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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024
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Business Prevails in Voting

By HOWARD FINE

California’s business community won a sweeping victory in Tuesday’s statewide elections, with the governor’s race and virtually every measure on the ballot breaking its way.

Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s landslide victory in the governor’s race assures business interests that the most anti-business measures coming out of the Democrat-controlled state Legislature will be vetoed.

And all five of the ballot measures in the $37 billion infrastructure bond package crafted by Schwarzenegger and the Legislature,heavily supported by business interests,passed Tuesday, as did a separate water and park projects measure.

In addition to funding repairs on the state’s overcrowded highways, decaying water works and overburdened schools, the bond package should provide tens of thousands of engineering and construction jobs over the next decade.

Meanwhile, all the tax measures opposed by the state’s major business interests went down to defeat. Most notably, the $4 billion oil extraction tax that generated $150 million in campaign spending on both sides was handily defeated by a 55% to 45% margin.

Voters also rejected a hefty cigarette tax, a parcel tax for school construction and a measure to set up a public finance system for campaigns that would have been financed by a $200 million tax on corporations.

Locally, voters extended half-cent sales tax Measure M for transportation projects, which was backed by business.

In Newport Beach, voters resoundingly rejected tightening the city’s slow-growth law. Real estate and other business interests opposed Measure X, known as Greenlight II.

The original Greenlight passed in 2000 and requires that major projects be put to a vote.

In a move of interest to Anaheim, Pasadena voters rejected a measure that would have allowed the National Football League to lease the Rose Bowl and renovate the stadium for a football team.

Anaheim is competing with the Rose Bowl and Los Angeles Coliseum to host a football team.


Fine is a staff writer for the Los Angeles Business Journal.

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