As one of the largest grassroots anti-tax organizations in the nation, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association relies on the support of our Members, which allows us to influence legislation and protect taxpayers. Please use “Contact Your Representative” to the right of this page to urge your representative to support taxpayers when voting on the following important bills.
NOTE TO HJTA MEMBERS: For an updated status on any of these bills, please go to http://leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo.html and type in the bill number in the space provided. For questions regarding a position on a bill, please contact HJTA Legislative Director David Wolfe at david@hjta.org.
| HJTA Position | Bill Number | Topic | Status | Author | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oppose | ACA 4 | Local government financing: affordable housing and public infrastructure: voter approval. | Assembly Local Government | Aguiar-Curry | Lowers the two-thirds-vote requirement for both bonds and special taxes--a direct attack on Proposition 13--to 55% in order to fund affordable housing programs |
| Oppose | SCA 3 | Local government financing: public libraries: voter approval. | Senate Floor | Dodd | Lowers the current constitutional vote requirement for local bonds to fund library projects from two-thirds to 55% and thus erodes the taxpayer protections found in Proposition 13. |
| Oppose | SCA 6 | Local transportation measures: special taxes: voter approval. | Senate Appropriations Committee | Wiener | In a direct attempt to erode Proposition 13, lowers the current constitutional vote requirement for special taxes (including sales and parcel taxes) to fund local transportation projects from two-thirds to 55%. |
| Oppose | SCA 22 | Taxation: School districts: parcel tax. | Senate Appropriations | Allen | Lowers the threshold for local education parcel taxes from two-thirds to 55 percent, an eviseration of Proposition 13's constitutional requirement for lower taxes. |
| HJTA Position | Bill Number | Topic | Status | Author | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oppose | AB 709 | Sacramento Regional Transit District. | Senate Transportation and Housing | McCarty | Modifies the Sacramento Regional Transit District?s (SRTD) authority to impose a sales and use tax. AB 709 allows SRTD to impose a sales tax increment of one-eighth of one percent or a multiple thereof. HJTA believes government shouldn't make it easier for local government agencies to propose and implement taxes. |
| Oppose | AB 747 | Taxation: nitrogen-based fertilizer application: County of Monterey. | In Senate | Caballero | Authorizes Monterey County to impose a special tax on the application of fertilizer. |
| Oppose | AB 1250 | Counties: contracts for personal services. | Senate Rules | Jones-Sawyer | Establishes numerous provisions that will make it more difficult for local government entities to save taxpayer dollars by contracting services out to private entities. |
| Support | AB 1739 | Nonprobate transfers: revocable transfer on death deeds. | Senate Judiciary | Chau | Strengthens the recently enacted Transfer on Death (TOD) deed program by making technical changes. A TOD deed can be used to help seniors transfer their property and to avoid a lengthy and costly probate process for those receiving the property. |
| Oppose | AB 1947 | Petitions: compensation for signatures. | Senate Appropriations | Low | Stipulates that paid signature gathering would be a misdemeanor and signatures would have to be gathered on an hourly rate. This bill violates First Amendment rights and impedes the appropriate use of the state initative process. |
| Oppose | AB 2035 | Affordable housing authorities. | Senate Governance and Finance | Mullin | Expands the use of a new redevelopment tool, Community Revitalization and Investment Authority (CRIA), which still allows property to be taken via eminent domain and without voter approval. |
| Oppose | AB 2050 | Small System Water Authority Act of 2018. | Senate Environmental Quality | Caballero | Creates small system water authorities that could potentially be used to improve and operate noncompliant water systems not providing clean water. Because the new authority can bond without voter approval, HJTA opposes. |
| Support | AB 2376 | Civil actions: provisional remedies: injunctions. | Senate Judiciary Committee | Stone | Clarifies what kind of taxes are appropriate in order for a taxpayer to gain legal standing to sue a municipality for alleged waste, fraud and abuse. This bill will make it easier for taxpayers to receive their day in court. |
| Oppose | AB 2771 | Education finance: Higher Education Facilities Bond Act of 2018. | Senate Rules | Eggman | Places a $7 billion General Obligation bond to fund Higher Education facilities on the November 2018 ballot. |
| Oppose | AB 2908 | Tire recycling: California tire regulatory fee and waste tire program. | Senate Rules | Berman | Imposes a $1 regulatory fee on the sale of new vehicle tires. |
| Oppose | AB 2920 | Transactions and use taxes: City of Berkeley. | Senate Governance and Finance | Thurmond | Allows the City of Berkeley to impose, with voter approval, a half-cent sales tax increase beyond the maximum local tax rate of two percent. |
| Support | AB 2954 | School districts: special taxes: uniformity requirement: unimproved property. | Senate Governance and Finance | Bonta | Creates an exemption for the uniformity provision regarding education parcel taxes by allowing unimproved property to be taxed at a lower rate. |
| Support | ACA 6 | School facilities: bonded indebtedness: vote requirement. | Harper | Repeals the provisions of Proposition 39 (2002), which allowed for the threshold for local school bonds to drop from two-thirds to 55%. HJTA is in favor of retaining the supermajority threshold for all long-term debt. | |
| Support | ACA 7 | Property taxation: intercounty base-year value transfers. | Bocanegra | See Assembly Bill 1322. | |
| Oppose | ACA 11 | California Middle-Class Affordable Housing and Homeless Shelter: funding. | Caballero | Increases the California state sales tax, the highest in the nation, by a quarter cent in order to fund affordable housing programs and homeless shelters. | |
| Support | ACA 12 | Property taxation: base-year-value transfers: persons with a severely disabled child. | In Senate | Gloria | Extends a property tax base-year-value transfer commonly just available for seniors to now include any family with a disabled child who resides in the home. |
| Oppose | ACA 13 | Public education: Higher Education Assistance Fund: appropriations limit: minimum funding requirements for school districts and community college districts. | Eggman | Imposes an additional one percent income tax increase for those making over a million dollars a year in order to provide universal higher education. | |
| Support | ACA 24 | Property taxation: transfer of base-year value: disaster relief. | Waldron | Allows for an individual who had their primary residence severely damaged or destroyed in a natural disaster between January 1, 2017, and June 30, 2018, to be able to transfer the pre-disaster base-year value of their property to a home in any county. | |
| Support | SB 348 | County voter information guide: taxpayer notice. | In Assembly | Leyva | Under current law, taxpayers or other interested parties have 60 days following an election to file a legal challenge against the validity of a special tax. SB 348 requires a notice be placed in the county voter pamphlet for every special tax, stating that most legal challenges must be made within 60 days or the validity of the tax cannot be challenged. |
| Oppose | SB 562 | The Healthy California Act. | Senate Floor | Lara | Establishes a single-payer universal health care system. |
| Oppose | SB 958 | Davis Joint Unified School District: special taxes: exemptions: teachers and district employees. | Assembly Revenue & Taxation Committee | Dodd | Exempts Davis Unified School District teachers and support staff from paying school district parcel taxes. |
| Oppose | SB 993 | Sales and use taxes: service tax: qualified business. | Senate Governance and Finance Committee | Hertzberg | Imposes a sales tax on a variety of previously untaxed business services. |
| Oppose | SB 1145 | Enhanced infrastructure financing districts: maintenance. | Assembly Local Government | Leyva | Expands the types of projects that an Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District (EIFD) can fund through the sale of bonds to include ongoing costs to maintain public capital facilities. HJTA has long believed that maintenance costs should not be funded with bond dollars. |
| Oppose | SB 1394 | Petitions: compensation for signatures. | Senate Public Safety | Newman | Stipulates that paid signature gathering would be a misdemeanor and signatures would have to be gathered on an hourly rate. |
| HJTA Position | Bill Number | Topic | Status | Author | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oppose | AB 274 | Sales and use taxes: exemption: food products. | Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee | Cristina Garcia | Implements the provisions of Assembly Constitutional Amendment 2 by removing the repeal of the voter-approved "snack tax." This statewide ballot measure, which banned taxes on snacks, was approved by a 2:1 margin in the 1990s. |
| Support | AB 1756 | Transportation funding. | Assembly Transportation Committee | Brough | Repeals the SB 1 gas and car tax established last year. |
| Oppose | AB 1778 | Transit-Oriented Redevelopment Law of 2018. | Assembly Housing Committee | Holden | Creates a new type of redevelopment, ?Transit-Oriented Redevelopment Districts,? and uses tax increment financing, usually in the form of 40-year-old bonds that don't require voter approval, in order to fund affordable housing programs. |
| Support | AB 1864 | Personal income taxes: deductions: federal income tax paid. | Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee | Kiley | SALT in reverse, this bill allows for the deduction of individuals' full federal tax liability on their state tax returns. For high-income earners in California, this could limit the potential tax burden brought about by the recently approved federal tax reform package. |
| Support | AB 1922 | California Competitiveness and Innovation Act. | Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee | Fong | Lowers income tax rates and increases the homeowner's exemption in order to help middle-class Californians. |
| Oppose | AB 2165 | Election day holiday. | Assembly Appropriations Committee | Low | Makes Election Day in an even-numbered year a paid holiday. |
| Support | AB 2206 | Vehicles: registration information. | Assembly Transportation Committee | Brough | Creates a separate line item on your DMV vehicle registration bill for the new SB 1 car tax, leading to more transparency for taxpayers. |
| Oppose | AB 2303 | Taxation: prison contracts: goods and services. | Assembly Floor | Thurmond | Imposes a 10% tax on vendors who contract out specifically with private prisons. |
| Oppose | AB 2497 | Firearms: school gun violence prevention. | Assembly Public Safety | Cooper | Imposes an undefined tax on guns and ammunition in order to fund school counselors and resource police officers. |
| Oppose | AB 2529 | Income taxation: like kind exchanges: withholding. | Assembly Revenue and Taxation | Chu | Imposes immeadiate 3.33% withholding on real estate sales that occur outside CA. |
| Support | AB 2530 | Bonds: transportation | Assembly Transportation Committee | Melendez | Diverts any unsold high-speed rail bonds to instead fund school transportation vehicles. |
| Oppose | AB 2553 | Vertical housing districts. | Assembly Housing Committee | Friedman | Creates a new form of redevelopment, Vertical Housing Districts, that uses tax increment financing, without voter approval, to fund new housing developments. |
| Oppose | AB 2560 | Taxation: prison contracts: goods and services. | Assembly Revenue and Taxation | Thurmond | Imposes a maximum 10% tax on vendors that contract out with state prisons through CDCR. The tax would be levied on a sliding scale. |
| Support | AB 2881 | Recall elections. | Assembly Elections Committee | Harper | Repeals last year's legislation that placed needless hindrances and delays in the California recall process. |
| Support | AB 2882 | Campaign contributions. | Assembly Elections Committee | Harper | Repeals a campaign finance law (AB 249) from 2017 that HJTA opposed. Among other free-speech-chilling provisions, AB 249 places a black box around your TV screen for all political advertisements. |
| Support | AB 2883 | Vote by mail ballots. | Assembly Elections Committee | Harper | Repeals a law allowing individuals to return a potentially unlimited amount of absentee ballots, increasing the risk of ballot harvesting. |
| Support | AB 3004 | Revocable transfer on death deeds. | Assembly Judiciary Committee | Kiley | Reforms the Transfer on Death deed program (See AB 1739) to make it easier to implement. |
| Oppose | AB 3037 | Community Redevelopment Law of 2018. | Assembly Appropriations Committee | Chiu | Massivevly expands all forms of redevelopment using tax increment financing without a vote of the people. |
| Oppose | ACA 2 | Sales and use taxes: food products. | Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee | Cristina Garcia | Repeals the 25-year-old voter-approved initiative to repeal the "snack tax." The result will be a billion-dollar tax increase on items ranging from cookies, to granola bars, to bottled water. |
| Support | SB 995 | Personal income taxes: standard deduction: annual increase. | Senate Governance and Finance Committee | Gaines | Increases the standard deduction to $3000. |
| Support | SB 1044 | State Responsibility Area Fire Prevention Fees. | Senate Governance and Finance Committee | Berryhill | Repeals the fire tax and allows for those financially impacted to receive refunds. |
| Support | SB 1074 | Motor vehicle fuel: disclosure of government-imposed costs. | Senate Business and Professions Committee | Moorlach | Expands transparency at the fuel pump via the creation of a QR barcode that individuals can scan to understand the full price of fuel that they pay for at the pump. |
| Support | SB 1091 | Property taxation: transfer of base-year value: disaster relief. | Senate Governance and Finance Committee | Stone | Allows for an individual who had their primary residence severely damaged or destroyed in a natural disaster between January 1, 2017, and June 30, 2018, to be able to transfer the pre-disaster base-year value of their property to a home in any county. |
| Support | SB 1149 | Public employees? retirement: defined contribution program. | Senate PERS Committee | Glazer | Creates an optional 401k defined contribution program for new state employees. |
| Support | SB 1167 | Eminent domain: final offer of compensation. | Senate Judiciary | Anderson | Requires the payment of attorney fees in eminent domain cases where the price offered is less than 85% of the ultimate award, and gives the court discretion to award litigation expenses when the offer is at least 85%. |
| Support | SB 1210 | Personal income taxes: tax rates. | Senate Governance and Finance | Anderson | Lowers state income tax rates from 9.3% to 8.8%. |
| Support | SB 1237 | Property taxation: change in ownership. | Senate Governance and Finance Committee | Bates | Alters the definition of "change of ownership" for purposes of property taxation in order to ensure that individuals and businesses cannot evade legitimate tax reassessments. |