Initiatives Report
SCA 2 – Article 34 Repeal – SUPPORT
SCA 2 proposes to repeal Article 34 of the California Constitution with the goal of making it legal to build low-income and public housing in California’s cities.
California YIMBY
Originally passed in 1950, Article 34 gives wealthy California neighborhoods veto power over affordable housing, enabling ongoing segregation and preventing housing from being built where it is needed most.
If voters approve SCA 2 on the ballot, it will:
- Empower local governments to address low-income housing and homelessness by removing obstacles that prevent needed housing from being built.
- Lead to more equitable housing outcomes and help address California’s severe shortage of subsidized affordable housing.
- Save taxpayer dollars by eliminating red tape and prohibitive local fees, making it cheaper to build publicly-funded affordable housing projects.
Updates: SCA 2 passed the State Senate on 1/26/22 by a vote of 37-0. It passed the State Assembly on 8/31/22 by a vote of 73-0. It will appear on the ballot in November 2024.
Please note: Counties have 8 business days after the filing of a petition to determine the total number of signatures affixed to the petition and transmit this information to the Secretary of State’s office (Elections Code section 9030(b)). If no signatures are submitted, a proposed initiative measure will fail on the 9th business day after its circulation deadline.
#22-008 – Costa Hawkins Repeal – OPPOSE
Another anti-housing measure targeted for 2024 statewide ballot
California Apartment Association
Extreme rent control and anti-housing activists are again planning a statewide voter initiative to take down the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, California’s most important landlord protection law.
The measure threatens to repeal 1995’s Costa-Hawkins Act in its entirety, allowing local governments to impose rent control on single-family homes and newer apartments. The measure also would eliminate the state’s ban on vacancy control, allowing cities and counties to regulate rents between tenancies.
In addition to repealing Costa-Hawkins, the “Justice For Renters Act” would prohibit the state from limiting the right of local governments to maintain, enact or expand residential rent control.
Should the measure secure the necessary signatures, it would likely appear on the November 2024 state ballot.
It would mark the third time in recent years that supporters of radical rent control have used California’s voter initiative system to attack Costa-Hawkins. The California Apartment Association led the successful campaigns to defeat both initiatives: Proposition 21 in 2020 and Proposition 10 in 2018.
Continued attempts to undermine or eliminate Costa-Hawkins come despite California’s passage of a statewide rent control law in 2019. The California Tenant Protection Act, passed as AB 1482, became the nation’s strongest statewide tenant protection law and caps rent increases at 5% plus the consumer price index, or a maximum of 10%, for most of California’s multifamily housing stock.
#23-0022 – Personal Finance Education SUPPORT
Proposed initiative addresses financial literacy in CA schools
Ballotpedia
The measure would require students graduating during the 2029-2030 academic year to complete a one-semester personal finance course. The measure would also require a personal finance course to be offered by the 2026-2027 academic year. The personal finance course would have to meet the A-G requirements, which are the course requirements for admission to the state’s public universities, or be approved by the local governing board.[1]
The topics of the personal finance course may include but are not limited to:
- budgeting skills,
- an understanding of the tax system,
- an understanding of retirement accounts and investment alternatives (e.g. 401K programs, Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA), stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and index funds),
- types of credit and predatory lending practices,
- identity theft prevention,
- financing college or other workforce education, and
- features of bank accounts.
ACA 5 – Marriage Equality NEUTRAL
CALIFORNIA SENATE PASSES CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PROTECTING MARRIAGE EQUALITY WITH 31-0 BIPARTISAN SUPPORT – Equality California
California Voters Will Have Opportunity to Safeguard Freedom to Marry for Same-Sex, Interracial Couples in November 2024.
Assembly Constitutional Amendment 5 (ACA 5), authored by Assemblymember Evan Low (D-Silicon Valley) and Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), would amend the California Constitution to protect the fundamental freedom to marry and remove the unconstitutional and discriminatory language from Proposition 8. Doing so would help safeguard against any future attempts to restrict marriage rights for same-sex or interracial couples.
ACA 1 – Voter Approval Thresholds OPPOSE
CA State Assembly – Cecilia Aguiar-Curry
ACA 1 will lower the necessary voter threshold from a two-thirds supermajority to 55 percent to approve local general obligation (GO) bonds and special taxes for affordable housing and public infrastructure projects.
ACA 13- Tax measure Voter Threshold OPPOSE
CalMatters
This measure would further provide that an initiative measure that includes one or more provisions that would amend the Constitution to increase the voter approval requirement to adopt any state or local measure would be approved by the voters only if the proportion of votes cast in favor of the initiative measure is equal to or greater than the highest voter approval requirement that the initiative measure would impose. The measure would specify that this voter approval requirement would apply to statewide initiative measures that appear on the ballot on or after January 1, 2024.
#23-0017 – Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act SUPPORT
INITIATIVE COULD REVERSE PROP 47 WHILE INCREASING SOME PENALTIES
Contra Costa News
This measure will:
- Provide drug and mental health treatment for people who are addicted to hard drugs such as fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine.
- Add fentanyl to existing laws that prohibit the possession of hard drugs while armed with a loaded firearm.
- Add fentanyl to existing laws that prohibit the trafficking of large quantities of hard drugs.
- Permit judges to use their discretion to _sentence drug dealers to state prison instead of county jail when they are convicted of trafficking hard drugs in large quantities or are armed with a firearm while engaging in drug trafficking.
- W am convicted hard drug dealers and manufacturers that they can be charged with murder if they continue to traffic in hard drugs and someone dies as a result.
- Reinstate penalties for hard drug dealers whose trafficking kills or seriously injures a drug user.
- Increase penalties for people who repeatedly engage in theft.
- Add new laws to address the increasing problem of “smash and grab” thefts that result in significant losses and damage, or that are committed by multiple thieves working together.
- Reducing Homelessness Through Drug and Mental Health Treatment.
#23-0021 – Healthcare Provider Spending SUPPORT
The Attorney General of California has prepared the following title and summary of the chief purpose and points of the proposed measure: RESTRICTS SPENDING BY HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS MEETING SPECIFIED CRITERIA. INITIATIVE STATUTE. Requires certain health care providers to spend 98% of revenues from federal discount prescription drug program on direct patient care. Applies only to health care providers that: spent over $100,000,000 in any ten-year period on anything other than direct patient care; and operated multifamily housing with over 500 high-severity health and safety violations. Penalizes noncompliance by revoking health care licenses and tax-exempt status. Permanently authorizes state to negotiate Medi-Cal drug prices on statewide basis. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local governments: Increased costs to state government, potentially up to the millions of dollars annually, to review entities’ compliance with the measure and enforce the measure’s provisions. These costs would be paid for by fees created under the measure. Uncertain fiscal impacts to state and local government health programs, depending on how the affected entities respond to the measure’s requirements. (23-0021A1.)
#23-0024 – Medi-CaL Funding Assessment SUPPORT
| Ballotpedia Makes permanent the existing tax on managed health care insurance plans, currently set to expire in 2026, which the state uses to pay for health care services for low-income families with children, seniors, people with disabilities, and other groups covered by the Medi-Cal program. Requires revenues to be used only for specified Medi-Cal services, including primary and specialty care, emergency care, family planning, mental health, and prescription drugs. Prohibits revenues from being used to replace other existing Medi-Cal funding. Caps administrative expenses and requires independent audits of programs receiving funding.[5] |
