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In October 1979, when Pete Stahl was living at home while taking a year off from college, his mother suggested that each family member–Pete, his two siblings, and his dad, a nuclear physicist–research a portion of that year’s election ballot. Pete’s assignment was to review the ballot propositions and make recommendations about which ones to support.
Such a request was not out of the ordinary in the Stahl household. Throughout his childhood, Pete’s mother had been immersed in politics, running for State Senate and serving as President of the San Diego chapter of the League of Women Voters. In that same vein, she prioritized ensuring that her children were well-versed in current events, including knowing about upcoming elections.
Pete apparently enjoyed his research on the propositions because, prior to the next election, he again analyzed the state ballot measures, but this time he typed up his recommendations and, on a whim, typed PETE RATES THE PROPOSITIONS at the top of the page. He then made a dozen copies which he gave to family and friends. Pete Rates the Propositions was born and, after close to 45 years, is still going strong, with tens of thousands of viewers visiting his site during the “even” years when state propositions are on the ballot.
Why Pete rates
A longtime Mountain View resident, Pete continues to relish the intellectual challenge of researching and evaluating complex and often convoluted propositions. Equally important, he says he feels a responsibility to educate California voters so they can make informed decisions about ballot measures. “The payback for me is in helping people that I know, and, at this point, lots more people that I don’t know, figure things out,” he says. Then too, in some small way, he’s influencing elections’ outcomes.
Ballot measure analyses tend to be as dry as scorched earth. Knowing this, Pete says that he’ll “do anything to relieve the tedium for my readers.” He has multiple ways to do this.
Sometimes he adds some levity. For example, he describes Prop 28, the 2016 proposition to legalize marijuana, this way: “Adults 21 and older will be allowed to buy, hold and smoke. Dudes and dudettes may possess up to an ounce (roughly 40 joints, unless you roll ‘em fat), or eight grams of hash. No toking in your car, or anywhere tobacco smoking is prohibited, like in a movie theater during Star Wars…”
Pete refuses to pull any punches, which tends to keep his prose lively. This year, for example, he describes Prop 33, the proposition to lift restrictions on local rent control, as a “primal scream, a wrecking ball, an earthquake.”
To keep readers entertained–and to keep himself entertained–Pete writes proposition-themed parodies in the spirit of well-known song lyrics and poems: a Dr. Seuss-inspired ditty supporting the repeal of the snack tax (“Tax on snacks. Snacks on tax. Here are facts on tax on snacks…”); a Longfellow-inspired epic in support of a convoluted 2014 proposition to overturn an Indian gaming compact (“On the coast of Humboldt County, By the great Pacific Ocean, By the mighty redwood forests, Lies the Wiyot Reservation…”); and, most recently, a Beverly Hillbillies-inspired takeoff in support of raising the minimum wage.
Back in the day
Pete didn’t put his recommendation on the web until 2003. Before that he produced a paper edition via a process which today sounds mind-numbingly tedious.
After researching the ballot measures, Pete would type up his recommendations, sometimes creating multiple drafts. After that, he’d make copies at a copy shop, fold and seal the copies, address and stamp them, and, finally, put them in the mail. After he’d been rating the propositions for several years, he had a mailing list of three or four hundred names but would make a few dozen extra copies to leave on tables at public libraries or, on occasion, hand out to strangers. One year he passed out his recommendations at a Stanford football game.
With the advent of the Internet, Pete gained access to vast quantities of background information and opposing opinions which have resulted in far more nuanced recommendations than in the early days. But the ongoing availability of new information also means that he is never quite sure when his recommendations are final. This year, for example, he changed his opinion on Proposition 33. At first, he was in favor, and wrote a “yes” rating. Then he read what he describes as a “beautiful, dispassionate, fact-based analysis” by California YIMBY (a pro-housing organization), realized that passage of this proposition would sabotage new building construction, and changed his recommendation to “no.”
Pete is an advocate of what he calls flip-flopping. “I flip-flop loudly because I want people to get comfortable with changing their minds when new information becomes available. That’s something that has disappeared from our political discourse, and it kills me,” he says.
A pragmatic liberal
Pete describes himself as a pragmatic liberal. But that doesn’t mean his opinions are predictable. Many years ago, for example, he opposed a proposition to prohibit the sale of horse meat, a stance that obviously was not popular with animal rights advocates. “To me, this is cultural imperialism,” Pete says. “You may not like horse meat and your friends might not eat it, but there are people who do. We live in a state that has people from every place on the planet and we need to respect them.” The proposition passed.
One of Pete’s criteria for supporting a ballot measure is that the measure does not impinge on the state legislature’s ability to determine how funds are spent. As a result, he sometimes opposes measures which, at first glance, hardly seem controversial but which Pete says amount to “budgeting by ballot box.” Case in point: Two years ago, he opposed a proposition to earmark funds for school arts and music programs. That proposition also passed.
Lest you get the impression that Pete is out of sync with public opinion, his recommendations in the past ten years have been in line with voters’ decisions 60 percent of the time.
The back story
After he graduated from high school in San Diego, Pete went to Harvard where he majored in music theory and composition with the idea that he’d become an orchestrator and arranger. After discovering in his composition classes that virtually all his compositions were unintentionally derivative of whatever he happened to be listening to at the time–an observation which seems prescient given the ease with which he writes proposition-related parodies–Pete changed course, focusing his studies on computer science as well as political science and political history.
After college, Pete moved to the Bay Area and got his first software engineering job; about fifteen years later, he pivoted to specialize in user interface design, working at companies like AOL, eBay, and Cisco.
Redwood Symphony, a Redwood City-based symphony orchestra that concentrates on contemporary repertoire, has played a central role in Pete’s life for decades. Forty years ago, he was a founding member of the symphony and met his future wife, a cellist, there (Pete says he knew she was “the one” when he noticed her walking onto the stage for her first rehearsal with the group). Pete still plays oboe and English horn in that orchestra.
Over the years, Pete has managed to balance his day job, his music, and his work on the propositions, though he admits that when his kids were young, life from September through early November was exhausting. He’d work an eight-hour day, come home from work to take care of the kids, put them to bed, practice the oboe and, around 10 pm, start work on the propositions. Life got considerably less stressful when his kids got more independent and less stressful still when he retired from his full-time job in 2020.
In addition to posting recommendations about ballot measures on his Website, Pete occasionally presents his opinions on the propositions at election gatherings like the one I attended. He also delivers impartial pro/con talks about the propositions for organizations like the League of Women Voters, the Retired Teachers Association, and others.
Pete is not the only one rating the propositions. The League of Women Voters, the ACLU, and the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center all have Websites that do this, and Palo Alto resident and business consultant Jonathan Foster also authors a comprehensive guide, to name just a few options. But there’s something about Pete, his values, his irreverence, and his dedication, that make him my go to source. And there are thousands more voters like me. When discussing the propositions with friends, they’ll often ask, “Well, what does Pete think?”
