State Propositions Made Easier

Nine, count 'em, nine, not-so-little propositions.

Do you flip through California's Official Voter Information Guide and feel your eyes glaze over?

The League of Women Voters, Los Altos-Mountain View chapter, feels your pain.

It's not the candidates, probably. It's the state ballot propositions. Those take up 64 pages—in summary and in full—of the 127-page booklet that landed in mailboxes last week. That's not counting the 29 pages of the actual legal text of the proposals—for those who really enjoy reading fine print.

The league's answer is "Pros and Cons," a dispassionate dissection of the sometimes dueling proposals seen in Propositions 19 through 27. Think of it as an executive summary for voters. 

"It's so confusing," said Nona Wittlinger, a Los Altos resident who was attracted by the prospect of getting in, getting out, and getting knowledgeable—all in an hour.

A small group of people gathered at the Los Altos Senior Center Monday,  one of a few places where the league is conducting its Pros and Cons education sessions, under the expert guidance of Mountain View volunteer Pete Stahl, who has been breaking down the propositions since 1980.

In a Powerpoint session, Stahl boiled down the "for" and "against" arguments, and his analysis of them. Stahl digs into the minutiae of state ballot propositions so you don't have to—that is, unless you want to. 

It may not be so hard to make up your mind about growing medical marijuana, or suspending state regulations for greenhouse gas emissions, but the mechanics of redistricting, the question of making business tax breaks permanent and reclassifying fees as taxes are more complex. Even the proposal to withhold state legislators' salaries until they pass a budget may have an interesting consequences.

"When you hear the two sides, it's so much easier," Wittlinger said,expressing concern about Propositions 20 and 27— onethat  would give a newly appointed state citizens commission the additional job of redrawing federal congressional districts every 10 years, and the other that would stop that idea in its tracks and let get rid of the new citizens commission, so that lawmakers would go back to drawing their own districts. 

Indeed, Stahl highlighted that the state Legislature and other interests have, as has been the case in other years, managed to put up propositions that would cancel each other out, apparently in hopes that one would out-duke the other. 

"Does anyone know how long it took the state budget to get passed this year?" Stahl asked to laughter. He had just reached Proposition 25, what he called the "Majority Budget Vote" on his slide. The proposal is to change the threshold of votes needed to pass the state budget to a simple majority.  

"A hundred days," someone called out from the back.  Close enough, but who's counting? (Just about every city and county in the state and businesses that supply the state.) The governor just signed the budget on Oct. 8, 115 days after the June 15 deadline, illustrating a perennial problem for 30 years.

Stahl mentioned one argument in the proposal's "Cons" that asserted that "Salaries won't be withheld, because legislators will pass fake 'dummy' budgets on time."

"What are the changes of that happening?" asked one person.

In his opinion, Stahl said, it depended on who was elected governor, since the Democrats are usually the majority party in the legislature. If Republican Meg Whitman were elected, the Democrats could, indeed, pass a so-called dummy budget that it liked—knowing legislators would still get paid—even if the governor vetoed it. California would still have no budget. If Democrat Jerry Brown were elected, there would likely be more cooperation.

When Stahl reached Proposition 27, the final proposal, he reminded the audience that it was in conflict with Proposition 20. So, he stressed, they needed to take notice.

"Can you just tell us how to vote?" Tanya DeMare asked wearily, to sympathetic laughter around the room.

"I could tell you my own opinion, but then it wouldn't be a league education committee activity," Stahl answered, with a smile.

"Meet me in the parking lot later," he quipped.

• See Stahl at the next next Pros and Cons educational session at the Foothills Congregational Church on Oct. 17, courtesy of the Los Altos-Mountain View chapter of the League of Women Voters.  

• The League of Women Voters of California Education Fund and the California State Library have produced a non-parisan election guide at www.easyvoter.org.