By now you’ve probably all seen this 60 Minutes report on how bad the job picture really is in California and around the country (as much as 22% unemployment). But changing that doesn’t just depend on the elections next week of politicians who understand how to get government out of the way and the economy back to work. Propositions matter, too.

As we noted in our Monday podcast, some of our California-based Redstaters have already highlighted the importance of Proposition 23, the measure to postpone requirements that greenhouse gases in the state be cut to 1990 levels by 2020. There’s little question that this is a job-killing requirement, which is all well and good for the guilty consciences of California’s elite, but doesn’t result in anything positive for its citizens. But I had no idea how big of a job-killer it could be until I read this from Benjamin Zycher at the Pacific Research Institute:

A new study by the Pacific Research Institute, a free-market think tank based in San Francisco, finds that the approval of Proposition 23, suspending the implementation of AB 32, would add nearly 150,000 jobs in California in 2011, more than a half million jobs by 2012, and more than 1.3 million jobs by 2020.

Yes, you read that right — half a million jobs in two years. There’s a massive amount of data on how damaging the AB 32 requirements could be to the job market at CaliforniaProp23.com, and check out the Yeson23 site. Don’t let guilty elites who don’t understand the economic impact of their policies continue to destroy the job market.