Lots of transit agencies are offering free transit today to help people get to the polls, including Sacramento RT, LA Metro, Foothill Transit, Big Blue Bus, Pasadena Transit, Culver City Bus, LADOT, Santa Clara VTA, San Diego's North County Transit District, Marin Transit, Solano County, Santa Rosa, Petaluma, and Sonoma, and very likely others.
This seems like a tradition that ought to continue.
Meanwhile here are the parts of the ballot we're keeping an eye on, aside from the obvious one:
Statewide
Voter Thresholds: Prop 5. This would lower the required voter threshold for local bond measures that raise money for affordable housing and public infrastructure to 55 percent, from the current 2/3. This is a constitutional amendment put on the ballot by a 2/3 vote of the Assembly and the Senate.
Does Prop 5 itself need 2/3 of the vote to pass? It's been difficult to find a precise answer to that question. According to the CA Department of General Services, after the legislative vote it will "become part of the constitution only if the electorate approves it at the next general election." Is it safe to presume that means "by majority vote"?
If anyone knows for certain the answer to that question, please let us know in the comments!
Supporters have pointed out that Prop 5 only covers bonds - not taxes. It can only be used for specific things and has oversight and independent audit requirements. Local jurisdictions can still pass bonds and tax measures at the higher vote threshold if they don't want to comply with those "guardrails."
Rent control: Prop 33
This is a big one, that aims to repeal the 1995 Costa-Hawkins act, which prevents rent control on most single-family homes and on housing built after 1995 and allows landlords to resent rents to market rates when a tenant moves out.
Local ballot measures
San Diego Measure G is a countywide sales tax increase aimed at improving public transit. A similar measure in 2022 failed to get enough signatures to get on the ballot. Measure G only needs fifty percent of the vote since it is a citizens' initiative.
South Placer County Measure B for "traffic relief." A similar county-wide measure got 64 percent of the vote in 2016, not quite enough to pass. This one narrows its focus to three cities, Roseville, Rocklin, and Lincoln, and its definition of "traffic relief" is "widen highways," with a small portion for "improving local roads and routes for bicycles, pedestrians, and transit."
San Francisco Measure K would permanently close the Great Highway along the beach to vehicles and open it for bikes and pedestrians. Although the highway is frequently troubled by blowing sand and is one of several routes here for cars, drivers are loathe to give up any space to other users so this has been a controversial issue.
San Francisco Prop L will ask voters to decide whether to tax ride-hail companies to support public transit.
See our previous coverage for more details on these issues, as well as on the dueling transportation tax measures in Berkeley. Both Berkeley measures are citizens' initiatives that raise different amounts of money and apply it in different ways (if you live in Berkeley, vote for FF, of course).
