By Jake Armstrong, PASADENA WEEKLY

There’s plenty at stake with the propositions on the June 8 ballot, pardner

It’s been many moons since voters have been ‘round these parts, but it’s time for the electorate to mount up for the June 8 primary election.

While overtones of race-baiting and opportunism have consumed some of the political contests, voters face a much more diverse and wide-ranging list of decisions in the five initiatives appearing on the ballot. From car insurance to earthquake retrofits, voters are being asked to settle many debates over issues that will no doubt shape the state’s future.

But how’s a fella supposed to get ready for this showdown, especially since the initiative process is rife with misdirection and prevarication? The trick is recognizing the good, the bad and the ugly in each.

Proposition 13
Currently, homeowners who retrofit their unreinforced brick homes to withstand the state’s infamous earthquakes face a reassessment of their property values, the most likely outcome of which is higher property taxes. This initiative, perhaps the least publicized of all on the ballot, would eliminate that reassessment for qualifying seismic retrofit improvements until the building is sold.

The Good: Fear of a higher property tax bill may keep some homeowners from protecting their homes from earthquakes, and this initiative might help assuage that fright.
The Bad: Governments already strapped for cash may see a small reduction in property tax revenues.
The Ugly: So low are the stakes that no committees have been formed to support or oppose the measure.

Proposition 14
Right now, some of California’s candidates for state and federal office are fighting tooth and nail to get their message to their party’s faithful — the Democratic and Republican voters who will settle the score when they vote partisan ballots on June 8. But what if there were no political parties in primary elections? That’s the question Proposition 14 seeks to answer. It would eliminate partisan ballots for state and federal primaries, meaning voters could choose from the array of candidates running for election, rather than just those from their stated political party. Moreover, it would make it so only the two candidates with the most votes would compete in the general election, regardless of their party affiliation.

The Good: The initiative would open up the primary election to all voters, rather than just the party faithful, meaning the growing and influential bloc of decline-to-state and non-partisan voters would get a louder voice in primary elections, according to Bob Stern, president of the Los Angeles Based Center for Governmental Studies. By sending the top two votegetters to the general election regardless of their party affiliation, the initiative could also give a boost to more moderate candidates who might otherwise lose a primary election, Stern said.
The BAD: Third parties like the Greens and Libertarians may suffer at the polls because their candidates will no longer appear on general election ballots in November, Stern said. Moreover, candidates will have to make their pitches to many more voters, rather than just the party faithful, meaning they may have to raise considerably more campaign cash to make a successful run, which could force them to become even cozier with special-interest groups whose cash is the lifeblood of many elections. Sending the top two votegetters to the general election would almost ensure that only Republicans and Democrats will be competing in the general election, Stern said. While the measure would likely create more moderate Democratic candidates, there is little chance it would produce more centrist Republican candidates because voter registration in most of the state’s political districts more strongly favors the Democrats, he said.
The UGLY: Proposition 14 would do away with write-in candidates, which could complicate matters if candidates with extremist views are competing in the general election. The measure could also make the process vulnerable to manipulation if candidates were to launch preemptive campaigns against one another, as former Gov. Gray Davis did against Richard Riordan in the 2002 gubernatorial primary to take on the weaker Republican contender, Bill Simon, in November.

Proposition 15
With all the debate over the influence of money on the political process, it’s incongruous to some that California law currently bans public financing of political campaigns. This measure, dubbed the California Fair Elections Act, would scrap that ban and launch a public funding experiment for Secretary of State candidates in the 2014 and 2018 elections. Candidates in those races who agree to limit spending and private contributions would have their campaigns funded with grants paid for through new fees charged to lobbyists, which will exceed about $6 million each election cycle.

The Good: The measure could remove the financial barriers that keep many political hopefuls, especially women and minorities, from running for office, as occurred in Arizona and other states that enacted public financing of elections, according to Common Cause California, which supports the measure. It also would permit cities and counties to pursue publicly funded campaigns, though charter cities, such as Pasadena, were never affected by the state’s ban.
The BAD: If the measure passes, lobbyists will almost certainly file a lawsuit to stop it, arguing their fees should only be spent on administering the state’s lobbying program, Stern said. In fact, lobbyists already have filed suit, but a judge tossed it and told the lobbyists to wait and see if the measure passes before challenging it, he said.
The UGLY: If Proposition 15 passes but a judge strikes down the lobbyist fees that fund most of it, the Legislature will have to choose whether to appropriate taxpayer money to the public funding experiment.

Proposition 16
Local governments looking to begin selling electricity to their residents and businesses would have to get two-thirds of voters to agree before getting into the electricity business.

The Good: Voters should have a say on how their tax dollars are spent, though they essentially do that by electing council members to represent their interests in such municipal decisions. Pasadena already has its own municipal utility, so it’s basically a non-issue for Crown City voters.
The BAD: The initiative is seen as little more than a way for Pacific Gas & Electric, which put more than $40 million toward the campaign, to kill competition from cities in its Northern California service area, a task the utility has been mostly successful in so far.
The UGLY: While PG&E put many millions of dollars toward the effort to pass Proposition 16, public utilities face the unfair disadvantage of being barred from using public money to oppose the measure, Stern said.

Proposition 17
The Good: When voters in 1988 backed a host of new regulations intended to keep a thumb on California’s then-wild insurance market, they established a mandatory discount on auto insurance for drivers with clean records. But voters were never asked whether drivers should be able to transfer to another insurer discounts based on the length of time they’d been insured with a different carrier. This initiative would make that possible, allowing insurers to increase or decrease premiums based on a motorist’s history of uninterrupted insurance coverage.
The BAD: Funded with millions from Mercury Insurance, Proposition 17 could drive up insurance costs by hundreds of dollars for anyone who does not qualify for a discount, as well as for anyone whose insurance lapses for more than 90 days, says John Van de Kamp, former California attorney general who co-authored the ballot argument against the initiative. “All of those people will pay a penalty even if they have an excellent driving record,” he said.
The UGLY: In the zero-sum game of for-profit insurance, someone is going to have to shoulder the cost of the new discounts insurers would be able to give to new customers, which means many existing customers would likely have to pay higher premiums.