Ballot props are far more regular in CA than headlines suggest. The requirement for signatures keeps dropping as voter turnout drops, and it doesn't take that many resources to get something on the ballot. An appealing title and description make it fairly easy to get a lot of maybe not so great spending passed, despite reasonably good efforts to keep voters informed. I don't know that the overall function is that different from what you describe, given that there isn't really a strong opposition party in the state, but it is hard to get the majority of people to really think critically about 5 different obscure spending packages.
