Comments
ACCORDING TO LIZ - Monday marks the day that ballots drop in California joining the slew of election mailers sliding through every registered voter’s mail slot.
Not every reader will agree with the following, but my intent is to initiate discussion and reflection before people are faced with choosing which oval to fill in with black ink.
This November, the State has seen fit to advance ten propositions on which Californians can choose to weigh in.
Prop 2 authorizes $10 billion in bonds for public school and community colleges and would cost taxpayers a cool $500 million per year for 35 years.
California’s coffers have swung from a healthy surplus to a considerable deficit in just a few years. Do we really want the same people to spend more of our tax dollars on this when they haven’t demonstrated much recent fiscal responsibility?
I’m voting NO.
Prop 3 seeks to amend the California Constitution to remove language stating that a marriage is only between a man and a woman, and would recognize the fundamental right to marry, regardless of sex or race.
Ho-hum, it seems like we’ve been fighting the same battle for equal rights for everyone for decades.
Of course, I’m voting YES.
Prop 4 would authorize $10 billion in bonds for safe drinking water, fire prevention, and protecting communities and lands from climate risks at a cost to the taxpayers of about $400 million a year for 40 years.
Important concerns but, until the State can get its fiscal management in order, I think that too much money would be sucked up by bureaucracy and special favors.
Perhaps they should focus on forcing the companies responsible for impacting water quality, the health of our forests, and the escalation of global warming to remediate existing damages and contribute to future sustainability in these areas.
Many may disagree with me, but I’m voting NO.
Prop 5 would lower the supermajority required to authorize bonds for local jurisdictions to borrow funds for affordable housing and public infrastructure.
Generally, I would question making it easier for any government entity to incur more debt that the people would have to repay. Especially those that would be repaid through specific taxes, which tend to disproportionately affect certain sectors of society and can skew the vote when those who benefit will not necessarily be the ones who are paying. In this case, raising taxes on property.
However, it’s also a needed improvement that allows local jurisdictions the freedom to act as needed on local priorities, which is an excellent objective, in contrast to the one-size-fits-all mandates Sacramento has been shoveling down Californians’ throats these past few years.
It does require accountability, and the local voters must demand their local governments be vigorous in protecting stakeholder interests, all the stakeholders’ interests, with regards to the amounts, fiscal and land use oversight, and transparency subject to that accountability.
So, this gets a qualified YES from me.
Prop 6 would remove the provision from the California Constitutional that allows jails and prisons to force inmates to work. I thought slavery and involuntary servitude were outlawed by the 13th Amendment, but I find that the fine print of 160 years ago excluded it as punishment for a crime.
But because it’s allowed does not make it right.
Prop 6 could increase or decrease state costs depending on its application.
If the issue is for inmates to pay the costs of keeping them behind bars, do the savings exceed the cost of oversight and infrastructure?
With 4% of the world’s population, the United States has 25% of its prisoners. The costs to society, the economy, and the budgets at all levels of government are astronomical. More and more money is spent on locking people up, internalizing resentment against the system, and giving them a crash course on felonious behavior, while less and less goes to education, healthcare and child support – which are the best tools for keeping people out of prison in the first place.
Perhaps this will present California with an opportunity to lead the other states away from the United States’ unpleasant title as the incarceration nation by pivoting the American justice system away from an Old Testament eye-for-an-eye retribution and punishment approach, and moving it into the 21st century by emphasizing rehabilitation and cures to break the cycle of the societal ills that the current system sustains.
Including the drifts of young people and desperate parents created when the injustice system locks up so many, destroying their futures, tearing families and support systems apart, and providing a fertile ground for breeding more criminals.
I’m voting YES.
For companies with 26 or more employees, Prop 32 would raise California’s minimum hourly wage to $17 immediately, and to $18 on January 1, 2025; for those employing fewer than 26, to $17 on January 1, 2025, and to $18 on January 1, 2026.
C’mon, that’s a no-brainer. Time and again employers’ whines about having to fire minimum wage employers due to mandated minimum wage increases just do not pan out, and the benefits to the economy of putting more money in the pockets of low-wage earners, especially in the aftermath of the recent inflation that so impacted basic necessities.
Not to mention that data has demonstrated less personnel turnover for better-paid workers, with significant savings for employers.
Kevin De León jumped on board this one with glossy flyers distributed to his constituents attempting to portray his populist creds and pull support away from his opponent in CD 14… but the wording shows just how out-of-touch he has become.
Claiming this is a living wage when every worker in his working-class district knows a living wage is now well over double that.
A single parent with three children would need to make over $80 an hour in California to be considered the recipient of a living wage.
And a family of four in Los Angeles would be considered low-income for bringing home less than $109,000 a year, according to the 2023 State Income Limits report. Another source suggested that $75,000, more than twice the proposed $18 an hour with a 40-hour workweek, was needed to live comfortably in Los Angeles... as a single person.
But something is better than nothing and every extra dollar in working Angelenos’ pockets will get spent in the community and help the economy.
Not only is it the right thing to do, but it could also cut certain costs by making people less reliant on social support from the state.
For me, this one’s a strong YES.
Prop 33 would expand local governments' authority to enact rent controls by repealing the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, and allow cities and counties to implement or expand rent control ordinances without state limitations.
While this could, as opponents point out, result in reduced state and local revenues in the high tens of millions of dollars annually, it could also free up renters’ funds to pay for services that the State currently subsidizes.
If we can trust local officials and voters to do the right thing, YES on 33 would be the way to go.
However, the folks behind it have not yet thought it through completely, including how controlling the burgeoning corporate landlord abuses could hurt the mom-and-pop proprietors and small local investors that still have to pay bills that only go up and up. I reached out to them as to how this would help reduce the financialization of housing and got not even an echo of a realistic response.
Ultimately, we do need some form of rent controls to protect tenants and increase affordable housing so if it passes, hopefully opponents’ concerns can be addressed in the implementation. And a strong showing if it loses, would put the miscreant mega-landlords on notice to clean up their act or else.
Sadly, intellectually I’m a NO, although it turns my stomach that I might appear susceptible to all the millions the corporate landlords and their real estate enablers have spent to buy my vote.
On the other hand, YES. And trust that Californians at the local level will do the right thing and fill in the blanks missing in the Prop with whatever is correct for their community’s situation.
Prop 34 purports to restrict “Spending by Health Care Providers”. Huh?
It’s actually a well-coordinated attack by developers and corporate landlords specifically targeting AIDS Project-LA (APLA), the respected and very effective advocate for affordable housing who strongly oppose the profiteering of the real estate and rental industries.
By requiring certain health care providers [read APLA] to allocate 98% of revenues from federal discount prescription drug programs to direct patient care, and applying only to providers with significant non-direct care expenditures [read APLA] and severe [non- specified] housing violations [talk about the pot calling the kettle black].
Non-compliance could lead to license revocations and loss of tax-exempt status [i.e. APLA].
Ignore the lies of the outrageously funded advocates for profiteering developers and greedy corporate landlords that APLA has put on notice and, whatever else you do, oppose this egregious hijacking of our state’s proposition process.
Absolutely, positively NO!
Prop 35 provides permanent funding for Medi-Cal health care services, and makes permanent the existing tax on managed health care plans currently set to expire in 2026. Funds that are designated for various Medi-Cal services cannot be used to replace existing funding freeing up funds to plug holes in the State’s shaky budget. Administrative costs would be capped, and independent audits required.
This is a good one. It would stop Sacramento from squeezing money designated for health services for the needy and using it to prop up other areas of the state’s budget i.e. stealing from the most needy to enable the greedy.
I’m voting YES.
Prop 36 would allow felony charges for possessing certain drugs, including fentanyl, and thefts under $950 with prior convictions. It would increase sentences for certain drug, theft and other specified crimes, and could significantly increase state criminal justice system costs.
While I don’t oppose felony charges for fentanyl possession due to its fatality rates, I don’t think the taxpayer should go on the hook for incarceration costs unless provision is made to parole prisoners languishing the big house for less heinous offenses. California needs to find other approaches to cut prison expense so the money can go to rehabilitation and education. [See rant under Prop 6, above.]
I’m voting NO.
Of course, the above are all personal opinions but I hope my thoughts inspire you to do your own research before voting.
Most of all, I hope each and every one of you do exercise your right to vote.
(Liz Amsden is a contributor to CityWatch and an activist from Northeast Los Angeles with opinions on much of what goes on in our lives. She has written extensively on the City's budget and services as well as her many other interests and passions. In her real life she works on budgets for film and television where fiction can rarely be as strange as the truth of living in today's world.)
