Occasionally for the better but far more often for the worse, initiatives play a powerful role in California government. With four days until the election, we feel compelled to once again weigh in on four awful ballot measures that seem to have a good chance of winning.
The most benign-seeming of the lot is Proposition 84, which would authorize $5.4 billion in bonds to fund a variety of water projects. But the projects aren't taken from some master state list based on merit. Instead, various groups essentially bought their projects a spot on the bond with contributions to the organizer of the petition campaign to qualify the initiative for the ballot.
This seaminess alone demands a No vote, but 84 also stinks on fiscal grounds. California has plenty of debt and a weak credit rating – and that is even before voters' likely addition next week of another $19.9 billion in Proposition 1B debt for transportation projects. Proposition 84 would be dubious even in the best of times – and these are not the best of times.
Proposition 86, which would raise the per-pack tax on cigarettes by $2.60 to fund a 38-page list of programs, is the most dishonest measure on our hit list. Although Proposition 86 is billed as an attack on youth smoking, its biggest beneficiary is the hospital industry, which would get hundreds of millions of dollars a year from smokers.
Given the economic profile of smokers, Proposition 86 would be grossly regressive. Aren't the liberals who tout this measure supposed to dislike such taxes? For that matter, aren't they supposed to be wary of the big businesses such as the one behind the Proposition 86 money grab?
Proposition 87, which would impose a tax on in-state oil production to raise $4 billion for alternative energy programs, has the highest profile of any initiative. It hasn't benefited from the attention. Every analysis points out the nuttiness of Proposition 87's premise: that raising taxes on domestically produced oil would cut gasoline prices and imports of foreign oil.
The scrutiny has also detailed how badly written the measure is. There is little or no accountability on how the $4 billion would be spent, and reason to wonder how much of the $4 billion would even reach its supposed beneficiaries.
Besides, thanks to $60-a-barrel oil, alternative energy research is already rolling in money.
In contrast to Proposition 87, Proposition 90 – touted as an eminent domain reform measure – has gotten little attention. This is unfortunate, because it is the most radical measure on the ballot. Instead of a thoughtful limit on government land seizures – which is much-needed in a state where agencies routinely declare any property they covet to be “blighted” – Proposition 90 would prevent almost all such seizures, even those of obvious merit.
That's not even Proposition 90's worst aspect. It also requires that property owners be fully compensated when any government decision, however trivial, allegedly causes their land to lose value. This is both an invitation to endless litigation and an attempt to paralyze government, masquerading as an attempt to uphold property rights.
The bottom line: Propositions 84, 86, 87 and 90 are four to abhor.
