Less than a week before Election Day, Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday stopped at the San Diego County Water Authority to rally support for a pair of state ballot measures that he has made the cornerstones of his unprecedented fourth-term re-election campaign.
He stood alongside a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers and civic leaders, including Democratic Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, Republican San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and members of the county's state legislative delegation.
Confident he will glide through on Nov. 4, the 76-year-old Democrat has waged a low-key gubernatorial race against his opponent, Republican Neel Kashkari.
He's focused his television ads not on his re-election but on Proposition 1, a statewide water bond, and Proposition 2, a rainy day fund for the state budget.
Brown's Proposition 1 is a $7.5 billion water bond that would allocate money for water treatment, ecosystem restoration and water storage amid the state's crippling drought.
"We know in history there have been droughts that have lasted decades. And they’ve been devastating. So we have to pull together, use our technology, our wealth, handle the basics. The basics is using water well," Brown said.
"It’s not just a collection of a little bit from here and a little bit for there," he added. "It’s an integrated water plan that takes care of all the different aspects of what’s needed to invest and recycle water."
His second measure, Proposition 2 would create a rainy day fund to help the state in times of budgetary drought.
A recent poll by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California shows Brown leads Kashkari by 16 percentage points.
It also shows that Proposition 1 is ahead, with 56 percent of likely voters saying they favor it, 32 percent against and 12 percent undecided. Support for Proposition 2 was not as strong, with 49 percent of likely voters supporting it, 34 percent against and 17 percent undecided.
Opponents of the water bond say it is pork-barrel spending that would create huge debt by building projects that would do little to help ease the current drought. Some also say it favors Northern California projects over those in the southern part of the state.
Those against the rainy day fund budget measure say it includes a provision that would limit how much money school districts can keep in their reserves and puts their stability at risk.
