2022 Voting Guide

If you're not in California, ignore this post

Alfred Twu is really cute? He has a nice smile and an excellent sense of fashion? I know I should not vote for people based on whether they are cute but gosh.

[I would like to thank Clara, Scott, and everyone who enjoys arguing on Discord, whom I ripped off whose research influenced my own.]

Propositions

Proposition 1: Protects contraceptive access and abortion as a constitutional right in the state of California. Abortion is not in any serious threat as a constitutional right in California, but states do shift demographics over time. And I think reproductive freedom is one of those basic rights that actually should be protected in a state constitution. Voter guide says that it would allow abortions up to the moment of birth, which frankly I’m fine with—third-trimester abortions are rare tragedies and I’m happy to protect the individual’s right to choose in those cases. YES.

Proposition 26 and 27: Both allow sports gambling in the state of California, linked to Native American tribes. 26 allows sports betting at tribal casinos and a few racetracks, while 27 allows gambling companies to pay a tribe for a license to do online/mobile gambling throughout the state. I am generally inclined to let people do what they want, but I am concerned that a lot of people ruin their lives through gambling. Normally, I’d suggest legalizing it and then altering the policy if it turns out to be terrible, but not in the form of an extremely difficult to reverse constitutional amendment. Since a previous constitutional amendment banned gambling, we don’t have another choice, but I’m still mad about it. Both of these are written by gambling companies, and as you might expect are not “gambling is legal subject to regulation from the legislature” but instead “you have to pay a Native American tribe with gambling rights a hundred million dollars in order to run a gambling website, but you can only gamble about sports, and there’s a tax and the money can only go to homelessness whether or not the money would be better spent somewhere else, and none of this applies when Mercury is in retrograde in which case all laws are repealed for 24 hours.” That is not what a constitution is for. I will reconsider voting “yes” if I get a constitutional amendment that at least was written by the legislature. NO.

Proposition 28: Expands education budget by 1% which must be spent on art and music. I think that the state legislature and school districts should make budgeting decisions based on local conditions and not be locked in to spending money on art and music whether or not this makes any sense. Also, art and music are great but I think my local school district should maybe be focusing on causing its students to reliably be literate. NO.

Proposition 29: This spooky season, the dialysis proposition rises from the grave, its decaying arms extended, to say “Kiiiiiiidneys! Kiiiiiiiiidneeeeeeys!” Jesus fucking Christ give up already. NO.

Proposition 30: Raises the income tax to fund zero-emissions vehicles. Lyft is pushing heavily for Prop 30. It is basically a huge giveaway for rideshare companies, because the subsidies will apply disproportionately to people who drive for a living and Lyft is counting on the subsidies to fund its California-mandated shift to electric vehicles. I get the argument that it is unfair for the state of California to do unfunded mandates on random companies but constitutionally-mandated corporate welfare is not the solution. NO.

Proposition 31: The normal don’t-vote-for-propositions rules don’t apply to 31, because it’s not a constitutional amendment, it’s a veto referendum (i.e. it’s a vote to repeal a law the legislature passed). 31 bans flavored tobacco This has been the subject of a heated debate among the my-friends-who-like-arguing-about-California-politics-on-Discord community. A lot of vapes are flavored, so 31 potentially disproportionately harms vapes—a safer method of consuming nicotine. On the other hand, flavored tobacco is also quite popular, and it might make smoking less appealing. Overall, I’m going with my default in favor of things the legislature wants. YES.

Statewide Offices

Governor: Gavin Newsom is a strong pro-YIMBY advocate. I’m a particular fan of AB2011, which allows affordable housing to be built by right in commercially zoned districts. NEWSOM.

Lieutenant Governor: Okay sure Elena Kounalakis is fine whatever. KOUNALAKIS.

Senator: My vote doesn’t matter because we’re a solid blue state, but I really really want Democrats to keep the Senate because the Republicans’ national policies are bad for the country. And anyway his opponent is a Trumpist. PADILLA.

Secretary of State: The Secretary of State oversees elections. Only the Democrat appears to understand that her job, as the secretary of state, is to make sure the election is fair and everyone gets to vote, and not to make sure that people she likes win. She also refused to bend rules in Newsom’s favor during the recall election, which gives her my vote. WEBER.

Controller. Lanhee Chen is a moderate, Never Trump Republican with a lot of relevant experience. He teaches public policy at Stanford University and served in the Obama administration. The basic argument in favor of Chen is that California keeps spending an enormous amount of money on things to no obvious result. The controller’s job is to audit the state’s finances and make sure that money is being used efficiently. His opponent, Malia Cohen, is connected to the Democratic Party establishment and isn’t going to be the independent voice we want to hold the government accountable. CHEN.

Insurance Commissioner. HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. Ricardo Lara, the Democrat, took bribes. Robert Howell doesn’t know anything about insurance. “Not being corrupt” is a somewhat less important qualification for insurance commissioner than for treasurer, but also Lara’s corruption is worse. HOWELL.

Treasurer. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS. Fiona Ma sexually harassed a subordinate and mismanaged funds to her own benefit. Jack Guerrero is a Trumpist Stop-the-Steal Republican. I think “not being corrupt” is a really basic qualification for the job of fucking treasurer. Ma is going to win anyway, so I’m casting a vote to reduce her margin so that she will realize that her decisions are bad and she should feel bad. GUERRERO.

Attorney General. Rob Bonta has been doing a good job on the rather surprising “make sure that cities build as much housing as they’re supposed to” part of his job. BONTA.

Superintendent of Public Instruction. HATE. HATE. Lance Ray Christensen is concerned about ‘‘‘‘critical race theory’’’’ and ‘‘‘‘wokeness’’’’ in schools. However, Christensen is also strongly pro-phonics and against California’s disastrous reform of math education. I care most about my children learning to read and do math, so I’m voting for Christensen, but I am so mad about it. CHRISTENSEN.

Oakland (Alameda County)

Representative.As always, I am proud to vote for Barbara Lee, the only person in Congress who opposed the Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001 and one of the early supporters of PEPFAR. LEE.

Assemblyperson. Buffy Wicks authored AB2011, aka The Bill That Might Finally Fix The Housing Crisis. WICKS.

District Attorney. Pamela Price is a civil rights attorney with no experience in the prosecutor’s office. Prosecutors’ offices tend to have a terrible internal culture, and I like bringing in someone from outside. I am a fan of her plan to evaluate prosecutors on metrics other than number of convictions. PRICE.

AC Transit Director-At-Large. In this house we stan Alfred Twu. He creates helpful visualizations about state ballot propositions. He created Bay Area Regional Planner, an educational board game that explains why it’s so difficult to build housing the Bay Area. He makes art about urban planning. He is a long-time transit advocate and I really hope he wins! TWU.

Mayor. HATE. Less because of the people involved and more because it’s ten-person ranked-choice voting. Two of the mayoral candidates have been recently arrested for pointing guns at people; in one case the person was a baby. Oakland! Endorsements:

• Loren Taylor is endorsed by London Breed (SF’s mayor), Libby Schaaf (Oakland’s mayor), YIMBY action, and our local papers. He supports hiring more police officers and reforming police conduct.

• Treva Reid is in a vote-sharing pact with Taylor; people who support Taylor should put her second. So I’m doing so.

• Gregory Hodge is boring and unobjectionable and does not seem to have pointed guns at anyone.

• Some of my friends said that Sheng Thao seemed smart, so sure whatever.

• For the fifth slot, I am going to randomly select from the people who haven’t been arrested for pointing guns at people lately.

• Never mind I am fine with first-past-the-post now.

Measures

Measure D. Lets people in rural areas build more non-residential buildings on their land. Apparently we have rural areas in Alameda County? I am confused why people can’t just build as many stables as they like on their own rural land, which presumably exists in some kind of parallel dimension only accessible when the veil between worlds is thin. But being able to build stables on 3.5% of your land is an improvement on being able to built it on 1% of your land. YES.

Measure H. Renews a tax which funds high schoolers taking classes in and interning in various careers. I think that we should be teaching teenagers vocational skills, helping them plan careers, and creating alternatives to college, so I support this program. YES.

Measure Q. 13,000 new public housing units. YES.

Measure R. Edits the city charter to be gender-neutral. Sure, why not. YES.

Measure S. Non-citizen parents of students in Oakland schools can vote for the school board. YES.

Measure T. Creates a progressive business tax structure in Oakland. I am concerned that this will cause businesses—especially large chains—to move away from Oakland. I already have to walk fifteen minutes if I want to pick up something from the grocery store. NO.

Measure U. Clara did some noble work in researching whether the last bond to fund better roads actually caused us to have better roads. Her conclusion was that they probably didn’t (although the data really isn’t there—does someone want to start a nonprofit that tracks this stuff?). The roads, much like a sailboat, are a hole in the earth into which we pour money and which never manages to become a reasonable form of transportation. NO.

Measure V. I am unthrilled by a lot of the expanded eviction protections (“can’t evict teachers during the school year,” really?). But it’s incredibly stupid that just-cause eviction protections only apply to buildings built before 1995. Measure V fixes this stupid rule, so that they will apply to buildings built more than ten years ago. YES.

Measure W. Everyone gets $100 that they can donate to local candidates. I am skeptical that people know enough about local candidates to be able to use this money well. Have you considered using this money on the ROADS. NO.

Measure X. Major, mostly-good reforms to Oakland’s government system. YES.

Measure Y. If I am going to be paying taxes for the Oakland Zoo, then the Oakland Zoo should give me free admission. NO.