Down ballot. That’s where the action is.

While the voters, the media and the candidates keep their eyes on the big prizes in California’s presidential primary on Feb. 5, partisans are hard at work in the trenches, using California’s much-vaunted, much maligned initiative process.

In February, California voters will participate in Super-duper Tuesday by casting ballots for the likes of Hillary, Rudy, Barack or Mitt — no one with any of those first names has been president before.

On that same day, Californians will decide the fates of Propositions 91 through 93.

Proposition 91 is a transportation funding initiative, and if the thought of another transportation matter coming before voters makes you dizzy, I don’t blame you. It seems we have been driving to the voting precincts regularly — no doubt causing deterioration of streets and highways — to cast ballots on transportation initiatives ever since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took office.

This measure is designed to make sure state funds earmarked for transportation are not spent any other way. Makes sense on the surface, though it would make more sense if the people didn’t have to pass laws to make sure the state keeps its funding promises.

Proposition 92 is designed to bolster the state’s community colleges through changes to the way they are funded, the ways local college boards of trustees are formed and the ways schools set salaries with employees.

Community colleges play an important, if overlooked, role in giving millions of people a leg up in life and preparing the state’s workforce, and they need taxpayer support. But after two reads of the ballot language, I am still a long way from understanding exactly what is at stake in Proposition 92.

I think I need some misleading campaign mailers and TV ads to help me grasp whose ox is being gored.

Finally, Proposition 93 promises to be a tussle over term limits for lawmakers.

This measure makes term limits more strict by capping any state lawmaker’s total time in office at 12 years, down from 14.

Then, it makes the limits less strict by allowing lawmakers to serve all 12 of those years in the same job (currently, the maximum time in a single state Senate post is eight years, and the max in an Assembly seat is six years). This provision would have the magical effect of allowing some of today’s otherwise-termed-out legislative leaders to run as incumbents just one ... more ... time.

So, if you are for term limits because those no-good incumbents would otherwise cruise to jobs for life, this measure will undermine your cause. Today’s incumbents will be able to keep on trucking.

Meanwhile, if you are against term limits because they turn good public servants into wandering nomads and leave the capitol ever more in the hands of termless corporate lobbyists, this measure won’t help much. In fact, it will reduce the maximum tenure of the best lawmakers.

Nobody wins. Now that’s what I call reform!