For voters, the vacation is over. Because there were relatively
few seriously contested intra-party primary elections for seats in
Congress and the state Legislature, most voters only had one issue
to consider when they went to the polls or marked their absentee
ballots this month.
For voters, the vacation is over. Because there were relatively few seriously contested intra-party primary elections for seats in Congress and the state Legislature, most voters only had one issue to consider when they went to the polls or marked their absentee ballots this month.
But ballots will be much longer in the last of this year’s three statewide elections, with the people directly deciding at least half a dozen critical issues.
There were actually three choices on the eminent domain issue that was the only proposition subject this time, and for a rare change, Californians did not choose the most radical solution. Maybe that’s because most property owners do not feel government is very likely to want their homes or buildings.
So they voted down Proposition 98, which would have ended government’s right to take or affect use of private property for any but the most critical public purposes. This measure aimed not only to stymie the frequent practice of cities or counties declaring areas “blighted,” then buying up houses and buildings in them and letting developers turn the entire area into a shopping mall, sports arena or office park.
Instead, they passed the much milder Proposition 99, which allows taking – for fair market value – of all private property except owner-occupied homes and condominiums.
That was in marked contrast to what happened, for instance, with the property tax-cutting Proposition 13 in 1978, when voters could have chosen instead the much milder Proposition 8, also a property tax limit measure. Instead, they opted not only to cut property taxes, but impose great difficulties on all future proposed tax increases. The more radical choice prevailed then because property taxes were rising so fast that hundreds of thousands of Californians were at risk of being taxed right out of their homes.
There will be no compromises like either the failed Proposition 8 or the successful Proposition 99 the next time voters head to the polls.
November’s ballots will feature choice after choice after choice. Should same-sex couples be allowed to marry? Should minor children be forced into waiting periods and parental notification before getting abortions?
Should the state mandate that farm animals like veal calves, egg-laying chickens and dairy cows get larger spaces, even if it means far higher food prices?
Should the current target for California utilities of producing 20 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020 be doubled to 40 percent, even if that leads to higher power charges?
Should state legislators be stripped of their current redistricting power, which allows them to draw new boundaries for their own districts every decade and thus pretty much precludes many competitive races for seats in the Legislature?
Should the cash-strapped state build a high-speed rail system linking San Diego, Los Angeles and the Sacramento and San Francisco Bay areas, even if it costs many billions of dollars?
Should California build vast new water storage facilities at a cost of more than 11 billion borrowed dollars, even though global warming makes it uncertain how much water will be available to fill any new reservoirs?
Should the state subsidize buyers of electric- and hydrogen-powered cars to the tune of 5 billion more borrowed dollars, some of which could go toward training students in renewable energy technologies for vehicles?
Those are only some of the dizzying array of questions that either have already qualified for up-or-down votes in November or appear likely to.
The vast panoply of questions offers no easy-out compromises like the one voters just opted for on eminent domain. In each case, they will have to vote yes or no, and nothing in between. Suppose, for example, you want more water storage, just not $11 billion worth. You’d be unsatisfied with either a yes or no vote. Should you vote up or down, then, on the water-supply initiative, sponsored by the state Chamber of Commerce? No one can tell you the answer to that; it’s a purely individual choice.
Which means the November ballot, with its main focus on the presidential race, will also be a classic exercise in direct lawmaking by the people. To make this work, every voter will need to study carefully the voter-information pamphlets that will arrive in mailboxes sometime in October. Will they?
No one knows, but if they don’t and the eventual choices seem like a confused jumble, there will be heavy new ammunition for skeptics who rise up every few years to oppose the entire idea of ballot initiatives and the pure democracy they create.
