California general election

As normal, probably of direct interest only to California residents and apologies to everyone else since my hand-rolled blog software doesn't do cut tags. I'm only going to cover propositions, since the state-wide elections aren't very interesting and I both don't have strong opinions about the local elections and would guess that almost no one cares.

See the voter guide for the full details on each proposition.

Propositions 16 through 19 were put on the ballot by the legislature and thus were written as well as our regular laws. The remaining propositions are initiatives, which means I default to voting against them because they're usually poorly-written crap.

Proposition 14: NO. I reluctantly supported the original proposition to fund stem cell research with state bonds because it was in the middle of the George W. Bush administration and his weird obsession with ending stem cell research. It seemed worth the cost to maintain the research, and I don't regret doing this. But since then we've reached a compromise on ongoing research, and this proposition looks a lot more like pork spending than investment.

I am in favor of government support of basic research, but I think that's best done by a single grant institution that can pursue a coherent agenda. The federal government, when sane, does a decent job of this, and the California agency created by the previous proposition looks dodgy. The support for this proposition also comes primarily from research institutions that benefit from it. On top of that, there are way higher priorities right now for public investment than a very specific and limited type of medical research that isn't even the most important type of medical research to do right now. There is nothing magic about stem cells other than the fact that they make a certain type of Republican lose their minds. It's time to stop funding this specific research specially and roll it into general basic research funding.

Proposition 15: YES. Yes to anything that repeals Proposition 13 in whole or in part. Repealing it for commercial and industrial real estate is a good first step. A rare exception in my general rule to vote against initiatives.

Proposition 16: YES. Reverses a bad law to outlaw affirmative action in California. I am in favor of actual reparations, so I am of course in favor of this, which is far, far more mild.

Proposition 17: YES. Restores voting rights to felons after completion of their sentence. I think it's inexcusable that any US citizen cannot vote, including people who are currently incarcerated, so of course I'm in favor of this more mild measure. (You may notice a theme.) When we say everyone should be able to vote, that should mean literally everyone.

Proposition 18: YES. Allows 17-year-olds to vote in California (but not federal) elections in some specific circumstances. I'm generally in favor of lowering the voting age, and this seems inoffensive. (And the arguments against it are stupid.)

Proposition 19: YES. This is a complicated legislative compromise around property tax that strengthens property tax limits for seniors moving within California while removing exemptions against increases for inherited real estate not used as a primary home. Some progressives are opposed to this because it doesn't go far enough and increases exemptions for seniors. I agree that those exemptions aren't needed and shouldn't be added, but closing the inheritance loophole is huge and worth this compromise. It's a tepid improvement for the somewhat better, but it's still worth approving (and was written by the legislature, so it's somewhat better written than the typical initiative).

Proposition 20: NO. Another pile of "anyone who has ever committed a crime deserves to be treated as subhuman" bullshit. Typical harsher sentences and harsher parole nonsense. No to everything like this, always.

Proposition 21: YES. This is my other exception of voting for an initiative, and that's because the California state legislature is completely incapable of dealing with any housing problem.

This is a proposition that overhauls an ill-conceived state-wide restriction on how rent control can be handled. The problem with rent control is that a sane solution to housing problems in this state requires both rent control and massive new construction, and we only get the former and not the latter because the NIMBYism is endemic. (There's a pile of NIMBY crap on my local ballot this year.) I would much rather be approving those things together, because either of them alone makes things worse for a lot of people. So yes, the opponents of this proposition are right: it will make the housing crisis worse, because everyone refuses to deal with the supply side.

That said, we need rent control as part of a humane solution, and the current state-wide rules are bad. For example, they disallow rent control on every property newer than a certain date that's forever fixed. This initiative replaces that with a much saner 15-year rolling window for maximizing profit, which is a better balance.

I hate voting for this because the legislature should have done their job and passed comprehensive housing reform. But since they didn't, this is part of what they should have passed, and I'll vote for it. Particularly since it's opposed by all the huge commercial landlords.

Proposition 22: NO. The "exclude Uber and Lyft from labor law" proposition, which is just as bullshit as it sounds. They're spending all of their venture capital spamming the crap out of everyone in the state to try to get this passed by lying about it. Just stunningly evil companies. If your business model requires exploiting labor, get a better business model.

Proposition 23: NO. So, this is another mess. It appears to be part of some unionization fight between dialysis clinic employees and the for-profit dialysis clinics. I hate everything about this situation, starting from the fact that we have such a thing as for-profit dialysis clinics, which is a crime against humanity.

But this proposition requires some very dodgy things, such as having a doctor on staff at every clinic for... reasons? This is very reminiscent of the bullshit laws about abortion clinics, which are designed to make it more expensive to operate a clinic for no justifiable reason. I'm happy to believe there is a bit more justification here, but this sort of regulation is tricky and should be done by the legislature in a normal law-making process. Medical regulation by initiative is just a horrible idea in every way. So while I am doubtless politically on the side of the proponents of the proposition, this is the wrong tool. Take it to the legislature.

Proposition 24: NO. A deceptively-written supposed consumer privacy law written by tech companies that actually weakens consumer privacy in some critical ways that are profitable for them. No thanks, without even getting to the point that this sort of thing shouldn't be done by initiative.

Proposition 25: YES. Yes, we should eliminate cash bail, which is essentially imprisoning people for being poor. No, this doesn't create a system of government profiling; judges already set bail and can revoke bail for flight risks. (This is not legislation by initiative; the state government already passed this law, but we have a dumb law that lets people oppose legislative action via initiative, so we have to vote to approve the law that our representatives already passed and that should have already gone into effect.)