Science
Mexico may legalize magic mushrooms. Will this traditional medicine lose its meaning?
Alejandrina Pedro Castañeda opened a brown paper package and pulled out a handful of magic mushrooms, which many residents of this Indigenous Oaxacan town tenderly refer to as “child saints” or “the little ones that sprout.”
Then she handed each of her six visitors — who had driven seven hours from Mexico City and paid up to $350 apiece for a healing retreat — a generously sized portion, prompting a few dubious looks.
It was nighttime, and the guests were sitting in a hut that was barely illuminated by two candles, making it difficult for them to see what they were about to eat.
Pedro Castañeda has used mushrooms in her healing practice for years and was comfortable stepping outside as the group crunched slowly in silence.
One person said the fungi tasted like stale popcorn. Another tasted dirt.
The healer returned a few minutes later.
“Now we’re starting the trip,” she said. “Let’s go to work.”
Indigenous communities in Mexico have long considered psychedelic mushrooms to be intermediaries to the spiritual world. But their growing popularity outside of Mexico has spurred a debate over who should have access to them and whether science and Indigenous medicine can or should be reconciled.
Magic mushrooms have been used in Mesoamerican religious rituals since pre-Hispanic times. But it wasn’t until the 1950s that a New York banker and mushroom enthusiast named R. Gordon Wasson made them famous — perhaps too famous — in the Western world.
(Alejandra Rajal / For The Times)
Some Indigenous healers are courting tourists. Scientists interested in their chemical properties have been studying mushrooms in hopes of developing treatments for depression and other mental health problems. And growing demand from recreational users has fueled a thriving black market.
Currently, the fungi can only be used in Indigenous rituals or in government-approved research. But a senate bill proposes making psilocybin, a psychedelic compound in the mushrooms, more widely available.
In addition to making psilocybin available to anyone with a doctor’s prescription, the bill would permit therapy that uses the actual mushroom that a government office of traditional medicine would help regulate. It also calls for scientific research on Indigenous medicine and providing compensation to Indigenous people for “patents” involving their traditions.
The bill’s supporters say that they’re trying to protect Indigenous medicine by making sure the traditional use of magic mushrooms is enshrined into law.
But the prospect of expanding the availability of magic mushrooms has created friction within Indigenous communities that have used them for centuries. Will the spirituality associated with this traditional medicine be lost?
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Magic mushrooms have been used in Mesoamerican religious rituals since pre-Hispanic times. A mural from the ancient city of Teotihuacán, just outside Mexico City, shows the Toltec rain god Tlaloc with two figures alongside him holding mushrooms that have risen from where his raindrops fell. A Franciscan missionary documenting 16th century life in New Spain referred to the mushrooms as the “flesh of the gods.”
But it wasn’t until the 1950s that a New York banker and mushroom enthusiast named R. Gordon Wasson made Mexico’s magic mushrooms famous — perhaps too famous — in the Western world.
On a trip to Huautla, in southern Mexico, he ate mushrooms with Indigenous Mazatec healer María Sabina and wrote about the experience in a 1957 article for Life magazine titled “ Seeking the Magic Mushroom.” The story inspired thousands to travel to Huautla — some seeking out Sabina. The Mexican press described the foreigners as addicts, and the military ultimately set up a checkpoint on the road to Huautla to try to block the outsiders.
In July 1970, Reuters reported: “Hundreds of hippies are braving imprisonment and fines to penetrate this mushroom paradise in the State of Oaxaca, where the authorities are conducting a drive against mushroom eaters.”
Wasson said he felt guilty about the crowds in a New York Times op-ed published later that year. A “humble out-of-the-way” town had been overrun by “a torrent of commercial exploitation of the vilest kind.”
“The old ways are dead,” he wrote, “and I fear that my responsibility is heavy, mine and María Sabina’s.”
In an interview toward the end of her life, Sabina described how some outsiders would take the mushrooms “at whatever time and whatever place” and “don’t use them to cure themselves of a sickness.”
“From the moment the foreigners arrived to search for God,” she said, “the saint children lost their purity.”
In the mid-20th century, psilocybin was classified as a Schedule I substance in the U.S. — which put the kibosh on research. But interest in scientific research on mental health and psilocybin was rekindled in the 1990s.
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Psilocybin is thought to boost neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to form new neural connections, and research indicates that it may be successful in treating depression, anxiety and substance abuse. Parts of the United States have legalized or decriminalized the substance. (Oakland decriminalized magic mushrooms in 2019.)
“That plasticity enhancement may allow people to shift how their brain is functioning into a mode that’s more helpful, more adaptive, that’s going to promote mental health,” said Greg Fonzo, who co-directs the Center for Psychedelic Research & Therapy at the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin.
Alejandrina Pedro Castaneda, who has used mushrooms in her healing practice for years, hosts a mushroom ceremony once or twice a week.
(Alejandra Rajal / For The Times)
Some people who ingest magic mushrooms report overwhelming feelings of joy or the presence of family. Others have said they feel deeply sad or that they are having an out-of-body experience.
The risk of a lethal overdose is considered very low, Fonzo said. What’s more common is having a difficult experience or a “bad trip” due to anxiety.
Pedro Castañeda, who compares the bill with a birth certificate, supports the legislation, insisting the world must not forget that the Mazatecs, as well as other Indigenous communities, have preserved rituals with magic mushrooms for centuries.
“The medicine is not protected now. It’s out of control,” she said. “Everyone has it in their home, like cannabis,” she said, referring to black market purchases. “What we need is a record that says the Mazatecs are the custodians, the Mazatecs are the ones that for millennia have defended the medicine.”
But other Mazatecs in Huautla are worried about appropriation and misuse, that traditions associated with Indigenous culture will be disrespected as increasing numbers of people rush to pick up their prescriptions.
In an Indigenous mushroom ceremony, the healer will use mushrooms to communicate with their spiritual world to inquire about a patient’s illness. A patient may also experience revelations.
If the bill passes, “It’ll be taken like an aspirin,” said Isaias Escudero Rodriguez, a local doctor. It will no longer have the “spirituality that it carries for us.”
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The push to legalize magic mushrooms in Mexico dates back to the early days of the pandemic. Alejandra Lagunes, 52, a senator in Mexico’s national congress, started to experience anxiety attacks that were reminiscent of the severe depression she suffered in her 20s. The depression from decades ago, she said, was resolved after she took ayahuasca — a psychoactive brew made from the Amazonian Banisteriopsis caapi vine — with an Indigenous healer.
Lagunes researched psychedelics and introduced legislation in November to increase access to magic mushrooms while recognizing the long tradition of Indigenous medicine. She hopes it opens the door for non-Indigenous Mexicans to learn from Indigenous practices.
The initiative has supporters at Mexico’s National Institute of Psychiatry, where scientists have government permission to investigate the potential therapeutic effects of magic mushrooms.
Jesús María González Mariscal, a clinical psychologist in Mexico City who has advised the senator, said much can be learned from traditional medicine, including the importance of companionship in Mazatec mushroom ceremonies. These ceremonies occur at night under the guidance of a healer with candles, flowers, incense and an altar with Catholic images. A patient’s family members may accompany them.
The result, Mariscal said, “is a space of care and protection so a person can explore their inner world in a context that’s safe, trustworthy and ethical” — and that’s what Mexico City psychotherapist Oscar O’Farrill is trying to teach his students.
O’Farrill runs a master’s and doctoral degree program affiliated with the National School of Psychologists and Experts of Mexico where his approximately dozen students listen to Indigenous guest speakers talk about traditional medicine. He schedules group therapies in his home, a two-story house where a large container on his kitchen counter has powder from lion’s mane, a non-psychedelic mushroom, that he takes with his morning coffee. Indigenous healers have led his students through ceremonies with mushrooms, peyote and bufo, the smoked secretions of a Sonoran desert toad.
“Psychiatry in this moment can’t understand what psilocybin is if it doesn’t understand all the aspects of the customs of Indigenous people,” he said. “Like it or not, the mushrooms have a spirit.”
But Eros Quintero, a biologist who co-founded the Mexican Society of Psilocybin in 2019, said he would have preferred that Indigenous communities were not singled out in the bill, that psilocybin simply be reclassified.
Indigenous people, he said, may not view illness through the prism of Western science. In Mazatec culture, for example, people may believe that a person fell ill because they walked through a cave where spirits are thought to reside or broke a communal rule.
“They have their own traditions and their own way of seeing things, and what we see is that there are few who are interested in what we’re interested in with psilocybin,” he said.
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Huautla presents itself as a place for the mushroom-seeker.
Taxis decorated with images of small mushrooms speed up and down narrow mountain roads that are lined with tin-roofed houses. In the summer, when mushrooms are in season, locals wait by a bus terminal to offer the fungi to tourists. Prices vary, but a dozen pairs of mushrooms (they’re sold by the pair) may cost $25 and a ceremony can cost $90 or more. After mushroom season, the fungi are often preserved in jars with honey.
Several signs announce the home of the family of María Sabina — who died in poverty in 1985 but whose life has since been celebrated in Mexican culture. Her descendants, who live on the property where Sabina once resided, maintain a small museum filled with portraits of the healer and sell mushroom-themed crafts.
Anselmo García Martínez, a farmer and a great-grandson of Sabina, says he was about 6 when he tried mushrooms for the first time during a ceremony with relatives who were accompanying a sick family member. (Many other locals say they first consumed mushrooms as children.)
Like some other residents, he said he didn’t mind if mushrooms are allowed outside Indigenous rituals because the general public already has access to them through the black market.
But he issued a reminder: “For us, for the Mazatecs, it’s something sacred.”
Lagunes said she’s invited Indigenous people to the forums she has sponsored, and last year she posted a video on the social media platform X that showed her with several healers and indigenous people in Huautla. They presented her with a baton that she said she’d carry to “bring the voice and knowledge of ancestral medicine to the place that it deserves.”
But some opponents have said that the Mazatec people haven’t been properly consulted on whether the bill should move forward, reminding supporters that, for the moment, there is no infrastructure to make it happen. Santos Martínez, one of the founders of Caracol Mazateco, a civil society group focused on preserving Mazatec culture, agrees there hasn’t been enough outreach to the Mazatecs.
Martinez said his experiences with magic mushrooms transformed his life. As a medical student working at a clinic in the state of Puebla, he fell into a depression after seeing patients suffer from inadequate care. He returned to his community in Huautla, where he participated in mushroom ceremonies, hoping they would help him find direction in his life.
During the ceremonies he felt happy and had visions of family members, including his grandfather. “It was as if he was saying, ‘adelante, hijo,’” he said, or, “go forward, son.”
Francisco Javier Hernandez García, a Huautla healer who leads mushroom ceremonies for tourists almost daily at some points of the summer, fears that mushrooms will “lose respect” if they are legalized for therapy outside of the Indigenous context.
Like others, he spoke about mushrooms as carrying wisdom.
“They sprout because they are waiting for that person,” he said, referring to the one who will eat them. “They already know who carries problems.”
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In mid-April, O’Farrill organized a trip for six people — including himself — to visit Pedro Castañeda for the healing retreat. Two people, a man who works for a Wall Street asset management firm and a woman training to guide people during mushroom trips, had flown in from the U.S. A mother and daughter, both psychologists, and a literary editor were from Mexico.
They spent three days at the home of Pedro Castañeda, who lives with eight dogs in a house that has several floors under construction. She hosts a mushroom ceremony for locals or tourists once or twice a week and said that the “great spirit” tells her how many mushrooms to give each person.
The members of O’Farrill’s group had individual therapy sessions with Pedro Castañeda in which she asked them about their insecurities. After her guests ate mushrooms, Pedro Castañeda asked several of them to sing. At one point, the editor began to suddenly cry, and the younger psychologist said she felt pain, prompting the healer to rigorously brush her with a feather in a cleansing ritual. A few minutes later, the psychologist said she was having visions of “injustice in jail.”
The next morning, the group hiked — mostly barefoot — the Mountain of Adoration, which the Mazatecs consider sacred.
At the top of the mountain, which overlooked Huautla, the healer gave each person cacao beans to leave as an offering, giving thanks for the previous night. They placed them on a tower of rocks jutting out from the mountain, next to many little mounds of cacao left earlier by other visitors.
A trio of satellites set to launch early Tuesday will give wildland firefighters more time to respond and scientists more information about fire-prone regions across the globe.
The launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base is the first phase in a constellation called FireSat that will eventually cover the globe with 50 satellites collecting high-resolution imagery of fires and conditions on the ground every 20 minutes.
Earth Fire Alliance, the nonprofit group behind FireSat, got the project off the ground with $69 million in grants from the Bezos Earth Fund, Google and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
San José-based Muon Space built the satellites. Muon and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection are both FireSat partners.
The satellites use advanced thermal sensors to detect heat and can pick up signals from fires as small as a beach bonfire, as well as cooler fires that have been smoldering for days, according to Michael Falkowski, lead scientist at Earth Fire Alliance. That information will help fire officials, including the Los Angeles and Los Angeles County fire departments, understand whether blazes are growing, where they are headed and how much soot and smoke they are generating.
FireSat’s infrared instruments detected this small roadside fire in Medford, Ore., during a 2025 test flight.
(Muon Space)
“If we can differentiate between a smoldering fire and a flaming combustion fire, it really has a big impact on how we can understand the air quality emissions coming off the fire,” Falkowski said.
Fires that burn at low temperature produce more harmful gases than hot fires. Think about a campfire. When it’s burning hot with bright flames, there is relatively little smoke. When it’s smoldering, it produces lots of thick, white or gray smoke.
Wildfires work the same way.
A hot, fast-burning fire has enough oxygen and heat to burn with more complete combustion, producing less smoke for every pound of wood burned.
Earth Fire Alliance will provide data from these first three satellites in the next few months to Cal Fire and fire agencies in Oregon, Texas, Australia and Portugal. Cal Fire will share it with Southern California fire agencies.
The network will also turn its sensors on in the Amazon Basin for the Brazilian nonprofit Amazon Environmental Research Institute.
Cal Fire should begin receiving data from the scientists later this year, according to Falkowski, who joined Earth Fire Alliance last year from NASA, where he was an earth science program manager running the agency’s fire science program.
Instruments on the satellites will be able to detect fires the size of a shipping container, and distinguish between hot, intense wildfires and cooler, smoldering ones.
(Muon Space)
Falkowski said the new FireSat satellites are a big improvement over existing ones because they will be able to see smaller fires with better resolution and distinguish low-intensity “cool” fires from high-intensity hot ones.
“The satellites are really designed to measure fire across the entire temperature profile, so we can see cool fires all the way up to really hot fires,” he said.
That kind of granular information is important for emergency responders in the field and planners who make decisions about calling for extra help or ordering evacuations.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration operates three satellites that can detect a fire somewhere inside a square 1,230 feet across.
In contrast, instruments on the FireSat satellites will be able to detect small brush and roadside fires 16 feet across.
Cal Fire officials have long embraced new technology to get ahead of wildfires in recent years, testing autonomous firefighting helicopters and partnering with UC San Diego to use artificial intelligence to filter images from a network of more than 1,200 cameras on lookout towers and mountain tops. The Alert California program is able to spot smoke in a video and sends automated messages to one of 21 agency command centers across California.
In 2025, Alert California sent out automated warnings before authorities even received 911 calls from the public 51% of the time, according to Phillip SeLegue, staff chief of Cal Fire’s intelligence program.
A worker at Mountain View-based Muon Space puts the final touches on a wildfire-detection satellite scheduled to launch Tuesday on a SpaceX rocket. The satellites will be tracking fires across the globe.
(Muon Space)
FireSat will help incident commanders get better information more quickly, and, unlike fire-spotting aircraft, the satellites can linger over a fire for days or weeks and aren’t hampered by high winds or smoke.
Travis Medema, chief deputy for the Oregon State Fire Marshall, said his office will use FireSat to plan escape routes and monitor fires. “If we can fight these when they are small, we feel we will be more efficient and can protect Oregonians,” he said.
One expert noted that turning satellite data into information useful to firefighters and forestry managers will take some time. The FireSat data will “be amazing for fire nerds, but how and whether it helps individual fires remains to be seen,” said Joe H. Scott, founder of Pyrologix, a wildfire analysis firm based in Missoula, Mont. “Right now, we are not basing decisions on where satellites tell us a fire is,” Scott said.
Pyrologix develops wildfire risk management models for federal agencies, local governments and utilities. Scott said FireSat’s high-resolution data will help him build better prediction models that take into account weather, drought, plants and the history of fires in a region.
California voters will decide 14 statewide propositions in the Nov. 3 election, measures placed on the ballot mostly by either powerful interest groups or lawmakers that will affect the lives of millions of Californians.
While a proposed tax on state billionaires has dominated headlines, voters will also have a chance to weigh in on a number of consequential issues, from healthcare to voter identification requirements and more.
Californians are accustomed to legislating by the ballot and often face a list of propositions. But even by the standards of the state’s direct democracy process, the 2026 election stands out. The campaigns supporting and opposing the ballot measures have already collected more than $100 million in contributions, and are expected to use their money to inundate the television airwaves, livestreams and social media feeds and to flood mailboxes with glossy campaign mailers over the coming months.
Here are the measures on the Nov. 3 ballot:
Proposition 1: The Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026
Spurred by the state’s affordable housing shortage, state lawmakers are asking voters to approve an $11.25-billion bond to boost affordable housing construction around the state.
Advocates say the funds would help build more than 40,000 shovel-ready affordable homes that are unable to move forward because of a financing gap and help preserve thousands of other existing units.
Proposition 1 includes specific funding for high-need groups, including $1.25 billion for a veterans’ home loan program, $1.15 billion for supportive housing for homeless people, $350 million for student housing at state universities, $450 million for farmworker housing and $200 million for Native American tribes.
“In California, we don’t turn away from the needs of our people — we meet them head-on,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom in a statement about the measure. “We are giving voters the power to help shape the future of housing in our state. This bond is about building communities, expanding access and affordability in California, where every family has a fair shot at a place to call home.”
Some Republicans took issue with the measure’s title — “The Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026” — arguing that it included veterans to have broader appeal while doing little to actually help homeless veterans.
“It’s a sad thing to say that you have to use the veterans as bait to get the people of the state of California to approve an $11-billion bond, and I just think that’s shameful,” said Sen. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield), an Army veteran. “Call it what it is. It’s a homeless bond, and it does include some veterans’ benefits, but it is not a veterans bond.”
Proposition 2: Save for California’s Future Act
This measure would give California lawmakers more flexibility over state spending and allow them to save money that could otherwise go back to taxpayers.
The measure, supported by Newsom, seeks to exempt deposits into state savings accounts from a spending limit that voters adopted through a series of ballot measures dating back to the late 1970s, and to increase the share of tax revenue that can be put into the rainy day fund.
Under an existing state appropriations restraint, also known as the Gann Limit, lawmakers cannot spend more than an amount determined by a formula that takes annual tax proceeds, changes to the population and cost of living into consideration. Tax revenue above the limit must be divided between schools and refunds to taxpayers.
The measure could incentivize lawmakers to save more money because funds tucked away in the rainy day fund would no longer be considered expenditures counted toward the spending limit. By allowing lawmakers to set aside more money that is not subjected to state spending limits, it could also allow them to hold onto money that otherwise would be returned to taxpayers under current law.
This proposed constitutional amendment was placed on the ballot by state lawmakers.
Proposition 3: Fund schools and healthcare
If passed, this proposition would make permanent an existing tax on high-income Californians.
The existing tax, passed by voters in 2012 and extended in 2016, is set to expire in 2031. It applies to people who earn more than $360,000 for single filers, $721,000 for joint filers, and $490,000 for heads of household. It adds between 1% to 3% to these high earners’ personal income tax rates.
According to the initiative text, the funds are largely earmarked for local school districts and community colleges, with some portion of the money going to California’s rainy day reserves — which the state uses to prevent cuts to healthcare and other services when revenues decline. The measure says revenues cannot be spent on state bureaucracy or administrative costs.
The state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office expects the measure to bring in between $5 billion and $15 billion annually, depending on how the stock market is performing, with the amount expected to grow over time.
Proposition 4: Public financing of campaigns
This measure would allow the state and local governments to offer public campaign financing to candidates running for elected office. Candidates receiving the funding must abide by expenditure limits and adhere to the criteria set by statute, ordinance or charter to demonstrate broad support, such as demonstrate a large number of small dollar contributions.
None of the public campaign financing can come from funds designated for education, transportation or public safety. The financing cannot discriminate based on party or whether a candidate is a challenger or an incumbent. The public funds cannot be used for legal costs, fines or to pay back personal loans to a campaign.
This measure was placed on the ballot by the California Legislature and governor.
Proposition 5: Recall elections
This measure would change the way recall elections are conducted in California. Under this proposed constitutional amendment, during a recall election, voters would decide solely whether a politician should be removed from their elected position. If the recall is successful, that office would remain vacant until it is filled in accordance with existing law — either by a separate election or by appointment.
Under current law, voters make two separate decisions during a recall election: Whether to remove the subject of the recall from office and, if they are booted, which candidate running to replace them should fill the position. The candidate who receives the most votes wins, even if they receive far less than 50% of the vote.
The proposed constitutional amendment would also allow the recalled politician to run in the next election to fill the vacancy, though they cannot be appointed to their former post. Under the current system, office holders targeted in a recall are barred from being a candidate to replace themselves in that same election.
The proposal comes in the wake of the unsuccessful, Republican-led recall campaign against Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021, which in part tested voter sentiment about his response to the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the sponsors of the recall-reform measure was Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton), who was recalled from office in 2018 after he voted to increase gas taxes for road repairs, legislation pushed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown. Newman won back his seat in 2020.
This proposed constitutional amendment was placed on the ballot by the California Legislature.
Proposition 37: Homeownership loan program
Proposition 37 would create a down payment assistance program to help middle-class Californians buy a new home.
The measure, spearheaded by former state Senate Majority Leader Bob Hertzberg, would allow middle-class California residents — defined as anyone who makes less than 200% of an area’s median income — borrow most of their down payment for a new home that they plan to live in. It is designed to boost construction of single-family homes.
A down payment is traditionally about 20% of the purchase price of a home. If passed, the measure would create a state-administered loan program that offers qualified homebuyers a second mortgage of up to 17% of a home’s sale price.
The proposition would allow the California Housing Finance Agency to issue up to $25 billion in revenue bonds to administer the program.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office does not anticipate the measure to result in direct state or local costs because the costs are meant to be covered by homeowners’ mortgage payments.
Proposition 38: Immunology research bond
Proposition 38 asks voters to approve an $8.4-billion bond to support research in the burgeoning fields of immunology and immunotherapy, which study the human immune system and how it can be used to prevent, treat and cure diseases.
If approved, half of the funding would go toward the creation of a new immunology and immunotherapy research institute affiliated with the University of California. The other half would fund research grants for other California-based universities and nonprofit medical research institutions to study potential treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and heart disease.
The measure has a built-in discount program for Californians — it requires that any technology or drugs developed from bond-funded research be sold to California patients for a price at least 20% below the national average.
Backers of the proposal include the Alzheimer’s Assn., National Multiple Sclerosis Society and other healthcare groups. Supporters argue the funding would facilitate research that could save lives and save patients “billions of dollars in health care costs by preventing and curing a range of debilitating diseases and illnesses,” according to the initiative text.
Proposition 39: Voter identification
Proposition 39 would require Californians to show government-issued identification every time they vote at the polls.
Currently, Californians must affirm under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens and provide information to verify their identity, such as their birth date, driver’s license or Social Security number, when registering to vote, but they don’t have to present identification when they cast their ballot.
Under this measure, voters would also need to present government-issued ID each time they vote in-person at the polls or, if voting by mail, provide the last four digits of a “unique identifying number from government-issued identification” that matches the one they provided when they registered to vote. California would be required to provide free voter ID cards on request, and state and county election officials would be required to verify registered voters are U.S. citizens by using government data.
The voter ID measure has support from Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego), who has framed it as necessary to prevent voter fraud and restore trust. It comes as President Trump is pushing for stricter voter identification requirements and severe limits on voting by mail.
Democrats and voting rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, oppose the measure, saying California’s elections are already secure — voter impersonation and noncitizen voting cases are rare — and that it would make voting harder for many eligible voters, including people who have changed names, move frequently or face housing instability.
According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the measure would make election administration more expensive, costing state and local governments anywhere from tens of millions to low hundreds of millions of dollars annually, plus tens of millions in upfront implementation costs.
Proposition 40: Billionaire tax
This proposition, supported by a healthcare worker union, would impose a one-time tax of 5% on taxpayers and trusts with assets valued at more than $1 billion.
According to a state-prepared summary of the measure, 90% of the tax revenues would be spent on healthcare and 10% would fund food assistance or education-related programs. California’s richest residents would be able to spread the payments over five years.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates it would generate “tens of billions of dollars” spread over several years, but would lead to an annual decrease in state income tax revenues of “hundreds of millions of dollars or more.”
Newsom has publicly opposed the tax, arguing it would lead wealthy residents to leave the state and lead to future budget problems. Other opponents include Planned Parenthood, the California School Boards Assn. and a nonprofit called Building a Better California that is backed by tech execs and venture capitalists.
Some billionaires have already proactively moved themselves or their businesses out of the state because of the proposal, which as written would retroactively apply to residents of the state as of Jan. 1.
Proposition 41: Requires limits and audits on new state special taxes
This is one of two ballot measures crafted by opponents of the proposed initiative to impose a new tax on California billionaires, and it would in effect undercut or curtail that wealth tax.
This proposed ballot measure would also prohibit any new state taxes from being excluded from the state’s current voter-approved spending limit. The proposed billionaire tax would have such an exclusion. If the billionaire tax proposal is approved by voters but this proposal receives more votes, the billionaire tax measure would be voided.
The measure would require the state auditor to conduct a financial and performance audit of proposed ballot initiatives and of the programs they fund. The measure would require audits of any program that would receive funding from the special tax in the proposed initiative to assess the efficiency of the program and recommend who ought to reduce its annual costs by 10%. If the measure passes, the costs of the audits would be paid via the revenues generated by the special tax.
This ballot initiative is one of two so-called poison pills to sink the billionaire tax that is being bankrolled by Building a Better California, which has raised well over $100 million from the state’s most affluent. The largest donor is Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google, who has reportedly moved out of California because of the tax proposal. He donated at least $82 million to the group as of late June.
Proposition 42: Ban on new state personal property taxes
This is one of two ballot measures created by opponents of the proposed initiative to impose a tax on California billionaires, and it would in effect void that wealth tax.
This proposed ballot measure would prohibit new taxes on personal property, intellectual property, retirement accounts and other assets and would limit situations in which a ballot measure or state lawmakers can impose or raise taxes retroactively — both of which are essential parts of the billionaire tax initiative.
If the billionaire tax proposal is approved by voters but this proposal receives more votes, the billionaire tax ballot measure would be voided.
This ballot initiative is one of two so-called poison pills to sink the billionaire tax that is being bankrolled by Building a Better California, which has raised well over $100 million from the state’s most affluent. The largest donor is Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google, who has reportedly moved out of California because of the tax proposal. He donated at least $82 million to the group as of late June.
Proposition 43: Voting thresholds for special taxes
The measure would prohibit local governments from imposing new special taxes unless the proposed tax receives approval from two-thirds of voters. The restriction also applies to citizen initiatives, which currently only need a simple majority vote to be approved.
The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. supports Proposition 43. The advocacy group has characterized the measure as an effort to “save” 1978’s Proposition 13, the landmark initiative that capped California property tax increases and required a super-majority of votes to approve most future tax increases.
Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), who authored the legislation that became Proposition 43 — ACA 22 — opposes the measure and has urged Californians to vote against it. She said the only reason she crafted the bill was because it was a necessary bargaining chip to torpedo another ballot measure backed by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. that would have devastated revenues for local governments and retroactively rescinded some local tax increases.
“I authored ACA 22 not because I wanted it to become law — but because it was the only path left to get the more dangerous initiative off the ballot before time ran out,” Wicks posted on social media.
Proposition 44: Regulate health clinic spending
If passed, Proposition 44 would require federally qualified health centers to spend 90% of their revenue on “program services advancing their charitable purpose” rather than management and overhead. Community clinics that fail to comply would be penalized, with fines placed in a state-managed fund to be spent on clinic workforce programs.
Advocates say clinics spend too much on executive pay and other administrative costs and not enough on patient care. The measure, which would dictate how clinics spend money, is designed to fix that. The measure is backed by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, an influential healthcare workers union, which argues it will help hold clinics accountable.
In May, the California Primary Care Assn., which represents more than 2,300 community health clinics, sued to block the ballot measure. The state’s powerful doctors’ lobby, the California Medical Assn., also opposes the measure, arguing it would ban clinics from keeping funding in reserves and hamper their ability to upgrade equipment or expand to new locations.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that enforcing the measure would cost the government up to the low tens of millions annually, and that much of the cost would be paid for through penalties and fees charged to affected clinics. The office says the measure has “uncertain” impacts and could lead to clinic closures.
Proposition 45: CEQA reform
This proposition would amend the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, and speed up the process for projects deemed “essential,” including certain housing, water, health, public safety, energy and transportation projects.
Jails, detention facilities and oil or natural gas production facilities would not be considered “essential” projects, according to the measure text.
If passed, the measure would set deadlines for public agencies to complete environmental review, allow expedited review of a project’s environmental impacts — currently, public agencies are required to consider a range of feasible alternatives to reduce environmental impacts — and establish deadlines for filing and resolving lawsuits.
CEQA lawsuits have often been used to block construction of housing in the state. For instance, in Berkeley, neighbors used CEQA — citing potential noise impact from partying students — to delay, for years, UC Berkeley’s construction of student dorms on People’s Park.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that the state and local government implementation will cost in the tens of millions of dollars for the first several years. It notes the legislation would probably result in net savings in the long term due to reduced administrative and legal workload.
Times staff writers Seema Mehta and Phil Willon contributed to this report.
Science
July Fourth fireworks may bring ‘hazardous’ air quality to Southern California. What you need to know
L.A.’s love of fireworks makes for a colorful Fourth of July, with dozens of official celebrations and countless illicit explosions expected for the holiday.
But as each sparkler, Roman candle, palm and peony dissipates, it leaves behind a cloud of noxious gases, soot and finely ground toxic metals — some of which ends up in the lungs of revelers and passersby below.
Hazardous levels of air pollution are expected across central and southern Los Angeles County, northern Orange County, and Riverside and San Bernardino counties from 5 p.m. Saturday evening through 3 p.m. Sunday, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Unhealthy air quality is also expected in northern Los Angeles County and southern Orange County.
Pollution levels are expected to build from dusk onward Saturday, as light winds and increased firework activity lead to an increase in smoke, a South Coast AQMD advisory said. Soot and particulates will likely linger through Sunday afternoon before being dispersed by the wind.
Firework-related pollution can trigger coughs, breathing problems, asthma flares and heart attacks, according to Los Angeles County Public Health, and anyone experiencing severe or worsening cardiovascular symptoms like chest pain or difficulty breathing should seek medical attention immediately.
Pyrotechnics set off at home are even more likely to trigger cardiovascular problems, the American Lung Assn. says, as the burst of pollutants takes place closer to the ground.
July 4 and 5 are traditionally two of the worst days of the year for the region’s air quality, according to South Coast AQMD. This year’s celebration comes on the heels of a late June warehouse fire in Boyle Heights that released extraordinary amounts of soot and smoke across the county, on par with pollution generated by the previous year’s wildfires.
To limit negative health effects, the L.A. County public health department recommends avoiding strenuous physical activity and keeping doors and windows closed. As whole house fans and swamp coolers can suck additional pollutants inside, the department recommends using air purifiers or air conditioners as alternatives when possible.
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