How Would Eve Vote?

I'll walk you through all forty-nine items in my California guide, statewide and San Francisco. These are just my opinions. Here's how I decided. I put my own guide on trial. For every item, two AI advocates argued opposite sides, a neutral fact-checker checked their claims, and a judge ruled. I rewrote each note from those rulings, including the best case against my pick, and then I double-checked them against their sources. My method is evidence and incentives: what does it actually do, who pays, who benefits, and what happens if it fails. I'll also tell you how confident I am, because some of these are close. And yes, I changed my mind on a few. I'll flag those as we go.

Let's start at the top, with the statewide propositions. Prop 1, the housing bond: YES, medium confidence. It borrows about ten billion dollars from the General Fund, roughly a quarter of one percent of the budget a year for about twenty-five years, and almost ninety percent goes to building and renovating homes for people the market doesn't serve. The real weakness is cost: at least about a hundred and eighty thousand dollars of state money per rental unit. That's a reason to fix costs alongside this bond. Voting NO won't fix them.

Prop 2, the rainy-day fund: YES, high confidence. California's revenue rides capital gains up and down, and this doubles how much the state can save in good years, from ten to twenty percent of General Fund taxes. It doesn't close the loophole that lets the Legislature skip deposits by declaring a budget emergency. But NO keeps that same loophole with a smaller cap.

Prop 3: YES, medium. It makes permanent the high-earner tax rates that have been in place since 2012. They raise five to fifteen billion dollars a year, and the budget is built around them. The best NO argument is that nothing expires until 2031, so there's no rush. That's real, and it's why I'm only medium.

Prop 4, public campaign financing: a lean NO, low confidence, and it's a close call. San Francisco already has public financing, and GrowSF's analysis found incumbents win at the same rate, fewer candidates run, and taxpayers paid eight point eight million dollars in 2024. And the state watchdog isn't required to police new local programs. But "let cities try things" is a perfectly defensible YES.

Prop 5 is recall reform, and it has a weird flaw. A recalled official could run again in a later special election, and the author told the Chronicle he's "honestly not sure" why that's in there. I still vote YES, medium confidence. Today a governor can be removed by a bare majority and replaced by whoever tops a forty-six- or a hundred-thirty-five-person field. In 2021, Larry Elder would have taken office with the votes of about twenty-eight percent of everyone who voted in the recall. Prop 5 keeps your power to recall and drops that plurality lottery.

It bothers me. But a recalled official would have to win a separate, later election, in front of the voters who just removed them. That's a second say for voters, not an override of the first.

Next is Prop 37, and this is one I flipped. I used to be YES. I'm now NO, medium confidence. It's up to twenty-five billion dollars in second mortgages for buyers of newly built homes, and at heart it's a demand subsidy. I don't think those work in a supply-starved market.

Fair hit. Prop 1 has a small demand piece, about eleven percent of the bond, riding along on a supply-side meal. Prop 37 is the whole meal: it's all buyer finance. The supporters' case was that "new homes only" means it adds supply. But California YIMBY found ownership-home permits stayed roughly flat from 2019 to 2023, even as prices spiked in 2020 to '22. Builders aren't short of buyers. And the condo defect-liability fix that sounded so good is opt-in, bundled with higher labor standards.

So why medium and not high? Because it costs taxpayers nothing directly. If you think a better-designed demand subsidy beats none at all, YES is defensible.

Prop 38, the immunology bond: NO, high confidence. About half of the eight point four billion goes to one institute, picked by criteria only that institute meets, and that institute is tied to the measure's funders. The text also exempts it from public-records, open-meeting, and conflict-of-interest laws. Good science should compete for public money in the open.

Prop 39 is voter ID. I'm NO, medium confidence, because of the mechanism.

It is. Thirty-six states and most developed countries request or require ID. That's the best case for YES, and public trust is a real public good. But Prop 39 writes into the constitution that no ballot counts until a matching ID number is verified. That applies to about thirteen million mail ballots, there's no cure process in the text, and it sits on top of the signature checks we already do. When Texas required matching ID numbers, it rejected twelve point three eight percent of mail ballots in its March 2022 primary.

Could California avoid that? To be fair to the measure, it prints the required ID type on your mail-ballot envelope and gives free state IDs, which is why I'm medium, not high. The Legislature could add cure rules, but it can't remove a constitutional "only count after verifying" rule. And the fraud it targets barely happens here. If this were in-person ID plus free cards, I'd be much closer to YES.

Prop 40 is the one-time billionaire tax, and I'm a NO, medium confidence.

The federal Medi-Cal cuts it targets are real and ongoing. This tax is one-time money, mostly gone after five installments. And its base has already shrunk: billionaires who left before the residency date took nearly thirty percent of it with them. The official legislative analyst's estimate is much kinder than independent research, which is why I'm medium. I'd rather fund ongoing health care with ongoing revenue, which is why I'm YES on 2 and 3.

Props 41 and 42: NO and NO, both medium. Their real job on this ballot is to cancel Prop 40. If 40 is bad, the honest move is to vote NO on 40. A constitutional amendment written to void another measure is the wrong tool, and it invites copycats. Forty-two adds new limits on retroactive taxes, and limiting those has real merit, but as a lasting ban on wealth taxes it's mostly symbolic, since a future initiative can repeal it by simple majority.

Prop 43: NO, medium. Starting in 2027, any local special tax that citizens put on the ballot by petition, including renewals, would need two-thirds. That hands about a third of local voters a veto. It does fix a real inconsistency, but by choosing the most restrictive rule. One clarification: it does not affect the regional transit measure or San Francisco's Prop H this year.

Prop 44: NO, high confidence. It requires community clinics to spend at least ninety percent of their revenue on patient services. The average clinic is at about eighty percent today, so most would fail on day one, just as federal Medicaid cuts arrive. The legislative analyst warns some clinics might close. And the sponsor, SEIU-UHW, has a long record of ballot measures used as leverage. This is its fourth healthcare measure, after three on dialysis.

Then Prop 45, the CEQA one, which I flipped the other way: NO to YES, and it's low confidence. It takes the tools that worked for infill housing, hard permit deadlines, objective standards locked in at application, narrower lawsuits, and applies them to clean energy, transmission, water, transit, hospitals, and schools. Projects opt in.

I had three reasons for NO, and all three failed or were badly weakened. One: "a 2025 law already did this for infill." Only partly. It doesn't cover utility-scale clean energy, transmission, or bigger water projects, and Prop 45 adds a ninety-day clock for other permits. Two: "the real beneficiaries are fire-zone subdivisions." That's a real effect, but California YIMBY says its much bigger impact is on non-housing projects. Three: "the Legislature can't fix it." Wrong. It can amend it by two-thirds, as long as the change furthers the measure's purposes.

That doesn't make me all in. I'm narrowly in. The costs are real: it makes freeways and fire-zone subdivisions easier, and it leaves out high-speed rail by design. If you weigh sprawl and wildfire risk heavily, NO is a reasonable vote.

The last measure is RTM, the regional transit tax. It's only for voters in San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. YES, high confidence. BART has already adopted the cuts it makes without this money. Starting January 2027: three lines, a train every thirty minutes, closing at nine p.m., and fares up thirty percent. From July 2027, up to fifteen stations could close. The tax is regressive, and the agencies need reform. But voting NO doesn't deliver reform. It delivers those cuts.

Now the statewide offices, quickly. Governor: Xavier Becerra, medium confidence, without much enthusiasm. He's a cautious insider, and I expect him to change too little. But Steve Hilton called for an audit of the 2020 election Joe Biden won. For a state's chief executive, I consider that disqualifying.

Lieutenant Governor: Fiona Ma, medium. The job's real power is being first in line for governor, and Gloria Romero has promoted claims of voter fraud in the primaries, according to Scott Alexander's ballot guide. On the one live policy question, bringing back the SAT at UC, I actually agree with Romero.

Secretary of State: Shirley Weber, high. She enforced a filing deadline against her own party's governor. Don Wagner is not an election denier, and I want to say that clearly, but he wants to roll back universal mail ballots.

Controller is a close one. A lean toward Herb Morgan, low confidence. The State Auditor found Malia Cohen's office made material errors of about eleven billion dollars one year and six point one billion the next. But Morgan's own "up to four hundred twenty-five billion" fraud-and-waste claim fails the evidence test I apply everywhere else. Cohen is a defensible vote.

Treasurer: Eleni Kounalakis, high. The Treasurer chairs the committees that hand out affordable-housing tax credits and bonds, and she spent about two decades in her family's housing firm. Her opponent, Jennifer Hawks, has repeatedly declined to share her résumé, according to the East Bay Times.

Attorney General: Rob Bonta, high. He built a housing strike force to make cities follow state housing law. His opponent, Michael Gates, led Huntington Beach's fights against that same law.

Insurance Commissioner: Ben Allen, high. Since late 2024, insurers can use wildfire models in their rates in exchange for writing policies in risky areas. The next commissioner's job is enforcing that bargain, and I think Allen fits it better than Jane Kim's plan for a new state-run disaster pool.

Board of Equalization, District 2: John Pimentel, medium, because he's running to abolish the job.

And Superintendent of Public Instruction: Richard Barrera, medium. Eighteen years on the San Diego Unified board, with support from both the teachers' union and charter advocates. Know that the job is shrinking: starting January 2027, a governor-appointed commissioner runs the Department of Education.

Now San Francisco. If you don't vote in San Francisco, skip ahead to the end. For Congress in District 11: Scott Wiener, high confidence. On the issue I weigh most, building homes near transit, he has the strongest authored record in the state. Connie Chan is a serious candidate, and she differs from him on defensive-arms sales to Israel. If that tops your list, I understand.

District 15: Kevin Mullin, high. Assembly 17: Matt Haney, high; he turned the empty-office problem into a statewide law. Assembly 19: Catherine Stefani, high, though I'd flag that she abstained on a tenant-protection bill.

City College board: Elijah Ball, Monroe Lace and Erwin Tam, medium. The accreditor's fixes were all about how the board itself governs, and they bring planning, finance and teaching skills. Partial term: Ruth Ferguson, unopposed. Assessor-Recorder: Joaquin Torres, unopposed.

Public Defender: Manohar Raju is unopposed, and I record a vote for him with serious reservations. A judge held him in contempt and fined him twenty-six thousand dollars; an appeals court has put that on hold. A deliberate blank is an equally honest choice.

On to the Board of Supervisors. District 2: Stephen Sherrill number one, number two blank. The SF Standard reported the FBI asked questions about how his appointment came about. Nobody has been charged, he and the former mayor both deny it, and the question is about why he was appointed, not anything he's done in office. District 4: Alan Wong number one, medium; Jeremy Greco number two, low. That second pick is a change: it used to be Albert Chow. I need to be upfront: Wong supports Prop G, the measure to reopen the Great Highway to cars on weekdays, and I'm voting NO on G.

I rank him first anyway because on his second day he voted for the Family Zoning Plan, in a district that had just recalled its supervisor. Greco is the only candidate who opposes Prop G. He also opposes Family Zoning and backs Props B and I, which I oppose, and he's a long shot.

District 6: Matt Dorsey number one, number two blank. District 8: Gary McCoy number one, Darshini Patel number two, medium. That's flipped from my earlier order, and Manny Yekutiel suspended his campaign but is still on the ballot. District 10: Theo Ellington number one, J.R. Eppler number two. Two things you should know: a crypto billionaire gave five hundred thousand dollars to an independent PAC supporting Ellington, and Ellington himself is a registered city lobbyist in his day job.

School board: Phil Kim, Autumn Brown Garibay and Tim Tung, low-medium. BART District 8: Sara Barz, unopposed.

Now the city measures. A: YES, medium, a modest charter cleanup. B, the public bank framework: NO, high. It has no funding source, and its boards would be exempt from the Sunshine Ordinance. C, the Housing Trust Fund: YES, medium-high. Yes, it's a set-aside, and I'm voting NO on Prop I's set-aside.

Right, so here's the difference in mechanism. C phases in, pairs with cutting the inclusionary requirement, a hidden tax on new homes, and can be frozen when the projected deficit tops two hundred fifty million. I takes effect immediately, is roughly twice the size, and has no deficit exception, with a deficit already projected at seven hundred forty-one point seven million. Reasonable people can still call that inconsistent.

D: YES, low confidence. Ending direct ballot placement by the Mayor or four supervisors is good, but quadrupling initiative signatures gives me pause. E: YES, medium; one purchasing rulebook, at the cost of less Board review. F: YES, medium; authority should match accountability. G: NO, high; it would turn Sunset Dunes into a weekend-only park. H, the Muni parcel tax: YES, high. I: NO, medium. And J: YES, high. It closes a foreclosure loophole on commercial and larger apartment buildings, and the money goes to the General Fund.

That's a lot, so where do you go for the full arguments? Two places. Ten of the closest calls get their own short debate episodes in our California ballot series on askevepodcast.com. And my complete guide, with every pick, the best case against it, and sources, is at openballot.app/g/eve.

No. This isn't advice. It's how I weighed the evidence. Read both sides, especially on the ones I marked low confidence. And if the evidence moves, I'll correct it publicly, on this episode's page and in my guide, the same way I changed my picks on 37, 45, and two San Francisco races.

Go vote. Thanks for listening to Ask Eve.