California’s 14 ballot measures explained: From the good to the bad — and the ugly

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California voters have 14 statewide ballot measures staring at them this November.

Fourteen.

Don’t worry. Here’s all you need to know.

Props. 1 and 37: No on both. The two housing measures.

Proposition 1 borrows $11.25 billion for an assortment of affordable-housing programs. That means billions in new state debt, with taxpayers ultimately paying the principal and interest.

Prop. 37 goes another direction: Up to $25 billion in revenue bonds to provide qualifying middle-income buyers (read: probably not you!) with loans covering as much as 17% of a new home’s price. The program is structured around borrower repayment.

They’re different programs, but they suffer from the same basic problem: California doesn’t suffer from a shortage of government housing programs. It suffers from a housing shortage.

We make homes extraordinarily difficult and expensive to build, watch prices soar, and then devise government programs to help selected people afford the prices government helped drive up.

That’s treating the symptom while protecting the disease.

Prop. 2: No. It punches a hole in the Gann limit — the per-capita limit on spending — so Sacramento can hoard surplus taxes, not refund them.

Prop. 3: No. Remember the “temporary” tax increase California voters approved in 2012? It raised income-tax rates on higher earners to deal with what was described as a fiscal emergency.

Fourteen years later, the emergency apparently never ended.

The tax was extended once. Proposition 3 would now make those higher rates permanent.

And this isn’t some orphan measure that wandered onto the ballot. The California Teachers Association is a primary driver of the measure, with an interest in making permanent a revenue stream that sends billions into public education.

Milton Friedman famously observed that nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program. California has decided to put the theory directly on the ballot.

Prop. 4: No. Opens the door to politicians spending taxpayer dollars on political campaigns.

Prop. 5: No. Guts a critical feature of the California recall process by taking away voters’ ability to choose the replacement at the same election.

Prop. 38: No thanks. Asks taxpayers to borrow another $8.4 billion for medical research — after voters already authorized billions for stem-cell research. Oh yeah, the billionaire who put this on the ballot will likely see that half of the money goes to his favorite non-profit.

Prop. 39: Yes. This is voter ID.

The measure would require government-issued identification and citizenship verification for voting. In-person voters would present government-issued ID, while mail voters would provide the last four digits of their designated government-ID number on the ballot envelope.

We require identification for consequential activities in modern life. Requiring voters to demonstrate that they are who they say they are isn’t radical.

Prop. 40: No. Props. 41 and 42: Yes. Proposition 40 is he so-called billionaire tax. The other two are the antidotes.

Prop. 40 would impose a one-time 5% tax on covered wealth above $1 billion, with 90% of the revenue going to health care.

But here’s the part that deserves more attention than the “billionaire tax” label.

The measure allows the ;egislature, with a two-thirds vote, to amend its provisions later.

My concern is obvious: that opens the door to lawmakers placing a wealth tax on any class of people they want — and it does not have to come back to a vote of the people.

This isn’t a billionaire tax. It’s an everyone tax. Billionaires are simply first in line.

Props. 41 and 42 were placed on the ballot as countermeasures to Prop. 40. If either receives more yes votes than Prop. 40, courts could find that the measures conflict, and prevent Prop. 40 from taking effect.

Prop. 43: Yes. This is the “Save Prop. 13” measure, aimed to keep property tax caps in place.

California courts have allowed certain local special taxes placed on the ballot through citizen initiatives to pass with a simple majority rather than the two-thirds vote required when government itself proposes the tax.

Prop. 43 would impose the two-thirds requirement regardless of who puts the tax on the ballot.

Well-funded organizations can hire professional signature gatherers and put them on the ballot, threatening Prop. 13. Prop. 43 closes that loophole.

Prop. 44: No. Dictates how nonprofit community health clinics can spend their money — the latest chapter in a long-running union fight with SEIU-UHW, the same health care workers union pushing Prop. 40.

Prop. 45: Yes. Takes a welcome swing at California’s notorious environmental permitting regime, imposing deadlines and streamlining reviews and lawsuits for housing and other essential projects. This will actually help get more housing built.

Fourteen measures. Hundreds of pages of legal language.

There are a few good ideas on the ballot — most of them, though, deserve a big fat no.

Jon Fleischman, a longtime strategist in California politics, writes at SoDoesItMatter.com.

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