A last-minute voter guide to all 14 propositions on the California ballot

Yes, the much talked-about billionaire tax is on the ballot this November, but it’s just one of 14 statewide propositions.

If you’re not a policy wonk who knows the ins and outs of state election, tax or environmental law, don’t worry — you’re not alone, and we’re here to help. The CalMatters voter guide has full explainers, videos and even quizzes to help you decide how these measures line up with your values and priorities.

Click Here to Subscribe to the California Political Review

Taxes: Props. 2, 3, 40, 41, 42 and 43

If it seems like this year’s ballot has an unusually high number of tax-related ballot propositions, well, you’re right. It does.

Prop. 2 would allow the state to deposit more money into its reserves, otherwise known as the rainy day fund. The state has strict rules about how much money it can save for lean times in part because of limits imposed during the state’s 1970s taxpayer revolt. But California also has a fairly volatile tax system that rises and falls with the incomes of its highest earners. Democrats want more flexibility to sock money away for downturns. Many Republicans say leftover money should go to taxpayers, rather than sit in state coffers.

Prop. 3 would turn a temporary income tax for high earners into a permanent law. The tax, which hits those with individual income over $360,000, was enacted as a quick fix in 2012, with most of the money going to support K-12 education and community colleges. Now the state’s largest teachers union wants to make the tax permanent, but opponents say California already has some of the highest taxes in the country.

Prop. 40, otherwise known as the billionaire tax, is hands-down the highest profile and the most expensive proposition campaign this year. It would enact a one-time 5% tax on billionaires’ net worth, raising roughly $100 billion over five years, according to the healthcare workers union that put the measure on the ballot. Proponents argue that these ultra-wealthy Californians are already getting federal tax cuts and that the money will help healthcare programs that face state and federal funding cuts. But business leaders point out that California relies on these billionaires for tax revenue, and if they leave, the state could suffer. Even some healthcare organizations, such as Planned Parenthood, oppose Prop. 40, because they are concerned the money won’t actually help stave off state and federal funding cuts.

Prop. 40 is so controversial that its opponents have two rival ballot measures, Prop. 41 and Prop. 42, which, if approved, would thwart the billionaire tax. A yes vote for either of these two ballot measures would invalidate the billionaire tax.

Prop. 43 would make it harder for local citizen-driven tax referenda to pass. Currently, these local tax measures only need a majority to win. If Prop. 43 passes, they would need two-thirds of the vote. Proponents say Prop. 43 closes a loophole in election tax law. Opponents say it’s anti-democratic.

Should California borrow money for housing and medical research?

The state can quickly raise lots of cash by selling bonds to investors, but selling too many bonds risks saddling the state with debt.

Prop. 1 would authorize the state to borrow up to $11.25 billion toward housing construction and renovations, mostly for rental units. Many developers and local governments that receive the money would have to reserve a portion of it for affordable housing for low-income renters or for specialized housing that serves the homeless. Some money would also be earmarked to support first-time homebuyers, veterans, farmworkers, students and California’s tribal communities.

Prop. 37 would create a loan fund that helps middle-class homebuyers with their down payment. It’s technically a $25 billion bond, though the money would get paid back slowly by homebuyers rather than from taxpayers. If passed, most California renters would qualify. Proponents, including unions, real estate developers and the Democratic Party, say the proposition could make homebuying accessible, but opponents say it has a number of problems that could prevent the program from actually happening, or worse, that it could put homebuyers in greater debt.

Prop. 38 would pump $8.4 billion in state funding to immunology research — but with a catch. About half the money would go to one nonprofit organization, most likely the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy. Gary K. Michelson, the institute’s co-founder, put this proposition on the ballot.

Changing election laws

These ballot propositions could shape how the candidates raise money and how recall elections operate. Voters will also weigh in on a voter ID proposal.

Prop. 4 would allow the state and local governments to create public financing for political campaigns. Proponents, including the California Democratic Party, argue it could help cap political spending because candidates usually have to accept certain spending limits in exchange for access to public money. Opponents say the proposal could force taxpayers to chip in money for candidates they don’t support. Research on the effectiveness of public financing for political campaigns is mixed.

Prop. 5 would modify the rules surrounding California’s recall elections. Currently, a recall election asks voters whether they want to oust the officeholder and who they want instead. A yes vote on Prop. 5 would make it so that recall elections only ask whether voters want to remove the elected official from office. If recalled, another election would determine who should replace the officeholder. The Democratic Party supports this proposition. Republicans oppose it.

Prop. 39 would increase identification requirements for California voters. To register, voters are already required to declare in writing that they are U.S citizens. This proposition would require voters to show proof of citizenship before casting their vote. Republicans argue the proposition would put California in line with many other states and that it will crack down on voter fraud, which is rare. They’ve spent over $36 million supporting the proposition, almost half of it from Illinois billionaire Richard Uihlein. Democrats say Prop. 39 could create “unnecessary barriers,” especially for immigrants and low-income Californians who lack a driver’s license.

Other stuff: Healthcare and the environment

Anyone can place a proposition on California ballots if they follow the right procedures and get enough signatures, but special interest groups, such as unions and pro-business organizations, do it more often than most.

Click here to read the full article at CalMatters

Major California water plan faces ‘huge mess’ as deadline looms

At the urging of Gov. Gavin Newsom, California water officials have been working with a group of agencies for years on a far-reaching plan to protect the rivers that nourish the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

The Newsom administration is seeking an arrangement in which urban and agricultural suppliers across the state agree to take less water from California rivers, and help restore river habitat, in exchange for more flexibility using water and meeting regulations. The goal is to halt the ecological slide of the delta, a sprawling estuary and water supply hub for nearly 30 million people.

But even as the governor has made finalizing what’s called the Bay Delta Plan a priority before he leaves office in January, the state’s negotiations with the water agencies appear to have come up short. The State Water Resources Control Board is scheduled to adopt the plan this week, yet water providers up and down the state are taking issue with it, many saying it isn’t the collaborative deal they were promised. The Trump administration is also protesting.

Click Here to Subscribe to the California Political Review

The division, after nearly a decade of private discussions, is not just a setback for the parties involved. It leaves the fate of the Bay Delta Plan and, importantly, the future of delta water management, in disarray.

Without appropriate action, the watery 1,100-square-mile region between the Bay Area and Sacramento will face a worsening crisis of dwindling freshwater, degraded habitat, rising pollution and perishing wildlife, notably salmon runs. Ultimately, delta water exports to some of California’s biggest cities and farms are at stake.

“This is a huge mess,” said Jennifer Pierre, general manager for the State Water Contractors, a group of water agencies that receive state water exports and a participant in the Bay Delta Plan negotiations. “It didn’t need to be this way. It’s very unfortunate that this is where we are now (with the plan). We’ve been working on it for a long time.”

Water suppliers, including such Bay Area giants as the East Bay Municipal Utility District and Santa Clara Valley Water District, cite a range of concerns. The common complaint is that state regulators aren’t giving the agencies enough operational leeway, undercutting the suppliers’ hope of managing rivers without rigid rules and with enough latitude to adjust as conditions change.

Click here to read the full article in the SF Chronicle

Top Democrats battle over California’s proposed billionaire tax

Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ro Khanna are heading to California to rally Saturday in support of an initiative that would place a one-time, 5% tax on the wealth of billionaires in the state.

Their efforts to barnstorm the state come as early voting begins, and millions of dollars have been spent to kill the initiative.

The measure would affect roughly 200 of California’s billionaires, with the money going to cover federal Medi-Cal cuts. Gov. Gavin Newsom has become its most prominent opponent, arguing that the tax could be dodged by billionaires who could leave the state for another.

Click Here to Subscribe to the California Political Review

Prior to arriving in San Francisco, Khanna told ABC News that he and Newsom are “polar opposites” on the issue. Both have openly discussed that they are weighing a presidential bid in 2028.

“He [Newsom] doesn’t want to offend some of the billionaires who he wants to finance his campaigns, and that’s the question: Are we going to be a party for the working class? Are we going to be beholden to our donors?” Khanna said.

Click here to read the full article at ABC News

After $1.6 billion in claims, addiction treatment leaders arrested by feds

Column: Lawyers for father-son duo David and Nathan Young argue their arrests and detention were illegal

It was very hard to leave the addiction treatment empire of Nathan and David Young: Clients were drugged with medication, cut off from communication with family members, prevented from accessing their belongings and even physically blocked when they tried to bolt, a federal complaint says.

Clients were referred to not by name, but by insurance policy, it continued. “The United girl has decided to come in …,” said a text from a broker, proposing to put her into expensive detox treatment at Rodeo Recovery. “Ok, I think it’s a bad policy but sure,” Nathan Young responded. “An Alaska would be 20 times better….”

A week later, a client with better “Alaska”-type insurance came along, and “United” was booted. “Yes I was moving the (expletive) United back to sober living,” the broker texted Nathan Young.

This exchange is problematic, the federal complaint says, because “neither Nathan nor the broker have medical training, yet appear to be making medical decisions about patients’ level of care (lowering the United Health Care patient’s level of care from detox to sober living) based solely on the profitability of her insurance plan.”

After years of wrongful death and injury claims, a $40 million lawsuit from Aetna accusing the Youngs of weaponizing addiction for profit, reporting by the Southern California News Group and revoked licenses from the state government, Nathan Young and his father David Young have been arrested on federal charges of healthcare fraud.

That includes submitting fraudulent health insurance applications on behalf of prospective patients; providing patients with illegal drugs to maintain addiction so they cycled through the Young facilities for as long and as many times as possible; billing for non-existent and woefully inadequate “therapy” sessions; and giving patients financial inducements in exchange for enrolling and remaining in treatment, “often referred to as ‘patient brokering’ or ‘body brokering,’” the complaint said.

The Young facilities submitted more than $1.6 billion in claims to private health insurers and were paid more than $210 million, it said.

They are on home detention with remote monitoring after posting $4 million bail, each. Passports were surrendered. A hearing is slated for Nov. 5.

Click here to read the full article in the OC Register

Feds, Bonta clash over credit for cases alleging billions of dollars in healthcare fraud

  • Federal prosecutors announced charges against 15 people over alleged California schemes that billed taxpayers nearly $2 billion for unnecessary medical procedures, sham addiction treatment programs and bogus hospice care.
  • First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli held a news conference Thursday morning where he blamed California officials for allowing medical fraud to proliferate in the state.
  • California Atty. Gen. held a separate news conference later in the day, fuming that state investigators had been stripped of credit for their work in the federal government’s enforcement actions.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli traded barbs at dueling healthcare fraud news conferences in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday morning, sniping at each other over billions lost to benefits schemes and the increasingly politicized efforts to stop them.

“California has a fraud problem,” Essayli said at the 9:30 a.m. news conference, where he and a phalanx of federal investigators announced a sweeping take-down of doctors and others they say lured vulnerable patients into needless surgical procedures, sham treatment programs and bogus hospice care, bilking taxpayers for nearly $2 billion.

“Whether it’s hospice fraud, or healthcare fraud or election fraud, California does fraud best,” the prosecutor added, seeming to connect the cases with his office’s simultaneous attempt to sequester midterm ballots it says were issued to noncitizens.

Click Here to Subscribe to the California Political Review

Bonta struck back at his own news conference across the street an hour later, saying Essayli had deliberately elided his team’s contribution to the raid — including the arrest of a surgeon accused of performing unnecessary and invasive procedures for profit — part of what he termed a pattern of “improper politicization and weaponization” of medical fraud investigations.

“This isn’t a political game for us,” Bonta said. “This is about protecting taxpayer dollars, protecting the programs that sick and vulnerable Californians rely on, and protecting our state.”

Among the most chilling allegations revealed Thursday, two Angelenos were charged with paying so-called “body brokers” in Texas to recruit homeless residents from out of state and those in 12-step programs into sham sober living homes in California, where they were allegedly signed up for pricey insurance policies and frequently left to languish in decrepit squats.

“This was not treatment, it was not recovery. It was exploitation,” said Colin McDonald, assistant U.S. attorney general for the National Fraud Enforcement Division.

Sober living homes have repeatedly come under fire across Southern California, most recently after the death of Cindy Crawford’s son Presley Gerber at a sober living home in Santa Monica in September.

In another case, an Anaheim cardiothoracic surgeon and a Tarzana chiropractor allegedly teamed up to steer patients into needless and sometimes repeated X-ray guided procedures to score plaque from their arteries in what McDonald called “an assembly line of fraud.”

Bonta said state investigators were responsible for the arrest of the Anaheim surgeon, Dr. Harold Tabie, who stands accused of collecting more than $100 million in Medicare claims.

Three more Angelenos were charged with strong-arming local seniors into hospice care when none of them were dying — a form of fraud for which “Los Angeles has become ground zero,” McDonald said.

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times

Vital Central Valley flood control levees are poorly maintained, state watchdog finds

With California bracing for a wet winter, the state auditor warns that nearly a third of local agencies maintaining vital flood control levees in parts of the Central Valley have been performing “unacceptable routine maintenance” — some of them, for years.

The audit says the state’s Department of Water Resources “has not followed state law requiring it to take over the maintenance of levees” when local agencies fail to do so — and urged it to start.

But state water managers at the department pushed back, saying the audit “portrays a fundamental lack of understanding of the complexities of flood management” and draws too direct a link between routine maintenance and flood risk.

Click Here to Subscribe to the California Political Review

Taking over maintenance can cost tens of millions of dollars up front “that must be weighed against other investments that may yield greater risk-reduction benefits,” the department said in a letter responding to the audit.

Others question whether the state is up to the job. “They can’t even take care of what they have now, and they want them to take over everybody else?” said Tom Engler with MBK Engineers, who works as the district engineer for a dozen Northern California reclamation districts responsible for levee systems.

The audit warns that inadequate maintenance increases the risk that these aging, earthen embankments fail, endangering more than a quarter-million people, 133,000 buildings worth nearly $40 billion dollars, as well as hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland. Historically underserved communities and socially vulnerable people are especially at risk.

Is the state up to the job?

California oversees 1,600 miles of levees and other flood control structures on the main stems and certain tributaries of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, as part of the State Plan of Flood Control.

But that responsibility is layered, built on federal requirements and topped by state oversight. Sandwiched in between are the levee and reclamation districts, private landowners and local governments that conduct maintenance under agreements with the state.

Some note that, in fact, the state already manages some of the levee systems in Butte and Sutter counties that are on the auditor’s list of local agencies performing unacceptable levels of maintenance.

“Tell me how that makes sense,” said Engler. “[I]t would take a lot more people, manpower and equipment to get it all done.”

Department of Water Resources spokesman Jason Ince said this highlights the audit’s overreliance on maintenance inspections to assess risk. According to Ince, of the three levee systems under the responsibility of DWR’s Sutter Maintenance Yard on the list:

  • One standalone levee within the floodplain of the Feather River channel “is entirely surrounded by water when the Sutter Bypass experiences high flows,” and doesn’t function as a critical flood control structure.
  • Another includes a segment likely made redundant by the 1968 construction of the Thermalito Afterbay near Lake Oroville. The state began petitioning the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to de-authorize it in 1984, Ince said.
  • Problems with the third, along the Wadsworth Canal, stem from its original construction and require working through environmental regulations protecting the threatened giant garter snake, California’s official state snake.

The department told the state auditor that levee risk depends on the threat, the levee’s performance, and what it protects. It also disputes the auditor’s count of people and properties at risk because it “misses critical context on other flood infrastructure in the region and that location’s hydrology,” Ince said.

“Maintenance contributes to performance,” the department said in its letter, “but it is not the only or always the most effective action for reducing risk.”

Engler, whose districts include some on the list, had mixed reactions to the audit, which he said he was still reviewing.

“It has some things that I would definitely agree with, and it has a lot of things that I just go, ‘Who did they talk to about that? That’s totally off base,’” he said.

He echoed state water managers that most threatening issues for levees aren’t maintenance deficiencies, but long-term structural problems dating back to their construction generations ago.

Click here to read the full article in CalMatters

Poll: Voters tiring of Newsom, yet may not really want change

Xavier Becerra, another mainstream Democrat who has effusively praised Newsom, is running ahead of Republican Steve Hilton by a 20-point margin, according to a new Citrin-POLITICO survey.

SACRAMENTO, California — Most California voters rate Gavin Newsom’s tenure governing California as “poor” or “fair” and want his successor to take the state in a different direction, according to a new Citrin-POLITICO poll.

Yet Xavier Becerra, another mainstream Democrat who was among the gubernatorial candidates to most effusively praise Newsom during the primary, is on track to beat Republican Steve Hilton by a 20-point margin, according to the survey. The results suggest a disconnect between voters expressing desire for policy change, but picking a candidate more similar to the status quo.

Click Here to Subscribe to the California Political Review

“Becerra basically wins everyone — the third of the electorate that wants to continue the policies — and picks up nearly a third of those who want change,” said Jon Cohen, founder and CEO of TrueDot, whose firm fielded the poll.

Just 36% of registered voters characterize Newsom’s performance over the last eight years as “good” or “excellent,” according to the survey, and only 28% would like to see the next governor continue his policies.

The tepid views of Newsom’s performance in his home state add to concerns from Democrats elsewhere about whether his record will, if he runs for president, be a liability on the campaign trail. They also come as California voters have soured on the idea of Newsom running for president, according to another recent Citrin-POLITICO survey.

But a strong majority of California Democrats and Democratic-leaning registered voters — 61% — said they would be excited for a Newsom presidential bid, according to that survey, while 39% would not be. Democrats were less keen on former Vice President Kamala Harris, with a 55% majority saying they would not be excited for her to run. Newsom’s approval rating was 51% in a recent survey from the Public Policy Institute of California, a few points higher than the California Legislature’s.

“Gavin Newsom overwhelmingly won five elections in eight years and is the most popular outgoing Governor in the history of PPIC polling the question,” Newsom spokesperson Izzy Gardon said in a statement. “It’s a shame America’s Favorite Governor can’t run for another term — he’d crush it!”

Newsom received his strongest marks on climate change in the new survey, where more voters said he had done well than poorly. His weakest reviews were on housing and homelessness: Just 28% said he had done a good job on housing and 25% on homelessness. Nearly three in four voters said he had not handled homelessness well.

Click here to read the full article in Politico

 

The tech industry has officially become Republican-coded

The POLITICO Poll results could complicate not only the prospects of Republicans trying to break from Donald Trump but also spell trouble for the companies themselves.

American voters across the political spectrum now assume most top tech CEOs are conservative, according to new results from The POLITICO Poll. And a plurality of voters say they believe tech is the biggest financial backer of the Republican Party.

The results, first revealed in Decoded by POLITICO, could complicate not only the prospects of Republicans trying to break from President Donald Trump in the midterms or 2028 amid rising backlash to Big Tech and AI. They could also spell trouble for the companies themselves next year, when Democrats are expected to control at least the House.

Power struggle erupts in Trump’s White House as midterm losses loom

Top personnel are jockeying for position as some expect Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to step down after the elections.

White House aides, who have kept clashes muted during President Donald Trump’s second term, have begun jostling more openly for power as they brace for widespread midterm election losses and internal upheaval, according to interviews with 20 staffers, advisers and people close to the president.
The interviews, most of which were conducted on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel machinations, paint a picture of infighting that has started to resemble the pitched battles of Trump’s first term.
Believing that Chief of Staff Susie Wiles might step down after the election, a handful of Trump aides, including Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, top housing official Bill Pulte and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, have begun angling for the position should it become available.
Wiles has given no indication to aides or allies that she plans to leave. Still, high-level White House staffers frequently cycle out of their stressful jobs after 18 months to two years, and Trump had four chiefs of staff, including an acting one, during his first term.
The past week in the White House has been “the new Wild Wild West,” one Trump ally said.
The jockeying started in earnest last week after Trump first reached out to Katie Zacharia about joining the administration as the new White House press secretary, a move he made without consulting Wiles, according to four people familiar with the decision. The unilateral action by the president was viewed internally as undermining Wiles, creating the impression of a less-disciplined operation and an unsettled center of power inside the West Wing.
For longtime observers of Trump’s inner circle, the friction this week harks back to his first term, when shifting factions of aides and family members vied for power and undermined one another in the process — a pattern this White House has mostly avoided, until now.
Compounding the uncertainty is the president, who has told allies he feels frustrated that no one is publicly defending him as vociferously as he would like 18 days before the midterm elections. Trump has embarked on a frenzied schedule of campaign rallies in the final stretch to juice enthusiasm among the Republican faithful, but with a historically low approval rating and growing voter frustration about high prices, he and the Republican Party face major political headwinds.
The president has been calling friends, White House aides and outside advisers because he appears worried that information is not reaching him, according to an adviser who received one of the calls. In these conversations, he has also vented about the midterms and the two outside advisers quarterbacking his political strategy, James Blair and Chris LaCivita, who are close allies of Wiles.
Among those who have been in contact with Trump is former aide Corey Lewandowski, a fierce rival of Wiles’s, who is supportive of Pulte, according to two people with knowledge of the conversations.
Reached for comment, Lewandowski said: “I have never spoken with the president about Bill Pulte being the chief of staff.”

 

LAPD chief becomes polarizing figure as Bass and Raman diverge on handling of police

  • Mayor Karen Bass has publicly backed LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell, saying the Police Department could be thrown into disarray if he is removed before the 2028 Olympic Games.
  • Nithya Raman has called for a change in LAPD leadership without giving a clear timeline of when she would replace McDonnell if she defeats Bass in the upcoming mayoral election.
  • Bass selected McDonnell to lead the LAPD in 2024. His supporters say he has managed to steady a department beset by low morale, and that crime has fallen during his tenure. He has taken criticism for shootings by police officers and the use of aggressive tactics against protesters.

In the race to become L.A.’s next mayor, the city’s top cop — LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell — has become a lightning rod for debate.

The two candidates — incumbent Karen Bass and City Councilmember Nithya Raman — have staked out differing positions about how the Los Angeles Police Department has performed under McDonnell.

Click Here to Subscribe to the California Political Review

Raman has vowed to replace McDonnell, saying he has not “met the moment” given the department’s response to federal immigration raids. Bass has publicly backed the chief she hired two years ago, saying the LAPD could be thrown into disarray if McDonnell is removed before the 2028 Olympic Games.

Raman’s potential ouster of McDonnell and desire to push reforms on the LAPD has pitted her against the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the powerful union for rank-and-file officers that campaigned against Bass during her first election but is now backing her. The union has poured millions of dollars into attack ads against Raman, who has said she declined contributions from the organization in the past.

In an op-ed published in the Protective League’s monthly magazine earlier this year, union president Richard Mendoza called the Democratic Socialists of America, which has endorsed Raman, an “imminent threat to our members.”

Last week, Raman faced criticism for an Instagram video in which she appeared to slam McDonnell and the mayor, saying at one point “only you can stop fascist liars.” She later denied that she was referring to Bass or McDonnell, saying her remarks were improperly edited — and that she had the video pulled.

The Raman campaign did not respond to numerous requests for an interview about her vision for the LAPD.

Raman, a Harvard-educated urban planner, has sought to burnish her credentials as a political outsider by publicly calling for a change in LAPD leadership — but she hasn’t given a clear timeline on when she would replace McDonnell.

Click here to read the full article at the LA Times