The Team Normal Democratic Voting Guide for Californians

Presenting a Practical Guide for Team Normal People Voting on California's 2024 Ballot Measures

Are you a “Team Normal” Democrat?

These days, politics can be rather difficult to stomach because so many seem prone to extreme political partisanship. Donald Trump and the threat of fascism from the right looms over the country. But at the same time, there is a small minority on the left who want to mimic Trump to impose their own fascism. They wish to push an agenda you don’t support and demonize you for daring to disagree.¹

The Democratic Party is a big tent party, of course, and Team Normal Democrats aren’t all the same. There are centrists, liberals, progressives, and those who float between the groups depending on the issue.²

But the commonalities that Team Normal Democrats share is that we’re all patriotic Americans and reasonable human beings who attempt to be rational and politically consistent. We understand that people who disagree with us on various political issues are not inherently evil. When someone offers the justification of “Well, it’s okay because Donald Trump does it!”, we know that’s a reason to not do something.

This week, I received my official vote-by-mail ballot and with 34 different elections to vote on, I realized how daunting it will be for Team Normal Democrats in California to fill out their ballots.

Team Normal Democrats know which candidates they’re voting for on the ballot. Voting for Kamala Harris for President, in the words of former Republican Congressman

Adam Kinzinger

(R-Illinois), is “a no brainer.” Voting for Adam Schiff for the United States Senate is also a no-brainer.

Even down ballot in local races, most Team Normal Democrats know who they’re going to vote for. Ask any Team Normal Democrat in Los Angeles County or the City and County of San Francisco which District Attorney candidate they are planning to vote for and they know.³

However, how to vote on the ballot measures is far more daunting. On my ballot alone, I am voting on nineteen (19) different ballot measures. Californians are voting on at least ten (10) statewide ballot measures.

If nothing else, Team Normal Democrats are conscientious voters who want to make sure they’re making an informed decision before they vote. That said, most Team Normal Democrats don’t follow politics closely. Most have got shit to do.

Conscientous voters who want to make sure they’re voting the right way might feel overwhelmed by the ballot.

There are numerous different policies to consider. Moreover, the titles and summaries of ballot measures themselves can be intentionally misleading, including some on this year’s ballot like Proposition 5.⁴

And the sources that one might rely on to help are rather suspect.

Slate mailer voting guides that you receive in the mail that purport to be for various candidates are nothing abut a business (candidates, independent expenditures, and ballot measure campaigns pay to be on them). But traditional sources for voting advice aren’t particularly helpful.

Traditional left leaning political organizations no longer seem to represent their constituencies and instead support whatever the general leftwing position is regardless of whether it is actually related to their mission or even beneficial to what they advocate for. Right wing political organizations that turn a blind eye to Trump aren’t exactly trustworthy either.

For Team Normal Democrats in California, the state and local Democratic Parties are also unhelpful.

This year, the California Democratic Party made a number of endorsements of ballot measures that are both bad public policy choices and completely divorced from the reality of every day life in California.

It’d be easy to throw up one’s hands in defeat. But I refuse because I am inspired by the

Republicans for Harris

who are actively supporting Kamala Harris.⁵ They are the Team Normals on the other side who are putting country over party.

If Dick Cheney can come out and endorse Kamala Harris for President (along with thousands of other Republican Party elected officials, business leaders, White House Administration veterans, and party activists), I can say when the Democratic Party is wrong on ballot measure endorsements and help other Team Normal Democrats make informed decisions on the various ballot measures.⁶

Taking a page from the Republicans for Harris, I have created the Team Normal Democratic Voting Guide for ballot initiatives:

Statewide Ballot Measures

Proposition 2 (Issues $10 Billion in Statewide Bonds for School Improvements): No
Proposition 3 (Repeals Same-Sex Marriage Ban in Constitution): Yes
Proposition 4 (Issues $10 Billion in Statewide Bonds to Combat Climate Change): No
Proposition 5 (Eliminates 2/3rds Vote Requirement for Passage of Local Bonds): NO!!!!!
Proposition 6 (Requires Compensation for Labor of Incarcerated Felons): No
Proposition 32 (Increases Minimum Wage): No
Proposition 33 (Allows New Local Rent Control): No
Proposition 34 (Stops AIDS Healthcare Foundation From Spending Money Politically): No
Proposition 35 (Permanently Enacts Tax on Managed Health Insurance Plans): No
Proposition 36 (Makes it a Felony to Steal More Than $950 in the Aggregate): YES!!!!!

Los Angeles County Ballot Measures

Los Angeles County Measure A (Enacts Permanent Increased Sales Tax to Continue Funding Current County Programs to End Homelessness): NO!!!!!⁷
Los Angeles County Measure E (Enacts special tax to upgrade emergency services): No
Los Angeles County Measure G (Expands Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Creates County Ethics Commission, and Creates County Elected Executive): YES!!!!!⁸

City of Los Angeles Ballot Measures

Los Angeles City Measure DD (Independent Redistricting for City Council): Yes
Los Angeles City Measure HH (Cleans up Charter Language): Yes
Los Angeles City Measure II (Allows food sales at LA Zoo and El Pueblo Monument): Yes
Los Angeles City Measure ER (Expands Power of Ethics Commission): No
Los Angeles City Measure FF (Retirement Plans for Peace Officers): Yes
Los Angeles City Measure LL (Independent Redistricting for School Board): Yes
Los Angeles Unified School District Measure US (School Repair Bonds): No

Ballot Measures in Other Parts of California

Recall of Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price: YES!!!!!*
Recall of Oakland Mayor Theng Shao: YES!!!!!!*
San Francisco City Measure K (Permanently Close the Great Highway): No
Folsom City Measure G (1% Sales Tax Increase): No
Yuba City Measure D (1% Sales Tax Increase): No

*For those who are wondering, recalls of elected officials are legally considered ballot measures.⁹

Each of these ballot measures could easily warrant its own Substack article (more are forthcoming) but for now, simple endorsements will suffice.

While I hope you vote the same way as I do, I encourage you to read the initiatives in full for yourselves and reach your own conclusions. I would advise not just reading titles and summaries the full text of the measures. When reading the full measure text, you can often find things that are omitted from the title and summaries that may change your opinion on how you vote.

The California courts assume that you, the voter, read the full measure text.¹⁰ Courts will not invalidate a ballot initiative simply because it misled voters into accidentally voting the opposite of their intended position.¹¹

This may make some, especially Team Normal Democrats, wonder. Should we be voting on ballot measures at all?

Many elite journalists, pseudo-intellectual academics, elected officials, and people outside California dislike them. No doubt, some ultra woke progressives have described ballot measures as “white supremacy”.

However, the initiative,¹² referendum,¹³ and recall¹⁴ are all guaranteed democratic voting rights under the California Constitution.¹⁵ And while some would argue that the rights then don’t exist because they’re not federal constitutional rights, that’s a nonsense argument. Under our system of government, states are their own independent and co-equal sovereigns with constitutions of independent force.¹⁶

These uneducated attacks are also a reminder of why one is a Team Normal Democrat. It’s not uncommon for extremely uneducated yet opinionated ultra woke progressives to attack the ballot measures on the grounds that state constitutional rights don’t exist.

Anyone in California who makes that argument that should be reminded that if that was the case, among other rights, they’d have no explicit right to privacy¹⁷ and they’d have no constitutional right to abortion and birth control.¹⁸ They wouldn’t even have an explicit constitutional right to a secret ballot,¹⁹ something that some conservatives have argued is not a federal constitutional right.²⁰

Moreover, if you skip the ballot measures, that won’t stop radical extremists on both the left and the right from voting. They can pass extremely bad laws as well as prevent the enactment of good laws.

It’s a good reminder for any Team Normal Democrat that voting on the ballot measures is not just an exercise of your constitutional rights but a civic duty.

Hope this Team Normal Democratic Voting Guide helps you and others.

1. The author of this article is an attorney licensed to practice in the State of California and the District of Columbia. This article and all of the works on this Substack page are statements of the opinions of the author, only, and do not constitute legal advice; they are not intended to be relied upon by any individual or entity in any transaction or other legal matter, past, pending, or future. A paid subscription to this Substack page supports the author’s scholarship and provides access to research that the author has compiled, but does not establish an attorney-client relationship. The author does not accept unsolicited requests for legal advice or representation, and this Substack page is not intended as legal advertising. The opinions expressed on this Substack page reflect the personal views of the author only.

2. Team Normal Democrats are the majority. At least in California. Look no further than San Francisco where in 2022, despite exhortations from elected officials and MSNBC hosts to do otherwise, voters removed School Board members who sought to implement Critical Race Theory and a District Attorney who refused to prosecute criminals.

3. https://x.com/sfchronicle/status/1590233008803831808

4. The current title of Proposition 5, “ALLOWS LOCAL BONDS FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE WITH 55% VOTER APPROVAL”, is purposely designed to confuse and mislead low information conservative voters into accidentally voting in favor. It makes it look like the proposition is imposing a new restriction on bonds. But it’s not. Currently, local governments in California may only take on bonded indebtedness if the bonds are passed by a two thirds vote of the electorate. Cal. Const. Art. XVI, § 18(a). There are many other deliberately misleading aspects to this amendment.

5. https://www.newsweek.com/kamala-harris-endorsement-letter-republicans-1956304

6. This voter guide is not just for Team Normal Democrats but for Team Normal voters who belong to any of our political parties or are registered No Party Preference.

7. In 2016, Los Angeles County voters passed Measure HHH, a temporary sales tax increase that funded a 600 million for a massive project to end homelessness. See https://ballotpedia.org/Los_Angeles,_California,_Homelessness_Reduction_and_Prevention_Housing,_and_Facilities_Bond_Issue,_Measure_HHH_(November_2016)

To say that the program has been incompetently mismanaged would be an understatement. Homelessness has gotten far worse in LA County over the past 8 years. Even worse, there have been multiple stories of the complete waste of funds in construction of homeless housing. I am not opposed to paying more in taxes to fund housing for the homeless. Nor am I in denial about the current situation of homelessness. However, the public fisk is not an unlimited spigot. We cannot continue to spend massively when the funds are not having the intended effect and ask the public to continue to pay for a failed program.

I imagine that supporters will scream and yell in response that to vote against Measure A is to simply allow homeless people to die. This is one of the key rhetorical tools of Wienerism supporters and big government progressives. There are many problems with this argument. But I’ll focus on the main one. The program has not worked. The money has been wasted. Homeless people are dying on the streets.

Therefore, simply approving Measure A will not save the lives of any homeless people because the mechanism to save them does not actually exist. And it’s rather unfair to continue to ask Los Angeles County residents to pay taxes, which were initially promised as temporary, to become permanent.

Until there is a change in current planning and the program is made to be competent, no new funding should be approved. In the words of a very fine attorney, Lisa from Temecula, “Sorry boo, but the box is closed.”

8. This is a very important and long overdue bipartisan effort to expand the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, who each represent over two million constituents.