, modern initiatives are largely the handiwork of corporations and the ultra-wealthy. I will almost never vote for an initiative sponsored primarily by businesses or billionaires.
That noted, here are my recommendations:
Proposition 1: YES. This initiative places certain abortion and other reproductive rights into the California constitution. I doubt it makes much difference, but you never know. And to me it qualifies as something I'd like to have locked in forever.
Proposition 26: NO. This is one of a pair of initiatives regarding sports gambling. Prop 26 adds sports gambling, dice games (such as craps), and roulette to the menu of games allowed at tribal casinos. Four privately owned horse racing tracks (Santa Anita, Del Mar, Los Alamitos, and Golden Gate Fields) would also be allowed to provide in-person sports gambling. This is the last thing that needs to be locked in forever via constitutional amendment, and my preference anyway is for California to simply legalize online sports gambling with no strings attached.
Proposition 27: NO. This one allows online sports gambling, but only if it's affiliated with a California tribe. That's completely ridiculous.
(Note that these two propositions are sponsored by different tribal groups, which has turned them into wars between big and small tribes. Also, both allocate some of the profits to various good causes, which is getting a lot of attention even though it's hardly a central issue. One thing they have in common is that both initiatives provide money to problem gambling programs, which is pretty damn cynical if you ask me.)
Proposition 28: NO. This proposition requires the state to provide funding for arts education that's equal to at least 1% of the funding required for public schools. It's the worst kind of ballot box budgeting.
Proposition 29: NO. This is the third time that health care unions have placed a measure on the ballot requiring dialysis centers to have physicians or physician-equivalents on the premises during all opening hours. It's unnecessary and everyone knows it. Are they ever going to give up on this?
Proposition 30: NO. California has a goal of selling only electric vehicles by 2035:
For cars in general, California's goal is to have 100% of sales of new cars be electric by 2035. A complete switchover probably won't happen until 2050 or so as older cars bought before 2035 are gradually junked and replaced with new electric cars.
However, the goal is far more stringent for rideshare companies: their fleets are required to actually complete 90% of the switchover by 2030. But where will the money come from to do this?
Prop 30 adds a 1.75% tax on income over $2 million, with the money dedicated to helping people and businesses make the switch to electric.¹ It's primarily funded by Lyft, which wants public money to fund electric rideshare vehicles instead of paying for them themselves. In addition to this sketchiness, California is already pushing the limits of taxing the wealthy and probably needs to stop. Then again, California's wealthy are pretty damn wealthy, so they can probably afford it.
¹It would also fund charging stations, and a bit of the money would go to wildfire prevention, which is getting a lot of play in ads even though it's only 20% of the program. Also worth noting: California already has a program to help low-income drivers buy new low-emission vehicles.
Proposition 31: YES. This is a referendum on a law passed a couple of years ago to ban the sale of flavored cigarettes. The law itself seems sensible to me, since flavored cigarettes are largely used to hook children, and in any case it's a law, not a permanent part of the constitution. Funding for the opposition comes, naturally enough, from Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds.
"California is already pushing the limits of taxing the wealthy"
What's the evidence? This is the claim that conservatives always make and so far they have always been wrong. Taxes were cut in Kansas and other red states and raised in California in the last Brown administration and California did better. Nationally, the premise of the major income-tax cuts starting in 1964 was that the economy would take flight if the job-creators had more money to play with, but it has not improved economic growth. The job-creators are using the money to play with crypto and other speculative stuff including the stock market. Have any California corporations been buying back their own stock? If so they could probably be taxed more (or buybacks could be outlawed).
Regarding Prop 31, normally I would carefully weigh the practicality and Constitutionality of the State banning a class of products before I decide how to vote on it, but in this case I intend to vote Yes, because of one of the arguments offered by the opposing side:
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“Banning the sale of FDA-authorized alternatives to adult cigarette smokers will cause serious and lasting damage to tobacco harm reduction goals and potentially increase California’s rising budget deficit during COVID-19,” the industry group California Coalition for Fairness said in a written statement.
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Note, the tobacco industry isn't making these figures up. They're using analysis from the State itself:
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According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the ban would mean the loss of millions in tax revenue largely used to support health programs. “Proposition 31 likely would reduce state tobacco tax revenues by an amount ranging from tens of millions of dollars to around $100 million annually,” the independent analysts concluded.
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This is why I've maintained for a long time that tobacco taxes (and in fact any so-called "sin taxes") are a Bad Idea, because they cause the taxing authority to be at cross purposes with itself, wishing to raise revenue and at the same time discourage a disliked practice. The flaw here is made explicit now for all to see. If you're afraid of losing tax revenue from smokers, then why even have anti-smoking programs at all?
Really? We can't ban any form of tobacco because we'd lose the tax money? Why don't you invest in some heavy TV advertising encouraging people to smoke their lungs out? You might as well do that if the tax revenue is that important to you.
The one mitigating factor is that the revenues are earmarked for support of health programs, on the principle that if fewer people smoke, less money is needed to fix people's health problems. But here they don't even bother to take that into account. It's all part of the "budget deficit" money pool.
This is just like municipal authorities financing their police departments with speed traps and ticket quotas. The system relies on citizens to behave badly in order to keep the coffers full.
So, though I have reservations about bans in general, the fact that the ban will expose the fundamental flaw behind sin taxes (that is, if it really hits the bottom line) is enough to make me support it this time out.
This is why I've maintained for a long time that tobacco taxes (and in fact any so-called "sin taxes") are a Bad Idea, because they cause the taxing authority to be at cross purposes with itself...
Why is this is problem? If pigovian taxes are successful, they will eventually indeed result in less revenue, as the harmful activity decreases. But so what? If the government needs more revenue it can raise taxes on something else. And in the meanwhile, the harmful activity has been reduced or eliminated.
Proposition 1: NO. This proposition was given the number 1 in order to distinguish it from the others (numbered 26 to 31). Privileging a candidate or measure on the ballot undermines the democratic process. The previous election with propositions, 2020, had them numbered 14 to 25. An unbiased numbering this year would have the initiatives numbered 26 to 32, which did not happen. Voters should reject measures that are artificially boosted. Vote NO.
Excellent rationale. Well done.
Said by a guy who has cancer. He should know.
I can't agree more. Budgets are things for the legislature, year by year. It's a fundamental. If Prop 28 weren't a constitutional amendment for ballot-box budgeting - if it were a referendum - I'd be all over a yes vote.
If 28 were so terrible, somebody should have written a ballot pamphlet argument against it. As they didn't, I can only conclude they don't really care all that much.