I was surprised this passed - and glad, I thought it was the most important ballot initiative.
Now, the part of decades of decline caused by irresponsible and radical Republicans getting a minority veto (sound familiar?) forcing Dems not to pass budgets without screwing them up for the radicals are over. Dems can once again pass a reasonable budget as the majority want them too.
It's very surprising it passed, as the national mood and other votes were anti-government and for gridlock.
Overly restrictive on fees passed. I was against the redistricting commission for two reasons, one is that it unfairly reduces California's influence while Republican states still gerrymander for increased leverage, and also because in this state with IIRC 31% registered Republicans, it give 50% of the commission seats to Republicans, rather than a number representative of their percent of voters. It passed too.
Brown was also a surprise, he was very different than what the mood said voters wanted, and i saw a report today saying Whitman outspent him 14 to 1.
That was a real exception to the way money tends to influence voters.
I'm very pleased prop 25 passed, and look forward to far better budgets now.
It doesn't really solve the economic issues, but it'll adjust the ridiculous priorities 2/3 forced.
I wasn't surprised Prop 19 did not pass, CA has a large minority for it, but voters seem to start off a lot more 'cutting edge' early on and back off when they vote.
Same thing happened with gay marriage (from strong support to a narrow loss after millions in ads and organizing the campaign to end it).
We'll see how the budget looks next year; the timing was bad as far as Dems getting to do the budget just in the middle of a state funding crisis.
I was very disappointed in some of the choices this year, for example, the $800 million cut from prisoner medical care. Bread, water, and no medical care seems acceptable.
Californians did unfortunately show they're able to be suckers for the corporate agenda, not passing prop 24 to repeal $1.3 billion in corporate tax cuts, which, cut and paste:
* Most California businesses don't benefit from the tax break that Prop 24 aims to repeal: "Prop. 24 will end tax loopholes that unfairly benefit less than 2% of California’s businesses that are the wealthiest, multi-state corporations. 98% of California’s businesses, especially small businesses, would get virtually no benefit from the tax breaks."[7]
* The California state budget needs the money that these corporations will be able to keep if the tax breaks stay in place, in order to fund important services: "Prop. 24 will make big corporations pay their fair share and put $1.7 billion back into the treasury for our students, classrooms, police and fire services and health care we really need."[7][8]
* If corporations don't pay these taxes, then the tax burden to pay for California's state government spending on important services will fall more heavily on individual taxpayers: "These unfair corporate tax loopholes put an even bigger burden on the average individual taxpayer. At the same time the Legislature gave corporations $1.7 billion in tax breaks every year, they RAISED $18 billion in taxes on people like you."[7]
* There's a fairness issue at stake and the corporations who will receive the tax benefit cannot be trusted: "Corporations that are paying to defeat Prop. 24 and keep these loopholes are paying their CEOs over $8.5 billion, and made over $65 billion in profits last year, while at the same time laying off over 100,000 workers."
