The Official Dan Boland Voter Guide for the November 2018 Local, State, and Federal Elections in the United States of America
CITIZENS! It’s that time again. ✅ Time for voting. 🇺🇸 Remember how you’re all mad about everything? I suggest getting informed and voting as a remedy. And then staying mad, staying informed, and staying active.
A few things to note about who wrote this guide before we begin: 🙋🏻♂️ I am a Californian, living in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. I have lived here for 15 years. I am a 38-year old cisgender, gay, white man who works a lot of hours at a union job for a good living. I am originally from the American South, and was raised in an enormous family that is largely very conservative. I suffer from a chronic, auto-immune disease that mostly affects my kidney function, and I spend a lot of time and effort navigating the current state of the medical industry as a patient.
My politics are pretty much like this: You wanna talk civility—I think Senator Mitch McConnell should be tried for treason and, if convicted as a traitor, suffer his punishment on the National Mall for the sake of America. Trans rights are human rights, Trans people are people, and they cannot be erased. I am done with white supremacy. I am done with male supremacy. I am done with supremacy. Recognizing your privilege does not require feeling shame; choosing to ignore your privilege in bliss ignorance is shameful. America has lost its god damn mind. The Right in 2018 represents absolutely nothing beyond ‘owning the libs.’ I like Josh Barro a lot. The fundamental purposes of this nation are to strive to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity. I think a lot of people space on that. I think that the pursuit of happiness is paramount amongst the ideals of America—that life and liberty are obvious prerequisites for said pursuit. Everybody needs to take a civics class again.
All of these things, and more, do a lot to color my perspectives and steer my votes.
You will probably not agree with me on every single thing.
And that’s fine! Look at you, thinking for yourself. Keep it up! I encourage you to do your own research and make your own decisions. But I also understand that a lot of us ain’t got time for that (how do I??) so you can use and share this guide if you’re looking to do some smart, progressive voting in California.
🤓🤔🧐 I have used the LA Times Endorsements, LA Taco’s Voter Guide, the East Area Progressive Democrats, Dick & Sharon’s LA Progressive blog, the LA Forward Progressive Voter Guide, and the Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California voter guides, as well as (most importantly!) my very own reading eyes and thinking mind and Google.com searching abilities to do my research.
🗒✍️ A note about the structure of this voter guide: unlike my guide for the primaries earlier this year, I’m not going to cover the big topics first. Don’t be a baby, read the whole thing. (Okay fine, Props are toward the bottom) Instead, I’m going to go in order of my very personalized sample ballot. Do you see something on your very personalized ballot that is not listed in this guide? Well that is probably because I’m not voting on that particular thing in my very specific district. But you are, in your very specific district! So guess what you’re gonna have to do, 🐑 little lamb 🐑, is you’re gonna have to figure that shit out for yourself. Don’t text me about it from inside the voting booth.
Great, thanks for making it this far, now I will start the actual voting guide!
🇺🇸 Voter-Nominated Offices
Governor: Gavin Newsom 🤝
Listen he wasn’t my top choice in the Primary but he’s our man now, and fuckin LOL @ this chump John Cox even making it to the run-off. Gavin Newsom is going to be a great governor for California. He will continue Jerry Brown’s legacy of California’s grand independence from the stupid ass policies coming out of Republican control across the nation. Newsom’s primary faults are that he is not progressive enough in certain areas, but we’ll take that any day over a Republican, won’t we. Yes, we will.
Lieutenant Governor: Ed Hernandez 🤙
Hernandez’s opponent, Eleni Kounalakis, is a wealthy donor who received an ambassadorship in the Obama administration (a fairly normal thing for wealthy donors to receive). Even given the fact that the Lt. Governor in California is a comically limited office, Kounalakis has no experience in government, and the wealthy buying positions in government via ad sales without doing the work of governance is bullshit, especially when they claim to have progressive values. FOH
Ed Hernandez’s career began as an optometrist working with Medi-Cal patients and underserved youth, leading to his interest in state politics. That’s the kind of path to politics I like to see. He’s had an outstanding run in our state Assembly and Senate. He has chaired our state Senate Health Committe for 8 years. He has legislated quite effectively, and has no fear in taking on special interests on behalf of the people of California.
This is an easy dot to fill on your ballot, enjoy.
Secretary of State: Alex Padilla ✅
People, jesus fucking christ, 🗣 this is exactly why voting is so important. The Republican fool ass on this ticket, Mark Meuser (pictured), is one of those voter-fraud conspiracy theorists. That kook is actually on the ballot to be in charge of all voting in our fuckin state! What even is this?!?! How did he make it to the run-off?? Oh, let me tell you how, enough fucking kooks voted for him that he had more votes than the next-most-voted-for reasonable not-idiot. Look at this fucking chump.
Conversely, Padilla has done very solid work in his first term as our Secretary of State, and we shouldn’t hesitate to give him another term. He has delivered great results—2 million more Californians are registered to vote today than when he took office—with some hiccups that should not be ignored. He has responded very well to being held to task for those hiccups, as would be expected of anyone doing their damn job in good faith.
Controller: Betty Yee 🙌
Betty Yee has done exceptional work as our state Controller in her first term. Re-elect her. And for fuck’s sake re-elect her over, again, her fool ass Republican opponent and his truly psychotic taxation concepts. Y’all California Republicans gotta at least maybe try? This shit is ridic.
The Controller pays all our state’s bills, audits state agencies, and sits on 70 boards and commissions. In addition to doing outstanding work in the expected parts of her position, Yee is also spearheading a comprehensive tax reform statewide that will have California be smartly less reliant on the boom side of the boom-and-bust economic cycle of capitalism for its financial security. Yee also did a remarkable job neutering the corruption-sick Board of Equalization, an issue she ran on and executed well.
She good, we like her.
Treasurer: Fiona Ma 💪
YAS MA MA! Ma currently sits on the above-mentioned Board of Equalization, and was an instrumental partner with Yee in the work to correct the institution’s massive problems.
Ma and Yee have worked well together, and it’s crucial that the Controller and Treasurer are able to do so. It has been said that if the Controller wields California’s checkbook, the Treasurer oversees California’s savings account (and investments).
Ma supports open transparency regarding the state’s financial health, and shares in understanding of California’s complicated relationship to boom-and-bust economics—and, importantly, how to shield our state’s security from the problems it’s suffered in the past during the bust times.
Attorney General: Xavier Becerra 🖕
That 🖕 is Xavier Becerra giving the Trump administration and Republican Congress the daily 🖕 we all wish we could.
Governor Brown picked Becerra personally to replace Kamala Harris when she was elected as our US Senator.
California is public enemy #1 in the eyes of Republicans, and we have seen that it is in their chief interests to discredit both the way we govern in California (aka Democrats governing effectively with progressive policy), and our broadly supported progressive values. Becerra has stood as a stalwart defender of our state’s values and policies against a constant barrage from our federal government. He has protected standing California law and policy regarding public safety funding, environmental standards, healthcare policy, immigration, net neutrality, and more.
He’s our man. Give him a full term. Give him the full-throated support of the people of California.
Insurance Commissioner: Steve Poizner 🤨⁉️
California has an insurance market in excess of $300 Billion. Outside the US, China, and Japan, the next largest markets are the UK ($190B) and France ($154B). Thus we, excluding the rest of our nation, still have one of the largest insurance markets in the world.
Insurance Commissioner in our state is a very important job.
Listen, I want to push progressive politics forward. I want to expand health insurance coverage in California. I want California to be bold in enacting state-wide single-payer health insurance. But those are things that Ricardo Lara should attempt to do from the Legislature, not from the office of Insurance Commissioner. Lara is not the right person for this job right now.
I agree with the LA Times that former-Republican Steve Poizner is the best choice here. Poizner was successful in this office before his failed bid for Governor as a Republican. He earned a reputation in this office as a strong advocate for consumers over insurance companies, even when he was a Republican. Since, he has wisely abandoned the GOP and currently claims no party preference. His desire to return to the Insurance Commissioner’s office, rather than again seek higher and more interesting titles, supports both his claim to hold public service in high esteem, and his stated intention to prove to would-be public servants—turned off by the extreme polarization of our time—that their service is still welcome and worth it.
This is one of those choices where I’m being a bit of a political nerd. I will not be mad at you if you vote for Ricardo Lara. He’ll be fine, honestly. I just think a lot of Lara’s aspirations re: single-payer would be far better served in the Legislature. You do you, boo.
Member, State Board of Equalization (3rd District): Tony Vazquez 😕
Please read this article in its entirety and understand that Tony Vazquez is entirely too close to a potential corruption scandal involving his position on the Santa Monica City Council and his wife’s position on the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School Board.
Then please read this article in its entirety and understand that as Mayor of Santa Monica, Tony Vazquez may also have accepted a free flight on a privately-owned small, single-engine plane—the value of which flight may be in excess of the state’s very tight ‘gifts to public officials’ regulations.
Neither of those potential issues make it particularly easy to pull the lever for Tony Vazquez.
Thus, I am forced to look at his only opponent, G Rick Marshall, a Republican, whose Twitter account makes fun of Al Sharpton, states that he is against building high-density housing development in California, proves that he is a Trumpian stooge (he linked FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s absurd, meme-themed video defense of his ending of Net Neutrality), and makes clear that he thinks there is a war on Christmas.
So, the bubble next to Vazquez’s name isn’t my favorite to fill on this ballot. But it’s fuckin easy to leave his opponent’s bubble blank.
🚨 United States Senator: Dianne Feinstein 🚨
Since then, some things have happened. Chief amongst them is Dianne Feinstein’s handling of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s letter to Feinstein in July, accusing now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh (who, at the point of the letter being received, was at the start of his confirmation process) of having sexually assaulted her.
Listen, this is complicated.
Kevin DeLeon, a CA state Senator and Feinstein’s only opponent in this race, has suggested that Feinstein’s handling of the release of the letter was ‘a failure of leadership.’ That is a very political thing to say about one’s opponent, and it wholesale ignores the very complicated situation which Dr. Blasey Ford and Senator Feinstein attempted to navigate.
Now that we have seen what Dr. Blasey Ford experienced once her name became public, we can easily understand why Feinstein would have complied with Dr. Blasey Ford’s request for privacy (even as many of us remember the Anita Hill hearings, and knew precisely what anyone bringing such charges would face). Feinstein complied, that is, until such a time as The Intercept named Dr. Blasey Ford, and media began to contact Ford.
This is all very upsetting, as you know if you have been alive since the summer.
I personally am of the belief, based on what I’ve learned, that Senator Feinstein did the right things in a horribly impossible situation. My initial instinct was of course that we were done with Feinstein. That instinct was misguided and ill-informed.
I am also of the belief that my original treatise on the topic still stands; retaining Feinstein’s seniority and influence in the Senate is highly beneficial to California. ‘Rewarding’ DeLeon for any perceived misstep by Feinstein in the case of Dr. Blasey Ford is absolute nonsense. And DeLeon’s firebrand approach to Trump works a lot better from the California State Senate than it does from the United States Senate. DeLeon would not be a good Senator for California right now, and he does not deserve to replace Senator Feinstein simply because he seemingly hates Trump more. Nor should it matter that she is 84 years old. I don’t see y’all calling for Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire at 85, do I?
California’s power in the Senate is the most incommensurate in the entire union. Should we choose to forfeit Senator Feinstein’s seniority and influence in the Senate, our state will be utterly powerless in the Senate for at least two terms (assuming Senator Harris even remains in the Senate—something that is highly doubtful given her 2020 aspirations and beyond).
And if you think that Dianne Feinstein is not progressive enough for California, I suggest you take a very long look at her accomplishments in the Senate and think about that position again.
US Representative, 28th District: Adam Schiff 🤝
Adam Schiff is doing a great job representing our district and I’m more than happy to reelect him.
Schiff has been crucial as ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, especially in dealing with the Russia investigations.
Schiff obviously has ambitions for higher office, and that’s just fine. In the mean time he is doing exactly what we want him to do in DC.
California State Senator, 24th District: Maria Elena Durazo 👷♀️💪🎉
A longtime labor activist, Durazo has been a fuckin badass in LA since well before the riots. Ever a champion of labor, she currently is the vice president for immigration, civil rights, and diversity at UNITE HERE! (hospitality workers union). You may remember this organization from the push for the $15 minimum wage in Los Angeles.
She follows in the footsteps of Cesar Chavez. She is a champion of immigrant communities and low-wage workers. She is not afraid to state that Trump is a racist, flat out, and his father was before him as well. She has a long history of confronting authority with legitimacy.
She’s precisely the kind of leadership we need right now. Would that we could vote her to the US Senate, but the state Senate is a fine place to start.
Member of the State Assembly, 43rd District: Laura Friedman ✅
Friedman is an incumbent, and is running uncontested. Seems that she’s doing just fine.
Judicial — Supreme Court Justices, Court of Appeals Justices: YES ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅
There are 2 [state] Supreme Court Justices seeking public confirmation, and 17 [state] Court of Appeals Justices seeking the same. I have not found a single credible source that suggests doing anything other than voting YES on every single one of these. God bless us, every one.
Judicial — Judge of the Superior Court, Office №4: Alfred A. Coletta
Listen for all these I pretty much just polled all the progressive voter guides + LA times, and everybody was unanimous. If you want to know more, google some shit.
Judicial — Judge of the Superior Court, Office №16: Sydne Jane Michel
Judicial — Judge of the Superior Court, Office №60: Holly L. Hancock
Judicial — Judge of the Superior Court, Office №113: Michael P. Ribons
Superintendent of Public Instruction: Tony K. Thurmond 🤝
It is as easy to pigeonhole Thurmond into a “supported by teachers unions” role as it is to pigeonhole his opponent, Marshall Tuck, into a “charter school stooge” role. Neither is entirely accurate.
But Thurmond is the better choice for California in this election. Thurmond, who grew up as a poor kid of color in Philly, has a unique understanding and approach to at-risk students and their needs in our enormous and complicated system. He has worked with disabled kids, foster kids, and the chronically truant. He has served in elected office. He has actually legislated actual policy into actual law.
Thurmond is precisely the kind of Superintendent that can pull California out of the bottom of public ed success in America and put it back on top, where it belongs.
Los Angeles County Assessor: Jeffrey Prang ✅
I’m not even gonna look up shit about Jeffrey Prang. His fool ass opponent actually lists his name on the actual official ballot as John “Lower Taxes” Loew so that’s about all we need to know about that fuckin dumbass.
Los Angeles County Sheriff: Jim McDonnell 🗿
I voted for Jim McDonnell when we first elected him, the very darkest times of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s institution. I am more willing to give McDonnell more time to continue his reforms program than I am to give anyone who spent their career in middle management in the disgraced former Sheriff’s office.
I would like to see the public, our government, and our media do a better job of holding McDonnell to task over unnecessary violence in any form from his deputies. I do not think McDonnell is dismissive of this issue at all. But I’d like to see him do better with cultural changes in his department.
State Measures AKA Ballot Initiatives AKA Proposition Party 2018 🎢🚀🛸
1: YES ✅
AUTHORIZES BONDS TO FUND SPECIFIED HOUSING ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS. LEGISLATIVE STATUTE.
Finances mortgages at low interest rates for veterans to buy homes or farms; helps fund construction of apartments for approximately 30,000 lower-income families via nonprofit developers; funds development and rehabilitation of high-density, affordable housing, including housing for agricultural laborers.
This measure will by no means solve the housing crisis in our state, but it will do a lot of good that cannot be done otherwise. Funding nonprofit developers is crucial in my opinion.
We still need many many multiple times this amount of housing created, though.
2: YES ✅
AUTHORIZES BONDS TO FUND EXISTING HOUSING PROGRAM FOR INDIVIDUALS WITH MENTAL ILLNESS. LEGISLATIVE STATUTE.
The mentally-ill homeless need housing first, as they cannot be treated effectively on our streets. Current legislation, intended to fund this housing using a sliver of voter-approved mental health funds, is now caught up in a lawsuit that argues that voters did not approve said mental health funds to be spent on housing.
This measure nukes that problem. Approve it.
3: NO. 🚫
AUTHORIZES BONDS TO FUND PROJECTS FOR WATER SUPPLY AND QUALITY, WATERSHED, FISH, WILDLIFE, WATER CONVEYANCE, AND GROUNDWATER SUSTAINABILITY AND STORAGE. INITIATIVE STATUTE.
Oooooh, a water bond! We love those! Sounds good, right? NO. BAD.
Prop 3 is an attempt by Big Ag in the southeast San Joaquin Valley to get the people of California to pay for the mistakes of their self-destructive cycle of pumping groundwater via new wells. This practice has literally caused the ground level in the Central Valley to sink, which has caused the infrastructure of the California Aqueduct to collapse, which has cause the efficiency of the Aqueduct to be depleted for these farms. This problem is self-imposed, and they should fix it. Maybe they can get their farm-subsidies-high buddy Trump to help.
The problem is what’s in it: too much spending by all Californians for the benefit of a few, with too little oversight on projects. This is exactly how not to do a bond. Voters should reject Proposition 3. —LA Times
4: YES ✅
AUTHORIZES BONDS FUNDING CONSTRUCTION AT HOSPITALS PROVIDING CHILDREN’S HEALTH CARE. INITIATIVE STATUTE.
Children’s hospitals statewide are struggling financially to upgrade their buildings to meet earthquake standards. This is mostly due to low reimbursement rates from Medi-Cal. Children’s hospitals collapsing during a 5.+ is not something California wants to be famous for.
5: NO. 🚫
CHANGES REQUIREMENTS FOR CERTAIN PROPERTY OWNERS TO TRANSFER THEIR PROPERTY TAX BASE TO REPLACEMENT PROPERTY. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT AND STATUTE.
“INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT” is always a 🚩 red flag.
Man, the audacity of some of these motherfuckers is shocking.
Here’s what these old rich assholes want to do: they bought a fancy ass house some decades ago that is suddenly worth tens of millions of dollars instead of just a couple million dollars, because California. But they’re still enjoying artificially low property taxes because of Prop 13. When they upgrade to a new house that they buy for tens of millions of dollars, they want to ‘transfer’ their property tax rate from their old house to their new house.
Unlike California’s existing “portability” provision, intended in very limited ways to help seniors and the disabled be able to downsize w/o tax penalty, Prop 5 expands the portability provision ridiculously, well beyond the intention to downsize—even to those who wish to UPSIZE! It’s outrageous.
Further, it could create a whole new market of Baby Boomer real estate market speculation, and we’ve seen how well that works out for us.
California Association of Realtors is behind this Prop, because it would easily produce tens of thousands of commissions for its members.
But our state would suffer another drastic decrease in property taxes, as well as a whole new wave of bullshit that would mostly benefit wealthy Boomer landowners and their realtors.
6: NO. 🚫
ELIMINATES CERTAIN ROAD REPAIR AND TRANSPORTATION FUNDING. REQUIRES CERTAIN FUEL TAXES AND VEHICLE FEES BE APPROVED BY THE ELECTORATE. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.
“INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT” is always a 🚩 red flag.
Here come these fool ass Republicans tryna start a culture war in California over the god damn gas tax.
Our transportation infrastructure is garbage, as we all know well from using it every day. The new gas tax—the first gas tax increase in 23 years!!—funds transportation infrastructure improvements, meaning repaving our roads, fixing potholes and sinkholes, updating bridges and overpasses, etc, to the tune of $5 billion a year.
This initiative is exclusively funded by out of state Republican interests.
Fuck them.
7: YES ✅
CONFORMS CALIFORNIA DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME TO FEDERAL LAW. ALLOWS LEGISLATURE TO CHANGE DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME PERIOD. LEGISLATIVE STATUTE.
Free at last, free at last! Thank God almighty we are free at last.
Free from Standard Time, that is.
Winter is coming. And with it, stupid ass short days. Days during which it’s dark when you leave work, even when you leave work at 4pm. All so that some farmers in a different part of the country can wakeup before dawn anyway? I’m not here for it.
Listen, this Prop does not actually eliminate Standard Time in California. ☹️ Instead, it simply ALLOWS the Legislature to express our desire to shift to Daylight Saving Time, permanently.
But the only way that’ll actually happen is via an act of Congress. So, RIP that. ⚰️ But vote for it anyway because omg what if!
8: NO. 🚫 OMG NO NO NO! VOTE NO FOR ME & MY POOR KIDNEYS.
REGULATES AMOUNTS OUTPATIENT KIDNEY DIALYSIS CLINICS CHARGE FOR DIALYSIS TREATMENT. INITIATIVE STATUTE.
Greetings hello, it is me, maybe your friend depending on whom sent you this link, Dan Boland.
I suffer from IgA Nephropathy, AKA Berger’s disease, which is an auto-immune disorder that causes my fancy ass immune system to try to kill my kidneys all the god damn time. It’s tight, lemme tell you.
One thing that is absolutely certain in my life is that I will, at some point, require dialysis treatment on a regular basis. Prop 8 would be a real big fuckin problem for me.
If I ever have so much as a single issue finding dialysis treatment and I know that you voted yes on this stupid shit, I will make it the rest of my short life’s work to cause you equal or greater suffering, so help me gawd. I will have two new kidneys grown for me in a secret lab and survive successful double transplant surgery and recovery JUST so that I can come punch you square in your genitalia repeatedly until I have expired.
This initiative is opposed by the National Kidney Foundation, the Renal Support Network, all kinds of nurses networks and dialysis patient groups, etc. Also me.
Please learn about the organization supporting this initiative, and why they are doing it. It’s a workers union (yay!) attempting to cripple two dialysis clinic chains that have resisted unionization of their workers (hmm wait a–), by capping the revenues of the businesses. Except, they’re doing it at the very terrible expense of the patients they are supposed to serve (boo!). And, notice that they’re capping revenues, rather than capping profits. That’s a good sign that they don’t actually have patients’ interests at heart.
One likely outcome of this kind of flawed regulation is that the smallest operators could be forced out of business. The big chains that the unions are attempting to cripple would remain, of course, and would be at an even greater advantage to resist unionization.
It’s stupid bullshit, boo! Don’t hurt my kidneys! They already hurt themselves, the poor things!
10: YES ✅
EXPANDS LOCAL GOVERNMENTS’ AUTHORITY TO ENACT RENT CONTROL ON RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY. INITIATIVE STATUTE.
Currently, due to an existing state law known as ‘Costa-Hawkins,’ localities in California have no authority to enact rent control on apartments built after 1978.
This initiative repeals that law.
It is likely that, given this returned authority, City of Los Angeles would update its rent control policies. What they do along those lines will be the subject of many a city council meeting, I’m sure. You will have to go to them if that concerns you!
But it is ridiculous that a law like Costa-Hawkins is preventing localities from doing whatever they can to address the housing crises in their communities. Get rid of it.
The core issue in California’s housing crisis is of course supply of housing. A veritable fuckload of new housing is the only real solution here. Credible estimates suggest that California needs 3.5 million new housing units in order to satisfy demand and stabilize prices. So, lmao lemme get right on that, Rose.
Meanwhile, localities need the freedom to enact new rent control regulation—or not—as it suits the needs of their communities. This is a crisis, after all.
11: YES ✅
REQUIRES PRIVATE-SECTOR EMERGENCY AMBULANCE EMPLOYEES TO REMAIN ON-CALL DURING WORK BREAKS. ELIMINATES CERTAIN EMPLOYER LIABILITY. INITIATIVE STATUTE.
As a union employee, I think breaks are great. They are absolutely an important part of keeping yourself going on a long work day. I take a full lunch break every day, and I usually read a book in a quiet place during it. It does a lot to keep me sane, particularly when I’m working long-hours days and nights.
But I still answer my phone, especially work txts and important emails. If I am at lunch while the show is on, and the show needs something, I dart back to my office, handle business, then return to my sacred break space and extend my break for as long as the business handling took.
I’m a fuckin graphic designer for a game show, people. I am not saving lives over here.
At the same time, I recognize that the highly-stressful, life-saving environment of our First Responders creates a situation in which breaks are important in ways my desk jockey ass will never understand. I would absolutely not want to take breaks away from any of those people. If they felt strongly about the sacrosanctity of their breaks, I would be a hard ass NO 🚫 on this vote.
But then, ohnoes, I’ve learned that their unions have stated that the members don’t have a problem with remaining on-call during paid work breaks. They want only to be sure they retain the right to seek additional compensation when employers impose this requirement, as they have been able to in the past.
The union representing paramedics and EMTs, who would ostensibly be the aggrieved party in this case, has expressed no opposition to this initiative.
Further, this initiative only applies to private-sector ambulance companies. Public first responder organizations, such as LAFD, already remain on-call during breaks, as policy.
12: YES ✅
ESTABLISHES NEW STANDARDS FOR CONFINEMENT OF SPECIFIED FARM ANIMALS; BANS SALE OF NONCOMPLYING PRODUCTS. INITIATIVE STATUTE.
We’re getting rid of cages for hens completely.
All eggs sold in California will be produced by cage-free hens without exception by 2022. It details what “cage-free” means in a real way, specifying how much barn floor space a hen should have, types of acceptable layouts for cage-free spaces, and requires that hens have nest boxes and perches.
The measure also requires that all veal and pork products sold here come from calves and pigs that have not been confined.
Local Ballot Initiatives, Measures, etc
Los Angeles County Measure W: YES ✅
A new parcel tax that invests in infrastructure to capture more runoff, clean it, and get it back into our groundwater system.
Currently the vast majority of our water runs through the street, picks up pollutants along the way, and drains to the oceans. Ends up those little dolphins on our sidewalks don’t do too much to stop our cars from leaking.
Further, due to the effects of climate change, we absolutely must become more reliant on our own, independent water sources, and less reliant on buying the contents of the Colorado River—which may be less and less available for us to buy in the coming droughts.
Currently we collect next to no runoff. Here’s a start.
Los Angeles City Measure B: NO 🚫
Listen, a publicly owned Bank of Los Angeles would be tight, I agree.
This dumbass measure has absolutely no specifics, nobody knows what they’re doing nor how to do it, no plan, no feasibility study. The City Council itself freely admits they have no actual idea how to do this.
The measure itself is nonsense.
Let’s definitely make a Bank of Los Angeles, but let’s do it right. This ain’t it. Voting for this in the hope that it will become that is a bad idea. It will bet embroiled in bullshit, nuked sooner or later, and the chances of every having a public charter bank thereafter will be 0.
Los Angeles City Measure E: YES ✅
Aligns city election dates with state election dates. We’ve done this before. We have to do it again because sometimes shit is dumb. Anyway, just do it.
Los Angeles Schools Measure EE: YES ✅
See above, but instead for school district elections. FFS.
Oh my god if you’ve gotten this far, I’m so very proud of you.
