Yesterday was the deadline for ballot initiatives that had qualified for the ballot – that is, they received the requisite number of signatures – to be pulled from November’s ballot. In fact, three initiatives were withdrawn from the ballot for this November.
The three initiatives that Californians will not be voting on come November are an initiative pushed by paint companies like Sherwin-Williams and ConAgra that “would have blunted a state appeals court ruling that made the companies liable for the cleanup” of lead pain in homes according to Liam Dillon of the Los Angeles Times. The initiative would’ve blunted that appeals court ruling by shifting the financial burden to taxpayers.
An initiative pushed by Bay Area real estate developer Alastair Mactaggart that would have vastly expanded consumer protections related to their data online was pulled after a deal was worked out between Mactaggart and legislators. The compromise legislation, according the New York Times creates “one of the most significant regulations overseeing the data-collection practices of companies in the United States,” granting “consumers the right to know what information companies are collecting about them, why they are collecting that data, and with whom they are sharing it.” The new protections go into effect in January 2020.
The third initiative that was pulled was one that would have required local governments to specify how new revenues raised were going to be spent, and also increased the vote requirement for new revenue measures – read: new taxes – to be a two-thirds supermajority. That initiative, which was backed by the beverage industry, was pulled from the ballot “in exchange for a ban on new soda taxes until 2031.”
That leaves 12 measures on the ballot for voters to decide on. Ben Christopher at CALmatters pulled together an excellent summary of the initiatives, which you can find here. And as a quick overview, voters will be faced with two repeal measures – one to repeal the recently passed gas tax and another to repeal the Costa-Hawkins Act which has limited local governments’ ability to enact rent control measures. There will also be four bond measures – water, children’s hospitals, affordable housing, and supportive housing for those suffering from mental illnesses. The other seven initiatives include:
- A change to Prop. 13 allowing “older or disabled homeowners to take their lowered property tax base with them when they move,”
- An initiative to split California into three states, an expansion of 2008’s Proposition 2,
- A carve-out allowing private ambulance services to require their EMTs to remain on call during meal and rest breaks
- Ending daylight savings time in California, and
- Requiring companies that run dialysis clinics “to pay back insurers profits over 15 percent of qualifying business costs.”
As I mentioned before in my post about the repeal of Costa-Hawkins, there is a lot of money to be spent this election cycle. That will be one of the big fights, along with the gas tax repeal and the dialysis clinics initiative. Governor Brown has already voiced his opposition to the gas tax repeal via Twitter. I would not be surprised if he spends a good portion of his nearly $15 million war chest on defeating the repeal. The dialysis initiative has well-heeled groups on both side of it as well, with the SEIU-UHW on the proponent side, and DaVita – a company that netted $1 billion last year – fighting the initiative off.