Final week’s major election advised us that there can be little or no drama in November’s common election vis-à-vis California’s statewide places of work. With one potential exception, Democrats will proceed to carry all of them.
As a substitute, voters can be pounded with pitches for and in opposition to a clutch of high-dollar poll measures.
Gov. Gavin Newsom. Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, Secretary of State Shirley Weber, Treasurer Fiona Ma, Lawyer Common Rob Bonta, colleges Supt. Tony Thurmond and U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla will face solely token re-election opposition within the November election.
Insurance coverage Commissioner Ricardo Lara isn't a shoo-in, as a result of he could be dealing with fellow Democrat Marc Levine within the November election. Nonetheless, three Republicans have an opportunity to complete second within the top-two major balloting and if Lara has a GOP foe, he’s a powerful favourite because of a lopsided voter registration benefit.
The one actual query mark is the state controller’s place, which is open as a result of the Democratic incumbent, Betty Yee, is being compelled out by time period limits.
Republican Lanhee Chen, a Stanford College lecturer and former advisor to nationwide GOP figures, has drawn a unprecedented quantity of editorial board assist and can seemingly high the sector when all votes are counted. Malia Cohen, a Democratic member of the state Board of Equalization, is Chen’s possible November foe and his candidacy is a take a look at of whether or not the GOP has a future on this deeply blue state.
With the paucity of drama in statewide workplace campaigns, the November election’s main focus can be on poll measures, topped by a high-dollar duel over who, if anybody, will management playing on sporting occasions.
Indian tribes that now dominate on line casino playing within the state are divided over whether or not to pursue a tribal measure to restrict sports activities wagering to their casinos, which has already certified for the poll, or focus sources on defeating a rival measure proposed by a coalition of on-line playing firms.
Tribes dedicated to an opposition technique are already broadcasting and streaming adverts aimed on the on-line betting measure, alleging that it's going to trigger playing dependancy. The opposition coalition plans to position its personal on-line measure on the 2024 poll if it may possibly defeat the company proposal.
Sports activities wagering, nonetheless, isn't the one problem that can face voters. Others more likely to make the poll embrace two measures that will increase earnings taxes on high-income Californians, one for pandemic preparedness and the opposite to subsidize electrical car purchases.
The latter is sponsored largely by Lyft, a serious rideshare company, and has been criticized as a company effort to make taxpayers underwrite a state requirement that Lyft and different firms, corresponding to Uber, electrify their fleets.
Different pending initiatives would assure state funding for arts and music within the colleges, cut back single-use plastic packaging and impose new staffing necessities on dialysis clinics. Earlier union-backed dialysis measures have failed.
A measure to increase the state’s minimal wage to $18 per hour, sponsored by rich Los Angeles investor Joe Sanberg, may make the poll, however solely it if it meets the signature necessities by the June 30 deadline.
Lastly, a referendum would overturn a state ban on flavored tobacco merchandise — the most recent instance of company pursuits turning to the poll to flee new rules imposed by the Legislature.
The initiative and referendum processes had been dropped at California greater than a century in the past as a means for voters to say their will over a Legislature then dominated by company pursuits. Nonetheless, they've largely developed — or devolved — into methods for company and different particular pursuits to have their means, as this 12 months’s crop of poll measures proves anew.
Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.