As some of you may know, voting in California is an ordeal. For better or (mostly) worse, we are a state that vigorously believes in direct democracy. To vote, one has extensive personal research to feel like a good citizen. Here is my ballot for the upcoming election in the spirit of transparency (and that research is not going to waste). Some of you California folks might find this interesting. Others may simply skip it and just look at my Cheat Sheet.
Prop 14: Stem Cell Research Funding
NO, 75% confident
Proposition 14 is designed to renew state funding of stem cell research. In 2006 (?) CA passed a ballot proposition to create a funding mechanism for stem cell research, partially due to the Bush administration's ending of federal stem cell research over ethical concerns. Normally, scientific funding for research is distributed through federal appropriations and state appropriations to research universities. However, this measure would create a bond that would borrow money to fund the research and pay it back over time through the CA general fund. The original bond created an independent organization to oversee the funds. The initial funding passed in 2006 is running out, so this funding would continue the agency’s work.
Many people will immediately jump to the ethical questions around stem-cell research: many pro-life voters will object to the use of fertilized embryos for scientific research. Those who don’t have pro-life convictions will disagree and see the invocation of pro-life views as an inappropriate insertion of religious ethics into public policy. Bio-ethics is an important debate, but I want to table it and come back later because I am skeptical that minds will change on the fundamental ethical questions inherent in the proposition.
I generally think that we in the US underfund early-stage scientific research. In the long run, the private sector tends to fund applied scientific research mostly but shy away from early-stage research that won’t is immediately providing dividends. But early state scientific research is useful for discovering technology and knowledge that lays the groundwork for applied technology that can be profitably commercialized. The Internet required a lot of government funding at the early stages to get it off the ground, then, later on, private investment came in to develop it fully. So you can make the case that government on all levels should be funding more early-stage scientific research since it pays off in the long-run. There is hope that embryonic stem cell research will help treat terrible degenerative diseases ranging from Parkinson’s to ALS. To me, this is the best argument for Prop 14.
What gives me pause is two-fold: first, prop 14 sidesteps the standard process for allocating funding for research. Typically, government research grants are run through agencies (like NIH on a federal level), which have the discretionary ability to decide where that funding can be best allocated. Prop 14 side-steps that process by creating a separate entity, which can distribute the funding through its discretionary process, with limited oversight from other agencies who do medical research. It is unclear to me that this agency is particularly good at allocating funds to promising projects. Given the lack of review that other state agencies have on it, it could easily be corrupted.
It’s also unclear that stem-cell research, funded now for 15 years, has produced the breakthroughs that justify the allocation of funds. Stem-cell research is arguably, no longer in the early stages. To the degree that the research has made breakthroughs, private sector companies should invest in this research. Unlike in 2006, the federal government is funding embryonic stem cell research, so the sector has funding available. To me, there is no real legitimate reason why stem-cell research cannot compete with other medical areas to get generally allocated research funding on its own merits.
Now, going back to the original question of bio-ethics. If one believes in fertilized embryos’ personhood, one can pretty quickly see this research’s clear objection on ethical grounds. As a general rule, we pretty strictly limit medical research that can harm humans. When we do allow for harm, we manage that harm by requiring strict consent from participants and limit those harms to be non-lethal. Historical examples of science experiments that harmed participants (like the Tuskegee experiment )are ugly stains on the medical research community. We can also look at the government’s skepticism toward people deliberately exposing themselves to COVID in the name of finding a vaccine quickly. So as a general rule, we are very conservative when it comes to harming people in the name of science, even when cures for horrific diseases are on the line.
Now, many people do not believe in the personhood of fertilized embryos as a philosophical matter. To them, I would put forward the question as a precautionary principle: if we are unsure of an embryo’s personhood, do we want to risk the chance that we are doing immense harm to potential humans? My ethical instinct is to say no. Others may disagree, but I think it’s a question worth pondering.
To me, it leads to a no vote. Putting aside ethical questions, I think there are some serious questions about this proposition (which explains why the LA Times and OC registrar are against it), but the ethical questions seal it as a no for me. VOTE NO
Proposition 15 and 19: Reforming Property Taxes
Prop 15 - Yes, 80% Confident
Prop 19 - Yes, 51% Confident
To understand prop 15 and 19, you have to go back in time to 1978, when California voters passed proposition 13. Proposition 13 limited the state’s ability to raise property tax in 3 ways: it limited the total amount of the tax to 1%, limited the annual increase of the tax, AND properties would only be assessed at the value of the home when purchased, not its current value. Prop 13 was a HUGE event in California politics. It's worthy of a unique blog post, so I won’t try to recap them all here. But to distill it succinctly: while I am sympathetic to the reasons why many voted for prop 13, it’s undeniable that it has had enormous unintended negative consequences on the state.
To distill, the primary 3 of these unintended consequences are:
1) Making CA’s tax burden more unfair: property taxes are one of the best taxes at balancing tax fairness with tax compliance. Property owners, whether individuals or corporations, tend to be wealthier than the average resident. Hence, the tax burden falls on those who are more able to pay in proportion to their house (instead of sales taxes, which has a more significant impact on lower-income residents). Because taxed properties are out in the open and cannot move out of state, it is easy for the government to levy the tax without fear of tax evasion (or people moving out of state). Prop 13 eroded this advantage by making property taxes assessed from a home’s sale date, meaning older residents (and corporations) have paid much lower taxes over time. Wealthier residents get a much higher comparative discount on their taxes as well
2) Discouraging new housing from being built: With property taxes frozen in place and limited in their size, cities and counties have turned to sales taxes as the primary source of their budget needs. This arrangement incentivizes cities to favor developing things like auto dealerships and malls over new housing because they offer much higher tax returns rates. The taxation of land is not the only (or even the main reason) we have too little housing built, but it is a contributing factor
3) Misalignment of Costs and Services: Property taxes’ main point is to pay for the services that local governments provide (education, police, roads, public transportation, etc.). A smart government keeps the taxes of a household aligned with the cost of services they consume (same as you would at your gym). By capping the flexibility of property taxes, prop 13 makes that challenging. Mandated low property taxes make balancing the books on fixing roads, funding education, and building parks very hard. As a LA county resident, I can tell you that all 3 of those things leave something to be desired.
So what would these props do? Prop 15 would simply end prop 13 benefits for medium to large size corporations. This fix wouldn’t help issue #2 (new housing would still be discouraged on tax reasons commercial development), but it would help lessen the inequality gap and the misalignment gap. Disneyworld, which sits on some of California’s most valuable land, would have to pay a property tax equivalent to its value (which will surely help with the road upkeep for all the tourists visiting). Residentially property would be exempted from this change, as would small (but not medium-sized) businesses that own real estate would be exempt. To me, prop 15 is a common-sense move in the right direction to fix the problems created by prop 13. Vote Yes
Prop 19 is a little less straightforward to me. Right now, when seniors move out of their current homes and into new homes in a different county within California, their property taxes go up, even if their new house is smaller. This rise in taxes happens because they move into homes taxed at current rates, instead of frozen whenever the senior bought the house. Prop 19 would try to change this by allowing seniors to carry their prop 13 property tax rates up to 3 times to a new home in a new county.
The significant objection to Prop 19 is that it would allow those who benefited the most from prop 13’s low property taxes to get another considerable property tax benefit. I agree that this exemption is quite unfair, and as a young person, I feel the unfairness. But the prop would balance this by also making sure that rental/investment properties passed along as an inheritance would get assessed to new rates, instead of the property tax break for kids of wealthy people (like actor Jeff Bridges). While I don’t see why ALL properties inherited shouldn’t get reassessed, this makes the law a net positive in terms of property tax collection according to the CA LAO analysis.
To me, these two effects wash out in terms of the tax fairness of the measure. But one additional argument to make for this measure is that by removing the property tax incentive for seniors to stay in their current homes, we could seniors moving from LA to less hot rental markets (IE Riverside county). Thus, we could see larger homes currently occupied by older couples freed up for families who are now crowded into apartments, or even, best case scenario, divided into duplexes and triplexes that would add additional housing units on the market. I don’t think this will be a huge help, but our housing market is in such bad shape that making 5% efficient is still good. I plan on voting Yes, though I honestly wish we had ways of reforming Prop 13 that had more certainty than the current law permits.
Prop 16: Affirmative Action for colleges
YES (65% confident)
Prop 16 may be one of the more controversial ballot propositions this year. It would reverse a ballot measure passed in the mid-1990s that banned the use of race in consideration for college admissions (and employment) in the state of California public entities. That decision has drastically altered the demographics of California’s colleges, and if Prop 16 passes, it will allow colleges to reconsider race as a factor in admissions.
There is broad consensus among many elite institutions in the current (post-George Floyd protests) moment that America’s racial inequality history merits actions to end systemic racism. But what to do about systemic racism is a much thornier and complicated subject. Using race as a factor in college admissions is controversial and fraught but often supported by advocates to try to make our system fairer.
I tend to think that college admissions are a much more inexact science than many would think. How much is a high school academic performance premised on the privilege of your background? How much can success be practiced or coached by wealthier families? The outright banning of race as a factor makes me uncomfortable because it is 100% true that colleges use non-academic factors in admission decisions all the time. Athletics, legacy status, geographic diversity are all factors in college admissions. UC systems guarantee access to the top 10% of students at every high school, which creates a class-based preference system. To me, the social justice case for affirmative action is higher than some of these other preferential treatments, especially at elite schools where the goal of affirmative action is to create a diversity of backgrounds in the college.
Now that said, I will say that I am concerned with transparency in college admissions in the current environment. In recent years, we have seen big scandals at California universities, where the ambiguity inherent in admissions has to lead to preferential treatment and outright cheating. It’s a truism that the more factors you put into a formula, the less transparency and the more ambiguity you create. A college that admitted students purely on grades and test scores (which, to be clear, is not the current standard) would be the most transparent for students applying, which has its merits. All of which to say, I do hope that colleges are more transparent about how they intend to use racial demographics in admissions (and also, are more transparent about how they use all other data points). I hope this would create an environment where students can be more informed in applying to schools to have a realistic chance to be accepted. I sometimes advise my basketball players on where to apply to school. Without transparency, I worry about giving college advice to my Asian-American basketball players (mostly from working-class/immigrant families), not knowing which schools will see their background as assets or liabilities.
All of which to say, I intend to vote yes on Prop 16, even if I have some worries about how the higher education system will use this data.
Voting Rights
Prop 17 - YES, 80% confident
Prop 18 - YES, 80% confident
Proposition 17 and 18 are pretty straightforward: they make small expansions on who is allowed to vote in California elections. Prop 17 does this for those who are on probation, while proposition 18 does this for 17-year-olds (in some circumstances).
To address prop 17 first, currently, in California, you lose your right to vote when you go to prison. You do not regain the ability to vote when you leave prison but upon completing your parole term. This proposition would make a small change by restoring voting rights at the end of a prison sentence instead of at the end of a parole term.
There is not a super strong opposition movement to this proposition. Still, the best argument I have seen is that the parole system is an opportunity for people in prison to restore their good standing in society. They should only regain privileges like voting as they show they have reformed. This argument makes sense on some level, but I tend to disagree with this philosophical conception of parole: to me, the prison itself should be where people rehabilitate themselves. Parole need not, and should not, be about making that rehabilitation longer. Parole should be simply about the criminal justice system having a short window where we supervise to verify if someone will immediately return to committing crimes. But the presumption should be that those leaving prison have already paid their debt to society.
Life in the US is already very punitive to those who commit crimes, and we shouldn’t make that harder in unnecessary ways. Newspapers on the left (LA Times) and right (OC Registrar) agree. Vote yes on 17.
To address Prop 18 is also pretty straightforward: it would allow 17-year-olds to vote in primaries IF they will be 18 years old at the general election time.
There isn’t much discussion of this prop because it is not very consequential. The best argument against it I have seen is that 17-year-olds are still children with developing brains. They do not have real jobs, pay much in taxes, and so their vote will mostly be not seriously considered. This argument has some grounding: there are fundamental philosophical questions about voting and who deserves the right (and who does not). I err on the side of more people being allowed to vote, but I understand why others have a principle of skepticism of a broad voter base.
However, it is unclear that a minor shift in the voter electorate (you would still need to be 17 years, four months to vote) would decrease the voter base's quality. Young people, even eligible ones, tend to vote in low numbers compared to other age cohorts, so there is reason to think that those who do may be better informed than their older peers. We don’t question the mental fitness of elderly retired Americans who do not work and may have cognitive decline; likewise, we shouldn’t do so for younger voters on their age alone. Propose a principle that can apply broadly to screen out non-serious voters, not an age-based one
Also, California has structured our elections to make our primaries very influential. One literally cannot write in a candidate in the general election in state and local races for many statewide offices. If one candidate in a primary gets 50%+ of the vote, there is no general election for the seat. Voters eligible in the general election should have input into the general election candidates they have available. Many states allow 17-year-olds to vote, including Virginia, where I grew up, and I see no evidence that there is a scourge of ill-informed voters tipping primaries’ results. So I plan to vote yes on 18
Proposition 20: Reforming Criminal Sentencing
NO, 80% Confident
To understand prop 20, we need to go back to the time when Jerry Brown was governor. There was concern that California kept far too many people in prison because of the cost of keeping folks in jail and because prison harms those in prison and their family/community. In 2014, CA addressed this through a ballot measure that would make many drugs and property crimes (as opposed to violent crimes) and make the state’s response less punitive. This change has led to a drastic decrease in the prison population, unique in the united states.
Of course, this has not come without costs. There is a debate about the degree to which this has encouraged folks to commit property and drug crimes. There is some evidence that things like shoplifting have gone up since 2014. There are also legitimate questions about whether some categories of offenses currently NOT considered violent crimes should be violent crimes. This thought is where prop 20 emerges: from the perception that CA’s more lenient new criminal justice laws went too far.
Now, if prop 20 were just a minor fix for some of these issues, I would be open to it. But prop 20 would, in many ways, throw the baby out with the backwater, rolling back many aspects of CA’s new lenient regime that are genuinely good. I have been doing my best to read up on criminal justice in the past six months, and I have definitively concluded that reforming the criminal justice system is VERY, very hard. Making non-violent crimes less punitive is one of the easiest ways to do this. Considering the significant social benefits of keeping folks out of prison, we should be looking to build our current system, not go back to the old system. Vote NO
Prop 21: Rent Control
NO, 70% confident
Ah, Michael Weinstein, we meet again. This measure is sponsored by the mercurial Michael Weinstein of the Aids Healthcare Foundation. Weinstein has supported many other propositions over the last ten years, almost all have failed. My first foray in LA’s housing politics came when Weinstein put the disastrous “Measure S” on the ballot in LA City, which was an awful idea that pushed me to get involved in policy more directly. He followed that up by putting rent control on the ballot in 2018. It failed, so he put in on the ballot again in 2020 with some slight modifications to make it more politically tenable. This measure wouldn’t implement state-wide rent control but give cities more leeway in implementing rent control in their localities.
Rent Control is something I could write a whole blog post about (and maybe I shall), but the short is that I voted against it in 2018, and I am going to vote against it again. Rent control does not provide a useful tool (though not perfect) to keep neighborhoods from changing when gentrification is happening in a community. Manny Pastor at USC did a study that found this in LA. Generally, older residents who do not need to move around and have limited incomes benefit from rent control. Rent Control can be a tool that prevents people from being evicted, and evictions have terrible negative consequences on families and especially children.
Why do I vote, no? Economists, even very liberal ones, dislike rent Control. An IGN survey found that 95% of economists said rent control is harmful to housing affordability, especially in the long -run. This survey included Emmanuel Saez and Raj Chetty, well known left/progressive economists (Saez was a key advisor to Elizabeth Warren design on her wealth tax). For comparison, only 28% thought that it was a bad idea to ban payday lending (30% thought it was good, 42% were uncertain), so this panel does not index on doctrinaire free-market types. The survey includes some very liberal economists who just happen to think rent control is bad policy.
When you drill down, you find that the economists who tentatively approve of rent control (Richard Arnott is cited a lot by rent control advocates) do not support the mechanism of rent control (vacancy control) that prop 21 would allow cities to use. Arnott has said that he is ok with the current rent control regime in places like SF and LA (though he does not support them as the best policy), but that vacancy decontrol would be bad for the housing market. Generally, economists see rent control creating more harm in the long-run than benefit. They look at how rent-controlled cities consistently fail to build enough housing, leading to non-rent controlled buildings becoming even more unaffordable. Rent control creates a world where low and middle-income people become locked in intense competition for the few cheap units. Rent-control creates the illusion that rents are under control, while production problems (and government subsidy) lie unaddressed.
But even if you take steps to limit the harms of rent control (not letting new construction immediately get controlled like prop 21 does), rent control just is not an elegant policy design. Rent Control follows the unit, not the individual, meaning that it often is a poorly targeted tool. Many middle-class people, especially older middle-class folks, find ways to stay in rent-controlled units for long periods. Many working-class folks do too, but most policy people would agree that it would be better to subsidize rent for low-income individuals directly (through public housing or rent subsidies like section 8).
You can now argue that rent control is the best tool for many cities, given the current crisis level. Still, almost everyone across the political spectrum would agree that you would not use rent control if you started a housing policy program from scratch. In this way, rent control is similar to how liberals and conservatives revile employer-based health insurance for its inefficiency in policy design. Getting healthcare from your employer forces you to stay in jobs that you don’t want and discourages entrepreneurship. Having rent control follow units discourages tenants from moving when they otherwise would and prevents building new housing (or renovating old housing to serve tenants’ current needs). Both programs ironically were installed as temporary measures in world war two, but we cannot get rid of them even though time has shown bad policies.
I am sympathetic to the idea that local governments should be able to make their own decisions. But the endurance of rent control in the face of such opposition from experts is a good reason for me to worry that allowing voters to make this choice is a bad idea. Vote NO.
Prop 22: Classification of Gig Economy Workers
NO, 55% confident
Prop 22 is another measure I have debate extensively, both internally and with those who opinions I trust. The backstory to prop 22 is that as the gig economy (Uber, Lyft, Doordash, etc.) has grown in size and influence, so has the backlash to these companies’ business models. The concern is that while these workers are paid as independent contractors, not employees, they do not hold many characteristics of traditional independent contractors’ characteristics. In business, freelance independent contractors are traditionally paid for discrete jobs or tasks outside the normal work scope for a small business. Think of hiring an accountant to do your taxes, a marketing professional to do a campaign, a web designer to build your website, or a chef to cater to occasional hospitality events. The gig economy has flipped this on its head by hiring employees to work on the app’s core technology while hiring almost all the drivers/delivery workers as independent contractors. This model can be problematic because many of the protections of employment are not available to independent contractors (unemployment, health insurance, overtime benefits, etc.) Many of the prominent gig economy jobs are in the low-wage, low-skill sectors where workers don’t have the bargaining power that more skilled contractors (web designers, accountants) have.
To address these concerns, California has changed its laws to make it harder to classify workers as independent contractors. This change started with the state supreme court and made its way to the legislature in AB 5. These efforts’ consequences were to reclassify contractors in many industries (not just gig economy jobs) and re-classify them as employees. This change has had many unintended consequences, doing real harm to many industries, including journalism, truck driving, and many others. The response from the legislature has been to carve out more and more exceptions to the law. That is usually a sign that something has gone wrong! Gig economy jobs have notably not been exempted, which lead many of them to finance this measure and put it on the ballot.
I give all of this context to say: I think both sides act in bad faith in this area. Most big gig companies do not have an excellent reputation for transparency, either with the public or their drivers on pay expectations. The gig economy companies have designed this proposition. Instead of trying to repeal AB 5 entirely (which wouldn’t be unjustified in my book given the unintended consequences), the gig economy companies just sought to exempt themselves from the law. They also write into the proposition that the state legislature would need a 7/8th majority to undo this proposition, which is CRAZY high. This structure violates two keys of good governance 1) Don’t make decisions by ballot measure undoable by the state legislature, and 2) Make law broadly applicable, not randomly applied to some industries and not others! I have also been turned off by how these gig companies have embedded advertising into their platforms in ways that probably skirt election law and are certainly getting a very mixed reaction from their drivers.
On the other hand, those who are critical of prop 22 often act in bad faith, demagoguing Uber and Lyft as “profit-hungry” without acknowledging they have a point on AB 5. There are many benefits of contracting that AB 5 has erased: flexibility in the hours you work, the ability to shop around many different gig companies, an easy onramp to joining the platform, and earning money. There is a lot of research showing that while there is a lot of talk of gig economy jobs replacing traditional employment, they, far more often, replace less accessible forms of contracting. Taxi Drivers (at most firms, but not all) are not paid as employees, but as contractors, just like Uber and Lyft. And while the gig economy companies are pouring tons of money into this measure, it's worth noting that almost none of them have yet to earn a dime in profit, and they lose money on most rides. The money they are putting into this measure has more to do with their investors wanting to ensure they have a future path to eventually being profitable, not trying to protect existing profits. While I don’t think these gig companies’ threat to leave the state is genuine, I do think Uber and Lyft will have to change in ways that consumers and drivers may not like. We should also be asking a fundamental question: if all three parties in the gig transaction (the driver, the consumer, and the tech company) are all consenting because they all benefit, is the gig economy the problem? Or are there problem inequality issues that cannot be fixed by being punitive towards these companies?
But most importantly, for all the focus on the treatment of gig workers, it is unclear to me that we would not be better off focusing on the working conditions broadly for low-skilled workers. The problems of Uber drivers are slightly different than retail clerks at Walmart, but not that different. In both cases, they are working precarious jobs that probably don’t pay rent in a high cost of living state and have minimal access to healthcare benefits. To the degree California focuses on making life better for workers, I think it should be thinking about the kinds of programs (like universal catastrophic healthcare coverage) that can make life better for all workers, regardless of their classification.
I hope that the legislature can try to move in the direction of labor laws that allow for flexibility AND essential benefits. That longer-term, the state can take responsibility for facilitating many of the employee benefits that companies provide for more flexible, plentiful job opportunities AND better conditions for low-wage workers. There are plenty of ideas to do this: Canada created a category called “dependent contractor” that California could copy. AB 5, if unchanged, though, will not be the best outcome. But neither is Prop 22: I ultimately will vote NO on this because I default to voting no on propositions that involve harmful governance norms. But we should aim to do better.
Prop 23: Kidney DIalysis
NO, 90% confident
Prop 23 aims to increase regulation of the kidney dialysis industry by requiring that there be a doctor on sight, in addition to some other rules (reporting data to the state, getting permission to close a site, etc.) It was put on the ballot by the SEIU (a powerful union in CA) who has been unsuccessfully trying to unionize the workforce of the two major dialysis providers in California.
To take a step back, it's worth asking: is there a reason that kidney dialysis needs to be regulated in this way? Is there a scourge of patient safety concerns? By all reporting that I can see, the signs are that no such problem exists. Some may dislike the industry’s concentration, and some may have an ideological opposition to profiting off of desperate kidney patients. But all accounts are that dialysis is a reasonably safe procedure, and there is no need to keep extra personnel on staff.
Studies of the American medical industry have shown that the labor market is already over-regulated: many procedures that doctors are required to do could be done safely by nurses. Many that require nurses could be done safely by technicians. These rules drive up the cost of healthcare and lead to a lot of waste. So my instinct is that we should be deregulating the occupational licensing in healthcare, not increasing regulation. And ironically, the doctors association, who stands to profit from this, agrees that we should vote no.
This proposition is a textbook case of a proposition that should have never been on the ballot, except that this is the 2nd time we have voted on this measure, which shows how easily abused this system is. Vote No.
Prop 24: Data Privacy
NO, 55% confident
Proposition 24 is a very confusing measure. It both has text that is very hard to read (I did not attempt it) and because it builds in confusing ways off of the recently passed CA data privacy law, which just this year came into effect. The man who put this measure on the ballot was a big advocate for that 2018 law, but he is worried that the 2018 law needs stronger provisions because of pressure tech companies exert on the state legislature. The most significant change in this measure would be to enable private citizens to take more private actions if/when they believe that companies are not following the original law’s rules about protecting their data.
My first instinct on this measure is to say that this should not be on the ballot and to vote no because the state legislature is a much better way to deal with ballot measures. But a friend pointed out that this ballot measure is designed in a way to make it easy to amend, so I am willing to consider it on the merits,
That said, I am skeptical of the merits of this law. I don’t think data privacy is a non-issue. Still, I believe the last four years (especially the now-infamous “Cambridge Analytica” scandal) made data privacy an issue that political elites think about much more than ordinary people do. Most consumers are happy to trade their data for cheaper or free products (and are quite annoyed when they can’t do this easily). I think Ben Thompson at Stratechery is the best writer on tech issues, and he has proposed that we do need privacy regulations on big tech. He has written extensively about how much of the current moment is a kind of privacy fundamentalism that fails to acknowledge the benefits and trade-offs of allowing consumers to trade data for services that make one's life more comfortable. While there is a convincing argument that they do this partially from ignorance, I think it's important to keep in mind that consumer satisfaction with companies like Google and Amazon is relatively high, despite their data mining habits. Data regulation needs to balance the good and harm done. Thompson has also written persuasively that existing frameworks for regulations will only decrease competition and give companies like Facebook and Google more power to maintain control of the online advertising business, which concerns me given how much of the market they already control.
I ultimately plan to vote NO then, not because I am confident that this law is terrible, but because I have too many uncertainties, and I default to no when uncertain:
I am unclear how well this law will work logistically.
I am unsure that it should be on the ballot in the first place.
I am unsure that data privacy is important enough to have this strict regulation on data.
I am worried that it will have unintended consequences on entrenching big tech.
Prop 25: Ending Cash Bail
YES, 75% confident
So this is one of the most hotly debated measures on the ballot this year. Mostly because it essentially has two parts; First, it would end the cash bail system in California, which requires those arrested for a crime to put down a deposit (bail) that they would lose if they do not show up to their hearing. Second, it would replace the cash bail system with a risk-assessment system that would use an algorithm that would quantify the risk a particular offender would have of being a flight risk. I think both parts of the measure are essential to assess on their own merits.
First, it's worth establishing that the cash bail system is terrible. At any given time, 20% of the prison or jail population is awaiting trial, meaning these inmates have not been found guilty. Of those, estimates are that 40% of those people are simply too poor to post bail. So we can infer that at least 8% of those in prison at any one time are there because they are poor. It also puts pressure on poor people to take pleas bargains when they are not guilty of the underlying offense, which is a miscarriage of justice. And this is despite the vast majority of those released, even without bail, will end up showing up in court and are at very low risks to commit crimes pre-trial. Hopefully, I could go on, which drives home the point that cash bail is a flawed system and badly needs replacing. Ending cash bail is pretty universally agreed upon reform by those who support criminal justice reform.
Of course, many skeptics of Prop 25 will say that voting for prop 25 also involves using an alternative system, and many skeptics worry it will be worse. Generally, the reasoning is that while cash bail is classist in its impact, algorithms can also have a disparate impact on the lines of race and class. Should we exchange one biased system for another?
I will first say that it is inevitable that we will need to hold some accused criminals in jail before they are convicted. There are some clear cases: someone credibly and serially accused of Domestic violence or sexual assault should not go free if they are a threat to their family. The question is: how should we decide how to make those decisions? Should it be cash bail? Should it be pure discretion of judges? Should it be an algorithm? The distrust of algorithms mostly grew in the wake of a ProPublica article posted in 2016 that argued they had significant racial disparities baked into their formula.
I am not an expert on criminal justice algorithms, but I have tried to plug into experts’ work. Jennifer Doleac is one: she has written extensively on algorithms in Criminal justice. She has simultaneously been critical of the work of those at ProPublica who argued these algorithms were fundamentally racist while also acknowledging that algorithms do not fix racial disparities in sentencing/risk assessment. She concludes that the biggest problem is not the algorithm, but us, the voter: voters reward judges for being harsh, and judges follow through on that desire. If Judges followed the risk assessment literally, we would see improvement in this system. In Kentucky, 37% fewer people would have been detained pre-trial had judges just followed the algorithm’s assessment.
Ultimately though, I think “YES” is the right call on Prop 25 because there are examples of this kind of reform making the system better. They saw considerable improvements in the criminal justice system in New Jersey by replacing cash bail with an algorithm. There was the political will to make the system fairer and less biased. I don’t think prop 25 alone will fix this problem, but it’s important to remember that the current system is pretty bad, and prop 25 at least allows making reform in the right direction. Vote yes on 25.