The California Propositions were a tough call for us this year. I can't call a single one of them a good piece of constitutional or voter mandate. On face value, I hate them individually.
The legislature doesn't do its job, but more to the point, the ridiculous situation continues because of Prop 13, the requirement for supemajorities for locally-voted tax initiatives, and the unbelievably stupid 2/3 supermajority required to pass budgets in California, which gives the most extreme end of the GOP veto power and a very small cadre of Republican moderates unnecessary clout.
But my wife and I discussed this, and the sad conclusion we came to after looking at the whole thing and who supported and opposed it, was that voting "yes" is getting in line with the grown-ups. It's a bad way out of a mess, and a partial solution at that, but we held our nose and connected the lines on our mail-ins. More on the flip.
The one we did not vote for was 1F, which was put on there at the insistence of our 'moderate' Republican Senator, Abel Maldonado. It's a stupid political trick, to limit compensation to legislators when there's a budget imbalance. BFD. It's just to make the voters feel better and provide a re-election issue. It has zero fiscal impact in a meaningful sense.
1D and 1E target First 5 and Mental Health programs for special "cuts" from previously-enacted voter initiatives for a couple of years to rob their dedicated funding sources. But while I heartily applaud both programs, voters passing pet projects and taxing particular sources for those pet projects is one of the reasons we're in this jam -- too much scattering of individual line items without looking at the big picture, not enough flexibility. And the reality is without the initiatives passing, those programs are going to get cut in the discretionary spending area, badly. It's just a question of doing it in an orderly manner.
The other prop I had a real hard time voting for was the Lottery "reform" (which at least kept it from going private). Borrowing against future revenues from state-sponsored gambling is a weird meta-move, involving as it does going into debt - just like gamblers go into debt for their habit. But in the end lottery financing being tied to specific programs is just another example of tying a reasonable manager's hands about making tough choices.
I note that Calitics suggested voting NO across the board, as did the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers' foundation. One of the state employees union actually contributed money for YES and NO on different props. Different teachers' unions are on different sides of this (although the bigger one is clearly in favor, since the hardest hit sector if the budget goes belly up will be schools). It's a confusing electoral map.
But since repealing Prop 13 and budgetary supermajorities are NOT on the ballot (god how I wish they were, so we could have the real debate we should be having), we're voting Yes on everything except for F and crossing our fingers. I think it's the grown-up thing to do instead of holding our breath and hoping government reforms itself in the meantime.