KPFA - California Ballot Breakdown

Yay! We get to vote (again) on nuanced regulation of the kidney dialysis industry.

The Debators: 

Music credits:

“T Shirt Weather” by Poddington Bear, used under CC BY-NC 3.0 US

Browse through all our election segments here. Subscribe to get new ones with Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, Spotify, or by pasting this link into any podcast player.

The post Proposition 29: Dialysis Clinics appeared first on KPFA.

California voters are confronting not one but two ballot initiatives to legalize sports betting — and an onslaught of advertising owing to the nearly half a billion dollars that’s been spent on both sides of each. We host a debate on Prop 26, a discussion with the only side of 27 that would talk to us, and a reporter covering the historic sums of money that have entered both races.

The Debators: 

On the money behind the campaigns: 

(Where’s the Yes on 27 campaign? We made repeated requests to book them for a debate, but they never replied.  They had just pulled a bunch of their TV ads after this poll showed the campaign trailing by a 20+ point margin).

Music credits:

“T Shirt Weather” by Poddington Bear, used under CC BY-NC 3.0 US

Browse through all our election segments here. Subscribe to get new ones with Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, Spotify, or by pasting this link into any podcast player.

The post Propositions 27 and 27: Sports Betting appeared first on KPFA.

San Francisco’s holding a special election for District Attorney, with four people running on a ranked-choice ballot to take over an office that became a punching bag for right-wing media, got rocked by a recall, and is now considering the first homicide prosecutions of San Francisco Police Department officers in that department’s 173-year history. We spoke to 75% of the candidates.

The Candidates: 

The Not-Candidate: 

(Where’s appointed incumbent Brooke Jenkins? Starting in September, we made repeated requests via phone and email to schedule her for an interview, but  neither she nor her staff followed up to get her booked)

Music credits:

“T Shirt Weather” by Poddington Bear, used under CC BY-NC 3.0 US

Browse through all our election segments here. Subscribe to get new ones with Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, Spotify, or by pasting this link into any podcast player.

The post Who wants to be a San Francisco DA? appeared first on KPFA.

On April 19th, San Francisco finishes voting on who will fill the vacant assembly seat representing its eastern half. Both candidates in the runoff are veterans of the progressive wing of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors with *very* similar policy positions–so we dig into how they’re different.

Music credits:

“T Shirt Weather” by Poddington Bear, used under CC BY-NC 3.0 US

Browse through all our election segments here. Subscribe to get new ones with Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, Spotify, or by pasting this link into any podcast player.

The post AD 17: David Campos and Matt Haney try to identify political differences appeared first on KPFA.

Proposition 22, the push to lock gig drivers into permanent independent contractor status, has spent more money than any ballot initiative campaign in state history. The gig companies financing it are also using their apps to advertise, arm-twist, and cajole. Ariel Boone has a report on how that’s changing the terrain of campaign. PLUS: Puzzled why California NAACP president Alice Huffman has put her name, and that of her organization, on the big-business side of so many propositions? It *may* have something to do with the nearly $2 million her political consulting firm has collected from the campaigns whose positions she’s endorsed.

Music credits:

“T Shirt Weather” by Poddington Bear, used under CC BY-NC 3.0 US

Browse through all our election segments here. Subscribe to get new ones with Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, Spotify, or by pasting this link into any podcast player.

The post Turning cash into clout: Prop 22’s in-app arm-twisting, CA NAACP’s perplexing positions appeared first on KPFA.

In the wake of the uprisings over the police killing of George Floyd, cities and counties across California are putting policing reforms to a vote. We’ll take you through a roundup, starting with San Francisco’s Proposition E — which asks voters if they’d like to take minimum police staffing requirements out of the city’s charter.

Music credits:

“T Shirt Weather” by Poddington Bear, used under CC BY-NC 3.0 US

Browse through all our election segments here. Subscribe to get new ones with Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, Spotify, or by pasting this link into any podcast player.

The post Local Edition: Where policing is on the ballot appeared first on KPFA.

Voters in San Francisco are about to vote on whether to create California’s first tax on inequality. Prop L would raise the gross receipts tax on every business in the city that pays its top manager at least 100x more than its median employee.

PRO: Supervisor Matt Haney represents San Francisco’s District 6; he sponsored Proposition L at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors

CON: Richie Greenberg is a political commentator and the former Republican candidate for mayor of San Francisco. 

Music credits:

“T Shirt Weather” by Poddington Bear, used under CC BY-NC 3.0 US

Browse through all our election segments here. Subscribe to get new ones with Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, Spotify, or by pasting this link into any podcast player.

The post Debate: San Francisco Proposition L – An Inequality Tax appeared first on KPFA.

Prop 15 would let property taxes rise with property values, but only for large owners of commercial and industrial real estate.

The argument from the no campaign is that prop 15 would hurt some small businesses, too.

They couldn’t actually give us an example when they came on to debate it–so we had our reporter Lucy Kang follow up, and ask both sides to point us at one building that makes their case. She found a skyscraper partially owned by Donald Trump, and a small business owner panicked by a tax hike … that probably won’t impact her the way she thought.

Music credits:

“T Shirt Weather” by Poddington Bear, used under CC BY-NC 3.0 US

Browse through all our election segments here. Subscribe to get new ones with Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, Spotify, or by pasting this link into any podcast player.

The post Prop 15 followup: A tale of two buildings appeared first on KPFA.

Oakland’s District 3 is mostly West Oakland. That’s a historically Black neighborhood, an epicenter of the 2008 foreclosure crisis, now rapidly gentrifying. Last year, it was also the site of an action that drew national attention: “Moms 4 Housing.”

A group of unhoused Black mothers took over an empty home owned by a private equity firm, occupied it for over two months, and eventually – after the sheriff mounted a militarized eviction – forced the owner to sell the property to a land trust to become permanent affordable housing.

Now one of its organizers, Carroll Fife, is trying to unseat the incumbent who represents the neighborhood, Lynette McElhaney, in a race exposing deep cleavages over who housing policy should work for.

Music credits:

“T Shirt Weather” by Poddington Bear, used under CC BY-NC 3.0 US

Browse through all our election segments here. Subscribe to get new ones with Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, Spotify, or by pasting this link into any podcast player.

PHOTO: Tyler Casey

The post Oakland D3: A Push from the Streets to City Hall appeared first on KPFA.

First: Wayne Hsiung is mounting a left-flank challenge to incumbent Berkeley mayor Jesse Arreguin that is quite well-financed and -organized for someone who’s never held office.

Also: the Vallejo mayoral campaign of Hakeem Brown is bleeding endorsers, after a nonprofit news outlet documented his extensive history of domestic violence charges and convictions.

Music credits:

“T Shirt Weather” by Poddington Bear, used under CC BY-NC 3.0 US

 “Something Elated” by Broke for Free, used under CC BY 3.0 US

Browse through all our election segments here. Subscribe to get new ones with Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, Spotify, or by pasting this link into any podcast player.

The post Local Edition: Berkeley and Vallejo appeared first on KPFA.