If you live in the five-county Bay Area, please vote yes on RTM!
| what | my vote |
|---|---|
| Governor | Xavier Becerra |
| Lieutenant Governor | Fiona Ma |
| Secretary of State | Shirley Weber |
| Controller | Malia Cohen |
| Treasurer | Eleni Kounalakis |
| Attorney General | Rob Bonta |
| Insurance Commissioner | Ben Allen? |
| State Board of Equalization, D2 | Sally Lieber! |
| US Representative, D12 | LATEEFAH SIMON |
| State Assembly, D14 | Buffy Wicks |
| Justices | All yes? |
| State Superintendent of Public Instruction | RICHARD BARRERA |
| Berkeley Rent Board | Vylma Ortiz, Avery Arbaugh, Derek Rodriguez, Ida Martinac, Nathan Mizell |
| Berkeley School Directors | Sandy Park, Jennifer Shanoski, Ka’dijah Brown |
| 1 (housing bond) | Yes |
| 2 (rainy day fund) | yes? |
| 3 (don’t cut taxes on the rich) | YES |
| 4 (allow the rest of CA to have public funding) | YES |
| 5 (fix recall process) | YES |
| 37 (new mortgage program) | no |
| 38 (immunology bonds) | no? |
| 39 (voter suppression) | NO!!! |
| 40 (one-time billionaire wealth tax) | yes? |
| 41 (poison pill to make taxes harder) | NO |
| 42 (another poison pill to make taxes harder) | NO |
| 43 (make local taxes very hard) | NO!!! |
| 44 (health clinic spending) | no |
| 45 (gut CEQA) | no |
| Regional Transit Measure RTM | YES YES YES!!! |
| Berkeley U (council-recommended bonds) | Yes |
| Berkeley V (council-recommended tax) | Yes |
| Berkeley W (modernize some processes) | yes |
| Berkeley X (rent control changes) | yes |
| Berkeley Y (performing arts tax) | Yes |
| Berkeley Z (public bank) | no |
| Berkeley AA (more soda tax) | yes |
| Berkeley Auditor | Jenny Wong |
And a few bonus endorsements for candidates for seats in neighboring districts. I mostly try to focus on my own ballot, but these folks sit on boards that serve places I live.
| what | my endorsement |
|---|---|
| AC Transit, Ward 3 | ADRIANA VALENCIA |
| Berkeley City Council, D1 | Both Daria Wrubel and Ross Bernet |
| Berkeley City Council, D4 | Igor Tregub |
| Berkeley City Council, D7 | Syrak Micael |
| Berkeley City Council, D8 | Mark Humbert |
Candidates
Democrats running against Republicans
- Governor: Xavier Becerra
- Lieutenant Governor: Fiona Ma
- Secretary of State: Shirley Weber
- Controller: Malia Cohen
- Treasurer: Eleni Kounalakis
- Attorney General: Rob Bonta
As usual, I don’t think any thought needs to be put into a two-person general election between a Democrat and a Republican.
Insurance Commissioner: Ben Allen?
My opinion stays the same since the primary, though I still would be happy to vote for Jane Kim if I see trustworthy experts supporting a more fleshed-out version of her policy platform. With the level of research I’ve done so far, I’m not seeing it.
State Board of Equalization, D2: Sally Lieber!
As I said in the primary:
Voted for her in 2022. Haven’t heard anything bad and she is roundly endorsed.
US Representative, D12: LATEEFAH SIMON
As I said in the primary, more or less:
I feel Lateefah Simon represents me well. It looks like I have many mutual friends with the other candidate on the ballot (Jamie Joyce); if she were running against somebody I wasn’t actively impressed by, I’d consider her campaign more seriously. Perhaps she should run for something else.
State Assembly, D14: Buffy Wicks
Buffy Wicks has slowly earned my trust and support over the last 8 years and I don’t see the need to search for a protest vote here. (Though I don’t agree with all of her proposition positions, such as Prop 45.)
Justices: All yes?
I have not seriously researched the judge races yet, other than to confirm it’s not that Josh Groban.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction: RICHARD BARRERA
This race is officially non-partisan, so a casual voter might not realize that it’s as blatantly Democrat-vs-Republican as the election for Governor. Sonja Shaw is a virulent transphobe (stopping trans kids from playing sports is literally her #1 issue on her website). I’d love to see her get the fewest votes of any statewide candidate.
Berkeley Rent Board: Vylma Ortiz, Avery Arbaugh, Derek Rodriguez, Ida Martinac, Nathan Mizell
I typically vote for the tenant slate unless I hear a reason otherwise. That’s everyone but Marasovic.
Berkeley School Directors: Sandy Park, Jennifer Shanoski, Ka’dijah Brown
Three candidates for three seats. The outcome is predetermined. I’ve voted for both Shanoski and Brown in the past (I didn’t vote for Brown last time, but only because I liked the other candidates better). They all seem to co-endorse each other. Seems fine.
Berkeley Auditor: Jenny Wong
She’s running unopposed, but I do like her.
Candidates in neighboring districts
AC Transit, Ward 3: ADRIANA VALENCIA
My family loves taking AC Transit buses. These days we use it more than BART, and it’ll be how our kids get to middle school soon. But AC Transit has been struggling, and most of the elected board just serves as a rubber stamp for management instead of advocating for making the system work better for riders. Just follow my ward’s director (and my friend) Jean Walsh on Bluesky to see how the board (other than Jean herself and Sarah Syed) is failing riders.
AC Transit recently changed from a combination of district-elected members and at-large members to only districts, so formerly at-large director Joel Young is now running in this district (Alameda, Piedmont, and part of Oakland). Young is terrible: back in 2022 he had already been credibly accused of domestic violence and had been censured by the AC Transit Board for using district property for personal gain… and he still got re-elected, and this year he physically harassed Director Syed (which the board majority is trying to squelch). Oh, and in addition to all his personal failings, he also votes on the wrong side of every split vote I’ve looked at.
Vote for Adriana Valencia instead. She’s endorsed by Walsh and Syed and will move the board in a positive direction politically and personally.
Berkeley City Council
My district doesn’t have an election this term, but four others do. There are lots of candidates and lots of issues to care about, and fortunately no serious candidate for City Council in Berkeley is ever particularly conservative, so it’s reasonable to focus on more specific local policies.
When I vote at the city level, policies that keep my family safe in the streets are one of my top priorities. If you support street safety, the candidates to vote for are:
- District 1: vote for both Daria Wrubel and Ross Bernet as your #1 and #2 in some order
- District 4: Igor Tregub
- District 7: Syrak Micael
- District 8: Mark Humbert
State-wide and regional propositions
1 (housing bound): Yes
This bond seems generally supported by the sorts of organizations I support.
2 (rainy day fund): yes?
The basic concept of keeping the state solvent in rougher times via a rainy day fund seems good, and decent endorsements roughly seem to be in favor of this. I don’t pretend to be an expert, though.
3 (don’t cut taxes on the rich): YES
Many parts of our tax system are written in a way that they expire over time. This proposition needs to pass in order to retain the upper end of our current income tax brackets. A “no” vote is a vote to cut income taxes on the rich, exactly what we don’t need right now.
4 (allow the rest of CA to have public funding): YES
Currently, a few localities in California are allowed to have publicly funded elections. Berkeley is one of them: if candidates commit to only allowing donations up to $60, they get all their donations matched 6 to 1 by the city. I’m happy that my city is allowed to have such a system, and support allowing more California localities to set up their own systems, so I’m voting yes!
5 (fix recall process): YES
Hey, remember that stupid September 2021 governor recall election? The one where I said:
What’s terrible is how California’s current election laws select a replacement for a recalled Governor.
You can read that whole writeup for a reminder of why the current “the replacement is chosen via a process that makes it challenging for the party of the incumbent to effectively campaign” system is terrible. Prop 5 fixes it in the most straightforward way: if you recall the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor takes their place, just like they would in any other context where there’s a vacancy in the office.
It’s pretty rare that one of my writeups wishes for a specific change, and then we get a chance to vote for it. Let’s not pass this opportunity up!
37 (new mortgage program): no
At first glance, it seemed more or less like a decent program, and has decent endorsements. On the other hand, it’s by the same group behind 41, 42, and 45. The analysis in the body and comments in this blog post make me less excited. Since this is a brand new program, I’m tie-breaking towards “no”.
38 (immunology bonds): no?
I’m all about increasing investment in science, and immunology is important. But apparently this is a weird bond written to fund precisely one organization (associated with the proposition author, of course). The amount of money it promises is double Cal’s annual NIH budget! That’s a lot of money for just one thing. I’d love to see the legislature proposing new revenue sources for science funding, but the process here is wack.
39 (voter suppression): NO!!!
This is a proposition trying to change California from a state that supports voting into a state that suppresses voting. I hope you aren’t even considering voting for it.
40 (one-time billionaire wealth tax): yes?
This proposition will levy a one-time tax on the assets of around 200 billionaires who were living in the state as of the beginning of this year. Those billionaires really really hate it and are throwing all sorts of things at the wall to see what will stick. For example, they’re focusing on the standard clause in every proposition that basically means “if there’s a typo in the proposition, the legislature can fix it instead of us being stuck with it until another election” and are lying to pretend that it means that the legislature (who isn’t even behind this proposition!) can change it into a completely different tax on a completely different set of people later. Frankly, the degree to which they’ve made this disingenuous lie a talking point is enough for me to want to vote for it out of spite.
Is it possible that this will lead billionaires to leave California? Maybe. But frankly, it seems like most of the ones likely to leave are on their way out the door anyway. It’s not clear how much these billionaires are contributing to state tax revenue normally (as much of their wealth is invisible to income tax).
I’m weakly in favor of this one.
41 (poison pill to make taxes harder): NO
On the other hand, I’m strongly opposed to both of the poison pill propositions that would override Prop 40 if they pass with a higher number of votes, and which generally work to make it harder to have taxes in California. Whether or not Prop 40 is a good idea or a well-designed tax is a complex question. But Props 41 and 42 would say that it’s not a complex question, and that such taxes should just be completely off the table and not accessible to Californians as a potential approach to funding our society.
If you’re voting for 40, vote no on 41 and 42. If you are torn about 40 and think it’s a hard and subtle issue… still vote no on 41 and 42, since the concept of these props is the denial of our ability to even consider a hard and subtle issue.
42 (another poison pill to make taxes harder): NO
See 41.
43 (make local taxes very hard): NO!!!
This is one of the worst propositions on the California ballot in years, and that’s saying something.
We have been slowly peeling back decades of awful propositions in the vein of the original Prop 13, which make it harder for communities who believe in well-funded local government to act on their values.
It’s already the case that many taxes require a 2/3 vote to pass: for example, “special” taxes (taxes for specific reasons rather than just the general fund) require a 2/3 vote if proposed by elected representatives, but only a majority vote if placed on the ballot by signature collection. Prop 43 would require all local special taxes to pass a 2/3 vote.
This means that it only takes 34% of a municipality to be selfish enough to prevent their local schools and streets from being adequately funded. This would be a huge step backwards for California.
You may ask why such a terrible proposition was put on the ballot by a large majority of the legislature, and in fact written by Buffy Wicks (who I am voting for in this election!). Well, believe it or not, this proposition was almost going to be worse. The Howard Jarvis anti-tax group was collecting signatures for a proposition that would do everything in this proposition and retroactively obliterate any tax that hadn’t been passed by a 2/3 supermajority. They only relented from that plan when this was placed on the ballot. So even though Wicks wrote this proposal, she is strongly endorsing a no vote.
If you think local government spending has any role to play in our society, vote no.
44 (health clinic spending): no
This seems to have been part of some complex behind-the-scenes posturing between the union behind Prop 40 and groups that they didn’t want opposing Prop 40. While it may sound mildly attractive at first glance to require clinic to spend 90% of their money on “patient services”, the definition of that term is more restricted than you’d think. There does not seem to be a very good reason to vote for this.
45 (gut CEQA): no
The California Environmental Quality Act has been abused by opponents of even obviously pro-environment improvements like bike lanes, so even as somebody who cares about the environment, I can get behind certain kinds of CEQA reform. And in fact, the legislature has reduced CEQA’s scope over the past few years, like by exempting infill housing, transit, pedestrian, and bike projects.
This proposition goes much further, gutting the good parts of CEQA. And since so much CEQA reform has happened legislatively recently, it’s pretty clear that this also fails the “does this need to be a proposition?” test.
It’s a bit disconcerting that Buffy Wicks supports this proposition. I asked her personally why, and did not find her response (mostly focusing on making it easier to build hospitals and the like) compelling; that said, it’s not actually a priority for her compared to Prop 1, RTM, etc.
Regional Transit Measure RTM: YES YES YES!!!
Bay Area public transit is about to hit a crisis point. The reduction of commuting with COVID and increased work-from-home decreased ridership throughout the Bay Area. Ridership has been growing steadily, and agencies like BART have adjusted their schedules and staffing to match current demand (e.g., BART has increased weekend and evening service and decreased traditional commute service). Passenger recovery is coming along, but it’s coming slowly. Meanwhile, COVID-era federal transit funding is expiring, and the current administration certainly isn’t jumping to help transit.
If we don’t replace the expiring federal funding with a more reliable source of funding, Bay Area public transit will go broke and drastically reduce service, just as ridership is finally recovering. This will have a catastrophic effect on everyone who relies on public transit in the Bay Area… not to mention drivers, since the loss of transit will jam roads with even more cars.
BART is particularly vulnerable because throughout its history, it has been far more dependent on fares than most similar public transit systems. Before COVID, it had a “farebox recovery ratio” of over 60%, meaning public funding only covered a minority of the costs. Most similar systems have a ratio closer to 25%. So taxpayers have been underfunding BART all along. It’s time to move BART slightly closer to being a normal public transit system which is paid for by everyone as a public good, rather than being an expensive system whose quality is vulnerable to fluctuations in ridership.
For the first time in my life, I was motivated to collect signatures to get a proposition on the ballot. Out of the 235,000 submitted signatures, I collected over 100 of them… just a drop in the bucket, but if you saw me in the spring I probably talked your ear off about transit.
If you value the ability to get around the Bay Area by public transit or by car, vote yes on RTM.
Berkeley propositions
Berkeley U (council-recommended bonds): Yes
I generally feel that the current Berkeley mayor and City Council are headed in the right direction, and I appreciate when local government is able to focus on implementing their plans rather than everything coming from a place of scrimping and budget cuts. I am happy to support Props U and V, which are the funding proposals for our current city budget plans that are unanimously supported by the mayor and City Council.
Berkeley V (council-recommended tax): Yes
See Prop U.
Berkeley W (modernize some processes): yes
This seems to generally be uncontroversial.
Berkeley X (rent control changes): yes
This seems to be a generally positive measure making various adjustments to Berkeley’s rent control. It is the unanimous output of our elected local government (something that has not happened for a rent control measure in over a decade). I’m intrigued by the possibility of allowing single-family-home owners to opt in to rent control in exchange for financial assistance, though that might largely be theoretical. e change that lets a renter know when moving in whether a building is exempt from rent control, instead of letting an ADU or duplex become exempt retroactively after they’ve moved in, seems like a major improvement.
The argument against is largely just complaining about the rent board in general. They complain that Prop X won’t give owners of ADUs and duplexes “clear and predictable rules”, but what it does is give tenants clear and predictable rules: if they choose to move into such a unit based on the belief that it is covered by rent control, they won’t be surprised to find out later that it is exempt due to rule changes.
Berkeley Y (performing arts tax): Yes
One of the reasons I like living in Berkeley is its vibrant performing arts scene. Yet many of my favorite organizations have gone under recently, like Bay Area Children’s Theatre and Aurora Theatre (closing just as a play they commissioned won a Tony!).
As a parent of elementary school children, I don’t get out to the theater as much as I’d like to, but I am very much looking forward to being a subscriber at multiple Berkeley theaters for decades once my kids are a bit older. That’s not gonna happen if the slow recovery from COVID puts them out of business first.
As far as taxes go, perhaps this is a bit self-centered. But I want Berkeley to stay a supportive place for performing arts, and becoming a bit more towards countries that actually subsidize arts is a move in the right direction.
Heck, even Aurora is trying to come back… and based on their current website, I suspect Prop Y is part of what might make that possible.
Berkeley Z (public bank): no
Starting a city-based public bank is a complex undertaking. I think I’m broadly in favor of it, but this proposition doesn’t seem to be the right way to go about it. I find the editorial by Councilmembers Humbert, Kesarwani, and Taplin to be reasonably compelling (even if it’s co-authored by somebody who seems to just be broadly anti-tax). I’d be more in favor of a public bank proposition coming from Council. Proponents’ misrepresentation of Auditor Jenny Wong’s level of support rubs me the wrong way as well. (It appears that more Councilmembers broadly support a public bank than support this exact prop… but that’s another reason to vote no on this exact prop.)
Berkeley AA (more soda tax): yes
I was happy to vote for the soda tax to continue two years ago, and I’m happy to see it increase now. The main argument against it is from somebody bashing the BUSD cooking and gardening programs, which have worked well for my kids: there’s nothing like having your kids beg you to let them make kale salad to make you appreciate a tax.