As usual, when I write about election positions, my purpose is not primarily to persuade readers, but rather to normalize the research & voting process. I believe in doing a small amount of research so you know what you’re voting for, but it shouldn’t require so much research that you’re afraid to vote all the way down the ballot.
This will include discussion of obscure local elections, which obviously won’t be relevant to most readers. That’s fine! You can skip what bores you. That’s just what voting down ballot is like.
President
Kamala Harris. You’ve likely already decided this, so there’s not much point to doing more research than necessary. But… I will say that Donald Trump has deliberately counterfeited election results, and plans to do more to subvert democracy again. So the least we can do is vote against him, even people who don’t live in swing states.
Really, one vote doesn’t feel like enough, so that’s why I make my displeasure known by voting against Republicans in every election, all the way down the ballot. Kamala Harris is a good candidate in her own right, of course, but even in cases where I complain about the Democrat, I still vote against Republicans.
US Senator
Adam Schiff. His opponent is a Republican. I am in fact quite displeased with Schiff, because his campaign strategy was to promote his Republican rival during the primary election, in order to sink Katie Porter, another Democrat. I will still vote for Schiff.
US Representative, 14th district
Eric Swalwell. Again, his opponent is a Republican making this easy. I’ve heard he’s a bit of a firebrand on social media. But that doesn’t matter to me one way or another.
State Assembly
Liz Ortega. Opponent is Republican. See how much time this saves me? I mean, I’d really prefer if we had a more reasonable opposing party, even if that meant I had to spend more time doing research.
School Board
This one’s non-partisan so I actually need to look it up. These are the hardest ones since I don’t really know a lot about school boards, and they’re obscure enough that there aren’t necessarily news articles even talking about it.
Each of the three candidates has a campaign website: 1, 2, and 3. All three of them seem to have superficially acceptable platforms, so then I checked endorsements. Sahi appears to have endorsements from several Democrat organizations; Urbi seems to have endorsements from a teacher’s association? Midji has endorsements from basically a handful of individuals, so she’s probably the least competitive in this race. Either Urbi or Sahi seem satisfactory, but I suppose Sahi’s endorsements seem a bit more impressive. So, Jatinder Sahi.
District Attorney Recall
There’s a vote to recall district attorney Pamela Price. According to the SF Chronicle, the allegations include blaming her for an uptick in crime (vague and doesn’t move me), missing deadlines for 1000 misdemeanors (bad), and making unqualified hires through nepotism (gross). The question for me is if it’s bad enough to warrant a recall. …Yeah, I’ll vote to recall.
Union City Mayor
There are three (non-partisan) candidates for mayor. One of them, I couldn’t even find his campaign website so I guess I’m not voting for him. Between Emily Duncan and Gary Singh, the most noticeable difference in platforms is that Gary Singh mentions working with the police to reduce crime, while Emily mentions working for more community-based policing. They both have decent endorsements. I prefer the police reform angle so I’m going with Emily Duncan.
City Council, District 1
3 candidates again. One of them doesn’t have a website. One of them has a website… but does not list any endorsements. I guess this race just isn’t competitive. I checked Lance Nishihira’s website to make sure his platform was satisfactory, and I’m not a fan of his goal “to eliminate [homeless] encampments and transition individuals to more permanent solutions”, which might be code for harassing homeless people. But, the rest is fine, and this is probably good enough.
Proposition 2
Yes. It’s bonds for public schools and community college facilities. That’s fine. It got LA Times endorsement, that’s something.
BTW, for California propositions, I tend to favor legislative initiatives (where the legislature seeks voters’ permission for something), and disfavor voter initiatives (where voters put the proposition in). Voter initiatives are more vulnerable to abuse, because any special interest group can put in the money to collect signatures and propagandize about some issue. And if something goes wrong with a voter initiative, it’s a lot harder for the legislature to undo. Prop 2 is a legislative initiative.
Proposition 3
Yes. Another legislative initiative, declaring a (state) constitutional right to marriage. This is protecting against Republicans doing something against same-sex marriage on the federal level. I am in a same-sex marriage, and losing this right would materially harm us by increasing our taxes, among other things.
Proposition 4
Yes. A legislative initiative, authorizing bonds for safe drinking water, wildfire prevention, and climate change protection. This is the sort of thing that probably pays for itself by mitigating risks.
Proposition 5
Yes. This is a legislative initiative and constitutional amendment that makes it easier to pass local measures funding affordable housing and public infrastructure. Apparently, such measures required a two-thirds vote in favor, and Proposition 5 lowers the requirement to 55%. I support affordable housing, and I’m not sure why the voting threshold is so high to begin with.
Proposition 6
Yes. This legislative initiative amends the state constitution so that it no longer allows involuntary servitude of criminals. Criminals would still be able to voluntarily do work, e.g. to reduce their sentences. Yeah, so, it sure seems like prison slave labor ought to be illegal. There’s also no group opposing this proposition, which probably means it’s a shoe-in, and they just need voters to allow the change.
Proposition 32
Yes. This is a voter initiative that modestly raises minimum wage. Currently, it’s $16/hour, and it increases by 3.5% every year when inflation exceeds 3.5%. So, it’s set to increase to $16.50 next year. The proposal is to increase it to $18 over two years, while pausing inflation adjustments until 2027. Depending on inflation, this is an increase of $0.50 to $1.50/hour. I’m ambivalent about this because higher minimum wage is good, but being a voter initiative makes it much harder to adjust later. Best case is if this proposition fails, and then the legislature raises minimum wage anyway. Well, I guess it’s fine.
Proposition 33
Strong no. This voter initiative repeals restrictions on local governments’ authority to enact rent control. The state already imposes rent control on properties built before 1995, and if there are improvements to be made in the policy, they should be made on the state level. If cities were allowed, they would likely fight over who should build housing, exacerbating the housing shortage. Prop 33 also allows cities to enact vacancy control (distinct from rent control), and it’s better if they don’t have the opportunity to make that error.
Proposition 34
No. This is a very unclear initiative that does something about “certain prescription drug revenues”. It’s apparently designed to specifically target the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, in retaliation for their support for Prop 33. It’s basically trying to force them to waste campaign funding. See, these are the kinds of shenanigans that make voter initiatives problematic.
Proposition 35
No. This is a voter initiative that does something to boost Medi-Cal (California’s Medicaid program, providing healthcare to low income people). This seems a bit complicated, and I’d rather the legislature handle that rather than forcing them to accept a bunch of details that surely I am unable to vet.
Proposition 36
No. Voter initiative for increased sentences and felony sentences for certain drugs and thefts. It seems to refer to petty thefts (<$950) and selling fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, or meth. I am not in favor of increasing imprisonment.
Measure N
A local measure! Funding for school labs and classrooms. And it was put in by the local governing board. Sure, it’s fine.
Measure QQ
A city measure! Submitted by the city council. It claims to protect essential city services, while lowering many small businesses’ taxes. Sounds like a free lunch. Although, I gather that it only lowers taxes for some businesses, and may raise taxes for others. It’s apparently a simplifying tax reform, reducing the number of business tax categories from 65 to 7. Sure, I’m in favor.
in south king county, i check endorsements from the stranger and from progressivevotersguide dot com. the stranger doesn’t make endorsements in uncontested elections and i sometimes don’t bother with voting in those anyway, but the progressive voters site thought some of those incumbent judges deserved a thumbs up for their track records and i was feelin’ generous.
every single initiative in WA state this year is billionaires trying to trick people into giving them what they want, again. the phrasing on these things is so inverted i think it’s real important to see what orgs you trust are saying, so you don’t actually vote the opposite of your values.
an interesting one in south king is that the stranger and pvg are in agreement to vote against dem incumbent congressman adam smith in favor of his dem challenger (think it was a top two primary) because she looks strong and specifically in favor of peace for palestine.
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Regarding candidates and measures I’m not very familiar with, I’ll consult a variety of voter guides by organizations/individuals I find myself generally aligned with. I feel this is another problem with US politics, as there are so many propositions and candidates that can hide their actual aims behind a few minutes of advertisements. Just reading the raw text of a proposition isn’t guaranteed to grant understanding, and they are often worded/titled in a way to confuse people.
I’m also in the SF Bay Area, and I’m really upset with this trend of abusing the recall system to allow wealthy people/interests to get a”redo” on elections that they are unhappy with.
I can see some value to having a recall mechanism, but I feel like it should have a pretty steep cost of participation. Something like, the number of people voting to recall a candidate should exceed the number of people who initially voted for that candidate, or something.
As it is, it’s all too easy for some rich asshole to astroturf a recall against a candidate they are unhappy with and then get them recalled/replaced in an off-season election when there is a lower voter turnout.
Like you, I struggle with some of the downballot candidates, in particular the school board, sheriff, and local judges. Having never had any contact with anyone in those positions, I find it hard to choose. Where they do have documentation, it’s nearly always bland (“Candidate X will support your children and work with the rest of the school board to optimize outcomes!”)
The local paper used to do a good job of breaking down the candidates, but that paper doesn’t exist anymore. If a candidate has endorsements, it’s often from someone else I’ve never heard of, as in “John Doe is endorsed by John Q Public, Jane Smith, and Someone Else!”
@lochaber,
I rolled my eyes at the Pamela Price recall, when it was just something about a released prisoner killing someone. Like, that’s mostly not in her control? And she apparently got in a pissing match with Eric Swalwell–whatever, don’t care. The SF Chronicle uncovered some more serious issues, although I was still ambivalent because I think there should be a high barrier to recall.
How can there be 3 candidates in the general election under California’s ‘jungle’ primary?
Like you, I haven’t been able to vote for anyone but a Democrat in a general election for over a decade.
Until recently, though, that hasn’t been the case in primary elections. Missouri has open primaries (anybody can vote in any party’s primary, you just have to pick one); and there’s a cogent argument that, in heavily gerrymandered places, the only election that actually matters is the favored party’s primary. But two primaries ago, when I checked all the Republicans’ websites, I couldn’t tell them apart. They were all about guns for Jesus, “critical race theory”, and “protecting girls’ sports”. This last primary, “critical race theory” was replaced by “the immigration problem”; and their TV ads all complained that their opponent was insufficiently MAGA.
I’d like to follow your lead and give some examples from the ballot I’ll cast on the 5th; but that turned out to be pretty long; so I’ve decided to continue this comment on my own blog instead of yours.
@anat,
Yeah, I don’t know. But they seem to be for local elections, so maybe the rules are different.
@billseymour,
Yeah, Republicans in California aren’t always that bad. If you look at Steve Garvey’s website (the Republican running against Adam Schiff), it’s definitely conservative, but not overtly reactionary. If not for my commitment against Republicans, I would at least consider such candidates, e.g. if the Democrat was known to be corrupt. As it is, I feel that if Garvey wants to be given a chance, he needs to formally part with the party of Trump.
On even numbered years it is usually easy to figure out whom to vote for (and the more critical time is often the primary). On odd-numbered years we have all the really local races – city council, school board, fire district, maybe a few others occasionally. There is always a lot of discussion of candidates for Seattle city council, but hardly anything in other cities, even not-so-small ones. All I have to go by are candidates’ official statements, their web sites, and if I am very lucky, my city’s online news-blog.
@1. This is mostly what I do too along with sometimes glancing at the Seattle Times for endorsements (never take it that seriously because they sometimes endorse terrible candidates). I live in eastern Washington so my selection of Dems all the way down the ballot isn’t really possible. But there’s at least often a “sane” Republican against a weird GOP candidate so that helps.