California propositions on November 4th.

A couple of people mentioned the CA propositions over in the Barack Obama thread, but I thought they deserved their own thread for us Californians to talk about them.

Seven propositions on next week's ballot, propositions 91 through 97.

Proposition 91: my voter information guide doesn't have any arguments submitted for or against this one, just a note from the people who proposed it that we should all vote no, since Proposition 1A was passed in 2006. This makes me wonder what the lead time is on these propositions -- you'd think they could have removed this one from the ballot in the 15 months since Proposition 1A passed. Anyways, there's no reason to vote for this one unless you like confusing conflicting laws on the books. I'm voting no.

Proposition 92: community college funding and fee caps. I'm probably out of touch, as I don't know a lot of people who attended community colleges. It seems to me that the current fees are pretty reasonable ($20 per unit) so reducing them to $15 per unit as this proposition will do doesn't seem like a big deal to me. And the funding mandated by this proposition doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

I'm leaning towards no, but if anyone has any good arguments in favor, I can be swayed -- the arguments in the voter information guide are not very convincing to me, they're all "we're community college students and the fees are too high, please help us" and I'm like "get a part time job flipping burgers so you can finish your degree and then get a better job, you whiners."

Proposition 93: term limit modification for state assembly and senate positions. I understand why people want term limits, because it seems like we have a bunch of do-nothing politicians who start running for re-election as soon as they get elected, but it seems like in practice, it hasn't worked -- I have seen the same names on the ballot every election, just for different positions as people get term limited out of whatever state position they are in. The big winners are the ones who get bumped up to the US House, those guys are pretty much there for life -- I'm sure that all of the local Democrats are waiting for Tom Lantos to kick the bucket so they can fight it out for his seat, but in the meantime, we have guys like Joe Simitian who did their time in the CA Assembly, moved on to the CA Senate, and will get termed out at some point.

This proposition seems like a pointless exercise to me -- it slightly weakens term limits and will benefit a small number of current state senators and assembly members. The argument in favor in the voter information guide says "let the politicians stay in office to gain experience and reduce the effect of lobbyists" -- but that's an argument against term limits entirely. If you like term limits, you should vote no -- if you don't like term limits, this doesn't do much to change anything. I'm voting no -- if someone comes up with a proposition to undo the term limits one from 1990, I'll vote for that one.

Propositions 94-97: the Indian Gaming propositions. Four of them, one for each of four tribes which are trying to renegotiate the casino compacts all the tribes agreed to some years back. I think that all four of these can be treated as one -- I think there's a very limited number of people who would want one of these to be passed and the others to fail, like maybe the members of each tribe which are trying to reduce the competition from the other tribes...

For me, this is a no brainer -- all of the casinos are really far away from me, and I'm generally in favor of less restrictions on gambling, and it seems to me that if the demand is there, why not satisfy it here in California and benefit the state budget instead of letting Californians go to Nevada and lose their money there? But I guess if you think gambling is wrong, or if you live in Palm Springs and don't want those casinos to expand, you can vote no. I'm voting yes.

 

Re: California propositions on Feb 5

That's pretty much the conclusion I came to after seeing that 40% voted yes on 91. How did they come to that decision? Did they read the voter information guide? It looks like they did not. So they came to the voting booth, looked at the title and said, hey, that sounds great, let me vote for that? It stands to reason that there are 40% more on the other side who just vote straight no, so yeah, you can discount 80% of the votes for any proposition and the actual decision is made by the 20% who pay attention.

I doubt that 40% of voters were being clever, but I guess it's possible.

 

Re: California propositions on Feb 5

It looks like the map has been updated -- it is now showing 60% no in Butte County. The Butte County results also show 60% no on 91. So I guess it was incomplete information when it was showing 87% yes.

 

The California Proposition Thread

Bump!

There are only two propositions on the state ballot tomorrow (June 3 -- the day of primary elections for Congressional districts as well as State Assembly and State Senate districts), so I thought instead of starting a new thread, I'd just tack on to this one. Maybe we can recycle this one for the November ballot too, if a kind moderator will update the thread title to remove the date?

So there are two propositions on the ballot -- Propositions 98 and 99. Both have to deal with the eminent domain "problem" which was exposed by the Supreme Court ruling on a Connecticut case (which was discussed in great detail, right here on BigSoccer, in this thread back in 2005).

I put "problem" in quotes, because frankly, I don't see this as a really major issue. If the government were constantly taking land from landowners and giving it to other private entities, then I would agree that it's a problem, but as far as I know, since the case in Connecticut a few years ago, it hasn't happened. But that hasn't stopped people from being very upset about it -- I guess I understand that, I just have trouble getting outraged about it when there's so much else to be outraged about (I have a severe case of BDS -- I'm hoping for a cure early next year).

So anyhoo, lots of states have modified their state laws to prevent that kind of thing from happening in their state. Now it's California's turn. However, like all things Californian, we gotta do it a little differently. There are two competing propositions, both of which claim to solve this problem.

Proposition 99 is the more straightforward one -- I can't tell if there's anything unusual about it, because Proposition 98 is the loopy one.

Proposition 98 will, in order to solve the eminent domain problem, eliminate rent control. Maybe it's not a causal relationship, but Proposition 98 is a landlord's wet dream. I mean, that's pretty ballsy, to try to eliminate rent control under the guise of protecting homeowners from having their property seized by the government for the benefit of other private entities.

It's a proposition that ItN would love. I'm not sure how our local libertarians feel about it -- they probably feel that rent control is unconscionable interference by government in the free market, never mind that some cities in California have chosen to implement rent control, presumably based on the will of the residents of those cities, and their wishes will be overridden by the state government if Prop 98 passes.

The taxpayer guide (which has the arguments for and against these propositions) is great, because the two propositions are in direct competition with each other, so the same group of people did the argument for one and against the other, as well as the rebuttals. Here are the pages for Prop 98 and Prop 99. I especially like the one for Prop 98 -- imagine hearing the argument against as read by Jon Stewart, doing the voices of the octogenarians they picked as examples of people who would be screwed if rent control were eliminated, and then maybe Stephen Colbert doing the rebuttal, with the "politicians and their big developer buddies" and then namedropping the two seniors who were named in the argument for. Best of all, the rebuttal is signed by two "victims of government land seizure" -- which were almost certainly legitimate uses of eminent domain which won't be prevented by these propositions!

Anyways, enough goofiness about these props. I'm voting no on both, because I don't see it as a big enough problem that needs solving immediately. But part of me is tempted to vote yes on 99, because if they both pass, the one with more votes gets implemented, and 98 would have a much bigger impact on the big cities in California.

 

Re: The California Proposition Thread

I ended up voting yes on 99 as well. I figure the negative outcome of 99 passing is minimal, while the negative outcome of 98 passing is huge.

 

Re: California propositions on Feb 5

Property taxes are essentially fixed at the time of purchase. Proposition 13 was passed in 1978 to protect property owners from escalating property taxes due to escalating home prices. Since it went into effect, property taxes can only be raised 1% or so per year, until the property is sold, at which point the taxes will be reset based on the purchase price (and then go up a max of 1% every year). So, for example, my parents are paying really small taxes on their almost-million-dollar-home in Palos Verdes where they have lived for 40 years -- the assessed value in 1978 was probably around $300K -- while I'm paying much larger taxes on my condo which I bought in 2004 for about $700K.

So the owner of a rent controlled apartment building is paying taxes based on the price at the time of purchase. That is probably an issue if the owner wants to sell the building -- the new owner will most likely get much higher taxes and maybe the rent controlled apartments will not provide enough income to cover the increased taxes. Such is the risk of being a landlord in a rent control city.

I haven't heard of any cases of eminent domain being used to, um, recycle rent controlled property, and given how liberal this area is, I would think that the local papers would have been squawking like crazy if that happened in the last few years.

Edit to add: what's funny is, Proposition 13 is like rent control for property taxes, and the main proponents of Proposition 98 which would eliminate rent control for renters, are the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, which is the group that was behind Proposition 13. Way to want to have it both ways!