I Tried to Make a California Voting Guide
I really care about politics, but I’m not nearly as informed as I should be. For the California June 5 primary elections, I set a goal for myself to get as informed as possible and release a voting guide for all my friends and family.
Unfortunately, this ballot is way bigger and way more nuanced than expected. I severely underestimated the amount of time it would take to form well-researched and informed opinions (which also made me realize how difficult it is for citizens to cast meaningful votes).
However, I thought it would be worthwhile to at least publish all the information I’ve compiled thus far. It’s not thorough, it’s not complete, and it’s definitely not the most researched it could be, but it’s better than nothing. I hope these notes are helpful when you are making your voting decisions.
This is what my ballot looks like. Each office or proposition can be searched by using exactly what appears on the ballot i.e. “Proposition 68” or “Mayor, City of San Francisco”. When making decisions, I have several principles that I follow:
- I’m an economic and social progressive that’s skeptical of everything. While I’m open to voting for Republican candidates, very often their stances are opposite of mine, so I don’t.
- I try to examine every proposition or candidate position quantitatively, but I haven’t done true investigations into the data.
- I will almost always support any measure or candidate that will explicitly benefit marginalized communities or general public infrastructure. This externality is usually pretty obvious with propositions, but more nuanced with candidates.
- If candidate experience and stances seem fairly similar, I will lean towards supporting the candidate that is an underrepresented minority in government such as, but not limited to, women, people of color, and/or LGBTQ. I believe lack of diverse representation is one of the core oversights of government.
- I haven’t done any formal citations, but I’ve listed links I’ve used to gather information. They’re mostly articles and editorials, so maintain healthy skepticism when reading them.
- I try to be as factual as possible, but ultimately, these are all just my barely-informed-but-tried-my-best opinions. Take them with many grains of salt.
Some Other Great Guides and Resources
- San Francisco League of Pissed Off Voters
- Ballotpedia is a great starting point for doing research
- The San Francisco official voter guide has some pretty great explanations, especially of local ballot measures
- By the Bay, has fantastic, generally unbiased information about many (but not all) of the elections and propositions. It’s been a great resource for finding information on the lower-key races.
tl;dr
- Governor-Antonio Villaraigosa
- Lieutenant Governor-Gayle McLaughlin probably
- Secretary of State-Alex Padilla
- Controller-Betty Yee
- Treasurer-Vivek Viswanathan
- Attorney General-Xavier Becerra
- Insurance Commissioner-Ricardo Lara
- Board of Equalization Member, District 2-Malia Cohen
- United States Senate-Kevin de León
- United States Representative District 12-Ryan Kojasteh
- State Assembly Member District 17-David Chiu
- Judicial-Judge of the Superior Court, Office №4-Phoenix Streets
- Judicial-Judge of the Superior Court, Office №7-Maria Evangelista
- Judicial-Judge of the Superior Court, Office №9-Kwixuan H. Maloof
- Judicial-Judge of the Superior Court, Office №11-Niki Judith Solus
- Superintendent of Public Instruction-Marshall Tuck
- Mayor, City of San Francisco-Amy Farah Weiss, Jane Kim, Mark-Leno
- Member, Board of Supervisors District 8-Rafael Mandelman
- Proposition 68-Yes
- Proposition 69-Yes probably
- Proposition 70-No
- Proposition 71-Yes
- Proposition 72-Yes
- Measure 3-Yes
- Proposition A-Yes
- Proposition B-Yes probably
- Proposition C-Yes
- Proposition D-No
- Proposition E-No probably
- Proposition F-Yes
- Proposition G-Yes
- Proposition H-No
- Proposition I-Yes
State
Governor-Antonio Villaraigosa
What is this office: Governor of California. I hope you know what this is and how it works but I won’t judge you if you Google it. We’ve all been there. Jerry Brown is retiring, so there is no incumbent. June 5 will be a primary election.
I don’t have strong notes for this section yet. Neither of the Republic candidates have policies I support, especially there anti-sanctuary and free market stances.
The choice between Gavin Newsom, Antonio Villaraigos, Delanie Eastin, and John Chiang is tough. I will update this section with more notes once I research more.
EDIT: The polls show that Gavin Newsom and Republican John Cox are leading in the polls. Because this is a primary race, and I would rather choose between two more liberal candidates (which will push the debate further left hope), I’m going to vote strategically for the third runner: Antonio Villaraigosa.
Lieutenant Governor-Gayle McLaughlin probably
What is this office: Essentially the “vice-president” of the state, the Lieutenant Governor steps in as governor when the governor is not available. They also serve as the president of the state senate (tie breaking vote), sit on the Board of Regents of the UC system and CSU Board of Trustees, head the Commission of Economic Development, and have a few more duties. The Lieutenant Governor serves a 4-year term with a maximum of 2 terms. This is a primary election.
Who I’m voting for: Since this is a primary election, it’s likely two folks oout of Jeff Bleich, Eleni Kounalakis, or Ed Hernandez will appear on the final ballot. Each of them have fairly decent progressive policies, so I’m not attempting to vote strategically (i.e. voting for the frontrunner to make sure they beat a close second that is actively bad). I will be voting Gayle McLaughlin, who is the current mayor of Richmond and is a true progressive. She believes in a millionaires tax, increasing affordable housing, and reforming the private prison system. She has a track record of passing rent control laws, increasing minimum wage, and taxing wealthy corporations such as Chevron. I still need to do more research into the other candidates though before deciding my vote-I’ve found it quite hard to obtain information about the Lieutenant Governor race.
Secretary of State-Alex Padilla
What is this office: The Secretary of State facilitates and ensures the integrity of all elections in California. They have additional responsibilities such as managing ballot initiatives and registering businesses, among others. The treasurer serves a 4-year term with a maximum of 2 terms. This is a primary election.
Who I’m voting for: The incumbent Alex Padilla has made great efforts to improve outdated voting systems and increase voter registration and participation by automatically registering voters at the DMV. Padilla also implemented the Voter’s Choice Act, which allows same-day registration at voting centers and mandates mailing ballots to all registered voters. However, there have been lots of issues with voter suppression and disenfranchisement in California while Padilla was in office (the ACLU sued and won against Padilla). I’m not sure what his level of involvement is, but given all the voter suppression and election interference in 2016, I’m wary of Padilla. Unfortunately, I cannot find much compelling arguments for any of the other candidates. Ruben Major is the “alternative progressive” candidate, but he doesn’t have any political experience. Thus, I’m casting an unexcited vote for Padilla.
Controller-Betty Yee
What is this office: This office is the CFO of the government. They manage state payroll, perform booking, and conduct audits. The treasurer serves a 4-year term with a maximum of 2 terms. This is a primary election.
Who I’m voting for: I will be voting for Betty Yee, who has appeared to do a fine job. The other serious candidate, Konstantinos Roditis, is a conservative Republican who wants to eliminate as much government spending as possible, a stance I don’t agree with.
Treasurer-Vivek Viswanathan probably
What is this office: This office keeps track of all the money going in and out a.k.a. budget surplus and deficit. If the controller is the chief accountant, the treasurer is the chief actuary (at least to my understanding). The treasurer server a 4-year term with a maximum of 2 terms. This is a primary election.
Who I’m voting for: I am considering Fiona Ma, Vivek Viswanathan, and Kevin Akin. Among California’s budget crises includes the staggering amount spent on pension funds-almost 11% of the budget, and is expected to increase to 16%. Either taxes must be raised to pay for the funds, or services must be cut. I’m not a fan of either of those scenarios because of an important third option: cut loopholes and shore up any reckless investments. It seems that Fiona Ma’s approach is not as thoughtful as Viswanathan’s at solving the root pension fund crisis, instead believing that projected interest rates are perfectly fine. Though I am inherently am skeptical of anyone that says that can accurately predict interest rates, I fully respect and admire Ma’s initiative to audit the sketchy mismanagement of the Board of Equalization, so I’m not completely decided on my vote. Likely, it’ll be Viswanatham, but if I learn more about the issues, I might change my vote.
Attorney General-Xavier Becerra
What is this office: A very important and influential office, the Attorney General oversees the Department of Justice, which supports local law enforcement, serves as chief counsel of the state (is the entity that represents California in law suits), oversees law enforcement agencies, and more. They have enormous impact on criminal justice in California. The Attorney General serves for 4 year terms, with a maximum of 2 terms. Kamala Harris was the Attorney General before she became Senator. The current acting Attorney General and incumbent is Xavier Becerra. This is a primary election.
Who I’m voting for: In light of 2016 and the Trump presidency, it is even more important to resist Trump’s policies attacking immigrants, climate control, and more. I am considering Dave Jones and Xavier Becerra. For me, the most important issues are climate control, criminal justice, and immigrant rights-in summary, whoever is the best stalwart against Trump. Becerra has experience with issues such as the travel ban, DACA, gun control, EPA violations, and more. I will be voting for Becerra. Likely, both Jones and Becerra will be the general election candidates anyways.
Voter-Nominated Offices, State
Insurance Commissioner-Ricardo Lara
What is this office:The Insurance Commissioner oversees the Department of Insurance, which monitors and regulates the insurance industry in California. The Insurance Commissioner serves 4 year terms, with a maximum term limit of 2 terms. June 5 will be a primary election.
Who I’m voting for: For reasons I don’t fully understand, the insurance commissioner, in practice, only has authority over a small fraction of health insurance. They can, however, use their position to influence legislation, and they can pursue health insurance companies that violate other regulations.
Steven Poizner, a Republican tech entrepreneur, is currently leading in the polls. Poizner wants to make current spending more efficient and incentivize physicians and hospitals to provide better quality care as opposed to more quantity. That’s reasonable, but, in the past, he has adopted an aggressive anti-immigrant stance. He will surely be one of the top 2 candidates, so I will not be voting for him.
Out of the remaining candidates, I was considering Ricardo Lara and Asif Mahmood. Nathalie Hrizi is public school teacher without experience in the medical field, let alone medical legislation. Mahmood, while at least an experienced physician with an inspiring life story, does not have legislative experience or significant endorsements.
Ricardo Lara, while has an wishy-washy track record with pushing through practical legislation, is at least endorsed by many progressive factions such as United Nurses Associations of California, and many officials such as Jerry Brown and Kamala Harris. Thus, I will be voting for Lara.
Board of Equalization Member, District 2-Malia Cohen
What is this office: I’m not exactly sure. California is the only state that has an “elected tax board,” but its duties and responsibilities are not clear. The board and the department went through some turmoil in 2017, where it was discovered that the board had high counts of nepotism, conflicts of interest, and more shady dealings. Many of the powers were stripped around July 2017.
Who I’m voting for: As the office has no real mandate or power any more, I will put in a nonchalant vote for Malia Cohen, because I recognize some of her progressive efforts in San Francisco and because she is a woman of color.
Federal
United States Senate-Kevin de León
What is this office: Senate. Again, no judgment if you Google this. We’ve all been there. Nancy Pelosi has been the incumbent since 2013. June 5 will be a primary election.
Who I’m voting for: Of all the candidates, I am considering Dianne Feinstein, Kevin de León, Pat Harris, and Alison Hartson.
Incumbent Dianne Feinstein leads the polls and campaign contributions, and has heavyweight endorsements such as Barack Obama and Kamala Harris. However, the Democratic Party has itself not endorsed Feinstein. This race has turned into a race of which sect of the Democratic Party is best for California. I will not be voting for Feinstein because it is extremely likely that she will be one of the top 2 candidates. So I’m eliminating her from my selection. de León was the author of the California Values Act which made California a sanctuary state, an impressive legislation to have on his political resume. The Republican candidates mostly support Trump’s policies, so I will not be considering them.
Further reading: http://extras.mercurynews.com/primary2018/senate.html
United States Representative District 12-Ryan Kojasteh
What is this office: House of Representatives. Again, no judgment if you Google this. Nancy Pelosi has been the incumbent since 2013. June 5 will be a primary election.
Of all the candidates, I am considering Nancy Pelosi, Shahid Buttar, and Ryan Khojasteh. Stephen Jaffe is worth considering, but I am not happy with his comments bemoaning his privilege as an “old white straight guy.” Lisa Remmer is a Republican with a strong anti-immigrant platform, Barry Hermanson has no information, and Michael Goldstein used a red-pill reference from The Matrix as the basis for his entire platform, so I can’t take that seriously.
Pelosi is an entrenched member of Washington. However, I believe she represents an old guard of Democrats that are not resonating with their voter base-and is partially the reason Trump won. In recent history, she refuses to condemn the NFL’s deliberation on the National Anthem. However, she is fantastic at getting Democrat cohesion. In any case, she will be on the final ballot so I will not be voting for her.
I would love to support Shahid Buttar. There are so many trash brown men in public office (i.e. Bobby Jindal, Ajit Pai), that a brown man that is actually running on a platform of advocacy for the underserved, underprivileged, and racially marginalized personally resonates with and inspires me as another brown man. However, he does not have enough political clout, and I do not find his campaign platform as practical and focused as I would like (I respect that he’s a musician, but it’s really not the most relevant). The ideologies are there-the practical implementation plan is not.
Ryan Kojasteh is an interesting young politician. A young UC Hastings law student and member of the San Francisco Immigrant Rights Commission, he seems pragmatic and has strong progressive stances, especially for immigrant rights. He has a very concrete set of proposals backed by factual references and endorsements. I don’t know if Kojasteh will win the general election, but I think it will be a symbolic win for us millennials if he is able to get on the ticket against political behemoth Nancy Pelosi. Thus, I will be supporting Kojasteh for the primary.
State
State Assembly Member District 17-David Chiu
What is this office: The State Assembly is the “lower” house of the California legislature. It is analogous to the federal House of Representatives. There are 80 seats, where each seat represents ~466,000 people-assembly districts are demarcated by population. Terms are 2 years, and candidates can serve a maximum of 12 years, but this 12 year max can be reached using any combination of 2-year assembly terms or 4-year senate terms.
David Chiu has seemingly done great things for housing, particularly around rent control advocating for repealing Costa-Hawkins (even if people aren’t happy with his perceived lack of urgency). I could not find any information on the other candidate, Alejandro Fernandez.
Nonpartisan Offices, City and County, Judicial
What is this office: Each of the 58 counties in California has a Superior Court. California Superior Court Justices are elected per county for 6-year terms. Justices can run again when their term expires; if there is no challenge, they will be automatically re-elected. For the city of San Francisco, 4 seats are being challenged.
Who I’m voting for: This is an interesting election period. Many incumbents in the SF Superior Court are being challenged, and there was a conscious decision by 4 public defenders, each Black and/or Latino (two of which are women), to individually challenge the status quo. This is an ambitious move, as public defenders rarely make it to Superior Court judge, and these public defenders are risking their careers, since, should they lose, they will be back in the courtrooms facing the very judges they had challenged!
There is some opposition that is criticizing the fact that each of the targeted judges happen to be judges nominated by Republic governors, even though all of the judges are Democrats. The rebuttal from the public defenders running is that the superior court does not reflect the diversity of the city, and there needs to be a change in representation.
Public defenders spend their entire careers defending individuals in a system that has ultimately failed anyone that is low-income, of color (especially black and brown), or otherwise marginalized. These communities are adversely and disproportionately affected by these failures, and public defenders are, in my opinion, one of the many types of heroes that are fighting for these communities. Their perspective would be ideal when making rulings. Even though the incumbent judges have experience being judges (and they, too, were once inexperienced), change needs to happen for the diversity of the city to be reflected in the diversity of its governance.
“Look at the racial inequality,” he says. “This city has a population that’s 6 percent or less African American. You go down to the Hall of Justice on any given day, and if you were the judge, you’d think the city was 85 percent Black. A lot of this has to do with implicit bias. A lot of people don’t even know that it’s happening.” — Phoenix Streets
Judicial-Judge of the Superior Court, Office №4-Phoenix Streets
Judicial-Judge of the Superior Court, Office №7-Maria Evangelista
Judicial-Judge of the Superior Court, Office №9-Kwixuan H. Maloof
Judicial-Judge of the Superior Court, Office №11-Niki Judith Solus
I will happily and doubtlessly be voting for Niki Judith Solus. She is an experienced public defender who wants to address the implicit bias against communities of color in San Francisco courtrooms, especially for sentencing and bail amounts. She has a well-written Medium article where she notes numerous times where Judge Ross, the other candidate, disrespected her and her client(s), as well as other attorneys and clients of color, and then showed politeness and respect towards white male colleagues.
Further Reading:
Criticism of the public defenders:
School
Superintendent of Public Instruction-Marshall Tuck probably
What is this office: This office is nonpartisan and is voted on every 4 years. Officials can serve a maximum of 2 terms. The actual role of the superintendent, as defined by the California Constitution, is not well-described, so everything that it actually does is mostly a product of statutes, initiatives, and culture. The state superintendent runs the Department of Education; the department’s responsibilities include setting academic standards, measuring district performance, executing newly drafted policies. It does not help with budget allocation-that is a district issue. Confusingly, the Secretary of Education does not run the Department of Education. I honestly don’t really know what this offices does 😕
Further reading: https://edsource.org/2018/what-does-californias-superintendent-of-public-instruction-do-a-quick-guide/596576
Who I’m voting for: As you can probably tell, I’m not very knowledgable about this office or even much about the state of education across California.
The leading candidates are Marshall Tuck and Tony Thurmond. Tuck is a strong advocate for raising teacher salaries and improving charter schools. Tony Thurmond is a strong advocate for at-risk students. I’m not sure who I’ll be voting for.
EDIT: Because of the claims by the candidates listed here, I will be voting for Tuck. I really love Thurmond’s callout that the system disenfranchises students of color and low economic strata, and the core problems with the system lie with academic environments that do not adequately support students. However, based on my personal experience with tutoring and the edu-professional friends I have, I more strongly support Tuck’s position that teachers need support. The life of a teacher is really hard, especially as a new teacher. You’re paid very little to do an emotionally and mentally (and sometimes physically) straining job, which disincentives people (especially people of color) from being teachers. Given a rising income inequality and cost of living, I believe educators need all the support they can get. Ultimately, it’s a tough decision, and both candidates seem great.
Further reading:
City and County Offices, San Francisco
Mayor, City of San Francisco-Amy Farah Weiss, Jane Kim, Mark Leno
What is this office: Mayor of San Francisco. The current acting mayor is London Breed. This office is ranked-choice voting. You vote for your favorite, second favorite, and third favorite candidates. If nobody receives the majority vote, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated. Everybody who voted for the last place finisher as their first choice has their votes recounted: this time, their second choice is counted and added to the totals. If nobody has a majority again, this process repeats with the third choice.
Who I’m voting for: This is a hotly contested mayor’s race. I will update this section with more notes.
EDIT: While Amy Farah Weiss does not have an extensive political track record, she has lots of clout as a grassroots homelessness and housing activist. I was incredibly impressed by how well-thought out, metrics oriented, and strategic her platform is. Her campaign is about the issues and is not as petty and divisive as the front-runners Jane Kim and London Breed.
Between the remaining candidates, I’m pretty torn. I know London Breed has had extensive big money backing, but she also has a track record of housing first legislation. However, she also has a strong “anti-crime” stance of hiring more police officers and pursuing repeat offenders, which implies that she will not address systemic root causes of crime. Kim has a track record of supporting minimum wage, regulating monopolies like Uber and Lyft, and free city college. On the other hand, she also supported a tax break for Twitter.
I’m not super excited about either of these candidates, but Kim at least has more endorsements from grassroots organizations and at least claims to be against businesses generating extreme inequality. So I will vote for her. I doubt this vote will go to the third choice, so I will vote for Mark Leno, who aligns closely with Kim.
I got most of my information from the excellent By the Bay guide.
Member, Board of Supervisors District 8-Rafael Mandelman:
What is this office: Mayor Ed Lee appointed Jeff Sheehy when Scott Weiner vacated this seat to become state legislator. Thus, this special election is for voters to select who should serve on Board of Supervisors. They vote on city ordinances and what propositions should appear on ballots. This office is ranked-choice voting.
Who I’m voting for: I admit that, while I have lived in this district for about a year and half, I am pretty ignorant to the issues this district faces. Jeff Sheehy put in a vote to vote out London Breed as mayor. Mandelman was critical of Sheehy’s vote, stating that: “I like to believe that, if I had been the sixth vote, we would not have replaced the first African-American woman with a white man.” Whatever Sheehy’s intentions may have been, I was impressed by Mandelman’s acknowledgement of the lack of representation by people of color, especially women of color. Additionally, Sheehy has been quoted as to not feel passionately about his candidacy and assuming office, saying he “is not obsessed with getting elected.” Mandelman, on the other hand, is. Thus, I will be voting for Mandelman.
Further reading:
http://www.sfexaminer.com/sheehy-mandelman-paint-independent-district-8-supervisor-race/
California Propositions
Proposition 68-Yes
Authorizes the sale of $4 billion in general obligation bonds, so that the resulting funds can be allocated to various park and environmental protection. Assuming a 3.5% interest rate over 30 years, the government would be taking on $6.53 billion in debt. 15–20% of the funds are required to go to neighborhoods with median household incomes that are 60% or lower of the statewide average (~$40,000). $750 million is allocated to park-poor neighborhoods, often which have a strong overlap with low-income communities (see the official bill for a breakdown. Taking on this debt is well worth the benefits in clean water, better and more accessible parks, and disaster prevention.
Proposition 69-Yes probably
In April 2017, the state passed Senate Bill 1 (SB 1). The important thing to know about this measure was that it was to raise $5 billion in revenue from increased excise taxes (taxes that are on included when buying specific goods) on gas and diesel, transportation improvement fees (annual fee depending on the value of the car), and zero-emission vehicle fees. The revenue would be allocated to repairing roads and improving public transportation.
While the funds are allocated to improving transportation by the measure, the measure does not strictly enforce that. So, theoretically, the funds can be used for something completely unrelated to transportation, so the backlog of infrastructure improvements will never be addressed. Proposition 69 amends the measure so that the funds from diesel taxes and transportation improvement fees have to be used for transportation purposes. I feel that it is a solid way to lock in the money we are collecting from poor transportation is put towards building good transportation. My only reservation is the counter-argument that by “locking” these funds, they can’t be diverted for other urgent matters, but that argument only holds weight if there are already alternative usages of the funds.
http://calbudgetcenter.org/blog/understanding-californias-new-transportation-package/
Proposition 70-No
Some background on what cap-and-trade is:
Since 2013, California has a cap-and-trade program on greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) which places a “cap” on the total number of GHG that can be produced within California. Each year the cap decreases by approximately 3%, which incentivizes GHG-producing industries to find alternative clean energy sources to avoid paying penalties. The total cap is split into many “allowances”, and companies get “allowances” (sometimes free, sometimes they must purchase them) to emit gases without penalty. Companies can “trade” allowances, selling them to other companies that pollute more. This way, companies are incentivized to reduce their emissions and therefore save money.
Revenue from allowances currently goes into the general fund. If Proposition 70 passes, revenue from allowances will be placed in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Reserve Fund starting January 1, 2024. On or after January 1, 2024, each chamber of California legislature must pass a 2/3 vote in order to use the funds. If 2/3 vote passes, then funds will be transferred into the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which requires just a simple majority to use. If the 2/3 vote fails, funds are kept in the reserve fund and cannot be used. Between January 1, 2024 and the release of the reserve fund, in order to offset the loss of available funds, the measure cancels a sales tax exemption on manufacturers, which raises $260 million in tax revenue.
I am against this measure since it encourages government gridlock. It is already very difficult for government to secure a simple majority, let alone a 2/3 plus a simple majority vote. Supporters of this bill (mostly Republican) advocate for more conscientious spending, but a future 2/3 vote means future spending will need to be diluted based on politician interest, since in order to win those extra votes, concessions will have to be made. I will be voting no.
Further reading:
https://www.c2es.org/content/california-cap-and-trade/
http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/General.aspx?id=5932
https://www.edf.org/climate/how-cap-and-trade-works
https://www.cacities.org/Top/News/News-Articles/2017/July/Legislature-Passes-Cap-and-Trade-Extension
Proposition 71-Yes
A no-brainer proposition. If passed, voter approval of propositions takes effect 5 days after the Secretary of State verifies election results, which is complete no later than 38 days after the election.
As an example, if a proposition passes on November 8th, it becomes legal on November 9th. If election results are not fully verified, the proposition will come into effect before it has even been verified to have been selected. If this proposition passes, the law comes into effect latest by December 17, 2018.
Even if the elections were verified immediately, having a law come into effect literally a day after the election period can be chaotic and confusing. This prevents such drastic disruption of government processes.
Proposition 72-Yes
This is another no-brainer proposition for me. Currently, rainwater capture systems are added by homeowners to, as you can imagine, harvest and conserve rain water, which is a fantastic pro-environment mechanism for a state that is constant drought.
However, this counts as new construction on the home, which means the home rises in value and can be taxed. This de-incentivizes home owners from installing the system.This proposition exempts rainwater capture systems from taxable revenue, which provides a great incentive for homeowners to add them.
Regional Measures
Measure 3-YES
This measure approves expenditures on transportation include new BART cars, extending BART to Santa Clara, extending Caltrain to downtown San Francisco, better bus service, highway improvements, and much more (see the expenditure plan here). In order to finance the $4.45 billion needed for these improvements, tolls on bridges would increase by $1 three times: beginning January 1, 2019, January 2022, and January 2025.
Past Bay Area measures (Regional Measures 1 and 2) that raise bridge tolls to fund public transportation and infrastructure improvements have been pretty successful. I believe Regional Measure 3 will incentivize folks to use public transport more and private transportation less.
However, who will be paying this toll? Is it going to be higher-income people that drive into the city and can afford it, or is it going to be lower-income people that have likely been pushed out further due to gentrification? Over 17,000 Bay Area workers are super-commuters; usually, they are people working blue collar jobs. As it is incredibly expensive to park a car in San Francisco, I’m hoping that most commuters do not actually into the city and instead commute to a public transport hub outside of San Francisco, and then take public transportation into the city. Thus, I feel like this fee hike will not affect lower-income commuters and the improved infrastructure will alleviate concerns in the long term.
Further Reading:
https://medium.com/r/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmtc.ca.gov%2Four-work%2Fadvocate-lead%2Fregional-measure-3
San Francisco City and County Propositions
Proposition A-Yes
The Public Utilities Commission (PUC) regulates public utilities. Currently, the PUC can build and improve water and sewage facilities using revenue bonds. The City issues these bonds, transfers the resulting money to the PUC, and then goes into debt. The City repays these bonds by using the money people pay for their utilities.
In 2002, Proposition E was passed to allow bond funds to be used for water and sewage facilities. Proposition A will extend this privilege to power facilities, but as long as the power facilities are clean energy and do not use fossil fuels or nuclear energy. Because I support deficit spending for public benefit, I will be voting yes.
Further Reading:
https://voterguide.sfelections.org/en/public-utilities-revenue-bonds
Proposition B-Yes probably
If a member of a SF board or commission that is in SF’s charter decides to run for office, then they must vacate their position (it does not apply to citizen advisory committees, elected officials, and citizen advisory committee created by a city ordinance). The idea around this proposition is to prevent people from receiving campaign contributions and influence from special interests while they are running. There are already stipulations that mandate that members on commissions cannot have conflicts of interest. This seems like a reasonable addendum to those stipulations. It does, however, make running for office riskier, since, if you lose, you’ve also lost your commission seat.
Proposition C-Yes, Proposition D-no
C and D are intertwined. They are both fundamentally taxes on real estate owners with gross receipts over $1 million dollars. However, each proposition designates the resulting tax revenue for different purposes.
C requires a simple majority of the vote to pass and D requires 2/3 of the vote to pass. If both C and D get the required proportion of votes, the proposition with the most votes will pass. If neither get the required proportion of votes, neither proposition will pass. So essentially, this means only C or only D can actually become law. Thus, I’ve tried to compare and contrast how the funds will be used, as well as which has more of likelihood of passing.
Proposition C levies a tax against entities with $1 million or more ingross receipts. Landlords will receive 1% tax on warehouse spaces and 3.5% on commercial spaces. The SF Controller estimates that this will net about $146 million in revenue. 85% will be designed to fund childcare and early education programs, 15% will go towards general use. Proposition D levies a tax against entities with $1 million or more in gross receipts. Landlord will receive a 1.7% tax on commercial spaces. The SF Controller estimates that this will net about $70 million in revenue. This tax will be used to fund low-income housing, homelessness services.
Nonprofits, art spaces, hospitals and other general services are exempt from this tax. In practice, the tax will most likely be levied against large corporations such as tech companies, which is fantastic.
If this sounds confusing, it’s because it absolutely is. These two propositions are the result of in-fighting during the election race. Proposition C was sponsored by Jane Kim. Proposition D was sponsored by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, most of whom support London Breed. It puts voters in a very tricky spot, since it forces us to choose between childcare and homelessness support.
You could argue that San Francisco is, sadly, a “childless” city, as lots of families have been pushed out due to gentrification. If these residents have already been pushed out —and therefore cannot take advantage of childcare, why not support a bill that helps the homeless? I can’t find impartial data to back these claims up, so I’m try to make the most logical decision I can.
Proposition D has a lower likelihood of passing because of the higher required proportion of votes and ultimately raises less money. Therefore, I am voting yes on C and no on D, though I wish I could vote for both. If I find out that Proposition D has much better allocation of the funds, I might switch my vote.
Proposition E-No probably
This prevents tobacco retailers from selling flavored tobacco products. This will have an unknown effect on government. Some folks may curb their tobacco usage, which would be positive for general public health and street cleanliness, but others may just switch to other tobacco products. There would be some loss of revenue from sale of flavored tobacco products, but it’s hard to know if this would be anything significant.
Flavored tobacco products are heavily marketed towards lower-income communities of color. The argument is that flavored tobacco such as vaping and flavored cigarettes widen the gateway to a lifetime of nicotine addiction. Many kids that start vaping will end up smoking cigarettes as well.
My primary concern of a flavored tobacco ban is that it would just push tobacco sales underground. If sale of flavored tobacco is outlawed, then it is likely a black market of flavored tobacco will spring up in low-income communities of color. Law enforcement already disproportionately targets brown and black communities. Why would the effects of this proposition be any different? I feel that this ban is superficial and does not address systemic root causes, so I will probably be voting no.
Proposition F-Yes
This proposition entitles tenants facing eviction to legal representation funded by the city. The tenant(s) must be provided a lawyer within 30 days of the eviction notice. The SF controller estimates this program will cost between $4.2 and $5.6 million. I think this cost is absolutely worth it to stop unfair evictions — 90% of tenants in court don’t have attorneys (usually because tenants facing eviction don’t have the income to hire attorneys) while 90% of landlords do. This proposition is an absolute, 100% yes from me.
Proposition G-YES
This proposition would levy an annual parcel tax per parcel of taxable property for the next 20 years. Parcel taxes are basically taxes that are not applied based on the value of the property, but instead on other characteristics; in this case it is just a flat $298. The controller estimates a total annual revenue of about $50 million at that rate, but the tax amount would be adjusted for inflation per year. The funds will go to the SF Unified School District and will be used for various great initiatives such as educator and education official salaries, staffing and funding at high-needs schools, and more.
In theory, this sounds good. My only worry is that homeowners that are already low-income are paying an unfair share as compared to higher-income individuals, especially in hyper-gentrified locations. I couldn’t find any aggregated numbers on average income of homeowners in San Francisco, let alone anything cut by neighborhood. I’m hoping that most real estate owners are well off enough to afford the $298. The money is being put towards education and seems to be allocated in a reasonable way. Therefore, I am voting yes.
Proposition H-No
Proposition H would equip SFPD officers with tasers and enact trainings and policies for their usage. Funding this program would cost approximately $4.5 million for the tasers and initial training. It would also require an ongoing annual cost of $200,000 to maintain training and equipment.
This is a deceptive measure description. In November 2017, the Police Commission voted to equip officers with tasers. This proposition says it will equip officers with tasers, but that already exists. In November 2017, the Police Commission voted to equip officers with tasers. In March 2018, the Police Commission passed a policy that would include de-escalation tactics and allow the user of tasers if a person is “violently resisting arrest.” Proposition H simply changes the policy to “actively resisting arrest.” This language is much more vague, diverges from deescalation priority, and opens the door to more aggressive taser usage, which is painful and sometimes even lethal. The proposition can only be reversed by another public vote, or an expensive four-fifths vote by the Board of Supervisors (of which there are 11 members!).
I will be voting no as it encourages violence and is a step backwards in a lengthy fight for community policing.
Further reading:
Proposition I-Yes
This proposition prevents the City of San Francisco from enticing a sports team to move to San Francisco if the original city has established a strong fan community for at least 20 years. The measure was placed on the ballot in response of the movement of the Golden State Warriors from Oakland to San Francisco, quite possibly one of the biggest symbols of gentrification and inequality in the Bay Area. I wholeheartedly will vote yes on this.
