Propositions on the Fall 2026 California Ballot

Three Wednesdays: Sept. 23, Sept. 30, and Oct. 7 | 9:30 a.m. – 12 noon
Bethany Congregational Church | 556 N. Hope Avenue, Santa Barbara
VISTAS member price: $40; non-member price $60

Presented by Ted Anagnoson
Want to tax billionaires? You’ll have your chance on this fall’s ballot, where Prop. 40 will levy a 5% tax on billionaires’ assets if they were CA residents as of 1/1/26. Or perhaps you would like to fund immunology research by borrowing $8 billion, on a bond issue. You can vote on whether to have more thorough audits of any state program funded by a proposition (more paperwork?)—oh yes, it would also undermine the proposed billionaire tax. Another proposition explicitly undermines that tax: Prop. 42 is funded by wealthy business moguls and has a poison pill that bars taxes that apply retroactively. And as if all of this weren’t complicated enough, Prop. 4 would lift the ban on public campaign financing at the local government level. Another proposition would reform the recall. And to top it off, a proposition would require voter ID—if you vote by mail, you’d need to provide the last four digits of a unique number on your ID. In these three sessions we’ll try to sort all of this out.