| | | | |  | | By Emily Schultheis and Will McCarthy | Presented by Californians for Energy Independence | Welcome to the inaugural edition of Ballot Measure Weekly, a special edition of Playbook PM that will be hitting your inbox every Monday. We’re Emily Schultheis and Will McCarthy, the two reporters anchoring POLITICO’s new ballot measures team. Each week, we’ll be bringing you news and analysis from California’s lively realm of ballot-measure campaigns, with reporting on the strategies, policy ideas, personalities and the money behind them. Drop us a line at eschultheis@politico.com and wmccarthy@politico.com, or find us on X — @emilyrs and @wrmccart.
| 
The California Democratic Party gathered this past weekend to vote on endorsements and show their unity behind a slate of candidates and issues. | Richard Vogel/AP | ABOUT THIS WEEKEND — The California Democratic Party gathered in San Diego this past weekend to vote on endorsements and show their unity behind a slate of candidates and issues. But the endorsements for certain ballot measures also highlighted some of the party’s most divisive fights ahead of November. The party voted to support a proposal to remove statewide rent control limits, joining Bernie Sanders, who also came out in favor of it last week. But two top Democrats, State Sen. Toni Atkins and Assembly Appropriations Chair Buffy Wicks, said they’re opposed, arguing it will allow wealthy coastal cities to undermine development of new affordable housing. And the party voted against a proposal to overhaul Prop 47, the landmark 2014 criminal justice ballot measure that downgraded certain drug and property crimes to misdemeanors. That puts them on the same page as Gov. Gavin Newsom and top Democrats in the Legislature, who are hoping to find a legislative deal to negotiate the issue off November’s ballot. However, amid heightened voter concern about retail theft, prominent Democratic mayors like San Francisco’s London Breed and San Jose’s Matt Mahan have come out in favor of the ballot measure. Political parties aren’t typically the ones putting up big bucks for or against a measure, so these endorsements — and those from the California Republican Party, which also voted on ballot measure positions last weekend at its convention in Burlingame — don’t mean as much financially as they would for candidate campaigns. That said, their positions are a signal to voters who don’t dig into the details of a particular measure themselves — so when there are prominent divisions within the party on particular issues, voters might get mixed messages. Full lists of endorsements from the California Democratic and Republican parties, respectively, are here and here. NEWS BREAK — Academic workers at the University of California, Santa Cruz walked off the job today to protest the UC system’s handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations … Jennifer Siebel Newsom is slated to appear in a televised interview at 9 p.m. tonight as part of a mini-media blitz … A bill that would hold social media companies liable for harming children passed the Assembly with wide Republican support and in spite of major tech opposition. | | A message from Californians for Energy Independence: As California transitions to a lower carbon energy economy, we should continue to produce the oil and gas we still need in-state, where it meets world-class environmental standards and our communities can benefit from the revenues. But instead, California energy policies are shutting down in-state oil production faster than we can build adequate replacement energy - increasing our dependence on more costly imported oil. Get the facts on California energy policies. | | | |  | TOP OF THE TICKET | | A highly subjective ranking of the ballot measures getting our attention this week. 1. MCO TAX: Newsom may have inadvertently boosted a previously low-key campaign to handcuff him from using a favored budgetary trick. This month he said he would use revenue from a tax on managed-care organizations to cover the budget gap, giving urgency to an initiative — supported by a powerful coalition of doctors, hospitals and insurers — that would require the funds go exclusively to Medi-Cal. 2. CALIFORNIA FOREVER (Solano County): The tech investors behind the exurban-utopia fever dream are reintroducing themselves to voters as the East Solano Plan. Sponsors say the rebrand, which comes as the initiative awaits signature verification, is aimed at matching ballot language that would rezone agricultural areas to allow for the construction of a new city northeast of San Francisco. But it will also help California Forever shake off its former label as a shady campaign run by Silicon Valley outsiders. 3. PROP 47 OVERHAUL: As Newsom and Democratic lawmakers enter dealmaking mode to keep crime off the ballot, backers of the effort to amend the 2014 criminal-justice law are pushing ahead with their campaign. They’ve unveiled endorsements from hundreds of small businesses that show their coalition is more than just big bucks from Walmart and Home Depot. 4. PERSONAL FINANCE COURSE: The Assembly’s appropriations committee passed a bill that would add a new high-school graduation requirement on Thursday, evidence that a deal to kill a parallel ballot measure could be within reach. 5. PATIENT PROTECTION ACT: Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California reaffirmed its neutrality on the ballot initiative after opponents of the measure spent the weekend falsely claiming the reproductive health care organization was on their side. That spin, intended to press the California Democratic Party into endorsing a “no” position, ultimately proved unsuccessful. Following Planned Parenthood’s lead, the party didn’t take a stance on the measure, which targets organizations that use money from a federal drug discount program for non-health care purposes. 6. PAGA REPEAL: Unions showed support for the Private Attorneys General Act at a Capitol rally last week as an Assembly committee inside voted to strengthen the law, which allows wronged workers to sue employers on behalf of the state and their colleagues. Assemblymember Ash Kalra’s bill is part of a counterintuitive negotiating strategy for organized labor, pushing the sides further apart to raise the stakes for business backers of a repeal initiative. 7. TAXPAYER PROTECTION ACT: The state’s biggest-spending interest groups are all waiting on the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of a measure to limit tax increases. Justices seem skeptical of booting the measure before it gets to voters. A decision to let it stand will likely open the floodgates of spending on both sides.
| | | | NEW! AN EXCLUSIVE CALIFORNIA BALLOT-MEASURES COVERAGE TEAM: The impact that ballot measures have on California residents, industries, and Legislature is enormous. From settling broad cultural questions to changing obscure governance rules, ballot measures in essence, have become the fourth branch of government in the most influential state capital in the U.S. As your go-to source for reporting on Golden State politics, policy, power, POLITICO has formed a new ballot measure team in California that will deliver in-depth insights into the strategies, policy ideas, personalities, money and influence driving ballot measures. LEARN MORE. | | | | | | | DOWN BALLOT | | |  Rideshare drivers hold signs supporting a no vote on Proposition 22 in Oakland, California on October 9, 2020. | Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images | WHATEVER HAPPENED TO … PROP 22 (2020) — Nearly four years after Uber, Lyft and DoorDash broke California spending records to pass Prop 22, there’s an end in sight to the measure’s legal limbo: The matter comes on appeal before the state Supreme Court on Tuesday. Labor groups and drivers argued that the measure, which classified rideshare drivers as contractors rather than employees, violated a constitutional provision (which was itself established via a 1918 ballot measure) that gives the Legislature authority to set workers’ compensation rules. The court’s decision will have implications for more than a million gig workers across California — and for the major rideshare and delivery companies, which have threatened to leave cities and states that don’t allow them to classify workers as independent contractors. (Plus, were the court to rule against Prop 22, it could set the stage for another big, expensive ballot fight down the line.) ON OTHER BALLOTS — Officials in South Dakota and Colorado certified ballot measures last week to enshrine abortion access in their respective state constitutions … Colorado became the third state, after California and Hawaii, to qualify a ballot measure for November that would remove language banning same-sex marriage from its state constitution … Voters in Crook County, Oregon, will vote Tuesday on whether the county should secede from Oregon and become part of Idaho instead. Twelve other counties in eastern Oregon have already approved similar secession measures since 2020 … The Nevada Supreme Court struck down a proposed ballot measure last week on public funding for a new A’s baseball stadium in Las Vegas … Voters in Switzerland are likely to weigh in on whether the country should pull out of European Union sanctions against Russia, after allies of the ruling right-wing People’s Party gathered more than 130,000 signatures for a referendum on Swiss neutrality. | | | | A message from Californians for Energy Independence:   | | | | | POSTCARD FROM ... | | | 
Pickleball is dividing people in Ojai. | Emily Schultheis/POLITICO | ... OJAI — Across the country, pickleball is bringing people together — but in Ojai, it’s tearing them apart. Voters in the idyllic Ventura County town of 7,500 known for its hiking, boutique hotels and lack of chain stores will likely weigh in on a ballot measure to reopen the city’s public pickleball courts. The courts have been slated for closure since late last year, when city council acceded to neighbors’ complaints that they shouldn’t have to hear the “thack-a-ta, thack-a-ta, thack-a-ta from 7 in the morning until 8 at night,” as one put it during a recent council meeting. The decision to close the facility — four years after the council had approved their transformation from tennis to pickleball courts — angered the newly popular sport’s enthusiasts. One, Gina Rodriguez, opted to move forward with the initiative, gathering nearly twice the 533 signatures required to send the issue to the ballot. With the signatures certified, the city council had three options at last week’s meeting: To approve the measure on the spot as-is, send it to the voters in November or commission a report on the potential impact of the measure before making a final decision about whether to put it on the November ballot. They chose the impact report, which will help buy time for a compromise underway: The council agreed to keep the City Hall courts open until other pickleball facilities being built across town are finished this summer. “I really regret that this issue has become so heavy,” one pro-pickleball resident said at the meeting. “I mean, pickleball is a light and wonderful sport.”
| | | | THE GOLD STANDARD OF DEFENSE POLICY REPORTING & INTELLIGENCE: POLITICO has more than 500 journalists delivering unrivaled reporting and illuminating the policy and regulatory landscape for those who need to know what’s next. Throughout the election and the legislative and regulatory pushes that will follow, POLITICO Pro is indispensable to those who need to make informed decisions fast. The Pro platform dives deeper into critical and quickly evolving sectors and industries, like defense, equipping policymakers and those who shape legislation and regulation with essential news and intelligence from the world’s best politics and policy journalists.
Our newsroom is deeper, more experienced, and better sourced than any other. Our defense reporting team—including Lara Seligman, Joe Gould, Paul McCleary, Connor O’Brien and Lee Hudson—is embedded with the market-moving legislative committees and agencies in Washington and across states, delivering unparalleled coverage of defense policy and the defense industry. We bring subscribers inside the conversations that determine policy outcomes and the future of industries, providing insight that cannot be found anywhere else. Get the premier news and policy intelligence service, SUBSCRIBE TO POLITICO PRO TODAY. | | | | | | | BLAST FROM THE PAST | | This year, the title Proposition 1 belongs to the Newsom-backed mental-health policy and bond measure. In the past, the same number has been used for votes to … Amend a law on primary elections (1914, failed) ... Impose a tax on jitneys, stages or motor vehicles on public highways (1924, failed) ... Issue up to $100 million in bonds to help war veterans buy homes and farms (1950, passed) ... Establish a $495 million bond for building state prisons (1982, passed) ... Allow environmentally contaminated buildings to be repaired or replaced without increasing the tax-assessed property value (1998, passed) ... Enshrine a right to abortion in the state constitution (2022, passed).
| | A message from Californians for Energy Independence: California faces growing inflation, a rising cost of living, and has some of the highest gas prices in the country. Now, California energy policies could make matters worse.
That’s because California is shutting down in-state oil and gas production before we have adequate replacement energy. That forces our state to spend $25 billion a year importing more costly oil to meet our needs - sending billions that could be supporting California’s economy out of state instead. These energy policies threaten California’s access to reliable energy, while increasing our gas prices.
As California transitions to a lower carbon energy economy, we should continue to produce the oil and gas we still need in-state, where it meets world-class environmental standards and our communities can benefit from the revenues - rather than increase our dependence on more costly imported oil.
Get the facts on California energy policies. | | | | | THE Q&A | | WITH JONATHAN ZACHRESON — An initiative that would limit schools’ recognition of transgender students has just one week to meet its signature deadline. The ballot measure would face an uphill battle passing in California and has not gotten the backing of any large donors. Jonathan Zachreson, a school board member in the Sacramento suburb Roseville who developed the measure, spoke to POLITICO about his campaign’s last-ditch effort to drum up signatures. Responses have been edited for length and clarity. You have put your petitions entirely in the hands of volunteers rather than professional signature-gatherers. Why? There are hundreds of people who want to bring awareness to this topic and this was a way to do it. But it would have been ideal if we didn’t have to totally rely on them, and if large donors would have backed us. Those didn’t materialize, largely because of the unfavorable title and summary we received. So the main answer is we had no other choice. How did you find, train and organize volunteers? We’re always reaching out to groups that are politically active to find more signature-gatherers. But in many cases, people reached out to us. Most of the training is not on where to go and what to say — that’s up to each individual. The goal is to help people fill the petition out correctly, because it's easy to mess it up. The benefit is that you’re already engaging your base so if you make it on the ballot, they’ll help with grassroots campaign effort, too. The downside is, you get a lot more errors. Some people know exactly what they're doing and give you thousands of petitions that are filled out just fine. Others may have issues with their printer, or they didn’t fill out the circulator page, or there’s some other error. Is there anything you would have done differently? If we knew we weren't going to get any large donors, I think we probably would have gone straight to the grassroots. Every conversation we had with potential large donors could have been spent with on-the-ground activists. | | | | Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook | Playbook PM | California Playbook | Florida Playbook | Illinois Playbook | Massachusetts Playbook | New Jersey Playbook | New York Playbook | Ottawa Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | | |
