If you're not in California, you can ignore this thread. Either way, don't troll it. That means you, limitles. Respectful disagreement/debate is encouraged.
PROP 2: Borrow $10 billion to build schools, colleges
Partisan: Dems support, GOP against
Prediction: Will pass
Druff's endorsement: NO. The last thing California needs is $10b more debt. Schools already have plenty of money in California -- they just need to shift around the budget to spend where needed and cut where they're wasting. Instead, they're asking for more money again. The claim that lower income schools will get the benefit from this is false. Much of this will end up in richer neighborhoods anyway.
PROP 3: Repeal prop 8, write gay marriage rights into CA constitution
Partisan: Dems support, GOP lightly against
Prediction: Will easily pass
Druff's endorsement: WEAK YES. This isn't 2008 anymore, when prop 8 passed to ban gay marriage in the state. While prop 8 isn't officially repealed, gay marriage is already allowed in California, due to the 2015 Supreme Court decision. This ship has already sailed, so there's no point to continue the sham of leaving prop 8 on the books. Also, I am not personally opposed to gays getting married, nor do I think being gay is a choice in most cases. The only reason NOT to vote yes is that Prop 8 also had protections against child marriages and polygamy, but those are already prohibited in California anyway.
PROP 4: Borrow $10 billion to respond to climate change
Partisan: Dems support, GOP against
Prediction: Will easily pass
Druff's endorsement: STRONG NO. This is a complete waste of money. Climate change, if it is human caused (which is up for debate), can only be fought with a worldwide effort. If major countries like China don't cooperate, it's not only useless, but you're handicapping yourself by spending resources fighting it. This is a huge mistake.
PROP 5: Make it easier for local governments to borrow money from the state via bonds, making voter approval thresholds 55% instead of 66.67%, for certain categories such as infrastructure, "affordable" housing construction, down payment assistance, parks, etc.
Partisan: Dems support, GOP against
Prediction: Toss-up, but I think will slightly lose
Druff's endorsement: STRONG NO. The "bond measure" nonsense in California is a longstanding trick to get the taxpayers to agree to fund expensive and unnecessary projects, which sound good on paper to the average voter, and to where there's not an immediate tax increase to pay for it. The problem? The money has to be paid back in some way, and often it falls upon property owners or others who are already heavily burdened by taxes in the state. The 2/3 majority rule was put in place many years ago, in order to prevent a "tyranny of the majority" problem -- where a small majority can put undue burden upon a minority of voters. 66.67% is a good threshold to where local governments need substantial voter approval in order to borrow money.
PROP 6: Limit forced labor in state prisons
Partisan: Dems support, GOP against
Prediction: Will fail, but might be close
Druff's endorsement: NO. Prison isn't a summer camp. People are there to pay their debt to society. There is no harm in requiring inmates to do various work rather than just twiddle their thumbs all day, and they even get paid a very small amount of money for doing so. In fact, prisoners taking part in the firefighting program can earn $10/hour, and learn valuable skills for a career in firefighting when they get out. Instead, this stupid proposition turns it into volunteer work that criminals can use to get out of jail early! This is being promoted as "prevention of enslavement", and the disproportionate black population in prison is cited as a reason this is important, but that's all race-baiting nonsense. This isn't enslavement -- it's part of the prison experience, which these inmates "earned" through their crimes for which they were justly sentenced.
PROP 32: Raise minimum wage to $18/hr
Partisan: Dems support, GOP against
Prediction: Likely to pass
Druff's endorsement: NO. Have you noticed how expensive fast food has become? Have you noticed all of the missing employees, where they used to be, now replaced by kiosks and automation? Have you noticed that service just sucks big time because the few employees you can find are overworked? That's all a result of wages for low-end jobs going way up to where businesses can't afford to hire normally. Furthermore, many businesses using minimum wage labor are not huge corporations, but rather mom-and-pop shops or franchisees, which are barely getting by. This type of law kills them. Minimum wage jobs are not meant as a permanent career. It is a fallacious argument to state how tough it is to get by working minimum wage, as this isn't supposed to be a permanent situation for anyone. For reference, the minimum wage in 1990 was $4.25/hr, which translates to $10.50 today. We do not need an $18 minimum wage.
PROP 33: Remove restrictions on local governments regarding proposing rent control
Additional description: Many cities, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, limit the amount a landlord can raise the rent each year — a policy known as rent control. But for nearly 30 years, California has imposed limits on those limits, via a law known as Costa-Hawkins. Cities cannot set rent control on single-family homes or apartments built after 1995. And landlords are free to set their own rental rates when new tenants move in. If Proposition 33 passes, that would change. Cities would be allowed to control rents on any type of housing – including single-family homes and new apartments, and for new tenants.
Partisan: Dems support, GOP against
Prediction: Toss-up, but I think will lose slightly
Druff's endorsement: STRONG NO. Rent control is a farce, and the fairness of it falls apart upon scrutiny. Landlords have ever-increasing expenses, especially in inflationary times. Why is it fair to allow their costs to go up in unlimited fashion, but not alllow them to raise prices as a result? But it goes beyond that. Rent control is arbitrary. It does not help young people, who tend to be the ones most in need of financial assistance with rent. It does not help people who are new to the area. It does not help those who have to move within the local area for work, family, or other reasons. It helps a very narrow segment of the population -- those who have been renting the same apartment for a very long time. It is not income-dependent. A billionaire with the same apartment since 1990 will qualify for rent control in many cases, whereas a broke 21-year-old would not. Expanding rent control is a huge mistake, and for more reasons than I have already discussed above.
PROP 34: Require large providers with prescription drug discounts to use that revenue on patients
Partisan: GOP supports, Dems agains
Prediction: Will pass
Druff's endorsement: YES. This is the first proposition I like in the election! This weird proposition is mainly aimed at one large, corrupt organization -- The AIDS Healthcare Foundation. They have been exploiting a 1992 federal law which allows them to acquire pharmaceuticals way under market rate (by serving certain low income areas), and then they turn around and sell them at retail rates for big profit. They have also bought up a ton of apartment buildings, and have poured tons of money into lobbying to craft laws around maximizing their profits, including the above prop 33, which will harm competitors. Bottom line is that it's time to close this stupid loophole which allows a large company to get unfair subsidies meant 32 years ago to help small providers serve poor communities.
PROP 35: Require tax on MediCal healthcare plans to go toward a public insurance program for low income and disabled residents
Partisan: Rare case where it's supported by both GOP and Dems!
Prediction: Will easily pass
Druff's endorsement: YES. This is basically a smack in the face against Gavin Newsom, who at one point promised this tax would go toward a public insurance program for poor/disabled people, and now has walked it back and is trying to spend the money elsewhere. Fuck him. Even state Democrats want to see this one pass.
PROP 36: Increase penalties for theft and drug trafficking, reclassify some misdemeanors as felonies
Partisan: GOP supports, Dem politicians against (but most Democratic voters are for it)
Prediction: Will easily pass
Druff's endorsement: STRONG YES. The disasterous Prop 47, previously passed, reclassified a lot of felonies into misdemeanors, causing organized criminal theft rings to form and exploit the situation. The result? There's been a 28% increase in merchandise theft since 2019, and an 18% increase in commercial burglaries. In fact, many woke DAs refuse to prosecute the thefts of merchandise worth less than a combined $950, causing the predictable situation of theft rings walking into stores with calculators and stealing just under $950 worth of stuff each. By changing the laws to make a lot of these into felonies, the penalties will increase, and the woke DAs will have a harder time justifying the lack of prosecution.
In short, vote NO for everything except props 3 and 34 through 36.
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Originally Posted by Dan Druff
