| | | | |  | | By Catherine Allen, Will McCarthy and Emily Schultheis | Presented by Google | | 
The anti-rent-control “No on 33” and the pro-schools-bond “Yes on Proposition 2” campaigns have each received notable support from donations of $1,000 or less, according to a POLITICO analysis. | Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images | LANDLORDS LEND A HAND — Two committees may be on their way to doing one of the toughest things in ballot-measure politics: building a fundraising base of small donors. The anti-rent-control “No on 33” and the pro-schools-bond “Yes on Proposition 2” campaigns have each received notable support from donations of $1,000 or less, according to a POLITICO analysis of contributions through the first half of 2024. Business interests have marshaled a total of $26 million to defeat the rent-control initiative, much of it from big institutional players like the Association of Realtors, California Apartment Association and the California Business Roundtable. But the committee has also taken in money from 774 small donors, more than any other committee working to influence this year’s ballot. Many of those donors appear to be apartment landlords, based on data compiled by the secretary of state’s office. The No on 33 donors mostly described themselves as real estate investors, as having another role in the rental market or as retired. An analysis of donor ZIP codes shows the small contributions come disproportionately from higher-income neighborhoods, including Palos Verdes Estates, Rolling Hills, Santa Monica’s Sunset Park and San Francisco’s Buena Vista Park. Small donors make up an even larger share of the contributions to the committee working to pass the $10 billion bond for school construction and repairs. Nearly 150 contributions under $1,000 have come in to Yes on Proposition 2, providing 11 percent of the nearly $1.3 million raised by the committee. The vast majority of the measure’s support comes from construction, contracting and development firms from across the state. Ultimately, however, the money from small donors represents a tiny share of the total raised and likely to be spent this year. Read the full analysis of this year’s ballot-measure money landscape on POLITICO Pro.
|  | NEWS BREAK — Donald Trump tweets again ahead of interview with X’s Elon Musk … Magnitude 4.4 earthquake shakes the Los Angeles area … Northern California’s Park Fire is 38 percent contained. Welcome to Ballot Measure Weekly, a special edition of Playbook PM every Monday focused on California’s lively realm of ballot measure campaigns. Drop us a line at eschultheis@politico.com and wmccarthy@politico.com, or find us on X — @emilyrs and @wrmccart.
| | | | A message from Google: A proposed law in California could limit your access to reliable information online. As written, the CJPA could make it harder for you to find news on Google Search. The bill is making its way through the legislature, but there is still time to voice your opinion. Californians deserve access to safe and reliable news from local publishers. Urge your lawmakers to find a better solution by visiting goo.gle/cjpa. | | | |  | TOP OF THE TICKET | | A highly subjective ranking of the ballot measures getting our attention this week. 1. PROP 36: As Democratic lawmakers work on retail theft bills they hope will tamp down enthusiasm for the tough-on-crime initiative, proponents countered with a list of the party’s elected officials, including San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and nine lawmakers, who have signed on to the Yes on Prop 36 campaign. 2. PROP 34: AIDS Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein is opening a new front in the court of public opinion after his latest legal challenge to the measure targeting AHF’s funding was thrown out by judges in Sacramento last week. He plans to air an ad campaign during the Democratic National Convention next week outlining the ties between Prop 34’s backers in the California Apartment Association and Trump’s MAGA movement. 3. PROP 35: Major cash keeps rolling into the campaign to restrict the managed-care tax revenues, even as it faces no organized opposition: The California Association of Hospitals just dropped $5 million into the Yes on 35 committee, shortly after a $4 million donation from the Colorado-based medevac specialists Global Medical Response. 4. PROP 33: Labor leader and civil rights activist Dolores Huerta may be starring in the ads, but the most important personnel news on the rent-control campaign is behind the scenes. Yes on 33 has hired well-connected firm Actum to work on the campaign, with former Assembly speaker Fabian Núñez’s team tasked with enlisting endorsements from lawmakers. 5. PROP 5: The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association won the first round in a legal fight over the public housing-related constitutional amendment’s ballot label. A Sacramento County judge ruled that the ballot description does not make it clear the measure reduces the threshold to pass local housing bonds to 55 percent rather than raising it. An appeals court is expected to weigh in on whether the language needs a rewrite. 6. COASTAL EROSION TAX (San Clemente): A half-cent sales tax to fight coastal erosion is heading to the ballot in Richard Nixon’s favorite beach town, after the city council last week voted to put the special tax before voters, two-thirds of whom will have to approve it. 7. BATTERY STORAGE (Morro Bay): Opponents of a new battery storage plant on California’s Central Coast have a new bureaucratic ally in their corner. The California Coastal Commission last week expressed doubts about the project’s feasibility, according to Cal Coast News, handing a new talking point to backers of a November ballot initiative that would block the plant’s construction.
| | | | During unprecedented times, POLITICO Pro Analysis gives you the insights you need to focus your policy strategy. Live briefings, policy trackers, and and people intelligence secures your seat at the table. Learn more. | | | | | | | DOWN BALLOT | | ON OTHER BALLOTS — The group behind an initiative to raise the minimum wage to $18 per hour in Arizona announced it would pull its proposal just hours before a judge ruled against it … Voters in Oregon will weigh in this fall on an initiative that will make it easier for cannabis workers to unionize after the measure formally qualified for the ballot … A constitutional amendment in Ohio to put redistricting in the hands of an independent commission has raised just under $27 million, the most for any redistricting-related measure anywhere in the country thus far … Missouri voters narrowly approved a measure to increase funding for the Kansas City police department in last week’s primary, two years after the state Supreme Court had thrown out a previous vote on the issue over what it said was misleading ballot language … Speaking of police, the Dallas ballot in November will include a measure on whether to increase the size of the city police force by 900 officers … And a judge in Baltimore ruled that the city’s proposed ballot measure offering a $1,000 “baby bonus” to new parents is unconstitutional.
| | | | A message from Google:   | | | | | POSTCARD FROM ... | | | 
| … ALBANY: High school students asking older neighbors to give them the vote this November are hoping to demonstrate that a youth-suffrage movement sweeping the East Bay is more than a passing teenage fad. “We have this situation where there are students who are actively involved in shaping policy on a whole host of issues,” said Alex Li, an 18-year-old recent graduate of Albany High School who, along with 16-year-old classmate Nirvaan Jaswal, lobbied the city council to take up the issue of their voting rights. “So why can’t they vote?” The question will appear on the November ballot in this bayside city of 20,000 in the form of a charter amendment that allows 16- and 17-year-olds to participate in all municipal elections, but not run for office. Li and Jaswal modeled their proposal on similar ones enacted by voters during the last two general election cycles in neighboring Berkeley and nearby Oakland, where teens can now participate in school-board elections. But the Albany proposal goes further, empowering them to also cast ballots for the five-member city council, which selects the mayor. “It's incredibly clear we have a lot of very smart, motivated youth who would be nothing but a benefit if they were involved in our decisions in government,” said Albany city council member Aaron Tiedemann, who argued scientific research shows 16- and 17- year olds have developed the level of decision-making necessary to make informed choices. Casting one ballot as a teen, he says, will help create habitual voters in adulthood. Those arguments have not always been persuasive to voters. Prop F, a San Francisco charter amendment to give 16-year-olds voting rights in city elections, fell short at the ballot in 2016 and then again in 2020. That same year, Californians rejected Prop 18, which would have allowed 17-year-olds who would turn 18 by a year’s general-election date to participate in that cycle’s primary and special elections. No organized opposition has yet emerged in Albany. A resident’s assertion during a city council public-comment session that high schoolers only care about social media and their friends’ clothes has only motivated the amendment’s teenage proponents, according to Li. They are currently identifying canvassing routes and organizing school groups and adult volunteers who can help pitch voters disinclined to trust the decision-making abilities of adolescents. The campaign, however, faces a looming threat unique to political movements led by precocious teenagers: Its mastermind, Li, is packing up to head to Georgetown University in the fall.
| | | | DON’T MISS OUR AI & TECH SUMMIT: Join POLITICO’s AI & Tech Summit for exclusive interviews and conversations with senior tech leaders, lawmakers, officials and stakeholders about where the rising energy around global competition — and the sense of potential around AI and restoring American tech knowhow — is driving tech policy and investment. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | BLAST FROM THE PAST | | This year Proposition 5 is a constitutional amendment referred to the ballot by lawmakers that would lower the threshold of voter backing necessary for cities and counties to pass bonds for public housing and infrastructure. In the past, the same number has been used for measures that would: Create an office of state corporations commissioner to oversee investment banks and stock brokers (1914, passed) ... Impose a system of land-value taxation (1915, failed) ... Create a state licensing board for chiropractors (1920, failed) ... Ban boxing and wrestling prizefights (1928, failed) ... Provide pensions to state employees (1930, passed) ... Legalize gambling on horse and dog racing (1932, failed) ... Require Los Angeles and Orange County property assessors to reassess properties damaged in that year’s Long Beach Earthquake (1933, passed) ... Issue $5 million in bonds for an exhibition celebrating completion of the Boulder Dam (1936, failed) ... Reinstate state employees and public officials who resigned their posts for military service (1944, passed) ... Allow legislators to simultaneously sit on boards or commissions that fund state agencies (1950, failed) ... Prohibit “subversive persons,” including those who endorse overthrow of the U.S. government, from holding any state job (1952, passed) ... Cap state legislators’ pay at the average salary of supervisors in the five most populous counties (1958, failed) ... Require state Senate approval for the appointment of UC regents (1972, passed) ... Abolish the state inheritance tax (1982, passed) ... Legalize tribal casinos and permit the state to sign gaming compacts with tribes (1998, passed) … Reduce penalties for marijuana possession and expand treatment rehabilitation programs for non-violent drug offenders (2008, failed) ... Amend Prop 13 to allow seniors to transfer the assessed value of their home to a new property (2018, failed).
| | | | A message from Google: The bad news: California lawmakers are considering a bill that could reduce your access to trusted, reliable information online. The CJPA would break the principles of the open internet by forcing platforms to pay for connecting Californians to news or simply stop linking to news stories. There are better ways for Government, news organizations and technology companies to support small, local publishers, not giant media companies backed by hedge funds.
The good news is that there is still time to voice your opinion while the bill makes its way through the legislature.
Send a message to your legislators telling them to find a better way. Californians deserve access to safe and reliable news from local publishers. Take action by visiting goo.gle/cjpa. | | | | | THE Q&A | | WITH KRISTINA GARFINKEL — The Sonoma campaign to enact a first-in-the-nation county ban on factory farms is hosting a five-day “convergence” at the end of the month. We spoke to the Coalition to End Factory Farming’s Kristina Garfinkel about what a volunteer surge into Sonoma County will look like. (This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.) So, what exactly is a convergence? It's not necessarily a political term. The idea is to have our community come together to work on voter outreach, training and networking. That includes direct voter outreach, volunteering at local animal sanctuaries, doing water testing around the area, banner drops and a big march. It’s not going to be a bunch of hanging out. Why now? The goal is, let’s talk and reach as many voters as possible. The election is encroaching, and it’s a critical time in the campaign to do this. It’s really just about educating voters in Sonoma County. We’ve seen a growing amount of misinformation from our opposition. At the same time, they’ve gotten a massive influx of corporate funding trying to beat this measure. As a grassroots campaign, we don’t have major corporate farm bureaus and port councils who are funding this. What we've found is that the most effective strategy is just talking to people and having those conversations with residents. Who do you expect to be there? What does your volunteer base look like? The Coalition to End Factory Farming is made of 30 member organizations, so we already have a large group of people that have been invested in this measure. But being the first of its kind in the history of the U.S., I think we are expecting people to travel in as well. It's going to be a really nice mix of locals and people who have been with us since the beginning.
| | | | 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 | | | | |
