Human voter guides have a structural tell: before you even read their explanation on Proposition 40 or District 4 Supervisor, you can usually predict 95% of their endorsements just by knowing who pays their rent or which coalition they sit in. If a guide comes from a public-sector union or the DSA left, every tax or bond measure is an automatic YES (even when the statutory drafting is a fiscal landmine), and every charter reform that gives the elected Mayor or City Administrator executive accountability is an automatic NO. If a guide comes from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association or the state GOP, every transit lifeline and housing bond is an automatic NO, and every billionaire-funded constitutional poison pill is an automatic YES.
I don't have a career ladder in Sacramento, a consulting contract at City Hall, or an independent expenditure committee to keep happy. Right after David and I recorded Episode 10 (California High-Speed Rail: The $126 Billion Train to Nowhere) and Episode 11 (California's 5% Billionaire Wealth Tax: Prop 40 & SEIU-UHW), I pulled the entire Hasura GraphQL database behind OpenBallot (openballot.app) — 292 published voter guides, all 180 California ballot items across Statewide, San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Diego (live at openballot.app/g/eve), and 1,748 individual endorsements and written notes — and cross-checked every argument against the primary statutory text, Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) reports, and San Francisco Controller fiscal estimates to build my own complete 2026 California & San Francisco Voter Guide.
1. The Fiscal Sanity Quartet (YES on Props 2 & 3; NO on Props 40, 41 & 42): In Episode 11, we traced how SEIU-UHW president Dave Regan's Proposition 40 (a one-time 5% tax on net worth over $1B, retroactive to Jan 1, 2026 residency) uses Section 5033(c)(3)(C) to value private startup shares by whichever is higher: economic ownership or voting control, paired with a presumptive 7.5x book profits formula and 4% personal appraiser penalties—while mismatching a 5-year revenue sugar high against permanent federal Medi-Cal cuts and driving out top-1% income taxpayers. In retaliation, a billionaire coalition bankrolled Propositions 41 and 42 to permanently lock the 1979 Gann Spending Limit against voter-approved tax exemptions and permanently ban personal property/asset taxes in the California Constitution. My verdict: reject both sides' constitutional vandalism. Vote YES on Prop 2 (doubling the Rainy Day Fund cap from 10% to 20% and paying down $20B in federal UI debt), YES on Prop 3 (preserving $5B–$15B/yr for K-14 schools and Medi-Cal by keeping the existing 14-year-old top income brackets on $371k+/$742k+ without new wealth-tax shocks), and NO on Props 40, 41, and 42.
2. Housing Supply & Why a YIMBY Votes NO on Prop 45 (YES on Props 1 & 37; NO on Prop 45): I vote YES on Prop 1 ($11.25B affordable housing bond that unlocks 4% and 9% federal LIHTC matching credits) and YES on Prop 37 ($25B in zero-General-Fund revenue bonds strictly restricted to newly constructed starter homes plus a statutory right-to-repair fix for the condo construction-defect insurance freeze that collapsed condos to 3% of CA multifamily building). Why vote NO on Prop 45 (the Chamber of Commerce CEQA initiative) even after roasting HSR's $677M / 130,000-page CEQA machine in Episode 10? Because AB 130 (2025) already exempted urban infill housing from CEQA—meaning Prop 45's primary housing beneficiaries are exurban greenfield sprawl developers building in high-fire-risk Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) zones, worsening the exact insurance crisis Ben Allen must solve as Insurance Commissioner.
3. Restoring Democratic & Fiscal Hygiene Statewide (YES on Prop 5; NO on Props 4, 38, 39, 43 & 44): Vote YES on Prop 5 (fixing California's circus recall ballot by removing the simultaneous replacement race so the elected Lieutenant Governor succeeds if a Governor is recalled). Vote NO on Prop 4 (flipped from YES to NO after our vet-decision audit verified [GrowSF](https://www.openballot.app/g/growsf)'s SF Ethics Commission dataset showing non-participating candidates still raised $7.1M more despite $10.5M in taxpayer matching funds and the [SF Chronicle](https://www.openballot.app/g/san-francisco-chronicle)'s finding that SB 42 exempts new public campaign financing programs from FPPC oversight), NO on Prop 38 ($8.4B bond that earmarks $4.2B to a single UCLA institute co-founded by the billionaire sponsors), NO on Prop 39 (whose mail-ballot last-4 ID-type matching rule creates a ballot-rejection trap if you write your Driver's License last-4 instead of the SSN last-4 you registered with years ago), NO on Prop 43 (which raises the threshold for citizen-initiated local special taxes from 50%+1 to 66.7%, threatening transit lifelines like SF Prop H and RTM), and NO on Prop 44 (another SEIU-UHW ballot cudgel imposing rigid 90% spending quotas on safety-net health clinics).
4. California Statewide & SF Federal/State District Races: I endorse Xavier Becerra for Governor (executive scale at HHS and CA DOJ over Steve Hilton's deregulation slogans), Fiona Ma for Lt. Governor, Rob Bonta for Attorney General (who built the DOJ Housing Strike Force and sued NIMBY Huntington Beach, whereas his opponent Michael Gates was the Huntington Beach City Attorney who led those NIMBY lawsuits), Shirley Weber for Secretary of State, Eleni Kounalakis for Treasurer, Ben Allen over Jane Kim for Insurance Commissioner (actuarial wildfire catastrophe modeling over populist rate freezes that push insurers out of California), Richard Barrera over Sonja Shaw for Superintendent of Public Instruction, and John Pimentel over Sally Lieber for Board of Equalization. On State Controller, I break from the SF Democratic slate and side with The Sacramento Bee to endorse Herb W. Morgan over Malia Cohen: the Controller is the state's chief financial auditor, not a social-policy legislator, and in a one-party supermajority where Governor Newsom just vetoed the HSR Inspector General staffing bill (AB 262), Sacramento insiders shouldn't audit themselves. In Congress and the Assembly, I endorse Scott Wiener over Connie Chan in CA-11 (see Episode 6), Kevin Mullin in CA-15, Matt Haney in AD-17, and Catherine Stefani in AD-19.
5. San Francisco Propositions & Local Races (Unknotting City Hall and Saving Transit): To prevent a transit death spiral, vote YES on SF Prop H ($177M/yr progressive parcel tax saving Muni from cutting up to 20 lines) and YES on Regional Measure RTM (~$1B/yr 5-county transit sales tax preventing BART, Muni, and Caltrain collapse). For City Hall reform, vote YES on Prop A (removing 41 redundant commissions from the Charter), NO on Prop B (an unbudgeted $310M–$460M Public Bank Charter amendment exempted from the Sunshine Ordinance), YES on Prop C (expanding the Housing Trust Fund while lowering the inclusionary tax on new apartments), YES on Prop D (ending 4-Supervisor minority ballot placement and raising SF's 2% signature threshold to 8%), YES on Prop E (centralizing 14-department procurement knots), YES on Prop F (giving the elected Mayor hire/fire accountability over department heads while keeping DPA police oversight independent), and NO on Prop G (don't spend $9.8M+ tearing up Sunset Dunes Park after voters just approved Prop K). On the budget twins, vote NO on Prop I (which raids $120M/yr from the General Fund during a $742M+ deficit and freezes transfer taxes) and YES on Prop J (closing the loophole that lets private-equity lenders take over $300M+ foreclosed office towers for $0 transfer tax, adding $100M–$150M/yr to the General Fund). In SF local races, I endorse #1 Stephen Sherrill (D2), #1 Alan Wong & #2 Albert Chow (D4), #1 Matt Dorsey (D6), #1 Darshini Patel & #2 Gary McCoy in D8 (since Manny Yekutiel dropped out Oct 1), #1 Theo Ellington & #2 J.R. Eppler in D10, Phil Kim, Autumn Brown Garibay & Tim Tung for School Board, Elijah Ball, Monroe Lace, Erwin Tam & Ruth Ferguson to rescue City College's accreditation, Sara Barz for BART Board D8, Joaquin Torres for Assessor-Recorder, and #1 Manohar Raju (reluctant/unopposed selection with major reservations) for Public Defender.
