Why are former parks officials upset about a health bond?

Did someone forward you this email? Sign up here.

Hello and welcome back to Capitol Confidential! 

It’s Wednesday, and another day of ballot measure news. As a reminder, voters are staring down 14 ballot measures this November. 

It’s a hefty list of proposals, eclipsing the amount that appeared on ballots the last four consecutive election years. So if it feels like an especially long ballot this year – I promise you, it’s not your imagination. 

A controversial ballot measure that would raise billions for health research is drawing unlikely foes in several current and former California state park officials. 

Prop 38 would authorize the state to borrow $8.4 billion in general obligation bonds for immunology and immunotherapy research, presented as a way of backfilling some of the widespread cuts to federal research funding by President Donald Trump. 

The funds would be split between a new University of California-affiliated nonprofit institute and a grant program for public or nonprofit research institutions. Half of the research money is also earmarked to specifically fund research on cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s.

Supporters include the Parkinson’s Foundation, the ALS Association, the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and the American Nurses Association of California, among other health professional organizations. Gov. Gavin Newsom said he plans to vote for the measure in November. 

The opposition camp is headed by Robert Kaplan, a senior scholar at the Clinical Excellence Research Center at Stanford School of Medicine and David Panush, a veteran legislative adviser and president of consulting firm California Health Policy Strategies. They object to the use of bond funds to support scientific research rather than general budgeting processes, and criticize it as inflexible and lacking transparency.

Others urging a no vote include the League of Women Voters of California and California Common Cause – the two progressive groups forming an unlikely alliance with the conservative-aligned anti-tax group, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, which opposes virtually every bond measure.

This week, the measure attracted a new front of opposition from a trio of current and former California state parks professionals and officials. 

That might prompt a reasonable question: What do parks even have to do with a health bond?

Ruth Coleman, executive director of trade organization California Parks Hospitality Association, joined the No on Prop 38 campaign to decry the ballot measure’s possible impacts on other state funding priorities, including public parks. 

“Any measure that increases our bonded indebtedness increases pressure on programs like state parks,” Coleman said at a Tuesday news conference. 

Coleman is a former director of California State Parks and a former fiscal analyst in the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the state’s nonpartisan fiscal and policy analysis organization. She warned that because the bond’s repayment takes priority, it could cut into the state’s ability to pay for other programs in leaner years. 

The Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates the measure will cost the state $500 million to $600 million annually for about 20 years in bond repayment costs. 

While Coleman clarified she doesn’t think that bonds themselves are bad, and that they have helped fund public parks in recent years. She and two other former parks professionals, however, warned that funding for public spaces could fall on the cutting room floor if the bond passes. In economic downturns, Coleman said legislators have looked at parks funding as “a nice to have, but not a must have.”

In 2024, California voters approved Prop 4 to authorize $10 billion in bonds for projects to reduce climate risks and impacts, and committed $190 million to the statewide parks program. 

Some of the largest professional groups and state park advocacy organizations do not typically wade into ballot measure endorsements, such as the California State Parks Foundation and California State Park Rangers Association. As of Tuesday, the No campaign did not count any organizations representing parks, conservation or the environment among its list of endorsements. 

Robin Swanson, spokesperson for the Yes on 38 campaign, said in a statement to Capitol Confidential that the ballot measure would not compete with other priorities, as it is “designed to pay for itself.” 

Prop 38 requires that the institutes receiving the funds try to generate the most revenue possible from the funded research, and that 10% of any related revenues go to the state. According to a report by the Legislative Analyst’s Office, that potential revenue source is “uncertain,” describing it as dependent on how many research projects lead to marketable treatments, and how successful they are. 

Swanson said the measure will provide billions in “vitally needed funding to advance breakthrough immunology research to develop life-saving treatments and cures for the most persistent and debilitating diseases.”

The measure has sparked criticism for its hyper-specific language that appears to ensure half the billion-dollar funds go directly to the California Institute for Immunology & Immunotherapy, the sole institution that meets the measure’s criteria. The ballot measure’s proponent and largest financial backer, philanthropist Gary Michelson, is a co-founder of the California Institute for Immunology & Immunotherapy. 

These controversial requirements are a stark contrast with a competing science bond ballot measure that failed to secure a spot on the November ballot. 

Sen. Scott Wiener introduced SB895 in the first few weeks of the legislative session, which began as a $23 billion bond measure designed to backfill Trump cuts to science and health research. After months of debates and enduring a significant slash down to $12 billion, the measure appeared poised for the November ballot. But in obscure last-minute negotiations involving top Democratic leadership and the governor’s office, the measure was punted to 2028. The bond amount was also cut down further, to $7.5 billion. 

In his position statement, Kaplan pointed to Wiener’s bond as a better alternative to Prop 38, which proposes creating a new state agency to distribute and manage the funds, and would be able to meet changing funding and research needs rather than committing the funds to specific institutions and research areas indefinitely. 

Trump last year froze more than $600 million to fund UC research that a judge eventually restored months later. The National Institutes of Health under Trump also scaled back the number of new research grants it funded in 2025 to 3,900 from 5,000 the year before under President Joe Biden. 

Grants for Alzheimer’s disease research were cut in half and new cancer research grants dropped by 23%, according to federal data. 

Backers of Prop 39, a measure to implement voter ID requirements, say their plan will solve two of the criticisms conservatives often lob at California’s election system. 

One, they contend the state’s vote-counting process is riddled with fraud, despite a lack of evidence, and two, that they think the state takes too long to count votes. 

But experts say the measure’s requirements would slow down, not speed up, vote-counting, as the Chronicle’s Sara DiNatale reported. 

Prop 39 would require voters to show ID each time they cast a ballot in person. 

For the millions of Californians who vote by mail, the process is more convoluted: They would have to register a PIN that’s either the last four digits of their Social Security number or their driver’s license number, or request a free “voter ID” with a number on it. Voters would then need to write the number on their ballot envelope. Election offices would then have to check and verify the number. 

Critics say that means essentially 26 million people would have to re-register to vote across California.

Assembly Member Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego, has cast Prop 39 as a simple and necessary change to fortify voters’ trust in state elections.

But elections officials are pushing back against that contention. 

DeMaio suggested during his podcast that there will be a “scanning” system for the PIN numbers that accompany millions of mail-in ballots. But that would require infrastructure and technology that election offices don’t yet have. 

“The notion that this will speed up the process is asinine,” said Stephen Richer, a Republican former recorder of Maricopa County, Ariz. “I don’t know how having an additional requirement could possibly make the process go faster.”

Brittany Stonesifer, an attorney and voting rights advocate with nonprofit California Common Cause, said the new PIN process would “absolutely result in valid mail ballots being rejected” and said there was no evidence it would increase voting security. 

Assembly Member Gail Pellerin, D-Santa Cruz, who is the head of the Assembly Elections Committee and a former elections official, agrees with the criticisms. She told the Los Angeles Times that under Prop 39, not only would some voters’ ballots be rejected by mistake, but the measure would “absolutely” slow down counting.

The Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates the measure would cost the state and local governments tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars.

The San Francisco Chronicle’s 2026 voter guide is here, with all the need-to-know information about this year’s election. 

For those of you in the Bay Area, that includes guides about your local ballot measures and races. For the rest of us, it’s a very useful guide for all the state races, including the very long list of statewide ballot measures. 

Confused about the propositions? Out of the loop on the lesser-known statewide races like controller and insurance commissioner? We’ve got you. 

Check out the interactive voter guide for California and Bay Area elections.

Questions? Thoughts? Interesting tidbits to share? Reach out at [email protected], and follow me on X, @KathrynPlmr.