| | | | |  | | By Will McCarthy and Emily Schultheis | Presented by The Utility Reform Network | | 
The battle over rent control in California is increasingly turning into a debate about which side has stronger ties to former President Donald Trump. | Susan Walsh/AP Photo | RACE TO THE (MAGA) BOTTOM — The intertwined battles over the housing-related Propositions 33 and 34 are becoming less about AIDS Healthcare Foundation president Michael Weinstein and more about former American president Donald Trump. Weinstein, who is playing offense on Prop 33 (empowering local governments to impose rent control) and defense on Prop 34 (targeting AHF’s funding) is trying to make both campaigns a referendum on MAGA. But so is his antagonist, the California Apartment Association. The AHF-funded campaigns have focused on ties between Trump donor Stephen Schwarzman and the anti-rent-control effort through his firm Blackstone’s investments. “Which side are you on?” an email blast from AHF asked last week. At the same time, apartment-association operatives have been providing journalists with a research dossier they claim shows Weinstein, AHF’s president, is secretly cozying up to Trump supporters by hiring the ex-president’s allies for AHF initiatives, including firms attached to former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and fundraiser Brian Ballard. On Friday, the Yes on Prop 34 campaign accused AHF of falsely claiming that Kamala Harris opposes its proposal. “The Trump consultants driving the No on 34 campaign tried to distort her record to line their own pockets,” the campaign’s statement read. (Harris has not taken a position on Prop 34.) The allegations, some of which have only the most tenuous connection to fact, carry a whiff of conspiratorial thinking. Consultants frequently collaborate across party lines on ballot initiatives, and it is not hard to six-degrees your way to unpopular figures — as Trump is among the California voters each side needs to win — from anyone working in politics. Both sides have moved to foreground Trump after spending millions to villainize their actual opponents: rapacious landlords on one side, self-serving non-profiteer on the other. Both appear to be acknowledging that Trump is a more effective medium for a good-guy-bad-guy narrative than a trade association or social-service charity. The Prop 34 campaign explains its anti-MAGA messaging as primarily designed to highlight the hypocrisy of AHF focusing on the apartment association’s Trump ties when it has its own, part of an effort to convince voters that Weinstein can’t be trusted. Weinstein responded by noting his campaign’s many endorsements from Democratic leaders, including Bernie Sanders and the California Democratic Party. “That’s not exactly a MAGA crowd,” he told Playbook. “That’s progressive royalty.” It is unlikely that the campaigns will remain as Trump-fixated as they have been in recent weeks. AHF aired its first ads on the topic, depicting a red Make America Great Again hat, during the Democratic National Convention. Weinstein said the $200,000 ad buys were targeted at “Democrats watching CNN and MSNBC.” “Our primary thrust is that the rent is too damn high,” he said. “There will be other messaging that surrounds that. That's our primary message.” | | | | A message from The Utility Reform Network: GOV. NEWSOM AND LEGISLATURE - Don’t get burned again. California voters are demanding you tackle utility greed and prevent Wall Street from profiting at our expense. Reform wildfire mitigation spending, cut waste, securitize capital costs, and stop utilities from profiting off their failures. With 86% public support for safer, more cost-effective wildfire mitigation measures, it’s time to stand up for the safety and financial well-being of California voters. Learn more. | | |
NEWS BREAK: Department of Justice to investigate Bay Area landlords … Fellow elected officials call for Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do’s ouster after federal raid … Sierras see snowfall in rare August storm.
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.
|  | TOP OF THE TICKET | | A highly subjective ranking of the ballot measures getting our attention this week. 1. PROP 3: The $10 billion climate preparedness bond began receiving a financial boost from organizations with one, large, woody priority: redwood trees. On Friday, Save the Redwoods League, a conservation non-profit, threw in a nearly quarter-million dollars to the campaign, followed by $100,000 from the Sempervirens Fund, the state’s oldest land trust. 2. VACANCY TAX (South Lake Tahoe): An initiative to tax vacant homes in this resort community was dealt a blow last week after a judge ruled a voter-guide argument was misleading because it left out administrative costs. Supporters of the tax say they are facing an opposition that has raised nearly $1 million, the most in the city's local election history. 3. PROP 2: FM3 Research has begun to poll voters to gauge their baseline opinions on the statewide education bond on behalf of the measure’s proponents. Meanwhile, the Coalition for Adequate School Housing, Community College Facility Coalition and a mix of business and labor groups have opened three separate ballot committees to channel donations into the bond campaign. 4. PROP 36: Jackie Speier appeared earlier today with a group of county officials who announced that San Mateo County’s board of supervisors — to which the longtime Democratic congresswoman was elected in March — will vote Tuesday on whether to endorse the tough-on-crime initiative. Speier’s support is among the highest-profile examples yet of the statewide-vs.-local Democratic divide that’s emerged on the measure. 5. FACTORY-FARM BAN (Sonoma County): Animal-rights advocates are wrapping up a five-day volunteer surge they are calling a “convergence.” On Saturday, about 130 activists marched through downtown Petaluma in support of the ban on factory farms. 6. PROP 32: Unions continue to dither on whether to back the $18 minimum wage as business begins to jump in to beat it. Just ten weeks before the election, the orphaned initiative once backed by investor Joe Sanberg still has yet to attract any major donors. 7. PROP 6: Labor may be holding its fire on the minimum wage initiative, but SEIU is getting involved elsewhere on the ballot: the service union gave $50,000 last week to the constitutional amendment aimed at banning involuntary prison labor. | | | | Coming into view: the Harris-Walz Economic Platform - POLITICO reporters are back from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago with fresh intel and insights into the emerging Harris-Walz economic agenda. Join us for a POLITICO Pro subscriber briefing on Wednesday, August 28th. Register for the Event. | | | | | | | DOWN BALLOT | | ON OTHER BALLOTS — Anti-abortion activists won a major victory in Arkansas last week when the state Supreme Court blocked a ballot measure that would have loosened the state’s strict abortion laws … Florida’s Supreme Court, meanwhile, rejected abortion rights activists’ challenge to a financial statement that will appear on the ballot next to the state’s abortion rights constitutional amendment … Montana became the eighth state to put an abortion-related measure on the ballot for November … Utah lawmakers approved a constitutional amendment for November’s ballot that would give them the power to change or even repeal citizen-led ballot initiatives after voters approve them … Arizona voters will weigh in on dueling constitutional amendments — one citizen-initiated proposal and one legislatively referred one — that will determine whether the state replaces partisan primaries with open primaries (whichever proposal gets more votes will go into effect) … A Pittsburgh judge blocked a ballot measure that would have required the city to cut ties with companies that do business with Israel, arguing its supporters did not submit enough valid signatures to qualify … And a proposed initiative to ban gender-neutral language in government agencies in Hamburg, Germany, looks likely to fall short of the required 66,000 signatures. | | POSTCARD FROM ... | | | | 
| … SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY — It is not often that a Republican politician in the Central Valley proudly declares he is modeling his policy proposals on San Francisco’s. But when the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors voted earlier this month to place on the November ballot an initiative requiring welfare recipients undergo drug screenings, members said the model was San Francisco’s Proposition F, which voters approved in March as part of a rightward tack for the liberal city. “We noticed what San Francisco had done with its measure,” said Supervisor Tom Patti, who proposed the San Joaquin measure and who ran for Congress as a Republican in 2022. He added that he and other supervisors who backed the proposal saw it as a means to “regional continuity.” Measure R, as the San Joaquin initiative is known, will require recipients of the county’s General Assistance program to undergo drug screenings if the county reasonably suspects them to be addicted to illegal drugs. A resident who failed such a screening would have to choose between voluntarily entering a county-funded drug treatment program or potentially losing their welfare benefits. “The majority of our citizens in our community are law-abiding, hard-working people who are dedicated and trying to live their best life,” Patti told Playbook. “And I believe they would support levels of accountability, levels of engagement that get people off the street, get people into treatment, incentivize people to take advantage of programs and services that address mental health and drug addiction.” The county currently spends around $300,000 on assistance programs, which provide $75 per month, or a maximum of $367, to help cover the cost of food, utilities and housing. Only a fraction of the 400 residents currently using the program would be affected by the new measure, if it passes. The board of supervisors, which includes both Democrats and Republicans, voted to send the initiative to the ballot at the same meeting that it formally endorsed Prop 36. Lawmakers said the local measure will serve as a complement to it by providing incentives for those with drug addiction to seek treatment. “There’s a small percentage of people on government assistance that may end up encountering this type of incentive,” Patti said. “However, if we can be standing up in our county for the mechanisms to sobriety, the incentive for people to get sober because services are offered and people might be trapped in a very harmful cycle, then mission accomplished.” In San Francisco, the proposal faced resistance from homelessness advocates and progressive groups who argued it went against accepted best practices for dealing with substance abuse and would exacerbate homelessness. No such opposition has yet emerged in San Joaquin County. | | | | A message from The Utility Reform Network:   | | |
| | BLAST FROM THE PAST | | Proposition 6, a constitutional amendment that would ban all forms of slavery in California, will not be the first time California voters are asked to weigh in on the issue of prison labor. In 1990, voters were confronted with Proposition 139, the Prison Inmate Labor Initiative, which allowed state prisons and county jails to contract with private businesses. Under the proposal, inmates who worked for those companies would be paid wages comparable to non-inmate wages, minus significant deductions for taxes and prison upkeep; companies that employed prison laborers would receive tax credits. Since 1879, California had banned the leasing of inmate labor to private companies (agencies, including Caltrans, faced no such restrictions). In the 1980s, efforts by tough-on-crime politicians led by Republican Gov. George Deukmejian to undo the prohibition via legislation faced resistance from organized labor, which said it could make it harder for unionized companies to compete in California. In 1990, the governor decided to take the question straight to voters, one of several crime-related questions on that year’s ballots. He campaigned aggressively for the initiative, raising more than $1 million to pass it. Deukmejian argued that most of the prisoners’ wages would come back to the state after taxes and deductions, and it would give prisoners “real-world skills under real-world working conditions.” Prop 139 passed with 54 percent of the vote. Despite crime again being front and center in California politics, interest has not spilled over from policing questions to prisons: Prop 6 has no formal opposition, and the newly formed Yes on 6 committee has received only a few donations thus far. | | | | 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. | | | | |
| | WHO'S STEERING... | | … YES ON 36 — Ballot-measure committees are a vehicle for disparate interests driving toward a common goal. Here’s our look under the hood at the coalitions, consultants and cash coming together to power them. AT THE WHEEL: The co-chairs of Californians for Safer Communities, the primary committee working to pass Prop 36, are the California District Attorneys Association’s Greg Totten and Anne-Marie Schubert, the former Sacramento County DA who ran for attorney general in 2022 as an independent. RIDING SHOTGUN: The GOP firm Russo McGarty & Associates, led by Tony Russo and Matt McGarty, is helming the Yes on 36: California for Safer Communities campaign, with former Assemblymember Mike Gatto and Democratic consultant Andrew Acosta on board as senior strategists. UNDER THE HOOD: Research is conducted by Baselice & Associates, a Texas firm which polled for Trump’s first reelection campaign, and the Irvine-based MFour Research. IN THE GARAGE: Elevate Public Affairs is in charge of communications, led by former Arnold Scharzenegger aide Becky Warren alongside Tiffany Moffatt, Janet Fernandez and Sydney Kovach. Swing Strategies is handling coalitions work, with the firm’s Tino Rossi and Emily Sissell (most recently communications director for the California Assembly Republican Caucus) taking the lead. Unearth Campaigns’ Libby Hall and John Morgan are running the coalition’s digital strategy. RIDING ALONG: The Crime Victims United of California and the Family Business Association of California are the other official proponents listed in the voter guide. FUEL SOURCE: Major retailers like Walmart and Home Depot gave seven-figure sums to help qualify the measure for the ballot; other restaurant and retail chains like In-N-Out — which gave $500,000 last month — have since joined the fray. A significant influx of cash has come in from California’s tribal nations, including six-figure donations from the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians and United Auburn Indian Community of the Auburn Rancheria as well as smaller amounts from other tribal organizations. DECALS: The campaign has rolled out a steady stream of endorsements over the course of the summer, including from the League of California Cities, the California Contract Cities Association and the Rural County Representatives of California. It has also scored the backing of hundreds of small businesses and local-level politicians from both parties. HOOD ORNAMENT: Some of the measure’s most valuable high-profile backers have been big-city Democratic mayors like San Francisco’s London Breed, San Jose’s Matt Mahan and San Diego’s Todd Gloria. At least one of them is heading off on his own, with Mahan forming his Common Sense for Safety committee that is likely to compete with the prosecutor-led effort for financial support. | | | | A message from The Utility Reform Network: GOV. NEWSOM AND LEGISLATURE - Don’t get burned again. California voters are demanding you stand up to utility greed and prevent Wall Street from profiting at our expense. Adopt alternatives to utility capital spending that save billions for customers. Reform wildfire mitigation spending, cut wasteful expenditures, and hold utilities accountable for safe, affordable service. Ensure critical reforms aren't upended and stop utilities from writing their own rules or profiting from failures. With 86% public support for safer, more cost-effective wildfire mitigation measures, it’s time to stand up for the safety and financial well-being of California voters. Learn more. | | | | | | | 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 | | | | |
