SB 51: the California politics thread

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.

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.

SF at least underbuilt for decades and hasn't nearly caught up.

there's this *huge* anti-tax nativist streak here among what passes for mainstream liberal politics

I don't think it's accurate to call it "liberal" though -- definitely mainstream, for sure. And I think you are experiencing the CA brand of liberalism that tends to be more progressive on social issues compared to the rest of the country, but are more fiscally conservative than people in other parts of the country with comparable views on social issues.

i mean ... yes? that's the tweet.

I just don't think there was sufficient messaging on most of these propositions by the parties that we likely wanted to win. 16? I never saw a single billboard, received a piece of mail, NOTHING. This should have passed. No organizations were pushing it. 15? messaging pro 15 was weak and did not adequately address the scare-lies coming from anti-15. Likewise, 22. Autonomy to most people means 'if you don't like that, don't work for those people." TBF, lots of people who work as drivers absolutely do like the arrangement they have. It's going to be some time before those workforces organize, if ever.

again it's semantics and it's relational -- liberal relative to stereotypical southern racists and conservative christians that refuse to make cakes for gay people. Other parts of the country are older and have much stronger traditions related to supporting unionized labor. California doesn't have that as much. I really appreciate your outside perspective even though I know I get defensive about the state my family moved to in the 1860s to escape militant racist assholes in Missouri.

i mean ... yes? that's the tweet.

besides the part where it seems to miss the point about why moderate voters didn't vote a "liberal" (as you and Susie define it) agenda?

It isn't like there's a "Liberal Morals Clause" that people have to agree to in order to self-describe as liberal in certain contexts.

Idk I feel like this is echoing the discussion on other threads about the term "Latinx"

This is turning into a no true Scotsman thing.

My point (and what I understand to be here point) is that a state California is extremely fiscally conservative given it’s a state that voted 65% for Biden and the things it’s fiscally conservative about are particularly gross.

Anyway, sorry in advance for blowing up the thread, but it is interesting to look at the ballot measure results by county and see which counties are closest to the state results. So far, the close ones I've noted are San Diego County, Ventura County, and the closest NorCal one is San Benito County (where I grew up right across the county line but politically is closer to my home town than Santa Clara County where my town is at the southeastern edge). These are not places that people tend to describe as home to good liberals.

When I think of "particularly gross" and Ventura County, fiscal conservativism isn't the first thing that comes to mind ... San Benito County had an assemblymember for quite a while who people were quite fond of because he used his observations of the behavior of his livestock to argue that homosexuality was wrong because unnatural. ... The fact that these people might have voted for Biden is more a pleasant surprise than an act of political betrayal.

maybe her post is based on actual people she knows ... I'm trying to be charitable here.