How this year’s ballot measures show California’s growing political divide

The dozen ballot measures Californians weighed in on this month were a grab bag of reforms, addressing corporate taxation, rent control, criminal justice and other topics. Though the proposals varied, the results showed a clear divide: Los Angeles County and San Francisco Bay Area voters far apart from the rest of the state on most issues.

It’s a gulf that has grown in recent years, as choices in the state’s two major population centers have grown more and more different from those in suburban and rural counties.

One result is that ambitious, progressive propositions have been rejected, despite majority support in dense, liberal enclaves.

That was seen this year in the failures of Propositions 15 and 16.

Each tackled a decades-old, voter-approved ballot measure with roots in the state's history of conservatism. Proposition 15 asked voters to partially undo a landmark property tax rule enshrined in 1978. Proposition 16 asked for a full-scale repeal of 1996’s affirmative action ban. In both cases, L.A. and the Bay Area voted in favor, while the rest of the state opposed the changes.

The defeats underscored a reality of the state’s political calculus. For a ballot measure to prevail, support from L.A. County and the nine-county Bay Area is not enough. Together the two areas have a little less than half of the state’s registered voters.

The divide was also stark on other measures, sometimes with a different result. In two cases, voters in L.A. and the Bay Area were strong enough to carry initiatives opposed by the rest of the state to victory.

Even on topics where the two parts of the state agreed, their enthusiasm differed, sometimes significantly.

Two ballot measures addressing criminal justice reforms illustrate this point. Voters across the state supported Proposition 17, which gave people with felony convictions the right to vote while on parole. But the margin of victory was 30 points higher in L.A. and the Bay Area.

Voters in the urban enclaves were also more enthusiastic in rejecting Proposition 20, which aimed to toughen sentences for some criminal offenses.

Across the 12 ballot measures, L.A. and the Bay Area were separated from the rest of the state by 10.6 percentage points on average.

The Times analyzed results of the 68 propositions that have been on the ballot with presidential general elections since 2004 and calculated that same gap for each year. The number has been steadily increasing.

L.A. and the Bay Area are in lockstep now, but it wasn't always the case. In 1978, Proposition 13 rode a wave of outrage and capped property taxes throughout the state. San Francisco was one of three counties to vote against the initiative, while L.A. supported the Republican-backed measure in greater numbers than the state overall.

Four decades later, L.A. and the Bay Area were united in favor of this year's Proposition 15, which would have partially overturned the old measure’s effects. But voters in Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties were not swayed. The measure couldn't top 40% support in any of the three counties, and it failed.