SB 51: the California politics thread

actually, i don't have to imagine. i own 20% of a house in california so i know how that feels too.

did you post the link to the map app that shows the property tax info? There's one someone posted about that shows Oakland taxes, but maybe it was on fb.

Bristol Farms is closed? All of them or just the SP one?

This one?

https://www.taxfairnessproject.org/map

that’s the one. pretty much convinced me that even if I could afford a house here I’d be an idiot to buy on general principle, and if I did I would immediately become like NIMBY #1 bc prop 13 ensures that.

part of what’s happening here is that every n+1 year beyond 1978 the distortions get that much worse. something’s gonna have to give.

If you think the prop 13 residential map is bad, you should see the commercial real estate situation. And of course that's what Prop 15 is about. So that's one answer for what's going to give, assuming it passes.

But as a YIMBY homeowner here in CA, I don't follow the rest of what you said: yes I pay way more property taxes than the previous occupant (who had owned it since the 60s), but I also have gained a lot of value in the decade I've owned. I actually don't see that value substantially at risk with neighboring increase in density, because I think that if something doesn't give we have significant systematic consequences.

(Bristol Farms here in the SF Westfield Center closed years ago)

No if you can afford a house then you should buy one and never sell it. I mean you might be an idiot for other reasons but unless prop 13 is repealed and we start building housing home ownership is a no brainer from a financial POV. The best time to buy your house was 1976 but now is also pretty good.

unfortunately i might sell mine because I need just one more room :( Yes this will cost me 10s of k forever.

geez caek you are starting to convert me to greater pessimism about ballot measures -- the more I read some of these, the shittier and stupider they are. It's like, "oh, this would be a good change," and then you read the rest of it, and realize, "actually, this would also do something bad that is also stupid."

The best time to buy your house was 1976 but now is also pretty good.

My parents bought their first in 1977, and I admit, we're all grateful for that. Sold it in 1994 which enabled them to get the house in Carmel.

Via Elections Project, meantime: 12 million voters already voted as of yesterday, more than half the registered electorate, and almost 83% of the 2016 vote total, not bad. You all figure they'll do send-a-ballot-to-everyone for the big biannual races going forward? Seems like a no brainer given how smoothly it's gone from what I can tell.

haha xxp

i mean there are bad laws passed in the legislature too. but i think ballot measures are on average a little worse, and the are much much harder to repeal.

I'm guessing that a lot of the progressive property tax reform energy went into Prop 15 (which I support) and so Prop 19 ended up with not much effort to oppose it, which is too bad, because it sucks. It's not as horrible as Prop 22 or Prop 20 are. But still, it's basically allowing old/er people to keep their low property taxes if they buy a home of the same or lesser value (the taxes get pro-rated up if the new home value exceeds the old one) ... which is stupid. These people are already property owners and will likely net a lot of money from the sale of the house, for one. Then, they will get to exclude a significant amount of gain from their taxable income because of the way the tax code works. In other words, the ads are all about "close loopholes for rich people" but really, the proposition is creating a big loophole for even more rich people.

And honestly, I don't understand, why, even though we are the state that is home to big corporations focused on data collection and integrating databases and such, why the state cannot take information from tax returns that show a house is being used as 100% rental and integrate that with property tax info, and treat residential rental property akin to commercial property in the context of Prop 15.

xp Ned - my grandfather sold his house in Carmel right around 1994 and was able to buy a house in Monterey for all cash/no mortgage. He's dead now, but his son by his second wife lives in the Monterey house now.

My parents are still living in their tract home bought in 1975, which is worth probably about $650k now (it fluctuates between $600k - and $700k) -- and paying property taxes that are about as much as my monthly rent ... on a rent-controlled apartment I have lived in since 1997. ... basically the lesson is to stay put and not move.

i think the logic on prop 19 is that it weakens the only good argument against repeal of prop 13, which is "granny loses her house when her taxes go up". i.e. ignoring prop 19 (or even advocating for it's passage) is praxis.

but yeah it's a weird one.

of course, we could implement a system akin to that of New York that gives refunds of property taxes based on income, such that poorer people pay less.

If Granny is Dianne Feinstein, I kinda think she can afford to pay higher property taxes?

i'm with you. but i think prop 19 makes prop 13 politically weaker.

The Howard Jarvis Foundation (or whatever they're called) is against both 15 and 19.

yeah, I had to do a lot of soul searching to agree with the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assoc. ... but I think Prop 19 is too flawed.

prop 19 looks bad prime facie bc realtors are for it, but iss actually good bc it lets olds downsize without penalty and move the f out of their empty nests

They can already do that if the place they buy costs less than the place they sell.

um...

are you factoring in their shiny new property tax bill?

They can take the old bill with them, just like 19 proposes. There are more restrictions - the new place can't cost any more, it can only be done once, and the county they buy in has to be taking part in this plan.

Decided to look up the local precinct results for Prop 22 using @chrisarvinsf's new precinct chart.

Look at the Marina.https://t.co/jzM2953aE9 pic.twitter.com/JwHoGYGePR

— Sasha Perigo (@sashaperigo) November 4, 2020

Lyft and Uber and Doordash employees have to live somewhere.

are you factoring in their shiny new property tax bill?

― Larry Elleison (rogermexico.), Tuesday, November 3, 2020 4:48 PM (five hours ago)

they can also do something super weird and like, you know, there's this thing that exists where you live somewhere that you don't own, but you pay a certain amount of $ on a regular periodic basis and not have a property tax bill at all ... i think it's called "renting"

prop 19 looks very much like it's going to pass.

prop 15 is tight now but these things usually trend left (who knows this year though)

prop 22 and the entire ballot measure system can fuck right off though

also another total failure for michael weinstain, that useless rich dude who doesn't talk to anyone else about his dumb ballot masures, on rent control (prop 21)

19 is kinda close -- it isn't that big a spread with less than 70% reporting? ... seriously fuck 22

yeah 19 changed since i looked. maybe it won't pass!

it would suck if both 15 and 19 failed, because of what you'd mentioned earlier re praxis and Prop 13.

Man I am cheesed off with the SF Elections site — they’re still not posting anything on their results page.

well whatever state precincts reported in the past couple minutes made some good choices ... hope they keep it up

Alameda County is very pro-15 and pro-19 and anti-22

NBC in LA is calling for Gascon.

Still no reported results for SF! What the heck.

california props looking like a bloodbath. about the only things going right are 17 and 20

Finally they're posted for SF -- nearly all the city propositions passing with the exception of the youth vote one, pity; absentee voting probably won't change any numbers. Two-thirds of the city voted, pretty cool.

More importantly, Kanye received 817 votes, but even more importantly, Brock Pierce got four and Jesse Ventura six.

Kanye did better in Alameda County fyi

God these proposition results are the worst

At least the horrible Prop 20 lost.

The Golden State is full of good liberals who don’t want to pay a fair price for their property taxes or a taxi ride, will cry about homelessness but not build any housing, and will lament the sorry underfunded state of our schools and then work to make more charters.

— Susie Cagle (@susie_c) November 4, 2020

lots of those people aren't liberals though ... like ... idk ... don't get me started on her. Her heart's in the right place, but ...

The part about homelessness, I agree with, but we didn't really have any housing measures on the ballot. Alameda County voted to approve a sales tax increase that would partly go to homeless services, even though sales tax is regressive, but Susie doesn't seem to be talking about that. The charter school issue is contentious, and I'm not going to go there, plus, we didn't have any charter school ballot measures this year.

But she just kinda doesn't get it. Idk. I get frustrated with a lot of progressive friends who seem to just not grasp why people don't vote the way they should, as well as various nuances and complexities that speak to stuff like intersectionality and the complex coalition that is the left in California.

It isn't about paying a fair price for their property taxes. It's the concern for small business owners who the ads said would be hurt by Prop 15. That one really played to concern for the working class. Some of the mailers even mentioned that family farmers would be hurt, even though farm property would be exempt from the tax increase. (Though it would probably have some effect on farmers because it would probably apply only to certain farm structures and be dependent on % use ... but ... that was overall a misleading ad.) This is the "why good liberals voted against it" rationale.

There are plenty (at least about 4 million, based on the number of Trump voters in CA) of non-liberals who probably voted against Prop 15 as well, but Susie isn't concerned with them. The Republican assholes are free to vote their Republican asshole platform free of specific shaming by the likes of Susie C. I don't know if Susie is also demonizing the suburban centrists who wouldn't necessarily call themselves "liberals" but definitely hate Trump. (Hi mom!)

And we went back and forth about Prop 19 ... whose major opposition was the conservative Howard Jarvis people ... and Prop 19 appears to be winning. So idk what Susie's beef is there.

And the taxi ride thing ... again, the Republicans and centrists most likely voted for Prop 22. Are those people voting based on the cost of a taxi ride? I would bet they are voting against government regulation and are sold on the concept of the gig worker having autonomy and the omnipresent ads definitely helped convey that.

Also I realize it is ironic that I am criticizing Susie here, narc of small d style, over her criticism of "good liberals" -- another narc of small d criticism.

Also, if Susie really wanted to sell me on her progressive cred she wouldn't say "build housing" but instead say "build affordable housing" because there is plenty of market rate housing being built in cities and exurbs but it's laughably out of the price range of most people, and does very little to solve homelessness.

i think her point in that tweet is that 65% of californians think of themselves as liberals, but a lot (most? more than on the east coast?) are ... actually not. there's this *huge* anti-tax nativist streak here among what passes for mainstream liberal politics that i had been fortunate enough never to have encountered until i moved here. it exists elsewhere but it's the baseline here.

it's incredibly demoralizing because at least the anti-tax/anti-services nativists elsewhere don't act like they're on my side.