Nov. 2 Statewide Ballot Initiatives

Prop 19: YES. I’ll be holding my nose and voting Yes on this one. I’ve mentioned before it makes my skin crawl to vote for something just so it can be taxed and regulated, but we have to do something to start moving away from the pot wars.

Prop 20: I might not vote on this one. I’d like to stay out of the argument that, if we just set up our districts right, the state will start being run correctly.

But, I noticed Eric Kirk is voting No on this one because he’s worried the Democrats could lose some seats in Congress should it pass. Maybe I’ll vote for it now? I’ll either stand aside or vote Yes.

Prop 21: NO. Paying for our vehicle registrations is already a problem for us. I’m not going to vote to make it $18.00 more difficult.

Prop 22: Standing aside on this one and not voting.

It sounds like a good idea to make it harder for the state to take money from cities and counties as they’ve done before, but it also can put the state in a situation where it can’t be flexible with its finances. No good way to vote on this one so I'll let the rest of you deal with it.

Prop 23: YES. This is the most important one on the ballot as far as I’m concerned. Common sense would tell you it’s foolish to vote to raise your utility bill up to possibly 60% above what it currently is.

Voting Yes doesn’t eliminate any air pollution laws and utilities would still be required to get 20% of their power from renewable sources, just not the 33% AB32 requires. You can still take advantage of wind and solar power should you chose to do so. You just won’t be forced to if you can’t afford it.

Prop 24: NO. This would eliminate some tax breaks for businesses. Taxes will likely be going up pretty soon, anyway. Might as well try to hold the line as best we can.

Prop 25: NO, although a Yes vote is tempting. This one changes the vote requirement to pass a budget from 2/3 to a simple majority.

This one seems rather silly to me as proponents say they'll still need 2/3 to raise taxes but a simple majority is needed just to pass the budget. What sense does it make to pass a budget if you can’t just as easily increase taxes to pay for any increases in the budget?

I suspect the proponents are being less than truthful and they’ll be able to increase taxes to meet their budget just by calling them fees, as some opponents to this initiative have suggested.

The temptation for voting Yes is simply to put an end to the Democrats pointing fingers at Republicans for the state of the state. They'd have the majority and could pass the budget with their majority alone. After that, they can run the state even further into the ground, if that’s even possible, and the blame will fall on their shoulders alone.

Prop 26: YES. This one will require 2/3 voter approval for the legislature to raise user fees. This is important since, if Prop 25 passes, the Democrats are certain to try to convert as many taxes as they can to “fees”. That way they can raise “fees” to cover their increased budget.

Prop 26 could help protect taxpayers from potential runaway spending. Well, maybe not runaway spending, but runaway taxing to pay for runaway spending as might happen if Prop 25 passes.

Prop 27: NO. I don't have much faith that any group of people would be less corrupt than the ones we have in Sacramento, but I'll go ahead and leave the job of gerrymandering to whoever sits on the redistricting commission. It's tempting to just stand aside on this one, though, as with Prop 20.