There are no surprises in this year’s recommendations for top-of-the-ballot elective offices: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz for President and Vice President, Adam Schiff for U.S. Senator (full term and short term), Jared Huffman for U.S. Representative, and Damon Connolly for State Assembly (he’s done a notably commendable job in his first term in Sacramento).
This column usually avoids endorsements in West Marin races, where it’s locals running against locals. It’s that very policy that guides my endorsement for the Division 1 seat on North Marin Water District’s board of directors. If the appointed incumbent Ken Eichstaedt, an Olema resident, is not elected to the full four-year term, West Marin will no longer have representation on N.M.W.D.’s board.
Ken’s opponent, Mary Stompe, resides in Novato, so her election would mean all five directors live in Novato. Keeping a coastal resident on the board is a challenge because most of Division 1’s voters are in West Novato. The district’s West Marin electors must act with unanimity to keep this historically West Marin seat in West Marin hands by voting for Ken Eichstaedt.
Where this election gets complicated is the state propositions. But the first five, Props. 2 through 6, are easy: Vote YES on all of them.
I agree that Prop. 2, a $10-billion bond issue for school construction, could have better focused on reversing the state’s history of spending more education bond money in rich school districts than in needier districts. But Prop. 2 is a step in the right direction. Too much of California’s education infrastructure is disgracefully past its useful shelf life and in desperate need of this modest infusion toward capital improvements. Yes on 2.
Prop. 3 locks into the state constitution the adjudicated and settled right of same-sex couples to marry. Prop. 3 would be a hot-button measure in a political swamp like Florida, but we can be thankful that in California it simply aligns the constitution with existing law. Yes on 3.
Prop. 4 is a second $10 billion bond issue proposed by the state legislature, this one for such vital projects as wildfire prevention, flood control, food system sustainability and renewable energy. An overarching guideline is the protection of disadvantaged communities from climate change. Yes on 4.
Prop. 5 says that voter approval of local government bonds for such critical projects as affordable housing, roads, water and fire protection should be on the same footing as school bonds, enabling them also to be approved by a 55 percent majority. It’s time to stop allowing a small minority who will never say yes to anything to hamstring progress. This modest change to the state constitution is long overdue. Yes on 5.
It’s embarrassing that California’s constitution permits involuntary servitude (i.e., slavery!) as a punishment for criminal convictions. Prop. 6 amends the constitution to eliminate this 19th-century relic. Yes on 6.
That was the straightforward part. Now we get to the thicket of Props. 32 through 36.
Prop. 32 raises the minimum wage to $18 an hour. How “livable” is 18 bucks? A fulltime job at $18 an hour would provide a typical employee with a take-home paycheck of around $540 a week. Sounds to me like that’s the least we should be doing for low-wage earners. Yes on 32.
It’s hard to believe that Prop. 33, on rent control, and Prop. 34, on prescription drug prices, are related. But, boy, are they! Bear with me here. Federal law obligates prescription drug companies to sell drugs to certain organizations serving disadvantaged communities at discounted prices. These organizations then bill the health insurers for the full undiscounted price of the drugs and pocket the difference (yeah, it’s legal). The AIDS Healthcare Foundation in Los Angeles raked in some $2 billion in 2022 this way; it uses the funds to pay its operating expenses, for direct patient care—AND for political activities.
One of the foundation’s perennial political interests has been to sponsor state ballot propositions to make it easier for local governments to enact rent control measures, which is the purpose of this year’s Proposition. 33. The foundation has put up most of the money supporting Prop. 33.
It should not be a shock that rent control is not exactly popular at the well-heeled California Apartment Association, which shoehorned onto the ballot Prop. 34, dubbed the Revenge Initiative. It would require that 98 percent of certain organizations’ revenue from the aforementioned federal drug discount program be spent on direct patient care, leaving nil for such uses as political activities, especially pushing rent control. The whopper here is that Prop. 34 was crafted so that the only organization to which it will apply is—wait for it—the AIDS Healthcare Foundation!
Thus, 33 and 34 are both special-interest-funded measures, and in both cases those funds come from very deep pockets. Weeks before the election, the apartments group had already committed $63 million to opposing Prop. 33 (rent control) and supporting Prop. 34 (clobbering the A.H.F.). The multibillion-dollar AIDS Foundation has its own dirty little secrets. It has invested in Los Angeles Skid Row properties that the Los Angeles Times has likened to slum housing.
My take is a Yes on Prop. 33, because local communities should have the option to enact rent control if they choose to do so, and a hard No on Prop. 34, because it’s such a blatantly cynical misuse of the initiative process. (Footnote: Marin County just signed a two-year, $903,000 contract with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation to provide support services to Marin residents with HIV/AIDS.)
Prop. 35 is hardly any easier to sort through. California imposes a per capita tax on certain health plans, such as Kaiser. Does it seem counterintuitive for the state to specially tax nonprofit health-care providers?
Sacramento collects a barrel of money from the tax (we’re talking billions), which it uses to fund a host of Medi-Cal costs. The aha! fact is that the taxed health plans then get reimbursed by the Feds for what they paid to the state, so in the end it’s one more example of the cockamamie way we fund health care in this country.
The purpose of the Prop. 35 initiative is to lock into law exactly to the penny how those tax revenues must be spent, right down to listing the winner and loser programs for increased funding (there’s even a chart of winners and losers in the voter guide). It’s a terrible idea to write such details into statute, especially because the whole weird scheme is on a year-to-year basis with the Feds, and they can pull the plug on it at any time. California’s League of Women Voters agrees: No on 35.
(Disclosure: The League of Women Voters’ national president is Dianna Wynn, who happens to be my niece.)
Prop. 36’s sponsors hope to spark hysteria over crime and fentanyl to resurrect a Nancy Reagan-style war on druggies and other miscreants and take us back to a prison-first approach to criminal law. Making matters worse, Prop. 36 would gut funding for non-incarceration mental health, drug treatment and rehab programs that have been shown to do a better job of addressing addiction and criminality. Incidentally, the principal backers of Prop. 36 have amassed so much money that they’ve just given $1 million to the state Republican party. No on 36.
Wade Holland of Inverness lugs out his soapbox of voting recommendations before each election.