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2008 California Proposition 3

Californian law

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 25, 2026
Entity authorityQ5020815 ↗
Source-derived summary

Proposition 3, the Children's Hospital Bond Act of 2008, is a law that was enacted by California voters by means of the initiative process. It is a bond issue that authorizes $980 million in bonds, to be repaid from state's General Fund, to fund the construction, expansion, remodeling, renovation, furnishing and equipping of children's hospitals. The annual payment on the debt authorized by the initiative is approximately $64 million a year. Altogether, the measure would cost about $1.9 billion over 30 years out of California's general fund.

The initiative was presented to the Attorney-General's office in July 2007 and the measure was put to a vote as part of the 4 November 2008 state elections. It now forms Part 6.1 of the Health and Safety Code.

A smaller, but similar, bond measure for hospitals, Proposition 61, was approved by voters in 2004, totalling $750 million. As of June 1, 2008, about $403 million (just over half the total sum) had been spent.

Campaign

Estimate of fiscal impact

The Legislative Analyst estimated that the proposed law would cost about $2 billion over thirty years to pay off both the principal ($980 million) and the interest ($933 million) costs of the bonds. Payments of about $64 million per year would be required.

Editorial summary

“2008 California Proposition 3” enters the record as californian law. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what California, Proposition and Californian can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2008, 2007, 2004—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around California, Proposition and Californian.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“2008 California Proposition 3” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, California, Proposition and Californian provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5020815. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2008, 2007 and 2004.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “2008 California Proposition 3”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 2008 California Proposition 3 primary sources, 2008 California Proposition 3 archive and California research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “2008 California Proposition 3”?
  2. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
  3. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “2008 California Proposition 3” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.