Editorial | By The Editorial Board
Top photo: Houseboats on Lake Oroville during the 2021 drought. Photo: Frank Schulenburg / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
On Tuesday, Californians will decide whether to keep one of the oldest promises their government makes to them: that before a big project is approved, the public gets to see what it will do and to say so. Proposition 45 would break that promise for any project it labels “essential.” We have urged a No vote before. With three days left, we urge it again, as strongly as we can.
What the measure does
Strip away the affordability slogans and Prop. 45 does four things, according to its text and the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst (LAO; Official Voter Guide). It caps public comment on a draft environmental impact report at 45 days, with no extensions, and orders late comments excluded from the record. It lets a developer offer a single alternative of its own choosing and declares all others unnecessary. It narrows what courts may review and bars them from halting a whole project. And it limits tribal consultation to federally recognized tribes.
Then there is the question its authors never answered in the text: data centers. The measure’s “essential” categories include broadband and everything “incidental to and enable” it. The UC Berkeley law professor Eric Biber, asked whether server farms would qualify, concluded, “I think the answer is likely yes” (Legal Planet). The proponents point to a legislative counsel memo; The Sacramento Bee reported that the memo does not mention Prop. 45 at all (Sacramento Bee). The drafters excluded high-speed rail and the Delta tunnel by name. One more sentence could have excluded data centers. They did not write it.
Who is paying, and who is opposed
Supporters had raised about $45.3 million to opponents’ $30.1 million as of mid-October, according to CalMatters (CalMatters). Politico reported that PG&E, Edison International and Sempra had given more than $7 million combined, and California Resources Corporation, the state’s largest oil producer, $1 million (Politico). Against them stands an unusual coalition: the State Building and Construction Trades Council alongside the Sierra Club, firefighters, nurses, the League of Women Voters and the California Democratic Party (No on 45).
Voters have noticed. In July, before the ballot label existed, the Public Policy Institute of California found 73 percent of likely voters favored the idea. By September, with the official title and summary in hand, it was 49 percent yes and 46 percent no (PPIC).
The fair argument, and the better answer
The Yes side is right that California takes too long to build, and that the California Environmental Quality Act has been abused by litigants seeking leverage. But the state has a better tool than a sweeping initiative. In June 2025, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 130 and SB 131, exempting most urban infill housing from CEQA, targeted fixes that the Legislature can revisit (Office of the Governor). Prop. 45 could be amended only by a two-thirds vote and only to “further its purposes.” Its mistakes would be locked in. And nothing in it requires a single rent or utility bill to fall, while the Legislative Analyst projects new government costs likely in the high tens of millions of dollars a year (LAO).
California’s coast, rivers and neighborhoods were not protected by accident. They were protected by a law that lets ordinary people see what is coming and object in time. Polls close at 8 p.m. Tuesday. Vote No on Proposition 45.
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