It’s that time of year again! Here are my voting recommendations for the November 3 election:

Statewide offices

The general election is actually fairly easy compared to the primary, since in California the top two from the primary are the candidates for the general election regardless of party. This makes the two party races really easy:

• Governor: Xavier Becerra
• Lieutenant Governor: Fiona Ma
• Secretary of State: Shirley Weber
• Controller: Malia Cohen
• Treasurer: Eleni Kounalakis
• Attorney General: Rob Bonta
• Insurance Commissioner: Jane Kim - I’ve known Jane since we lived in the same dorm in college and she is awesome!
• Board of Equalization, District 2: Sally Lieber - Basically the board of equalization collects taxes. Sally Lieber is doing great, so let’s let her keep doing her job.

Federal/State Representatives

• US Representative, District 11: Scott Wiener - Scott has proven he can get things done as a state senator, including legislation on housing and transit. Connie Chan, despite her supposed progressive label, is anti-housing, pro-car/anti-parks, ignores her constituents as seen in a famous video from a Board of Supervisors meeting… and Nancy Pelosi endorsed her purely out of spite. Vote for Scott Wiener.
• State Assembly, District 17: Matt Haney

Judges

Yes to all. (These are basically pro forma.)

Non-partisan Offices

• Superintendent of Public Instruction: Richard Barrera. (Although this is a non-partisan position, Sonja Shaw is a Republican and her official statement is full of MAGA dog whistles.)
• Board of Education (vote for up to three): fairly low stakes, but I’m voting for Virginia Cheung, Reina Tello, and Autumn Garibay.
• City College Board thru 2031 (vote for up to three): Elijah Ball, Jeremy Lee, Monroe Lace
• City College Board thru 2029: Ruth Ferguson
• Assessor-Recorder: Joaquin Torres
• Public Defender: Mano Raju
• Board of Supervisors D6: Matt Dorsey - I don’t love Matt Dorsey but there is no serious opponent on the ballot
• Board of Supervisors D4: if you’re in the Sunset district, I would vote AGAINST Matt Lurie’s disaster of an appointment, Alan Wong, but then I think Albert Chow (who led the recall campaign against Engardio) would be worse. Thus I recommend ranking 1. Jeremy Greco 2. Alan Wong. If I were to make a prediction Alan Wong is going to win anyway.

State Propositions

• Prop 1: YES more housing
• Prop 2: YES increase budget reserves
• Prop 3: YES high earners should pay their fair share… permanently!
• Prop 4: YES allows the option of public campaign financing (CA is the only state that currently bans it)
• Prop 5: YES fix our broken recall process
• Prop 37: YES - this is basically down payment assistance for homebuyers. It’s interesting and worth a shot. But it’s only for new construction, so if you don’t like that vote NO.
• Prop 38: NO - this sent $8 billion to one person’s speculative research project.
• Prop 39: NO NO NO - this is a voter ID law designed for voter suppression
• Prop 40: yes, maybe? - I think most people would find this an easy yes vote, and I can’t really disagree, although I do have reservations about the one-time nature of the tax. The fact that billionaires are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to oppose this is obscene, as is the fact that they’re lying in their ads. But most importantly, regardless of how you vote on 40, vote NO on 41 and 42, which are basically poison pills designed specifically to counter 40, so I oppose them on principle.
• Prop 41: NO NO NO
• Prop 42: NO NO NO
• Prop 43: NO NO NO - this hamstrings local governments’ ability to raise taxes on anything, including critical services. NO.
• Prop 44: NO - this is a badly written proposition
• Prop 45: NO - while CEQA needs fixing, this particular proposal is overly broad

Regional Measure

• RTM: YES - Do you like having public transit? Vote YES.

Local Propositions

• Prop A: YES
• Prop B: YES
• Prop C: YES
• Prop D: NO - Do we get some ill advised propositions on the ballot sometimes? Sure, but this proposition would make it next to impossible for citizen initiated propositions to get their time on the ballot.
• Prop E: YES
• Prop F: NO - I suspect this will pass anyway, but I’m voting NO because this smells like a mayoral power grab.
• Prop G: NO NO NO - How many times do we have to vote on this?
• Prop H: YES - Do you like having public transit? Vote YES. (Fun fact, this is our first progressive parcel tax.)
• Prop I: NO - A yes vote probably would not be terrible, but I’m voting NO just on the principle that I’m against budget carveouts in general.
• Prop J: YES - closes a loophole