Use AI This Election - by Scott Alexander
Astral Codex Ten
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Use AI This Election<br>...<br>May 26, 2026
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I’m not saying AI is superintelligent or can decide better than you can. I’m saying that if you - like me - spend an hour or so doing research before voting on local seats, AI can aid that research very effectively. And if you don’t do that research - because you weren’t willing to waste an hour on it before - AI makes it so much faster that you might want to start.<br>I gave Claude a prompt something like (edited for coherence):<br>I’ll be voting in the June 2026 California primary. I’m a centrist liberal abundance YIMBY whose favorite political writers are Kelsey Piper, Matt Yglesias, and Ezra Klein. I’m wary of government overreach, but I’m not a doctrinaire libertarian and want to help people when we can figure ways to do it that work. I’m going to ask you about each race on my ballot, and I’d like for you to list the various candidates’ bios, policies, endorsements, your read on the most important differences between them, and your advice for me as I try to make my choice.
…and got back answers like the following:<br>California Superintendent of Public Instruction<br>A quick reality check on the office, then the field. The state superintendent has surprisingly little direct authority — districts control most budget and curriculum — and the state is actively considering shifting more responsibilities to the governor-appointed State Board of Education, which would shrink it further. The job is mostly a $150B-budget bully pulpit. So this is more “who do you want amplifying education priorities for the next four years” than “who will rewrite California education.”<br>The race is on the standalone education ballot (it doesn’t follow the nonpartisan blanket primary system) — June 2 primary, November 3 runoff if no one clears 50%. Realistically no one does, so this primary is about who advances.<br>Quick framing: what “the Kelsey Piper view” implies<br>Piper’s project, especially in her recent Argument writing, sits at the intersection of several positions that don’t all naturally cluster:<br>Structured literacy / “science of reading” / Mississippi Miracle is real and works. Phonics-first, mastery-based, with district-level accountability and reading coaches in low-performing classrooms. She has called the failure to adopt this “a crime against humanity” in California.<br>Standardized testing and accountability are good, actually. Not as bludgeons but as honest feedback mechanisms. Detracking failed. Grade inflation is bad.<br>Open to charters, microschools, and school choice. She founded and runs Oakland LEARN, a microschool. She sends her own kids to an “unregulated tiny private school.” She thinks the left’s reflexive hostility to choice misunderstands what parents are actually fleeing (kids not learning to read).<br>Skeptical of teachers’ unions when they block reform. Not anti-teacher, but pro-evidence over pro-union-priority when they conflict.<br>Pro-public-school in principle, but pro-evidence over pro-system. Treats education as a place where the left has often chosen ideological commitments over the well-being of kids who do not vote.<br>The candidate who matches this view best probably (a) has explicitly backed structured literacy/phonics, (b) has shown willingness to push the system rather than just defer to CTA, and (c) is at least not hostile to charters or alternative models. The candidate who matches it worst would be a CTA-backed insider running on “more funding, less testing, no curriculum mandates.”<br>The candidates<br>Al Muratsuchi (Assemblymember, LA South Bay, former Education Committee chair). Co-authored the law that funded phonics-based reading instruction grounded in the science of reading. Co-authored Prop. 2 ($10B school facilities bond, passed). Adjunct college teacher, former deputy AG. Endorsed by California Federation of Teachers (CFT, the smaller of the two teachers’ unions), Association of California School Administrators, and California School Employees Association.<br>Anthony Rendon (former Assembly Speaker 2016–2023). Ran an early-childhood program in LA for 20 years before politics. As Speaker oversaw major K-12 funding increases, universal transitional kindergarten, and charter school accountability legislation (which generally tightened charter regulation rather than loosened it). Endorsed by AFSCME, SEIU California, California Latino Caucus.<br>Joshua Newman (former state senator, former Senate Education Committee chair). Co-authored Prop. 2 with Muratsuchi. Army veteran, founded a vets-to-civilian-workforce nonprofit, now a UC Irvine fellow. Endorsed by State Building and Construction Trades.<br>Richard Barrera (San Diego Unified school board president). The California Teachers Association candidate — that’s basically his profile. Outsider to Sacramento; emphasizes funding, early childhood, easier teacher credentialing pathways.<br>Nichelle Henderson (LA Community College trustee,...