Many porn performers hate the initiative, and they’re not alone: Multiple LGBT-rights groups and public-health organizations are standing against measure. The California Democratic Party opposes it because it fears performers will be held liable for not wearing condoms. The state’s Republican Party opposes the “overreach and overregulation,” a spokeswoman said. In fact, only one organization has given money to support the measure: the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, or AHF, a non-profit group founded in 1987 to provide HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention.

So far, it looks like AHF is winning. The group has given nearly $4.6 million to fund the measure, outspending opponents by a factor of 10. And an October poll by researchers at Sacramento State University showed 50 percent of likely voters supporting the measure, with only 31 percent opposed.

This is the legacy of California’s referendum system. In the Golden State, any proposal that wins enough signatures and money to pay a filing fee can appear on a state-wide, general-election ballot. Theoretically, this gives grassroots initiatives a better chance at becoming law. But this year’s porn measure perfectly illustrates how one organization can effectively write state law with just a few million dollars.

In 1992, California adopted its standard for workplace safety and blood-borne pathogens. For many years, Cal/OSHA effectively ignored potential hazards from blood-borne pathogens in the adult-entertainment industry, but in 2004, agency issued its first-ever citations to two porn companies after three employees were exposed to HIV. In 2014, a local California health department reported a case of a male performer with HIV and rectal gonorrhea. During the time between his last negative test and diagnosis, he had condomless sex with 12 performers on at least two different porn sets, although it’s not clear whether those sets were in California. During the month before and after his symptoms started showing up, he had non-work-related sex with five male partners, who were all potentially exposed.

California porn advocates claim testing is the most effective way to prevent this kind of situation. Ela Darling, a performer and producer who serves as president of the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee, said the industry standard is to get tested every two weeks for HIV, Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, Syphilis, Hepatitis B and C, and Trichomoniasis. “Performers won’t shoot if you’re not following that protocol,” she said. “Agents won’t book you. Anyone who strays from that protocol is blacklisted, and the people you hire just won’t do the work.”

Even though California law technically requires production studios to follow its blood-borne-pathogen procedures, “condoms are not very common [on sets],” Darling said. “Most people prefer to shoot without condoms. … There are plenty of sets where it’s just not the content they’re producing and it’s just not what they shoot.” Cal/OSHA investigated roughly 40 adult-film producers between 2004 and 2014, according to a former agency official.