2020 Elections

California’s Proposition 15 is an amendment to the state constitution that would update how the state assesses property taxes. 

In 2004, Californians approved a $3 bllion bond to fund stem cell research. That money has been pretty much used up and the original backers want to replenish it. Prop 14 is a five-point $5 billion bond to pay for future stem cell research, training, and trials.

  On this edition of Your Call’s Media Roundtable, we are speaking with the Nation’s John Nichols about his new book The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party: The Enduring Legacy of Henry Wallace's Anti-Fascist, Anti-Racist Politics.

  On the This edition of Call’s media roundtable, we’ll discuss coverage of the Coronavirus. The virus has killed at least 3,000 people and has now infected more than 100,000 worldwide. Nurses in the United States say hospitals are woefully unprepared. How are the media covering this outbreak?

For the first time in over a decade, Californians cast their ballots on a “Super Tuesday” along with thirteen other states. People voted on who they want to be the next Democratic presidential candidate and on a handful of measures from school bonds and affordable housing to earthquake safety. Here's a recap.

Most eyes were on the Democratic presidential primary, last night. When polls closed, NPR made a quick call: Bernie Sanders won California. But it wasn’t that simple.

On this edition of Your Call, we discuss Super Tuesday results and what's next. A total of 1,357 delegates were up for grabs.

On this edition of Your Call, we'll disccuss the decision by major Democrats to support Joe Biden in order to stop Bernie Sanders from getting the nomination. Yesterday, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg dropped out to support Biden. Other supporters include Beto O'Rourke, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, and John Kerry. What difference will this make on Super Tuesday?

On this edition of Your Call’s One Planet Series, we continue our coverage of presidential candidates by focusing on their environmental records.

Measure Q is called the Oakland Parks and Recreation Preservation, Litter Reduction, and Homelessness Support Act. 

If that sounds like everything but the kitchen sink, you can think of it as a parcel tax to fund outdoor areas.

About sixty percent of the revenue would go toward maintaining and improving Oakland’s parks, from cleaning the bathrooms to fixing trails.

There’s less an week left  before Californians head to the polls on Super Tuesday. To get a sense of where Bay Area voters stand, we sent KALW’s Sarah Lai Stirland out to a Democratic debate party at a pizza joint on the Peninsula.

Measure K aims to protect open space, parks, and water in Napa County. To do this, the measure would impose a quarter-cent sales tax, expected to bring in $9 million annually for the next 15 years. It would be spent on things like maintaining hiking trails in both county and city parks, restoring watersheds, and managing vegetation to prevent wildfire risk.

On this edition of Your Call, we’ll wrap our coverage of presidential candidates by discussing former Vice President Joe Biden.

The media landscape has changed in this new digital age and Oakland City Council members say there’s a part of the city’s charter that needs to get with the times. This is where Oakland’s Measure R comes in. 

Currently the city’s charter states that the City Council designates the city’s official newspaper for publishing matters of legal and public notice such as election proceedings, awarding of leases and contracts, etc. But for a publication to be an official newspaper it has to be printed and published in Oakland with a minimum 25,000 daily circulation. Newspapers are struggling and the city’s longtime newspaper, the Oakland Tribune, shut down in 2016. 

Measure D is a $90 million bond measure to repair and replace old fire stations in unincorporated parts of Alameda County. 

Are Alameda County voters willing to increase the sales tax to help fund young children’s healthcare and education? That’s what drafters of Measure C want to know. If passed, Measure C — or the Care for Kids initiative — would raise the county’s sales tax by one-half of one percent. This would last for 20 years and generate about $150 million annually. 

  On this edition of Your Call, we continue our series on presidential candidates' records and policies by talking about multi-billionaire businessman and former mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg. 

According to the ad-tracking firm Advertising Analytics, Bloomberg, who is self-funding his campaign, has spent more than $464 million on ads since entering the Democratic presidential race last November. No presidential candidate candidate in US history has spent so much money so quickly. Why is Bloomberg running and what do you want to know about him?

Foster City residents behind the campaign to recall Councilmember Herb Perez say he’s “a bully.” Perez, who is an Olympic gold medalist in taekwondo, was first elected to City Council in 2011. 

Proposition E is trying to play hardball with San Francisco’s housing crisis. The measure states that if San Francisco can’t build more housing, it can’t have new office space either.

Some of San Francisco’s most popular neighborhoods have an empty storefront problem. In North Beach, one in every five storefronts were vacant in 2018. The city says this problem’s on the rise, though it doesn’t know how widespread it is.

On this edition of Your Call, we continue our series on presidential candidates’ by talking about Elizabeth Warren. After being ignored and erased by the media, she came roaring back at last night’s debate. Minutes after the debate began, she slammed Michael Bloomberg by saying, “Democrats take a huge risk if we just substitute one arrogant billionaire for another.” She went on to accuse him of “hiding his taxes, harassing women, and supporting racist policies.”

On this edition of the media roundtable, we’ll discuss coverage of the presidential primaries.

San Francisco’s Prop C is an incredibly small and specific ballot measure, but it’ll likely mean a lot to the handful of people it affects. 

If you live in San Francisco, you’ve likely thought about the ‘Big One.’ So Proposition B probably won’t come as a big surprise. The measure is called the Earthquake Safety and Emergency Response Bond. It would allow the city to issue around $600 million to pay for earthquake-related infrastructure improvements 

On this edition of Your Call, we'll discuss primary results in New Hampshire and where the presidential race goes from here. Bernie Sanders won, followed by Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, and Joe Biden.

Prop A would let City College of San Francisco borrow up to $845 million by issuing bonds. The money would go to buy or construct new buildings and fix up existing ones at the nine campuses to make them safe and energy efficient.

The first thing you should know: This has nothing to do with the Prop 13 most Californians have heard about: That’s the measure that capped property taxes more than four decades ago. This Prop 13 just happened to be assigned the same number.

On this edition of Your Call, we speak with Andrea Bernstein, co-host of the award-winning podcast, Trump, Inc., about her new book, American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power.