Governance & Democracy on the Ballot: Props 39, 5 and 4, with CalMatters’ Juliet Williams Most measures on your ballot are about what government does. These three are about the rules of the game itself: how you prove who you are when you vote, how you throw a politician out, and who pays to run for office. Each says it’s about trust. I sat down with Juliet Williams, CalMatters’ politics editor, to find out which ones earn it. Prop 39: Voter ID. It would amend the state constitution to require a government-issued ID to vote in person, require mail voters to write the last four digits of an ID number on their ballot envelope, and order election officials to verify the citizenship of every registered voter. Assemblymember Carl DeMaio and Reform California put it on the ballot with big money from out-of-state donors. We talk about how California verifies voters today, what the evidence on fraud actually shows, who could get shut out, the fight over the ballot label, and why a measure that polls well nationally has split so sharply along party lines here. Prop 5: Recall rules. Today, a recall ballot asks two questions: should this official go, and who replaces them? The winner of question two can take office with a small fraction of the vote. That’s how Arnold Schwarzenegger beat 134 other candidates in 2003. Prop 5 eliminates the second question, leaving a vacancy to be filled later, and lets the recalled official run again. Juliet explains who would become governor under Prop 5, the case for and against, and how much this is about principle versus the recalls of 2018 and 2021. Prop 4: Public financing of campaigns. Since 1988, the state and most local governments have been barred from publicly financing campaigns. Only a handful of charter cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, can do it. Prop 4 lifts that ban. It doesn’t create a program; it lets the state and local governments create one if they choose. We dig into how LA and San Francisco’s programs have worked, where the money would come from, the strongest criticisms, and why California voters have said no before. We close with the big picture: what would approving or rejecting all three say about how Californians see their democracy, and which one deserves more attention than it’s getting? About Juliet Juliet Williams is the politics editor at CalMatters, where she directs the newsroom’s coverage of California politics. Before that, she spent 22 years at The Associated Press, including as Northern California news editor and as an editor in the Capitol bureau, where she covered the Schwarzenegger and Brown administrations. Follow CalMatters’ politics coverage: https://calmatters.org/author/juliet-williams/ 📋 CalMatters 2026 Voter Guide Voter Guide homepage: https://calmatters.org/california-voter-guide-2026/All 14 propositions: https://calmatters.org/california-voter-guide-2026/propositions/Build your ballot with “My Ballot”: https://calmatters.org/california-voter-guide-2026/my-ballot/Proposition quizzes: https://calmatters.org/california-voter-guide-2026/propositions/quizzes/🗳️ The democracy props: CalMatters guides Prop 39, Voter ID: https://calmatters.org/california-voter-guide-2026/proposition-39-voter-id/Prop 5, Recall reform: https://calmatters.org/california-voter-guide-2026/proposition-5-recall-reform/Prop 4, Public financing: https://calmatters.org/california-voter-guide-2026/proposition-4-public-fundraising/📰 More from CalMatters Prop 5 explainer, by Kate Wolffe: https://calmatters.org/politics/2026/10/california-election-proposition-5-explainer/Prop 4 explainer, by Yue Stella Yu: https://calmatters.org/politics/2026/10/california-proposition-4-explainer/Prop 39 commentary, the case for: https://calmatters.org/commentary/2026/08/voter-identification-proposition-39-elections/Prop 4 commentary, the case for: https://calmatters.org/commentary/2026/10/public-financing-california-elections-proposition/🎙️ Credits Produced by Daniel Huecias. Sponsored by LA Forward. Research and reporting by Mike Wang and the team at the Pat Brown Institute. Missed the registration deadline? You can still register and vote the same day at your county elections office or a vote center. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3. What's Next, Los Angeles? is produced and hosted by Mike Bonin, in partnership with LA Forward.
