We recommend voting for Xavier Becerra for Governor.

Becerra has spent his career in government: more than two decades representing Los Angeles in Congress, then California Attorney General, then U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. As Attorney General he sued the first Trump administration 120 times and filed the state's first lawsuit against a city for refusing to plan for the homes state law required. He broke with Governor Newsom to vote for Prop 36, the 2024 measure we supported that restored felony charges for repeat theft and drug offenses, and he says he would fully fund it. He opposes the billionaire tax on this ballot, and he says people who are offered shelter should not be allowed to stay on the street. On housing, he says he would declare a state of emergency on his first day, fund the nearly 40,000 subsidized homes that are approved and waiting on a last piece of financing, and end exclusionary zoning near transit.

What he has not done is campaign. Becerra finished first in June, 28% to Hilton's 25%, leads 55% to 37% in the latest Berkeley IGS poll, and has treated that lead as a reason to say as little as possible. Asked onstage what voters could expect from him as governor, he declined to name a single commitment: "I would prefer not to run on inflated promises. I will run on my record." By the end of July, Hilton had accepted six debate invitations and Becerra had accepted none. The one debate now on the calendar is September 30, five weeks before Election Day. Menlo College political scientist Melissa Michelson called this "textbook political science," and she is right, but a candidate who won't say what he will do is asking voters to take a lot on faith. We hope Becerra has spent the quiet months building a strong bench of advisors and agency heads. The governor's real job is choosing the people who run the state, and that is exactly where his experience should pay off.

Steve Hilton has a couple of good ideas, like stopping people from using CEQA (the state's environmental review law) to sue new homes out of existence, but has many more bad ones. He called for an audit of the 2020 election and promoted the conspiracy theory that Dr. Anthony Fauci was responsible for the pandemic on the Fox News show he hosted for six years. President Trump endorsed him in April. He calls California's sanctuary law "a ridiculous policy" and would repeal it, a law Becerra defended in court as Attorney General. His tax plan would end state income tax on the first $150,000 of income and charge a flat 8% above that, and he has not said what he would cut to pay for it, a gap a Chapman University economist put at almost a third of the state budget. He would also roll back California's climate rules, including the requirement that utilities buy solar and wind power. And he's never held elected office before.

Becerra has the experience for the job and a record on housing and public safety that lines up with ours. Hilton has a talk show and Trump's endorsement. We hope Becerra has used the quiet campaign to build the team that will actually run the state, because that is the job.

We recommend voting for Fiona Ma for Lieutenant Governor.

In June we endorsed Josh Fryday, who unfortunately finished third and didn't advance. The general election is now Fiona Ma, a Democrat, against Gloria Romero, a Republican, and Ma is the clear choice.

The Lieutenant Governor sits on the State Lands Commission, holds voting seats on the UC Regents, CSU Trustees, and Community Colleges Board of Governors, and chairs the Commission for Economic Development. Most candidates treat this office as a stepping stone. Ma has specific plans for its actual tools.

Why vote for Fiona Ma?

Fiona Ma started her public service career in San Francisco, serving as the Sunset's Supervisor from 2002 to 2006, and has since held office at every level of California government: six years in the Assembly, where she had more than 60 bills signed into law and served as Speaker pro Tempore, a term on the Board of Equalization, and two terms as State Treasurer. We endorsed her for Treasurer in 2022 and called her the safe and stable choice. She was.

I have never lost a race for office, and that is not by accident. When I set out to accomplish something, I commit fully and I deliver.

— Fiona Ma, GrowSF questionnaire

The Treasurer's job turns out to be direct preparation for this one. Ma chairs the committee that allocates the tax credits that make affordable housing possible, sits on the California Housing Finance Agency board, issued the state's first-ever bonds for community college student housing, and launched the Dream for All down payment program for first-time homebuyers. As Lieutenant Governor she would sit on the boards of the very institutions she has been financing, and she is the only elected official who sits on all three. Her plan would put workforce housing on the 75,000 acres of land that school districts and colleges already own, funded through a zero-interest revolving loan fund, so teachers and college staff can afford to live where they work. On the State Lands Commission, she wants to push California's first commercial-scale offshore wind hub at Morro Bay and Humboldt into active construction.

She is also proposing a reform we've already endorsed in another race: abolishing the Board of Equalization. Ma served on that board, chaired it, and initiated the outside audits that exposed the mismanagement behind the 2017 reforms that stripped most of its powers. Now she wants to finish the job, which is exactly the position we took in our Board of Equalization endorsement. It says something when a politician proposes eliminating a body she herself sat on.

Shirley Weber has done the job competently, and we endorse her for another term.

The Secretary of State's primary job is running California's elections, and Weber has done it without drama, which is exactly what you want. Under her tenure, California hit a record 22.6 million registered voters in 2024, and over 5 million Californians signed up for ballot tracking through the "Where's My Ballot" system. She's also expanded same-day voter registration and grown the number of Voter Choice Act counties, which give voters more flexibility in where and when they cast their ballots.

When the federal government demanded California's full voter registration database, Social Security numbers included, Weber refused and won in court in January. She has defended mail voting the same way. When the Supreme Court cleared the administration in August to keep pursuing new limits on mail voting, she committed that every eligible Californian will still get a mail ballot and have it counted. And California's rule that a ballot postmarked by Election Day counts if it arrives within seven days held up when the Supreme Court ruled on the question in June.

We'd like to see her push harder on campaign finance transparency. The state's Cal-Access disclosure database is difficult to use and makes it too hard to trace certain types of electoral spending. Voters deserve full transparency around political money.

We recommend voting for Malia Cohen for State Controller.

Cohen knows public finance, and she knows San Francisco.

Before becoming Controller, Cohen chaired the Budget and Finance Committee and the Audit and Oversight Committee on the SF Board of Supervisors. After that, she ran the San Francisco Employees' Retirement System, a $35 billion pension fund. Now she sits on the boards of CalPERS and CalSTRS, the two biggest public pension funds in the country, with almost $1T in assets, combined.

She also went after California's largest-ever charter school fraud. Cohen led a task force that came up with 20 fixes for how the state checks school finances: tougher rules for auditors, faster reporting, and more disclosure. Her office also publishes pay data for over 2 million government workers across 5,000+ agencies.

We would like to see the Controller's Office return $15B in unclaimed property such as forgotten bank accounts and uncashed checks that belong to Californians. Other states send it back automatically. California still doesn't. Overall, Cohen has brought transparency and accountability to the state's spending.

We recommend voting for Eleni Kounalakis for State Treasurer.

The Treasurer chairs CDLAC (which decides how billions in tax-exempt bonds get spent) and CTCAC (which hands out the federal tax credits that make affordable housing possible). If those agencies move slowly, housing doesn't get built. Kounalakis is the only candidate in this race who has actually built housing, financed infrastructure, and managed large-scale investments in the private sector.

Kounalakis named three measurable outcomes voters should use to judge her after two years: more housing units financed through state programs with faster time to delivery, pension returns that meet or exceed benchmarks with improved transparency, and significant growth in CalSavers, CalKIDS, ScholarShare 529, and CalABLE enrollment, especially among working families and underserved communities. That kind of accountability is rare in a statewide race.

I will focus on lowering financing costs, unlocking capital, and partnering with local governments to move projects from approval to construction faster, because affordability depends on supply.

Eleni KounalakisLieutenant Governor of California

On fiscal discipline, she's specific: hold the state's debt-service-to-General Fund ratio at or below 6%, publish a public "California Balance Sheet" dashboard tracking bond debt, pension assets, and investment performance in plain language, and push for stable pension returns with downward pressure on fees. California's heavy reliance on capital-gains tax revenue creates boom-and-bust budget cycles. Kounalakis would align cash management with economic cycles, maintaining liquidity during downturns rather than borrowing at the worst time.

Before entering public life, Kounalakis spent nearly two decades as a housing developer at AKT Development, building master-planned communities in the Sacramento region where thousands of California families now live. She has firsthand experience with the bond financing, tax credit programs, and capital market tools that the Treasurer's office controls. As Lieutenant Governor, she sits on the governing boards of the UC, CSU, and Community College systems, including voting to approve construction of over 60,000 new student housing beds statewide.

The Treasurer's job is about managing the state's money: bonds, investments, pensions, and cash. Kounalakis is the only candidate in this race with private-sector experience doing exactly that. That's why she has our endorsement.

Rob Bonta has been an effective Attorney General, and we're happy to endorse him for another term.

For San Francisco voters, Bonta's most important work has been on housing. He co-sponsored SB 1037 with Scott Wiener, which gave the AG's office real teeth to fine cities that block housing, and he has used them. His office has forced compliance from cities across California that were illegally stalling housing plans, including settlements with Fullerton, Norwalk, Elk Grove, and Huntington Beach. When Woodside declared the entire town a mountain lion sanctuary to avoid SB 9, Bonta told the town it was breaking state law. Woodside rescinded the policy the same week and started accepting applications. Every home that gets built because a NIMBY city was forced to follow the law makes San Francisco's regional housing market a little less insane.

He's also gone after anticompetitive behavior in the rental market. His office got a $7M settlement from Greystar, the nation's largest landlord, for using software to coordinate rent prices with competitors, which is a cartel run through an algorithm. That kind of enforcement matters to every renter in the Bay Area.

Bonta has also been active defending California against the Trump administration, filing over 50 lawsuits on issues from immigration to environmental protections. Two of them protect your mail ballot. When a March 2025 executive order tried to force states to throw out ballots cast by Election Day but received a few days later, Bonta co-led the 19-state lawsuit that won a permanent injunction against it in June 2026. When a second order this April directed the Postal Service to mail ballots only to voters on new federal lists, he sued again and won, though the Supreme Court paused that ruling on August 24 on timing grounds, without deciding whether the order is legal. Two days later he sued over the Postal Service rule that carries the order out, and on September 4 a federal judge blocked that rule for the November election. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to lift that block, and on September 14 the Court refused, 7 to 2, so the rule will not apply to this election. Every San Francisco voter gets a ballot in the mail, and Bonta has spent a year and a half in court keeping those ballots countable.

We recommend voting for Ben Allen for Insurance Commissioner. Allen has the experience, knowledge, and track record to fix California's broken insurance market.

In the June primary we endorsed Patrick Wolff while mentioning that Ben Allen was also a good choice. Unfortunately, Patrick Wolff lost, so the November election is a head-to-head matchup between Ben Allen and Jane Kim. We strongly recommend Ben Allen and strongly oppose Jane Kim.

California's insurance market is broken. Insurance companies are leaving the state, the state-run FAIR Plan has blown up to 610,000+ policies (up 154% since 2021), and homeowners in fire-prone areas are getting pushed into a bare-bones backup plan that just asked for a 36% rate hike. The next Insurance Commissioner needs to understand what's actually broken and how to fix it. Only one candidate in this race does.

Why vote for Ben Allen?

Allen has spent over a decade working on insurance, climate, and consumer protection. As a State Senator, he represents the communities devastated by the Palisades Fire, where he spent the aftermath helping hundreds of constituents fight for their insurance claims, an experience he calls "a front-row seat to our broken insurance system." He watched the FAIR Plan nearly collapse under $4 billion in losses from the LA fires, with the costs spread to policyholders statewide through a $1 billion emergency assessment, and he drew the right lesson: letting the FAIR Plan grow unchecked creates systemic risk for everyone.

Standing amid smoke, ashes, and uncertainty, I saw what failure looks like.

Ben AllenCalifornia State Senator

Allen didn't wait for tragedy before acting, though. In 2024, a year before the Palisades Fire, he authored Proposition 4 to authorize a $10 billion bond for wildfire risk reduction and water infrastructure that voters approved. While other candidates talk in vague terms about affordability while dodging questions about their relevant experience, Allen has already put $10 billion to work reducing the risk that makes insurance expensive in the first place.

His plan for the office pairs regulatory flexibility with hard accountability: insurers get more flexibility to price risk accurately so taxpayers won't be forced to bail them out after a disaster, and in exchange they must actually write and renew policies in California. He also wants an independent consumer advocate inside the Department of Insurance, public dashboards tracking insurer behavior, and a ban on Commissioners working for the insurance industry after leaving office. You can read his full plans in his answers to our questionnaire.

Why not Jane Kim?

Jane Kim is a career politician who went from being a San Francisco Supervisor, to losing her run for State Senate, to running a socialist political party (the Working Families Party), and now wants a state takeover of disaster insurance. She has no insurance experience, no insurance license, and no financial services background. She's running on a plan called "Disaster Insurance for All": a government-run program that would replace private disaster coverage. You'd pay a fee to the state, and the state would cover wildfires, earthquakes, and floods. Private insurers would have no reason to stick around. The next big wildfire or earthquake means either a massive taxpayer bailout or a wave of unpaid claims.

In theory, this could work, but it would depend on the state accurately pricing risk. The private market is in a crisis precisely because the state has not let insurers price risk accurately. Kim's plan would make that problem worse, not better.

Her plan reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what insurance is. Insurance works by pricing risk and spreading it across a big pool. Kim won't commit to pricing risk. When pressed on it, she told Washington Monthly: "I imagine we would look at both value and risk, but one of the goals is to make sure that [coverage] is affordable." This hedging worries economists. Holding rates down for affordability is precisely how you end up not charging for risk. When fire-prone homes don't pay what their risk actually costs, people who live in fire-safe cities like San Francisco pay more. Insurance prices are supposed to make people think twice about building in dangerous places. When that signal is weakened, more people will move to fire-prone areas, more homes will burn, and San Franciscans will pay even more to cover it.

In short, Jane Kim wants to end private disaster insurance and dump everyone into one state-run account that mis-prices the actual risks, then hope nothing bad ever happens.

We've already seen this movie in California. The FAIR Plan, the state's existing backup insurer, got hit with $4 billion in losses from the LA fires, ran out of money, and had to charge private insurers a $1 billion emergency fee just to stay alive. That's with only 610,000 policies. Kim wants to put every California homeowner on a plan like this.

The models she points to aren't success stories either: New Zealand's earthquake insurer was overwhelmed after the 2011 Christchurch quake, underpaid people for over a decade, and is now getting sued.

We are not alone in this read. The San Francisco Chronicle's editorial board endorsed Allen under the headline "One candidate is ready to be California's insurance commissioner. The other would be a disaster." It called Kim "as rash as they come," said her platform is "politically seductive" but "a recipe for disaster," and pointed to her 2016 Prop C, the inclusionary housing rates that supervisors had to cut three times because projects stopped penciling out. Its conclusion: "If Prop C is an example of how Kim would operate as insurance commissioner, voters should run screaming."

This race is a choice between a legislator who has spent a decade on the problem and a candidate whose plan would make it dramatically worse. Ben Allen understands how insurance works and has already done more than anyone in this race to fix it. That's why he has our endorsement.

We recommend voting for John Pimentel for the State Board of Equalization, District 2.

The Board of Equalization has a fairly narrow role, after most of its powers were stripped in 2017 following an audit that revealed missing funds and signs of nepotism. Governor Brown signed legislation stripping the Board of most of its duties, and the real work went to two new agencies the governor controls. What's left is setting the taxable value of railroad and utility property, overseeing statewide property tax assessment practices for consistency across county assessors, and hearing certain tax appeals. In fact, the office should probably be abolished. Legislators have proposed exactly that, and former board member and State Controller Betty Yee questions how the board "continues to have relevance".

Pimentel is the rare candidate who agrees that this elected office shouldn't exist. He campaigns on folding the board's remaining work into the state's other tax agencies, which would end the practice of paying four elected board members $184,000 a year to oversee a technical, administrative function. The San Francisco Chronicle endorsed him "for his willingness to eliminate his own job."

California does not suffer from a lack of good intentions. We suffer from a lack of follow-through, accountability, practical execution, and the discipline to say 'NO'.

— John Pimentel, GrowSF questionnaire

Why vote for John Pimentel?

But until the board is abolished, it needs someone who can run it well. The board has been plagued by scandal and mismanagement, and the Legislature has stripped it of most of its powers. The remaining duties are technical and administrative, and the board deserves someone who has actually run large, complicated things.

His platform is practical: modernize the board's oversight of county assessors with shared data tools, speed up assessment appeals and refunds, and use the office to push for ending the sales tax on groceries and prepared food.

Pimentel's record is heavy on execution. As California's Deputy Secretary for Transportation, he oversaw the emergency rebuild of Los Angeles freeways after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, using incentive-based contracts that finished the work in record time, and led the merger of the California State Police into the Highway Patrol. In the private sector, he built more than $1.5B of clean energy and water infrastructure.

As a San Mateo County Community College District trustee, he led the effort that made community college tuition-free for county residents, and enrollment rose 24%. When the district's former chancellor was fired amid a corruption investigation, Pimentel pushed to cancel his do-nothing emeritus contract, create an internal auditor position and a whistleblower hotline, and sue the contractors accused of paying him off. Both efforts landed. The chancellor was convicted in January on eight felony counts of perjury and tax fraud, and in June the contractors settled with the district for $20M, money that goes back to taxpayers. That anti-corruption record will serve Pimentel well on the Board.

Why we changed our endorsement

We endorsed Sally Lieber in the June primary, but we've decided to change our endorsement to John Pimentel for the general election.

Before the primary, Lieber was the only candidate who answered our questionnaire. We definitely didn't agree with all of her positions, but she had a scandal-free and competent record on the board.

But after the primary, Pimentel returned our questionnaire, and we found his answers very compelling. More compelling, in fact, than Lieber's.

Ultimately, this general election is a choice between two Democrats with opposite views of the office itself. Lieber defends keeping the board, describing it as a lean and effective forum for taxpayers. We think the 2017 scandal, the Legislature's own abolition proposals, and the doubts of the board's former members tell a different story. Pimentel's positions are more in line with ours and more aligned with good government.

When the central question in a race is whether the office should exist at all, we side with the candidate who wants to wind it down and has the record to run what remains well in the meantime. That's why John Pimentel has our endorsement.

We recommend voting for Matt Haney for State Assembly, District 17.

Haney has been one of the most productive SF legislators in Sacramento. His biggest win is AB 507, signed by Newsom in 2025, which makes it easier to turn empty office buildings into housing statewide. The law started as a San Francisco fix, since our downtown has millions of square feet of empty office space, and Haney got it expanded to the whole state. Projects that meet the rules now get approved automatically, no rezoning needed. He also authored AB 1445, which lets other cities reinvest the property tax growth from an office conversion back into the project, a financing tool San Francisco already had, and he founded and chairs the Assembly's first committee on downtown recovery, where he says 8 of his 13 downtown bills have become law. He's also pushed hard on public safety: AB 2475 stops state hospitals from releasing patients with violent criminal histories without a plan for supervision, housing, and treatment. And his AB 602, the Campus Overdose Prevention Act, has public colleges offer students treatment instead of discipline when they seek help during an overdose, starting July 2026.

In his questionnaire, Haney lays out an ambitious but grounded agenda for his next term. On housing, he wants to end exclusionary zoning, accelerate office-to-housing conversions, and move toward by-right permitting for infill projects. On the fentanyl crisis, he's working to expand treatment access and guarantee drug-free recovery housing, while supporting enforcement against trafficking networks. And he's championing downtown revitalization: modernizing nightlife rules, supporting small businesses, and making urban cores places people want to spend time again.

Haney works across party lines and gets bills signed. His opponent, Republican real estate businessman Manuel Noris-Barrera, took 15% against him in 2024. Haney has earned another term.

We recommend voting for Catherine Stefani for State Assembly, District 19.

Stefani has had a productive first term. Newsom signed seven of her bills into law in 2025. Highlights include the Restitution First Act (AB 1213), which makes sure crime victims get paid back before other fines are collected; a license plate cover ban (AB 1085) that closes a loophole criminals used to dodge toll cameras; and Wyland's Law (AB 1363), which closes a deadly gap in how California enforces gun-restraining orders. Gun safety is her signature issue. She founded the SF chapter of Moms Demand Action and wrote SF's first-in-California ghost gun ban as a Supervisor.

We do have some concerns about Stefani's alignment with Sacramento special interests, particularly on issues where the priorities of state-level advocacy groups don't always match what's best for San Francisco. We'll be watching her second term closely. But on the merits of what she's done so far, she's earned our endorsement.

We recommend voting Yes to retain Justices Kelli M. Evans and Joshua Groban on the California Supreme Court.

Our rule is the same as for the Court of Appeal: retain a judge unless there is serious misconduct on the record, or poor judgment that deviates from legal norms. Evans was appointed by Governor Newsom in 2022 and Groban by Governor Brown in 2018. Neither appears in the Commission on Judicial Performance public discipline record, and we found no organized campaign against either of them.

We recommend voting Yes to retain all eleven Court of Appeal justices on your ballot.

Appellate justices in California don't run against anyone. Voters answer yes or no on whether each one keeps the seat. Our rule is simple: retain a judge unless there is serious misconduct on the record, or poor judgment that deviates from legal norms. Even when a judge repeatedly makes judgments we disagree with, if they're following the law then we should focus on changing the law, not the judge.

We checked the Commission on Judicial Performance, which publishes every public censure, admonishment, and removal in California, and none of these eleven justices appears in it.

We recommend voting for Richard Barrera for State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

This office matters far less than it did the last time you voted on it. Under the budget Newsom signed in June, a commissioner appointed by the governor takes over the Department of Education from the superintendent on January 15, 2027. Whoever wins this race is sworn in earlier that month and will run the department for a matter of days.

The superintendent gets a vote on the State Board of Education, which grows from 11 members to 13 and decides what students are expected to learn, approves textbooks, and runs the state tests. The office also comes with seats on the boards that run the community colleges, CSU, and UC, and a platform to speak for public schools.

Why Barrera?

Textbook approval is the biggest lever this office has left, and reading is where California is failing. Only 47% of kids read at grade level, and SFUSD is in the bottom 10% of 287 districts. California's answer in 2025 was a phonics law that districts can adopt or ignore. Mississippi went further, moving from 49th in fourth-grade reading in 2013 to about the national average by 2019 by training teachers in phonics, putting reading coaches in struggling schools, and holding back third graders who couldn't read. Richard Barrera calls it "worth studying seriously."

He would have the Board track a short list of statewide outcomes and report publicly on whether they improve, rather than keep adding goals.

California does not suffer from a shortage of goals. It suffers from scattered responsibility and uneven follow-through.

Richard BarreraSan Diego Unified School Board Trustee

At San Diego Unified, Barrera pushed the district to require every graduate to complete the courses needed for UC and CSU admission, and he says the share of Latino students meeting that bar rose from 25% to 70% within a decade. He did that with a district trustee's power to set graduation requirements. This office doesn't have that power, but it does put him on the boards that run UC, CSU, and the community colleges, where those graduates apply next.

Newman was right

In June we endorsed Josh Newman, partly because he was the only candidate willing to say this job should be appointed rather than elected. He was right.

Under the old arrangement the governor-appointed State Board of Education set policy and a separately elected superintendent carried it out, so when results were bad they deflected blame to each other and nobody was held responsible. A December 2025 report from Policy Analysis for California Education found that the split produced overlapping responsibilities and unclear accountability, and recommended putting the department under a director appointed by the Board while the elected superintendent evaluates whether the system is working.

Both candidates opposed the change. Barrera called it an "end-around attempt to take away responsibility from the person that the voters are electing to improve our public schools," and Shaw called it an "unconstitutional power grab." We think they're wrong, though it doesn't bear much on your vote, because neither of them can undo it.

What is it?

Prop 1 is an $11.25B bond: $10B to finance subsidized housing and $1.25B for CalVet loans to help veterans buy farms, homes, and mobile homes.

The state repays the housing bonds from the General Fund over up to 35 years. The CalVet funds are different: veterans' loan payments pay those bonds back, and the General Fund covers any shortfall.

Fund allocations

Half of the $10B housing bond funds go toward the Multifamily Housing Program, totaling $5.1B to build and renovate affordable rentals. The other half will be divided across supportive housing ($1.15B), the CalHome Program ($600M) and Home Purchase Assistance Fund ($500M) to help people buy homes, infrastructure ($500M), and $1B for farmworker, student, and tribal housing, among others.

The Legislature can change these splits later without going back to voters.

The remaining $1.25B for veterans funds the existing CalVet program to help veterans buy farms and homes.

Accountability

The state must publish a yearly report on how it spent the bond money.

Read the full annotated legal text →

Why vote Yes?

Prop 1 would deliver the funding to build about 45,000 subsidized homes that are already fully designed, permitted, and ready to break ground.

Bonds are required to fund this construction because California shut down ongoing funding in 2012 when the Legislature dissolved local redevelopment agencies. Prior to 2012, more than $1B per year was available to build low-income housing, but ever since it has been paid for by one-time bonds that voters are required to approve: $2.1B in 2002, $2.85B in 2006, $4B in 2018. Each bond gets fully committed to projects across the state, and then the pipeline freezes until the next voter-approved bond. That is a terrible way to fund something you need every year, and it is fair for voters to be annoyed by it.

But the good news is that these bonds work. Averaged across past bonds, every $100,000 of state money turns into a home for a low-income family trying to make ends meet. As of June 2024, the 2018 bond delivered or funded 22,735 homes with the $2.34B awarded so far. Note, however, that not all have been built; those homes are at every stage from just-funded to fully-occupied.

Unfortunately, costs have risen from about $100,000 per home to about $250,000, so we estimate this $11B bond will fund about 40,000 homes.

We want to note that California is particularly expensive because of high labor costs and expensive design rules that the government requires for these projects. RAND found that California builds subsidized housing at 1.5 times the cost of market-rate housing here, and four times the Texas average.

Voters must choose between funding a program that's expensive but works, or waiting for regulators to fix their self-imposed high construction costs. We think voters should authorize the bond and push for better cost controls. Every year a permitted project waits, its costs climb and its financing has to be rebuilt, so a delay itself burns public money. Vote Yes on Prop 1 to build the homes California has already approved.

What is it?

Prop 2 doubles the cap on California's rainy day fund from 10% to 20% of General Fund tax revenue. And it increases the amount the state saves when capital gains tax revenues are high.

Currently, California can only save up to 10% of the total budget (so if the State's budget were $300B, it could only legally save $30B). Prop 2 would double the maximum savings cap. California has hit the savings cap twice since it was created in 2014 as part of the Budget Stabilization Act that created the rainy day fund.

It would also save more capital gains tax revenue if capital gains account for more than 10% of the state's total tax revenue.

Yearly deposits

The fund gets two kinds of deposits. The first is a fixed slice of 1.5% of General Fund revenue every year. The second kicks in only when capital gains taxes, the most volatile money the state collects, make up more than 8% of General Fund tax revenue: everything above that 8% line is set aside. Prop 2 keeps both rules and adds a third, starting in 2027-28. When capital gains climb past 10% of tax revenue, every dollar above the 10% line is set aside at 150%, with the extra 50 cents coming from other tax revenue. In a normal year nothing changes. In a boom year the state saves more than the windfall itself.

Take a boom year where the state collects $200B in taxes and $30B of it is capital gains. The 8% line is $16B and the 10% line is $20B.

• Current law: the $14B above the 8% line is set aside.
• Prop 2: the $4B between the 8% and 10% lines is set aside as is, and the $10B above the 10% line counts as $15B. The state sets aside $19B, with the extra $5B coming out of other tax revenue.

(The real formula first carves out shares for schools and extra debt payments, but the comparison holds.)

Once the fund hits the 20% cap, money that would have gone in can only be spent on infrastructure.

The Gann limit

Starting in 2027-28, reserve deposits stop counting against the state's constitutional spending limit (the Gann limit) until the year the money is pulled back out and spent. When revenue exceeds that limit for two years, the excess must be split between schools and taxpayer rebates, which is where the 2022 Golden State Stimulus checks came from. Counting deposits later keeps the state further from the limit in boom years, so those rebates become less likely in the years the state saves heavily.

Taking money out

Taking money out still requires the Governor to declare a budget emergency, and the Legislature can withdraw no more than half of the fund's balance in one year, unless money was already withdrawn the year before.

Read the full annotated legal text →

Why vote Yes?

California has a poorly designed tax system. We cap property taxes, starving the state of education funding, so we make up for it with high income and capital gains taxes. But capital gains are unpredictable, so in boom years we might have a $100B surplus and in bust years we might run an $80B deficit. This means a rainy day fund is required to capture the surplus when we're flush so we don't have to cut services or raise taxes when we're not.

Reasonable people can disagree about the right amount to save, and whether the government should be forced to do so, so consider this endorsement a weak yes.

Two things voters may want to consider when deciding how to vote:

1. Both OpenAI and Anthropic are poised to launch record-shattering IPOs in the coming year. If voters enact Prop 2, then the state will save more of that money than it otherwise would, without raising taxes.
2. The flipside is that Prop 2 would make boom-year taxpayer refunds less likely. Rebates like the 2022 stimulus checks happen only when revenue exceeds the state's constitutional spending limit two years running, and Prop 2 counts rainy day deposits against that limit only once the money is spent (see the Gann limit above).

Overall, we think building up the rainy day fund is the right choice.

What is it?

Prop 3 makes California's extra income tax rates on high earners permanent by removing their 2030 expiration date from the state constitution.

Above the regular 9.3% rate, the state adds three higher brackets: 10.3%, 11.3%, and 12.3%. Voters set those rates with Prop 30 in 2012 and extended them with Prop 55 in 2016; they expire after the 2030 tax year. Prop 3 deletes that expiration date, so the rates keep applying until another vote of the people ends them. Prop 3 does not change the rates or the incomes they apply to, and it does not create a new tax.

Where the money goes

The money goes into the Education Protection Account that Prop 30 created, which is split 89% to K-12 schools and 11% to community colleges. In a year when the account brings in more than the state needs to meet its constitutional minimum for school funding (the Prop 98 guarantee) and keep existing programs running, half of the leftover, up to $2B in a year, goes to children's and family health care under Medi-Cal. Prop 3 does not change how any of that money is divided.

Read the full annotated legal text →

Why vote Yes?

Higher taxes on high incomes raise more money for the state, but some of the people paying them leave, and some invest or work less. The question is how much of each.

Luckily, we already know the effects of this tax: 535 top-bracket taxpayers left the state after this tax was enacted, against a backdrop of 66,936 total individuals, or about 0.8%. These top-bracket taxpayers make up roughly 2% of all taxpayers, but they account for about half of all state income taxes.

We think voters should make these tax rates permanent and vote yes.

Note: We object to the title of this proposition, which implies funding specifically for "Children's Education and Health Care." That's false, and Attorney General Bonta should have intervened to require an honest title.

What is it?

Prop 4 lifts California's ban on candidates taking public money to run for office.

Prop 4 does not create a public financing program and does not spend any money. It removes the ban and sets rules for any future program. Each city, county, or the state would still have to pass its own law to start one and decide how to pay for it.

Current law

The ban comes from Prop 73, which voters passed in 1988. In 1992 the California Supreme Court ruled it does not apply to charter cities, which set their own rules for city elections. Five charter cities run public financing programs today: Berkeley, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, and San Francisco. That is why San Francisco's program can match small donations for local candidates, up to $255,000 for a supervisor race and $1.2M for mayor, while the state, all counties, and non-charter cities remain covered by the ban. The Legislature tried to lift the ban by statute in 2016, and a court struck that down in 2019 because changing a voter-passed law requires voter approval. That ruling is why Prop 4 is on the ballot.

Rules for public financing programs

A candidate who takes public funds must accept voluntary spending limits and show broad-based support in their district, for example by collecting donations of $10 or less from a set number of voting-age residents. Public funds cannot pay a candidate's legal defense fees or fines or repay a personal loan the candidate made to their own campaign, and the rules cannot discriminate by party or by whether a candidate is an incumbent or a challenger.

Foreign money

Existing law already bars foreign governments, foreign interests, and foreign nationals from giving to California campaigns. Prop 4's one change is the fine, which becomes a range: at least the amount given or spent, and up to three times that amount. The legal text carries two versions of this section because a separate bill, Assembly Bill 953, rewrote the same law effective January 1, 2026.

Read the full annotated legal text →

Why vote No?

Since San Francisco was not banned from running a public financing program, we were able to analyze its impact on our elections. From 2012 to 2019, donations to Supervisor candidates were matched 2-to-1 on every dollar, but after 2019 the city changed to a 6-to-1 match on just the first $150.

We analyzed every itemized contribution to SF candidates since 2012 and found that after the city raised its match to 6-to-1 in 2019, the median donation went down while city funding was largely unchanged. So someone who could have given $450 in 2019 would just give $150 now. So it saved donors money while taxpayers picked up the bill.

Maybe this would be worth it if it resulted in more diversity in elections, or in long-shot candidates making it, but elections did not change. The Ethics Commission's data shows incumbents winning at the same rate and fewer candidates running, while 2024 set a spending record and taxpayers picked up $8.8M of it.

Public financing in San Francisco has meant donors give less, taxpayers pay more, and elections come out the same. Vote no on Prop 4.

What is it?

Prop 5 changes how California recalls a statewide officer, such as the Governor, Attorney General, or Controller.

Today, the California Constitution puts two questions on a recall ballot at once: whether to remove the officer, and who should replace them. The replacement needs only the most votes, even if that is well under half. The officer facing recall cannot run for their own seat.

Prop 5 drops the replacement race. Voters answer one question: remove the officer, yes or no. If a majority says yes, the seat is vacant and gets filled the same way as any other vacancy in that office. The recalled officer cannot be appointed back in, but can run in a later special election.

If the Governor is recalled

The Lieutenant Governor becomes Governor for the rest of the term. One exception: if the recall lands before the nomination deadline for the next statewide election in the first two years of the term, voters pick the Governor in a special election instead.

Prop 5 does not change how many signatures it takes to qualify a recall, or the deadlines for holding it.

Read the full annotated legal text →

Why vote Yes?

In 2021, 46 candidates ran to replace Governor Newsom. Larry Elder led that field with 3.6 million votes, 48% of those cast for a replacement, while 7.9 million voted to keep Newsom. Had the recall passed by a single vote, Elder would have become governor with fewer than half the votes Newsom got to keep his job. That prize is why interest groups treat state recalls as a do-over of the election they just lost.

San Francisco already runs recalls the way Prop 5 proposes. In 2022 we removed three school board members and our District Attorney in single yes-or-no votes, the mayor appointed replacements, and the city moved on. When recalled school board president Gabriela López ran again that November, she lost decisively, which settled any argument about whether the recall spoke for the voters.

This is an easy fix and an easy yes.

What is it?

Prop 37 is a $25B state down payment loan program for middle-class buyers of newly built homes.

If an eligible buyer provides a 3% down payment, the California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) will issue the buyer a second mortgage covering up to 17% of the home's purchase price, to bring the total down payment to 20%. Buyers will then obtain a traditional mortgage.

These are revenue bonds, not general obligation bonds, so the state's General Fund does not back them. Bondholders get repaid out of borrowers' loan payments, so investors (institutions and individuals who buy the bonds), not taxpayers, carry the risk if borrowers stop paying.

No cost to taxpayers

CalHFA is a self-supported state agency that runs on its lending business, not taxpayer dollars. It sets the underwriting standards and decides how many of the bonds to sell. It will only lend at a risk level it judges acceptable. If a buyer defaults, the buyer loses the home and their down payment. Any remaining loss falls on bondholders, not on the state budget.

Who qualifies

A buyer must have lived in California for at least 1 year, earn no more than 200% of the area median income for their family size, and move into the home as their primary residence. The home must be brand new, with the buyer as the first owner, and priced at no more than 125% of the federal conforming loan limit for that county.

Construction defect lawsuits

Prop 37 has a second part aimed at the builders of those homes, because a down payment loan is only useful if there are new homes to buy. It targets the rules for suing over construction defects, which housing researchers say are a big reason California builds so few condos.

Currently, builders can be sued for defects in new homes for 10 years after construction, but for just 4 years for rentals. Researchers at UC Berkeley's Terner Center and SPUR say this is a big reason developers build apartments instead of condos: condos were just 3% of California's new multifamily housing from 2011 to 2021, versus 38% in Canada, and insuring a condo project costs three to four times as much as a similar rental. Lawyers often approach homeowner associations about suing as the 10-year deadline nears, and the Terner Center notes that contingency fees of up to a third of a cash settlement discourage settling for repairs alone. Housing groups including the Terner Center, SPUR, and California YIMBY have recommended changing these rules.

Prop 37 changes them for homes built under its program. Builders can opt in: in exchange for taking on labor standards, they get a reformed construction defect process under the Right to Repair Act for those homes. A defect claim must name each homeowner and each alleged defect, the builder can work with homeowners directly and get a signed release once repairs are done, and a lawyer suing on contingency can take at most 30% of what homeowners win unless a judge approves more. A builder who sells a home for more than 25% above the price cap loses these reforms for that home.

Read the full annotated legal text →

Why vote Yes?

Prop 37 will help restart condo construction, which has fallen to just 3% of new multifamily construction. Condos are the starter homes families can actually afford, and a critical problem stopped their construction: construction defect liability. Insuring a condo project costs three to four times what a rental costs, so builders build rentals instead.

Prop 37 fixes this for homes in its program. Builders who join get a reformed defect process: they can repair problems directly and get a signed release when repairs are done, instead of spending years in court. The down payment loans then supply buyers for the new starter homes.

We are normally skeptical of down payment subsidies because helping buyers bid on a fixed stock of homes simply raises prices for everyone. But Prop 37's loans work only on new construction, so the demand lands where supply can respond.

We would have preferred this fix by legislation in Sacramento, and it almost got there. AB 1903 passed the Assembly 68 to 0 and cleared the Senate, then died when the session ended before a final vote. Until Sacramento tries again, Prop 37 is the only relief available.

It's an experiment, and the Legislative Analyst's Office cannot say whether it will spur construction. But borrowers repay the loans, and if the program fails, taxpayers won't owe anything. Let's give it a shot and see if it works.

What is it?

Prop 38 is an $8.4B state bond for research in immunology and immunotherapy. Half of the funds, about $4.2B, go to a single institute co-founded by the author of Prop 38, and the other half will be distributed as grants for specific projects at California public and nonprofit universities and nonprofit research institutions.

The grant half is not open to every California university. Only institutions with a seat on the council that awards the grants may apply, the council must confer with the institute before each award, and every grantee must offer the institute a role in the funded research.

At least $2.1B out of each half, or $4.2B of the $8.4B, must go to cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer's.

Strings attached

Taking this money carries two obligations, no matter how small the grant:

1. A recipient owes the state 10% of whatever it earns from selling or licensing any patent or other intellectual property that comes out of the funded research. The state keeps that money until the bonds are repaid with interest, and after that it flows back into the research fund.
2. Any drug developed with the money must be sold in California at least 20% below the national average price after its first year on the market.

Robert Kaplan, a UCLA health policy professor and former NIH associate director, argues that universities rarely bring drugs to market themselves, and that the price rule could push the companies that do to sell those products in other states first.

Past programs

Voters approved $3B in 2004 and $5.5B in 2020 for stem cell research through CIRM, the state's stem cell agency, for a total of $8.5B. The first therapy with CIRM funding to win FDA approval came in March 2026, about 21 years in: a gene therapy for an extremely rare, often fatal childhood immune disorder.

Read the full annotated legal text →

Why vote No?

Prop 38 was filed by billionaire Gary Michelson, and every dollar on the FPPC's list of top donors to the Yes campaign comes from him or from Meyer Luskin, both co-founders of the institute it would fund. The eligibility criteria for the $4.2B institute half describe the nonprofit institute at UCLA that Michelson co-founded and chairs, down to the two programs his gift created: a nonprofit existing by January 1, 2025, at least 200,000 square feet, $250M in pledges, and $50M each for vaccine and microbiome programs. A UCLA spokesperson confirmed that no other institution qualifies.

If Washington cuts research funding, the Legislature can fund scientific research in any year's budget and award it competitively. It does not take a bond. And California already ran this experiment with $8.5B for stem cell research in 2004 and 2020: the only FDA-approved treatment that arose arrived after 21 years, for an ultra-rare disease, while 92% of awards through 2012 went to institutions tied to the agency's board.

Immunotherapy is not a field short of money. One immunotherapy drug, Keytruda, sold $31.7B in 2025, and private investors chase every promising lead in this field. Public money is not needed where private money is abundant.

Prop 38 would cost $500M to $600M per year for about 20 years from a General Fund that the Legislative Analyst says is running a structural imbalance this year, with deficits projected every year after. Research is a good cause and it's great that the state and federal government fund it, and that is exactly why it deserves better than a bond one donor wrote around his own institute. Vote no.

What is it?

Prop 39 requires voters to show valid government-issued ID when voting in person. Vote-by-mail voters instead write the last four digits of their ID number on the ballot envelope. The state must issue a free voter ID card to any eligible voter on request.

The measure defines government-issued identification as "documentation that allows conclusive verification of the voter's identity." It does not say which documents qualify, such as a driver's license, state ID card, or passport.

Citizenship checks

The state and counties must check voter rolls for citizenship against government data and report each year on how much of each county's roll has been verified.

Current law

Today, California asks for a driver's license number, state ID number, or the last four digits of a Social Security number when you register to vote, though you can register without one and the county assigns you a number instead. Voters are not asked to show ID at the polls. The exception: if you registered by mail and your number could not be verified, you may be asked for identification the first time you vote, and a broad list of documents qualifies, including a utility bill or bank statement.

Read the full annotated legal text →

Why vote No?

In-person impersonation, the only fraud a photo ID check can stop, is about the rarest event in American elections: a Brennan Center review of the Heritage Foundation's database of proven fraud cases found just 10 cases across billions of votes.

Prop 39's citizenship checks ask only for officials' "best efforts" against government data, and the state already verifies your identity against DMV and Social Security records when you register to vote.

The real change lands on the four out of five Californians who vote by mail. Prop 39 makes you write four digits of an ID number on your return envelope, and they must match the ID number sitting in your registration file. Forget which number you registered with, or transpose a digit, and your valid ballot has a brand-new way to get rejected, on top of the signature check that already works.

For this, the Legislative Analyst's Office estimates it will cost in the tens of millions to low hundreds of millions of dollars per year, all to chase a non-existent problem, all while making your own ballot easier to reject. Vote no.

What is it?

Prop 40 is a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of California residents worth $1B or more, for the 2026 tax year only. It also taxes certain trusts a billionaire has put property into. All persons who were residents of California as of January 1, 2026 are subject to the tax.

The tax phases in at net worths between $1B and $1.1B, and applies to the entire net worth so it is not a progressive tax. A married couple counts as one person.

Every California resident filing a 2026 state tax return must declare that their net assets were $1B or less, or else file the wealth tax forms.

What counts as net worth

Everything the taxpayer and their spouse own worldwide, minus debts, except real estate, retirement accounts, up to $5M of art, or other property outside California, unless moved to dodge the tax.

Where the money goes

Revenue goes into a new fund held outside the General Fund, exempt from the state spending limit. It is split 90% to health care (Medi-Cal and other coverage for low- and moderate-income people) and 10% to K-14 education and food assistance (CalFresh and school meals).

Read the full annotated legal text →

Why vote No?

Prop 40 is a one-time tax collected to fund programs that run forever, and the money is smaller and less certain than the campaign claims. The Legislative Analyst's Office expects tens of billions of dollars, not the campaign's $100B, plus an ongoing loss of income tax revenue of less than $1B per year as wealthy taxpayers leave. Six billionaires already left before the residency date arrived, taking an estimated $27B of the projected haul with them along with the yearly income taxes we no longer get. The federal Medicaid cuts are real and hospitals do need the money, which is exactly why they need money that will actually arrive.

The money may also show up late or never. No state has taxed net worth this way, and the measure schedules its own court fight to run into late 2027. A clinic cannot make payroll with revenue that is tied up in court.

You do not have to take our word for it. The California Teachers Association, Planned Parenthood, the California Medical Association, and the state's hospitals, the groups this money is supposed to rescue, oppose it, and so does Governor Newsom. This same ballot carries a durable alternative we endorse: Prop 3, which keeps the existing tax rates on high earners. Fund health care with money that shows up. Vote no on Prop 40, and yes on Prop 3.

What is it?

Prop 41 does two things. Before voters decide on a new special tax, the State Auditor must audit the programs the tax would fund. And new state taxes can no longer be exempt from the Gann limit, the cap on state spending that voters approved in 1979.

Audits

Once backers of a special tax initiative (a tax earmarked for specific purposes) certify they have gathered 25% of the signatures required to qualify, the State Auditor must start an audit of every program the tax would fund. If the initiative qualifies, the audit's summary is printed in the state voter information guide. Special taxes passed on or after January 1, 2026 also get a repeat audit every four years.

Spending limit

Any state tax enacted or taking effect on or after January 1, 2026 cannot be exempt from the spending limit; the state cannot impose, collect, or enforce such a tax.

Conflicting measures

Prop 40, the one-time 5% tax on billionaire net worth on this same ballot, routes its revenue into a fund that does not count toward the spending limit, and Prop 41's conflicting-measures clause deems a same-ballot measure with such a tax to be in conflict. If both pass and Prop 41 gets more Yes votes, all of Prop 40's provisions become null and void. Neither measure names the other; a court would decide whether Prop 40 falls inside the clause.

Read the full annotated legal text →

Why vote Yes?

California's constitution caps how much tax revenue the state can spend each year. The cap is called the Gann limit, after the 1979 ballot measure that created it. But a ballot measure can exempt itself: declare that its tax revenue does not count against the cap, and the limit never applies. Prop 40, on this same ballot, does exactly that. Prop 41 closes the loophole: no new state tax may exempt itself from the limit. A constitutional limit that any measure can evade in a definitions section is not law, it is decoration.

We are not fans of the Gann limit. Since 1978, California has capped property taxes, capped spending, and leaned on volatile income and capital gains taxes to fill the gap, which is why the budget lurches from surplus to deficit. We would happily see that system rebuilt. But the way to change a constitutional limit is to put the change to voters directly, as Prop 2 on this ballot does with the limit's savings rules. It is not to leave a loophole open for whichever campaign hires the cleverest lawyers.

One thing to know before voting yes: the audit half is weak machinery. The State Auditor must recommend 10% annual savings from every audited program whether or not the waste exists, nothing compels a program to adopt any recommendation, and the Legislative Analyst's Office calls the savings unknown.

Constitutional limits bind until voters change them. Fix the Gann limit; don't evade it. Vote yes.

What is it?

Prop 42 bans two kinds of new state taxes: taxes on simply owning retirement holdings and other personal savings, and retroactive taxes that reach back to before they took effect.

The ownership ban covers retirement accounts, investments, and essentially everything else a person can own. It blocks taxes on simply owning these things; earning, selling, or withdrawing money can still be taxed, so income and capital gains taxes are unchanged. Taxes already on the books before 2026 are untouched.

The retroactive ban means a new state tax could not reach back and bill you based on conduct, activities, or a status (including where you lived) from before it took effect. Both bans cover any state law or constitutional provision enacted on or after January 1, 2026, including statewide initiatives on the same ballot as Prop 42 itself.

Competing measure

Prop 40, on this same ballot, would impose a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of Californians worth $1B or more. Under Prop 42's conflicting measures clause, a same-ballot initiative that taxes the ownership of these assets, or taxes conduct or status from before its effective date, is deemed in conflict. If Prop 42 gets more yes votes, all provisions of the other measure become null and void.

Read the full annotated legal text →

Why vote Yes?

Prop 42 closes a door that should never have been open: taxing Californians on wealth they have not realized and may never see. It bars new state taxes on owning savings and assets and bars retroactive taxes that reach back to conduct or residency before a law takes effect. Every existing tax stays: when you sell stock, collect royalties, or cash out a business, California taxes you today and will tax you the same way after Prop 42.

Ownership taxes fail on their own mechanics. Assets without market prices cannot be fairly valued, illiquid holdings force owners to sell or borrow to pay bills on paper gains that may evaporate, and retroactive taxes break the basic bargain that rules are known before they bind. These defects are not hypothetical: they are why Prop 40, this ballot's one-time wealth tax, needs installment schedules, deferral mechanisms, and appraisal fights just to function.

This is a constitutional lockout, and we are generally wary of those. But defining what kind of thing the state may tax is exactly what constitutions are for: the federal income tax required an amendment to exist, Prop 13 already caps property tax rates, and a future majority can amend this the same way this majority enacts it.

Know what you are voting on, though. Prop 42 was funded almost entirely by Building a Better California, the committee backed by Sergey Brin and other tech founders, and its protected-asset list (business interests, digital assets, intellectual property) reads like their portfolios. It also carries a clause that voids Prop 40 outright if Prop 42 gets more yes votes. We oppose Prop 40 on its own merits, so neither changes our vote. Judge the text, not the donors.

Prop 42 keeps every tax California has and stops only the ones that tax you for owning what you already earned. Vote yes.

What is it?

Prop 43 restores the two-thirds vote to pass a local special tax, no matter who put it on the ballot.

A "special tax" is a tax for a specific purpose, like a parcel tax for schools or a business tax that pays for homeless services. Prop 43 does not touch general taxes, which go into the general fund and still pass with a simple majority.

What changes

From 1978, when voters passed Prop 13, until 2017, every local special tax needed a two-thirds vote. A 2017 California Supreme Court ruling, California Cannabis Coalition v. City of Upland, changed that: courts now let a special tax pass with 50% plus one if voter signatures put it on the ballot. San Francisco used that route in 2018 to pass Prop C, the homelessness gross receipts tax, with 61%.

Starting January 1, 2027, Prop 43 restores the two-thirds rule for citizen initiatives. It covers cities, counties, charter cities, and special districts, including school districts. It also bars voter initiatives from imposing a tax based on a property's value; local governments already cannot, and the regular 1% Prop 13 property tax is unchanged.

Read the full annotated legal text →

Why vote Yes?

Since the 2017 Upland court decision, special taxes (that is, taxes which can only be spent on specific purposes) have been treated differently depending on how they got on the ballot. For local special taxes, the threshold is 66.66% of voters if the local legislature proposes it, or just 50% of voters if a campaign pays to gather signatures instead.

We think treating the same law differently based on how it gets on the ballot is unfair and inconsistent.

Tax policy should be written by the legislators we elect to write it, with hearings and amendments, not by whichever campaign can afford signature gatherers. California already puts too many tax questions to voters directly. A tax that skips the legislature should at least have to win broad support.

In deciding our position on Prop 43, we considered the fairness and consistency of the rules governing special taxes, the permanence of earmarks, and the impact on majority rule.

Fundamentally, we think all taxes should be subject to the same rules, regardless of how they get on the ballot. We also strongly believe that taxes which land in the general fund should just require a simple majority.

Special taxes, in contrast, restrict the use of revenue to specific purposes, limiting the flexibility of future majorities to allocate funds as they see fit, and therefore bind future decision-makers to the choices of the present. We think special taxes should require a supermajority to pass, ensuring that such permanent commitments have broad support. A slim majority of voters should not be able to impose permanent financial obligations on future generations.

The strongest objection is majority rule: under a two-thirds threshold, 35% of local voters can block what 65% support. But a permanent earmark binds majorities too. A tax that no future majority can touch should have to win a supermajority once, and that protects majority rule over more years than it offends it in one election.

Vote yes on Prop 43.

What is it?

Prop 44 penalizes certain nonprofit health clinics that spend less than 90% of their revenue on their mission. The penalty equals the shortfall.

It covers nonprofit clinics that are federally qualified health centers, or FQHCs, plus "FQHC Look-Alikes" that meet the federal rules without getting an FQHC award. Tribal and urban Indian organizations are excluded, and so are hospitals and private practices.

Each covered clinic would send the Attorney General two numbers every year: what it spent on its mission, and its total revenue, both starting from figures the clinic already reports to the IRS. The Attorney General divides one by the other to get a "Mission Spend Ratio," then publishes it.

The 90% penalty

If a clinic's ratio comes in below 90%, the Department of Public Health charges a penalty equal to the whole gap: 90% of the clinic's total revenue, minus what it actually spent on its mission. The measure never states the 90% figure as a spending mandate. It enforces it through this penalty.

Penalty money goes into a state escrow account, and a clinic can ask the Department of Public Health for a waiver of the 90% requirement.

The measure's findings talk about clinic executive pay, but the operative sections do not cap or regulate pay. Executive pay counts against the ratio the same way any other non-program expense does.

Read the full annotated legal text →

Why vote No?

Prop 44 is SEIU-UHW's fourth try at regulating a healthcare industry by ballot measure, after voters rejected all three of its dialysis initiatives. The target this time is nonprofit community clinics, where operators say the union is organizing, and the tool is a rule that every clinic spend at least 90% of its revenue on "mission-related expenses."

A 90% floor sounds reasonable. But everything else a clinic pays for has to fit into the other 10%, and the Legislative Analyst's Office found that clinics today average about 80%, so most community clinics in the state would owe a penalty. That penalty is the entire shortfall. The measure also never defines its central term: the Attorney General writes the definition after the election, so a clinic that pays for patient vans or community outreach could be penalized like a profiteer. An analysis commissioned by the clinics puts first-year penalties at $1.7B, and the clinics are suing in federal court to stop it.

The people who actually run the safety net, the California Primary Care Association, the California Medical Association, and Planned Parenthood, all oppose it, at a moment when federal Medicaid cuts are already squeezing clinics that serve 4.2 million Medi-Cal patients. A labor dispute belongs at the bargaining table. Don't let it be settled by fining the clinics your neighbors depend on. Vote no.

What is it?

Prop 45 adds a new set of rules to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the state law that requires agencies to study a project's environmental effects before approving it. The rules set deadlines and limit lawsuits for eight categories of projects.

The eight categories, which Prop 45 calls "essential projects," are housing, clean energy, water, public health, public safety, broadband, education facilities, and transportation. Using the new rules is up to whoever proposes the project, whether a company, a public agency, or a utility. They can choose the faster process, stick with regular CEQA review, or mix the two. Either way the project still goes through environmental review, and the agency in charge can still approve or reject it.

The housing category covers any housing, including market-rate. There is no affordability requirement anywhere in the definition.

Deadlines

The longest clock is 365 days for an environmental impact report, then 180 days for a negative declaration, 90 days for an exemption, and 30 days to decide whether an application is complete. The main review clocks run in business days, not calendar days, so the 365-day EIR clock works out to roughly 1.4 calendar years, longer than CEQA's existing one-calendar-year deadline.

Only the applicant can extend a review deadline. If an agency misses a deadline, the applicant can demand a hearing where the agency must vote the project up or down using whatever environmental documents exist, and the applicant can sue to force it.

Lawsuits

Prop 45 also narrows what courts can do: a challenger's claims are limited to "objective existing laws," and a court that finds a violation may block only the part of the project affected by it until it is fixed, but may not order the agency to rescind its approval.

Read the full annotated legal text →

Why vote Yes?

Environmental review in California has no clock, and finishing it buys no certainty. An agency can take years to review a housing project or a solar farm, and once it's finally approved a single lawsuit can void it and send everyone back to the start. The only guaranteed winner is whoever wanted nothing built.

Prop 45 puts the process on deadlines for essential projects: housing, water, clean energy, clinics, schools, broadband, and transit. Agencies get 30 days to deem an application complete, 90 business days to rule on an exemption, and 365 business days to finish an environmental report, and an applicant can force a decision when an agency blows a deadline. Lawsuits must finish, appeals included, within 270 days, and a court can halt the piece of a project that breaks the law but can no longer kill the whole thing.

Nothing is exempted; every project still completes environmental review under the same laws. The Sierra Club objects that narrowing what opponents can sue over weakens enforcement, and that is the real trade: Prop 45 moves power from whoever can afford a lawsuit to whoever follows the written rules. We think that is the right trade, applicants can choose whether to use the faster process, and the Legislature can amend it by a two-thirds vote, which most initiatives never allow. The costs land where they should, too: the Legislative Analyst's Office expects start-up costs for private projects to be covered by applicant fees and reimbursements, and likely long-term net savings for government from the reduced workload.

The Legislature proved the logic in 2025 when it exempted most infill housing from CEQA. Prop 45 extends the same logic to the rest of what California is short of. Delay is a policy choice, and you pay for it in rent, energy bills, and water rates. Vote yes.

We recommend voting for Scott Wiener for U.S. House of Representatives, District 11.

A note on this race: This is a federal race, but our questionnaire focused only on issues that directly affect San Francisco. Our expertise is in local, city-scale policy, not national or international affairs. We asked each candidate to answer with a San Francisco lens, as someone who would represent the City's interests in Washington.

How the candidates compare

Voter support figures come from GrowSF polling (2024 to 2026) and San Francisco election results.

Scott Wiener has spent the last decade as one of California's most persistent and effective pro-housing legislators. As a former San Francisco supervisor and now the state senator representing District 11 (San Francisco), he has built a record on the issues that most directly shape San Francisco's quality of life and cost of living: housing production, transit, and government's ability to actually deliver.

In this field, Wiener stands out because he has already passed big, controversial laws in hostile political conditions, and that matters in Washington, where rhetoric is cheap and follow-through is not. Like every candidate, there are things we don't align with Wiener on, but he's still the best choice for getting results.

Results over rhetoric. My job isn't to maintain ideological purity; it's to improve people's lives.

Scott WienerState Senator, District 11

Why vote for Scott Wiener?

Scott Wiener's top policy goals are:

1. Build more housing to lower the cost of living

Wiener's strongest argument in this race is simple: he has actually passed pro-housing law at scale. SB 35 forced cities that weren't building enough housing to approve qualifying projects automatically. SB 423 extended and tightened that framework. And SB 79, signed in 2025, legalized mid-rise apartment buildings near major transit stops throughout California. Those laws did not solve California's housing crisis on their own, but they changed the terms of the fight, making it harder for cities to dodge their housing obligations and easier to get badly needed homes approved.

But state law can only do so much. The country is short 8 million homes, and Congress controls the federal tools that decide how housing gets paid for and built: tax credits, Section 8 vouchers, and environmental review rules. Wiener wants to expand housing tax credits, fund rental assistance, reward cities that build, and cut through federal red tape. He treats housing as both a building problem and a rules problem. We need someone in Congress who gets how permitting, timelines, and financing keep homes from getting built.

2. Protect transit and urban infrastructure San Francisco depends on

San Francisco's affordability depends on whether people can get around the city and region reliably. In 2023, Muni and BART were staring down a multi-billion-dollar fiscal cliff that threatened service cuts across the region. Wiener built the coalition that kept both systems running by bringing together labor, environmental groups, suburban counties, business associations, and urban riders to win a $5.1 billion state transit rescue that sent $660 million to Muni and BART.

That funding bought time, not a permanent fix. With federal COVID relief exhausted and ridership still well below pre-pandemic levels, Bay Area transit is now facing another fiscal cliff in 2026. BART alone is staring at a $376 million deficit, and Muni faces 50% service cuts without new revenue. Wiener's response was SB 63, the Connect Bay Area Act, which authorizes a regional sales tax measure on the November 2026 ballot that would generate roughly $980 million per year to stabilize transit across five Bay Area counties. He has done this work twice now, and he is not done.

In Congress, he wants to fix how the federal government funds transit, fight for money to keep trains running (not just build new things), and protect clean energy transit programs from getting cut. Too many politicians talk about transit as branding. Wiener has spent years doing the hard work of keeping it alive.

3. A record of governing, not just campaigning

The next Congress will be a difficult environment for a junior Democratic House member from San Francisco. Wiener's argument for why he can still get things done is credible: he has passed over 100 bills in the state legislature, often against powerful opposition. He has authored major laws not just on housing but also on mental-health and addiction treatment coverage (SB 855) and net neutrality (SB 822). That willingness to pick fights, including with his own party, and the discipline to come back with a revised version when a coalition falls short, is exactly what federal legislating requires.

Why not Connie Chan?

Connie Chan started as an aide to Aaron Peskin and has voted like him ever since: against housing, and with the most obstructionist factions on the Board of Supervisors. She actively tried to weaken San Francisco's housing plan at a time when the city desperately needed to build more. She was the only Supervisor to vote against backing Scott Wiener's 2023 bridge toll, which would have kept Muni and BART running. She said it was time to "dismantle and restructure" the police department, and this year she voted against the SoMa sobering center and against drug-free supportive housing. She has no meaningful legislative accomplishments to point to. Sending someone to Congress whose primary skill is saying no is not what San Francisco needs right now.

On other issues

Technology and AI: Wiener started working on careful rules for superintelligent AI in September 2023, three years ago and well before other lawmakers were paying attention. His first attempt, SB 1047, drew opposition from SF tech companies big and small, and Governor Newsom vetoed it in 2024. He came back with SB 53, a narrower transparency bill that drew broader industry support and became the first AI safety law of its kind in the country in 2025, and his federal platform would take it national. We think his California approach was heavier-handed than it needed to be, but he has shown he can regulate Big Tech and still keep the industry at the table. Chan has no AI plan beyond blocking it, and she has not said what rules she would write.

Healthcare and treatment: SB 855 expanded mental-health and addiction treatment coverage, and his campaign platform continues to emphasize lower drug costs and broader access to care.

Civil rights and immigration: Wiener has made LGBTQ rights and immigrant protections a major part of his public record. San Francisco voters care about that, and they should.

Public safety: Wiener opposed Prop 36, which GrowSF supported and nearly 70% of California voters passed. His approach to the fentanyl crisis emphasizes treatment access and federal interdiction funding over the accountability measures GrowSF favors. That's a real difference, but it doesn't change the overall calculus in this race.

Scott Wiener has shown he can pass hard laws on the issues San Francisco most needs solved. Connie Chan has spent her career blocking; Wiener has spent his delivering. That's why he has our endorsement.

We recommend voting for Kevin Mullin for House of Representatives, District 15.

Only a small piece of southern San Francisco is in this district; most of it is San Mateo County. Mullin has represented it since 2022, after ten years in the State Assembly, where he was Speaker pro Tempore from 2014 to 2022. In Congress he sits on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and this year he brought home $12.8 million in community project funding for the district, including $960,000 for the Visitacion Valley Family Center and $250,000 for Crocker Amazon Playground.

His opponent, Charles Hoelter, is a retired UPS supervisor running on term limits, voter ID, and barring transgender athletes from women's sports. Neither candidate returned our questionnaire. Mullin is an effective incumbent with a record of delivering for the district, and he has our vote.