The clerical error that wiped out one ballot measure and may force another

Politico

14-07-2025

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MEASURE FOR MEASURE — Los Angeles County supervisors will meet Tuesday to decide whether voters need to return to the polls next year to clean up a mess the board made.
The predicament has its origins on last November's ballot, when Angelenos approved a sweeping plan to reorganize their powerful county government but — due to what county counsel calls an 'inadvertent administrative error' — also repealed an unrelated 2020 measure guaranteeing a share of county funds go toward anti-incarceration programs.
The charter-related snafu came to light last week at a meeting of the task force created to implement Measure G, the charter amendment written to expand the size of the Board of Supervisors and establish an elected county executive role. Duarte City Councilmember John Fasana announced that, while comparing the Measure G overhaul to an earlier version of the charter, he had discovered that 2020's Measure J had never been added to the charter in the first place — which meant that putting Measure G on the books wiped Measure J away entirely.
'The whole thing is unbelievable, that this actually could have happened,' Fasana told Playbook. 'But it did.'
Fasana and fellow task force member Derek Steele argued during the meeting that their newly established 13-member task force should figure out how to proceed with the Measure J omission before getting into the nitty-gritty of implementing Measure G.
They argue it's possible to add Measure J back into the charter without needing voter approval. Then they want to see a new charter amendment on the ballot next November to rehash parts of Measure G, particularly those related to the elected executive, which are the specific sections that wiped out Measure J and incidentally were the leading reason Fasana and Steele both opposed Measure G.
'If we are going to be rehashing any conversation, I think it is to take in a reexamination of Measure G, which was rushed in the first place, which never was really community-vetted,' said Steele. 'The portion about the county CEO … maybe that part needs to go back before the public and be reexamined.'
Members of the task force who supported Measure G last fall say they worry bringing this error to light — and doing it as a surprise during a public meeting — was a way for its critics to throw a wrench in the implementation process, or even to force a re-vote on Measure G, which passed by only a narrow margin.
'It seemed like this was an attempt to blow the whole thing up, shut it all down,' Marcel Rodarte, the executive director of the California Contract Cities Association and a task force member, told Playbook.
Sara Sadhwani, a professor at Pomona College who also serves on the task force, was also suspicious of the timing. 'I'm not sure who knew what or when they knew it, but clearly Mr. Fasana wanted to drop this bomb on us and use it as an excuse to stop the work of Measure G,' she said.
The next steps will be up for debate tomorrow as the five supervisors meet in downtown LA. Measure G's authors, Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Janice Hahn, will present a motion directing county officials to explore the board's options, including a 2026 ballot measure that would correct the error without addressing the substance of either measure.
'Now as we move to implement Measure G, it's critical that we codify Measure J first to safeguard those community investments,' Hahn said in a statement. 'One technical error should not invalidate the clear will of the voters.'
NEWS BREAK: San Francisco city government introduces OpenAI chatbot for city services … Trump administration asks appeals court to resume immigration raids in Southern California… The number of homeless people declined 4 percent in LA County in 2025.
Welcome to Ballot Measure Weekly, a special edition of Playbook PM focused on California's lively realm of ballot measure campaigns. Drop us a line at [e-mail] and [e-mail], or find us on X — @emilyrs and @wrmccart.
TOP OF THE TICKET
A highly subjective ranking of the ballot measures — past and future, certain and possible — getting our attention this week.
1. CalExit (2026): A longshot effort to initiate the process of California leaving the union has failed to reach its signature goal, but organizers insist they will not give up. Chief proponent Marcus Ruiz Evans tells Courthouse News he will refile an initiative in the coming weeks.
2. Ballot language (2025): A proposal from Assemblymember Gail Pellerin to streamline ballot language for local measures will head to its next hearing in the Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee on Tuesday. AB 1512 is part of the committee's 'efforts to continually improve our ballots and make them as clear and navigable as possible for our voters,' Pellerin told Playbook. 'We don't want voter fatigue, we don't want voter confusion.'
3. Local housing authority (2026?): Del Mar last week followed the lead of city councils in nearby Encinitas and Oceanside on a growing list of local officials backing a potential constitutional amendment to give local governments more control over housing and zoning decisions. The amendment, promoted by a group called Our Neighborhood Voices, has not yet been filed with the secretary of state.
4. Voter ID (2026): Assemblymember Carl DeMaio is set this week to officially submit an initiative to require citizenship verification and government-issued identification to vote, according to his organization Reform California. DeMaio says he intends to qualify with a volunteer-driven petition campaign.
5. Great Highway Park (San Francisco, 2024): A popular night market is the latest collateral damage in an ongoing Sunset neighborhood civil war over the creation of an oceanside park via ballot initiative. As district supervisor Joel Engardio faces a recall campaign, vendors have begun pulling out of the market which Engardio brought to the neighborhood in 2023.
6. Prop 36 (2024): Democratic Assemblymember Isaac Bryan told California Black Media that last year's tough-on-crime initiative is a 'war on poor people' after a Voice of San Diego report found arrests resulting from the measure are disproportionately occurring in Black communities. The arrest data bears out a concern raised by social justice groups during last year's campaign.
7. Redistricting (2026?): Gov. Gavin Newsom said on a campaign-style swing through Southern states that Texas Republicans' plans to deliver a mid-decade partisan gerrymander 'made me question that entire program' of nonpartisan redistricting used in California. That process was set by two constitutional amendments promoted by predecessor Arnold Schwarzenegger, 2008's Prop 11 and 2010's Prop 20, that would likely compel Newsom to return to the ballot if he's serious about following through on tit-for-tat threats to redraw the state's U.S. House map.
ON OTHER BALLOTS
A federal judge in Florida blocked some provisions in a recent law placing new restrictions on the state's initiative process, a partial victory for activists who are looking to expand Medicaid and legalize marijuana via the 2026 ballot … Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed a measure to repeal Proposition A, an initiative voters approved last November to guarantee paid sick leave …
Elections officials in Michigan approved ballot language for a constitutional amendment that would require a government-issued ID to vote, clearing its backers to begin gathering signatures … The Maine state supreme court upheld the ballot language for a proposed initiative that would require voter ID and tighten absentee voting rules, rejecting a challenge from its proponents that the wording 'misrepresents' their proposal…
And the Democratic governor and Republican state senate leader in Washington state are both backing a plan to invest tax dollars intended for the state's long-term care program into the stock market, a proposal that will appear before voters as a constitutional amendment in November.
I'M JUST A BILL
AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOND (AB 736 / SB 417): The Legislature has approved changes to California's landmark environmental law, but another proposal Newsom endorsed this spring as part of an effort to tackle the state's affordable housing crisis hasn't gone anywhere.
AB 736, a $10 million affordable housing bond proposed by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, passed out of the Assembly in June. At the time, its backers — a coalition of landlords, developers, YIMBY groups, building-trades unions, local governments and elected officials — launched a public pressure campaign to push senators to embrace the proposal so it can reach voters in 2026.
But more than a month later, AB 736 has yet to get a hearing there. Nor has SB 417, a nearly identical bill introduced by state Sen. Christopher Cabaldon.
Cabaldon told Playbook the delay is in large part because senators concerned with housing issues had been preoccupied with amending the California Environmental Quality Act and securing money via budget negotiations. Now that those bills have passed, he expects to see the Senate move forward with the bond proposal after the Legislature's July recess and before this fall's longer break.
'Part of the challenge here always is when you're trying to have a budget fight, simultaneously talking about $10 billion for housing programs,' he said. 'We didn't want to take any of the pressure off of the need to make those investments right now … now that that's done, we can turn our attention to the longer term, which is the housing bond.'
The bond's backers are currently 'doing electoral research' to determine whether they would hope to see it appear on the ballot next June or November, according to Cabaldon, and those considerations will determine when and how to make a big legislative push. He hopes to make enough progress by fall to 'have the discussions that we will need to have with the governor.'
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ...
PROTECTIONS FOR FARM ANIMALS (2008, 2018): Two California ballot initiatives passed a decade apart have 'been effective in raising prices for American consumers,' the Trump administration claims in a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn them.
The suit alleges three California laws overstep the state's authority to govern egg production, two of which were passed directly by voters. Prop 2, an initiative approved in 2008, created welfare mandates for farm animals such as egg-laying hens. Prop 12, passed 10 years later, introduced specific minimum-space requirements for chickens and other farm animals.
This isn't the first time these ballot measures have faced litigation. Cases challenging the validity of these laws have repeatedly failed, including one brought to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023. The latest suit, filed in U.S. District Court in central California, will turn on interpretation of a 1970 federal law that the Trump administration says reserves egg-regulating authority for Congress.
'This case seems to be largely a political stunt related to the price of eggs,' said Rebecca Cary, a managing attorney at the Humane Society of the United States, which played a key role in supporting and drafting Prop 2 and Prop 12.
The lawsuit is part of a renewed push by out-of-state Republicans to challenge California animal-rights initiatives that have had an outsized effect on the national agriculture marketplace. On Monday, California's two senators organized 29 of their Democratic colleagues to sign a letter opposing the Food Security and Farm Protection Act, which would override state standards like those enacted by California voters.
'Countless farmers who wanted to take advantage of this market opportunity invested resources and made necessary modifications to be compliant,' read the letter from Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla. 'Federal preemption of these laws would be picking the winners and losers, and would seriously harm farmers who made important investments.'
POSTCARD FROM ...
… EBBETTS PASS FIRE DISTRICT: A rural fire district in the Sierra Nevada mountains is sitting on $750,000 in annual tax revenue it needs to keep its ambulances and fire trucks running, the result of a local parcel tax passed in 2019.
But voters first have to give fire officials permission to spend it.
Measure B, which will go before voters in the Ebbetts Pass Fire Protection District in an all-mail special election on Aug. 24, would let the local government spend revenues above the previously established level. That so-called Gann limit, established by 1979's Prop 4, caps government spending at then-current levels adjusted for inflation and population — with some excess revenue returned to taxpayers.
The Ebbetts Pass Fire Protection District represents only about 7,000 full-time residents along a scenic mountain highway that bills itself as one of the most 'intimate and untamed routes' in the Sierras. But the population can balloon to as many as 25,000 people during peak months, primarily from those who come to enjoy the area's range of outdoor activities. That, says Ebbetts Pass Fire Chief Mike Johnson, makes it crucial to have local ambulances on hand. Unlocking the funds will allow the district to continue staffing its ambulances and fire trucks 24 hours a day.
'We transport about 700 people per year — it's not an earth-shattering number,' Johnson told Playbook. 'But what makes us different from, let's say, the city areas is that our closest hospital … is 35 miles away on country, windy roads.'
Johnson expects Measure B to be a relatively easy sell to voters. After all, it won't raise their taxes, just allow the district to spend the tax revenue it has already received. But he still worries that voters might be taken by the allure of getting a few of their tax dollars back down the line.
'Knowing how tough times have been on everybody and the rising cost of everything,' he said, 'some folks may go, 'Yeah, I'll take whatever tax money I've got coming back to me, I could use that in my own pocket.''
THAT TIME VOTERS ...
… WENT NUCLEAR: Californians have seen ballot measures on a wide range of questions related to nuclear energy and nuclear weapons, including to:
Authorize helium-cooled, barge-mounted nuclear reactors in marinas and order the Public Utilities Commission to develop a radioactive waste storage facility (1975, did not qualify) … Prohibit construction of nuclear power plants and limit the operation of existing plants unless the federal government agrees to take full financial responsibility for any accident that occurs (1976, failed) … Require the governor to send a letter to the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State and all members of Congress proposing that the United States and the Soviet Union halt nuclear weapons production (1982, passed) … Declare California to be a 'nuclear-free zone,' limiting radioactive material within the state and prohibiting direct involvement related to nuclear war (1983, did not qualify) … Block state and local agencies from developing emergency response plans to mitigate the consequences of a serious accident at any of the state's existing nuclear plants (1988, did not qualify) … Stop funding for nuclear weapons and reallocate money toward cooperative agreements to secure, reduce and dismantle nuclear, chemical and biological weapons (2003, did not qualify) … Make it easier for the state to approve new nuclear power plants and repeal the existing process for determining whether nuclear waste storage is adequate (2007, did not qualify) … And set conditions for the operation and expansion of nuclear power plants, including additional legislative oversight and federal approval for the reprocessing of nuclear fuel rods (2013, did not qualify).