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Literally everything on the ballot: San Francisco & Oakland voting guide, November 2024
State-wide only
Just California-wide choices
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👨💼👩⚖️ Candidates
President
US President & Vice President
Kamala Harris & Tim Walz (D)
US Congress
US Senate (Full-term, thru Jan 2031)
Adam Schiff (D)
Opposition is a MAGA Republican — choice is clear.
US Senate (Remainder-of-term, thru Jan 2025)
Adam Schiff (D)
(Same as above)
📰 Propositions
California-wide
2: Borrow $10 billion to build schools, colleges
Yes: This measure funds school infrastructure and maintenance across the state. It offers mechanisms to ensure smaller districts can access these funds that otherwise would be hard to apply for. It’s a normal and reasonable investment in the physical infrastructure for California education.
3: Reaffirm the right of same-sex couples to marry
Yes: This measure effectively repeals Prop 8 from 2008, which banned gay marriage in California. While the Supreme Court has since legalized gay marriage nation-wide, this updates the CA constitution to remove the archaic language.
4: Borrow $10 billion to respond to climate change
Yes: This measure funds climate resiliency infrastructure by allowing the state to issue bonds, servicing them out of the state’s budget. This won’t raise new taxes. The package seems like a reasonable set of proposals that will help the state save money down the line via prevention (e.g. around wildfires). Experts believe its costs to be reasonable given the state’s overall debt load.
5: Lower voter approval requirements for local housing and infrastructure
Yes: This proposals reduces the % vote needed to pass bond measures from 2/3rds to 55%, aligning it to the passing threshold for education bonds. It includes some restrictions on how funds are used (e.g. buying single family homes for low income housing), but because bonds tend to bring in a lot of matching $ from private sector and state/national government, it’s not really a big deal. Instead, cities are strapped for cash because of Prop 13, a measure from the 1970s that means your neighbor who moved in 20 years ago pays a fraction of the property tax you would as a young person (i.e. subsidizing the old and wealthy). This offers a reasonable balance to ensure essential city services from housing to public safety to city infrastructure can be funded without tax increases.
6: Limit forced labor in state prisons
Yes: This measure bans forced labor in California prisons — basically, legalized slavery. Today, prisons can discipline prisoners who refuse to work without pay, making California one of the last states that allows this. This proposal bans this, still allowing prison labor but for pay.
32: Raise the state minimum wage to $18
No: This proposal raises the state minimum wage from $16 to $18 over the next few years. I think programs to reduce inequality, including raising the minimum wage, can be positive. However, this is something the legislature can (and has) legislated, there are better alternatives to achieve in addition for the same goals, and it won’t affect the workers in (many many) cities and industries with higher legislated minimum wages. The minimum wage will continue to rise tracking inflation absent this measure. This analysis track with the traditional advocates for this measure offering only lukewarm support.
33: Allow local governments to impose rent controls
No: This proposal would repeal a law that constrains the rent control laws cities can implement. While on the surface, it seems like a way to avoid the challenges of our housing crisis — keep housing prices steady! — it will only worsen our housing crisis, raising housing costs for all. The biggest single issue is that cities who don’t want to build housing can use it to make any new housing uneconomical for developers; the wealthy city of Huntington Beach’s officials are already salivating at doing so according to recent Council transcriptions. The supporters list is revealing: the NIMBYs are unified in backing it. Housing price controls can be a useful measure and voters expanded them last cycle. This give the NIMBYs too potent a weapon.
34: Require certain providers to use prescription drug revenue for patients
Yes: Ostensibly, this is about ensuring certain healthcare companies use their revenue for healthcare expenses. Really, this is about a single non-profit — the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) — that has chosen to use their vast profits to fund NIMBY propositions, lobbyists in Sacramento, and more to block housing production. I’m hesitant about weaponizing the proposition system, yet the real world harms AHF has caused to increase homelessness in CA are worth the compromise.
35: Make permanent a tax on managed health care plans
No: This proposal extends an existing tax on certain healthcare plans to fund certain healthcare programs. Ostensibly, it’s to ensure Medi-Cal (CA’s Medicaid program) is fully funded but actually it locks in funding for certain programs while defunding others like Medi-Cal for young children, community health workers. This tax should continue to exist and likely will via the legislative process — but while ensuring the state has the flexibility to continue to support the programs that matter and keep funding them even if the US Govt stops granting the permissions for certain uses of the tax revenue, a not-so-unlikely problem to emerge. Instead, this proposal constrains our legislature and picks winners/losers, likely tied to the organizations putting the measure on the ballot.
36: Increase penalties for theft and drug trafficking
Yes: This measure repeals parts of Prop 47 from 2014, which raised the threshold to charge a felony vs a misdemeanor to $950 for theft and similarly for certain drug crimes. This year’s measure also creates a felony category that would waive charges if participants successfully completes a drug treatment program.
I’m quite conflicted on this measure. I think the perception, but also too often the reality, is that there are few consequences for certain crimes, especially shoplifting and drug-related ones. This raises costs for consumers, hollows out commercial districts, and contributes to homelessness. Equally, the data for decades doesn’t show locking up many people who have an underlying medical condition as an effectively way to combat criminal behavior once they depart prison; in fact, Prop 47 is estimated to have saved the state $1 billion, which instead was used for the very programs we need to reduce recidivism and homelessness.
The opposition to this measure is notable, as it’s not just the traditional left: it includes Gov. Newsom (someone not known for his political courage) and fairly mainstream newspapers.
On balance, I think this measure is worth supporting. I think enough theft is happening due to organized crime — crimes of opportunity, not just crimes of desperation — that we need to raise the consequences for bad behavior.
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