Ballot 2026: Sunnyvale, California
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2026/10/27/ballot-2026-sunnyvale-california/
I am reasonably well informed but I’m not a political junky. My intention is to share the fruits of my own research for anyone who may find it helpful. Everything here is in the order on which it is printed on my ballot.
My primary resource is the Voter Information Guides, supplemented by AI-assisted web research.
Governor
Neither candidate has a statement in the voter guide, which is pretty normal for “Big Ticket” elections.
I don’t swoon for Becerra. He feels like a dull establishment candidate. California’s version of Joe Biden, but way younger. Those folks tend to do a fine job and these days we have had our share of strutting peacocks. I would take Becerra over Newsom in a heartbeat. Steve Hilton promises what: cut all the taxes and all the government services and round up the immigrants who don’t have fancy accents? Hard pass.
I dream of a California Governor who finishes the bullet train. Keep dreaming, Danny!
Lieutenant Governor
Democrat Fiona Ma
Secretary of State
Shirley Weber isn’t whining about making people show IDs to vote like the Republican candidate.
Controller
Malia Cohen sounds like she has been doing a fine job.
Treasurer
I could go for “country club Republican” like Jennifer Hawks to serve as a balance on the checks written by a Democratic state. Unfortunately, I clicked on her web site and it started playing music. That makes Democrat Eleni Kounaliakis a sane choice.
Attorney General
Michael Gates is the only candidate to submit a statement to the voter information guide. Too bad he’s MAGA. No Vote.
Insurance Commissioner
Two Democrats make this a real choice. Kim wants more aggressive reform: a government-run non-profit insurance system, while Allen wants to improve the existing system. Bernie Sanders endorses Kim while Big Money opposes her. Insurance is broken and it is only going to get worse with climate change, so I’m willing to bet on Kim’s bolder strokes.
Member, State Board of Equalization District 2
Two Democrats. John Pimentel is endorsed by the Howard Jarvis people, the trolls who brought us Prop 13. That makes Sally Lieber the sane choice.
United State Representative District 17
Ro Khanna could not be bothered to submit a candidate statement. So … Ritesh Tandon is a Republican who might even be an okay choice in any year but 2026. However, the only issue at stake right now is Donald Trump and the only safe option for now is Ro Khanna.
State Senator District 10
Scott Sakakihara has the only candidate statement. Harvard Law School, Navy Veteran, and grandparents who were interned during World War II. Scott Sakakihara is the obvious choice.
Member of the State Assembly District 26
Patrick Ahrens grew up in our district and he knows what it is to struggle financially. Endorsed by YIMBY Action for supporting housing. I am glad to vote for Patrick Ahrens.
Retention Elections
These are effectively “recall elections” that are held regularly to remove judges who have lost public trust. Judges are usually retained. A “yes” vote retains the judge. It is hard to find much information here, and where there’s a lack of smoke I see no need to fire.
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court: JOSHUA GROBAN
Yes
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court: KELLI EVANS
Yes
Associate Justice, Court of Appeal, Sixth District: CHARLES WILSON II
Yes
Associate Justice, Court of Appeal, Sixth District: FREDERICK CHUNG
Yes
Associate Justice, Court of Appeal, Sixth District: CHARLES ADAMS
Yes
Associate Justice, Court of Appeal, Sixth District: ALLISON MARSTON DANNER
Yes
Associate Justice, Court of Appeal, Sixth District: DANIEL BROMBERG
Yes
Superintendent of Public Instruction
Reading the candidate guide, I liked Shaw’s focus on core academics. A little more research found that she’s been busy trying to ban transgender students from athletics. She has drawn the endorsement of the California Republican Party. When it comes to transgender athletes, I think the question of what is fair ought to be worked out by the folks who run sports programs. Politicians who want to ban transgender people from participating in public restrooms or sports are working to re-kindle and channel the fires of homophobia, which have, blessedly, been waning in past decades. Richard Barrera is the safe, sane choice.
City of Sunnyvale, District 5
My yard has one of the handful of lawn signs in town supporting Richard Mehlinger, who is running unopposed. Richard is well-spoken and he shows up at community events. He is a good guy who works hard to represent our community and it is a privilege to vote for him.
Prop 1: Bonds for Housing Affordability Programs
Yes. Bonds to help build more housing for low income, veterans, farmworkers, tribes, and students. “No argument against Prop 1 was submitted.”
Prop 2: Increase State’s Rainy Day Fund
Yes. Because of Prop 13, California’s property tax revenue is forever constrained and the state relies more on income taxes and sales taxes. These tax sources are volatile: especially when you consider the technology sector, which is boom-and-bust. Some years the state is awash in money and Democrats love to spend on new programs, then the bubble pops and all the great promises have to be cut. So, in 2014, they set up a Rainy Day Fund: in good years the state socks away some of the surplus for the years when they need to bridge a massive shortfall.
Right now, tariffs and energy prices are hurting the economy, which continues to “grow” due to the ever ballooning AI bubble. Let’s sock away more surplus while we have it because the next recession is going to suuuuuuuuuuckk!!!!
Prop 3: Fund Schools and Health Care by Extending Tax on High Incomes
Yes. If you’re above $371k filing single or $743k filing jointly, you’ll pay 1% higher taxes, and up to 3% higher taxes above $1.5 million filing jointly. If my family were to one day ascend to such income, it would be a privilege for us to chip in a little bit more for the people of California.
Prop 4: Repeal Prohibition Against Public Funding of Election Campaigns
Yes. We have a prohibition on publicly-funded campaigns? Fuck that!
Prop 5: Change Recall Process for Statewide Officers
Yes. The current process is “do you want to do a recall?” and then “if so, which of these 6,000 names do you want to have as a replacement?” Prop 5 dispenses with the second question: a Governor will be replaced with the Lieutenant Governor and anyone else will be filled by a special election or appointment or whatever is called for.
I remember when we recalled Gray Davis. He was replaced by Schwarzenegger based on name recognition. Luckily, Ah-nold wasn’t half bad but we just skated past a potential disaster there. Prop 5 is a very sober reform to the recall process.
Prop 37: Loan Program for Middle-Income Buyers of New Homes
Yes. The state doesn’t spend any money, just leverage its credit to help loan money to first-time California homebuyers, making less than half the area median income, for homes priced under $1 million to 1.5 million in the wealthier counties. “No argument against Prop 37 was submitted.”
Prop 38: Bonds for Immunology Research
No. I support bonds for housing in Prop 1 because housing affordability is our top crisis as a state. Science funding is important but I think the legislature should work out what our priorities are.
Prop 39: Prohibit Citizens from Voting
No.
Voting is an Act of Faith. I have faith that in every precinct in the United States, a person can walk into their polling place, and state their name and address to the poll worker, who will cross their name off the roll and hand them a ballot. Nowadays the ballots are mailed out and brought back in or deposited in a box, but the idea remains. You and I and every American are as good as our names.
The fetish with “showing a photo ID” is just one more attack by Power to Divide and Conquer and Undermine Trust among Americans. Fuck that. No no no no no no no hell no thank you.
Prop 40: One-Time Tax on Billionaires
YES!
There should be more billionaires like Dolly Parton, who was filthy rich but so generous with her wealth she never became a billionaire. There are a class of people who, like Dolly Parton, are good at business, but they lack the sensibility that money is a means to an end, and not the end in itself.
The hypothetical value of billionaires is that these powerful folks can serve the interests of humanity when government goes astray. This hypothesis was busted last year when billionaire after billionaire, the most powerful people we have, came crawling on their knees to lick the heel of our new Fascist Leader. A lot of them seemed to enjoy it. After all, Fascism is State Capitalism, where the government’s resources are directed to enriching businessmen.
Billionaires are not on the side of Democracy, and many will fall in line behind the next coup d’etat. Prop 40 is a local compromise between applying a one-time “haircut” to wealth instead of labor for a change, and is a far more humane approach to dealing with the obscenely wealthy than the guillotine.
Prop 41: Prohibit New State Taxes (on Billionaires)
No.
Opponents of Prop 40 claim that billionaire wealth is wrapped up in non-liquid assets which make it difficult for them to pay taxes on that wealth. And yet … the billionaires have found a lot of money to advertise against Prop 40 and to bankroll Prop 41 and 42 to function as Poison Pills to invalidate Prop 40 and screw up California’s ability to manage our budget.
Prop 42: Prohibit new Personal Property Taxes (on Billionaires) and Certain Retroactive State Taxes (on Billionaires)
No.
Opponents of Prop 40 claim that billionaire wealth is wrapped up in non-liquid assets which make it difficult for them to pay taxes on that wealth. And yet …
Prop 43: Limit Voters’ Ability to Raise Taxes
No. So, there’s a 2/3 majority required for a government to raise taxes via a ballot proposition, but a simple majority vote for a proposition brought by citizens via signature collection. What really irritates me is that, like Prop 13, a majority vote can require a supermajority vote to override a majority vote. Let’s not surrender our power as voters.
Prop 44: Require Community Health Clinics to Spend 90% of Revenue on Program Services
No. This sounds reasonable on its face, but a lot of clinics run on narrow margins and there there is uncertainty over how “program costs” would be tallied. For example: is transporting low-income patients to a rural clinic a “program cost” or is it some sort of non-program “outreach service?” TBD! This creates added anxiety for clinic managers and could well threaten patient services that aren’t designated as “program costs.”
This sounds like another area for the legislature to take responsibility for effective regulation.
Prop 45: Modify Environmental Review for Certain Projects
No.
This one is interesting. The Yes side is mainly big businesses and “greedy developers” out to make money by building stuff. The No side is environmentalists and labor unions. The labor unions are interesting: wouldn’t you want more construction jobs? But I recall when I served on the Planning Commission that brothers and sisters in the trade unions would oppose local projects that hadn’t agreed to union labor by claiming that construction involves formaldehyde; CEQA action can be used to coerce developers to meet union demands.
I want to support Prop 45 to streamline housing, green energy, and transit projects. YIMBY and transit advocates don’t endorse Prop 45 because while they support cutting red tape, there is concern that Prop 45 would promote sprawl. Sprawl has obvious negative environmental impacts that Prop 45 would facilitate.
I think there is virtue in streamlining CEQA, but Prop 45 is not the right solution.
Regional Ballot Measure RTM
Yes.
I hate regressive sales taxes. Even more, I hate car dependency and sitting in traffic.
The Pandemic shook things up for our regional transit agencies. Emergency funding allowed improved service at the same time that agencies lost a lot of commuters to Work-From-Home. The end result was better service for the community at all hours. Caltrain especially, since the long-awaited electrification project, is posting record numbers outside of commute hours, even if the commute trains aren’t as full (of revenue) as they once were. I think we need to push this transition further along by keeping the transit agencies funded to serve the needs of the public.
Paring back services now would deny opportunities for folks who rely on public transportation, and it would force expense and lost time on those who can transition to driving. We need a better mechanism for funding public transportation, but we need to fund public transportation.
City of Sunnyvale Measure G
Yes.
Measure G allows Sunnyvale to use alternative processes to commission public works, which could streamline certain projects. Rather than having separate bid phases for design and construction, the city could solicit “design and build” bids — the design and construction are bundled. The concern is that while joining phases may streamline the bidding process and make it more efficient, going from “lowest cost” to more subjective criteria allows more room for corrupt sweetheart deals. I would rather our government have the flexibility to operate more efficiently for the price of public diligence.
City of Sunnyvale Measure H
Yes.
Straightforward: the City Manager has authority to settle legal claims up to a limit specified in the city charter in 1989. This limit doesn’t account for inflation. Measure H amends the city charter to let the City Council set the limit. In computer programming terms: we replace a constant with a variable.
City of Sunnyvale Measure I
Yes.
The terminology around Measure I gets confusing but my gist is that right now, a City Council vacancy requires an election to be held at the next (March) election and then the regular election for the council seat gets held again in November, so you get a candidate having to run in two elections eight months apart. Measure I says that if the six remaining council members can agree on an appointment to fill the vacancy, the appointee can serve until the next general election.
I can see both sides to this: my concern is that the March election is low turnout, and I would just as soon have the appointee focus on serving the city rather than standing in two elections in the same year.
El Camino Healthcare District Measure S
Yes.
We would move from no term limits for the El Camino Medical Board of Directors to four four-year term limits. Enough time for Directors to gain plenty of experience in the position.
