In a shocking exercise of raw political power that comes with one-party rule, the California Supreme Court removed the nuanced Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act from the November ballot. Following orders from Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders across the vast majority of the state, they ignored the rights of more than 1.4 million California voters who signed petitions to put the initiative on the ballot voting.
The Taxpayer Protection Act, or TPA, is the latest battle in the 46-year war over whether or not it will be easier to raise taxes in California. TPA was sponsored by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the California Business Roundtable and the California Business Properties Association. It had broad support among hundreds of trade associations, chambers of commerce, and virtually every taxpayer association in California, all concerned with the preservation of Propositions 13 and 218.
Proposition 13, passed by voters in 1978, reduced property taxes and capped annual increases in assessed value. It requires a two-thirds vote of each house of the Legislature to raise taxes at the state level and imposes voter approval requirements for local taxes. Proposition 218 solidified voting rights on all local taxes and set rules for property taxes so they could not be imposed to circumvent Proposition 13’s cap on property tax rates.
Since then, tax-and-spend advocates have sought to destroy Propositions 13 and 218, persuading courts to blow loopholes in their constitutional protections and invent new ways for government agencies to raise revenue. Taxpayer advocates, often led by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, come back time and time again with new initiatives aimed at closing these gaps.
This is exactly what the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act was written to do: it restored, not revised, the state constitution.
But the California Supreme Court, in defiance of reality, declared the TPA to be an “revision” of the constitution, something that can only be initiated by the legislature through a constitutional convention.
A close look at the decision reveals that the court has now become just another tool of California’s progressive power structure. Ignoring more than 100 years of jurisprudence recognizing the Court’s duty to “jealously guard” the power of initiative, the Court now sees no value in the right of the sovereign people to control their government. Hiram Johnson must be spinning in his grave.
Today, the threat to Proposition 13 has never been greater. Parliament has put on the November ballot two proposed constitutional amendments that would make it easier to raise taxes and make it harder for taxpayers to do anything about it.
Assembly Constitutional Amendment 1 (having been amended to what is now ACA 10) would eliminate the two-thirds vote rule for local bonds – which are only repaid by property owners. This two-thirds voter requirement has been part of the California Constitution since 1879, and eliminating it would open the door to virtually unlimited property taxes. Additionally, the tax increase that accompanies these bonds creates a lien on real property, and failure to comply with the bond can result in foreclosure.
Assembly Constitutional Amendment 13 is just as bad, if not worse. Throughout California’s history, all constitutional amendments have required a simple majority vote of the electorate to pass. ACA 13 would selectively increase this threshold; citizen initiatives that require a two-thirds vote to raise taxes or borrow money would require a two-thirds vote to pass. Even Proposition 13 would have narrowly missed this goal, as would all previous constitutional revisions and virtually every initiative since the early 1900s.
Today, TPA supporters are rightly angry and disappointed. But as in many cases where progressives exaggerate, there is a swift and fierce backlash. Here, the extraordinary coalition of hundreds of taxpayer, business, and property rights organizations – and their thousands of members – is not going to give up. We are all committed to saving California, no matter how long the battle lasts.
Jon Coupal is president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association
California Daily Newspapers
