In state’s Prop 5, advocates see a path to better funding for affordable housing, roads and more

In 2018, Santa Cruz County asked voters to pass a countywide affordable housing bond on the November ballot. It ended up receiving 55% of the vote — a clear majority. However, infrastructure and affordable housing bonds in California require a supermajority of two-thirds support, or 66.67% of votes cast in favor. As a result, the measure — which would have authorized the county to issue up to $140 million in bonds to fund the creation of affordable housing for veterans, seniors, people with disabilities, substance use and mental health disorders and others — failed.

Proposition 5 on the Nov. 5 state ballot seeks to make this funding easier to secure. It proposes lowering the voter approval threshold for affordable housing and public infrastructure bonds to 55%. If it passes, the change would apply to questions simultaneously appearing on local ballots this year. In Santa Cruz County, two fire district bond measures — Central Fire’s Measure R and Scotts Valley’s Measure S — would only need 55% voter approval to pass.

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Proposition 5 itself only requires a simple majority of votes cast, or 50% plus one vote, to pass.

Elaine Johnson, executive director of Housing Santa Cruz County, who recently wrote an op-ed for Lookout in support of Prop 5, said the end goal is not to be able to “throw bonds at the community,” but to give more affordable housing funding a chance in Santa Cruz County, where she said the likelihood of passing a countywide campaign is “next to nil” with the higher threshold. Johnson said she understands the concern some voters have of bond measures potentially causing higher taxes, but said there are few other options for creating new affordable housing.

“This is the only way that we can be able to continue to build on this community so that everybody that loves it so much can stay here,” she said. “We have to continue to build homes so that our tax-paying community whose grandkids want to stay here can be able to live here.”

Johnson said a 55% voter threshold would be a “game-changer” for California, and could be a catalyst for ushering in much-needed housing.

“A 55% approval is a lot more doable,” she said. “I think if it wasn’t, Prop 5 wouldn’t be on the ballot.”

Former Santa Cruz mayor and Housing Santa Cruz County governing board member Don Lane said the passage of Proposition 5 could create new opportunities for every county across the state.

“Some jurisdictions are reticent and have been holding back if a measure needs two-thirds approval, but if [Prop 5] passes, some of those would give it a try, especially when it comes to affordable housing,” he said. “Those communities want to do it, but don’t want to put a bond measure out if they think it’ll fail.”

Lane, too, points to Santa Cruz County’s failed countywide affordable housing bond in 2018 as a clear example of what is possible with a lower voter approval threshold: “We can see concretely that it could be the difference.”

District 17 state Sen. John Laird said the proposition is “a matter of equity,” because as it stands, essentially just one-third of voters are deciding for everyone. He added that school bond measures have required a 55% approval since 1998, and this brings other forms of public infrastructure in line with schools: “It really is logical to have a 55% approval.”

Laird added that during his first stint in the state Assembly, from 2002 to 2008, there was a push to bring transportation funding measures down to the 55% threshold that Prop 5 now seeks for broader public infrastructure funding, but it never made it onto the state ballot.

“Polling was never very good unless [then-Gov. Arnold] Schwarzenegger supported it,” he said. “The people that were going to run the campaign didn’t want to run the campaign if it was not going to pass out of the gate.”

That said, Laird believes that people are more willing to consider this shift than they were over a decade ago. He thinks that’s due in part to a sense of urgency around the hallmark issues of the times, like protecting against wildfires and climate change and building affordable housing, but also frustration over important local ballot measures that failed because they were just barely beneath the two-thirds approval threshold.

“If there has ever been a ballot measure that has failed by a few votes to where it’s gotten almost 2-to-1, but not quite, I think people see that as an injustice,” he said.

Laird said that given the area’s difficult past few years, Santa Cruz County voters are likely to support this change. Despite funding provided by 2016’s successful Measure D transportation sales tax measure, which met its two-thirds approval threshold with 67% of the vote, he said roads remain a major issue in the county and have inadequate funding.

“The storms really brought that issue home in different places,” said Laird, adding that the passage of Prop 5 could be even more beneficial in other parts of the state. “Santa Cruz County has already passed a self-help tax for roads [with 2016 Measure D], but this would really matter in other places.”

Those dire issues provide a strong path to approval in Santa Cruz County, said Laird, but “it has to run through the other 57” counties as well. He recalls a proposal he made in the legislature in 2010 to institute a $10 surcharge on vehicle license fees, with the goal of providing funding for state parks. The vote did not unfold the way he thought it would.

“On Election Night, it passed in Santa Cruz overwhelmingly, and I thought we’re in really good shape,” he said. “Then it was going down statewide at the same time, so I just don’t know what the temperature is around the state [for Prop 5].”

And although if passed, the change in threshold would be “meaningful,” Laird said it still won’t always be easy to secure victory for future bond measures. He recalled when he was a Cabrillo College trustee during the last election cycle that school bonds required two-thirds voter approval. A Cabrillo bond passed with 74% of the vote during that cycle, but a bond measure in one of the next election cycles failed to even meet the lower 55% threshold.

“I don’t think anybody can take for granted that these ballot measures are going to pass at 55%,” he said. “I think they’re still going to have to be sold to the voters on their merits.”

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