The CalChamber poll, The People’s Voice, 2023, found that California voters have grown more anxious and pessimistic about living in California. Moreover, a majority of voters polled say Sacramento policies have “worsened” the condition of the state.
Voters rate economic and cost-of-living issues at the top of their concerns, and wish elected officials spent more time addressing those issues.
Property Tax Reforms
The Proposition 13 property tax reforms remain strongly popular among voters, with 83% reporting a favorable view of the measure, and 44% “very favorable.” Recently, the Legislature placed on next year’s ballot a proposal to reduce the local vote requirement for property and sales tax increases for local public works projects from two-thirds to 55%. Voters disagreed with the proposal by a 41% to 37% margin.
Voters are disinclined to re-elect a legislator who messes with Proposition 13, with 59% saying they would be less likely to re-elect a legislator who voted to place on the ballot the measure that would reduce the local vote requirement for higher taxes.
Health Care
Single-payer health care has been resurrected as an issue in the Legislature. With this in mind, 87% of voters report that they are satisfied with their health insurance (asked of those with insurance), and 45% report that they are “very satisfied.”
Among those with private health insurance, 78% respond that they would rather keep their private insurance, as opposed to switching to a government-run single-payer approach.
Labor Law Reform
On the ballot in November 2024 will be a measure to change how labor laws are enforced in California. It would require Labor Code violations to be handled by independent state regulators, direct 100% of penalties be paid to employees and double penalties for employers who willfully violate labor laws.
Voters support this measure, also known as Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) reform, by a 62% to 16% margin.
Asked further what would be the better way to deal with Labor Code violations, nearly half (49%) of voters surveyed preferred independent state regulators, while 21% preferred trial attorneys.
Methodology
The CalChamber poll was conducted by Bold Decision and Pierrepont Consulting & Analytics with online interviews from October 2–8, 2023 with 1,002 online interviews of California likely 2024 general election voters. The margin of error for this study is +/- 3.1% at the 95% confidence level. This is the ninth year CalChamber has published The People’s Voice survey.
