2018 California Primary Recommendations

2018 California Primary Recommendations

Propositions

Proposition 68- Yes. This propositon creates $4 billion in new statewide bond debt to fund parks, climate resilience and water quality. The text of the proposition (http://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/pdf/text-proposed-laws.pdf) has controls to ensure limited funds are spent on administrative and planning costs, and explicitly directs funds to disadvantaged communities to rehabilitate and build new parks there (disadvantaged being defined as “a community with a median household income less than 80 percent of the statewide average.” (Propositions Proposed Laws full text, page 5).

Proposition 69- Yes. It amends the California constitution to ensure that the new funds raised by the gas tax hike can’t be redirected later to a non-transportation purpose by adding them (and vehicle license fee revenues) to the Public Transportation Account (ibid, pages 26-7). While ordinarily I’m not a fan of amending the California constitution to restrict budget flexibility, I think it’s fair that revenues from taxes on cars and car use be dedicated to roadway maintenance and other public transportation goals.

Proposition 70- No. It’s clearly a transparent attempt by Republicans to block allocation of funds generated by the cap and trade program- there’s no good reason to raise the requirement for spending the funds from 50%+1 to a 2/3rds super-majority unless you want to block as much as possible. Back when the budget had to be passed by a 2/3rds supermajority, CA failed to pass a budget on time quite frequently because the GOP minority was able to use their power to block the budget.

Proposition 71- Yes. It requires that ballot measures only take effect 5 days after the election is certified (ibid, page 28). What that means in practice is that late delivered postal and provisional votes count, rather than being basically irrelevant.

Proposition 72- Yes. I dislike property tax carveouts, but the carveout for home water capture systems is going to be quite minor (as the legislative analysis notes- http://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/propositions/72/analysis.htm) in terms of budget impact, and we want to encourage water conservation.

RM3- Yes. We need massive transit infrastructure upgrades throughout the Bay Area, and while RM3 won’t fund all of them it will fund several major projects- linking BART into Santa Clara, more BART cars, and more locally finally fixing the deathtrap 680-4 interchange (http://sfelections.sfgov.org/sites/default/files/Documents/RM_3_Ballot_Description.pdf, page 3). Furthermore, it does so in a sustainable way by increasing bridge tolls, rather than yet another bond measure.

Measure P (Pinole)- No. While I’ve listened to and considered the arguments from the Pro and Anti-P sides, ultimately the fact that it was scheduled for a primary election when there would be a smaller electorate voting on it decides me against it. Regardless of whether the funds were available in Pinole’s elections fund, it was fundamentally unnecessary to hold this measure at this election, as the only council member who would be affected by the success or failure of the measure has stated she will not run for re-election this November regardless of the outcome of the measure.

Candidates- Statewide

Governor- John Chiang. While I’d be fine voting for Gavin Newsom in the general election, his attempt to stack the election to get a GOP opponent rather than a fellow Democrat is ill-advised and reeks of personal ambition. Even if he can trivially defeat a GOP opponent, their presence at the top of the ballot will increase GOP turnout, possibly creating problems in other elections. So then my choice is between the other Democrats. Limiting my choice to those Democrats who have a plausible chance of winning a spot in the general (I.e, at least 5% average support polled May, as noted here- https://realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2018/governor/ca/california_governor_open_primary-6299.html), the two remaining Democrats are John Chiang and Antonio Villaraigosa. While I like Villaragiosa’s experience as mayor of LA, I don’t like his moderate positions or his pro-charter policies. By contrast, John Chiang has clearly progressive policies on issues ranging from the MeToo movement to single-payer health care, and has the necessary fiscal chops from his years as treasurer and comptroller to practically implement those policies.

Lt Governor- Gayle McLaughlin. I know Gayle. She was the mayor of Richmond when it cut the murder rate by actually addressing the root causes of gun violence (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/richmond-california-murder-rate-gun-death/), raised the minimum wage and implemented rent control. She and the RPA broke the power Chevron had over that town (https://gayleforcalifornia.org/bio/). Furthermore, her priorities as Lt. Governor are exactly what we need to focus on as a state, from Medicare-for-All to reforming Prop 13 to building affordable housing (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6nt8KJI22zsWThweTRzRnpDM2s/view).

Secretary of State- Reuben Major. While I approve of Alex Padilla’s efforts to expand voting access through automatic voter registration and pre-registration of teens, I think the risk of voting machines being hacked deserves a higher priority than just “implementing existing law”. Reuben’s big issue is forcing a transfer back to paper ballots (http://www.rubenmajor.com), which is critical since there is not yet an electronic voting system that cannot be hacked (for reference, https://www.coursera.org/learn/digital-democracy for an entire college-level course on why electronic voting systems are fundamentally insecure).

Controller- Betty Yee. Mary Lou Finley doesn’t have enough information avaliable on her positions or record for me to determine that she’d be a better candidate, and Betty Yee says she’ll push for comprehensive tax reform and affordable housing (https://bettyyee.com/about-betty/issues-that-matter/).

Treasurer- Vivek Viswanathan. He wants to fix the unfunded pension crisis, supports expanding medi-cal accessibility and working towards medicare for all, and to update Proposition 13. These are all policy positions I think are worth pursuing.

Attorney General- Dave Jones. His support for rehabilitation in communities, fair housing in all communities for the homeless and holding law enforcement accountable (https://www.davejones2018.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Media-What-Dave-Jones-will-do-as-AG.pdf) wins my vote.

Insurance Commissioner- Ricardo Lara. He wrote SB 562, the bill that actually tried to implement single-payer in California. On the strength of that he gets my vote.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction- Tony Thurmond. He has the practical experience from serving on the West Contra Costa Unified School Board for 6 years, and his policy goals match up with what I think the state should be focusing on in education, from accountability for charters to improved physical and mental healthcare for students (https://www.tonythurmond.com/tonys-plan).

US Senate- Kevin De Leon. While Dianne Feinstein would certainly be better than any of the Republican candidates, she’s taken several votes which I feel were actively harmful to California. From passing fast-track authority for the TPP, to diverting water from the Delta to the central valley farmers in a prelude to the twin tunnels project (https://calwatchdog.com/2016/12/08/white-house-knocks-sen-feinsteins-ca-water-compromise/), to failing to support Medicare for All, Dianne Feinstein is insufficiently liberal for California in the 21st century. Kevin De Leon, by contrast, has stated his support for Medicare for All, and if he can make it to the general election ballot he’ll have kept the GOP out of the senate race. Based on polling (https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_Senate_election_in_California_(June_5,_2018_top-two_primary)), he’s the only non-Feinstein Democratic candidate in this race who can do that.

Candidates- Regional

CA Assembly 15- Jovanka Beckles. Like Gayle, Jovanka’s work in Richmond as a city council member and member of the RPA gets her a fair amount of credit in my eyes. Her work to ban the box in Richmond shows that she’ll fight for criminal justice reform at the state level, and so does her making it one of her top 3 priorities, with the other two being single-payer health care and affordable housing (https://ballotpedia.org/Jovanka_Beckles). Those are exactly the priorities I want my assemblymember to have, and so I’m voting for Jovanka.

State Board of Equalization District 2- Malia Cohen. Her policy positions include support for single-payer, barring felony as a consideration in employment, and supporting affordable housing with requirements for neighborhood placements (https://www.electmalia.com/issues). As I agree with those positions, and the other candidates don’t go into as much detail, I support Malia.

US House district 5- Nils Palsson. While both Nils and Jason Kishnieff broadly support the same goals, Nils covers a broader range of goals in his issue page (http://nilsforcongress.com/issues/) and is more effective in his rhetoric about them. I like Kishnieff’s greater ambition in his goals (https://kishineff.org/), but ultimately I think Nils is more likely to succeed, if only because he’s run for this position before.

Contra Costa County Auditor-Controller- Robert Campbell. By default, as his rival’s website was a dead link. If you’re going to run for Auditor, you should at least have a working website.

Contra Costa County District Attorney- Diana Becton. It’s a bold thing for a DA to call for “Fair treatment of victims and the accused, bringing justice for all; Alternatives to incarceration for low-level nonviolent offenders; Mental health treatment for those in need” (https://www.becton4da.org/). Since she’s already started to put that into practice as the acting DA, she has my vote.

County Superintendent of Schools- Lynn Mackey. Ron Leone’s backed by the charter schools PAC, so that’s enough for him to lose my vote. Cheryl Hansen’s website appears to have lapsed. Lynn has a website, and her goals appear reasonable (https://www.lynnmackey.org/). She certainly has the necessary experience.