2024 CA Voter Guide

fine fine I'll put it together

I wasn't going to do a ballot guide this year because I'm generally apathetic about most California politics these days but I made some promises to friends so here we are with my handy-dandy voter guide on the Statewide propositions.

First off we have Propositions 2, 4, & 5 which are easy because they're Bond Measures and you should always, ALWAYS Vote NO on Bonds.

Bonds are the most unethical way to fund government. Not only do bonds cost twice as much as the financial benefit - so if you pass a bond to be able to spend $10Billion, it's going to cost taxpayers on average double that amount - but it also shifts the burden to our children and grandchildren to pay for things that we should be funding responsibly today.

The State of California, at every level, is too corrupt to be trusted with OUR money, why on God's Earth are we letting them spend our kids into such massive debt?

So Props 2, 4, and 5 are a solid No along with any local bonds being pushed.

Prop 3 is being pushed as a marriage equality change, but I have mixed feelings on Prop 3 because on the one hand it changes the California Constitution to be in line with the 2015 Supreme Court decision of Obergefell v. Hodges.

That decision effectively nuked California's Prop 8 from 2008 that defined marriage as “between a man and a woman”.

From a strictly Constitutional standpoint it's a laughable premise that a Civil War Amendment to the US Constitution could be construed to be so inclusive as to cover same sex marriages. The Supreme Court, as is their want, crafted a living breathing document decision and not one based in an honest interpretation of a ratified Amendment but be that as it may, that decision is the law of the land currently.

If you believe in keeping gay marriage legal in California should the Supreme Court somehow strike down that 2015 decision - something I see as highly unlikely - AND you think that after that possibly happens that the State of California would comply with such a decision - and I'd point you to their refusal to comply with the Supreme Court over the 2nd Amendment as a guide here - then vote for Prop 3.

If you believe that marriage should remain between a man and a woman or that the California Constitution doesn't need to be changed because that provision is already void - vote No.

The argument against this bill - saying that it would allow for child, polygamous, and incestual marriages because it redefines marriage as a “fundamental right” - is an interesting tactic that seems ludicrous on its face but then again California made abortion a “fundamental right” and now children can be taken by their schools for abortions without parental notification so I wouldn't honestly put such a broad overreach passed the clowns in Sacramento and their activist Judge buddies.

If this change simply undid Prop 8 I'd probably be amenable to it but seeing as how it redefines marriage as a “fundamental right” I'm less inclined to trust the motivations of people who are never honest about anything and see any downstream consequence of their actions as features and never bugs.

Language is a weapon to these people and I don't trust their choice of words.

I'm voting No on Prop 3.

Prop 6 ends slavery in California prisons and stop people like Kamala Harris from abusing that carve out in the 13th Amendment. 

A lot of people don't realize that the 13th Amendment only ended slavery - except as punishment for a crime - and prisons quite literally profit off of the over-incarceration of people in the State that even so-called “Progressive Prosecutors” abuse so long as it benefits their buddies.

Lawyers in then Kamala Harris' Office of the Attorney General argued in court that they needed to keep people in prison beyond their sentences for cheap labor and of course after she “found out” what her own people were doing she feigned shock and surprise because like most career politicians the buck always stops with somebody else.

The irony of Prop 6 is that most of the people voting to end Prison Slave Labor in California are also going to vote for a President who's office went out of her way to abuse that very system and the people under her authority.

If, like me, you want to end slave labor in prisons, vote YES on Prop 6.

Prop 32 raises minimum wage which is economically illiterate behavior and I'm against it. 

Companies aren't going to take a hit to their bottom lines, especially when they need returns on investment to prop up pension funds and other such investors.

If this passes, in order to pay workers more - companies are just going to raise prices as they always have and always will.

Vote for this if you want to pay more for everything and enjoy inflation.

Otherwise don't be an idiot. Vote No on 32.

Prop 33 is another economically illiterate proposal, this time about rent control. This was already rejected by voters a few years ago but the group that keeps pushing for it is at it again.

Supply and Demand are real things and if you want housing prices to go down you need to up the supply - artificially decreasing the value of the current supply does precisely fuckall to increase supply - in fact it ends up restricting future available units because fewer investors are going to sink costs into potentially unprofitable projects.

Again, rent control is economic illiteracy.

I'm voting No on Prop 33.

Prop 34 is rather funny because it was designed, by the looks of things, to go after the people who put Prop 33 on the ballot.

Essentially what Prop 34 does is it requires companies - for profit or not - to allocate certain savings to patient care. I'll break it down.

In order for a company like Pfizer or Johnson and Johnson to have their drugs included in a system like Medicare they have to offer discounted drug prices.

Various groups that provide healthcare services benefit from those lower costs and the argument for that benefit is that each dollar will go further and help more people if the prices are lower.

If Company X would have to pay $200 for a drug without the discount rate in the Medi-Cal RX program - and it's only $100 in the program - then one might assume that the saved $100 could then buy that drug for somebody else or perhaps that saved $100 could be used in some other healthcare capacity. 

Except money is fungible so no.

Instead groups like AHF - the group being targeted here -  use those savings for other things like putting Rent Control measures on the ballot or to pad the salaries of their board, to throw parties, or other such non-healthcare related issues.

The healthcare savings thus aren't being used for patient care and Prop 34 would require such groups benefiting from the savings in Medi-Cal RX to use 98% of that money on direct patient care.

My one complaint is that this statute doesn't go far enough and doesn't impact enough groups that sponge off of the public teat while pretending to care about the people who need help the most.

I'm voting Yes on 34.

Prop 35 extends a tax on managed health care insurance plans and this State is too corrupt to be allowed to continue operating under the status quo.

I'm against raising, adding, or continuing taxes. 

I'm voting No on 35.

Prop 36 is just annoying. It's a “tough on crime” bill that Conservatives love to lie about when they use San Francisco as a bell-weather city for crime in their push to pass this proposition.

The claim being made is that California made it too easy to commit crimes under Prop 47 and the smash and grab retails thefts that were all over social media were somehow tied to that law change.

The problem is that nobody is walking into a store with a calculator to make sure that the theft is under the current $950 threshold when the real problem is that local District Attorneys refuse to prosecute for anything that doesn't get them headlines or, conversely, which get them smeared by the press.

San Francisco doesn't have a crime problem because of Prop 47, it has a crime problem because it's a joke of a city run by socialists who think crime is a-okay.

This bill is a mashup of war of drug rhetoric wrapped in retail theft trending news and it just feels dishonest the way it's being pushed.

I once had to call the police to remove a drug dealing pimp from a local property and the police refused to arrest him because he was walking with a cane and it would have taken too much time away from their shift to drive him to the hospital as required, they claimed, by California law.

The cops, to my surprise, actually wanted to help solve the problems but the State got in the way of every option potentially in front of them.

Prop 36 does nothing to address those types of problems. 

Most of our policing problems are due to greed and corruption on the part of police unions and the absolute strain on resources they've caused across this State. When you can't afford to hire police because all of your tax revenue is going to fund retirees making more than they ever did on the job - raising the penalties on criminals you don't have the manpower to arrest, the desire to prosecute, or the jail space to house - is as asinine as putting a band-aid on a canon wound.

Prop 36 is standard “tough on crime” propaganda that at best will send more people into overcrowded jails for retail theft and drug possession which in turn will require the State to release people for other, more serious crimes, to keep up with the Supreme Court’s ruling on the 8th Amendment unless more prisons are built.

I'm voting No on Prop 36.

And that's everything on the Statewide California ballot, I hope that helps. 

Cheers.