Preview of California’s Initiative Frenzy

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California’s presidential electors are a foregone conclusion. Likewise, the state’s decision on a U.S. Senate race is not even worth pondering. On statewide races, Californians tend to vote around 60 percent to 40 percent for the Democratic candidate. Several congressional races this year are close, and Republicans are polling fairly well in some Southern California districts, which could help determine which party controls the House of Representatives.

As usual, the big issue here centers on statewide initiatives. California has a boisterous system of direct democracy. Conservatives of a certain philosophical bent distrust such majoritarianism given that the Founders wisely distrusted any such system. It’s not a surprise that early 20th-century progressives — most notably Gov. Hiram Johnson — developed our system that lets ordinary voters determine matters typically reserved for legislators.

Practically speaking, however, California voters tend to be far more conservative in their decisions on initiatives than in their choices for candidates. For context, Democrats control every statewide constitutional office and supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature. Yet the same voters who give their nod to those candidates tend to reject tax hikes and far-left pipedreams. So non-progressives have generally made their peace with this progressive election system — and modern progressives often try to limit voter input.

It’s ironic, but that’s the world we live in here. California Democrats still wrongly blame Proposition 13, the 1978 ballot initiative that capped property taxes, for every ill afflicting the state even though no sane person could suggest that our tax rates are too low or government budgets are miserly. Ironically, the most significant measure this year never even made it onto the ballot after Gov. Gavin Newsom and his allies successfully sued to stop it.

The Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act would have required the Legislature to seek approval from voters for any tax hike — something that could have reignited the kind of tax revolt that led to Proposition 13 and bolstered Ronald Reagan’s presidential candidacy. That’s how Democrats roll in California. They blather about democracy, but aren’t too keen on it when it threatens to undermine their spending plans.

But California voters still have much to consider. The latest polls suggest that Proposition 36 will win by extraordinary numbers. This tough-on-crime measure, back by district attorneys and the business community, would make changes to 2014’s Proposition 47. That decade-old measure reduced sentences for low-level crimes, but Californians have tired of the retail-theft wave and dealing with shuttered stores and retailers who lock up common items behind glass doors.

Democrats, who have feared returning to the old days of overincarceration, have only themselves to blame for their coming ballot-box rebuke. They could have worked with DAs, business owners, and Republicans to fix some of Prop. 47’s obvious flaws (such as allowing DAs to prosecute thieves for felonies if they engage in serial thefts), but instead they waited far too long to pass a package of anti-crime bills.

As I explained recently in The American Spectator, “[L]awmakers included poison pills that would scuttle the legislative package if voters approved Proposition 36. After backing away from that cynical approach — designed to score political points rather than seriously address the crime issue — Newsom tried to qualify an alternative measure that would confuse voters.” He failed to make the deadline and has now mostly engaged in sour grapes.

Passing complex legislative packages at the ballot box isn’t ideal. But the Legislature (especially the notoriously liberal Assembly Public Safety Committee) refused to act even amid public concern. At least the initiative process provides some way to circumvent ideologically driven lawmakers. Voters also seem ready to reject Proposition 32, which would yet again raise the state’s minimum wage.

Another major initiative is Proposition 33, which would expand rent control. Voters have on two previous occasions rejected nearly identical measures that would gut the Costa-Hawkins Rental Control Act. That 1995 law stopped localities from imposing draconian rent controls. California already has a statewide rent-control law and many cities such as San Francisco and Santa Monica have relatively extreme local measures, but overturning Costa-Hawkins would open the floodgates to even broader and more destructive price controls.

Prop. 33’s simple but dangerous language: “The state may not limit the right of any city, county or city and county to maintain, enact or expand residential rent control.” Costa-Hawkins stopped the locals from slapping rent controls on single-family houses, newer construction, and imposing vacancy controls that stop landlords from raising rents even after a tenant vacates the property. Argentina recently eliminated rent controls, and rental prices have fallen as the number of available units has surged, yet California is slow to learn.

Rent control always is a disaster and is a key reason California has such a tight rental market, but fortunately voters are likely to understand that concept better than their representatives. The latest polling suggests voters are poised to reject this nonsense once again. Proposition 34 is related. It’s an effort by apartment owners to turn the tables on the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), which is the prime sponsor of these rent measures.

This gets oddly complicated. The official ballot title and summary explains that Prop. 34 “Requires health care providers meeting specified criteria to spend 98% of revenues from federal discount prescription drug program on direct patient care.” What does that have to do with rent control? Well, the measure targets AHF, which earns money from that federal drug program. The group not only promotes rent control, but campaigns against zoning reform. The initiative would limit its political advocacy.

Unfortunately, California voters often support bond measures. State bonds don’t directly raise taxes, but they grab large portions of the general fund to make annual interest payments and therefore create pressure for tax hikes. By contrast, local bonds directly raise taxes (or continue higher tax rates by extending existing bond measures).

On this year’s state ballot, voters are asked to approve an additional $10 billion on climate-resiliency programs (Proposition 4) — something the Southern California News Group editorial board termed a “giant feedbag of climate pork.”

And Proposition 2 would float $10 billion in school-facilities bonds even though the state already spends more than 40 percent of its general-fund budget on public education — not to mention the endless bond spending at the local level. California lawmakers refuse to make tough choices in their $297 billion budget and squandered a previous $97.5 billion surplus. The climate feedbag has a solid lead in the polls, but the school bond is a closer call.

Then there are scores of local bond measures on the ballot, as financially strapped cities and school districts would rather just raise taxes than reform their bureaucratic systems. So direct democracy remains, as always, a mixed bag for conservatives. But I suppose it’s better than the alternative without it.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

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