November 2026 Election Endorsements – Emeryville, Alameda County, California

My stances on every race on my ballot in Emeryville, California for the November 3, 2026 election. Don’t forget to vote!

---

How I Vote

To learn all the details about my voting methodology, check out How I Vote – Process Workflow Documentation.

✅ = I’m for-sure confirmed voting this way
💖 = I’m especially passionate about this.

This post will be a work in progress until I mail my ballot. I may change my mind as I learn more leading up to that day. I’ll remove this line once I send it in.

---

My first endorsement is for the most important race in this election:

Emeryville City Council Seat #1: Corry Frydlewicz ✅💖

There’s just something about her I can’t resist voting for. Amazingly, she seems to be fully aligned with my views and priorities. Check her out:

Corry’s priorities:

• Deflock Emeryville — Get surveillance off our streets and out of our budgets.
• Empower City Services — Ensure our city budget goes toward the most effective ways to improve everyday life for Emeryvillains (not a typo).
• Affordability — Work to prevent price gouging from big businesses and corporate landlords who prevent Emeryville families from making economic progress.
• Support Small Local Businesses — Creatively adjust city policies to favor our wonderful homegrown businesses and make the big chains pay their fair share.
• Make City Council More Productive — Reduce time spent on grandstanding, arguing over toothless proclamations, and general egocentric drama and actually get things done.

All the friends and family who commented on my decades of political takes that I should run for office myself… you better step up! 😄

Emeryville City Council Seat #2: ???

You’re not allowed to vote for me twice — I checked — so if you’re not sure who should be your distant second choice, I think [TBD] is a solid pick.

I plan to endorse a secondary pick for Emeryville City Council (despite that possibly hurting my own chances) because it’s what I’d do any other election year for my ballot posts. I’ll try not to wait too long, but I may want to meet them each in person first.

---

I’ll work my way up from the city level because (say it with me) local elections are the most important ones, where our voices are most potent to affect change.

California Prop 1: Affordable Housing Bond — Yes ✅

Building housing requires flexible funding. It’s annoying that these construction projects tend to always go over budget*, but they do. Bonds aren’t ideal, but they can help us actually finish these projects and not leave them stagnant, as a huge waste of money and effort. Let’s finish this necessary work.

*Part of the reason this happens so often is public officials regularly choose development contracts based solely on the lowest bidder. So those companies are incentivized to cut corners and “forget” necessary line items to make the project work in order to sell the lowest possible estimate. Then, when the winning company is confronted with “Whoa! What a surprise! These lighting fixtures need wiring! We hadn’t anticipated that!” we get endless change orders that bloat the price well beyond those original estimates.

California Prop 2: Rainy Day Fund — ???

This strikes me as fiscal responsibility. It has broad support from Democrats with vague reasoning about saving money for unforseen future needs. That crashes against broad descent from Republicans who don’t seem to actually read anything but just yell about “out of control spending” no matter what’s going on in the world at the time. I’m skeptical, but leaning toward yes so far.

My only hesitation: Would parts of the General Fund be negatively impacted by funding cuts intended to bolster this rainy day fund? It may be a stretch, since abuses like it are already possible in other ways.

• What is Proposition 2 before California voters in the 2026 election? (Mercury News)

California Prop 3: Make High-earner Income Tax Permanent — Yes ✅💖

Tax the rich. Always and forever. Tax them until billionaires stop being a thing. Nobody needs this much wealth, especially while most of us struggle to feed, clothe, and shelter ourselves while ensuring we’ll continue to be able to do so in future years.

California Prop 4: Public campaign financing — Yes ✅💖

Public financing reduces the power of big money in elections.

California Prop 5: Recall Election Reform — Yes ✅

Recalls are absurd enough already without all the current nonsense about choosing replacements. When it comes to voting rights issues, I generally trust the League of Women Voters who’ve endorsed this measure.

California Prop 37: $25 Billion Homebuying Loan — No

The numbers are too high. This will help realtors, industrialists, and rich people (who can afford $1.5 million homes) more than it’ll help anyone who’s actually struggling to afford a home. If they reduced the cap numbers, I might be for it. Right now it just looks like a subsidy for realtor commissions and developers.

Some quick math regarding Median Income in our area:

Area	Median Income (2024)	200% Median Income
Statewide Median Family Income	$118,100	$236,200
“HUD Metro Fair Market Rent Area (HMFA) that Contains San Francisco”	$259,400	$518,800
Alameda County	$159,800	$319,600
San Francisco County	$186,600	$373,200
Emeryville	$108,000	$216,000
San Francisco	$118,000	$236,000
Oakland	$82,400	$164,800
San Jose	$91,000	$182,000
Berkeley	$104,000	$208,000
Richmond	$64,300	$128,600
Alameda (city)	$110,000	$220,000
Palo Alto	$180,000	$360,000

Median income is higher than most people tend to think. Anyone making double that doesn’t need a subsidy to buy a home.

Proposition 38: Immunology research bond — Yes ✅

Selfishly, as someone with Alzheimer’s in my family, I want to give myself and my family the best chance we can get. (Sorry Robert Kaplan)

California Prop 39: Voter ID — No ✅💖

Don’t let oligarchs steal votes from the most vulnerable among us.

California Prop 40: Billionaire Tax — Yes ✅💖

It should be permanent! But that doesn’t mean doing the right thing once is a bad thing. Hopefully this passes and we get more like it next election.

California Prop 41: Audit New Tax Spending — No ✅💖

This “audit” attempts to reverse the billionaire tax, preventing us from spending the revenue or pay it back. I hope California voters are too smart to fall for this.

California Prop 42: Prohibit New Personal Property Tax and Retroactive Taxes — No ✅💖

Prohibiting taxation is unrealistic, irresponsible, and puts a chokehold on public services. This is a blatantly stupid way the richest people aim to punish us for rightfully wanting them to pay their share in taxes.

California Prop 44: Clinic Funding — Yes ✅

I stand with the United Healthcare Workers Union.

California Prop 45: Expedited Environmental Review — No ✅💖

I’m all for consolidating and reducing red tape to build housing, but I don’t believe environmental reviews are the right place to cut back. Air and water quality are already behind public health guidelines set by the WHO as-is. We can’t let big businesses like PG&E and Edison — who’ve been setting our homes on fire, by the way — cut back our environmental protections. Environmental justice means safe air and water for everyone, forever.

---

California Governor: Xavier Becerra ✅

Unquestionably, the lesser of two evils.

---