SLO Tribune recommendations on all 10 measures on the California ballot | Opinion
The November ballot includes 10 statewide propositions that address everything from school funding to marriage equality; health care to rent control; and safe drinking water to the minimum wage.
Members of the McClatchy California Editorial Board, which includes opinion journalists from the Sacramento, Fresno and Modesto Bees, The Tribune in San Luis Obispo and the Merced Sun-Star, spent the last several weeks analyzing the voter initiatives and meeting with leaders of campaigns both for and against the measures.
Here are our recommendations:
Proposition 2
Prop. 2 would authorize $10 billion in bonds for K-12 and community college to be used for new construction and upgrades of existing facilities.
Directs $8.5 billion to K-12 campuses and another $1.5 billion to community colleges. For K-12 schools, the largest block of money would fund much-needed modernization efforts at existing schools.
Proposition 3
Amends the California Constitution to recognize the right for couples to marry, regardless of gender and race.
Prop. 3 is more than just a value statement. It safeguards the right to marriage for LGBTQ+ couples and interracial couples at a time when conservative Supreme Court justices are eroding civil liberties.
Proposition 4
Authorizes $10 billion in bonds for an array of projects, including flood control, water system improvements, wildlife prevention and offshore wind.
We would have preferred a more targeted measure that concentrated on the biggest needs, such as ensuring that Californians have safe drinking water. But it does help leverage federal government funding and hopefully, our state and federal leaders will guide this money to the highest-priority projects.
Proposition 5
Allows local bond measures for affordable housing and public infrastructure to pass with 55% approval, rather than a two-thirds super-majority.
Prop. 5 gives local governments more control to respond to community investment preferences. A 55% majority to increase a local property tax is a reasonable threshold.
Proposition 6
Amends the California Constitution to prohibit jails and prisons from requiring inmates to work.
If Prop. 6 passes, California would join several other states that have outlawed all forms of slavery, including Alabama, Colorado, Nebraska, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah and Vermont
Proposition 32
Raises the minimum wage from the current $16 an hour. Workers employed by businesses with 26 or more employees would earn $17 immediately and $18 on Jan. 1, 2025. Employees of smaller business would be raised to $17 an hour on Jan. 1, 2025, and to $18 on Jan. 1, 2026.
Working-class Californians have fallen woefully behind the cost of living in recent years and cannot survive on minimum-wage salaries. Most minimum-wage workers are adults — not students who are working part-time for spending money. Many are single mothers who are supporting families. Their efforts should never be taken for granted.
Proposition 33
Expands the ability of local government to pass rent local rent control laws.
Backers like to frame the housing problem as evil corporate landlords against the rest of the impoverished world, but this vexing issue does not lend itself to caricatures. Solving the affordability problem is truly hard. None of the housing shortage’s true causes go away by passing Prop. 33.
Proposition 34
Requires certain health care providers to spend 98% of their revenue from the federal government’s discounted prescription drug program on patient care.
Expecting voters to take a scalpel to a complex drug purchasing program is a bridge too far. This issue should be reformed by legislators, not at the ballot box.
Proposition 35
Provides permanent funding for Medi-Cal health care services by making an existing tax on managed health care insurance plans permanent.
Prop. 35 is a classic sausage of a compromise, but it leaves our health care system in better shape. A vote for Prop. 35 signals that voters want to spend federal health care dollars on actual care. Nobody is suggesting that this solves the health care system’s problems, but it will make things slightly saner.
Proposition 36
Increases penalties for certain low-level theft and hard-drug crimes by charging repeat offenses as felonies rather than misdemeanors. In some cases, drug offenders could be eligible for treatment as an alternative to incarceration.
Prop. 36 duplicates policies and programs already on the books and provides no funding for the treatment programs it promises. It will have unintended consequences that will create problems for California, rather than solving them.
This story was originally published October 11, 2024 at 5:00 AM.