Prop 13 Archives - California Political Review

Tom Steyer Campaigning on Blowing up Prop 13

April 18, 2026 By Katy Grimes 2 Comments

Proposition 13 is one of the very few protections that California taxpayers have

The Los Angeles Unified School District announced Sunday they had reached a tentative labor agreement with United Teachers Los Angeles labor union, potentially easing concerns over a looming strike that threatened to disrupt classes for hundreds of thousands of students.

Billionaire climate activist and California Gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer posted to X that “teachers got a deal.”

That “good deal” is a two-year tentative deal to “increase teachers’ salary scales by 11.65% and raise the starting teacher salary to $77,000 per year.”

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California is set to spend nearly $150 billion on K–12 education, more than $27,000 per student, and a majority of the state’s kids can’t read at grade level or do basic math.

Steyer continued: “Now let’s fix the reason they had to strike in the first place. We need to fund our schools, and I’ll do that by changing Prop 13 so that corporations pay real estate taxes based on their property’s true value, not its value from the 1970s.”

However, Steyer is not telling the truth: California spends substantially more per K-12 student today in real (inflation-adjusted) terms than it did around the time Proposition 13 passed in 1978.

Here we go again… yet another Democrat wanna-be President/Governor is agitating to remove the constitutional cap on annual property tax increases. Steyer supports “a special election to raise corporate taxes in his first year as governor;” he wants to blow up Proposition 13.

Notably, Steyer made his fortune investing in the energy sector through his hedge fund company, the Farallon Capital Management fund, which Steyer managed until 2012. Farrallon invested in coal mines in Australia and Indonesia, as well as in tar-sands oil which is strip mined and processed to extract the oil-rich bitumen, which is then refined into oil. His climate activism is an interesting about-face.

Steyer ran for President in 2020 as a self-funded candidate, but never received pledged delegates despite spending $253 million. Steyer “went on to serve as California Governor Gavin Newsom’s top economic advisor on the Business and Jobs Recovery Task Force;” except California is bleeding jobs and businesses to low-tax states. Voters have every reason to question Steyer’s actual record.

California’s Property Tax Cap

Proposition 13 was a 1978 ballot initiative to cap property tax increases for residential and business properties and provide certainty, so property owners would not be taxed out of their homes and businesses.

Click here to read the full article in the California Globe

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: Governors race, Prop 13, Tom Steyer

Jon Coupal: A measure to save Prop. 13 and protect you, the taxpayer

September 8, 2025 By Staff Leave a Comment

In 1978, Proposition 13 cut property taxes to one percent of the taxable value and capped increases to the taxable value to just two percent a year, with reassessment occurring only for new construction or when there is a change of ownership. It was a significant tax cut after years of inflation-driven tax hikes built up a surplus in Sacramento, while Californians were taxed out of their homes.

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Howard Jarvis, the author of Prop. 13 and our organization’s namesake, added provisions to Proposition to prevent the tax “spenders” from finding new ways to take the same amount of money from the tax “payers.”

Prop. 13 requires a two-thirds vote in both houses of the state Legislature to pass new state taxes, and it also says a two-thirds vote is needed to pass local special taxes.

But much like Howard Jarvis feared, the tax-and-spend interests have sought to destroy Proposition 13 ever since, most recently by persuading courts to carve loopholes in its constitutional protections and invent new ways for government agencies to raise revenue.

In 2017, the California Supreme Court’s decision in California Cannabis Coalition v. City of Upland created an ambiguity. It suggested that if a tax increase was placed on the ballot by a citizens’ initiative instead of by a government body, the state constitution (including Proposition 13) may not apply.

That’s why we worked with the business community last year to put the Taxpayer Protection Act on the ballot. More than a million signatures were collected. But then the governor and the legislature sued to have it taken off the ballot, and the California Supreme Court declared that the TPA was a “revision” of the constitution and removed the measure before voters could pass it.

We didn’t take that lying down. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association filed a new initiative this year called the Local Taxpayer Protection Act to Save Proposition 13. This constitutional amendment will restore Prop. 13’s requirement that all local special taxes, those that dedicate the revenue to a specific purpose, must be approved by two-thirds of voters to pass. No exceptions. No loopholes.

The Local Taxpayer Protection Act to Save Proposition 13 makes clear that:

Local taxes for a special purpose require approval by two-thirds of voters to pass, even if proposed by an initiative backed by special interests.
New real estate transfer taxes (which are like sales taxes on real estate) are prohibited, except the modest 0.11% documentary transfer tax allowed prior to Proposition 13.
Existing real estate transfer taxes (including Measure ULA in the City of Los Angeles) are repealed effective December 31, 2028, except the 0.11% documentary transfer tax allowed prior to Proposition 13.

Click here to read the full article in the OC Register

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Jon Coupal, Prop 13, taxes

Jon Coupal: Proposition 13 protects home equity

April 19, 2025 By Jon Coupal 1 Comment

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal should dispel all doubts as to why Prop. 13 is so important to California homeowners. The article, entitled, “Americans have amassed $35 trillion of wealth in their homes, yet many feel less well off because of it,” presents a sobering view of what is happening in most other states.

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The extensive piece, written by Veronica Dagher and Anne Tergesen, addresses how home ownership can be a two-edged sword. First, the good news. Home equity, nationally, has increased 80% since 2020 due to rapid increases in home values. This approximately $19 trillion in new wealth adds to the personal balance sheets of Americans lucky enough to own homes. As of 2024, this rate of increase was about twice the rise in financial wealth from other investments including stocks and bonds.

But the bad news is that as home values rise, so can the cost of homeownership, especially in the form of higher property taxes. The WSJ article notes other negatives as well: “Lots of equity can bring down college financial aid for families. And cashing in on the wealth is difficult: High interest rates and prices have held back home sales – and the prospect of big capital gains tax bills is spurring some to hold on to the homes.”

But the fear among homeowners that the market value of their homes will drive property taxes is muted in California because of Proposition 13. In addition to limiting the maximum tax rate to 1%, Prop. 13 also limits the annual increase in taxable value to 2%. Moreover, because property is reassessed to market value when it changes hands or there is new construction, property tax revenues generated for local governments have increased faster than inflation and population. (California ranks 18th out of fifty states in per capita property tax collections, negating the myth that Prop. 13 has somehow “starved” local governments and schools).

The simple beauty of Prop. 13 is that it decouples tax liability from the vagaries of the real estate market – something over which homeowners have absolutely no control. Instead, the amount of property tax liability depends almost exclusively on the voluntary act of purchase, something they do control. This is especially helpful for first-time homebuyers, because it provides certainty to homeowners as to what their tax bills will be in all future years. Few things would be as tragic as a young family forced out of their first home in a few years because of excessive property taxes.

Click here to read the full article in the OC Register

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: Coupal, Jarvis, Prop 13

California Supreme Court will weigh removal of Taxpayer Protection Act from ballot. Here’s why

May 6, 2024 By Nicole Nixon 2 Comments

The state’s Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case this week that could determine whether Californians are allowed to weigh in on an expansive ballot measure that would put virtually all tax increases before voters. It’s part of a rare case in which the court will consider removing a proposition from the ballot before an election.

At issue is whether the sweeping ballot measure, known by its supporters as the “Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act,” is a constitutional amendment or a constitutional revision. The business-backed initiative would mandate that voters sign off on all new tax increases, both at the state and local level. If approved by voters, the initiative would also reclassify many government fees as taxes and require any tax increase enacted since 2022 to comply with the new requirements.

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A heavy-hitting coalition of Democratic officials and public labor leaders – from Gov. Gavin Newsom to teacher and firefighter unions – are asking the state’s highest court to remove the measure from the November ballot. They argue the ballot initiative is too broad to be considered a constitutional amendment, but is instead a constitutional revision.

While voters can propose amendments to state law and the constitution through ballot measures, only the legislature can propose broader constitutional revisions. Business and taxpayer advocates submitted more than 1 million signatures in late 2022 to place the measure on the ballot. Its backers say the measure is an attempt to rein in what they describe as runaway spending by California’s Democratic leaders and make the state more business-friendly. “California is the highest-cost state in the country and every employer knows it,” said Robert Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable, a lead proponent of the initiative. “It’s our job to try and create balance in those policies or try and change those policies in a major way by appealing directly to voters.”

WHAT THE TAXPAYER PROTECTION ACT WOULD DO At its core, the Taxpayer Protection Act is designed to make it harder to raise taxes in California.

Click here to read the full article in the Sacramento Bee

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California Politics, Jarvis, Prop 13

Coupal: The League of California Cities’ war on taxpayers

April 2, 2024 By Jon Coupal 1 Comment

The League of California Cities has always been biased against the interests of taxpayers. This became especially clear during the historic Proposition 13 campaign in 1978 when the League, along with the rest of the spending lobby, predicted the end of Western Civilization if Prop. 13 passed.

Just how out of touch was the League with the voting public? Based on election results, the voters approved Prop. 13 in 90% of the cities in California.

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The League of Cities’ conduct during the Prop. 13 campaign was so bad that then Governor Jerry Brown scolded the League for demanding more money and being oblivious to the tax revolt. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times on May 5, 1978, just one month before the vote, “Gov. Brown [was] peppered with demands for more state money from a group of city officials [at a League meeting in San Diego] suggest[ing] they resembled passengers on the Titanic demanding more deck chairs. ‘You, of all people, should realize that a tax revolt is under way’ . . . Said Brown to a chorus of boos, ‘you’d better wake up to the tax revolt.’”

The League’s intransigent position on tax relief even earned it criticism from Democratic legislative leadership. “Modest cuts in taxes and government spending were proposed and ignored.” Dan Boatwright, chairman of the state Assembly Ways and Means Committee, said, “The League of California Cities and the County Supervisors Assn. lobbied [legislators] to death.”‘

To add insult to injury, all this anti-taxpayer lobbying was paid for with taxpayer dollars.

In addition to advocating against taxpayers, a more recent phenomenon is that many of the League positions are contrary to the interests of cities and the principle of local control. Several municipal officials who are actually concerned about the fiscal health of their cities are growing disenchanted with the League and are moving to distance themselves from League positions and even to leave the League entirely.

This past Tuesday, the Orange City Council voted to leave the League over its support for Proposition 1 – a measure many local officials say could worsen the problems currently associated with group homes. “It should be noted that housing projects funded by this bond would be considered ‘use by right,’ potentially preempting local zoning law for properties with multifamily residential, office, retail, or parking uses,” reads the City of Orange staff report.

The move by Orange comes after Newport Beach and Huntington Beach left the League of California Cities over its support for Prop. 1. Newport Beach Mayor Will O’Neill stated, “While the League of California Cities has regularly taken positions opposite the interests of taxpayers, the tipping point to leave the League completely came when they advocated for Proposition 1 despite acknowledging the serious and disastrous effects buried in the fine print. Specifically, Prop. 1 will take away local control by requiring cities to approve rehab housing funded with billions of dollars in new bond money. The League is supposed to advocate for cities, but they have actively harmed cities with this overtly political decision. Cities should not fund an organization putting Sacramento’s interests above our residents.”

The most recent target of the League’s hysterical outrage is the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act (TPA), a proposed constitutional amendment which has already qualified for the November 2024 ballot. It is sponsored by taxpayer and business organizations to restore key provisions of Proposition 13 and other pro-taxpayer laws that give voters more control over when and how new tax revenue is raised.

Although TPA, unlike previous tax reform measures, doesn’t reduce or eliminate any state or local tax, it does impose both enhanced voter approval requirements for fee and tax increases as well as robust accountability and transparency provisions. And yet, even though TPA is relatively modest, the League, once again, is predicting End Times disasters.

For example, the League’s chief complaint about TPA isn’t about TPA at all, but rather a long-standing provision of Proposition 13 requiring a two-thirds vote for local special taxes (taxes for a specific purpose). This 44-year-old requirement was weakened in 2017 by ambiguity in the California Supreme Court’s infamous Upland decision. Lower courts have interpreted the decision to allow special taxes to pass with only 50% plus one vote if the tax was put on the ballot by a “citizens’ initiative.” This has enabled special interests to draft their own tax increases, direct the money to themselves, and get these self-serving measures passed with only a simple majority vote. TPA simply restores the two-thirds vote requirement and closes this costly loophole.

Click here to read the full article in the OC Register

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: California Politics, Gavin Newsom, Prop 13

Santa Clara has no money to meet $624 million in infrastructure needs

April 1, 2024 By Grace Hase 4 Comments

City officials are recommending a general obligation bond to fix some of the aging infrastructure

In the heart of Silicon Valley, a region renowned for its innovation and wealth, Santa Clara has struggled for decades to keep pace with its aging infrastructure.

Many of its city facilities — parks, community centers, fire stations and swimming pools — reached the end of their expected lifespan years ago. But Santa Clara historically hasn’t had the revenue streams to maintain or replace its physical assets, leading to what is now a whopping $624 million in unfunded infrastructure needs, according to City Manager Jovan Grogan.

The ballooning problem came to a head earlier his year when the George F. Haines International Swim Center — a storied facility widely considered to be Santa Clara’s crown jewel — closed over safety concerns following decades of neglect.

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Santa Clara’s plight is not unique. Cities across the Bay Area are grappling with similarly aging infrastructure and significant funding challenges to address deferred maintenance.

“It’s literally the cost of replacing many of our facilities that were built in the 50’s and 60’s,” Grogan said. “Many of them are aging at the same time.”

In neighboring San Jose, the maintenance backlog for the city’s parks alone is more than $544 million, city spokesperson Carolina Camarena estimated. And across the bay in Berkeley, the city’s unfunded infrastructure is expected to be $2.1 billion by the end of this fiscal year.

It’s a symptom of the suburban sprawl that ignited after World War II when the region began to boom and large swaths of single-family homes shot up. Whole neighborhoods of low density housing that stretched far across cities meant more roads, sewer lines and other infrastructure to maintain.

At the time, many cities relied on property taxes to generate revenues, said Michael Lane, the state policy director for urban think tank SPUR. But when California voters passed Proposition 13 in 1978, effectively limiting property tax increases, things changed.

Click here to read the full article in the Mercury News

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California Politics, Gavin Newsom, Infrastructure, Prop 13

Coupal: Attacks on direct democracy in California have reached a new low

November 20, 2023 By Jon Coupal 1 Comment

Governor Gavin Newsom and progressive leadership in the Legislature have declared war on California taxpayers. They have filed a lawsuit in the California Supreme Court to have a duly qualified citizen initiative removed from the November 2024 ballot before voters can pass it.

The initiative is called the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act, so there’s no mystery about why the politicians oppose it.

What’s mysterious, or at least very troubling, is why they think the court should block the power of the people to amend the state constitution through the initiative process.

Over the last three decades, this column has staunchly defended the constitutional rights of direct democracy – initiative, referendum, and recall. These powers have been proven to be effective tools to control indolent or corrupt politicians and are just as important today as they were when they were added to the California Constitution in 1911.

Without the initiative power, California homeowners would never have reaped the benefits of Proposition 13, which has saved California property owners hundreds of billions of dollars since 1978. Direct democracy remains the only avenue for fundamental political reform, tax reform and a host of other important policies that entrenched interests in Sacramento would rather never see the light of day.

Politicians and powerful special interests hate direct democracy and view it as a threat to their political power or, at a minimum, as an intrusion on their legislative responsibilities. It is no surprise, then, that left-leaning legislators repeatedly introduce proposals designed to weaken direct democracy. Recent proposals seek to render the referendum and recall powers wholly ineffective and other bills have made it very difficult to qualify initiative measures. One proposal from 2019 attempted to impose burdensome requirements on those who gather signatures for initiative qualification.

In the legislative session that just ended, Senate Bill 386 became law. Although on its face it appears innocuous, it amended the process by which county registrars verify signatures on initiative petitions in a manner that compresses the time in which to qualify an initiative measure – already a narrow 180 days. This puts initiative proponents at a severe disadvantage.

Another attack on the initiative process affects initiatives that would enact tax reforms. Assembly Constitutional Amendment 13 would require that measures such as Proposition 13 secure a higher statewide vote threshold to pass. This measure is targeted directly at the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act.

The lawsuit by the governor and the legislature is the latest assault on the initiative process. While the legal claims border on the frivolous and, politically, the action is likely to backfire on the politicians, it reveals in stark terms what these political elites think of ordinary taxpayers. Here’s an excerpt:

“[B]y compelling voters to assume a far more active role in state government, the Measure [TPA] would have sobering implications for the future of governance. Taxation is both highly complex and essential to the adequate functioning of the State. Sound tax policy therefore requires time and expertise. California’s full-time Legislature has the capacity to implement tax policy because legislators can spend weeks in committees reviewing a law and debating its impact, all while being advised by professional legislative staff. Not so with voters. As it is, voters have neither the time nor resources at their disposal to comprehensively study their crowded ballots.”

Translation: Shut up, you deplorable peasants. Let us, the expert politicians, tell you how much we need and how to spend it.

Click here to read the full article in the OC Register

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: California Politics, Gavin Newsom, Prop 13

Michael Smolens: California Ballot Measures Could Give Republicans Strong Anti-Tax Argument

October 9, 2023 By Michael Smolens Leave a Comment

As California Democrats head into the 2024 election, several things seem to be going their way.

A measure on the ballot defending same-sex marriage could be an added turnout magnet in a presidential election year that already is expected to bring more Democratic-leaning voters to the polls.

Republicans in Congress, despite their current disarray, continue to ponder further limits or a ban on abortion — another Democratic motivator.

And the Republican Democrats love to hate, Donald Trump, may well be on the ballot again.

But California Republicans may have at least one ace in the hole: a potentially compelling anti-tax argument.

Three tax-related measures are targeted for the ballot, though none actually raises taxes.

A Democratic proposal would lower the voter-approval threshold to 55 percent for local taxes and bonds that now require a two-thirds majority to pass.

A measure sponsored by the California Business Roundtable would require all local taxes and bonds to be approved by a two-thirds majority, including fees and charges that currently don’t require a public vote. The proposal also calls for voters to approve all state taxes.

To counter that, Assemblymember Chris Ward, D-San Diego, authored a ballot proposition that would require measures raising the approval threshold to be approved by that same threshold. In other words, the business proposal would need a two-thirds majority.

The two Democratic measures were placed on the ballot by the Legislature, while the business proposal qualified through the signature-gathering initiative process.

The support among Democratic lawmakers for the two legislative measures might suggest broad backing across deep blue California.

But support for — or opposition to — tax increases, among other things, don’t always fall along partisan lines. Majorities of California voters in 2020 sided with the GOP rather than the Democratic leadership position on a handful of ballot measures involving property taxes, rent control, criminal justice, affirmative action and the gig economy.

Whether that dynamic spilled over to candidate races, or whether it would next year, is far from clear.

But it certainly gives credence to what some Republican leaders for years have been saying is needed to improve the party’s fortunes in California: focus on pocketbook, quality of life, and state and local issues that cut across party lines, and avoid the divisive culture wars and national politics.

Easier said than done.

That approach was the Republican hope for the 2021 recall election of Gov. Gavin Newsom. But arguments about homelessness, crime and cost of living lost their steam once right-wing lightning rod Larry Elder jumped into the race to replace Newsom, who made Elder the issue and handily defeated the recall bid.

Plus, there’s no getting away from Trump, who can bolster Republican turnout but, more significantly, energize Democrats.

Some frustrated Republicans complain Democrats and the media overly focus on social issues and Trump. But it’s the conservative-dominated Supreme Court that scuttled a half-century of precedent supporting the constitutionality of abortion by overturning Roe v. Wade. And it’s Republicans pushing limits on LGBTQ rights across the nation.

True, Democrats led by Newsom and Senate president Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, did put a successful measure on the 2022 ballot to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. A “right to marry” law is planned for the 2024 ballot that would repeal the same-sex marriage ban under Proposition 8, even though the language of the 2008 voter-approved measure was invalidated in court.

But the Supreme Court’s Roe reversal suggests future rulings could override existing abortion protections and reactivate Proposition 8, which remains on the books.

Meanwhile, a move by some Republicans to drop opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage from the California GOP platform was swiftly rejected during the party’s convention last weekend. Granted, not many people pay attention to party platforms, but the short-lived challenge is emblematic of the state party’s struggle to move forward.

Arguments to protect the 1978 landmark tax-cutting initiative Proposition 13 may have lost some resonance over time. But concerns about taxes and economic burdens in general are evergreen political issues.

Democrats contend the high bar to raise taxes is unfair, pointing to numerous measures that were supported by large majorities yet failed the two-thirds test. They contend that has deprived governments of revenue for infrastructure and services desired by the public.

To what degree state and local tax increase proposals will appear on the ballot next year remains to be seen. In April, the governor rejected a state Senate proposal to raise business taxes as part of a budget package.

Democrats and many city and school officials are clearly concerned about the business-backed ballot measure. Last month, Newsom, Atkins and others filed an emergency petition with the state Supreme Court in an effort to keep the proposal off the ballot.

They contend the proposition would illegally revise the state constitution and cripple local government finances, in part because the measure is retroactive to Jan. 1, 2022, and would threaten taxes and fees enacted since then.

Should the current economic discontent roll over into the election year, Republicans may have a strong case for high voting thresholds as a safeguard against over-taxation in already-expensive California, where the cost of housing and gasoline trigger near-constant ire.

Carrying the anti-tax theme a step further, Republicans could point out the business measure also would ban road use charges, also known as vehicle miles traveled fees — which have proved unpopular in some regions.

Such fees are being considered in California and across the country as a replacement for gas tax revenues that are shrinking with the increase of fuel-efficient vehicles and electric vehicles.

A long-range transportation plan drawn up by the San Diego Association of Governments included road charges, but the political fallout jarred supporters.

The SANDAG board, including some Democrats, officially removed the mileage tax from the plan last month.

Click here to read the full article in the San Diego Union Tribune

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Prop 13, Republicans, taxes

How Much Do Progressives Hate Taxpayers and Proposition 13?

September 30, 2023 By Jon Coupal 4 Comments

Last week’s column was entitled, “Legislative session ends with declaration of war on taxpayers.” The war has now gone nuclear. Governor Gavin Newsom and the Legislature just filed a lawsuit, directly in the California Supreme Court, seeking to have the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act removed from the November 2024 ballot before voters get a chance to approve it.

The Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act (TPA) was written to restore key provisions of a series of voter-approved ballot measures that gave taxpayers, not politicians, more say over when and how new tax revenue is raised. Over the past decade, the California courts have created massive loopholes and confusion in long-established tax law and policy. TPA closes those loopholes and provides new safeguards to increase accountability and transparency over how politicians spend our tax dollars.

After more than a million Californians signed petitions to successfully put TPA on the November 2024 ballot, government officials started talking about this popular taxpayer-protection measure as if it was going to end Western Civilization.

First, the League of California Cities, which never met a tax that it didn’t like, disseminated a “Special Release” claiming TPA somehow restricts the right to vote on tax measures. This was absurd as the whole point of Proposition 13, Proposition 218, and now TPA, was to guarantee the right to vote on taxes.

Proposition 13 requires that a local special tax (meaning for a specific purpose) must receive a two-thirds vote of the electorate in order to pass. In 2017, this clear requirement was weakened by ambiguity in the California Supreme Court’s infamous Upland decision, which has been interpreted to allow special taxes to pass with only 50% plus one vote if the tax was put on the ballot by a “citizens’ initiative.” This has enabled special interests to write their own tax increases, direct the money to themselves, and get these self-serving measures passed with only a simple majority vote. TPA restores the two-thirds vote requirement and closes this costly loophole.

The second attack against the Taxpayer Protection Act was launched by the California Legislature with a late-session gut-and-amend that became Assembly Constitutional Amendment 13. This measure was a cynical attempt to derail TPA by changing the rules for passing certain kinds of constitutional amendments — specifically, initiatives that protect taxpayers by requiring a two-thirds vote to raise taxes.

If ACA 13 is enacted, TPA itself would require a two-thirds vote of the statewide electorate to pass, instead of a simple majority. It would be the first and only constitutional amendment in the history of the state that would be required to reach two-thirds voter approval. Supporters of ACA 13 insist it’s unfair for an amendment (like Prop. 13, for example) to pass with a simple majority if it imposes a higher threshold for passing something else. This argument is at odds with history. In 1879 the Legislature wrote a constitution that required a two-thirds vote to approve bonded indebtedness, then approved the constitution by a simple majority vote. That has always been the law in California.

Perhaps ACA 13, which would have to go on the ballot for voter approval, wasn’t looking like a winning strategy for the tax-and-spend crowd, because on Tuesday, the governor and the Legislature filed their lawsuit to try to knock TPA off the ballot before the election.

This outrageous attempt to block voter approval of TPA may backfire. Now voters will hear even more about the measure’s key provisions, such as requiring all new state taxes passed by the Legislature to go on the ballot for voter approval. Voters will be happy to hear that TPA restores the two-thirds vote threshold for local special taxes, and that it clears up muddy definitions that allow taxes to be mislabeled as “fees.” Voters will also like TPA’s transparency requirement that ballot labels must not only state clearly that a tax increase is a tax increase, but also disclose how the money will be spent.

By filing a “pre-election challenge” to TPA, big spending politicians have revealed themselves as being panicked that it will pass. Polling – both private and public – shows that Californians have about had it with higher taxes, especially when those higher taxes are not accompanied by more or improved levels of public services.

Click here to read the full article in the OC Register

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: California Politics, Gavin Newsom, Legislature, Prop 13

ACA 13 Attacks Both Proposition 13 and Direct Democracy in California

August 27, 2023 By Jon Coupal 3 Comments

Less than two weeks ago, radical progressives in the California Legislature launched the most brazen sneak attack on California’s iconic Proposition 13 in its 45-year history. Assemblyman Christopher Ward, backed by the new Speaker of the Assembly, Robert Rivas, introduced Assembly Constitutional Amendment 13 (ACA 13). It would amend the constitution to make it easier to raise taxes, by making it harder to pass citizens’ initiatives that seek to enforce Proposition 13’s two-thirds vote requirement for local special tax increases.

The specific target of ACA 13 is a citizens’ initiative backed both by taxpayer organizations and the business community. The Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act (TPA) has already qualified for the November 2024 ballot, and polling shows it to be popular with voters. The TPA closes several loopholes created by the courts that have allowed special interests to work with local governments to raise taxes with a simple majority vote instead of the two-thirds vote required by Proposition 13.

For example, the California Supreme Court’s infamous Upland decision in 2017 turned 40 years of Prop. 13 jurisprudence on its head by suggesting that a citizens’ initiative could raise taxes without a two-thirds vote. The TPA ends that game.

The TPA would also provide unprecedented transparency when tax-hike measures are on the ballot, allowing voters to know what these propositions will cost them. In other words, TPA is a threat to the status quo by effectively restoring taxpayer rights.

This column has repeatedly exposed the legislature’s hostility to the tools of direct democracy. Weakening the recall power, increasing the cost to initiate a statute, changing the meaning of a referendum vote so that a “no” vote means “yes,” are all proposals to deprive citizens of political power. But these direct democracy powers remain popular with the voting public – for good reason.

Since 1911, Californians have possessed powerful tools to control indolent or corrupt politicians. The rights of direct democracy – initiative, referendum, and recall – are enshrined in the California Constitution for reasons that are just as compelling in 2023 as they were more than a century ago.

There are two ways to amend the constitution in California. The legislature can put a proposed amendment on the ballot, or citizens can collect signatures for an initiative constitutional amendment. Either way, once on the ballot, constitutional amendments pass with a simple majority vote, and always have in California, since 1849.

But ACA 13 would change that. Legislative constitutional amendments would still pass with a simple majority, but a citizens’ initiative constitutional amendment that requires a two-thirds vote for tax increases, such as Proposition 13 in 1978, would require a two-thirds vote to pass. Even Prop. 13 itself narrowly missed that threshold.

As noted above, the real target of ACA 13 is the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act. If approved by voters in November 2024, TPA will restore the original intent of several voter-approved taxpayer protection initiatives including Prop. 13, Prop. 218, and Prop. 26, all of which have been weakened by a tax-hungry legislature and a hostile judiciary.

Because the TPA initiative restores the two-thirds vote protection of Proposition 13, under ACA 13, it would have to be approved by a two-thirds vote of the statewide electorate. That is obviously more difficult to achieve and may leave taxpayers stuck paying the price for courts eroding Proposition 13.

Notably, California’s current Constitution (the California Constitution of 1879), as ratified by the voters on May 7, 1879, by a simple majority vote, contained at least two provisions requiring two-thirds voter approval including the requirement that local bonds be approved by “the assent of two thirds of the qualified electors.”

In fact, if the proposed ACA 13 standard were applied when the current California Constitution of 1879 was put before the voters, California would not have a constitution at all! So, it is perfectly consistent with California’s constitution and history to have new constitutional amendments pass with a simple majority, even if those amendments require a super-majority vote to raise taxes.

Click here to read the full article in the OC Register

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California Politics, Howard Jarvis, Prop 13