Yes On 40, No On 41 And 42

I'm putting up this voting record post slightly later than usual for me. For the first time in the decade-plus I've been voting by mail in California, I did not receive my mailed ballot. More concerningly, it sounds like nobody else on my street did, either. It's weird! We aren't sure if there was a mixup at the post office, or if someone removed ballots from mailboxes or what. Fortunately it was quick and easy for me to request a new ballot, and I still got it in plenty of time to vote early, but still. Weird.

 

As I'm sure is the case for many voters, for high-profile races I've known for a while how I plan to vote, particularly so for our Top Two November elections with winnowed state and federal candidates. But for lower-profile races and measures, I need to do some additional research to decide. For me this often involves looking to trusted sources for endorsements: a combination of mainstream media outlets, established politicians I admire, political groups that share my values, etc.

This year I found a fantastic resource for this: bayballot.com. This open-source and non-partisan site lists every single item on the ballot and, for each race and measure, gives a high-level summary of the total number of endorsements for and against the item. You can drill down into each one to see exactly what groups/outlets/etc. supported or opposed it, along with brief snippets explaining their reasons and links to the original editorial/endorsement. I found this to be incredibly valuable: I could quickly see where there was universal consensus, where all of "my guys" agreed with something, and where there were split opinions, and then go off and read those third-party analyses. What once required a half-dozen open browser tabs has become a lot smoother and more comprehensive. You can even select or unselect which of the 100+ registered sources to feed into the site, such as hiding labor union endorsements if you are anti-union, or only selecting Republican or Democratic county parties.

I do have to say that, for the 20+ years I've been voting in California, the single best indicator for me is the Howard Jarvis Tax Foundation: 100% of the time, whenever they make a recommendation, I will always pick the opposite.

Anyways, here is how I voted! 

Governor: Xavier Becerra

Lt. Governor: Fiona Ma

Secretary of State: Shirley M. Weber

Controller: Malia M. Cohen

Treasurer: Eleni Kounalakis

Attorney General: Rob Bonta! :-D

Insurance Commissioner: Ben Allen

I wish there were more legitimately interesting top-two races in November. My reasoning from the primary still holds. 

State Board of Equalization 2nd District: Sally J. Lieber

US Representative 12th Congressional District: Lateefah Simon

State Assembly 18th District: Mia Bonta

Like A Million Justices: "Yes" for all 

State Superintendent of Public Instruction: Richard Barrera

Peralta Community College District Trustee, Area 5: Cindi Reiss

AC Transit District Director, Ward 3: Adriana Valencia

Proposition 1 - Housing Bonds: No

Proposition 2 - Increase Rainy Day Fund: Yes

Proposition 3 - Maintain extra high-income tax for schools and health care: Yes

Proposition 4 - Repeal prohibition against publicly funded elections: Yes

Proposition 5 - Change recall elections: Yes

Proposition 37 - Loans for new home buyers: No

Proposition 38 - Medical research bonds: No

Proposition 39 - Voter ID requirement: No

Proposition 40 - Billionaire Tax: YES

Proposition 41 - Sneakily undo Prop 40: NO

Proposition 42 - Sneakily undo Prop 40: NO

Proposition 43 - Require 2/3 approval for local taxes: NO

Proposition 44 - Requires community health clinics to spend 90% of revenue on program services: No

Proposition 45 - Reform CEQA: No

This was one I had to do a fair amount of reading on. CEQA is a well-intentioned but antiquated law that currently is mostly used by wealthy landowners to block new housing, bike lanes, mass transit and other beneficial projects. I was initially inclined to vote "Yes" on this as it seems to streamline some CEQA approvals by limiting the review time. After some more reading, though, I landed on "No". The state legislature recently made some low-profile amendments to the law that already improve CEQA for new housing construction and transit. This proposition specifically excludes High Speed Rail from expedited CEQA reviews, so the likely impact would be less review for e.g. freeway widening projects, without helping the issues that have been most harmed by CEQA.

Measure RTM - Fund transit: Yes

Measure EE - Amend Oakland city governance: Yes

Measure FF - Close loophole on transfer taxes: Yes

Mayor: Barbara Lee 1st, none others ranked

City Council District 2: Charlene Wang 1st, Nate Adams 2nd

I was a little torn on this. Charlene Wang has been in office for less than a full term, and seems to be doing well so far. I do really admire the work the East Bay DSA is doing, and generally believe that districts which can support openly socialist candidates should elect them. I ended up voting for Wang, but it would be exciting if Adams wins.

City Auditor: Michael C. Houston

School Director District 2: Jennifer Brouhard 1st, Arielle Fleisher 2nd

That's it! I was going to drop off my ballot in a drop box, but that felt Inconvenient, so I just dropped it in the mail today. Hopefully it has a more successful journey back than it did to me!

Primary Colors

New year, new county, new ballot!

This was an interesting one, with a high-profile wide-open governor's race in the top spot, and lots of lower-profile positions that I needed to educate myself on. While details vary, I find that my California November ballots generally have very easy lesser-of-two-evils or good-versus-bad choices, while the spring primary can be a lot more fraught, often with my heart and mind tugged in opposing directions. While researching, I also noticed that these days I have fewer trusted sources for endorsements. When I first moved out to California my first stop for election guidance was usually the major newspapers' editorial boards; but these days all media has been corporatized and homogenized, and I usually don't even think to check them, outside of very local minor races.

With no further ado, here's how I'm casting my ballot!

Governor: Tom Steyer (!!!!)

I know, I'm at least as shocked as you are. I came into this election with a strong preference for Katie Porter, who built a fantastic track record in Congress taking on evil megacorps and championing the smallfolk. But I've been very soured by her embrace of "slopulism" in this race, with a good-headline-but-terrible-policy promise to eliminate all income taxes under $100k of income. I could write a whole blog post on this, but it's so terrible on multiple levels. Fundamentally we need to return to an ethos of collective vision, us as a society investing in our nation, creating a civil state that works for us. Moving to an oligarchal system that's exclusively funded by the wealthy will alienate the majority of citizens and place the real power in the hands of the elites who Porter has traditionally questioned.

I can't believe I'm voting for a billionaire, but Steyer is the best of the major contenders. I was moved by the support from Rebecca Solnit and the California DSA (!!!).

Lieutenant Governor: Oliver Ma

Secretary of State: Shirley Weber

Controller: Malia Cohen

Treasurer: Anna Caballero

Attorney General: Rob Bonta

Bonta is probably my favorite person in California politics at the moment. I'm a little surprised he's staying in this position instead of angling for something else, but he's been doing fantastic work, and I'll enjoy seeing him continue, especially in these critical coming years.

Insurance Commissioner: Ben Allen

California's insurance market is another thing that could merit an entire blog post. This is a pretty wide-open race, I feel the most optimistic about Allen in actually navigating the difficult road ahead of us.

Insurance Commissioner is also such a weird race. I think people get elected by denigrating and attacking insurance companies, but when in office the most important job is working productively with them.

State Board of Equalization 2nd District: Sally Lieber

Sally's great!

12th Congressional District: Lateefah Simon

18th Assembly District: Mia Bonta

Superior Court Judge Office #13: Cabral Bonner

Superior Court Judge Office #19: Selia Warren

State Superintendent of Public Instruction: Nichelle Henderson

County Superintendent of Schools: Alysse Castro (uncontested)

District Attorney: Ursula Dickson

Measure A (Peralta community college property tax): Yes

Oakland Measure C (tax exemption for small businesses): Yes

I'm very conflicted on this one! It feels bad to hand out tax cuts while the city struggles with a budget deficit. Every reputable source I could find is endorsing this, so I'll jump on board.

Oakland Measure D (modernize an obscure and mostly defunct retirement system): Yes

Oakland Measure E (property tax): Yes

So, that's that! I hope that the angst around the governor's race this year finally convinces California to adopt ranked-choice instant-runoff voting at the state level. The Top Two primary system has served us pretty well in the last couple of decades, but we've entered a phase now where it's cynically manipulated by leading Democrats to boost Republicans to ease their own elections. The now-fading specter of an all-Republican general election race for Governor will hopefully be enough of a warning call for the state and the party to fix this and get us a more democratic system that lets people vote their conscience instead of keeping an eye on strategy.

Democracy (Yeah You Know Me)

As usual, the 2024 California ballot is a long one! I usually know out the gate how I'll be voting in the political races, but the propositions and measures usually take a bit more research. For future reference, here is how I am casting my vote!

President and Vice President: Kamala D. Harris and Tim Walz

Senator: Adam B. Schiff (ugh)

Senator Again For Some Reason: Adam B. Schiff (still ugh)

US Representative: Kevin Mullin

State Senator: Josh Becker

Assembly Member: Diane Papan

San Mateo County Board of Education: Maurice Goodman

Proposition 2 (bonds for schools): Yes

Proposition 3 (constitutional right to gay marriage): Yes

Proposition 4 (bonds for water projects): Yes

Proposition 5 (lowers required local votes for housing bonds to 55%): Yes

Proposition 6 (abolish forced labor in prisons): Yes

Proposition 32 (raise minimum wage): Yes

Proposition 33 (allows local rent control): Yes

Proposition 34 (revenge for Prop 33): No

Proposition 35 (medi-cal funding): No (I actually like what this would do, but it should be handled by the legislature, not a proposition)

Proposition 36 (repeal Prop 47, re-felonize most thefts): No

Measure J (Millbrae elementary school bond funding): Yes

Measure FF (Expand city council term limits from 2 consecutive to 3 consecutive): No

I have increasingly mixed feelings on our top-two primary/election system. I feel like early on it was really effective for shaking up ineffective but entrenched Democratic incumbents, and let to much more dynamic and competitive elections. In recent years, though, at least at the statewide level, the (usually centrist) Democrats have come up with an effective playbook of elevating marginal Republican candidates who can't win in a general election, so they can coast to an easy victory instead of competing against another Democrat who has a shot. The Harris/Sanchez and Feinstein/DeLeon races were actually interesting, while Schiff/Garvey is not. I increasingly think that ranked-choice with instant runoff is the way to go.

For better or worse, the fall elections can be simplified quite a bit thanks to candidates running unopposed in the first round or (for some races) a candidate winning by a huge margin and skipping the "runoff". Just a reminder to vote in every election to make sure that your vote actually counts, and to see the candidate(s) you'd like to see!

I'm taking a bit of a chill-pill in this election on my standard "vote No on Bonds" principle. I don't really have a great reason for that, more just a general feeling that these are worthy enough projects to overcome my dislike of bonds.

I am feeling a slight amount of relief at casting my vote early, but obviously still have plenty of angst to spare between now and the election. Living in California and the Bay Area, there aren't many competitive races or measures to focus on. If you're like me and have some extra bucks that you'd like to send to a good political cause, I recently started using Oath. This gives a good way to find down-ballot races throughout the country, races that are spending thousands instead of millions of dollars and where your donations can make an outsized impact. They have a pretty nice interface where you can filter by causes you're most passionate about (like climate change, gun safety, mental health, etc.) and specific states. You can donate to specific candidates, which I generally like more than giving to committees and organizations. (The great thing about Oath is that they only focus on competitive elections, so you aren't tempted to waste your money on high-profile but hopeless challengers to, like, Mitch McConnell or Marjorie Taylor Green.) And unlike a lot of other platforms, Oath doesn't share your email address with the candidates, which helps cut down on inbox spam.

So, yeah! I have lots of Thoughts and Feelings about this election, but probably nothing that would surprise long-term readers, so I may or may not write that up in a separate post. I hope everyone stays safe & practices good self-care during this intense time!

Vote This Way

As is tradition, here are the items on the ballot and how I will be voting for them!

 

President of the United States: Joseph R. Biden Jr.

County Committee: James Hsu Coleman, Jess Hudson, Sandra Lang, David Burruto

United States Senator Take 1: Katie Porter

United States Senator Take 2: Katie Porter

U. S. Representative: Kevin Mullin

State Senator: Josh Becker

State Assembly: Diane Papan

Judge of Superior Court: Sarah Burdick

County Board of Supervisors: Jackie Speier

Proposition 1: Yes

Senator is probably the most challenging item for me. My heart is truly torn between Barbara Lee, who has been a hero of mine for decades, and Katie Porter, one of my favorite current members of Congress. I had been assuming that one of them would make it to the November election, but it currently looks like Steve Garvey may make the cut (as Schiff follows Newsom's lead in elevating a Republican). Porter seems to have the better chance of advancing, so I Choose Her. I love the idea of doubling the Elizabeth Warren Caucus in the Senate.

I'm also a little torn on Proposition 1. Long-time readers will remember that, when in doubt, I have two rules of thumb when it comes to propositions. Vote "Yes" on taxes and "No" on bonds; and vote "Yes" on legislature-initiated propositions and "No" on voter-initiated propositions. Well, this one is a legislature-initiated bond. As with every bond we ever vote on, it's for a good cause: this time, treating mental illness. And as with all of these bonds, it will be funded by paying wealthy people tax-free interest for decades to come, taxing the working poor and transferring wealth up the chain. Literally everybody I can find has endorsed it, so I'll hold my nose and vote "Yes" while I continue to sputter about the irresponsibility of relying on bonds to fund continuing programs.

Primary Color

I have a backlog of half-written posts waiting to be published, mostly on hold because I'm getting deeply wrapped up in Europa Universalis IV. There is a time-sensitive thing coming up, though: the primary election here in California! As usual, here's my personal take on each race and measure. I'm skipping over uncontested races.

 

I'm honestly not very passionate about a lot of these offices, so there's less color commentary here than normal. But that doesn't mean it's unimportant! In local and county races, candidates can win outright with 50%+ in the primary, not even appearing on the more-popular November ballot. The smaller turnout in the primary also means your vote counts for more and has a bigger impact.

Senator: Alex Padilla

Senator Again For Some Reason: Alex Padilla

15th Congressional District: Kevin Mullin

21st Assembly District: James Hsuchen Coleman

Superintendent of Public Instruction: Tony K. Thurmond

Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder: Mark Church

Sheriff: Christina Corpus

Measure E: Yes. (Even though I continue to strongly believe that we should be raising taxes rather than issuing bonds to support public services.)

Governor: Gavin Newsom

Lieutenant Governor: Eleni Kounalakis

Secretary of State: Shirley N. Weber

Controller: Malia M. Cohen

Treasurer: Fiona Ma

Attorney General: Rob Bonta

Insurance Commissioner: Ricardo Lara

Member, State Board of Equalization, 2nd District: Sally J. Lieber

How To Vote

California obviously has a lot of challenges right now, but I still love this state and am glad and proud to be a Californian. One of the many virtues of this state is its robust vote-by-mail system. Like many states west of the Rocky Mountains, VBM is normalized and heavily practiced here, which is always good for democracy in general (higher participation, easier access to information) and is particularly good in a pandemic year.

This is "the big election", the Presidential year when turnout numbers will be highest and interest the strongest; but this ballot is actually quite a bit shorter than in previous years. Statewide California offices are filled in midterm elections, and while we do have a lot of propositions there aren't as many as from other years. Still, there's a lot of important stuff in there. And, without further ado, here is how I will vote!

PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT

Joseph R. Biden and Kamala D. Harris. Biden was not my first choice in the primary, but the choice here is really clear. A man with clear empathy and compassion in the office will be a balm after the last four years. I've been a decades-long admirer of Harris, and it's been great seeing her grow in stature on the national stage. I think she'll be up for the job she has to do.

U. S. REPRESENTATIVE

Jackie Speier

STATE SENATOR

Josh Becker

STATE ASSEMBLY

Kevin Mullen

SAN MATEO BOARD OF EDUCATION

Rod Hsiao

SAN MATEO COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Maurice Goodman. It's a shame that Goodman and Mandelkern were forced into the same district, I would have happily supported either, but Goodman gets my nod.

SAN MATEO HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT

Greg Land and Ligia Andrade Zuniga

CITY COUNCIL OF MILLBRAE

Ann Schneider, Anders Fung, You You Xue

PROP 14: STEM CELL BONDS.

No. One of my general rules of thumb is to vote "Yes" on taxes and "No" on bonds. Taxes take money from everyone, often particularly the wealthy, to fund services for everyone. Bonds use the tax code to transfer money from the working class to the investing class. If this research is truly a priority for the state, we should budget it through the General Fund.

 

 

PROP 15: MAKE BUSINESSES PAY FAIRER PROPERTY TAX

Yes. I would honestly prefer a clean repeal of Prop 13, and worry a little that this measure will make future reforms to the property tax harder. Still, it's a massive improvement on the status quo, and I'd rather succeed in passing Prop 15 than fail in repealing Prop 13. 

PROP 16: ALLOW DIVERSITY HIRES IN PUBLIC JOBS

Yes. My other general rule of thumb on ballot initiatives is, when in doubt, I tend to vote in favor of initiatives that were placed on the ballot by the legislature, and against initiatives that were placed by voter signatures. One thing that I really like about this year's official voter information guide is that it also lists how many people voted "Aye" and "Nay" in the Assembly and Senate; when there's an overwhelming majority in favor of something, it increases my confidence that it's a good idea. (Because of our reckless over-use of constitutional amendments in the past, tons of basic things can't be done by the legislature, so they often need to kick things back to the voters to approve.) Anyways: This proposition makes sense, will align the public sector more with how the private sector has been working, and should help make things better!

PROP 17: RESTORE VOTING RIGHTS AFTER LEAVING PRISON

Yes.

PROP 18: ALLOW NEARLY-18-YEAR-OLDS TO VOTE IN PRIMARIES

Yes.

PROP 19: PROPERTY TAX CHANGES

Yes. This seems to be two mostly unrelated changes smooshed together into one measure. Letting seniors move to another house and keep their old property tax bill should be a good change all around: it lets seniors afford to make sensible changes like downsizing, should create some more liquidity in the infamously sluggish California real estate market, and generally promote the kind of turnover we see in the rest of the country. (But again: Just repeal Prop 13!) The more important thing is the back half, though, which closes a gross loophole that lets the wealthy pass massive assets along tax-free for all future generations. Particularly after reading Piketty, I'm all on board for breaking up permanent wealth.

PROP 20: RESTRICT PAROLE FOR SOME NON-VIOLENT OFFENSES

No.

PROP 21: ALLOW RENT CONTROL

Yes. See my vote for Prop 10 two years ago. I'm more unambiguously in favor now, partly because it seems likely we will see more natural decreases in rent prices in CA over the coming years (due to environmental and other factors), and also because I'm more radicalized now on the social utility of limiting profits.

PROP 22: EXEMPT UBER AND LYFT FROM PAYING EMPLOYEE BENEFITS

Strong no. Crap like this has made me start to think that, when private companies pay hundreds of millions of dollars to pass constitutional amendments to benefit their bottom line (see also: every insurance-related initiative you've ever voted on), they should have to match that amount dollar-for-dollar into funding our schools or another worthy endeavors. Let's make that an initiative! Uber and all of its ilk who built their entire business models on evading taxation should get bent.

PROP 23: INCREASE DIALYSIS CLINIC REQUIREMENTS

Yes. Though, to be fair, this is kind of like Prop 22 but funded by unions instead of private companies. Still, it's for a better cause.

PROP 24: CHANGE CONSUMER PRIVACY LAWS

No.

PROP 25: REPLACE MONEY BAIL WITH RISK-BASED BAIL

Yes.

MEASURE RR: SAVE CALTRAIN

Yes. I have a bad feeling about this one, though. It's been in the works for a while, and the timing turned out terrible, asking voters to approve it when transit ridership is at a (pandemic-induced) decades-long low. But I've been pleasantly surprised in the past at locals stepping up to support public transit, and hope to be surprised again!

 

Oh, and I almost forget: Let's grade my performance from the primary!

Honestly, not much there to react to. I still think Warren would be a better nominee and President, but I also am getting increasingly excited by the prospect of her writing legislation in a trifecta federal government. Imagining her as the chairwoman of the Senate Banking Committee, crafting bank regulations, makes me giddy. She'd also be a fantastic Attorney General to revive the agency's moribund antitrust enforcement wing.

I don't pay as much attention as I should to my state representatives, but it was really cool to see that Kevin Mullen is responsible for two propositions on the ballot: 19, which should restore more sanity to our housing tax system, and 18, which extends the franchise to younger voters.

That's it for this election! I am so exhausted by politics of the last four years. A big part of me is looking forward to, hopefully, things being calmer going forward. But, of course, that isn't how politics works. We'll still need to deal with the root causes of all the problems we're facing. The endless fires are a result of global climate change. Massive inequalities are a result of our unfair tax system. The pandemic is definitely not helped by our terrible private health care system. The ongoing and consequence-free state murder of black citizens is a result of institutionalized racism. All these, and many more, problems will require big, ambitious, hard changes with lots of money and influence supporting the status quo. No matter who or what wins at every level, we'll need to keep on pressure and keep pushing to ensure that necessary changes happen. The good news is, the new crop of people should be vastly more receptive to such pressure than the previous set.

Political Power Grows Out Of The Barrel Of A Blog

Hey-hey, it's 2020 let's vote! As usual California is making it easy to do so, with an all-vote-by-mail primary. There's a lot of attention on this election: it's a big presidential one with a competitive Democratic primary, and, unlike many other years, California is participating in Super Tuesday, so our votes may actually matter for once.

I am a little curious about how this race will play out. Many of the candidates printed on my ballot have already officially dropped out of the race, and many Californians will vote before results in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina (and, heck, maybe even Iowa!) are known. Depending on how early folks mail in their ballots, people who have dropped out and endorsed other candidates may still end up with a not-insignificant number of votes. And of course California's generous election rules (ballots only need to be postmarked by Election Day and will still count even if received a week later) may make it hard for people to determine who "won" California.

But, that's what makes this all exciting!

Without further ado, here's who I'm voting for.

President: Elizabeth Warren

I've been kind of obsessing over this race for years; but filling out this ballot is a gentle reminder that my vote in other races matters far more. More than five million California Democrats will be weighing in on who should lead our country in Washington, DC; just a few thousand will be deciding who should set the policies that impact our daily lives far closer to home.

I'll cheerfully support any nominee to come out of the primary heading into the general election. I think that Bernie Sanders has it right: we need to stop thinking of politics as something that happens once every four years. Instead, we need a continually engaged public movement applying constant pressure through the political system in order to achieve meaningful change. The good news is that, while some candidates will head into that office with better policies than others, every one of them will be vastly more receptive to public pressure to do the right things. We'll just need to work harder on some of them than others... but that's what democracy is all about, and we need to recognize that the ball is in our court.

Country Committee: Nick Akers, Ashleigh Evans, Sandra Lang, and David Burruto

14th Congressional District: Jackie Speier

I've been increasingly impressed at her performance in recent years. The Bay Area has a stellar congressional delegation, and Speier doesn't seem as visible as members like Zoe Lofgren, Anna Eshoo, Eric Swalwell, Ro Khanna, Barbara Lee or Nancy Pelosi. But Jackie has been a great voice in the #MeToo era, and I'm proud to have her representing me on Capitol Hill.

13th Senate District: Sally Lieber

An actual competitive race for once! I spent longer researching this than all other items put together (though still just a fraction of the attention I've paid to the presidential race, of course!). There are lot of good options here. I'm voting for Sally Lieber, who has a bold vision that includes implementing a single-payer healthcare system in California. She has previously served in the Assembly and delivered big wins like a minimum-wage increase, so I think she'll be able to hit the ground running in the state Senate. And it's hella cool that she's picked up the local DSA endorsement!

22nd Assembly District: Kevin Mullin

1st District Board of Supervisors: Dave Pine

Prop 13 ($15B bonds for school construction): No

Ever since reading Capital in the 21st Century I've grown even more bearish on the government borrowing money to fund projects: it accelerates inequality by taxing the population and paying interest to the already-wealthy people buying muni bonds. We badly need to return to a system where we (gasp) tax ourselves and (gasp!) spend the money on things that need to be done. Unfortunately, California's past idiocy has made the more frugal and moral tax-and-spend vastly more difficult than the wasteful and immoral borrow-and-spend. Still, we need to stop this sometime, and I'm starting now.

Measure L ($385M bonds for school upgrades): No

See above. We need to repeal all of Prop 13, not least the asinine requirement for a 2/3 vote for local taxes. Bonds are Bad, Taxes are Terrific!

Now, let's grade me on how well I voted last time:

I grudgingly approve of the job Gavan Newsom is doing. I'll probably never admire him the same way I did Jerry Brown, but he's been more forceful than his predecessor on some important issues. I'm particularly excited by the pressure he's currently applying to PG&E, and am dreaming of a world where the people literally take back their power.

Xavier Becerra is killing it, too. Most of the headlines related to him are the "California Sues Trump!!" variety, but he's no showboat, and is working hard on local issues and implementations of law. I recently heard a great interview about how his office is gearing up to crack down on CCPA violations, and he's coming out swinging against Uber and Postmates in defense of AB 5. He's also using his office to slow or block the controversial selling of the .org top-level domain registry to a greedy private equity firm. More of this, please!

On a more sour note, I'm regretting my support of Feinstein over Kevin de Leon. She isn't terrible, but she's far from the best our state has to offer. I am glad to have Kamala Harris representing us, and look forward to a newer, more responsive generation of leadership.

I'm thrilled that Prop 6 failed! I think that really helps show how much smarter and better Californians are today than they were in the 70s: There was literally a ballot measure that asked "Do you want to lower your taxes?" and people voted "No" en masse. It gives me enormous hope for the future.

The Measure II failure kills me. 62% of residents voted to support it, and it still failed! We need to repeal Prop 13 yesterday. It is good to see that the city council is still moving forward and identifying funding, but geez, this dumb state.

And I'm correspondingly thrilled that Measure W passed. It needed 66.67%, and got 66.87%! This dumb state, but this great county, I'm proud of you. I've already seen first-hand some of the great improvements this has enabled: electric buses, the return of the ECR Rapid express service, and the return of the airport shuttle. Those last two services were eliminated during the 2008 recession, which blew up the county's asinine insistence on funding transportation solely through their general revenue services (see also: their shameful treatment of BART). As noted before on this blog, in an ideal world I would prefer progressive funding over a regressive sales tax, but sales tax revenues are far more predictable and less volatile than those based on Silicon Valley profit-sharing, and until we have a better system for smoothing out the spending from progressive income (or wealth!) taxes over many years, I'm glad that we'll have a solid sales tax to rely on.

That's that! On the whole I feel pretty happy with how things turned out in 2018, let's keep this party going!