It’s that time of year again! Below are my California ballot recommendations for the upcoming November 2026 election. You can read the measures as published on the California Secretary of State’s website here. And make sure to GET OUT AND VOTE!!

Proposition 1 - YES. Proposition 1 authorizes $11.25B in bonds to be used for a variety of initiatives. According to the legislative analyst the funds are to be used as follows:

$5.1 billion - build and rehabilitate multifamily rental housing
$2.1 billion - acquire, rehabilitate or preserve affordable housing units, and provide supportive housing for those experiencing homelessness
$1.25 billion - state funded mortgages for California veterans
$1.1 billion for homeownership and down payment assistance
$1 billion for farm worker, tribal and student housing.

I’m voting yes because we need more housing, period. I know it’s a little weird that Airbnb, Anthropic, Sergey Brin are funding it - which gives me a little pause. But we need more housing stock.

Proposition 2 - NO. Proposition 2 is a constitutional amendment raising required reserves for California from 10% to 20%. Raising the reserve can create unintended consequences for a state’s needs right now. But my big reason for voting NO is that I dislike as a general rule budgeting via Constitutional amendment.

Proposition 3 - YES. Proposition 3 keeps an existing income tax on higher income earners from expiring. If this tax expires, a huge source of K-12 and community college revenue would be lost, and we are in a time where we should not be pulling back from educational funding.

Proposition 4 - YES. Lifts ban on public financing of election campaigns. As of today, California bans the possibility of initiating a public-campaign financing system; this proposition would repeal the ban, but not put anything in place. Like anything state-driven, this has the potential for great benefits by opening up the possibility of reducing the impact of campaign donations; but as we’ve seen over the last two years, an abusive government can also manipulate and distort goals of government spending programs.

Similar to how I’m a proponent of single payer health care - the benefits greatly outweigh the risks - I think this is true of public campaign financing, and we should at least remove the ban for states and/or municipalities to set up programs.

Proposition 5 - YES. California’s recall process today has a real risk - when a officeholder is facing a recall election, such as the Governor, that election comes with a choice to choose a replacement candidate, which can be a large group of unvetted candidates, as happened in the recent Newsom recall. That replacement candidate does not need a majority of votes - rather, if there are 20 replacement candidates, the one with the most votes wins. So you could have a replacement candidate that has 25% of the popular vote.

Prop 5 changes this by once a candidate is recalled, in the case of the Governor, the Lt. Governor becomes Governor until the next election, and in the case of a legislative member, the seat is vacant until the next election or special election. This ensures replacement candidates are subject to a full, vetted statewide election vs. a first to the post election of what could be dozens of candidates.

Proposition 37 - YES. Proposition 37 is another housing bond of $25 billion; bonds are not repaid by taxpayers but repaid with homeowners mortgage payments.

Proposition 38 - NO. This sounds like a great cause, a bond that funds disease research. However, an investigation by CalMatters found that the eligibility requirements for the $4.2 billion institute allocation appears tailored to benefit the guy who put the measure on the ballot - the founder of the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy. Taxpayers should not be on the hook for an initiative that appears to be self-dealing.

Proposition 39 - NO. This is a MAGA voter-suppression measure that will make voting harder for millions of Californians. This is part of Trump’s voter suppression efforts across the country. This should be a hard no regardless of your political party.

Proposition 40 - NO. This is the highly publicized ‘billionaire tax’ on the ballot this year. Taxing billionaires to fund public services sounds great. Except whatever you think about the measure, the legislature gave itself the right to change the measure without going back to voters. This is a Trojan Horse for creating mischief to expand the reach of the tax beyond billionaires.

There are also problems with how businesses and investments are treated. For example, Proposition 40 establishes valuation rules that can assign a taxable value to assets even when no sale has occurred. It also has a pre-set formula to value business on a fixed earnings multiple (7.5 x book profits) vs. a market multiple.

This also is in part budgeting by Constitutional amendment which I usually don’t like.

Finally, there’s lots of can they or can’t they going around on whether the Legislature can change the measure without voters - here is the actual text from the proposition:

Section 50310 - Legislative Authority. The Legislature may amend the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act, by statute passed in each house of the Legislature by rollcall vote entered in the journal, two-thirds of the membership concurring, if the statute is consistent with and furthers the purposes of the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act.

All of this is why I am voting NO on Prop 40.

Propositions 41 and 42 - NO. Backed by Google’s Sergei Brin, these propositions were put in opposition to Prop 40. While I am a NO on Prop 40, these initiatives are also a problem. They are constitutional amendments complicating the state’s ability to implement special tax-funded programs, and ban any new taxes of financial assets in the state. (Thanks to Damian Carroll for two sentences I essentially stole from him 🙂). Finally, these are budgeting by Constitutional amendment on which once again I think is generally a bad idea.

Proposition 43 - NO. This would be a Constitutional amendment barring municipalities from implementing a tax without a 2/3 vote requirement; currently Cities have the ability to pass their own tax policy by majority vote. Cities should have the flexibility to make their own tax policy, and the State should not be putting their foot on the neck of Cities’ ability to fund public services. And again budgeting via Constitutional amendment. This is a NO.

Proposition 44 - NO. This measure would put penalties on community clinics that spend less than 90% of revenues on “program services”. A strict 10% limit seems like a bad idea - for example, does building overhead in an expensive city like L.A. contribute to going over a 10% cap? Asking voters to make a decision like this seems like it would lead to unintended consequences.

Proposition 45 - NO. I’m sharing Damian Carroll’s well worded argument against Prop 45 below, which I agree with, particularly around the fact that CEQA reforms were just passed last year and we should see if those can have an impact. Additionally, some top funders of Prop 45 are:

🚩 Building a Better California - associated with major donors Sergey Brin and John Doerr $10.0 million
🚩 California Building Industry Association Issues Committee $5.65 million
🚩 California Building Industry Association $2.25 million
🚩 Edison International and affiliated entities $2.0 million
🚩 California Business PAC, whose listed top donors include PG&E, $1.35 million

Prop 45 NO argument as written by Damian Carroll (and you can find his full arguments at the links below): “For me, this was the hardest Proposition decision to make, as I strongly support CEQA reform. But as often happens with voter initiatives that do not go through a legislative process, this measure is a one-sided solution that does not carefully weigh the environmental necessities of our state against the imperative to build more housing and infrastructure. Keep in mind two things: first, last year the legislature made substantial changes to CEQA that should make it less of a hindrance to building infill housing. (Whether such projects pencil out with our current high interest rates is another story). Second, this initiative has an expansive, questionable definition of "essential" projects that includes freeways, dams, and water pipelines to sprawl developments. We should not throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. We should first give the already enacted CEQA reforms a chance to make an impact, and then if more reform is warranted, let the legislature enact carefully balanced changes that preserve the goal of environmentally safe development.”

Damian’s own full analysis of propositions is here: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02WCPUxsrk7mX34NQAf8W3s6Zoh8S2STCtrwjGv7TzgDLbDExXpQyBZYzS8rJyeby4l&id=504213905