The Snail Shell: san francisco: how to vote 2020

I want to get this out early this year so that, as soon as you get your ballot, you can fill it in and send it back or deposit it, help the post office, etc. I tried to get an opinion on everything and mostly succeeded. (it's a long ballot!) I may update this as I learn more.

People

President: lol

House: lol again, nothing matters, Pelosi will never lose; Buttar is uh probably not the opponent we've been waiting for, vote for whoever you want, I don't care

State Senate: I'm a Scott Wiener stan, dude has been correct so many times and really merges my two ethoses: "be real lefty" and "do what will actually help the cause you want to advance."

Assembly: David Chiu has been real solid too (so has Phil Ting, depending on which half of SF); besides, your only other choice is Starchild the libertarian (and I am sneering more at the "libertarian" than the "Starchild", to be clear)

BART board of directors: looks like Bevan Dufty's got it in the bag and he's been good I think

School Board and Community College Board: I said I wanted to have Opinions on everything but I have no idea. A friend of a friend said "they're all good!" so, :shrug:

D9 Supervisor: mine's Ronen; she's bad at housing but good at bikes; housing is more important; but she doesn't have a challenger so it doesn't even matter. But check the Yimby endorsements: vote Philhour, Sauter, Brown, Melga, or Safai if they're on your ballot.

SF propositions

Shorthand: yes on all but B and I

A (mental health/homelessness/parks/infrastructure bond): Yes

B (new dept of sanitation): No; splitting one department doesn't make it work better, and does increase admin costs

C (remove citizenship requirements for city bodies): Yes

D (sheriff oversight): Yes

E (remove mandatory minimum number of police): Hell Yes

F (business tax simplification): Yes

G (let 16 year olds vote in SF): Yes

H (speed up review of small businesses): Hell Yes

I (real estate transfer tax): No - this sounds good, but will mostly hit apartment buildings, I guess

J (tax for schools): Yes

K (let SF build 10k units of affordable housing): Yes

L (more tax if CEO makes more than 100x median employee): Slight Yes; probably irrelevant

RR (Caltrain): Hell Yes. if we don't pass this, Caltrain shuts down.

CA propositions

Shorthand: Yes on 14-18, No on 19-24, Yes on 25

14 (bonds for stem cell research): Slight Yes but it's complicated? maybe this isn't the right way to fund science? this was once a band-aid because Bush Jr banned stem cell research; now stem cell research is unbanned; what's the end result of this? who knows man

15 (School and community funding): Hell Yes

16 (unban affirmative action): Yes

17 (restores right to vote for parolees): Yes

18 (17-year-olds voting in primaries if they'll be 18 by the general): Yes; I also support the much stronger form of this bill in Prop G

19 (Let people transfer property tax assessments, slightly limit transfers to kids): Slight no; Main thing is limiting transfers to kids, that's cool (aka the "Lebowski loophole"; if 19 passes, parents can only transfer property tax assessment to their kids if it's their primary home). But also lets people transfer assessments 3x instead of 1x; I was convinced because Fred thinks that downside is greater than the upside. I could be wrong.

20 (be tougher on crime): Hell No; are we in 1990? haven't we learned what "tough on crime" does?

21 (allow cities to expand rent control): uhhh man what a mixed bag, very slight No, rent control is ok in some limited cases and generally bad but maybe good given where we're at now but maybe will make the whole thing worse longer

22 (let Uber/Lyft/Doordash keep exploiting workers): Hell No; don't let corporations write laws. (especially awful corps like Uber.)

23 (dialysis something someting): No; handle it, y'all

24 (data privacy): No (uh... it's complicated; this is weirdly written; yes more privacy is good but as written it's not clear what it will do, and will just make it impossible to write better laws)

25 (End cash bail): Yes because cash bail sucks, though I'm concerned about turning it over to a "bail algorithm"; someone please pre-write the "turns out, algorithm is racist" article so we can publish it in 2021