There are occasional elections where voters are not asked to decide very much – as in last March’s primary where the presidential votes were not close and it was hard to find other significant issues.
Things are very different this fall.
Not only does the California ballot feature a unique presidential choice with a former prosecutor facing off against a convicted felon who’s also a former president, but control of the House of Representatives may hinge on several congressional races here and the list of ballot propositions contains some that could create big changes for many people.
Voting begins soon, as mail-in ballots will start hitting mailboxes around California within the next two weeks.
Plenty has been written here and elsewhere about the congressional choices, where some races involve Republicans who have won repeatedly in districts where Democrats hold registration advantages. This means efforts by both parties to get their voters to actually vote could decide who will control policymaking in Congress for at least the next two years.
Polls indicate California’s Senate race between Democrat Adam Schiff and Republican Steve Garvey is no real contest, with Schiff holding leads that average about 20 percent in virtually every poll.
But the statewide questions posed by 10 propositions provide fodder aplenty for voters to consider while marking their ballots.
For some, the most controversial of these is Proposition 5, placed on the ballot by state legislators who want to make it easier for cities and counties to raise money for affordable housing projects and infrastructure like sewers and bridges.
Since 1978, it has taken a two-thirds majority vote of local voters to pass bonds for such projects, other than schools, which for more than 10 years have needed only a 55 percent majority to raise money for buildings and other causes.
Prop. 5 would lower the passage threshold to that same 55 percent for many non-school projects, marking a fundamental change in 1978’s tax-limiting Proposition 13. This one is strongly opposed by the tax-fighting Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn.
There’s also Proposition 6, another issue placed on the ballot by legislators. It would end forced labor by convicts in prisons and jails. If it passes, prisons could no longer compel inmates – no matter what crimes they’ve committed – to work. Prisoners could not be penalized for refusing assignments.
Of course, inmates could still get credit toward earlier-than-normal release for things like serving on fire-fighting crews, but they would have to be paid much more than the current pennies per hour.
That would mark a major change in prison life, giving convicts more choices and the chance at having even more empty time to while away than now.
Rent control is also back on the ballot, after voters twice earlier voted down statewide controls. Under Proposition 33, local governments would not need approval from their own voters to enact controls on residential property, not even on relatively new units built since 1995 that are now exempt from most rent control. The concept of vacancy decontrol of rents, allowing them to rise to market rates when tenants move out, would also disappear; local officials could keep controls in effect even when units are vacated.
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Meanwhile, Proposition 34 goes after the tax-exempt status of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, aiming to strip its non-profit status. It would also allow Medi-Cal to negotiate many drug prescription prices for its clients, just as the federal Medicare system recently did with several drugs used nationwide, including insulin.
And Proposition 32 would raise minimum wages statewide to $18 per hour starting Jan. 1, less than two months after Election Day.
There’s also the ballyhooed Proposition 36, which aims to make felony prosecutions easier to conduct against repeat shoplifters and thieves even if their take from any one episode does not exceed the $950 bottom limit on the value of stolen goods needed for felony processing.
At the very least, this all presents a ballot that should be fascinating enough to hold voter interest for the few minutes it takes to mark choices that might affect millions of lives for many years to come.
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com.