Californias 14 ballot measures explained: From the good to the bad and the ugly

California voters have 14 statewide ballot measures staring at them this November.Fourteen.Don’t worry.Here’s all you need to know.

The biggest news, opinion and culture shaping California right now.Please provide a valid email.

By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.Never miss a story Props.

1 and 37: No on both.The two housing measures.Proposition 1 borrows $11.25 billion for an assortment of affordable-housing programs.

That means billions in new state debt, with taxpayers ultimately paying the principal and interest.Prop.37 goes another direction: Up to $25 billion in revenue bonds to provide qualifying middle-income buyers (read: probably not you!) with loans covering as much as 17% of a new home’s price.

The program is structured around borrower repayment.They’re different programs, but they suffer from the same basic problem: California doesn’t suffer from a shortage of government housing programs.It suffers from a housing shortage.We make homes extraordinarily difficult and expensive to build, watch prices soar, and then devise government programs to help selected people afford the prices government helped drive up.That’s treating the symptom while protecting the disease.Prop.

2: No.It punches a hole in the Gann limit — the per-capita limit on spending — so Sacramento can hoard surplus taxes, not refund them.

Prop.3: No.

Remember the “temporary” tax increase California voters approved in 2012? It raised income-tax rates on higher earners to deal with what was described as a fiscal emergency.Fourteen years later, the emergency apparently never ended.The tax was extended once.Proposition 3 would now make those higher rates permanent.And this isn’t some orphan measure that wandered onto the ballot.

The California Teachers Association is a primary driver of the measure, with an interest in making permanent a revenue stream that sends billions into ...