So, election season starts for real. Because California ballots are INFINITELY long, I’m going through and figuring out what I think of the endless offices and propositions I have to vote on. As always, comments welcome if I know you and you think I’ve missed something important.
My main data sources for the more obscure offices are VotersEdge.org and searching “[person name] scandal” to see if anything crops up. And endorsements by SF YIMBY and related groups.
City of Sunnyvale Measure B: vote Yes.
Measure B amends the Sunnyvale Charter to change from at-large to by-district elections for councilmembers, and one directly elected mayor, with an increase in term limits for mayor and councilmembers.
This is an obvious yes. It’s required by the California Voting Rights Act. Voting no would just cost Sunnyvale a bunch of money in litigation, and then we’d end up with god knows what system as mandated by some judge between now and November. The opposition seems to want 7 districts, with the mayor NOT directly elected but selected by those 7 councilmembers? The argument they put forth seems to me like fearmongering about how direct elections for mayor will make those OTHER neighborhoods pick YOUR mayor with bought votes…so to me it sounds like the opposition want to gerrymander Sunnyvale. I personally think it makes much more sense to have a mayor of Sunnyvale elected by all of Sunnyvale, so I’m voting yes for sure.
Foothill-De Anza Community College District Measure G: vote Yes.
Bonds to raise money for facilities of various kinds, spread over 18 years, at up to 48 million/year. The opposition to it seems to be very generic “why do we want to give money to our colleges — it’s a blank check!” and nothing specific about why it’s a bad idea. This seems to be a fairly routine request — there have been previous bond measures for money in 1999 and 2012, so one about every decade. I personally think funding education well is generally money well spent, so I am voting yes.
Foothill-De Anza Community College District Measure H: vote Yes.
Companion to the above, parcel tax for 5 years. While Measure G is bonds for upgrading facilities, this is a parcel tax for salaries for instructors and food/housing for students and maintenance of existing facilities. Makes sense — bonds (measure G) for capital expenditures, parcel tax for ongoing programs. Voting yes for the same reason.
California Proposition 13: vote Yes
And California’s getting in the game too, with bonds for school construction and repairs (up to $15 billion). Based on history, this seems about in line with past requests — there were three similar bond measures in the 2000s, then a 10-year gap until one in 2016, and now one in 2020. Literally the only legislator who opposes it is one lone republican; it’s supported by a huge list of people and organizations. Overall, this one seems like a routine budgetary issue that’s only pushed to be a proposition because of California’s ridiculous laws that basically forbid doing anything with money without a proposition. Voting yes.
Democratic Party County Central Committee: 24th Assembly District (pick 6 of 13 candidates)
Oof, and now we really dive into the weeds. Holy crap it’s hard to find anything online about these people.
Bill James — seems like a good pick. Incumbent, long-time Democrat, attorney, former Navy, endorsed by local Democrats.
Emily Thurber — experienced, well-traveled, environmentalist, worked in DC for a senator on foreign and military affairs, now focused on encouraging political activity in the youths. Seems good. Named 2013 woman of the year in the 13th district by Jerry Hill.
Emily Ann Ramos — has an actual website! And it is excellent! Puts housing policy first. Don’t need to see anything else, top pick.
Cari Templeton — also has a website! This is great because this is the first place I’ve seen an actual description of what the heck this office actually IS. Her endorsements seem to indicate that she shares many of my values so that’s good.
Prameela Bartholomeusz — hard to find anything. No website. Lots of experience doing finance/treasurer stuff for various levels of the Democratic party. ...but apparently endorsed McCain/Palin??? That was buried deep in some news articles…. yeah no.
Mariam Ghazvini — hard to find anything. Cares about womens rights and education, apparently. No scandals.
Alyson L Abramowitz — She’s an incumbent. That’s all I can find about her.
Johannes Muenzel — I found a page! Describes himself as a democratic socialist and basic income activist. Incumbent. Active with the DSA and Peninsula Young Dems.
Gilbert Wong — I fail to find anything about him :( except that he apparently ran for the Foothill-De Anza Community College Board in 2016.
Joe Simitian — someone pretty high-profile, actually! Used to be a state senator and did a bunch of stuff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Simitian .
Margaret Okuzumi — local organizer and progressive activist. I unfortunately can’t find anything written by her to explain her background and goals…
Stephen A. Chessin — According to his LinkedIn he’s been involved with the California Democratic Party for 34 years and has been the president of Californians for Electoral Reform since 2001. (An organization trying to push proportional representation and ranked choice voting, starting at the local level).
And lastly, Peter Y. Chiu — seems to be an incumbent according to the ballot, but I can find nothing about him. The internet fails me.
Well, this is the sort of thing that’s hardest to pick. Plenty of decent people, I think. Very little information. The peninsulaforeveryone YIMBY group endorses Margaret Okuzumi, Stephen Chessin, Mariam Ghazvini, Cari Templeton, Emily Ann Ramos, Johannes Muenzel, Alyson Abramowitz… Heck, anybody who put up a website and put anything up about their background would convince me — the bar is low! I’m gonna vote for Bill James, Emily Thurber, Emily Ann Ramos, Cari Templeton, Mariam Ghazvini, Johannes Muenzel.
Yay, now back to something a bit easier to research! Back to races where people actually have profiles on VotersEdge and Ballotpedia! The primary for United States Representative, District 17.
The incumbent democrat is Ro Khanna. …also running are a Republican, a Libertarian, and Stephen Forbes who’s another Democrat. …I would dearly love to vote for the other Democrat and make this a 2-democrat race in November. But this Forbes guy seems to be just some random dude with a yahoo email address, no candidate statement, no campaign website or online presence, and I can’t find anything about him. Nothing at all. So I guess I’m voting for Ro Khanna.
Member of the State Assembly, District 24.
Voting to keep Mark Berman. He’s good. Pro-housing. Awesome guy. No real competition for him here.
State Senator: District 13
This one here’s a tough one. There are 6 Democrats running: Sally J. Lieber, Mike Brownrigg, Josh Becker, Annie Oliva, Shelly Masur. I’m excluding any that don’t mention housing as a priority, or any that say the state should do nothing about it, or opposed SB50. So Brownrigg, Oliva, are out. Of the remaining ones, I think I’m going to vote for Shelly Masur. In her answers to the League of Women’s Voters’ questions, she’s the only one that explicitly supported SB50, and is the strongest on housing policy. She’s endorsed by YIMBY action, too.
There’s a few uncontested offices. Judge, Office 7, Santa Clara Superior Court and Judge, Office 27, Santa Clara Superior Court each have just one candidate, so it doesn’t much matter whether to give them their one vote or not.
One more local office: Supervisor, District 3, Santa Clara County.
This is a tough one. Kansen Chu, Otto Lee, John Leyba, and Magdalena Carrasco all claim to be in support of housing. Of those, Carrasco’s and Leyba’s commitments seem weakest, but it’s hard to tell. I really don’t know what to go for here. I’ll go with Kansen Chu.
Finally, I’ll end with the Presidential primary. So many words have been said about it that I don’t really have much to add. I will say three things I’m considering for my vote:
- Even though CA has vote by mail and gives out the primary ballot early, I’m going to wait until after South Carolina to pick from among the candidates still in the race. No point in voting for someone who’s technically on the ballot but is out of the running, either officially or effectively.
- Not considering “electability”. Nobody knows who’s electable. I certainly don’t.
- None of the top candidates are perfect, but none are that bad either. They all have strengths and weaknesses. I’m not going to say anything that contributes to the online maelstrom of hatred; no matter what, at least 70% of the Democratic primary voters won’t get who they want, because as of this moment nobody’s polling above 30%.
Well, I might as well actually end by posting who I plan to vote for. I’m a bit worried about posting that, to be honest — the online maelstrom of hatred is just so bad. But here it goes.
My first choice would have been Julian Castro. He’s not in the race anymore, though.
My second choice is clearly Elizabeth Warren. If she is still in the race and with a shot to win it by California voting time, I’ll vote for her.
If Warren is out or effectively out by then… probably Sanders? But maybe Amy Klobuchar, who I simply don’t know anything about yet because I hadn’t thought of her as a top contender until recently. If she does well enough in NV/SC to be a top contender, I’ll have to give her another look.
