Look, we're talking about voting in California. If Joe Biden doesn't win California by a landslide, something's seriously wrong and weird. Conversely if he does, a vote for a third party is at least a weak signal that there's votes out there he didn't earn. And boy howdy does he not deserve our votes. So cast instead for a platform that, from an objective perspective, looks pretty decent. That leaves the Peace and Freedom Party and the Green Party as the remaining options.

Reading official releases from the La Riva / Freeman campaign, like their response to the first Biden/Trump debate, I find myself nodding along in a way that Democratic national campaigns rarely manage; Democratic candidates can't even talk the talk comparatively.

Is La Riva a bit of a tankie? Sure, and apologia for repressive regimes is always a bit off-putting, and probably the only area in which I can find much potential disagreement with her. But stanning for Cuba is objectively probably better than for America, considering all that America has done to Cuba (here's just one random example), so from a balanced perspective she's being a lot less objectionable than literally 99.9% of American politicians.

You could vote Green too. There's some worries about Republicans strategically backing the Green Party, and certainly there's been some dirty tricks by Republicans and Democrats using the Green Party as a pawn (or in the case of Republicans, sometimes a Trojan horse, although the Greens will argue that they've caught such cynical candidate insertions). But the weird flipside of the "well hey at least Biden is better than Trump" that starts to be compelling in swing states is that voting for a third party presidential ticket in a non-swing state is so purely symbolic that in a way it doesn't matter beyond the symbolism. Still, I know enough about La Riva's politics to believe she's wholly sincere. Plus when people go "oh you're one of those Green Party voters" you can be like naw my party preference is pretty obscure, you probably haven't heard of it.

Still I won't claim it's an easy choice. If the Greens get 5% nationally they theoretically get some upsides, like federal funding and access to the debates; no chance of that with the Peace and Freedom party, which is running in even fewer states than the Greens. And Hawkins can make a decent case for himself, and for third-party candidates in general in the American system, when given the chance. Among his points is that (a) a third party in America needs to win first at lower, more local levels, but that (b) the systems in many states make that very, very hard for parties that aren't "major" parties to run such candidates at all, and this is often solved by meeting the criteria of having a presidential candidate.

In terms of differences between La Riva and Hawkins, there's been some sniping back and forth, with the perhaps surprising nuance of Hawkins arguing against the idea of supporting Bernie Sanders if he gained the Democratic nomination, and La Riva arguing for endorsing a potential Sanders ticket. So while one might assume La Riva was the more devoted radical, it's the more mainstream and prominent Hawkins and Green Party that are trying to hold more stringently to principle over practicality in at least one (now sadly retroactively theoretical) area.

All in all, while I'm leaning towards La Riva currently, and there are definitely some different implications to either choice, voting for either is fine as a protest vote. And with the electoral college how it is, a protest vote is all one really gets in California.

U.S. House of Representatives

45th District: Katie Porter

Recently, Porter got wide attention for her grilling of a pharmacy company CEO:

In R-leaning swing districts Dems *can* routinely run candidates like Porter and win handily, getting votes even from jaded commies like me, and that they usually don't is all the proof you really need that the party at an institutional level doesn't actually mean what it says. Equivalents of the whiteboard schtick here, sure, dime a dozen in congress; having something even approaching clear-eyed analysis of inequality and the incentives that exacerbate it, though? That's the best way to win swing districts and the thing that most scares the party.

Anyways, vote to re-elect Porter, I say. Try and make it harder for the party institutions to keep pushing for uninspiring centrists as their nominees in Republican-leaning districts, and keep a pretty decent congressperson in the House while you're at it.

State of California offices

Senator, 37th District: Dave Min

Checking Dave Min's official site gets us off on the wrong foot immediately:

Dave Min, is a nationally-recognized expert on economic policy who has fought to protect and strengthen economic opportunity for working Americans for nearly two decades.

That's . . . not how commas work. Well, punctuation abuse is no real reason not to vote for someone, so lets read on.

A first-generation Korean-American, Dave worked as an enforcement attorney at the Securities and Exchange Commission, as an economic and financial policy advisor to Senator Chuck Schumer, and as an economic policy director at the Center for American Progress.

Ah, so he's steeped in the deeply ineffectual side of the Democratic party and liberal apparatuses in the United States, the groups and structures that pay lip service to ideals largely just as a better way to serve corporate interests. (And to add insult to injury, his statement to voters provided with my ballot is written in the third-person, but that's just a personal nitpick.)

But of course this is a two-person race. Lets see what the Republican that currently holds the seat is all about, John M. W. Moorlach (now that's a Republican name if I've ever heard one):

25 years ago, John Moorlach’s steady hand guided Orange County out of bankruptcy protection. A decade later, he brought Orange County safely through the Great Recession.
John Moorlach is the only legislator trained as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and Certified Financial Planner (CFP).

Ah, so another financials guy, but without the patina of being skeptical of the whole system. And it sounds like he's already accomplished at austerity (I'm sure he didn't guide Orange County back into the black by raising taxes...). And yup, he's even talked recently about California's modest minimum wage being too high.

I could go on but this is already about what one expects from a Democratic vs Republican matchup; the Democrat is uninspiring and more talk than substance, but that's still miles better than the Republican. And with O.C. going for Clinton last time around, and Katie Porter having surprisingly won the seat in congress, it seems not unlikely that Min will unseat Moorlach. So it'd be for the better, and there's actually a decent chance of it; might as well vote Min then.

Assembly, 74th District: Cottie Petrie-Norris

I've voted for Cottie Petrie-Norris before, and she's now the incumbent. Her campaign website this time around doesn't have too much to recommend from a lefty perspective, but there's also no red flags, beyond insanely and annoyingly using images rather than text in many places (but there I go nitpicking again). One bill she authored, AB-65, includes the following text:

In California, we continue to demonstrate that a thriving economy is able to coexist with bold environmental policies, as we boast the world's 5thlargest economy alongside global leadership on climate change. There are a multitude of methods to mitigate climate change, including the investment in Green Infrastructure, also commonly referred to as Natural Infrastructure.
Green Infrastructure is a cost-effective, resilient approach to managing natural weather patterns and maintaining an ecosystem where all life is able to thrive, which is crucial in fighting climate change. AB 65 would require the Coastal Conservancy to prioritize projects that utilize the use of Green Infrastructure and provide multiple public benefits along the coast to improve climate change adaptation when allocating its Proposition 68 funding.

That all sounds quite reasonable, and apparently passed quite uncontroversially.

Meanwhile her opponent Diane Dixon is one of a litany of right-wing mayors of the local area.

During her 40-year business career, she spent 30 years as a senior executive at a Fortune 300 public company, where she was responsible for the company’s global communications, marketing communications, and corporate philanthropy. She managed the intersection of business and government, forging connections among business, government, communities and nonprofit organizations.

That sounds ominous. Reading more it gets even worse though:

Diane has been married for 44 years to Pat Dixon, a career prosecutor who currently serves as Special Counsel to the Orange County District Attorney.

Ummm so Dixon's spouse is presumably deeply involved in the sketchy shit the O.C. D.A.'s office has been up to? Well he's certainly in the thick of things, although admittedly there's some degree to which he's been on the accountability side of things, at least on the surface. But lest you think the Dixon family might be at all on the side of reform, Diane Dixon has been endorsed by her local police association, which is enough of an anti-endorsement for me even without any of the other red flags. She's also against decreasing the prison population, against the classification of gig economy workers as employees, and even when talking about providing care for drug addictions and other such issues for homeless folks and pretending to be compassionate she can't help but show her hand: "better treatment, better care, no excuses for criminal activity".

So even more clearly than in the state senate race, the Democrat is the better candidate.

Nonpartisan Offices: School

SOCC Trustee Area 1: NOT Helen Locke

There are four folks running:

Helen Locke makes some potentially good points that might be codedly bad, like saying we need to "spend our money wisely, not waste it on bloated administrative salaries", which is great on the face of it but I always worry is just fiscal conservativism in disguise . . . and in fact later in their statement they say they pledge "to support programs that promote student success while preserving my fiscal conservative values". Hrmm. If the plan was only to cut administrative salaries, I'd be on board, but now I'm unsure, yaknow? Also a bit weird that she's a "Retired Administrative Manager". Is this a wolf in the henhouse situation? Or is she out for revenge? Or is she just legitimately aware of and concerned with administrative compensation excess? I mean frankly if it's either of the latter two that might be fine. But I suspect it's the former, particularly when you get to the huge red flag of "a curriculum that focuses on the basics, not educational fads" which is standard code for a socially conservative and anti-scientific approach to education.
Carolyn Inmon is a "Retired Teacher" which is immediately more promising, although it doesn't take long before talk of "conservation of scarce resources to best serve our community, without raising taxes" comes up. Admittedly that's paired with a desire to "maintain low college fees", so that's not unreasonable. Then stuff that seems a bit too much like farming out the private sector's needs to the public sector like "enable workers to learn the latest job skills, providing local businesses with highly trained employees" is balanced out by stuff like "support lifelong learners", although perhaps that's just a cynical attempt at getting the retired vote. Hmm.
Aarti Kaushal doesn't have a voter blurb in my package, but is listed as "Teacher/City Commissioner" on the ballot. Over one LinkedIn they are a "Special Ed Advocate and Consultant at Self Employed" which seems slightly at odds with that. In an Indian emigree newspaper apparently big in the west of the U.S., she's blurbed as "for over 26 years...a faculty, educator, student life coach and grassroots organizer-activist for students, youth and women in Irvine and Orange County". The same (admittedly flattering) photo is used there as is used on her campaign website (which otherwise didn't come up for me in my Google search, perhaps due to a surprising lack of keywords in the head section), and in both that article and her website she largely seems to say good things, albeit very vaguely. Still, "ensure faculty and school employees get reasonable living wages and benefits" is the best semi-promise I've heard yet. Her individual endorsements appear to be exclusively Indian-American, including the Republican mayor of Anaheim (who apparently does the kind of things you'd expect from a Republican mayor of Anaheim. She does also have one organizational endorsement, and it's from the Orange County Young Democrats,
Matt Waid also doesn't have a blurb in my package, but has a markedly easier to find website. It's both more specific yet also far sparser than the other candidates. Seems to be a real keener.

Looking further, I found https://dissenttheblog.blogspot.com/2020/08/helen-locke-running-for-langs-trustee.html which actually gives some blurbs that don't appear to have made it into my earlier voting package. Unfortunately they make me further apprehensive about the two other candidates, as the whole vibe is very uncomfortably conservative with a sprinkling of technocracy.

Frankly I'm tempted to just roll a die to choose between one of the three candidates that isn't Helen Locke, who's the one most clearly in the reactionary mold.

SOCC Trustee Area 6: Ryan Dack

In stark contrast to the muddled race in area 1, this one is a clear-cut choice between two. James "Jim" R. Wright is a "fiscal conservative" with "twoenty seven years active duty" in the Air Force. Meanwhile as noticed over in the dissent blog, Ryan Dack has no blurb because apparently the registrar asks for $4000 for a candidate statement, so as Dack states on his website

being an educator on an educator’s salary, I decided to utilize my limited resources in other ways. I still do find value in having a candidate statement and have provided mine below:

...As an educator who has had to engage in distance teaching during this pandemic, I know how difficult it is for students and educators right now. No one wants to keep our fantastic education institutions closed, but it is imperative we keep our communities safe...

I’ve been endorsed by the Orange County Democratic Party, and truly value what a high quality education can provide to all members of society. Our community college system is fortunate to have an expansive rainy-day reserve, and the storm has arrived. Your vote will help us weather it together safely.

I'm sold.

SOCCTrustee Area 7: Mo Entezampour

Three people running for this one.

Timothy "Tim" Jemal opens his statement with "As a parent, taxpayer, business owner and chief executive, my top priority is ensuring our precious tax dollars" blah blah ya lost me already, even without the attempted Reagan necromancy of "no new taxes". He's also endorsed by Orange County Business Council's BizPac. Pass.
Mo Entezampour draws a quick unfortunate sleaziness association check by way of publically namechecking an organization that has edited its own Wikipedia page. Perhaps no fault of his own, though. Trying to find statements from him I mostly just find the normal platitudes. His RateMyProf reviews aren't too worrying, sounds like many science profs.
Sean Gawne is a Republican, and endorsed by the California Republican Assembly.

Gonna have to give this one to Prof. Mo, less for any strong points for him and more for the strong points against the other two.

IUSD, Trustee Area 3: Douglas Euper

Back all the way up to four for this one.

Douglas Euper is "first and foremost a father of two boys", starting out with some yellow flags there. He says "the decision by the IUSD to take the grades of the students away this past spring and force them to accept a credit/no credit model was a disaster that was not well thought out" and although on paper I'd side against him maybe he's right in practice. He does mention that the decision "also under cut our teacher who should be trusted to make the decision of how to assess their students" which I'm a bit more amenable to (but dude it's "undercut", not "under cut").
Bethany Huang sounds like a turnkey keener in ways that would turn me against them even if they didn't raise the giant s of "promoting...parent involvement in Irvine sex education" and yeah she just outright says "parental rights". This is the kind of person who has spent their entire life on track to best please their reactionary elders, a Young Republican if I've ever seen one, got a Ben Shapiro over here is what I'm saying. Hell no.
Cyril Yu is a "deputy district attorney" and you know that leads me to immediately see where they've fallen on the incredibly sketchy and evil shit the Orange County D.A. and associated law enforcement has pulled. And indeed, they're one of the D.A.'s who have tried to disqualify the judge that presided over hearings about the misuse of jailhouse informants. If you're against a judge because he helped expose the practice of paying informants and not notifying the defense, well you're sure as hell never going to get my vote for elected office.
Sidney Wu has an MBA, which is already a yellow flag even before his endorsements from Republicans.

I don't really see anyone good here, just a few that are definitely bad. Over on the Orange Juice blog, one of the bloggers comes to a similar conclusion as me:

I’d love to recommend Yu, but I can’t. I see no good alternative to Yu — certainly not Sidney Wu –but I can’t endorse him due to his role in the unethical disqualifications of Judge Thomas Goethals from handling any criminal cases after the “snitch scandal,” which he has never adequately addressed. Yu presumably did what he did — including not contradicting Rackauckas henchwoman Susan Kang Schoeder’s implausible assertion that there was no guidance for Deputy DAs about whether to reject Goethals as their trial judge — for the benefits Racky’s support could provide him in his future political career (as so many did.) So I can’t support him for any office until he lives up to what I believe is his own natural inclination and comes clean. Maybe students suffer for that. Sometimes accountability hurts.

With three candidates being clearly disqualified, I guess I'll give Douglas Euper the benefit of the doubt? I frankly don't quite know what to make of him; further attempted research turns up a quietly bizarre and intense Little League story which continues my confusion as to whether I'm on his side or not. Frankly in some respects I'm voting for him to force a resolution of the question.

Nonpartisan Offices: City

Irvine Mayor Luis Huang or Farrah Kahn

Over on the Orange Juice Blog Greg says "Absent a public comprehensive apology to me from Farrah, I’ll tell Democrats to vote for Huang". What's that about? (Also always a bit offputting when someone uses a first name for someone they're against, and last names for people they're for.) down in the comments things quickly devolve into complicated municipal politics that seem to tarnish most everyone.

Luis Huang sounds good on paper (barring, again, my dislike for third-person candidate statements; it also seems a bit poorly-written, particularly for something that apparently cost $4000 to be included) but doesn't stand a chance. Classically not a reason for me to not vote for someone, but your mileage may vary.

Meanwhile the appointed incumbent, Christina Shea, is . . . pretty bad. So, whatever, her failings, it seems clear Kahn would be a better mayor than Shea.

Irvine City Council: Larry Agran Lauren Johnson-Norris

Larry Agran seems like if Tooker Gomberg was less awesome but markedly more electorally successful; having previously served as a councilmember and mayor in a classic moderate-socialist mold, and having run for president on a platform including slashes the "defense" budget and actually spending some of the money the U.S. wastes on military nonsense on helping citybudgets, he seems quite reasonable. The Orange Juice Blog violently disagrees; they all seem to loathe the guy, even while saying things like he's "among the smartest politicians I’ve met". It's all very tangled; for example Greg seems very against Farrah Kahn these days, while back in 2017 he was against Agran being against Kahn.

With grapes so sour they seem to have fermented, in this case I'm taking the OJ Blog's recommendations as a counter-recommendation and currently tempted to only vote for Agran. At very least, he seems to be part of a side of things that's largely on the outs currently in Irvine.

The OJ Blog's actual endorsement seems to be Lauren Johnson-Norris, who has in turn been endorsed by Katie Porter, Beth Krom (wait wasn't she part of the "Agran/Krom" faction according to the OJ Blog?), Councilmember Fox (also part of the same ostensible coalition), and Councilmember Kahn. So the OJ Blog seems to be endorsing . . . someone endorsed by the people they oppose? See it's this kindof stuff that's why I've taken forever to fill out my ballot . . .

Garden Grove Mayor: ?

I don't actually vote in Garden Grove, but I happened to run across a campaign video for a mayoral candidate for Garden Grove and it's . . . a lot.

Should you actually vote for Phat Bui? Even if you found that video charming more than you found it cringeworthy and smacking of cold-war jingoism, probably not. He's defended a planning commissioner allegedly being extremely sleazy (and not for the first time), He's also strenuously defended the police, including explicitly promising never to reduce funding (although on the other hand, if not just as a political tactic, calling the proposed training inadequate is . . . probably accurate). So if by some weird quirk of circumstance you're reading this and voting in Garden Grove and yet also don't know far more about the goings-on in local politics there than I do, probably don't vote for this guy? I dunno I just came across this video and felt like I couldn't simply let it go.

Ballot Propositions

Proposition 14: Yes

Issues $5.5 billion in bonds for state stem cell research institute

Governmental funding of research is always a tempting prospect, all the moreso as we stare down future economic woes and a continued push by the religious right in America to deny funding for such research otherwise.

Read more at:

Ballotpedia

Proposition 15: Yes

Increases Funding for Public Schools, Community Colleges, and Local Government Services by Changing Tax Assessment of Commercial and Industrial Property.

An old proposition 13 back in made property tax valuations in California deeply weird. Taxes are only reassessed for a property when it is sold, not on any sort of regular schedule, and the maximum rate increase per year is 2%.

This is already a bit weird for individuals and has the possibility of creating some major inequities; the black family in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air invariably was paying much higher property taxes than their white neighbors who had been in the neighborhood longer, to give a pop culture example soas to seem quirky at first before the ugliness unspools in the imagination. But it gets much, much worse when you consider that corporations can live forever. Barring the San Andreas fault or sweeping fires demolishing a property, the divergence between current market value and the taxes a corporation is paying on a property could literally diverge forever.

I have the impression that the old prop 13 was sold as a "don't force old people out of their homes!" measure, and it is perhaps with that sort of counter-anecdote in mind that this proposition does not modify how property taxes are handled for residential properties, merely for commercial and industrial properties. In fact it still only applies to properties worth over $3000000000. There are corporations that still pay a rate based on at most 2%-per-year increased from 1975, despite the vastly higher level of inflation (at multiple levels!) on their properties. And even just the initial rollback in 1979 back to 1975 prices put many local governments into crisis:

After Proposition 13, county property tax revenues dropped from $10.3 billion in 1977-78 to $5.04 billion in 1978-79. As a result, many local governments were in fiscal crisis. Keeping local governments in operation the first two years following Proposition 13 required legislative “bailouts” to offset property tax revenue losses. A first-year stopgap measure costing $4.17 billion in state surplus funds was necessary to directly aid local governments. A second-year bailout, a long-term fiscal relief plan, cost the state $4.85 billion.

Staring down a financial crisis as we are right now, and with municipalities and counties generally underfunded as it is, it seems prudent to do the opposite of the Reagan era of American politics. And this initiative is such a targeted slice of a repeal it even retains arguable upsides of the status quo.

Read more at:

Proposition 16: Yes

Allow Diversity as a Factor in Public Employment, Education, and Contracting Decisions.

Much like with Prop 15 immediately above, this undoes an existing applied prop in California, in this case one that was ostensibly banning discrimination. That sounds good, but federal law already has protections against many forms of discrimination (admittedly at least for now; the increasingly solid right-wing majority on the Supreme Court puts that in a bit of jeopardy), so the existing ban pretty much only disallows affirmative action. As a California justice put it,

The measure's language prohibiting 'discrimination' was largely superfluous, given that state and federal law, as well as the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, already prohibit such discrimination. What was new about Proposition 209, therefore, was the prohibition on 'preferential treatment.'

Or that is to say, the main outcome of the California law as stands is a ban on affirmative action.

Read more at:

Ballotpedia

Proposition 17: Yes

Restores Right to Vote After Completion of Prison Term.

Lets one-up Florida by actually restoring the voting rights of ex-convicts, eh? I mean admittedly California already goes beyond Florida; this would merely mean that folks on parole would also be able to vote. But considering how the modern carceral state operates, that's a very non-trivial number of people. Giving the state the ability to take away voting rights is iffy at best; lets roll this level back too.

Read more at:

Ballotpedia

Proposition 18: Yes

Amends California Constitution to Permit 17-Year-Olds to Vote in Primary and Special Elections if They Will Turn 18 by the Next General Election and be Otherwise Eligible to Vote.

The only thing I'm torn on with this measure is whether it's absolutely perfect that this is Proposition 18, or if it would have been even better if it was Proposition 17. Either way, I think it's pretty established at this point that letting younger folks vote is better for democracy---particularly from a progressive perspective---so I'm all for this.

Read more at:

Ballotpedia

Proposition 19: No?

Changes Certain Property Tax Rules.

The Yes campaign is heavily funded by the California Association of Realtors, so . . . yaknow. They've probably gamed this out and figure it'll be great for them in some devious way. It certainly sounds promising, but as a blogger over at the Orange Juice Blog wrote,

I can’t trust that one of their smart lawyers hasn’t figures out a way to get something terrible into the fine print

On the other hand, the Howard Jarvis folks seem to be against it, so maybe it indeed is good? But then the ACLU is against it because it "threatens funding for schools and essential services". And the more I think about it, the more it sounds like it could be used by wealthy individuals to shuffle around on paper where they're living soas to avoid taxes; I'm sure a good tax lawyer will find whichever residence would generate the least taxes and have them declare that's now their primary residence. I'm going to go with the safer bet and vote against it.

Read more at:

Ballotpedia

Proposition 20: No

Restricts Parole for Non-Violent Offenders. Authorizes Felony Sentences for Certain Offenses Currently Treated Only as Misdemeanors.

Yeah sure, because California's prison system isn't overcrowded already. Yeesh. Not only does this expand the range of felony charges (theft as low as $250 could now be a felony), but it increases DNA sample grabbing and storage. As a fan of dystopias in fiction but not reality, I'm going solidly with No here.

Read more at:

Ballotpedia

Proposition 21: Yes

Expands Local Governments’ Authority to Enact Rent Control on Residential Property.

There are folks out there that argue rent control causes more issues than it solves. Those people are appealing to the idea that the free market can sort such things out; well okay then, so lets pass this proposition and allow cities to set rent controls if they want and see how it plays out! California is more populous than the entire country of Canada; lets get some natural experiments going, shall we?

Furthermore, remember from Prop 15 that property taxes are already controlled; if the taxes landlords are paying aren't tied to the market, why should rent be mandated to be by law? And there's an exemption for "individuals who own no more than two homes" and still "in accordance with California law, prohibits rent control from violating landlords’ right to fair financial return", so things aren't even going to change too much.

Read more at:

Ballotpedia

Proposition 22: No

An attempt by gig economy VC-backed firms like Uber to do an end-run around legislation that would force them to actually treat employees fairly rather than pretending they're "independent contractors", this proposition stands a dangerous chance of succeeding because on the face of it it sounds like it helps people. It's really just to preempt better, deeper help and restructuring of employment laws, which is why the Yes campaign is so heavily funded (not to mention some pretty direct advocacy). The CA Dems are against it; the CA GOP is for it.

Read more at:

Proposition 23: Yes

Establishes State Requirements for Kidney Dialysis Clinics. Requires On-Site Medical Professional.

Quoting again Greg Diamond at the Orange Juice Blog,

Again, look back up at the graphic showing funding. Just the two largest for-profit dialysis clinics alone — who have been accused of poor sanitary conditions, poor working conditions, and much else — have already poured in $86 million to fight against having to keep a medical doctor on hand while they operating.

Read more at:

https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_23,_Dialysis_Clinic_Requirements_Initiative_(2020)

Proposition 24: No

Amends Consumer Privacy Laws. **

One of those "sounds good, secretly really bad" ones. Techdirt has a good short writeup on why, and in general these sorts of laws (like Europe's GDPR) are increasingly popular with giant tech corporations for a reason; they actually don't reform much positively for users due to all the loopholes and complications, but they add huge additional requirements for tech companies that are much easier to handle at the scale of operations that Google, Facebook, etc operate at. And this ballot measure would basically just be a more ill-considered draft at such an idea than the existing law which recently passed, revising it to add more loopholes and complications (which again, much like with tax systems, redound to the benefit of the major players in a system and the detriment to the smaller ones).

Read more at:

Proposition 25: Yes?

Referendum on Law that Replaced Money Bail with System Based on Public Safety and Flight Risk. **

There are definitely, and unfortunately, problems with the law in question. Notably, there's already a problem in the U.S. with these flight-risk assessments being done by extremely predjudiced software. But on the other hand, what is cash bail except the most simplistically biased system possible along the axis of wealth inequality? So while there are some serious potential downsides here (ex. collective bail funds can't be created to bail out protestors) that I think outweighed by the upsides overall. But it comes down to how pessimistic one is and in which ways. Personally I suspect it will be easier to further reform the system once the cash bail industry in California is wiped out; maybe I'll feel differently when I'm denied bail by a judicial robot in 2037 for having tweeted about socialism a bunch and being a refugee from Alberta.

Read more at:

https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_25,_Replace_Cash_Bail_with_Risk_Assessments_Referendum_(2020)

Judges

I don't see any option to vote for judges on my ballot. Apparently it's because that was all decided in May. Unfortunate because I remember Tony Ferrentino being terrible, and he's perfectly rated by the Judge Voter Guide crazies. Bah!