Big bucks for ballot measures in 2024 CA election

Latino Los Angeles10/17/2024

1 minute read

A voter casts their ballot at a polling station at the Sacramento County voter registration and elections office in Sacramento on Nov. 8, 2022. Photo by Rahul Lal, CalMatters As California’s 2024 election gets more crowded by the day , some ballot measure campaigns are already building their war chests for the costly fight to come, raising more than $60 million since January.

Last year, nearly $700 million was spent, mostly by companies, to sway voters on seven November measures , the vast majority on two sports gambling measures that both failed .

And, like last year, at least two measures next November will be industry-backed referenda to overturn new laws .

Almost immediately after the passage last year of a law to establish a fast food workers council to set wages and workplace standards for restaurants, fast food chains vowed to fight the bill. By January, they gathered enough signatures to get the referendum on the ballot , freezing the law until after the vote.

And last month, the money started flowing into their campaign. On July 5, In-n-Out cut a $10 million check to the ballot measure committee. Over the next two days, McDonalds, Chick-fil-a and Chipotle all donated $10 million […]