by Randy Shaw on October 14, 2024 (BeyondChron.org)
Prop 5 is Essential for CA’s Housing Future
Should California’s infrastructure needs be addressed by majority vote? Or should 34% of voters set policy for the remaining 66%?
That’s the question addressed by Prop 5. Since 1979, badly needed infrastructure projects can be blocked by only 34% of California voters. At least 66.7% must vote for passage. Prop 5 reduces the support required to pass bonds to 55%, moving much closer to restoring majority rule in California.
Prop 5’s passage is essential for the state’s future.
California’s Extreme Affordability Crisis
We have a terrible affordable housing crisis in California. Families leave the state due to the inability to afford housing. Yet since 1979 California has allowed 34% of the electorate to block affordable housing bonds.
Prop 5 ends this madness.
Prop 5 allows bonds to pass with 55% of the vote rather than 66.7%. It mirrors the 55% passage rate voters enacted for school bonds in 2000. “We’ve lost a generation of students because of the burdensome, onerous two-thirds requirement,” said then State Senator Jack O’Connell, who spent thirteen years trying to get the 55% measure for school bonds on the state ballot.
The same can be said for the generation of families the state has lost due to the 2/3 vote requirement for affordable housing bonds.
Housing is a Priority
Everyone agrees that California must build a ton of more affordable housing. So why do we make it so difficult?
I wrote a book breaking down all the self-imposed obstacles to California increasing affordability. The 2/3 vote requirement for housing bonds is among them. It was passed in 1978 in a completely different political and housing environment (and the California Supreme Court wrongly allowed an initiative passing with less than 2/3 to impose a 2/3 requirement on future bonds and taxes).
I know from firsthand experience in San Francisco how housing bonds are reduced in size and affordability due to concern that the measure win a 2/3 vote. This process has artificially limited government’s response to the housing crisis.
By reducing the passage threshold to 55%, Prop 5 frees governments to do what the public expects: build a lot more affordable housing.
Unfortunately, media coverage of Prop 5 has downplayed if not ignored the undemocratic nature and harm to the state of the super-majority housing approval requirement. Stories in the LA Times and SF Chronicle have emphasized that reducing approvals to 55% will mean more bonds will pass and that taxes will increase.
But isn’t that what democracy and majority rule is all about? Shouldn’t the electoral majority have the power to get affordable housing and other core infrastructure constructed?
You can’t claim to care about getting more affordable housing built and then oppose Prop 5.
$20 Billion and More at Stake
The November 2024 ballot was supposed to include a $20 billion affordable housing bond for the nine-county Bay Area (See “$20 Billion Housing Bond Gets Greenlight,” July 1, 2024). Unfortunately, the bond was pulled from the ballot at the last minute for two reasons.
First, there was a mathematical error in computing the cost of the bond. This raised concerns about the second reason.
Second, and more importantly, the Bay Area bond depended on Prop 5 allowing passage on a 55% vote. Polls showed Prop 5 was far from in the clear. Some bond backers were skittish about raising millions to pass the Bay Area bond only to have Prop 5 fail.
The fact that we are still having to pull local housing bonds from the ballot or reduce their size due to an anti-democratic 2/3 vote requirement is maddening. It should motivate anyone concerned with California’s housing crisis to call their friends and neighbors,
Urge them to vote Yes on Prop 5.
Randy Shaw
Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s latest book is Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. He is the author of four prior books on activism, including The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century. He is also the author of The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco
