My 2014 Ballot Choices

(Updated: I’ve added a “Results” section below, noting how my picks fared in the election. — A.R. 2014–11–05)

For the 2014 midterm election in California’s 14th Congressional district, 13th Senate district and 24th Assembly district; county of San Mateo; city of East Palo Alto.

I am registered as “decline to state,” but my political sympathies lie much closer to the Democrats than the Republicans; if there are one of each, the Democrat will almost always get my vote. This post is more about California’s ballot measures (and any local issues as well). For background, see my 2012 election post.

A great nonpartisan reference for information on ballot issues is VotersEdge.org, which used to be SmartVoter.org. I don’t know why they changed, and the new site is rather less usable for me than the old one, but the information is still valuable.

National

U.S. Representative, 14th Congressional District: Jackie Speier

State

Governor: Edmund G “Jerry” Brown
Lieutenant Governor: Gavin Newsom
Secretary of State: Alex Padilla
Controller: Betty T. Yee
Treasurer: John Chiang
Attorney General: Kamala D. Harris
Insurance Commissioner: Dave Jones
Member, State Board of Equalization, 2nd District: Fiona Ma
Member of the State Assembly, 24th District: Richard S. Gordon
Superintendent of Public Instruction: Tom Torlakson

State — Judicial

I literally know nothing about any of these people except Goodwin Liu, so I’m turning to my usual strategy of seeing who else supports or opposes them. In the case of state judicial confirmations, I found this Daily Kos article by Susan Grigsby, which in turn links to a couple of conservative-run voter guides for these candidates — so I can vote the opposite way.

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court — Goodwin Liu: YES
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court — Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar: YES
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court — Kathryn Mickle Werdegar: YES
Presiding Justice of Court of Appeal, District 1, Division 1 — Jim Humes: YES
Associate Justice of Court of Appeal, District 1, Division 1 — Kathleen M. Banke: NO
Presiding Justice of Court of Appeal, District 1, Division 2 — J. Anthony Kline: YES
Associate Justice of Court of Appeal, District 1, Division 2 — Therese M. Stewart: YES
Associate Justice of Court of Appeal, District 1, Division 3 — Stuart R. Pollack: YES
Associate Justice of Court of Appeal, District 1, Division 3 — Martin J. Jenkins: NO
Presiding Justice of Court of Appeal, District 1, Division 4 — Ignazio John Ruvolo: NO
Associate Justice of Court of Appeal, District 1, Division 5 — Mark B. Simons: NO
Associate Justice of Court of Appeal, District 1, Division 5 — Terence L. Bruiniers: NO

Local

With one exception (see note), these are based on candidate statements and endorsements.

Ravenswood City School District, Members, Governing Board (3): Marcelino Lopez, Ana M. Pulido and Nicolas Valdes
City of East Palo Alto, Members, City Council (2): Kimberly Carlton and Donna Rutherford
San Mateo County Harbor District, Members, Board of Commissioners, Full Term (2): Robert Bernardo and Nicole David
San Mateo County Harbor District, Members, Board of Commissioners, Short Term: Tom Mattusch

Statewide Ballot Measures

I have a general “no” bias toward ballot initiatives; I think it’s a poor governing practice. However, laws or regulations which are first enacted by initiative can only be reversed the same way. I don’t have enough knowledge on some of these to make a strong case either way, so I’m also looking at what groups support or oppose them.

Proposition 1 (Water Bond): YES — this is an obvious one. California is in a record drought and the state’s historic lack of investment in water infrastructure is making it worse. This bond will fund water storage and transit projects, as well as watershed and ecological protection.
Proposition 2 (Budget Stabilization Account): YES — Jerry Brown’s “rainy day fund”. Silly that this has to be done by initiative, but that’s California for you.
Proposition 45 (Health Insurance): YES — this measure gives the state Insurance Commissioner the power to regulate health insurance rates in the same way that auto and home insurance rates are already regulated. Remember when mandatory auto insurance became law and everyone panicked because rates were sure to go up? And then they didn’t? That’s because the insurance commissioner regulates the rates. Now that health insurance is also mandatory, it makes complete sense to me that the rates should be regulated the same way.
Proposition 46 (Medical Negligence Lawsuits): NO — I am in favor of indexing the cap on medical malpractice damages to inflation (pretty much everything should be indexed to inflation), but this measure does a whole bunch of other things including mandating drug testing of medical professionals and reporting/checking a state-run database for patient prescriptions. These may or may not be laudable goals, but I don’t feel these three issues should be lumped together into one large, hard-to-understand ballot initiative.
Proposition 47 (Criminal Sentences): YES — this measure reduces penalties for some non-violent / non-serious offenses from felonies to misdemeanors. This means less tax money spent on keeping people in state prison, perpetuating the criminal revolving door syndrome (where some who didn’t start out as violent offenders become violent or dangerous as a result of incarceration), and fewer lives ruined by felony convictions.
Proposition 48 (Indian Gaming): NO — I don’t have a strong opinion on the merits of this (which biases me toward a No vote) and I don’t like that the new casinos would apparently have exemptions from the California Environmental Quality Act.

Local Ballot Measures

Measure H (San Mateo County Community College District Bond): YES — I am loathe to add more special assessments to my property tax bill, but the San Mateo County Community Colleges needs funding to operate and upgrade its facilities (and my wife attends Cañada College), and this is how they get that funding. And the Silicon Valley Taxpayers Association, which is affiliated with the Jarvis association, is against it.

And that’s it for me. No matter whether you agree with me or not, don’t forget to go out and vote!

Results

Only talking about the candidates and issues on which I voted. Obviously a bad night nationwide for Democrats / Progressives of all stripes, but California is still safe. Relatively.

National and State

Democrats ran the table for elected office, with Jerry Brown winning a record fourth term as California’s governor and Gavin Newsom keeping his position as Lieutenant Governor. Jackie Speier was re-elected to her Congressional seat.

Kamala Harris retained her spot as California’s Attorney General for another four years, at which point she’ll be in a terrific position to run for Governor (Jerry Brown will be termed out) or, if Barbara Boxer decides to run for Governor, Harris could run for California’s Class III Senate seat. Either way, Harris’ future looks very bright.

(It will be interesting to see how the Newsom / Harris / Boxer negotiations work out for the two open offices in 2016.)

State — Judicial

State Supreme Court Associate Justices Werdegar, Liu and Cuéllar were confirmed for their appointments, as were all nine Appeals Court Justices. I voted against five of those nine. The vote counts for those Appeals Court appointments are interesting; the YES and NO vote numbers are very, very similar for all nine. I suspect many people just voted straight down.

Local

Pulido, Knight and Lopez won seats on the Ravenswood City School District. I voted for Pulido, Lopez and Valdez (fourth place in a three-seat race, by 183 votes), and am frankly shocked that Knight was elected, but as I don’t have children (and wouldn’t send them to school in this district in any case) it is ultimately of passing interest.

Rutherford and Abrica were elected to the East Palo Alto City Council. I voted for Rutherford and Carlton, who came in third in a two-seat race by 130 votes.

David and Tucker won full-term seats on the San Mateo County Harbor District Board of Commissioners (I voted for David and Bernardo, who took third place in a two-seat race by 488 votes). Mattusch took the short-term seat on the same Board.

Statewide Ballot Measures

Propositions 1 and 2 passed healthily; they were championed by Jerry Brown, who campaigned for them more vigorously than his own re-election (which was never in doubt).

Prop. 45 failed, which I expect can probably be attributed to campaign fatigue. The “for” and “against” forces have been blanketing the airwaves for months and it was difficult to figure out what this measure was actually supposed to do. Given my general “no” bias on ballot measures, I’m not too upset; if this is something that the Insurance Commissioner decides needs to happen, it can be done legislatively.

Prop. 46 also failed and I’m not sorry at all. The more I read about it, the worse it seemed, and the drug-testing of medical professionals provision appeared to be tacked on as a distraction from the real nastiness.

Prop. 47 passed. I described my position above, so I’m pleased that this one went through.

And Prop. 48 was defeated, by quite a large margin.

Local Ballot Measures

San Mateo County Community College District Measure H needed 55% and it got a healthy 65%. So it appears the Community Colleges will get the funding they asked for.

The end. Until 2016.