California 2022 November Proposition Analysis

As November approaches, it is again proposition analysis time. For those of you who are new to following me, I like to do an analysis each election cycle of all the California propositions that are on the ballot. As always, these summaries will be non-partisan, although not entirely unbiased. If I see a proposition that makes no sense, I’ll point it out, but other than that I try to be fairly neutral, particularly on things that are politically charged. With that, let’s jump into it:

Starting off with the shortest and one of the easiest; proposition 1, focusing on abortion regulations. Prop 1 is a legislature passed constitutional amendment, and is short enough that I might as well give the entire text of it:

“SEC. 1.1. The state shall not deny or interfere with an individual’s reproductive freedom in their most intimate decisions, which includes their fundamental right to choose to have an abortion and their fundamental right to choose or refuse contraceptives. This section is intended to further the constitutional right to privacy guaranteed by Section 1, and the constitutional right to not be denied equal protection guaranteed by Section 7. Nothing herein narrows or limits the right to privacy or equal protection.”

The wording is…strange…I’m not sure what “reproductive freedom” or “intimate decisions” mean in a legal sense, but they sound more like politician rhetoric than actual legal definitions of anything. Although I’m not a lawyer, so maybe I’m missing something.

In terms of what this constitutional amendment will change for California, it’s hard to say. Currently, abortions are legal in California under two conditions: 1) before the baby is viable (typically 23–24 weeks into pregnancy) and 2) if the mother’s life is in danger. You can see California Health and Safety Code Section 123466 — “The state may not deny or interfere with a woman s right to choose or obtain an abortion prior to viability of the fetus, or when the abortion is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman.”

It’s not clear if this one law we currently have would be considered “interfering” with abortion rights under the new constitutional amendment. I could imagine someone making the claim that a law making illegal to do a dilation/evacuation procedure (where the unborn baby is cut up into pieces inside the womb and removed) 39 weeks into gestation would technically be “interfering” with abortion rights, even if such a procedure would never actually done in practice because it would be insanely dangerous for the mother. In that scenario, current California laws would be too strict for this new constitutional amendment, and would probably be overturned at some point in the future with a court case.

At the same time, the state legislature did not modify Section 123466 of the Health and Safety Code when passing this, so I’m presuming they don’t see a contradiction between current state law and this proposed constitutional amendment. Perhaps the logic is that 23 weeks is more than enough time for anyone to get an abortion who wants it, and putting in a medical exception for anything after that point solves the rest of the cases, so such a law really doesn’t “interfere” with anyone in practice. In that scenario, this constitutional amendment changes absolutely nothing, and is probably more of a political stunt than an attempt to make substantial alterations to California abortion law. Or perhaps it’s a gauge to assess whether California voters want completely unrestricted abortion access, so they can then change state laws accordingly based on the results of the election. Or maybe they just don’t know what the current law is.

Either way, I don’t see a yes or no vote on this drastically changing anything in the state. Given California is typically under democrat super-majority control, I don’t see any abortion regulations being passed in the near-term future, and I don’t know if California can do much to make abortions more readily available than they already are here.

Next up, we can look at our gambling proposition duo, prop 26 and 27. Of course we’ve been bombarded with commercials on these propositions, so you know someone stands to make a lot of money off of them.

Currently in California, there are a lot of limits on gambling. We have the state lottery, which brings in about $1.9 billion in revenue, we have 84 cardrooms (things like poker or blackjack), some places for betting on horse races, and 66 casinos operated by indigenous tribes (including activities like card games and slot machines). Out of all these, of course the lottery is the major source of revenue; the others generally don’t bring in much more revenue than what covers the cost of the regulations.

Props 26 and 27 expand legal California gambling in two different ways. Prop 26 opens up the option of sports gambling at tribal casinos as well as the 4 privately owned horse race tracks in California. Rather than just horse races, people could bet on football, basketball, or any other sport. Interestingly, the law keeps it illegal to bet on high school sports, or to bet on any game that involves California college team. So, you could bet on whether Ohio State will beat Oklahoma State in their football game, but not on whether UCLA will beat Oklahoma State. Not really sure of the logic behind the distinction, but I guess it makes them feel like they aren’t betting on students that study in our state. In addition to sports betting, Prop 26 also opens up the option for tribal casinos to operate dice and roulette games, rather than just their current limitations. All of these new gambling options would be in-person, and require participants to be at least 21 years old. Because the age of 18, when we’re allowed to vote for the most important political offices in the land, is too young to bet on whether the team with bird mascot will beat the team with the bear mascot.

On top of opening up new gambling options, prop 26 creates a new way to enforce state gambling laws; individuals would now be allowed to file a civil lawsuit against gambling locations if they find the state isn’t properly enforcing the laws. I find it hard to believe that would be a common occurrence, but I guess that would be an option now if anyone wants to wade through the massive legal swamp that is bringing a lawsuit against a gambling operation that easily brings in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

In contrast to prop 26, prop 27 focuses on online gambling, but does it in a very complicated way. This online gambling would have to be sponsored either by a California tribe or by a company that is partnering with them. The potential gambling companies that could participate in this are fairly limited; the only companies allowed would be large ones that operate in at least 10 states in the US, but it essentially allows California tribes to effectively sell licenses for out-of-state gambling corporations to operate here in California. Additionally, those placing bets must be in California, and not on tribal lands. So…I assume that means if you’re placing bets on your phone while walking in and out of California territory, you need to stop during the few minutes you’ve stepped outside of California. No idea how they think they’re going to enforce this.

Both propositions are selling themselves as an increase to state revenue, with a 10% tax on profits from these gambling revenues, and give some complicated lists of funds and programs to spend this money on, but that component is largely irrelevant. It’s hard to say whether or not state revenues will actually increase from this, given that just opening up new options for gambling doesn’t necessarily cause people to gamble more. People who buy lottery tickets may just choose to bet on whether the Cowboys beat the Eagles instead; people who already bet on horses might just decide to switch to betting on women’s soccer. At the end of the day, there’s no guarantee the state will see any significant net gain in revenue with either of these two propositions. Prop 27 seems to be trying to sell itself as “funding for homelessness/mental health” or something like that on the commercials, but I think it’s more likely that this will be more of a shell game, with money just moving from one category to another, rather than an actual increase in money available for these programs.

Of course, the main argument I’m seeing against prop 27 on commercials lately is also fairly irrelevant. It’s usually a parent saying they’re worried their kid is going to start gambling on their phone, and talking about the dangers of the internet. I think there’s a huge problem with smart phones dominating the lives of teenagers today; social media and internet addictions, but I have a hard time imagining there’s this huge crowd of teenage girls just waiting for the chance to bet on whether the Cubs beat the Mets on their smart phones. My guess is the kids that are addicted to TikTok will still stay addicted to TikTok, and people who already have a gambling problem will just be gambling over a different medium.

So, if you think the state needs more freedom to gamble, vote yes on either or both of these. If you think we already have enough legal gambling, then you can vote no. My guess is, if they both pass, the online gambling option will probably dominate the in-person option. People don’t seem to like leaving their homes these days.

Prop 28 is probably the simplest out of the bunch; an initiative to increase K-12 education spending by 1%, about $1 billion annually. Specifically, this increase is to be directed toward arts/music programs. There are a few complicated formulas for determining how the funds are distributed; 70% of the funds are distributed based on total enrollment of the schools, while 30% are distributed based on the number of low-income students of the schools, but that really doesn’t make much of a difference other than slightly skewing the spending to the schools that tend to need it more.

It probably speaks volume to the sorry state of education in California that people have given up on hoping politicians increase education funding and are now just putting initiatives on the ballot to mandate funding, but that’s really where we are at this point. No complex “tax this revenue and spend it in this fund” gimmicks anymore; just demand the state spend the money and be done with it. No one bothered submitting an argument against the proposition; probably because no one wants to go on record saying they don’t want to increase education funding. If you want the state to increase it’s $164 billion general fund budget by $1 billion to give a little more for K-12 education, vote yes.

Next we have Prop 29, the return of the dialysis prop. I have no idea how this one keeps getting on the ballot. The push for it comes from a labor union based out of Oakland, specifically the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW West). This is their third attempt at this thing, and the proposition remains as nonsensical as the previous attempts.

I need to point out a few things before I go into the actual propositions. First of all, dialysis clinics, like other medical institutions, are already highly regulated, both at the state and federal level. On top of that, kidney dialysis is one of the few areas of healthcare were we do have universal coverage; anyone can be covered for dialysis treatments through Medi-Cal or Medicare, and any insurance will cover it too. Nobody misses out on dialysis treatments because of cost.

That said, lets dive into the proposition yet again:

First point, dialysis clinics would be required to have at least one physician, nurse, or physician assistant onsite at all times treatment is being provided…unless they can’t find someone…in which case they can ask the California Department of Public Health for an exception…which essentially negates the entire logic of this requirement. It should also be noted, federal regulations already require dialysis clinics have a medical director who is a board-certified physician; they just aren’t necessarily required to be on-site every working hour of the clinic.

Second point, dialysis clinics would be required to report infection data to the state. This is rather pointless, as these clinics are already required to report this data at the federal level, so all this does is add another redundant level of bureaucracy to something that already happens. I don’t see the point of it.

Third, clinics would be required to report the names of physicians that have at least 5% ownership stake in the clinic to their patients. Not really sure why, given that the name of the company owning the clinic is almost always on the title of the building, so it’s not like you don’t know who’s running the clinic if there’s an issue. There’s no real rationale given in the proposition arguments as to why this would be beneficial, beyond “improved transparency” to study the effect of physician owned clinics. If you really cared about this information, it honestly wouldn’t be too hard to find, even without this proposition passing.

Fourth, clinics would be required to get permission from CDPH before closing. So, if a particular clinic is running out of patients because there is a decreased demand, and they are no longer able to sustain themselves, they would have to get permission from the state to shut down. Given that the only reason a dialysis clinic would shut down is if they don’t have enough patients to keep operating, this seems a little redundant to me.

Lastly, dialysis clinics wouldn’t be allowed to refuse care based on their coverage, for instance, denying coverage to Medicare patients or a particular private insurer. Again, like I said before, dialysis treatment is one of the areas where Americans have had universal coverage for a while now, and this really isn’t an issue.

Penalties for violating these regulations could cost up to $100,000, and would increase state costs, as well as dialysis costs, to enforce these new regulations. These increased costs could either be passed on to patients, or even shut down a clinic if they are already barely balancing their budget. Given the severe shortage of medical personnel we’re currently experiencing, and regulations that increase the workload of a medical facility has the potential to be quite devastating to operations.

If you want to see more costly, useless regs for dialysis clinics, vote yes. If you think this is all stupid and pointless, like I do, vote no.

Prop 30 is probably the most complicated one on the ballot this year. It’s another tax increase, adding a new tax bracket for individuals or married couples that make over $2 million per year, increasing their marginal state income tax rate from 13.3% (12.3%+1% mental health tax) to 15.05%. This is a little unusual, as normally there is a different cutoff for individuals and married couples (currently the 13.3% rate is for individuals who make over $1 million and couples who make over $1,250,739), but this $2 million bracket would be the set number for both.

The goal of this tax increase would be to increase spending for 3 main categories. With an estimated increase in state revenue ranging from $3.5 to $5 billion, 20% of the money would go to wildfire response and prevention, 35% would go to building more electric vehicle charging stations, and 45% going to a new electric vehicle affordability fund. The main push for this initiative seems to be coming from the rideshare company Lyft…I assume because they want to be able to capitalize on the chance to get some government subsidies to get cheaper electric vehicles and charging stations.

To put this spending in perspective, California typically spends $2-$4 billion a year dealing with wildfires. This proposition might increase that funding, by as much as $1 billion per year, or it might simply displace it, as the funding for dealing with wildfires is somewhat based on need. The proposition explicitly states that this funding is supposed to be supplemental, and not replace existing funding (and it will be up to the state to prove they are using it in a supplemental way) but I just don’t know how that would work given such a wide range of annual spending based on need. 25% of the wildfire response and prevention money would go to Office of the State Fire Marshall, and the other 75% would go to a general account, with spending priorities ranging from cameras/satellites for detecting fires, improving fire resistance for homes in high risk areas, and forest management efforts (prescribed burning, watershed restoration, etc). These in particular are important activities that the state has neglected over the past few decades, so there could be a benefit from increasing spending in this area.

The remaining funds for charging stations and electric vehicle affordability would be distributed through grants/loans/rebates as decided by the commission, with a complicated breakdown of the different categories to spent for:

For the 35% devoted to electric vehicle charging, at least 20% would go to charging stations for multifamily housing, 10% to single family home charging stations, 10% for passenger vehicles, and 10% for larger busses/trucks, with the remaining 50% being flexible to go to any category. On top of that, half the money would have to go to projects that specifically focus on low income/disadvantaged communities. Likewise, of the 45% devoted to electric vehicle affordability, 50% would be focused on low income/disadvantaged communities. So, we’re probably looking at total spending in these categories of $3-$4 billion annually, compared to the roughly $2 billion per year the state has currently committed to spending on these issues. It should also be noted, this proposition also includes mentions of other “zero-emission” type vehicles like hydrogen cars, bikes, etc as areas to be included, but it’s clear from the wording that the priorities are electric vehicles.

The topic of electric vehicles is a fun one in California. There was no shortage of jokes last month when California was asking residents to not charge their cars during certain hours of the day to reduce pressure on the electric grid, questioning how California could possibly meet its future goals of eliminating gas-powered cars in the next 13 years when we currently can’t provide for the needs we have right now. It should also be noted that California still relies primarily on natural gas for electricity. Averaged out over a typical day, natural gas accounts for 50–60% of California power, with renewables accounting for 25%. Typically our thoughts on renewables focus mostly on solar, and while the peak afternoon production of solar power provides around 45% of California’s electricity for a short time, averaged out over the whole day solar contributes to about 17% of California’s electricity. So as it stands now, electric vehicles in California, particularly those charged at night, are still a major source of CO2 emissions.

It should also be noted, electric cars are still significantly more expensive than gas-powered cars, and are generally more of a luxury for the wealthy than something ordinary California residents can afford. California currently has a pretty significant share of total electric vehicles in the US; I believe somewhere just over a million registered electric vehicles. Spending a billion dollars on more electric vehicles, assuming costs ranging from $30,000 to $70,000 per car, would add maybe 20,000 new cars, so a pretty minor increase in overall cars on the road. While this proposition is being advertised as something that’s supposed to be focusing on helping low-income individuals, I have a hard time imagining that it make a huge impact in making these kinds of cars affordable. I suspect electric vehicles will still remain primarily a luxury for quite some time to come. Additionally, we can estimate that a typical electric vehicle charging station can cost anywhere from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on whether you want a station that can charge a car overnight vs in one hour, so consider that when you think about the impact this level of spending will have on the total number of charging stations in the state.

Lastly, I should emphasize a point brought up in the legislative analysis in the voter information guide; increasing California spending by billions per year actually takes us pretty close to our state spending cap, which could potentially force the state to decrease spending in other areas to keep below the spending limit. This has the potential to interfere with other essential state spending areas.

So, if you want to see a tax increase with increased state spending for electric vehicles on the order of a few billion dollars, vote yes. If you think it’s a bad strategy, vote no.

Lastly, we have Prop 31; a simple referendum on a 2020 law outlawing the sale of flavored tobacco products in California. Voting yes on Prop 31 causes the ban to go into effect, voting no on Prop 31 reverses the ban. So if you want to ban flavored tobacco products, vote yes. If you want to keep flavored tobacco products legal, vote no.

There isn’t really much else to analyze for this one. The main argument against the ban is that bans generally don’t work, and kids get their hands on this stuff illegally anyway. This is a debate that goes back decades, and I certainly can’t address all the points in such a short analysis. I will say, as someone who teaches in the medical field, that we’ve made great strides against lung cancer over the past 40 years or so; the largest contributing factor in recent decades to the decline in new cancers and cancer-related deaths has been in the drop in lung cancer related to smoking. With the rise in vaping and the push to promote marijuana across the US in the last decade, we’re going to lose all that progress we’ve made over lung cancer within the next 20 years or so. That said, it will still be extremely easy to buy these products outside of California and bring them in; it’s not like we do drug searches for tobacco products when people cross state lines.

Tax-wise, I don’t anticipate there being a huge drop in tobacco tax revenue from this ban; people are still going to buy tobacco products, and I doubt the flavors are so much of a pull that people are going to start relying on sources outside of the state. It’s pretty unlikely we’ll see a significant change in state revenue one way or another.

And that’s it for the analysis. Hope you were able to get some useful information out of this, and don’t forget to go out an vote this election!