What is on— andoff— the ballot

California lawmakers strike deals to avoid several ballot initiatives

SACRAMENTO » Californians will vote this fall on such sweeping questions as whether to split the state into three and repeal a new transportation tax generating $5 billion per year — but they won’t be weighing in on lead paint clean-up, internet privacy or a proposal to make it harder to raise local taxes.

Struck from the list of 12 November ballot measures — finalized late Thursday— were contentious proposals nixed after agreements with the Legislature.

In a surprise twist, Sherwin-Williams, Con Agra and NL Industries balked at placing a $2 billion environmental cleanup initiative on the November ballot — an ef- fort to reverse an unfavorable ruling on a landmark case that found them liable for lead-paint cleanup, a widely criticized tactic that some lawmakers called “unprecedented.” In exchange, lawmakers agreed to continue discussing legislation related to the clean-up of older homes and to put on hold bills they had introduced in response to the initiative.

“We pushed back against the lead paint industry and won,” said Assemblymember Rob Bonta, D- Oakland, in a statement. “Their effort to trick voters into paying for the harm they caused had to be stopped.”

Also yanked was an internet privacy measure, after the Legislature passed a similar proposal that doesn’t take effect until 2020.

And— after much hand-wringing — lawmakers agreed to ban new local soda taxes through 2030 if proponents of a constitutional amendment tomake it even harder for local governments to raise taxes dropped that measure. The agreement with the soda industry elicited disgust from both sides of the aisle before it passed on Thursday, but its passage avoided what Democratic lawmakers calculated to be a worse fate for local government budgets.

“This is a pick-your-poison sort of situation, a Sophie’s Choice if you will,” state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, told his colleagues on the Senate floor. “This

industry is aiming basically a nuclear weapon at government in California and saying if you don’t do what we want, we are going to pull the trigger and you are not going to be able to fund basic government services.”

Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego, likened the soda tax negotiation to a “stick-up.”

“I think what the left was worried about was a big, huge expensive fight on the ballot,” he said. “It was like everything every Howard Jarvis group has ever wanted.”

Democrats avoided one tax fight, but they are gearing up for another: a measure to repeal the hardfought transportation taxes and fees the Legis- lature approved last year to repair the state’s crumbling roads and freeways and shore up public transit. The increases are expected to raise more than $50 billion over the next decade, and the business and labor groups that championed the deal will spend big to keep it intact.

But the hikes also have become central to the campaigns of John Cox, the Republican candidate for governor, and other Republicans who argue Democrats are driving up the cost of living in the state.

Here is a look at some of the other measures to appear on the November ballot, which will be assigned numbers on Friday:

Tax breaks for older homeowners: Despite talk of compromise, the California Association of Realtors is proceeding with a closely-watched measure to expand Proposition 13 tax benefits to homeowners over 55, allowing them to take their lower taxes with them wherever they move in California. Realtors argue the benefit will free up single-family homes in a tight-market, but opponents point to a Legislative Analyst’s Office analysis that estimated schools and social services would lose billions in property tax revenue if it passed.

Rent control: The initiative would repeal Costa Hawkins, a 1995 law that makes it illegal for cities to adopt certain kinds of rent control ordinances. Single family homes and condominiums are exempt from rent control under the law, as is any apartment built after 1995, when Costa Hawkins was passed, or in some cases much earlier. If a city adopted rent control in the 1980s, for exam- ple, as Oakland did, then everything built afterward is forever defined as “new construction” and exempt from rent control. Costa-Hawkins also prohibits cities from regulating how much a landlord can raise the price after a tenant moves out, a policy known as vacancy control.

Cal 3: Pushed by Silicon Valley investor Tim Draper, Californians will vote on a proposal to split the state into three: California, a coastal strip from Monterey to just past Los Angeles; Northern California, which would include the Bay Area and some of the Central Valley; and Southern California, covering a large swath of the Central Valley and Inland Empire as well as San Diego. Even if approved, the measure would require approval by Congress.

Low- income housing: Voters will decide whether to approve $ 4 billion in bonds for affordable and veterans housing, a measure the Legislature placed on the ballot. In a separate measure, aiming to house the chronically homeless with mental illness, the state is seeking the green light to spend $2 billion from a pot of money for mental health treatment that voters approved in 2004. The Legislature created the No Place Like Home program back in 2016, but the money has been tied up in court.

Daylight Saving Time: Voters in November will consider repealing California Daylight Saving Time Act — but only so the Legislature can then decide whether to petition Congress to grant an exception to federal law so that California can remain on Daylight Saving Time, as we have in the summer, yearround. At least, that is the intent of a bill that Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law on Thursday, placing the measure on the ballot. “Fiat lux!” Brown wrote in his signing message, Latin for “Let there be light.”