O2C's 2022 California primary election clown car... I mean voter guide

"A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking some real money." Everett Dirksen

Attorney General

• As the state’s chief law offcer, ensures that state laws are enforced and investigates fraudulent or illegal activities.
  
  
• Heads the Department of Justice, which provides state government legal services and represents the state in civil and criminal court cases.
  
  
• Oversees law enforcement agencies, including county district attorneys and sheriffs.

Eric Early - Last time: "Pro Death Penalty, Pro-Commendeering. Doesn't seem to understand limits of the office, having many policy prescriptions that don't relate to prosecution. Baseline." This time: Self described America First candidate here to protect us from the socialist/communist threat. Whatever you want to imagine for that description, it's in there. Baseline.

Anne Marie Schubert - Currently Sacramento County DA, her office was the one that finally identified the Golden State Killer and exonerated someone who was in prison for 15 years. Seems to have a fairly centrist priority list. Lots of endorsements from current and former county DAs. Rather more authoritarian than I like, but she's no (current) Republican, but she was once. Her brother is responsible for prop 8, but while she's distanced herself from him, he has not done the reverse and has donated to her campaign, both himself and through his business. A little sus, but not necessarily a dealbreaker. New baseline.

Nathan Hochman - The sane Republican in the race, apparently. Former DOJ, law clerk, and defense attorney. Has successfully sued LA DA Gascon over not seeking legally required sentence enhancements. Endorsed by Kevin McCarthy. Ugh. Not nearly as bad as Early, but I prefer Schubert.

Rob Bonta - appointed incumbent. Had never been a prosecutor before his appointment. Has most of the same priorities as Schubert, but in a different order, and adds abortion rights protection, but that's not realistically in any danger here. Maybe.

Dan Kapelovitz - criminal defense and animal rights attorney. Platform is unremarkable for a Green, but almost entirely legislative, not the domain of the AG. No.

So that's Bonta or Schubert, and I'm leaning towards Schubert.

Someone else's take on the governor's race: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/california-gubernatorial-candidates

I don't agree with all of it, though I will say that it's made me think slightly better of Woody Sanders.

Woody Sanders? That's like the Grater family naming a kid "Cheese", ffs.

Schubert Was a republican until she started running for AG. And she’s never seen a cop shooting she didn’t like.

Insurance Commissioner part 1

The Insurance Commissioner

• Heads the Department of Insurance, which enforces California insurance laws and adopts regulations to implement the laws.
  
  
• Licenses, regulates, and examines insurance companies.
  
  
• Answers public questions and complaints about the insurance industry

Realistically, the IC protects the insurance industry from litigious consumers, no matter who's in power.

Marc Levine - Pretty standard IC stuff, but currently wants to force insurance companies to insure people against wildfires who have already lost a home to wildfires, and as IC wants to create a Wildfire Insurance administration, same as the existing one for earthquakes. Chronicle, Times, Bees, Mercury News, and IJ have endorsed him, which is a lot more than I expected (I expected them to endorse the incumbent, Ricardo Lara). Has some interesting ideas, particularly around transparency, that could hurt insurance industry profits specifically. Very interesting. Baseline.

Ricardo Lara - Last time: "all platitudes, no policy wonkery. Little experience in a comparable role. Doesn't seem to even know the issues with the CDI right now. No." He has been a pretty standard IC, if even a bit eager to take credit for the more mechanistic workings of his office (eg, directing insurance companies to issue refunds when their profit margins went above the statutory max during COVID). On his own terms I find him lackluster. But the newspapers have zeroed in on ethical lapses, and they look significant. Overruling ALJs in favor of insurance companies, taking insurance co. employees' donations after promising not to (to the tune of $270k), and instituting a policy of deleting old emails while under a lawsuit for failing to provide public records. It's a bad look, and I don't know why more people aren't upset with him. No.

Veronika Fimbres - A nurse who wants to uphold the current insurance law while working for UHC. No experience with finance. No.

Nathalie Hrizi - Left Unity candidate, somehow thinks that being insurance commissioner means she can just abolish private health insurance. No.

Edit: added "last time" section on Lara

Insurance Commissioner part 2

Robert Howell - Silicon Valley electronics business owner. Very generic. Creepy-looking face... think a Republican version of Michael Bennet + Gavin Newsom + 20 years. No policies or accomplishments to speak of that make me think he'd be good at the job.

Dr. Vinson Eugene Allen - Doctor and community organizer with a damn difficult-to-read website. Seems to have actually read the laws governing his office, and knows its actual powers. I appreciate that. Given that though, he's come up with not particularly imaginative policy ideas. Just giving away the budget surplus to seniors smacks of vote-buying. I'd rank him second in an RCV system, but since we don't have one, and Lara is pretty much guaranteed to make top-2, I'd rather have Levine take him on. Pass.

Jasper J. Jackson - his candidate statement seems earnest and to the point. Shows he has a good grasp of the role the office plays. He ran for Compton City Treasurer before, but I don't think he won. Has never put up a campaign website, and even his Voter's Edge profile is lacking. Unfortunately there's nothing to convince me he'd actually be any good at the job, so no.

Greg Conlon - last time, he ran for Treasurer: "Former head of PUC. Also seems qualified, if perhaps a bit less so. Ran for Treasurer (and Senate?) before, lost. Honestly, it's hard to tell the difference between them, at least from statements and platforms. I do like that he specifically calls out the pension system and its unfunded liabilities, but I don't know what a Treasurer can actually do about it, but he would sit on the Pension Plan Boards, so that's something. I guess he does know his stuff a bit better. Top of the list. Wait, never mind, the other guy mentions the pension thing too. I think I like Guerrero's story better. Sorry Greg." I've seen worse resumes, particularly on Republicans. His policies aren't terribly interesting except that he seems to be against mandatory minimums in coverage. Meh. Not enough to do better than Levine.

Robert J. Molnar - meme game is on point: Former Special Assistant to former IC Steve Poizner. Definitely seems qualified. Issues page is platitudes but also past achievements. Left the GOP to run as NPP, which, again, I appreciate. I don't think I'm going to vote for him in this election, but he's got my vote if it's him vs. Lara in November.

Levine gets my vote this election.

Board of Equalization, District 2

The Board of Equalization:

• Assesses the property of regulated railroads and specifc public utilities, and assesses and collects the private railroad car tax.
• Oversees the assessment practices of the state’s 58 county assessors.
• Assesses and collects the alcoholic beverage tax, and jointly administers the tax on insurers.

The whole institution is archaic and should be put out of its misery. Any candidate that promises to do anything toward that end gets my vote. The current member from D2 is Malia Cohen, running for Controller, because Controller is less of a dead end job.

Sally Lieber - Issues page is meh, but at least she wants more transparency. Doesn't seem to want to end the BoE. Has quite a few endorsements, some I like, some I don't. Baseline.

Peter Coe Verbica - Seems rather enamored of the office, which is surprising given that he's endorsed by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers' Association. No.

Michaela Alioto-Pier - DailyKos hates her, for what seems to be a mixed bag of reasons. Surprising newspaper endorsements. Doesn't seem to want to do much particular to the office. One YIMBY org endorsed her. Maybe.

I think I'll go with Alioto-Pier. I don't feel great about it, but I don't believe the office should exist, so a generic candidate here who probably won't be corrupt is all I can really ask for.

Superintendent of Public Instruction, part I.

The state Superintendent:

• As the state’s chief of public schools, provides education policy direction to local school districts, and works with the education community to improve academic performance.
• Heads the Department of Education and carries out policies set by the State Board of Education.
• Serves as an ex-offcio member of governing boards of the state’s higher education system.

Tony K. Thurmond - incumbent. last time: "Endorsed by the CTA, that's a big knock against him in this race, but let's see what his website has to say. He's also got an extensive plan. It looks a heck of a lot like Tuck's. I'm going to go with the one that's not endorsed by the CTA though. Pass." I don't think he's done a particularly good or bad job. Most of his candidate statement is about things he will do, versus has done, which isn't great, but whatever. He should have more accomplishments. The one accomplishment he does list is getting PPE to classrooms, but this success is not the story I've heard from an actual teacher. Baseline.

Marco Amaral - school board member and doctoral student in education. Wants to raise teacher and employee minimum salaries but do away with the seniority system. Sounds pretty good to me. Rather socially lefty, more than I think I want in a superintendent. Lots of stuff he wants to do that his office can't. Pass.

George Yang - One the one hand, I appreciate that he's trying to do away with the polite fiction that the office is nonpartisan, but the first thing on his website is that he's a Republican. His "Fresh Ideas" page is good, but stale. His Issues page is pretty bad. Standard Republican BS, + against giving puberty blockers to trans children. No.

Superintendent part II:

A quick bit of additional background that should have been in part I: the teachers' unions in CA are actually a huge problem with K-12 education in CA. It's one of a few CA Republican talking points where they've actually got a point. Teachers' unions in CA are not like in other states. I have a relative in school administration in another very blue state with significantly better K-12 schools. Says it's like night and day. At this point, they're even in the way of improved pay for most teachers. They never stop fighting for more pay for the most senior members of the union, of course.

Joseph Guy Campbell - big fan of Montessori schools. So much so that he wants to massively expand public Montessori schools. I can't say as I'm opposed to that. He also wants "Reparations for Black Students" and goes on something about school closures and some plan Oakland had in 2021, but it's severely lacking detail, context, and links. Other priorities include: teacher expense accounts at the CA DOEd, teacher payment for time spent out of school, a temporary moratorium on permanent school closures, promoting Christian values (by example -- "Jesus was a social justice warrior." is a quote from his website), and getting people not to be afraid of CRT. Hmm... bit of a mixed bag, and I'm not certain he can actually do the expense account thing (but he seems to think it's doable as an Executive Action) but I think his heart's in the right place, and Montessori schools are a hell of a lot better than standard public school fare, so... I'll give him a vote. Yes.

Lance Ray Christiansen - another Republican who's not afraid to say so. This one's garnered more endorsements. VP for eduction policy and government relations at a conservative think tank whose published pieces are not exactly the products of deep thought. His actual issues page is quite angry for one offering basically no actual policy. Allusions to the evilness of CRT abound. Outright attacks on the teachers' unions, which I like. He has no chance, and doesn't seem to know what he's doing otherwise. No.

Jim Gibson - Has a parents-first platform, unless the parents support sex ed or abortion or privacy. His "ABCs of Education" actually go "AFC" because he rewrote "Basics" as "Focus on the Basics" and didn't bother to think about it. Most prominent endorser is Darrell Issa. Yuck. No.

Ainye K. Long - SFUSD math teacher, former charter school regional superintendent. Website is basically empty. VotersEdge suggests she's probably data- and stakeholder-driven. That's not enough to make me vote for her. No.

Guess I'm voting for Campbell.

US Representative, District 11

This doesn't matter. Nancy Pelosi will win reelection with like 90% of the vote.

Shahid Buttar - Last time (which was apparently 2018 for some reason): "Looks better. Not a part of the Democratic machine, at least. And not an anti-gunner, apparently. Top." Bills himself as a lawyer/organizer/artist. Calls out Pelosi, but kinda classily? Baseline.

Eve Del Castello - Republican and board member of a bunch of conservative organizations. Doesn't seem to have a website. VotersEdge: build the wall, vote no one any new tax bill, education in the hands of the state's. [sic]. Nope.

John Dennis - A Republican I think I voted for in 2012 as a protest against Pelosi. Seemed like a decent dude, but the fewer Republicans in Washington, the better. Too much at stake to do so again.

Nancy Pelosi - last time: "Incumbent. Technocrat. "We have to pass it before we find out what's in it." She's bad for the Republic (not like Trump bad, but still bad). Brings home the bacon. Baseline." This time: about the same, but since Shahid was first, he's the baseline, and probably better than Pelosi.

Jeffrey Phillips - DSA-ish candidate. I like his boldness on electoral and constitutional reforms, but not all of his actual positions. Wants to give reparations to any black or Native American person on the 1970 census, 250k over 5 years. Medicaid, not Medicare for all, abolish private insurance. UBI under the fig leaf of ongoing COVID stimulus. Lots of very big, very unaffordable, possibly illegal ideas. Against the digital surveillance state... but wants to install security cameras on every street corner in America. Yowch. No.

Bianca Von Krieg - trans (which I only mention because she does - a lot) actress of some note (claims to have national recognition, but I thought her show (The Baroness) was only on a local channel). Stanford-educated (again, her emphasis, not mine), believes she can beat Pelosi because she's LGBT (well, T) and so are 40% of Pelosi's constituents. Beyond that, standard DSA stuff: Medicare for all, Green New Deal, UBI, housing for all, defund the police, end the electoral college, dissolve the 1%, legalize marijuana... but only as bullet points. I think we've had quite enough of actors in office.

Voting for Buttar probably.

The sentient manbun is trying again? Must be a masochist.

State Assembly Member, District 17:

David Campos - like a bad penny, he keeps coming back. Believes supply and demand doesn't apply to housing, blocks every housing project that isn't 100% affordable, so consequently is responsible for the lack of housing he decries. At all. Endorsed by the Sierra Club, who are terrible in CA and SF especially, and the local teachers' union. Oh, he's dropped out but can't get his name off the ballot? Great. Baseline.

Matt Haney - slightly less NIMBY. Much better endorsements, including of the special election challenger who I voted for. Yes.

Bill Shireman - claims to be an Environmental Solutions Entrepreneur, and a "Bridger". Claims to be against toxic politics. Hard to square that with running as a Republican, but he did write CA's CRV (bottle bill) law in 1987, so he's got at least one conservation bona fide. I can't find much independent info on the guy or his organizations. They're all maddeningly opaque. His platform is "depolarization" and "a transpartisan solutions agenda", which apparently means: Smarter taxes (pollution, not income and "jobs" (steel man interpretation: payroll)), better school choices (traditional, specialized, non-profit charters), removing zoning restrictions (yes!), "empowered merchants", and "stop exploiting hate", the description for which I'm going to quote in it's entirely, because i'm not sure if it's a dog-whistle, weirdly emphasized, or evidence of hate for the Oxford comma: "Techies, workers, blue, red, BIPOC, LGBT and Q. Our differences make us whole - creative, connected, and consequential." It's the only list in the candidate statement that actually ends with 'and' (of 3). But is it just weirdly emphatic about queer people, or is he trying to reach out to QAnon here? I'm very not down with that. You can't build bridges with people who believe bridges are a globalist conspiracy to drain the blood of children. Maybe he just hates the Oxford comma. Not going to chance it. No.

Guess I'm voting for Haney. But I'm not thrilled about it.

City Attorney

David Chiu - running unopposed. I was never a big fan of his as a supervisor or Assemblyman - he was almost, but not quite as bad as Campos, and I'm glad Matt Haney will most likely replace him. It seems he's done okay as City Attorney. Default.

Eh, maybe I'll vote for him, or write in one of my attorney friends.

Update: Daphne Bradford has taken a single position: pro-choice. She's also pushing the Build Blue Bridges thing harder now, and everything else resembling a platform is gone. I guess I'll go with Padilla, *sigh*.

SF ballot props:

Prop A - "Muni Reliability and Street Safety Bond": $250 million for Muni facilities repair and renovation (meh), $26 million on traffic improvement (fine), $10 million on train tech (fine), $42 million on signage (not sure why this doesn't overlap with traffic improvements), $42 million on street redesigns, $30 million on traffic speed management (once again, how is this not the same as traffic improvement?). Only union shops are allowed to bid on projects. Funded by an $9.61/100k/year property tax hike. Very meh on this. The opposition is pretty bad, and occasionally lying; for instance, they claim there is no oversight, but in fact there is. On the other hand, they're right that the funds are very general, and how much of this is actually capex vs maintenance is up for significant debate. There's also a superfluous comma in the measure which I think might get it invalidated in court, as I think it changes the meaning of the voting section, from requiring a ⅔ majority to pass, to requiring ⅔ of all registered voters to vote for it to pass. Tentative No.

Prop B - "Building Inspection Commission" charter amendment: Makes the Building Inspection Commission nominated by the mayor and President of BOS and approved by the BOS instead of appointed by the mayor and president of BOS. Seems fine. No one's against it. Yes.

Prop C - "Recall Timelines and Vacancy Appointments" charter amendment: prevents recall petitions within 12 months (up from 6) of the start of an official's term or the next election for that office (up from 6), and prevents the mayor's appointee (if recalled) from running for that office. I like the second part. I don't like the first part. There have been 6 recall elections in SF history. Proponents are pretty clearly using it to try to invalidate the Boudin recall and prevent a recall of the rest of the school board. Voting No.

Prop D - "Office of Victim and Witness Rights; Legal Services for Domestic Violence Victims": Would create a new Office of Victim and Witness Rights, and seek to establish a permanent program after a 1 year trial of free legal services for domestic violence victims, which I think is intended to consolidate existing programs. Not sure if it actually does, or just adds another one. I don't see why it needs to be on the ballot at all. The BOS and mayor can simply defund it at any time. Reading the text, I see no reason for it to be on the ballot, and it doesn't consolidate existing programs, just adds a new one. Voting No.

Prop E - "Behested Payments": another ordinance that didn't need to be a ballot measure, it's some sort of anti-corruption play, though it looks to me like most of the low-hanging fruit is already gone. This ostensibly adds one more prohibition on seeking behested payments, to BOS members seeking behested payments from contractors they have or might approve contracts for, and makes it harder to amend the current law. I really hate the text of this ballot proposition. It's done as confusingly as possible. The whole thing is struck out and then replaced with one prepended section on amendments, making actually tracking the changes very difficult. Have to flip back and forth on each page to figure out what's actually changed. It looks like the only things that changed are two definitions. Okay, looks like it does what it says on the tin. What's not at all clear is what behested payments would have been prohibited by this ordinance. Meh, it's fine. Yes.

Prop F - "Refuse Collection and Disposal": Changes the composition of the refuse Rate Board, and the process for setting rates, and the process for changing the process for setting rates. Could cost $1m/year in new bureaucracy, but Recology recently had a $200 million "oopsie" overcharge that wasn't caught for a year, so it's probably worth it. Apparently non-notably, it bans in-building trash incineration (possibly redundantly) and metal trash cans (probably redundantly). It requires secure containers (don't think that's happening anytime soon lol), adds anti-strike provisions (rather weak ones). Requires the Controller as Refuse Rate Administrator to address all public objections at the Rate Board meeting. Requires trash collectors to be individually licensed, which can be terminated for insolence(!) toward customers. I guess this is fine. Yes.

Prop G - "Public Health Emergency Leave": Ordinance requiring employers of 100+-person companies to provide their SF employees 80 hours of paid leave for public health emergencies each year. Still not clear why this needed a ballot proposition . Seems fine otherwise. Only the SF GOP even tried to mount a half-hearted defense of a No vote on this. The employer records provision is a bit annoying, but whatever. Yes.

Prop H - "Recall Measure Regarding Chesa Boudin": Yes to recall Boudin, No to leave him in place. Evaluating what's actually going on here is difficult. Facts and statistics are hard to come by, and they're often misleading. Statistically, crime is down. But I know from personal experience how hard it's become to take a police report. Boudin has allegedly made it much harder to get conviction rate statistics that are comparable to previous years. 59 prosecutors in the DA's office have definitely resigned since Boudin took office, but why? 11 retired, 11 were fired, and the rest resigned. How does this compare to other places? In Contra Costa County, which also elected a progressive DA at the same time, 5 retired, and 6 resigned, close to 10%. This office has lost 40%. Boudin claims that this is just a Republican Recall, like Newsom's, but it's really not. Thousands more signatures were gathered for this recall than there are Republicans in SF. A judge has complained about the disorganization and poor management of the DA's office, after Boudin acted unilaterally in a number of cases, going of the heads of the trial prosecutors. I think all the progressive prosecutor resignations and the statistics manipulation seal it for me. Yes.

Thanks as always for analyzing this stuff, it makes me feel a little better informed. I got interested in the proposition H analysis, since I didn't know about the controversy over this guy. I found a couple of articles from a website that I know nothing about, but do seem to be pretty even handed (if not much in depth) discussions about him. Notably, they do not mention the amount of resignations under his watch, which I think are probably the issues that would most concern me. One thing that was mentioned was that he took what is described as a "razor thin" victory in a ranked-choice election as a mandate to go ape shit (my word's not the writer's) in pushing his agenda. Of course, that also raises the possibility that if he didn't jump in with both feet to push his agenda his supporters might have turned on him.

Yup, the SFPD is crap. If I could vote to recall them too, I would.

Update: Apparently the solidarity movement (which the "party" reps) is some sort of vaguely Catholic-based redistributionist ideology. Not sure if this makes it better or worse. Probably worse.

Update: it is not, in fact possible to recall police officers, or even the chief. I think I might write a charter amendment to allow recall of the police chief. It is possible to recall the sheriff, but the SFSD is largely irrelevant to this.

If the police chief is appointed (is he/she appointed? I don't know) how would you recall them? Could you write an amendment that would mandate their firing?

The ethics board isn’t elected but is still subject to recall in the charter. I assume equivalent language could be used for the police chief.

By the way, the former Sheriff and I share the same name...just sayin'...

I missed a Secretary of State candidate. Not sure if he didn't make the voter guide, but, uh... doesn't look like I missed much.

James "JW" Paine - teamster/truck driver. "Make California Great again". The closest thing to an issues page is a link to https://bytesed.com/wp/harnold/about/ Focus on supply chain issues (he claims), which isn't the SoS's job. His biography page is a 404. Supported by the CA Tea Party Caucus. No.

Update: did I mention that Boudin withheld exculpatory evidence in a police misconduct investigation in order to bolster his progressive bona fides? No? Yeah, that happened. "Look, we were just following the MOU which reduced police use of force overall" does not cut it.