| | | | |  | | By Emily Schultheis and Will McCarthy | |  California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a press conference in Los Angeles, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer) | AP | SHOW ME THE MONEY — Gov. Gavin Newsom may not be actively campaigning against tough-on-crime Proposition 36, but he’s doing what he can to help out its opponents. On Friday, just as the No on 36 campaign prepared to launch a statewide ad campaign arguing that the initiative “strips millions from what’s proven to actually keep us safe,” Newsom’s office announced it had awarded an additional $167 million for mental-health and substance-abuse programs through funds freed up by the 2014 passage of Proposition 47. That money would be at least partially rolled back if voters approve Prop 36 next month. “A decade after voters overwhelmingly approved Prop 47, this measure continues to work,” Newsom said in a not-so-subtle statement announcing the grants, which will go to 27 government and community-based organizations across the state. Newsom has shown what it looks like when he’s heavily invested in seeing a ballot measure pass — see both the abortion-rights Prop 1 in 2022 and its mental-health namesake this spring 2024 — but said recently that “a question of bandwidth” is what’s keeping him from campaigning for or against any of this fall’s ten issue questions. Even without actively hitting the campaign trail, this weekend’s efforts to shape the Prop 36 debate represent the type of one-two punch only a governor can deliver. It is part of a broader strategy by Prop 36’s opponents to shift the debate from crime to costs, as we write in a story out this afternoon. Facing a polling and fundraising deficit, they’re seeking to chip away at the measure’s support by making it a referendum on what California can afford — and are actively reaching out to city and county governments to make those costs clear. “It is really important for people to understand, on the granular level, how Prop 36 would impact their communities,” said Anthony York, the former Newsom spokesman now working for No on 36. “You can say [it] cuts money for drug treatment in the abstract, but when you say, ‘It’s going to cut this much in your community and from this specific program’ — the more of that that we can do, the more we can humanize the toll Prop 36 would have on people, the more effective we’re going to be at moving voters.” The effectiveness of that message will be tested on Tuesday, when the San Diego County Board of Supervisors votes on whether to endorse Prop 36. The county was one of several to postpone or table an endorsement vote as concerns emerged about potential funding cuts to key mental health and homelessness programs. Now armed with a report on its fiscal impact — which found, among other things, that the county could face a “minimum increase” of $58 million per year in criminal justice-related expenses — the supervisors will revisit the matter. No on 36 will say only that its television, radio and digital advertising campaign reaches “seven figures,” and its campaign-finance disclosures show few other resources to push the debate in its favored direction. But it does have the governor, who has plenty of reach in his official capacity. “I guess I’m campaigning now? I don’t know,” he said at a recent press conference when asked if he’d be opposing Prop 36 on the campaign trail, after calling Prop 36 “an unfunded mandate” that will “set this state back.” NEWS BREAK: U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear appeal from Uber, Lyft on California labor lawsuits … Congressional candidate Derek Tran speaks out about his problematic legal clients … San Francisco has its hottest week in 85 years. 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 36: Despite efforts to blunt its momentum, Yes on 36 continues to pick up endorsements (the California Restaurant Association and the Chief Probation Officers of California joined the parade) and money from new donors (like $50,000 from cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris). 2. MEASURE A (LA County): New polling shows support ticking slightly upward for a sales-tax increase to fund homelessness programs in California’s most populous county — but it’s still short of the 50 percent needed to pass. The UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies survey finds backing from 49 percent of voters, compared with 33 percent opposed and 17 percent undecided. 3. PROP 2: The first ad from the campaign to pass the education bond began moving through digital channels. The 30-second spot shows flooded classrooms and caved-in ceilings with a message designed to assuage a spending-averse electorate that “all public funds go to local schools.” 4. PROP 32: The Policy Issues Institute, a conservative group most recently dedicated to impeaching President Joe Biden, has formed a committee to combat the minimum wage initiative, throwing in an initial $25,000 in funding. That sum isn’t likely to move public opinion much, but it could be enough for the otherwise unknown Laguna Niguel-based advocacy group to take credit if Prop 32 falls. 5. PROP 34: The AIDS Healthcare Foundation put $6.5 million more to the No on 34 campaign last week, a sign that the nonprofit — which has aimed its spending primarily at passing the rent-control Prop 33 — may be starting to take more seriously the so-called “revenge initiative” targeting its political spending. 6. MEASURE G (LA County): Backers of the effort to expand LA’s powerful Board of Supervisors from five to nine members are holding a series of events in minority communities, hoping that a message about more diverse representation in county government will draw attention to the campaign. 7. PROP 33: Get ready for your Philly cousins and Rochester ex-roommate to start quizzing you about the California ballot: the landlord-funded No on 33 campaign has been placing its anti-rent-control ads on Fox Sports’ broadcasts of the Dodgers-Padres series, reaching a nationwide audience.
| | DOWN BALLOT | | ON OTHER BALLOTS — Backers of Prop 139, an amendment to enshrine abortion rights in the Arizona state constitution, launched a $15 million ad blitz to boost the measure … Supporters of an abortion rights amendment in Nebraska are also up on the airwaves … Groups supporting abortion rights constitutional amendments have raised more than 10 times the opposition campaigns in 10 states … The Arkansas Supreme Court ordered a new count of disputed signatures in the proposed initiative to expand medical marijuana access, after backers challenged state officials’ decision to disqualify the measure … The measure to legalize marijuana in Florida is out with an ad touting former President Donald Trump’s support … And voters back a measure in Ohio that would hand redistricting authority over to an independent commission by a margin of 40 points (60 percent to 20 percent), according to a new poll from Bowling Green State University and YouGov.
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| … COTATI — Some places love their rotaries, others value the efficiency of their traffic circles. But it’s their absence that has helped make this town of 8,000 distinctive, in a roundabout way. Cotati is one of the few places in the United States where the circular intersections are expressly illegal under city law, but the town’s November ballot proposes to reverse the decade-old ban. It would make Cotati just a little more like its Sonoma County neighbors. “It’s a colorful town and it prides itself on being a little bit weird,” said Eris Weaver, the leader of a local bike safety organization and one of the proponents of an initiative to overturn the ban. “But [roundabouts] are such a wonderful tool and it’s stupid we can't use them.” Cotati’s ban on roundabouts has little to do with local preferences in vehicular navigation or streetscape aesthetics. Rather the traffic feature was targeted in 2012 as a way to tank a proposed redesign of Cotati’s main thoroughfare, Old Redwood Highway. At the time, the city council planned to install two roundabouts as part of that $3.5 million revitalization plan, which provoked opposition from business owners who worried about the negative impact on their bottom lines. A local jeweler led the charge behind a citizen’s initiative that would ban roundabouts in the city, successfully undermining the planned redesign. Weaver is hopeful that in the decade since Cotati residents have changed their minds on the traffic feature. Today, roundabouts are far more common across Sonoma County than they were at the time of the original proposal, including one just outside of city limits. They no longer seem like a foreign intrusion on local traffic patterns. It is that lull that convinced Weaver, along with fellow campaigner Laurie-Ann Barbour, that 2024 was the right time to rid the city of its ban. Earlier this year, they gathered the requisite number of signatures to place a new initiative on the ballot repealing the ban on roundabouts. Although the city council supports the effort, another citizen’s initiative is required to overturn the ban. One person has submitted an argument against the measure, but there is no organized opposition to the repeal. The Yes Campaign, meanwhile, has launched a website and is raising money for lawn signs and posters. Weaver is confident the prohibition on roundabouts will soon come to an end, helped by the fact that this year’s Cotati initiative isn’t linked to any imminent redesign. There are no plans to build roundabouts if the ban falls. “We’ve been plotting this for a few years,” Weaver said. “I’m feeling very positive it's going to pass.”
| | | BLAST FROM THE PAST | | | Measure G, a proposed Los Angeles County charter amendment to add four new supervisors’ districts, is being promoted by the board’s current members despite the fact that it would dilute the power of their positions. In the past, sitting supervisors stood in the way of ballot measures that would add new colleagues. The first proposed board expansion came before voters in 1926, initiated by Long Beach and Pasadena officials frustrated that their cities were divided between two supervisor districts. All five existing supervisors remained neutral on the initiative to add two new districts, according to the Los Angeles Times, after attempting to add what would have been a very tasty poison pill for them — a provision doubling their own salaries to $10,000. The so-called “seven-supervisors plan” failed by a healthy margin. A majority of supervisors opposed 1962’s Proposition D, which also would have taken the board to seven members. One of the opponents, supervisor Kenneth Hahn, reversed himself on expansion, backing a nine-supervisor plan but only when it came for a vote alongside an amendment to add an elected county mayor — a post for which Hahn would be a natural frontrunner. The proposals split Hahn’s colleagues when they came for a vote in 1976, with one member warning it would reduce his job to a seat in a “glorified debating society.” Voters agreed, rejecting both amendments. The most recent attempt at expansion, a 2000 proposal for a nine-district board, was placed on the ballot by supervisors looking to forestall a statewide constitutional amendment changing the board’s structure. But when Measure A came before voters, a majority of sitting members publicly opposed it. “In Los Angeles County we already have 1,000 politicians,” said Mike Antonovich, then completing the fifth of his nine terms on the board. “Our problem is not a shortage of politicians.” This year, supervisor Janice Hahn introduced the charter amendment that would expand the board to nine. One thing that’s changed since her father Kenneth’s day: the supervisors are now limited to three four-year terms, thanks to 2002’s Measure B. Hahn and her colleagues know they won’t be serving in 2032, when the first members would be elected from the newly drawn districts.
| | | WHO'S STEERING... | | | … YES ON 6 — Ballot-measure committees are a vehicle for disparate interests driving toward a common goal. Here’s our look at the coalitions, consultants and cash coming together to power them. AT THE WHEEL: The effort to pass the constitutional amendment to end forced prison labor is led by The Anti-Recidivism Coalition and Sister Warriors Action Fund, two groups that advocate for former and current prisoners. Sam Lewis and Amika Mota, two formerly incarcerated leaders who have advocated for policies to help California’s prison population, are on the campaign’s executive committee. RIDING SHOTGUN: Esteban Núñez, a son of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez who had a sentence for manslaughter commuted after serving prison time, directs strategy. Campaign manager Mae Gates, a former chief of staff to state Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas, runs the day-to-day. UNDER THE HOOD: David Binder, also polling for the No side on Prop 36 and the Yes side for Props 5 and 35, tracks public opinion. IN THE GARAGE: Hilda Delgado, who works with Núñez at the firm Actum, handles communications. RIDING ALONG: The coalition is built around powerful education, civil rights and union interests like the California Teachers Association, SEIU and the California African American PAC. Two parallel committees, one from the Oakland-based All of Us or None Action Fund, are helping organize and turn out voters. FUEL SOURCE: Money to pass the measure has come largely from criminal justice organizations and unions, along with six-figure boosts from philanthropists Quinn Delaney and Patty Quillin, who regularly fund criminal justice causes in the state, including the No on 36 campaign. DECALS: Yes on 6 counts endorsements from the League of Women Voters, California Faculty Association, State Building Trades and Construction Council and the California Labor Federation, among others. HOOD ORNAMENT: Civil-rights legend Dolores Huerta signed ballot arguments for the measure. | | | | 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 | | | | |
