Official Arguments (click ▸ to expand)
🚫 San Francisco Chronicle
"If the decision on Prop. 24 were merely about the concept — stopping companies from collecting and exploiting personal information about us without our permission or often without our knowledge — it would be an easy call. But this is a complex, legalistic 52-page initiative crafted behind the scenes, including participation of the companies that are the supposed targets of regulation. It should be evaluated on its details, not merely its good intentions. ... And here is one more thing for voters to consider: If Prop. 24 really were as restrictive and airtight as advertised, is there any doubt that those who are exploiting our personal information as a commodity would be pouring tens of millions into defeating it? Their silence is telling."
🤐 The San Diego Union-Tribune
No stance published.
🚫 American Civil Liberties Union SoCal
"Vote to reject a fake privacy law that benefits big companies and harms the privacy of vulnerable communities.
Prop 24 is a fake privacy law. Instead of protections, it requires people to jump through more hoops and adds anti privacy loopholes: exceptions for big business, less protection for workers, and more power for police. Prop 24 benefits big tech and corporate interests but leaves vulnerable communities the least protected. Vote NO on Prop 24 to make protecting consumer information the default. Privacy is a right, not a privilege."
✅ Los Angeles Times
"We could sink deeply into the history and the behind-the-scenes drama, but in the end, the questions for voters are whether Proposition 24 would make privacy protections stronger, whether it goes far enough to make a meaningful difference, and whether it would enable the state to provide even better protections in the future. The answer to all three is yes. Although California’s current privacy law is the strongest in the country, it has many shortcomings. Its limits apply only to the sale of data, so some sites have circumvented them by claiming they’re not selling personal information, they’re merely sharing it with partners. That’s one of several glaring loopholes that big, data-hoovering sites and platforms such as Google, Facebook and Spotify have exploited."
🚫 The Mercury News
"It’s simply the wrong way to try to go about settling an immensely complex issue. Vote no on Proposition 24. ... Voters should reject Prop. 24. Let’s wait and see how effective the state’s new online law works. If it needs change, give the Legislature a chance to fix any flaws before taking another ballot measure to the people."
🚫 Orange County Register
"The last thing California needs is another state regulatory agency that burdens businesses, especially now, as they adapt to an increasingly online model. ... That won’t bother the tech giants or other large companies, such as banks and insurers. But for small and midsize companies, the legal bills associated with regulatory compliance for every technological upgrade would be strangling. Invention could turn into stagnation. The creative energy that has rushed new products and services into the hands of consumers would be chilled. Never again will tech giants be threatened by a start-up company in somebody’s garage."
🚫 The Desert Sun
“The changes that would be made via Proposition 24 would delete the ability of businesses to correct a violation and avoid financial sanctions. Instead of the state attorney general being the enforcement body, the initiative would authorize the Legislature to spend $10 million per year for a new regulatory agency, staffed by political appointees, to draft regulations for a constantly changing marketplace, police firms that operate within and impose fines for violations….
…Businesses have only just begun trying to coordinate their practices with the Legislature’s CCPA. Throwing a new, dense measure at them, with the real possibility of further changes by a new bureaucracy, is harshly unfair. We should give that law the chance to work and be tweaked, as potentially needed, before shifting gears so abruptly.”
🤷 California Democratic Party
"Would expand or amend the provisions of the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018."
🚫 Republican Party
"No on Prop 24 – Costly, Deceptive Privacy Scheme
Prop 24 creates a new, unaccountable state bureaucracy with vast power over Californians’ personal information. This will cost Californians more money for the exchange of less privacy."