Twelve Statewide Ballot Measures Made Clear

Once again, California voters are being asked to make decisions about an amazing array of complex ballot measures. Everything from a proposed law to limit congressional terms to a statute initiative for a new state health care program will test the knowledge and try the patience of even the most committed and determined citizen.

The Times editorial board met with proponents, opponents and other experts to reach its recommendations on these measures. More detailed editorials spelling out our reasoning and conclusions have appeared over the last few weeks. What follows is a summary of those recommendations.

YES ON PROP. 155

Should voters authorize yet another round of school bonds in the middle of a recession? Yes, absolutely. For one thing, most financial experts believe that California has not overdrawn on its bond-indebtedness account and that this bond issue would not imperil the state’s basic credit-worthiness. For another thing, California is facing $5 billion in backlogged requests from school districts, so this $900-million measure is much needed. It’s a huge mistake to stint on public schools. Vote “yes” on California’s future.

YES ON PROP. 156

This is the second in the series of three $1-billion rail bond measures originated by the California Legislature in 1990. Voters approved the first bond measure that year; passage of the second measure, now before voters, is necessary to continue this state’s worthy commitment to a 21st-Century network of trains, light rail and subways. Vote “yes” on improving infrastructure, modernizing our mass transit and even reducing traffic congestion.

NO ON PROP. 157

This legislative constitutional amendment is a bad idea. It would permit the eventual removal of tolls on private toll roads and thus would amount to a taxpayer bailout in disguise. It would let developers propose and build roads--that may or may not be needed--with the certainty that the state would assume the burden of maintenance later on. Vote “no.”

YES ON PROP. 158

The state legislative analyst conducts nonpartisan evaluations of the fiscal impact of thousands of proposals each year from the Legislature and the governor and writes ballot summaries so voters can understand what they are being asked to decide at the polls. Nested within the Legislature’s budget, this office was decimated last year following passage of the state term-limits measure. Prop. 158 would amend the Constitution to create the Office of the California Analyst, separating its funding from that for the Legislature. In effect, a “yes” is a better-government vote.

YES ON PROP. 159

The state auditor general performs independent financial audits of state agencies and programs. In other words, this office ensures that public funds are indeed spent the way the public intended. But funding for the office, like that for the legislative analyst, was slashed last year in the blood-letting that followed enactment of state term limits. Prop. 159 would amend the Constitution to create the Office of the Auditor General, separating funding from that for the Legislature. A “yes” vote in effect is to take out an insurance policy for state fiscal integrity.

NO ON PROP. 160

A good cause here--but in the end a bad idea. This constitutional amendment, put on the ballot by the Legislature, would authorize extending property tax exemptions currently available to disabled veterans and their spouses to surviving spouses of people who died while on active military duty as a result of service-related injury or disease.

The measure is well-intentioned. It would help surviving spouses of veterans; but what about surviving spouses of police officers? Or firefighters? There are many property tax inequities, and only one is addressed here. Vote “no.”

NO ON PROP. 161

Proposition 161 goes beyond existing law by permitting anyone with a life expectancy of six months or less to sign a written directive requesting “aid in dying,” or what usually is called euthanasia. Though the intent of the proposition is to avoid pain and guarantee dignity to the dying, the fact that the oral request for euthanasia need not be witnessed--just one among several missing safeguards--raises the serious possibility of abuse. At the public health level, California, as the first state with legal euthanasia, could become a mecca for the dying. Well short of any objection in principle to euthanasia as such, there are strong objections to this particular proposal for its introduction in California.

NO ON PROP. 162

Tough times in Sacramento make the nearly $100 billion held by the state’s two major retirement funds look very tempting. Politicians ought to keep their hands off that money, which secures the pensions of retirees and current government workers including teachers. But it doesn’t take a constitutional ballot initiative, which in this case grants nearly absolute powers to retirement boards, to safeguard those billions. The state Constitution already does what Prop. 162 claims to do: Prohibit political looting of public pension funds. Unfortunately, those restrictions did not apply to a special account used to compensate retirees who lose substantial buying power in times of high inflation. The governor and Legislature indeed looted $1.9 billion from those reserves. But that can’t happen again, and passing Prop. 162 won’t restore those funds. Vote “no.”

NO ON PROP. 163

The sales tax on candy, bottled water and snack foods annually raises revenues of $210 million for the state and about $70 million for local governments. It would be foolish to eliminate this relatively painless tax at a time when government revenues are being severely pinched. Vote “no.”

NO ON PROP. 164

Term limits may in theory be a good idea--in fact, The Times endorsed one of two such proposals last year. What’s not a good idea is for California to clamp term limits on its own members of Congress when other states like Texas and New York have no such limits. This gives competing states the seniority advantage. For term limits to make sense, they must be done on a national, uniform basis. Vote “no” to putting California at a disadvantage in Washington--in effect committing unilateral political disarmament.

NO ON PROP. 165

Somebody please tell Gov. Pete Wilson that he jammed two vastly different propositions into one ballot proposition and that’s one more than you need even if both had been straightforward and obvious. Which neither is. Almost everybody agrees that the welfare system needs tinkering, if not a major overhaul--but the overhaul here has too many flaws and unintended consequences that would hurt helpless children. Almost everyone also agrees that the budget farce this summer was worse than a bad dream; but Wilson’s proposal to shift budgetary powers to the governor’s office seems suspiciously self-serving. (Attention, Republicans: Imagine a Democratic governor with these powers!) Vote “no.”

NO ON PROP. 166

Americans want affordable, quality health care. Hundreds of thousands of workers have lost health insurance benefits as they lost their jobs in the recession. Proposition 166 attempts to be an answer to the health care crisis in California. But it is no answer at all, because it doesn’t begin to attack the reason health care is out of reach for so many: costs. It would require all employers to provide health insurance to employees who work at least 17 1/2 hours a week. Unfortunately, this requirement would simply invite already hard-pressed employers to make full-time workers part-time workers to avoid the mandate, or to lay off workers entirely. Worse yet, in order for Prop. 166 to become law, the state would have to be granted a waiver from a federal law that prohibits mandates on employers to provide insurance. Only one state has received such a waiver, and that one took nine years. Proposition 166 will guarantee nothing except voter frustration.

NO ON PROP. 167

To Californians who believe that the state taxation system favors the rich and disadvantages the middle class and poor, this initiative statute of new taxes (mainly on corporations and wealthier people) and tax breaks (mainly for average taxpayers) sounds just swell. The problem is that tax law is so complex that many of these well-intentioned measures could backfire.

The biggest risk is mandating, via the ballot, a new raft of taxes in the middle of the worst recession to hit California since the Great Depression. This measure is thousands of words long and so complex it would stump your tax accountant. A measure of this nature belongs in the Legislature, not on the Tuesday ballot. It’s a big risk. Vote “no.”

The Times’ Stands on the Statewide Propositions

No. Issue Stand 155 School Bonds Yes 156 Rail Bonds Yes 157 Toll Roads No 158 Office of California Analyst Yes 159 Office of Audit General Yes 160 Military Survivors’ Tax Break No 161 Physician-Assisted Death No 162 Public Employment Retirement No 163 Snack Tax Repeal No 164 Congressional Term Limits No 165 Budget Process / Welfare Reform No 166 Health Care Coverage No 167 State Tax Reform No