The People’s Voice
Annual Poll Shows Voters’ Priorities for Legislature
Key takeaways for state policy makers are evident in the California Chamber of Commerce poll The People’s Voice 2024, the 10th in a series of annual surveys of California voters.
• Voters want more focus on growing jobs in the state, protecting our economy, and prioritizing spending on housing, law enforcement, homelessness, public education and economic development.
• Voters like direct democracy through the state’s initiative process but remain concerned about costs, including the cost of homeownership and energy policies.
• Voters remain steadfast in their opposition to new taxes and polices that would advance single-payer health care.
Growing Jobs
More than 90% of voters agree that California needs to do more to attract and retain businesses in the state. By a 71% to 12% margin, voters say that “good paying jobs are hard (versus easy) to find,” and a plurality (45%) report that “major employers or businesses have left their community in recent years to relocate to another state (that is, outside California).”
Views on Sacramento Policies
Only 37% of voters agree that the policies from Sacramento have improved their lives, leaving an opportunity for the new Legislature to step in and change outcomes.
Voters were asked to judge the Legislature on how effectively they are spending on various priority programs. Trust was wide-ranging.
Opinions were about evenly split on the effectiveness of wildfire prevention and response and water supply and conservation, while public safety and addressing climate change received a 43% approval on effective spending. At the far end of the spectrum was the effectiveness of spending on homelessness, which received overall negative reviews from 85% of voters.
Spending Priorities
In assessing policy priorities in a possibly tight state budget context, voters were asked to select which programs should or should not be protected against cuts.
Top priorities for keeping in place (based on the percentage of those polled choosing them) were programs for housing, law enforcement and homelessness, with economic development and public schools in the next tier. On the other side, voters pointed to benefits for undocumented residents, prisons, courts and climate change programs as lowest priority for spending.
No New Taxes
The venerable citizens’ initiative that stabilized property taxes, Proposition 13 from 1978, continues its nearly five-decade run of popularity — viewed favorably by 85% of voters.
Voters also are highly skeptical of weakening Proposition 13. In 2020, Californians rejected a ballot measure that would have enacted a split roll property tax to raise billions in new taxes on property used by businesses and farmers. It’s possible that California voters will consider this measure once again in a future election.
By a 3-to-1 margin, voters want to hold the line on new taxes rather than raise taxes for essential programs.
February 2025
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Martin R. Wilson
Executive Vice President, Public Affairs