Californians faced 11 ballot measures this November, on everything from affordable housing to farm animal confinement and whether to keep daylight saving time. Here's how the measures fared Tuesday night.
Proposition 1: Affordable Housing And Home-Purchase Assistance For Veterans
Voters also approved a ballot measure to authorize the sale of $4 billion in bonds to fund housing programs, infrastructure work and matching contributions to a local housing trust fund. A quarter of the money from Proposition 1 would go to help veterans buy property. The measure passed 52 percent to 48 percent.
Proposition 2: Using Mental Health Dollars For Low-Income Housing
Proposition 2 is another measure approved by California voters. It allows the state to use $2 billion in bonds to build housing for homeless people that includes mental health care. The money for the bonds was originally approved to pay for mental health services, not housing.
Proposition 3: Authorizing Bonds for Safe Drinking Water and Water Infrastructure
On election night, voters appeared ready to defeat Proposition 3, which would have authorized $8.87 billion in bonds for state water infrastructure. Most of the money would have gone to safe drinking water projects and watershed and fishery improvements, but some environmental groups oppose the measure. As of 1 a.m. Wednesday the measure had not been called.
Proposition 4: Authorizing Bonds for Children’s Hospitals
Proposition 4 passed with 58 percent of the vote. The measure approves $1.5 billion in bonds to build, renovate and equip qualifying children’s hospitals, including UC acute care children’s clinics and some private nonprofit hospitals.
Measure 5: Granting Property Tax Break to Senior Citizens and Disabled Persons
If passed, Prop. 5 would have amend Prop. 13 to let homebuyers who are age 55 or older or severely disabled transfer their Prop. 13 property tax adjustments to their new home, no matter its value or location or the buyer’s number of moves. Voters rejected the measure 57 percent to 43 percent.
Proposition 6: Repealing the Gas Tax
Voters rejected Proposition 6, arguably the most contested ballot measure. If passed it would have repealed the gas tax increase approved last year by Gov. Jerry Brown and state lawmakers.
Proposition 7: Revisiting Daylight Saving
California voted to allow the state legislature to decide how the state’s time should be set. By approving Proposition 7, voters repealed a 1949 voter-approved proposition that established Daylight Saving Time in the state. This move is only the first step of several that would be required to change how or whether Californians change their clocks.
Proposition 8: Limiting Dialysis Clinic Revenue
Proposition 8 failed on election night, 62 percent to 38 percent. The ballot measure was an attempt to put a cap on how much outpatient kidney dialysis clinics may charge patients — it would have imposed penalties for excessive bills and prohibited clinics from discriminating against patients based on their method of payment. The dialysis industry spent a large amount of money to defeat the measure.
Proposition 10: Allowing Local Authorities to Enact Rent Control
One of the most talked about was Proposition 10, which sought to give local authorities more freedom to enact rent control policies. California voters rejected the measure 65 percent to 35 percent.
Prop 10 would have repealed the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act and its ban on certain types of rent control, including protections for tenants of single-family homes, condos and apartments built after 1995.
There was a strong debate about whether Prop. 10 was the right answer to the state’s affordable-housing crisis. Opponents of the measure said it would make the crisis worse by scaring away developers, potentially shrinking the future supply of rentals. Supporters of the measure argued it was needed to slow the state’s ever-increasing rents.
Proposition 11: Requiring Ambulance Employees To Be On-Call During Breaks
California voters approved Proposition 11, 62 percent to 38 percent. The measure requires ambulance workers at for-profit companies to be on-call during their breaks. It will also require companies to provide certain training and mental health services to ambulance workers.
Proposition 12: Increasing Requirements for Farm Animal Confinement
California voters approved a measure that will ban sales of meat and eggs from animals kept in enclosures that fall below a minimum number of square feet. Proposition 12, which was backed by the Humane Society, will apply to California and out-of-state producers alike.
The measure also requires producers to keep egg-laying hens in "cage-free" housing by 2022. The California Association of Egg Producers and the National Pork Producers Council opposed the measure, saying it would drive up food prices for consumers and hurt out-of-state companies that sell in the California market.
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