November 2024 Election Ballot Recommendations for California, Alameda County, Emeryville City
3903 words published on Aug 31, 2024
As usual, I’m sharing my current stances on every vote I’m eligible for and updating this post as I find new information up until I mail in my ballot.
❤️ = I’m especially passionate about this issue.
Get a Sample Ballot for Your District
As mentioned in the title, I’m voting from Emeryville, California. So all my recommendations in this post will be based there.
If you want to see what’s going to be on your local ballot early, use vote411’s handy tool! https://www.vote411.org/ballot
California Propositions
For ballot measures, my first paragraph will be a summary of what it does followed by informational links. After that, I’ll clearly mark my opinions and why I chose the way I did.
[opinion]Public education is one of the most important things my tax dollars can be spent on. I only oppose it when it seems exploitable or wasteful. This doesn’t appear to be the case here.
The opposition
✅❤️ YES on Prop 3 : Marriage Equality Amendment
This constitutional amendment from the Legislature would remove outdated language from Proposition 8, passed by voters in 2008, that characterizes marriage as being between a man and a woman.
[opinion]One of my greatest fears about how national elections go is that my sanctuary state/city won’t be able to protect me from discriminatory policies coming down from the federal level. I’m all for us bolstering our protections against any vulnerabilities to those attacks on our basic rights.
✅ YES on Prop 4 : Climate Change Protection Funding
A bond issue that includes $3.8 billion for drinking water and groundwater, $1.5 billion for wildfire and forest programs and $1.2 billion for sea level rise. In part, the money would offset some budget cuts.
[opinion] I generally vote with Cal Fire Fighters regarding California climate change matters.
✅ YES on Prop 5 : Lower Voting Threshold for Local Affordable Housing & Infrastructure
This constitutional amendment from the Legislature would make it easier for local governments to borrow money for affordable housing and other infrastructure. To avoid opposition from the influential real estate industry, supporters agreed to block bond money from being used to buy single-family homes.
[opinion] This is a measure to loosen the grip moneyed interests have on our housing market and legislators. Look at the funding for the FOR and AGAINST sides of this issue and you’ll see who benefits from the status quo and who it’s imposed upon.
✅❤️ YES on Prop 6 : End Forced Labor for the Incarcerated
Currently, there is an exception to anti-slavery law for people serving terms in prison. Abolishing this exception supports the rehabilitation and reintegration of incarcerated people by allowing them to choose meaningful educational and rehabilitative programs over forced labor.
[opinion] This is the absolute minimum necessary step to take for human rights in California prisons. Much, much, much more must be done toward my greater goals of abolition.
✅❤️ YES on Prop 32 : Minimum Wage Increase
Raises minimum wage to $18 statewide. After 2027, the minimum wage would go up each year based on inflation.
[opinion]Minimum wage needs to be $21/hr federally in order to afford real world housing prices in a sustainable manner. In California, that number is even higher. I will vote yes on every minimum wage increase I ever see because it always lags behind reality.
✅❤️ YES on Prop 33 : Justice for Renters Act
Overturn the 1995 Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, allowing local governments to implement vacancy controls, preventing landlords from unfettered rent hikes after a tenant moves out. Properties previously exempt, such as single-family homes and newly constructed buildings, would become subject to rent control regulations.
In a move that doesn’t surprise housing activists, California YIMBY, the land-use lobbying group for Big Tech, has officially opposed the Justice for Renters Act – the November ballot measure that seeks to end statewide rent control restrictions. California YIMBY is effectively joining corporate landlords who are spending millions to kill the initiative – and turning its back on the housing justice organizations, labor unions, and social justice groups that support the Justice for Renters Act.
[opinion] Becoming a homeowner didn’t flip my stance on rent-seeking. Passive income is bullshit, and profiteering off a longstanding housing crisis is repugnant.
❌ No on Prop 34 : Restrict the Spending of Specific Healthcare Providers
Sponsored by the trade group for California’s landlords, this measure is squarely aimed at knee-capping the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which has been active in funding ballot measures (see Prop. 33). Cal Matters https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-ballot-measures-2024/
[opinion] This is one of those props we get every election that moneyed interests drop on the ballot and use misinformation to trick us into supporting.
❌ No on Prop 35 : Restricting Medi-Cal Funding
The League of Pissed Off Voters and Bay Rising Action have endorsed a YES on Prop 35:
The money that Prop 35 would generate would be raised through a permanent tax on certain health insurance providers without imposing any taxes on individuals. The measure would ensure that the money is used for its intended purpose – to fund Medi-Cal – by preventing lawmakers from rerouting the funds towards something else and requiring that 99% of the funding to go directly to patient care.
The funding raised would be used to hire more first responders and paramedics to reduce emergency response times, address workforce shortages, expand access to preventative health care, reduce wait times in emergency rooms, and for specific care such as family planning, cancer treatment, and mental health treatment.
But the League of Women Voters is concerned about losing local control of funding for a few reasons:
Medi-Cal provides health services to over 15 million low-income Californians. Prop 35 is a well-meaning but misguided effort to try to provide more and steady funding for Medi-Cal and potentially improve reimbursement rates for medical providers. Prop 35 would change the temporary tax that helps fund Medi-Cal to a permanent tax on Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) and require the tax proceeds to be used to support only Medi-Cal and other health programs – making that money unavailable for other priorities and making it difficult to respond to future changes to Medi-Cal that might be mandated by the federal government.
The League of Women Voters of California is generally opposed to “ballot-box budgeting,” which limits the legislature’s flexibility to make budgetary decisions and adjust priorities based on emerging and essential needs. Budgetary decisions should be made by the legislature, not by earmarking funds through ballot initiatives. Earmarking can undermine the state’s fiscal stability and its ability to effectively respond to changing conditions. While there is no organized opposition to the measure, Governor Newsom has expressed concerns that it hamstrings the state’s flexibility.
Another problem is that Prop 35 could inadvertently decrease overall revenue. This is because the proposition imposes a low cap on taxes collected from non-Medi-Cal enrollees. This cap is designed to prevent the tax from becoming overly burdensome on non-Medi-Cal health plans, but it also introduces a potential risk. If the federal government changes the rules to require a greater share of the tax to come from commercial enrollees, this cap could limit the amount of total revenue that can be collected, potentially reducing the overall effectiveness of the tax.
[opinion] The part about federal rules changes affecting our healthcare spending in California even more is the most worrying part of this for me considering the Supreme Court’s tampering with basic bodily autonomy rights every chance they get.
❌❤️ No on Prop 36 : Harsher Punishment for Nonviolent Crime
This bill rolls back parts of Prop 47, the landmark 2014 criminal justice ballot initiative that downgraded certain theft and drug crimes from felonies to misdemeanors.
When prosecutors and big-box retailers came forward earlier this year with their initiative to restore harsh penalties for non-violent crimes, Newsom and legislative leaders began working to get it off the ballot. After failing to persuade the initiative’s proponents to drop their quest and abandoning plans to promote an anti-crime measure of their own, the Capitol’s top Democrats are leading the charge against Prop 36. They warn the measure will take California back to the era of mass incarceration and cost taxpayers millions of dollars.
[opinion] This Prop is contentious because of how much coverage California has been getting regarding crime from the national corporate press. We (abolitionists) need to fight it as hard as we can to prevent progress made in reducing our prison population numbers from being reversed. Worst of all, we know these tough-on-crime punitive measures don’t even actually ease crime rates significantly.
[opinion] Pro-cop mayors like San Francisco’s London Breed (vote her out please!) reacted with horrific glee at the Supreme Court’s ruling that unhoused people aren’t deserving of basic dignity or human rights. These city leaders are pandering to vocal local idiots swayed by viral videos of retail theft and needing to replace their car windows. Property crime, which is frustrating and financially harmful to those of us with means, isn’t violent crime. It’s insurance claims and police reports that cops will do nothing about. We don’t need to throw more desperate poor people into prison for even longer over it.
Emeryville
Emeryville City Council
Three seats are up for election. Here’s my ranking:
✅ Matthew Solomon Transit-focused, competent, and has a vision for the future of Emeryville that I appreciate. He’s had hands on many of the local improvements to our infrastructure that I appreciate.
✅ Courtney Welch Her bio in the election packet is a bit “meh” but she’s been a solid hard-working representative so far. I think she deserves another term.
✅ Mia Esperanza Brown She wants to fight for workers, tenants, and small business owners against big companies and even specifically calls out corporate landlords. A+. I don’t like that she’s Team Priforce, but I think her perspective will be valuable on the council.
✅ Sam Gould Focused on public transit and bike/pedestrian issues. Cares about accessibility and housing. He mostly agrees with everyone above him in this list about what needs to be done, so I opted for the more experienced candidates who would likely be more effective at his goals.
Sukhdeep Kaur Competent incumbent who helped push the gas-powered leaf blower ban I love so much, but isn’t especially creative or effective as an individual.
❌ Calvin Dillahunty His priorities are Public Safety (pro-police), Rent Control, and Education, which are important but not more important to me than housing, mental health, and transit. He believes some weird things about the city that seem like might come from a small bubble that isn’t representative of everyone here.
LWVBAE had some technical issues in this video, but it’s a very helpful discussion.
✅❤️ John Van Geffen for Emeryville School Board
Geffen is the most engaged and competent candidate in this election.
Do not allow Brian Donahue, the loudest, worst personality in our city, to warp our school district to benefit him and his kid. Even if he has some compelling but overly-simplistic ideas, he’s horrible to work with and would likely only result in more discord and less productivity for the board. Nothing he aims to do (pay teachers more) contradicts the goals of the rest of the board.
Alameda County Elections
❌❤️ NO on Recalling District Attorney Pamela Price
[opinion] Similar to the misguided and disastrous recall of Chesa Boudin in San Francisco, this is yet another attack on progressive DA’s in the Bay Area manipulated by copaganda in corporate media and local outrage about minor property crime. I continue to believe in restorative justice and rehabilitation and we won’t be able to prove those benefits if we keep preventing the people we elected from focusing on that work.
✅ John Bauters for Alameda County Board of Supervisors (District 5)
Bauters is a solid pick and I’m rooting for him, but his opponent isn’t bad either policy-wise. Their policies are similar.
That said, Bas has taken a negative approach with her campaign by creating an attack website that uses misinformation from “dubious sources” to discredit Bauters.
The site links to several reputable sources including our own but curiously links to an obscure, personal blog as the primary source for her attacks. This blog is run by a man with a reputation of publishing personal rants, attack pieces, and half-truths. Many of the criticisms from his blog would get a big red “False” or “Mostly False” if they were scrutinized by a factchecking website. It’s hard to imagine anyone knowledgeable of the city and familiar with his work considering his blog “news” or his efforts “journalistic.”
This is a race that I’m fairly split on. I’m wary of some of Bauters’ campaign financers, but having met him and lived in the city he’s worked for I’m giving him the benefit of doubt.
✅ Victor Flores for BART Board of Directors (District 7)
He has a few ideas about real estate investment for funding BART that I’m a little hesitant about, but he’s done his research and has some great examples for other places where they worked.
✅ Lynda Deschambault for East Bay Regional Park District (Ward 2)
She just seems like the most qualified candidate.
✅ Luana España for East Bay Regional Park District (Ward 4)
Her challenger speaks with a dehumanizing tone and language regarding unhoused folks and she doesn’t seem to add anything Luana isn’t already doing.
✅ Jim Oddie for East Bay Municipal Utility District Board (Ward 5)
Jim Oddie is an experienced leader who is ready to fight for clean water that is accessible and affordable to all. He has a proven track record as a public servant who is ready to listen to and work with stakeholders.
✅❤️ Jovanka Beckles for California Senate District 7
When people can’t get work, they’re going to resort to crime. And by passing that, being the first one in the state of California to bring forward a “Ban the Box” policy, really helped significantly to reduce recidivism by giving people a job.
Jovanka Beckles
✅❤️ Mia Bonta for California State Assembly District 18
Mia Bonta is a local treasure. She’s one of the only politicians whose newsletters I actually read. She’s in touch with the average human being she represents, which is such a sadly rare thing these days.
Federal Elections
Like our opponents, we have to think long-term. If we want things like universal healthcare, bodily autonomy and privacy rights (abortion for example) amended into the constitution, livable wages, protections for vulnerable minorities, real pathways to citizenship for immigrants, and environmental protections and preparations in the face of climate change, consider how likely those things are if we don’t vote versus if we do. Overturning Roe v. Wade took them 50 years of consistent slow work, pushing their party. Getting the progressive policies we want will take the same effort on our part. We need to win a lot of battles for a long time to push our country in that direction.
Our Federal elections are all basically defense against Project 2025. We will be choosing whoever will be least in favor of these long term policy goals while still having a shot at winning.
❌ Project 2025
The Heritage Foundation has been piloting the ship of conservative representatives across the country toward their long term goals involving Christian Theocracy, White Supremacy, Corporate Privatization of Everything, and further Systematizing Patriarchy into our laws.
I’m sure most of us have seen it, but for a good primer check out this excellent video from Olurinatti, an activist and attorney who works on freeing people from unjust incarceration.
There’s also a critique of Project 2025 by Legal Eagle to run down the actual affects it would have on professional lawyers and the strain it would put on the justice system.
🧂 And if I may get salty for a moment: Nobody cares about protest abstentions or the equivalent third party vote. No one looks back at these and thinks “Thank goodness you did that because it really made a positive difference in the world.”
Lives are at stake. My ability to get healthcare and have protections from discrimination in my workplace are at stake. Please obstruct the worst predators so we can live another day to fight the second worst ones.
✅ Kamala Harris for President of the United States
I’m not going to bother with mentioning all my criticisms of Harris (my third choice in the 2020 primary when she was campaigning on healthcare as a human right) here because this is not a primary race. We only have one opponent and only one viable candidate to stop him.
Are you hesitant to vote for someone who won’t immediately stop sending Israel weapons? I’m with you, but please watch this video before you sit this one out:
This video is an excellent forum of pro-Palestine activists who discuss strategic voting while continuing to push government leaders in the right direction long-term.
✅❤️ Scott Wiener for California Senate District 11
I’ve reversed on my opinion of Wiener since I chose Jackie Fielder over him in 2020. He’s shown himself to be a highly effective champion for housing and several other causes close to my heart. If you’re in his district, please keep him going!
Please, I’m begging y’all to get rid of ❌ London Breed and choose someone who isn’t going to increase policing and happily sweep unhoused people out of their camps without providing them real shelter elsewhere. (Ahsha Safaí would also be an improvement over Breed.) The poll numbers I’m seeing are really disappointing.
✅ Jackie Fielder for Supervisor (District 9)
I’m a long time supporter and she’s still solid. (Not to brag, but I’ve talked to her in person a few times because she’s truly grassroots and my $20 donations were enough)
My Influences
Some of the following voter guides play a role in how I make my choices, and I wanted to share them so you can take my recommendations along with theirs too.
If I’m ever on the same side of an issue as these groups, I second guess my position.
Police Unions These unions are unified against us, the citizens they serve, and shouldn’t be allowed to exist. They constantly fight transparency and accountability in law enforcement.
Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association They fight against anything that raises taxes for any reason and support corporate welfare and passive income for rich people.
California Chamber Of Commerce Pro-business and mostly pro BIG business. They care about money, and not the people of California.
The LA Times Owned by a shitty billionaire who’s held a thumb on their reporting for years.
Any Realtor lobbying group
Any Tech lobbying group
Any Religious lobbying group
Any candidate who answers the question “Why did you decide to run?” with a story of being a victim of nonviolent property crime. This shows a self-centered motivation (because their political engagement didn’t exist before it affected them) and a propensity for retributive justice.
After I feel my choices are solid, I create a meme-style quick reference banner of my endorsements. [EDIT: Here it is!]
Version 1.0 was created on 10/11/2024.
My Voting Speed Run
Stay tuned here and wherever else you see me posting for my upcoming speed running the vote video. I plan on showing how fast and easy it is to just vote by filling out my mail-in ballot and running it to my mailbox as fast as I can. See if you can beat my time!
